I’m seeking help answering a question that requires a rather clumsy “operational definition”. Stay with me on this.
All through July and August of 2001, the CIA was tapping phone calls originating at a variety of Afghan locations.(Eventually, on September 10, 2001, someone using one of these phones calls a phone in Milan–but more of this later.)
We are given to understand that due to the volume of intercepts and shortage of pashto/urdu speaking translaters, the routine lag from intercept to the inbox on the desk of some spy, call him “Mr. X.”
Suppose it is July 31. Mr. X is reading the intercepts from July 29. He realizes, despairingly, that if there were to be a warning in one of these messages, the harm might already have occurred. He harrangues his supervisor, who references that they have many unfilled translator positions.
He becomes despondant and decides to commit suicide by (coincidentally) throwing himself from the World Trade Center.
He takes the shuttle from DC to JFK, and catches a cab for his last ride in life.
His eyes drift to the driver’s hack card.
He says, “Hey, Mr. Khan. Where’re you from”
“I am from Karachi, sir.”
“No kidding. There’s no more Pakistanis driving cabs in New York, are there?..”
See what I mean. In this story, Mr. X doesn’t kill himself. He goes to a little cafeteria around Chambers Street where he hires two thousand native speakers of the pashto/urdu tongue.
Now he gets his translations in two hours.
On September 10 he gets a translated message:
“Tomorrow, my brother, we light the candle…”
Because only two hours have passed, he can call Milan, and within three hours “my brother” is thinking that it’s maybe time to talk.
And so, in this story, when the 19 highjackers get to the airports they are snatched up.
So, my question is, does anybody know who Mr. X is? Who was the guy who thought two days for highest priority intercepts was an acceptable translation lag, and who just couldn’t locate native speakers.
One might, then, invent a fictional bureaucrat for the role.
It is unlikely that the State Department has shared “Mr. X”'s vital statistics with anyone not covered by security clearance, if, indeed, any single person was responsible for the situation.
Of course, the original post is not very clear, so I might very well be way off.
Welcome to the boards, atg. I’m not sure what you’re trying to get at here, either, but I’m assuming this is not a true story. It seems to me you’re saying there is a hypothetical individual who is ultimately responsible for the intel failure leading to 9/11. I think you’re drastically oversimplifying things.
I’m no CIA expert, but it has been one of my jobs in the military to attempt to locate linguists of a certain dialect and put them to use for my boss. This was on behalf of a unified CINC, which are pretty much the most powerful combatant commanders in the military. I also had some Joint Staff weight behind me in my search. Did I find one? No. An outside agency did and provided them to me. Simply put, the military “linguist architecture,” if you will, did not allow for me to do what I wanted to do. The point being that there are some things which even powerful people can’t avoid.
For all I know, the intel folks may have been trying to get more linguists to deal with a perceived increasing threat. But you have to change the status quo of a system with many parts (training pipeline, detailing personnel to that training pipeline, assigning graduates to different employers based upon need or to fill a pre-designated number of billets, etc). This may take months or even years to bring about. You don’t just pick up the phone and ask for more linguists and get them by lunch. And of course, along the way you’ll encounter those who ask “Why do you need more?” To which the answer may be “Well, we think there’s a problem, but need more people to analyze it.” To which the response may be “Well, without a defined threat, we can’t authorize this.” And, during normal operations (which they were up 'til 9/11), you don’t just go out on the street and round up a cadre of uncleared civilians (foreign nationals, no less) and give them extremely sensitive intercepts for them to translate.
In my experience, whenever you’re dealing with organizations and bureaucracies this big, there is no one person responsible for anything.
“In my experience, whenever you’re dealing with organizations and bureaucracies this big, there is no one person responsible for anything.”
I think that’s what I was getting at. I’m trying to deconstruct the phenomenology (whew!) of the numerous people who knew that this situation was persisting from day to day, and, just as you have said “in the absence of a confirmed threat…” it was easier to just go along, scan two day old translations, and sigh with relief when another day went by without the shit hitting the fan. Until September 11. (cf, the Turkey’s life right up to the day before Thanksgiving–everything was fine yesterday, every day, except tomorrow.)
