TS S

DoD ITS S Cole Commission Report P a i of

DoD USS COLE COMMISSION REPORT

9 January 2001

Executive Summary

Since the attack on Khobar Towers in June 1996, the Department of Defense (DoD) has made significant improvements in protecting its
service members, mainly in deterring, disrupting and mitigating terrorist attacks on installations. The attack on USS COLE (DDG 67), in the
port of Aden, Yemen, on 12 October 2000, demonstrated a seam in the fabric of efforts to protect our forces, namely in-transit forces. Our
review was focused on finding ways to improve the US policies and practices for deterring, disrupting and mitigating terrorist attack on US
forces in transit.

1. Overseas Presence since the End of the Cold War

Our review was based on the premise that worldwide presence and continuous transit of ships, aircraft and units of the United States military
support the engagement elements of both the National Security Strategy and the National Military Strategy and are in the nation's best
interest. The US military is conducting overseas operations in a new post-Cold War world environment characterized by unconventional and
transnational threats. Operating in this new world exposes US forces to terrorist attacks and requires a major effort in force protection. This
major effort will require more resources and, in some cases, a better use of existing resources for protecting transiting units. The net result of
our recommendations is a form of operational risk management applied at both the national and operational levels to balance the benefits with
the risks of overseas operations. We determined that the "fulcrum" of this balance is usually the Unified Commander-in-Chief s (CINC)
Service Component Commander; therefore, a significant number of our recommendations are designed to improve that commander's AT/FP
antiterrorism/force protection (AT/FP) capabilities.

We organized our findings at both the national and operational levels into the five functional areas of organization, antiterrorism/force
protection, intelligence, logistics and training.

2. National Level Policies and Practices

Conducting engagement activities (including those by transiting forces) in higher threat areas in support of the National Security Strategy and
National Military Strategy requires completely coordinated priorities, policies and oversight at all levels. The pervasive and enduring threat
calls for some adjustments to national level policies and procedures.

2. a. Organization

http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/cole20010109.html 1/27/2004
HEARING OF THE NATIONAL COMMISSION ON TERRORIST ATTACKS UPON THE
UNITED STATES

WITNESS: DR. CONDOLEEZZA RICE, ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT FOR

NATIONAL SECURITY AFFAIRS CHAIR: THOMAS H. KEAN; VICE CHAIR: LEE
H. HAMILTON

ROOM 216 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C.

9:03 A.M. EDT, THURSDAY, APRIL 8, 2004

MR. KEAN: (Sounds gavel.) Good morning. As chair of the

National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States,
I hereby convene this hearing. This is a continuation of the
commission's previous hearings on the formulation and conduct of
U.S. counterterrorism policy. The record of that hearing, by the
way, including staff statements, is available on our website,
www.9- llcommission.gov.

We will hear from only one witness this morning, the

distinguished Dr. Rice, Condoleezza Rice, assistant to the
president for national security affairs.

Dr. Rice, we bid you a most cordial welcome to the

commission.

But before I call on Dr. Rice, I would like to turn to our

vice chair for brief opening remarks.

MR. KAMILTON; Good morning.

Good morning, Dr. Rice. We're very pleased to have you with
us this morning.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity to make a

statement. I will be very brief. The purpose of our hearing this
morning is very straightforward. We want to get information and
we wanted to get it out into the public record.

If we are going to fulfill our mandate, a comprehensive and

sweeping mandate, then we will have to provide a full and
complete accounting of the events of 9/11, and that means that we
are going to ask some searching and difficult questions.

Our purpose is not to embarrass, it is not to put any witness

on the spot. Our purpose is to understand and to inform.
Questions do not represent opinions. Our views will follow later
after reflection on answers. We want to be thorough this morning,
 COMMISSION SENSITIVE

THE THREAT: DEFINING THE PROBLEM

Terrorism is not the enemy, terrorism is a tactic.1

Lorry M. Fenner

The US government and military have not yet fully transitioned from Cold War and
Industrial Age thinking and postures to face Information Age, transnational threats
effectively. Catastrophic terrorist attacks are not the only significant challenges we face,
but the attacks of September 11, 2001 have shown us in dramatic terms that we can no
longer adjust gradually to globalization and the new era. We must move much more
rapidly to posture and equip our people, our government and the intelligence community
to combat this challenge as well as other transnational challenges (those known and
those not yet anticipated).

Hypothesis: The Intelligence Community (1C) and policy makers did not understand
the threat to US national security in the late 1990s. We focused too narrowly on Usama
Bin Laden (UBL), and then incrementally enlarged that focus to al Qa'ida senior
leadership (AQSL). The narrow focus and ad hoc changes made creating a
comprehensive and appropriate US Government (USG) strategy difficult. This, in turn,
made the development of an effective intelligence strategy nearly impossible. Since
9/11 our focus has changed. Now it is too broad - a global war on terrorism (GWOT).2
Our strategy must be grander than one that only addresses a tactic; terrorism.
Although others reject this notion, we posit that the threat is ideological -violent Islamic
extremism. We do not posit a "clash of civilizations", however whether our adversary is
one group, al Qa'ida, or a network of groups, we must address this ideology, and we
must analyze the adversary's goals and strategy.3 Only then can we truly understand
why the US is a target. Only then can we design a strategy or set of strategies with
effective campaign plans and tactics to defeat our adversaries.4
First, this paper posits our adversary's strategy including notional "ends, ways,
and means." Next, is a review of the security environment and terrorism and the
intelligence attempts to assess and respond to these. While we had a general National
Intelligence Estimate (NIE) and an update, in the absence of a comprehensive
assessment specifically of al Qa'ida, the Counterterrorism Center worked from a
narrow, DCI approved "plan". The paper ends with a call for an appropriate assessment
of the threat and proposes possibilities that would bring us closer to being able to
design an effective strategy.

Many books have been written about the threat, terrorism, and strategy. This is not meant to be
a comprehensive review or overview, but a thumbnail sketch of our framework for analysis.
2 Jeffrey Record, "Bounding the Global War on Terrorism," Strategic Studies Institute, December
2003.
3 Bard O'Neill, Insurgency & Terrorism: Inside Modern Revolutionary Warfare, Brassey's Inc.,
Washington, 1990. O'Neill provides a framework for analysis.
4 Combating Terrorism in a Globalized World, National War College, May 2002 is one example of
an analysis of a "pansurgency" and designing ends, ways and means to respond.

COMMISSION SENSITIVE 1
2/25/2004
 DEC-17-2003 19=37 P.002/006

Report of'the

COMMISSION TO ASSESS
THE BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT
TO THE UNITED STATES

Intelligence
Side Letter

March 18, 1999

r
NCT0053073