Was John Kerry Right?
George Will and Richard Posner seem to think so. First, Will:
The London plot against civil aviation confirmed a theme of an illuminating new book, Lawrence Wright’s “The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11.” The theme is that better law enforcement, which probably could have prevented 9/11, is central to combating terrorism. F-16s are not useful tools against terrorism that issues from places such as Hamburg (where Mohamed Atta lived before dying in the North Tower of the World Trade Center) and High Wycombe, England.
Cooperation between Pakistani and British law enforcement (the British draw upon useful experience combating IRA terrorism) has validated John Kerry’s belief (as paraphrased by The New York Times Magazine of Oct. 10, 2004) that “many of the interdiction tactics that cripple drug lords, including governments working jointly to share intelligence, patrol borders and force banks to identify suspicious customers, can also be some of the most useful tools in the war on terror.” In a candidates debate in South Carolina (Jan. 29, 2004), Kerry said that although the war on terror will be “occasionally military,” it is “primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation that requires cooperation around the world.”
Immediately after the London plot was disrupted, a “senior administration official,” insisting on anonymity for his or her splenetic words, denied the obvious, that Kerry had a point. The official told The Weekly Standard:
“The idea that the jihadists would all be peaceful, warm, loveable, God-fearing people if it weren’t for U.S. policies strikes me as not a valid idea. (Democrats) do not have the understanding or the commitment to take on these forces. It’s like John Kerry. The law enforcement approach doesn’t work.”
This farrago of caricature and non sequitur makes the administration seem eager to repel all but the delusional. But perhaps such rhetoric reflects the intellectual contortions required to sustain the illusion that the war in Iraq is central to the war on terrorism, and that the war, unlike “the law enforcement approach,” does “work.”
The official is correct that it is wrong “to think that somehow we are responsible — that the actions of the jihadists are justified by U.S. policies.” But few outside the fog of paranoia that is the blogosphere think like that. It is more dismaying that someone at the center of government considers it clever to talk like that. It is the language of foreign policy — and domestic politics — unrealism.
Foreign policy “realists” considered Middle East stability the goal. The realists’ critics, who regard realism as reprehensibly unambitious, considered stability the problem. That problem has been solved.
Say, I represent that blogosphere remark! Now Posner:
The plot has also revealed the indispensability of good counterterrorism intelligence. A defense against terrorists, as against other enemies of the nation, must be multilayered to have a reasonable chance of being effective. One of the outer defenses is intelligence, designed to detect plots in advance so that they can be thwarted. One of the inner defenses is preventing an attack at the last minute, as by airport screening for weapons.
The inner defense would have failed in the recent episode because the equipment for scanning hand luggage does not detect liquid explosives. (The liquid-bomb threat had been known since a similar al-Qaeda plot was foiled in 1995, but virtually nothing had been done to counter it.) Fortunately, the outer defense succeeded.
Intelligence succeeded in part because of the work of MI5, England’s domestic intelligence agency. We do not have a counterpart to MI5. This is a serious gap in our defenses. Primary responsibility for national security intelligence has been given to the FBI. The bureau is a criminal investigation agency. Its orientation is toward arrest and prosecution rather than toward the patient gathering of intelligence with a view to understanding and penetrating a terrorist network.
The bureau’s tendency, consistent with its culture of arrest and prosecution, is to continue an investigation into a terrorist plot just long enough to obtain enough evidence to arrest and prosecute a respectable number of plotters. The British tend to wait and watch longer so that they can learn more before moving against plotters.
The FBI’s approach means that small fry are easily caught but that any big shots who might have been associated with them quickly scatter. The arrests and prosecutions warn terrorists concerning the methods and information of the FBI. Bureaucratic risk aversion also plays a part; prompt arrests ensure that members of the group won’t escape the FBI’s grasp and commit terrorist attacks. But without some risk-taking, the prospect of defeating terrorism is slight.
MI5, in contrast to the FBI (and to Scotland Yard’s Special Branch, with which MI5 works), has no arrest powers and no responsibilities for criminal investigation, and it has none of the institutional hang-ups that go with such responsibilities. Had the British authorities proceeded in the FBI way — rather than continuing the investigation until virtually the last minute, which enabled them to roll up (with Pakistan’s help) more than 40 plotters — most of the conspirators might still be at large, and the exact nature and danger of the plot might not have been discovered. We need our own MI5, not to supplant but to supplement the FBI.
Posner may be right, but if he is, then it’s the story of another opportunity squandered. The Bush Administration made its choice, and it chose an overarching Department of Homeland Security that combined existing agencies into one superagency, ostensibly to ease the crossflow of information, but in practice – well, I’m not so sure…most likely, there have been successes and failures.
