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NATIONAL COMMISSION ON TERRORIST ATTACKS

UPON THE UNITED STATES

TEAM #3 WORKPLAN

INTERNATIONAL COUNTERTERRORISM POLICY

Team Members: Alexis Albion

Scott Allan
Warren Bass
Daniel Byman
Bonnie Jenkins
Charles Hill

Project Overview

Item 1 Key Questions _

Proposed Division of Labor
Summary of Join.t Inquiry Staff Work on Policy

Item 2 Suggested Readings and Briefings

Item 3 Document Requests

Item. 4 Interview Candidates

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Team #3
Project Overview: International Counterterrorism Policy

The policy team seeks to understand and assess the development of U.S. counterterrorism
policy before September 11,2001, the policy changes in the immediate aftermath of the
attacks, and the nature of the policy today. These tasks will require reviewing overall
policy priorities, identifying and evaluating the different instruments used to fight
terrorism, and determining how well senior policy makers understood the threat from al-
Qa'ida. Another integral part of the policy team's effort is examining U.S. relationships
with key foreign partners and adversaries with regard to counterterrorism. When
appropriate, the team will distinguish between U.S. counterterrorism policy in general
and U.S. efforts to fight al-Qa'ida in particular.

The nature of terrorism during the Cold War shaped U.S. counterterrorism policy when
al-Qa'ida began to emerge. These earlier terrorists, in the words of RAND's Brian
Jenkins, wanted "a lot of people watching and a lot of people listejiing and not a lot of
people dead." Their goals were usually tied to Marxist or ethno-nationalist agendas. The
most lethal terrorists during this era were thoseJpacked by states, not those operating
independently. In general, terrorism during this earlier period was viewed as an
important but not overriding policy concern.

As al-Qa'ida and affiliated Islamist groups emerged and grew in the 1990s, the focus
slowly shifted. The 1993 attack on the World Trade Center marked a turning point. For
the first time, Islamist radicals sought mass casualties on U.S. soil. In contrast to the
-terrorists of the 1970s and 1980s, who had balked at destroying entire buildings, the new
radicals wanted a lot of people watching and a lot of people dead. ~

Several government counterterrorism officials recognized the danger that al-Qa'ida

posed, but U.S. policy changed unevenly at best. The 1998 bombings of the U.S.
Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania elevated the importance of terrorism in general and al-
Qa'ida in particular, but policy still lagged behind the immensity of the threat. It took the
September 11 attacks to dramatically change U.S. counterterrorism policy. Even today,
counterterrorism policy is evolving, with important policy decisions being made almost
daily.

The policy team expects to follow a normal investigative regimen of document requests
and review, briefings by key individuals both inside and outside government, and
extensive interviews with those in a position to discuss the formulation and
implementation of U.S. government policy in the counterterrorism arena. In addition, the
team will draw on the work of the Congressional September 11 Joint Inquiry as
appropriate. _

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Team #3
Item 1: Key Questions

The policy team will seek to determine why the United States did not successfully stop
al-Qa'ida before September 11 and assess the effectiveness of U.S. counterterrorism
policy today. In the process, the team will tell the story of how counterterrorism policy
evolved as the al-Qa'ida threat grew during both the Clinton and Bush administrations,
examining such key events as the 1993 World Trade Center attack, the 1998 Embassy
bombings, and the 2000 attack on the U.S.S. Cole.

In particular, the team plans to answer the following questions:

• Strategy. What was U.S. counterterrorism policy, and how did it evolve,
particularly after 1998? Were there gaps in the strategy, and if so, how did policy
makers address them? What factors hindered policy makers?

• Instruments. What counterterrorism instruments did policy makers consider, use,

or neglect—and why? How effective were instruments such as diplomacy,
criminal prosecutions, renditions, fundraising restraints, disruptions, military
operations, covert action, and public diplomacy? What were the limits of various
instruments? How supportive were key countries such_as Saudi Arabia and
Pakistan?

- • Safe Havens. Did the United States properly confront terrorist sanctuaries, such
as Sudan and Afghanistan? -Were "permissive environments" in Europe and
elsewhere addressed?

