9/11 Recommendations

Superior Essays
The 9/11 Commission was created in 2002 at the request of the Congress and the US President, George W. Bush, and it was formed by 5 Republican and 5 Democrat representatives. The first aim of the Commission was to present a full account of the circumstances of the 9/11, including preparedness of the attack and the immediate response of the emergency services, agencies involved and the Government. This document was finished and published in August 2004.
The Report is divided in four sections: what happened this day, including the response of the organisms in charge of the security; what happened before that allows the attack, origins and previous attacks of Al-Qaida, and how the US agencies and government have been managed this situation; the analysis of the failures by the members of the commission; a section of recommendations proposed by the Commission in order to avoid a future attack. This review focuses on the two later sections, analysis of the failures and recommendations.
The Commission identified four kinds of failures in the management of the terrorist threat before the 9/11: imagination, policy, capabilities, management. 1. Imagination Some agencies had contemplated the idea of an aircraft used as a weapon, as the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) and North American Defence Command. However, they consider this event as unlikely, considering much more probable the idea of a hijacked aircraft by a terrorist group with the objective of negotiate or even the possibility of an explosion in the aircraft, but not his use as a weapon against an US target. Likewise, the Counterterrorist Centre did not develop anything related with that. 2. Policy: US government did not face the threat with the importance that it had. As the threat was not seen as the priority, the government did not apply all the measures necessary. Although they identified Al-Qaida and Afghanistan sanctuary as a threat, they did not act to stopped a hypothetical attack against US as it was the 9/11. 3. Capabilities: They identified weaknesses in the capabilities of the agencies to face the threat of an attack. CIA, Department of Defence, have little space to act. US Government did not approve cover actions or attacks against Afghanistan sanctuary. Ate the same time, other challenges were in the mind of the members of government. Agencies in charge of the border control (FBI - Immigration and Naturalization Service - FAA) did not have the resources for an effective control, as well as they had problems sharing information intra-agencies. 4. Management: The main problem identified by the commission through the whole report is that there was no sharing information between the different agencies (foreign and national). Also, the Director of Central Intelligence had a limited role in the intelligence community. The commission divided the recommendations in
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One of the essential elements is the improvement in Homeland Security, instead of create a new agency responsible of the management of the security within the borders, the Commission proposed to transform the FBI in the agency specialized in national security. This element aroused in answer to the critics that the Federal agency had received because of their management of the terrorist threat. Therefore, the FBI would be considered as the referent in homeland security, with the incorporation of new profiles (analyst, linguistics, surveillances specialist ), which allowed the agency make a more comprehensive approach to the threat

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