NATIONAL COMMISSION ON

TERRORIST ATTACKS UPON THE UNITED STATES

Major Policy Issues under Consideration (by Team)

TEAM 1A 9/11 Plot

Team 1 A's mission - to write the definitive narrative of the September 11 plot - ideally
should form the foundation for the more directly policy-oriented assignments of most of
the other teams. While Team 1A does not, therefore, anticipate taking a leading role in
formulating the substantive policy recommendations that will emerge from the
Commission's work, we may well be in a position to recommend reforms related to the
core (and exceedingly complex) policy question of how much information should be
available to the public on matters of national historic importance, such as the 9/11
attacks. One such potential recommendation that has emerged at this preliminary stage
involves the degree to which information of largely (if not exclusively) historical
significance is being overly protected on national security grounds.

To date, for example, the Intelligence Community has resisted disclosing to us statements
made by alleged Al Qaeda members while under custodial interrogation. Virtually all
such information is protected by at least a Secret classification. Quite apart from the
security clearances held by our team members and the secure nature of the facility in
which we work, the need to restrict access to entirely retrospective statements is
questionable, particularly where, as here, the fact of the incarceration of many of the
detainees at issue is a matter of public record. It is far too early for us to formulate a
specific recommendation in this area, which involves the equities of many agencies and
directly implicates the sensitive area of "sources and methods." However, at this stage it
seems worth flagging the need to consider the interests of the public - as represented
more particularly by journalists, scholars, and historians - in gaining access to such
information, and asking whether the perceived sensitivity of the information has been
exaggerated and accorded undue weight in the decision whether material need be
classified.

TEAM 2 U.S. Intelligence Management, Collection, and Analysis

1) Reforms that encourage effective leadership of US intelligence.

2) Formulating a national counterterrorism intelligence strategy and the need to
reconsider the proper balance of technical and human source intelligence.
3) The necessity of combining foreign and domestic intelligence to counter the terrorist
threat and the inherent challenge of balancing liberty and security in doing so.
TEAM 3 International Counter-Terrorism Policy

1. By August, 1998, it appears the USG had strategic warning that Usama bin Laden and
al Qaeda posed a serious threat to U.S. national security. How did the government react?

• Did the USG appreciate the terrorist threat, and did it devise an appropriate strategy to
counter that threat?
• Were the agencies fully on board with the government's strategy?
• Did the strategy include all the appropriate instruments at the government's disposal
to fight terrorism? Were the agencies wielding their instruments effectively?

With these questions in mind, we anticipate policy recommendations emerging from the
following areas of concern:

Leadership:
• Was there a failure of leadership on the part of the White House in its lack of clear
guidance on how to respond to al Qaeda and effectively communicate policy and/or
shape public opinion to support policy?
• Were there failures at different levels of leadership within the agencies to respond to
national security policy (for example, within the Department of Defense)?

Priorities:
• Was there a failure to put counterterrorism as the national security priority on the part
of the White House? -on the part of agencies?

Instruments:
• Were there impediments inherent to or imposed upon instruments of counterterrorism
policy that limited their effectiveness (for example, legal restraints imposed on the
CIA's ability to target UBL)?

2. With the attacks on the U.S. September 11th, counterterrorism has now become the
government's national security priority, receiving primary focus and resources. But is the
government's current strategy putting too much emphasis on "swatting flies", and not
focusing sufficiently on the longer term goals of "draining the swamp" and ensuring the
strongest possible defensive posture at home? In other words, is the government focusing
too much on picking off individual agents of terrorism rather than dealing with the long-
term threat of radical Islam, and implementing a broad range of effective security
measures to prevent another attack on America?

Longer-term strategies:
• Preventing the rise of terrorist sanctuaries;
 Shaping public opinion/educating the American public to appreciate the threat of
terrorism in order to allow policy makers to pursue all necessary options in the war on
terrorism;
Maintaining a defensive posture to effectively defend the homeland;
Public diplomacy: committing resources to change negative attitudes toward the U.S.
and address the root causes of terrorism.

TEAM 4 Terrorist Financing

It appears that the Saudi government, and individuals closely associated with the Saudi
government, give large sums of money to NGOs. Money is given by these NGOs to
mosques, schools and other institutions that preach intolerant and anti-Western views,
which assists terrorists in recruiting individuals to their cause. Some of the money
appears to be given directly to terrorists and terrorist organizations.

• What does the Saudi government know about the extent to which their money is
going to these causes? To what extent is money flowing from NGOs to terrorist
groups, and to what extent have Saudi officials and senior NGO officials participated
in or were willfully blind to this funding?

• The United States appears to have largely failed to stop the flow of money to these
institutions. Is the government's failure technical (i.e., lack of intelligence,
inappropriate legal or diplomatic tools, etc.), a matter of balancing of conflicting
priorities, or is it a lack of political will?

Elements within the United States government understood the al-Qaeda threat prior to
9/11, but less attention was paid to understanding and acting against the financing of
terrorism.

• What caused this? Was there something inherently wrong with the manner in which
our government agencies are organized, funded or led that caused this, or was this
simply a failure of individuals or organizations to do what was required of them? If
there was problem, has it been fixed?