It’s hard to imagine sweeping changes of the sort Posner envisions in the current environment – Bush’s NSA surveillance is a partial solution, but one that is hanging out in a kind of legal limbo at the moment. Perhaps an opening could be found in the ongoing attempts to forge a compromise over FISA/NSA/surveillance – if, that is, the Bush administration is so inclined…
I’ve been waiting for the obvious point about Britain’s security arm to be made this week; namely, that the powers that MI5 currently enjoys make the FBI, CIA and Homeland Security look like rank amateurs. Interesting to speculate what would’ve happened here had the bomb plot been executed successfully – forget about the privacy concerns over NSA and FISA, there would have been an overwhelming urge to round up any and all suspects and begin immediate deportation, regardless of citizenship or hard evidence of criminal wrongdoing. This seems to be the choice we’re going to have to make as a country – either allow some freedoms to be curtailed now, or wait until many more will be lost after another attack.
True enough dmac, but the terrorists did succeed in blowing stuff up in London a year ago.
I don’t see these (military and law enforcement) as mutually exclusive approaches to the GWOT. Nor do I see what we are doing as exclusively military. From NSA to RICO-like monitoring of funds movement, etc. we are enaged in plenty of surveillance and law enforcement.
But, the points about Homeland Security being a big, bureaucratic, and inefficient behemoth are well taken. An organization that large requires a decentralization of strategy/objectives execution that is unmanageable. Coordination and collaboration can be accomplished without having to put all these agencies under one cabinet level official (who can’t possibly direct, monitor, and manage such a beast).
As for Kerry being right – well, blind squirrels and nuts come to mind. Ah, strike that, give him his due: he is correct that law enforcement is useful as part of a broad-based tactical approach to terrorism prevention.
I think there are three legs to the stool: law enforcement, hardening vulnerable targets, and diplomacy/military force.
However, I don’t think the choice is between allowing “some freedoms to be curtailed now, or wait until many more will be lost after another attack.” I don’t think that any serious person disputes the need for surveillance, infiltration, or any of the other means which law enforcement has at its disposal. The only question is whether those who use these means are following the law (and whether the law should be changed to permit things which are not currently allowed).
Here’s two interesting articles today that relate to this question – one refers to the Guardian, which openly speculates that the Pakistanis used torture to extract the vital information:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/blog/2006/08/agonizing_over_torture.html
The AP details how an intercepted phone call in Britain led the security services to act immediately:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14346763/
The question that Charles Krauthammer asked last year comes into play with this event – if “torture” techniques definitively led to the apprehension of the plot – leaders, what would the public say if these methods were not used to prevent a future atrocity? Would the methods used be condemned vociferously, as some did regarding the Abu prison story? I’m not pretending these are easy answers, but we need to get serious about these issues, and stop using them (on both sides) to score political points.
Query me this if Kerry was right – why are the dems trying to dismantle the NSA surveillance and Treasury financial monitoring if they are so gung-ho on intelligence? Sounds like the stop watched syndrome – gotte be right twice a day.
AJStrata
Good question.
They’ve been going with the stopped watch theory on a lot of things-
the biggest-”we are not as safe as we were” is a bet on a successful terrorist attack before the next election, or the one following that one, or the one following that one…
I give the dems a lot of credit, they decry bush’s words as fearmongering, and them proceed to do the same. Their calculation on the next attack does not mean they will be able to reap the benefits of being right…unless we are attacked/infiltrated by means of cargo inspections.
Hard to reconcile that they want to play defense at home with cargo containers, but remain mum on our actual borders. A lot like a guess hitter at the plate, with an unlimited number of swings-they can never strikeout, and sooner or later they hit a ‘homerun’. Only the homerun is that we are attacked…
The dems have said over and over again that they’re not opposed to intelligence gathering; they only ask that it be done in accordance with the laws of the land.
“…they only ask that it be done in accordance with the laws of the land.”
That should read, “they only ask that it be done in accordance with how they interpret the laws of the land.” A big discrepancy between the parties on that score.
Uh, no. Read the FISA law. It’s there in black and white.
I’m not interested in reopening a debate that we’ve discusses previously ad nauseum, Peter. Suffice to say that if judges deem the current laws to be interpreted as you see them, then we’ll have a national debate on whether changes or additional laws should be enacted by Congress. I’m watching a discussion on the Newshour between former representatives of the MI5 agency, as well as former intelligence managers for the Justice Dept. A key difference in their laws allow them to detain suspects for up to 28 days without charges, while ours demand law enforcement bring charges in front of a judge within 48 hours. Another difference is that they can start survelliance immediately on suspects, whereas we require a warrant to be issued by a judge prior, and that warrant must have “provable intent.”
[...] Setting the civil rights issue aside (and I agree with the Georgetown blog’s author, that it is important not to trample all over them in the haste to propose bad ideas), those “institutional hangups” reflect the emphasis on decentralization inherent in the US Constitution, not a bad thing on a sunny day, or even a cloudy day. As a commenter on Decision ‘08 remarks about the last “solution”, the Department of Homeland Security, “Coordination and collaboration can be accomplished without having to put all these agencies under one cabinet level official (who cant possibly direct, monitor, and manage such a beast).” So why doesn’t it? How would a new bureacracy change the probability of the same sort of problem? Christian Beckner does a disservice when he argues: [...]