Spying Blind N This page intentionally left blank Spying Blind The CIA, the FBI, and the Origins of 9/11 N AMY B. ZEGART PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS PRINCETON AND OXFORD Copyright © 2007 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 3 Market Place, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1SY All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Zegart, Amy, 1967– Spying blind : the CIA, the FBI, and the origins of 9/11 / Amy B. Zegart. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN: 978-0-691-12021-8 1. Intelligence service—United States. 2. United States. Central Intelligence Agency. 3. United States. Federal Bureau of Investigation. 4. September 11 Terrorist Attacks, 2001. 5. Terrorism—Government policy—United States. I. Title. JK468.I6Z42 2007 973.931——dc22 2006103325 British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available This book has been composed in Palatino Printed on acid-free paper. ∞ press.princeton.edu Printed in the United States of America 13579108642 For my children: Alexander, Jack, and Kate N This page intentionally left blank N Contents N Acknowledgments xiii CHAPTER ONE An Organizational View of 9/11 1 CHAPTER TWO Canaries in the Coal Mine: The Case for Failed Adaptation 15 CHAPTER THREE Crossing an Academic No-Man’s Land: Explaining Failed Adaptation 43 CHAPTER FOUR Fighting Osama One Bureaucrat at a Time: Adaptation Failure in the CIA 61 CHAPTER FIVE Signals Found and Lost: The CIA and 9/11 101 CHAPTER SIX Real Men Don’t Type: Adaptation Failure in the FBI 120 CHAPTER SEVEN Evidence Teams at the Ready: The FBI and 9/11 156 CHAPTER EIGHT The More Things Change . 169 APPENDIX Intelligence Reform Catalog Methodology 199 Notes 203 References 273 Index 309 This page intentionally left blank N Tables N Table 2.1 Islamist Terrorist Attacks and Plots against Americans Known to U.S. Intelligence Officials before September 11, 2001 23–24 Table 2.2 Unclassified U.S. Intelligence and Counterterrorism Studies, 1991–2001 29 Table 2.3 Intelligence Focus of All Reform Studies, 1991–2001 32 Table 2.4 Intelligence Focus of Counterterrorism and Law Enforcement Studies versus Others, 33 1991–2001 Table 2.5 Commonly Identified Organizational Problems in Intelligence, 1991–2001 39 Table 6.1 Criminal Focus of FBI Presidential Rank Award Winners, 1992–2001 150 This page intentionally left blank N Figures N Figure 2.1 Intelligence Focus of Reform Study Recommendations, 1991–2001 30 Figure 2.2 Implementation of Intelligence Reform Recommendations, 1991–2001 36 Figure 4.1 The CIA and 9/11: The Organizational Roots of Failure 64 Figure 5.1a President’s Daily Brief, August 6, 2001 110 Figure 5.1b President’s Daily Brief, August 6, 2001 111 Figure 5.2a Timeline of the CIA’s 11 Missed Opportunities 116 Figure 5.2b Timeline of the CIA’s 11 Missed Opportunities 117 Figure 6.1 The FBI and 9/11: The Organizational Roots of Failure 122 Figure 6.2 Comparison of FBI Presidential Rank Awards, Early versus Late 1990s 151 Figure 7.1a Timeline of the FBI’s 12 Missed Opportunities 164 Figure 7.1b Timeline of the FBI’s 12 Missed Opportunities 165 This page intentionally left blank N Acknowledgments N FOR YEARS, I have been fascinated by the dark side of organiza- tions,1 and one puzzle in particular: why U.S. foreign policy agencies cannot adapt easily to new challenges. In 1999, my ini- tial idea was to write a book comparing how well different agen- cies responded to the end of the Cold War. But two problems quickly stumped me. The first was the absence of much varia- tion across agencies. When I asked a number of senior officials and experts which U.S. foreign policy agencies had adapted bet- ter than others, the response was universal: none had done par- ticularly well. The second problem was that adaptation was too vague a concept. I needed a set of facts on the ground, a dra- matic event that would enable me to pinpoint a major new threat and trace how well America’s foreign policy machinery had responded to it. Then came September 11th. Like most Americans, I can still vividly picture that day. I remember standing stunned in my kitchen as the World Trade Center towers collapsed on televi- sion. I remember watching my son, Jack, take his first steps and wondering how his world would differ from my own Cold War childhood. And I remember thinking that this was the event I had to examine. The journey has been a long one, with many people to thank. Above all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to the seventy-five current and former government officials who agreed to be interviewed for this book. Five of them spoke on the record and can be thanked by name: Senator John McCain (R-AZ), former Senator Gary Hart (D-CO), FBI Director Robert Mueller, FBI Intelligence Directorate Chief Wayne Murphy, and Robert Baer, who served as a CIA clandestine officer for twenty- one years. The rest spoke on the condition that they remain anonymous. Some battled their own bureaucracies at consider- able professional risk to help an outsider gain an insider’s view of the U.S. Intelligence Community. Others provided crucial as- sistance in obtaining government documents that were unclassi- fied but unavailable to the public. Many were interviewed sev- eral times over a period of years. All deserve far more than my thanks and the free book I promised too long ago. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Academic studies are not always welcomed by the national security agencies they expose and examine. In the 1950s, the Pentagon classified and banned publication of Roberta Wohlstet- ter’s award-winning book about intelligence failures at Pearl Harbor for five years, even though all of her sources were un- classified.2 Half a century later, the battleground between secu- rity interests and First Amendment rights remains contentious and complex. I am eternally grateful to my lawyer, Richard Sauber, for helping me navigate this terrain. A special thanks goes to Bill Duhnke, Senator Pat Roberts, (R- KS), Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), and the other Members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, who pressed me during the committee’s reform hearings in 2004 to suggest ways of making the U.S. Intelligence Community work better rather than just criticizing it from the Ivory Tower. I am deeply indebted to my doctoral advisor, Condi Rice. I am also grateful to Steve Krasner, Scott Sagan, Terry Moe, and David Brady. Ten years after I finished my Ph.D., they are all still chal- lenging me to think harder and dig deeper. The Stanford Political Science Department has been the gift that keeps on giving. I had the good fortune to land at UCLA shortly after Al Carne- sale became chancellor. He made good on every promise, from reading my work, to playing the president for my foreign policy seminar simulation, to improving UCLA’s basketball team. I would also like to thank Barbara Nelson, the Dean of UCLA’s School of Public Affairs, and the Public Policy Department Chairman, Mark Peterson, for giving me the most precious gift of all: time. Without their support for a research sabbatical, I would still be toiling away. Howard Aldrich, Charles Perrow, Diane Vaughan, and Lynne Zucker welcomed a wayward political scientist with open arms and provided a fascinating foray into sociology. Thanks also to Brian Balogh, Matt Baum, J. R. DeShazo, Richard Betts, Bruce Ber- kowitz, Dara Cohen, Lynn Eden, Geoffrey Garrett, Loch John- son, Mel Leffler, Ernest May, Richard Posner, Richard Steinberg, and Greg Treverton for their suggestions and comments on ear- lier drafts; and to Graham Allison and Juliette Kayyem at Har- vard, Eric Patashnik at the University of Virginia, Scott Sagan and Lynn Eden at Stanford, Dick Kohn and Dan Gitterman at xiv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS the University of North Carolina, Adam Winkler and Russell Korobkin at UCLA Law School, and Richard Betts at Columbia University and the Council on Foreign Relations, who all invited me to present various parts of the book in progress. I am forever indebted to my dynamic duo of research assis- tants, Josh Mukhopadhyay and Jean Schindler, for running the research marathon alongside me. Thanks also to Daren Schlecter and Jenny Miller, who hunted diligently for information at the beginning; to Chris Yeh, who provided first-rate summer re- search help when I needed it most; to Stacy Edgar, Amritha Su- bramanian, Jennifer Mishory, Mai Truong; and to all the students in my foreign policy crisis decision-making seminar, who re- mind me how lucky I am to teach. I would like to thank the Smith Richardson Foundation for funding the lion’s share of this project with great enthusiasm and minimal bureaucracy. Thanks also to the University of Cali- fornia’s Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, the UCLA Center on American Politics and Public Policy, and the UCLA International Institute for providing seed funding. Chuck Myers, my editor at Princeton University Press, be- lieved in this project from its inception. His patience is sur- passed only by his persistence in getting me to attempt the ulti- mate unnatural act for a professor: writing an academic book that is readable. There’s an old saying that guests are like fish: both smell after three days. I will always be grateful to five people who gra- ciously endured my extended visits to Washington: Randall Kempner, Michael Fitzpatrick, Miriam Gonzales, Maya Fitzpa- trick, and Janne Nolan. I also would like to thank Nora Bensahel, Meena Bose, Dan Drezner, Mark Kleiman, Richard Riordan, Andy Sabl, and Jack Weiss for their unflinching support and humor.