• Immediate Aftermath. How did counterterrorism policy change in the aftermath

of the September 11 attacks? Why were several hard-hitting steps only taken
after the attacks occurred?

•. Current and Future Policy. Does the United States have the right policies to fight
al-Qa'ida and other terrorist groups today? What additional changes should be
made, and who should make them?

Note: The policy team will work closely with other teams in its research. For example, it
will support the terrorist-financing team when assessing efforts to disrupt radicals'
fundraising and assist the intelligence team in determining whether policy makers
received sufficient information on al-Qa'ida's unusual nature to properly structure U.S.
counterterrorism efforts.

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Team #3
Item 1 continued: Proposed Division of Labor

Person Agency** Issue Lead (all team

members will play a role in
at least two issues)
Alexis Albion CIA Instruments
Scott Allan State, DoJ Safe Havens
Warren Bass White House/NSC, OMB Strategy
Bonnie Jenkins DoD Instruments
Daniel Byman Acting team leader; will
work with all team
members on their specific
tasks.
Charles Hill* -
Kevin Scheid or other • Assist with-counterterrorism
person with budget budget issues
experience

*Senior advisor. It may be best to use him to review the research plan and work as it
progresses rather than assign a particular task. Byman may be used in a similar
manner after a new team leader is chosen.

**T-he agency designee is largely administrative. He or she will act as the primary
interlocutor for document and interview requests and liaise with other teams working
_ on that agency. All team members may interview at or work with documents from
-key agencies.

All team members will work on the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the
assessment of current policy, and recommendations for the future.

All team members will work on at least one issue in addition to the one for which they
are responsible.

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Team #3
Item 1 continued: Congressional Joint Inquiry Activity in the Policy Area

The Congressional 9-11 Inquiry's work on policy issues focused on the intelligence-
policy nexus, rather than on the soundness of the overall counterterrorism policy. The
Inquiry discussed intelligence priorities, the dissemination of information, and the quality
of analysis with policy makers in some depth. The focus of its work was on the late
Clinton-early Bush administrations, with the Inquiry having more success learning about
the Clinton period.

Policies toward foreign partners received, at best, incomplete attention. For example, the
Inquiry looked at how the policymakers' desire for a strong bilateral relationship with
Country X affected intelligence gathering on Country X or on neighboring countries.
However, this was only done with a few countries, and even there it was not done
systematically. Moreover, the Inquiry deliberately did not try to judge whether other
equities in a bilateral relationship were more or less important than counterterrorism.

The Inquiry did more extensive work on the use of military force and covert action. On
the former, however, it was hampered by a lack of interviews and access to many key
individuals and documents outside the strict purview of intelligence.

The Inquiry did not try tojudge overall counterterrorism policy in any comprehensive
way. Parts of the Inquiry's work looked at issues such as warning-the public, working
with state and local officials, and emphasizing law enforcement over the disruption of
terrorist groups. Many of these issues, however, involved the work of non-Intelligence
Community agencies (e.g. the Department of Justice, the INS), which received less
attention than they deserved. In addition, the Inquiry did not do basic policy analysis
such as trying to evaluate the available instruments, the limits on those instruments, and
political support in Congress.

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Team #3
Item 2: Suggested Readings and Briefings

1. Paul Pillar, Terrorism and U.S. Foreign Policy (Brookings, 2001), pp. 73-129. These
pages provide an excellent overview of the strengths and weaknesses of the
instruments that the United States has used to fight terrorism.

2. Michael Elliott, "Could 9/11 Have Been Prevented?" Time, August 4,2002. This
article provides a fairly detailed history of efforts to fight al-Qa'ida in the Clinton and
- Bush administrations. Many of the quotes suggest that former Clinton administration
officials were sources for the article.

3. Daniel Byman, "Scoring the War on Terrorism," The National Interest, Summer
2003. This piece examines how well the war on terrorism has gone since September
11.

4. Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, The Age of Sacred Terror (Random House,
2002), pp. 219-349. These pages review^and defend) the Clinton administration's
counterterrorism policy and examine (and attack) the Bush administration's policy
before September 11. This is the most detailed look at U.S. counterterrorism policy
to emerge so far, though-it remains incomplete.