But on the serious side, given the agencies involved are experienced in disinformation and verification, I propose the following scenario. Suppose we now have x number of translators, who can process the messages originating from certain phones in a period of time. operationally defined,
as less than sixteen hours (to work days–am I being too optimistic as to the actual hours of desk time per day?) but more than ten hours.
caution:all numbers arbitrary, pick your own
It would stand, therefore, that assembling operational units under each present translator (already security cleared) so that each one supervised eight translating units, would cut the time lag down from 16 hours to two hours.
The new hires: (remember, Pashto and Urdu are NOT exotic languages. We’re not seeking Basque or Welsh translators here. There are THOUSANDS of native speakers in NYC alone–their ENGLISH is a little rough, but after all, you want them native in pashto/urdu)
Pay them $500.00/day. (it would have been worth it)
Let each unit consist of three. A and B work from the raw pile of intercepts. Any that they choose NOT to pass up the chain to the experienced translator is vetted by C. All three a polygraphed at the end of each work day to confirm the translations they have made and the routing given.
Now Mr X, to return to my old terminology, only has to translate (by way of confirmation) a trickle compared to a torrent of intercepts. Because he is cleared, he can make the educated judgements about shades of meaning, etc. informed by the dossiers connected to the phones.
Most important, the information is now in our hands in time to respond at the phone terminus. It is structurally evident that the place to which the message/instruction is directed is more likely to contain weak links, or weak links connected to stronger ones, that the afghani origination point. Certainly we would have liked to have had the opportunity to drop by the location of that phone in Milan and chat on the stoop with the nice lady who was watching her children. Who knows, maybe she drops a remark or two about the “big birds” and “big towers”. Maybe not, but what the hell, if torturing everyone within a block of the phone is too extreme, does that mean we just piss away the chance because no one is really in charge?
Withal, thanx for the comment. I would stil, really like to know who Mr X (in his multiple guises) is, and if anyone has really been willing to stand up and say (as I guess is the metacommunication here),
“Yeah–fourty-eight hours. That’s our standard–you gotta problem with that, you better put in a special order.”
Ooops-I forgot one other operational detail. From time to time intercepts are “planted” in the raw data, with information that should trigger the translator to flag the intercept as important
Sorry, all, for the (obviously) obtuse presentation. What I was trying to say is this:
How does a person go home each night, after spending a day reading stuff that comes out of the ass end of carnivore and echelon, is filtered by an (overworked) translator, which is TWO FUCKING DAYS OLD!!!
AND THEN GOES TO SLEEP!!!
I was indulging in this little literary device (ie, let us get into the head of the person who was interacting with the information–think data base balancing–and was “satisfied” with a system delivering this kind of performance. And so was that person’s supervisor, and so on and so on.
Now, if you really want to know what I had in mind when I set out on this analysis, I was wondering about Alfred E. Neumann, there in the oval office (it’s true–just look at an old cover, and then any five press conference captures).
I guess HE thought 48 hours lag was just fine. That’s why the response to all this is to polygraph a bunch of senators.
Yeah, he’s PROUD to be two days late. Shit, even I’m only one day late and one dollar short.
Now that I have reviewed ALL previous entries, let me clarify for those who missed it:
About three months ago someone (the FBI) leaked the details of an intercept from September 10 2001. The call originated in Kabul, I think, but in any case, Afghanistan. Maybe Kandahar. Anyway, it is a call to some number in Milan, Italy, and the gist of it is, "tomorrow is zero hour"--who knows what in the original pashto.
The trouble is, it takes two days for this message to be culled, flagged, translated, and then have the translation read, etc.
So then, as it happened, on September 12, one of the guys who does this sort of thing, ie, the first step up the agency chain from the translator, (I would guess this is a low/middle management spot, maybe an assistant deputy something) reads the translation of this call made on September 10.
HE, of course knows just what it means now.
My fictional Mr. X is this guy, or his peers, ALL of whom were willing to run the risk that this moment would come--ie, he hits his head and says "Oh, shit". And then he says "I KNEW this was going to happen, dammit"
I"m sort of focusing on that moment of intense chagrin, and the willingness that all these bureaucrats manifested to run the risk of confronting that chagrin–the pain of seeing your worst fear come true, and remembering that you had good reasons to be anxious about the complacency and inertia you and everyone around you were showing.
In other words, I DON’T think these guys thought two days was ok–I think they knew it was way too long, but they couldn’t find any way out of the bureaucratic box to fix it.
