Thomas H.

Kean July 28, 2003

CHAIR

Lee H. Hamilton MEMORANDUM

VICE CHAIR

Richard Ben-Veniste To: Commissioners

Max Cleland From: Tom and Lee

Frederick F. Fielding
Subj: Our Meeting on Thursday, July 31
Jamie S. Gorelick

Slade Gorton
We will meet from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. in our usual conference room.
John F. Lehman

Timothy J. Roemer
1. Approval of the Minutes
James R. Thompson
Draft minutes from our July 8 meeting are attached at Tab 1.
Philip D. Zelikow
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
2. Access Update

Our 'record' interviews have begun, complementing the ongoing process

of background discussions with officials in briefings. Schedules for both
are posted on the Commission's intranet site. All of you should have a
password to use in accessing this site. A copy of the set of letters we have
exchanged with the administration on interview issues is attached at Tab 2.
A copy of the related agreement on Moussaoui issues is at Tab 3.

Documents have been flowing in at least as fast as we can process them.

Outstanding problems with agencies are being addressed. Dan Levin and
his deputies have been reassuringly active in removing roadblocks. Our
primary policy-level document requests have been filed with all relevant
agencies, including the Executive Office of the President. Most of these
requests are classified. All are available at our offices for your review. As
you will see, they are very extensive.

Beyond the usual liaison processes, the staff has scheduled individual
meetings respectively with officials at the White House, Defense, State,
CIA, and FBI to go over every newly filed and pending document request,
item by item. Almost all of these meetings have been held. We are
pleased with our progress so far. Philip and Dan will be able provide
more detail on the arrangements for access to White House documents.

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3. Hearings

Though we think our first three sets of public hearings went well, we are not sure that
they are models for the future. They have been excellent ways to introduce
commissioners and the general public to many of the issues we must consider. But, at
least in the current format, they are inefficient or even counterproductive for fact-finding
or the investigation of specifics.

Responding to suggestions that we reconsider our schedule and hearing plans, Philip
asked every team to submit their preferences. Only one team wants to hold any hearing
before 2004, and that one is doubtful about doing theirs any sooner than November.
Three teams (1, 1A, and 4) would rather have no other public hearings on their issues at
all.

As Commissioner Ben-Veniste has urged, the staff has been rethinking the choreography
of the entire hearing process, including key witnesses, looking ahead into 2004. Philip
will have some fresh suggestions to offer when we meet.

Finally, Senator Daschle's office suggested to Lee that we reflect on the Joint Inquiry
approach, which used collective staff statements, presented publicly to the panel by
Eleanor Hill, as a way to summarize work to date and frame the issues for the witnesses
that might subsequently appear on the topic. We think this is an idea worth considering.

4. "Aircraft as Weapons"

We intend to conclude our discussion of the above items in the first two hours of our
meeting, leaving the remaining time to engage in a substantive discussion. Instead of
hearing another briefing, the staff has worked on a less passive way for us to wrestle with
a key topic. The topic for our upcoming meeting will be that of "aircraft as weapons."
Building on work by Teams 2 and 7, the staff will be ready to help us discuss this subject.

To prepare, please review the following excerpts from the unclassified Joint Inquiry
report: Pages 198-215, 325-335, 315-324. Reading the excerpts in this order flips the
discussion of the Phoenix EC and the Moussaoui case back into their correct
chronological sequence. For convenience, these excerpts are also attached to this memo
at Tab 4.

As the staff have considered how to build on this good work, they broke out two basic
questions that are not substantially addressed in the Joint Inquiry report. They are:

(i) Assuming that there was an intelligence failure in warning about the
danger of aircraft as weapons, when did that failure occur? In other
words, when should analysts in possession of the relevant information

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have come to the conclusion that seems so obvious in hindsight? This
"when" question leads immediately to another: Why?

The presidential commission on aviation safety (the Gore

Commission) worked specifically and conscientiously on the
evolving nature of the threat. Their 1997 report never mentioned
the 'aircraft as weapons' scenario. Indeed, even the author of the
Phoenix EC testified that this scenario never occurred to him.
Why? Since it seems so obvious to us now, why would competent
and well-meaning people have missed this threat, or why did they
discount it?

(ii) If analysts had done their job just as we would hope they would, just how
would intelligence have made the jump to preventive policies? In other
words, what would a success have looked like?

What kind of warning, married to what kind of intelligence,

advanced by what person or office, would have sufficiently
galvanized the attention of policymakers to spend the money and
overcome the inertia in order to change passenger screening,
harden cockpit doors, revive the air marshals program, or
fundamentally reconfigure the peacetime posture of NORAD?

These questions are critical to the analysis of what went wrong before 9/11. But if we
can answer such questions, our recommendations for future change will be more
powerful too. Most dangers seem to be foreseeable after they happen. Our discussions
of this topic may strengthen our understanding of one of the most basic problems in
defending against catastrophic terrorism: How does a complex government single out
and act on a danger before it happens?

We look forward to seeing you on Thursday.

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