We believe the Commissioners would benefit from briefings about general U.S.
counterterrorism policy, U.S. policy tojvard al-Qa'ida before September 11, and the~
status of U.S. policy today.

• Ambassador Michael Sheehan, the former Special Coordinator for

Counterterrorism, would help Commissioners understand counterterrorism policy
in context before September 11.

•. Dr. Paul Pillar, currently the National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and
South Asia, is perhaps the government's leading analyst of terrorism and could
provide an overview of the strengths and weaknesses of different counterterrorism
instruments.

• Dr. Daniel Byman, who headed the "lookback" team on the 9-11 Inquiry, could
offer a staff briefing on several aspects of the Congressional Joint Inquiry ,
investigation, particularly covert action, foreign liaison, the use of military force,
and overall U.S. counterterrorism strategy as it related to intelligence. These
briefings would follow the Joint Inquiry's more narrow focus and would not
reflect many of the broader issues the Commission will examine.

All three suggested briefers would probably prefer to brief in a classified or, at least,
private venue in order to provide the maximum detail.
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Team #3
Item 3: Document Requests

Much, if not all, of the material we will be asking for will be classified. Since we will be
requesting policy documents, the focus will be the Executive/NSC/OMB, and probably
the Departments of State and Justice as well. This list will grow and become more
specific as the investigation proceeds. For almost all categories of documents, we will
focus our requests on the period after January 1998.

The documents we will be requesting include:

• Presidential Decision Directives and National Security Presidential Directives

related to counterterrorism policy;
• Records of discussions of counterterrorism policy, particularly among "Small
Group" and "Counterterrorism Security Group" members;
• NSC taskings and requests to agencies related to counterterrorism policy;
• Records of the Transnational-Threats Directorate at the National Security Council.
This would include briefing memos, meeting notes, and perhaps selected-e-mails
- related to key events;
• . State Department records, from both Foggy Bottom and the field, related to
counterterrorism policy^ The initial focus will be on documents from the Special
~ Coordinator for Counterterrorism's Office, the deliberations of senior State
Department officials, and selected documents related to policy toward key states
in the war on terrorism;
• Tasking directed to the intelligence community related to counterterrorism,
including tasking related to renditions and other covert action, as well as
intelligence collection and analysis;
• The Defense Department, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and key commands'
(CENTCOM, SOCOM) documents related to counterterrorism, particularly with
regard to instructions to prepare military options and instructions to use force;
• Military and intelligence agency briefings and memoranda related to military
strikes and covert action against al-Qa'ida; and
• Selected budget documents reflecting resources applied to counterterrorism.

Many of the most interesting documents for the purposes of our effort will be
predecisional. Such documents will provide insights into which options were chosen,
which were rejected, and which were off the table. Because of the sensitivity of these
documents, it may prove difficult to acquire them, which may in turn necessitate high-
level interventions.

To gain a deeper understanding of counterterrorism, we also" intend to focus on the

activities of several U.S. missions, such as Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Germany, to
determine how they handled counterterrorism in practice. In addition to examining
directives from Washington, we also plan to look at cables and instructions to and from
key counterterrorism officials at these posts. We will also interview key country team
members as appropriate.
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 WITHDRAWAL NOTICE

RG: 148 Exposition, Anniversary, and Memorial Commissions

SERIES: Team 3, 9/11 Commission
NND PROJECT NUMBER: 52100 FOIA CASE NUMBER: 31107

WITHDRAWAL DATE: 11/20/2008

BOX: 00001 FOLDER: 0001 TAB: 67 DOC ID: 31206574

COPIES: 1 PAGES:

The item identified below has been withdrawn from this file:

FOLDER TITLE: Teams Workplans & Action Plans

DOCUMENT DATE: 01/01/2003 DOCUMENT TYPE: List

FROM:

TO:

SUBJECT: Team #3
Item# 4: Interview Candidates

This document has been withdrawn for the following reason(s):

9/11 Closed by Statute
974-t Law-EnfoFccmcntSonsttiTB
9/11 Puraoiml Piivucy-

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