Then, when they get burned, they insult our intelligence by saying they couldn’t hire enough “language experts|”–hey, the last cab driver I had was a little rough in english, but he was a fiuckin’ pashto expert. (His name, btw, actually WAS khan, and he had been a mujaheddin in Afghanistan, but that’s another story.)
I suppose ultimately it’s the govt willingness to make that excuse with a straight face that annoys me. Also the fact that no one has stepped up to the plate (as far as I know ) to say “Yes, Senator. I was on the detail that read this sort of intercept, and when I saw the time lag I had to come forward.”
Where is the NSA whistle-blower, who can snitch out the supervisor who let this thing go on forever and ever?
My guess is that what you’re looking for here is some reassurance – that if we improve our intelligence process (which you feel was flawed), then this will never happen again. Sadly, this is probably not true.
Suppose that they had a translator handy, and they read the translation. “Tomorrow is zero hour.” BFD. The world is a big place. Unless the message was a lot clearer and less ambiguous than you described, not much was going to change.
In hindsight, yeah, we could have translated the phone call and then some brilliant Jack Ryan at NSA could have put all the pieces together in time.
But I think you fail to understand both the magnitude of the information gathering task, the sheer mass of mostly insanely mundane information to be sifted through, the amount of random “noise” that is encountered, and the amount of analysis that has to be done in order to interpret the information. Most of this analysis is used for forming policy and understanding potential opponents – for these purposes, two day turnaround is acceptable. I’m sure there were analysts who would have preferred faster turnaround on the translations. But there’s always going to be more that you can do. And sometimes what you do do isn’t enough.
which part? The source of the leak is a matter of surmise-the fbi was taking much heat at the time over the “phoenix memo” and the Missouai (sp?) fumble, and probably thought it was time to divert attention towards the cia.
As for the details of the call, the zero hour quote is NYT friday or saturday. I’ll try and track down and post–as for the origin and terminus of the call, I am certain that the story, when it broke, identified the afghan city of origin and my best recollection is that the terminus was Milan, or perhaps some other italian city.
The resulting brouhaha caused the chairmen of the senate and house intel committees to request FBI investigation of the leak source, hence last month’s request by FBI that senators and staff take polygraphs (declined) and provide phone records to see who might have called a reporter (granted) The information was highly embarassing (no kidding…) to the security establishment, and as I recall it was only several days later that Bush sprung his fatherla…uh, homeland security defense department plan which successfully crowded this tidbit off the fronts. Herewith link to larger story–the kabul-milan detail I will have to track down via google.
which part? The source of the leak is a matter of surmise-the fbi was taking much heat at the time over the “phoenix memo” and the Missouai (sp?) fumble, and probably thought it was time to divert attention towards the cia.
As for the details of the call, the zero hour quote is NYT friday or saturday. I’ll try and track down and post–as for the origin and terminus of the call, I am certain that the story, when it broke, identified the afghan city of origin and my best recollection is that the terminus was Milan, or perhaps some other italian city.
The resulting brouhaha caused the chairmen of the senate and house intel committees to request FBI investigation of the leak source, hence last month’s request by FBI that senators and staff take polygraphs (declined) and provide phone records to see who might have called a reporter (granted) The information was highly embarassing (no kidding…) to the security establishment, and as I recall it was only several days later that Bush sprung his fatherla…uh, homeland security defense department plan which successfully crowded this tidbit off the fronts. Herewith link to larger story–the kabul-milan detail I will have to track down via google.