TEAMS Border Security and Foreign Visitors

We provisionally have identified six groupings of border security policy issues from
which recommendations seem likely to emerge. They are:

I. Intelligence and watchlisting. Identification of individual terrorists and/or

groups and analysis of terrorist mobility patterns are the foundation for optimizing
border resources to deny terrorist access to the US. Policy issues center on how
the collection, analysis, and dissemination of this intelligence is institutionalized,
 organized, and supported to provide border security officials with timely
information while ensuring protection of individual rights.

II. Identity security. Terrorist organizations use forged or fraudulent documents.

There is a consensus that making it difficult to counterfeit and alter international
travel documents will greatly enhance border security. Among the topics to be
explored are: improved technology in the form of biometric visas and passports,
machine readable travel documents, and facial recognition technology; new
regulation of so-called "breeder" or "feeder" documents, such as birth certificates,
which are used to obtain passports and visas; national ID cards; and the
organization and scale of anti-fraud enforcement.

III. Screening and inspection: visa and border points. This arena is broad. The
issues range from whether legal standards for assessing suspected terrorists need
to be changed, to whether visa issuance should be automated as in the Australian
model, expanded to additional countries, or further curtailed in favor of pre-
inspection or pre-clearance at foreign exit points. A clear area of discussion is
how the super-name checks instituted shortly after September 11, 2001 and other
recent procedural changes have affected our security and other national interests.

IV. Border enforcement. Terrorists exploit alien smuggling, corruption, and entry
without inspection. Issues center on the role of the military; technology such as
unmanned planes, use of smart cards, fences, and new entry posts; and
mobilization of enforcement and intelligence resources.

V. Internal regulation and enforcement. Stepped-up domestic immigration

regulation and enforcement of the immigration laws are perhaps the most
prominent responses to the September 11 attacks. Detentions, removals, and
registrations and new rules for change of status, student tracking, and exit-entry
controls need to be considered for their security, constitutional, and foreign policy
impacts.

VI. International mutual assistance. US-Mexico, US-Canada, and tri-national

cooperative efforts; international watchlist and criminal information sharing; US
assistance for watchlist programs; anti-corruption and anti-fraud efforts; and
regional and multilateral

TEAM 6 Domestic Intelligence & Law Enforcement

The central issue for Team 6 is: Should the FBI should retain its current role as the lead
agency for domestic collection, analysis, and dissemination of intelligence regarding
foreign terrorist activity?
To answer this question we will need: 1) to define what we believe the agency that has
such a role should look like and how it should operate and 2) to answer the question of
whether the FBI currently fills that ideal (or can reasonably be expected to do so within a
reasonable time) or whether a new agency should be established to fill this role.

TEAM? Aviation Security

Team 7 has identified three issues, which in our view, should have a significant impact
on the type, number, and tone of the Commission's recommendations. The decision to
focus on these areas will directly impact the work that Team 7 must conduct in order to
develop the information the Commission will need.

Leadership Accountability and the Human Factor

A major theme of questions from the families and followers of the Commission's
progress is whether we plan to hold "accountable" leaders and/or those in positions of
authority who might have prevented the 9-11 terrorist attack. The questions of "who"
should be held accountable,"why" and "how" will need to be reconciled by the
Commissioners.

Team 7's current approach on the accountability issue is to tell the 9-11 story via our
narratives and let the administration, Congress and the public make their own decision on
accountability and the influence of human factors. The presumption is that the
Commission would not issue recommendations identifying who should be held to
account and how one would be held accountable as it pertains to actions prior to 9-11.
The team has discussed outlining a general set of professional position criteria against
which all high level government officials, including those politically appointed, could be
subjectively compared. The criteria would include specific experience, expertise, training
and professional development for specific positions. Developing such criteria is of value
because it would allow the Commission to make a statement on what it believes are
reasonable expectations the public should (and should not) have of government officials
without having to criticize the specific officials in key posts prior to 9-11.

Is this the approach the Commission wants to take?

Goal Setting, Prioritization, and Resource Allocation

Given the widely dispersed threats and vulnerabilities across the various modes of
transportation, the potential for the nation's transportation system to be attacked and the
consequences (economic, psychological, etc.) resulting from such an attack remain
significant. It will be important for the Commission to address the issue of how to
manage the risks posed by terrorists across the different transportation modes and how to
prioritize the allocation of both policies and resources to address those risks. Examples
of questions relevant to this issue are:
 • How should the federal government conduct risk management for transportation
security systems?
• What should be the highest resource and policy priorities for transportation
security over the next five years?
• How, specifically, should the federal government more effectively prepare the
country to prevent and respond to terrorist attacks on the transportation system?

Ways and Means

A critical question relevant to the Commission's mandate is: How should we improve the
processes, procedures and mechanisms by which we provide transportation security in the
field?. The Commission might want to focus recommendations on high priority areas
including:

• Technology: Recommendations on how best to plan, develop, finance, implement

and maximize the use of advanced technology (detection/screening equipment
and information technology) to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of
transportation security processes.
• Layering: Recommendations to establish a truly "layered" security system that
employs discrete but mutually supporting security vectors that, taken as a whole,
provide security quality assurance in the same way that "redundancy" serves
aviation safety objectives.