FIXING THE NATIONAL SECURITY STATE: COMMISSIONS AND THE POLITICS OF DISASTER AND REFORM October, 2009 Christopher Kirchhoff Sidney Sussex College Dissertation submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Dr. Darin Weinberg, Supervisor Faculty of Politics, Psychology, Sociology, and International Studies Cambridge University ¤Christopher Kirchhoff, 2009 All Rights Reserved FIXING THE NATIONAL SECURITY STATE: COMMISSIONS AND THE POLITICS OF DISASTER AND REFORM Christopher Kirchhoff In the U.S. federal system, “crisis commissions” are powerful instruments of social learning that actively mediate the politics of disaster and reform. Typically endowed with the legal authority to establish causes of dramatic policy failures and make recommendations to prevent their recurrence, commissions can prompt major governmental reorganizations. Yet commissions are also frequently accused of being influenced by dominant interests and faulted for articulating incomplete or politically expedient narratives of failure. Even when commission conclusions are accepted, the reforms they propose are not always adopted. Using the 9/11 Commission as a conceptual backdrop, this dissertation explores the relationship between disaster, public investigation, and reform by undertaking a detailed study of the Space Shuttle Columbia Accident Investigation Board and Iraq Study Group. Together, the cases constitute a study of the national security state seeking to correct failures across different domains of state power: border security, war-making capability, and dominance in space. I argue that commissions, as one-shot diagnostic and therapeutic instruments, are more effective than standing political institutions at confronting entrenched ways of seeing and knowing in complex systems of the national security state, which are defined by the interaction of ideology, large bureaucracies, and advanced technologies. The ability of commissions to see critically for society itself is not given but rather constructed through investigative and deliberative processes that must overcome the action of political interests. Commission credibility is therefore not an essential trait that derives a priori from the inherent stature of its members, but is rather the output of the investigative phase as commissions identify, compile, and publicize errors made by the state. In this adversarial process, an aggressive professional staff emerges as a determinant of commission success, leading to an important distinction between investigative commissions with “super staffs” and advisory commissions that lack them. Process tracing recommendations over a multi-year period nevertheless reveals dynamics of agency and resistance at play between commissions and the institutions they attempt to reform, highlighting the partial success commissions are likely to achieve at coercing entrenched institutions to implement their recommendations. Key Words: commissions, disaster, reform, organizational learning, bureaucratic failure, 9/11 Commission, Columbia accident, Iraq Study Group. This dissertation is 79, 121 words long, inclusive of footnotes, charts, and graphics. This dissertation is the result of my own work and includes nothing which is the outcome of work done in collaboration except where specifically indicated in the text Table of Contents Introduction: Crisis Commissions and the National Security State…….…..…..1 Chapter 1: Commissions: History, Theory, Social Learning…...…….…...…19 1.1 Literature on Commissions 1.2 Theories for Why Commissions Fail 1.3 Commissions and Social Learning Chapter 2: The Columbia Investigation………………………………….……34 2.1 The Investigation’s Initial Framings 2.2 Establishing Independence 2.3 From Physical to Social Cause 2.4 A Reflexive Approach to Reform 2.5 Columbia Investigation and the Politics of Disaster Chapter 3: Return to Flight………………………………………………….…65 3.1 NASA’s Response to the Investigation 3.2 A New National Space Policy 3.3 Return to Flight Task Group 3.4 NASA and the Politics of Reform Chapter 4: The Iraq Study Group…………….……………………...…….…102 4.1 Advent of the Iraq Study Group 4.2 Iraq Study Group at Work 4.3 “Keeping Out of Politics” 4.4 Iraq Study Group and the Politics of Policy Disaster Chapter 5: The Iraq Study Group’s Policy Influence…….…..…………...…134 5.1 The Report’s Assessment and Recommendations 5.2 Grand Politics of the Report’s Reception 5.3 Process-Tracing Consensus Recommendations 5.4 Iraq Study Group and the Politics of Reform Chapter 6: Theorizing Disaster, Investigation & Reform……………..….....173 6.1 Theorizing Investigation 6.2 Theorizing Reform 6.3 Commissions, Modernity & Democratic Theory Methodological Appendix………………………………………….……….….....186 Acknowledgements..………......………………………………………….……….201 Bibliography………………………………………………….………...……….…202 “But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.” James Madison Federalist Paper No. 51, January 6, 1788 Introduction Crisis Commissions and the National Security State September 11, 2001 was a singular shot across the bow of an American nation that until one clear autumn morning had sailed confidently as the world hegemon into a new century, even perhaps the end of history.1 Whatever Americans thought before September 11th, the events of that day ushered in a profound sense that everything thereafter would be different, that as at Pearl Harbor the nation’s territorial integrity had been shockingly breached.2 While the remains of the World Trade Center smoldered, the American people and their elected representatives began to ask how such a calamity occurred, seemingly without warning, on American soil. Drawing on a tradition of independent inquiry begun in 15th century Britain, and carried over to America with George Washington’s appointment of a commission to defuse the Pennsylvania Whisky Rebellion, members of both parties called for an outside investigation of the attacks as early as September 12th.3 After more than a year of resistance, the White House acceded to the demands of survivor families and in late 2002 created a bi-partisan commission with an independent budget, formidable staff, and subpoena powers.4 The National Commission on the Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, popularly known as the 9/11 Commission, launched an intrusive investigation into how the government, and the American people, had been caught off guard. Dozens of investigators descended 1 Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (New York: Harper Collins, 1993). 2 John Dower argues powerfully about the connections between Pearl Harbor and 9/11 in “Cultures of War: Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima, 9/11,” lecture, Harvard University, September 23, 2005. 3 Senator Robert Torricelli called for a Presidential inquiry on the Senate floor on September 12, 2001. See Kenneth Kitts, Presidential Commissions & National Security: The Politics of Damage Control, Boulder: Lynn Publishers, 2006), 132. 4 See Public Law 107-306, 107th Congress, and “Statement by the President,” The White House, November 27, 2002. upon government agencies, interviewed witnesses, collected documents, and seized computer records. Even the President and Vice-President were questioned.5 As the investigation proceeded, its examination of circumstances surrounding the hijackings, thought initially to have been unforeseeable, soon painted a more complex picture of blame and responsibility. Commission hearings brought into public view facts that contradicted earlier official accounts. As more information about overlooked warning signs emerged, sharp questions arose as to what could reasonably have been done to prevent the attacks. The 9/11 Commission report, issued in the middle of the 2004 Presidential campaign, provided a stunningly detailed chronology of the attacks. It found that the national security system failed at multiple levels. Border security did not stop the attackers from entering the country. Aviation security did not prevent them from gaining control of wide-body jets. Bureaucratic competition between rival intelligence and law enforcement organizations stifled the flow of information and kept critical data about the attackers from the hands of decision-makers. Ways of seeing the world also mattered. Deep-seated political frames, such as viewing terrorism as a state-sponsored activity, prevented an earlier recognition by the government of the threat posed by loose networks of Islamic extremists.6 The report ultimately cited intelligence failures as the primary reason why the attacks succeeded. To correct bureaucratic deficits in information sharing and to enable a coherent response to emerging threats, the Commission recommended the appointment of a Director of National Intelligence.7 5 Two book length studies of the commission have been published, the first written by its co-chairs, the second by the New York Times journalist who covered its proceedings. See Thomas H. Kean, Lee H. Hamilton and Benjamin Rhodes, Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission (New York: Knopf, 2006), and Philip Shenon, The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation (New York: Twelve, 2008). 6 The 9/11 Commission