Heard 9/10: ‘Tomorrow is Zero Hour’ By John Diamond and Kathy Kiely, USA
TODAY WASHINGTON ? Conversations intercepted the day before Sept. … www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/ 2002/06/20/zero-day-usat.htm - 26k - Cached - Similar pages
Pravda.RU September 11th: US National Security Agency had it on a …
… 11:00 2002-06-21 SEPTEMBER 11TH: US NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY HAD IT ON A PLATE 10th
September 2001: ?Tomorrow is zero hour? was one of the messages written … english.pravda.ru/usa/2002/06/21/30829.html - 70k - 8 Sep 2002 - Cached - Similar pages
CBS News | 9/10 Message: ‘Tomorrow Is Zero Hour’ | June 21, 2002 …
… E-mail This StoryE-mail This Story Printable VersionPrintable Version
9/10 Message: ‘Tomorrow Is Zero Hour’ WASHINGTON, June 20, 2002 … www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/06/ 21/attack/main512988.shtml - 39k - Cached - Similar pages
CBS News | Hunting Terrorists And Leaks | June 21, 2002 08:50:00
… (CBS/AP) The messages intercepted by the NSA were recorded in two separate conversations
and contained the phrases, ?Tomorrow is zero hour,? and ?The match … www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/06/ 06/attack/main511243.shtml - 29k - 8 Sep 2002 - Cached - Similar pages
US heard ‘tomorrow is zero hour’ on Sept 10 -DAWN - International …
Click to learn more… Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate
window) US heard ‘tomorrow is zero hour’ on Sept 10. WASHINGTON … Four die in US attack on Iraq - Newspaper - DAWN.COM - 13k - Cached - Similar pages
‘Zero hour’ message intercepted
… The National Security Agency, which eavesdrops on communications worldwide, intercepted
messages that said “tomorrow is zero hour” and "the match begins … www.news24.com/News24/USAttack/ 0,1113,2-1195_1201998,00.html - 29k - Cached - Similar pages
THE MONASTEREO - Top News Stories
… US Heard ‘Tomorrow Is Zero Hour’ on Eve of Attacks June 20, 2002 WASHINGTON (LifeLine
News) – US intelligence intercepted two messages the day before the Sept … MonaStereo.com is for sale | HugeDomains - 9k - Cached - Similar pages
US News pg 4
… US Heard ‘Tomorrow Is Zero Hour’ on Eve of Attacks. LLNi | US June 20,
2002, WASHINGTON (LifeLine News) – US intelligence intercepted … www.ccunetwork.net/news/us/us4.shtml - 16k - Cached - Similar pages
Christian Computer Connection - US News Article 4
US News Article. US Heard ‘Tomorrow Is Zero Hour’ on Eve of Attacks. LLNi
| US June 20, 2002, WASHINGTON (LifeLine News) – US intelligence … christiancomputerconnection.com/News/usn4.shtml - 13k - Cached - Similar pages
CyberSaint > News & Views > Headlines > US News Story
US Heard ‘Tomorrow Is Zero Hour’ on Eve of Attacks June 20, 2002 WASHINGTON (LifeLine
News) – US intelligence intercepted two messages the day before the Sept … www.cybersaint.org/newsandviews/headlines-us4.shtml - 16k - Cached - Similar pages
many pages follow. this is the google for “tomorrow is zero hour”
herewith one of the the google cites, which places the final terminus of the calls in the US, which makes the lost opportunity even more poignant
16:42 2002-06-20
“THE MATCH BEGINS TOMORROW”
The US Congress continues hearing the case on the CIA and FBI activity. More and more details appear in the case. It is perfectly clear now that the CIA and FBI had been warned of terrorist attacks before September 11. The special services had enough information about coming attacks but failed to react adequately because of bureaucratic delays.
As it became clear during the hearings of the case, the US National Security Agency, which deals with space and electronic intelligence, had been also warned of coming terrorist attacks. On September 10, Agency officials intercepted two messages for al- Qaeda agents located in the USA. The first message said, “The match begins tomorrow.” And the second was, “Tomorrow is zero hour.” However, both messages were ignored, and they were translated on September 12 only when it was too late to do something.
CNN informs, that NSA Director Michael Hayden talked about the intercepts at the hearings and explained that NSA collects a lot of information every day and it is impossible to translate all of it in a timely manner. That is why no adequate reaction to the intercepts followed immediately on September 10.
However, the excuse is rather lame. The NSA staff makes up 20,000 people; only the FBI is bigger. It certain that the NSA has all the necessary technical facilities at their disposal to carry out important work, otherwise it would be of no use at all to maintain such a large special service. Therefore, the conclusion is rather obvious: NSA, quite like other departments, failed to cope with its work.
It is not ruled out that the directors of US special services are trying now to shift the blame for the Sept. 11 mistake onto each other. Indeed, until now, mostly the CIA and FBI have been mentioned in connection with the Sept.11 terrorism attack, and the NSA has not been mentioned at all. Now, it is time for Michael Hayden’s officials to justify themselves. Very likely, the Intelligence Department of the US Defense Ministry is to soon be summoned to the Congress as well. Leaders of the department will probably also admit that they had been warned of coming terrorist attacks, but “failed to adequately respond to the information because of large volumes of information.”
In any case, senators and congressmen participating in the hearings say that the three special services made grave mistakes before September 11. In addition, Democrats and Republicans share the same opinion. This means that the special services are likely in for serious reshuffling.
Just the choice paragraph from the NYT 9/08 article:
The chronic shortage of language experts is N.S.A.‘s Achilles’ heel — so much so that one of the most sensitive bits of intelligence revealed about Sept. 11 was that the N.S.A. had intercepted a Qaeda message on Sept. 10 saying, “Tomorrow is zero hour.” But no one translated it until after it was ove
One very huge problem with getting translators with native-language grade skills such as Pashto is that checking their backgrounds is almost impossible, since one can’t send questionnaires or investigators to (say) Kandahar to inquire whether or not Mr. Khan would be a good candidate to work for a US intelligence agency.
Imagine this scenario: Cab driver Khan is successfully recruited on a hurried basis into the NSA or CIA or whatever as a translator. He gets the intercept about the impending attack on the WTC and has at least some idea of its potential importance. But because he either is actively or passively favoring the Taliban, Al-Queda, or whatever else, he decides to slip the item to the bottom of his “to do” stack. Or he deliberately mistranslates it to obscure its significance. Or he translates key words as “unintelligible”. Or he just trashes it. Worst of all, he takes a coffee break and calls his friend who calls another friend, etc., and word gets back that “Hey, they have a tap on you. Call it off and plan it for later, using some other more covert means of communications.”
Also recall that there is a LOT of intercepted communication to go through, even with a large staff of translators. It has to be read, translated, and assessed for importance, then passed to the appropriate places. In retrospect, we all can see the significance of “The match starts tomorrow”, etc, but before then who would have suspected exactly what it meant?
Actually, with the amount of collection and the resources they have to work with, I’d say two days in pretty good. I said it in my previous post, and I’ll say it again. You’re oversimplifying things.
a) There is nothing inherently wrong with a 2-day lag. In this case, it bit us in the ass. In most cases, it provides enough of a heads-up.
b) Even if we’d gotten to it, it’d be hard to do anything about it. You imply in your OP that three hours is sufficient time from picking up the phone here in the states, having the appropriate authorities locate and detain the suspect somewhere in Europe, and extract actionable intel from him. Are you kidding me? This process probably takes days, if not weeks.
c) You keep seeing all these arab-speaking joes on the streets and thinking they can simply be rounded up and put to work. Again, are you kidding me? It takes almost a year for the DoD to grant a Top-Secret clearance. If I (an American citizen) have a foreign SO, that raises many red flags in their offices. Imagine how many red flags an immigrant of foreign national would raise. This is sensitive material, and you don’t just go around handing the keys to the safe to chuckleheads you’ve just dragged in from the street, no matter what defcon we’re at.
I could go on, but seeing as how you’re tenaciously holding onto your viewpoint, I don’t think I’m going to make you realize you’re dealing with an established process, not an individual or two. The major fault in our intel gathering has been arguably identified as not having sufficient humint. This will change, but it’s a change which’ll take a few years.
And who’s to say where we should focus our efforts? If the next hot spot is in Thailand, are you going to whip out this same argument when it turns out we don’t have many linguists for Thailand? As far as I’m concerned, there’s no easy answer here, but I take comfort in knowing that people much smarter than me and much better informed than me are making the best decisions they can when it comes to intel gathering.
Also, consider:
It is late on 9/10.
You just translated a message that says, “Tomorrow is Zero Hour”
And with this you rush into action to do… what?
Exactly what should the FBI or CIA have done with this information?
Send out a general alert? To where? To who? To everyone?
We have such an alert for tomorrow for the New York area.
But, realistically, what are we to do with it?
The truth is, the airlines had sufficient info to have caught at least one group of hijackers. One of the leaders was on a watch list. He used his real name to buy a one way ticket… with cash!
The airline agent did not check the watchlist which would have set a lot of bells off if she had done so.
I certainly do not entertain the fantasy that the “entrepreneurial spontaniety” I described would be tolerated or even possilble in an atmosphere of redundant security clearance proceures (which have actually been remarkably adept at clearing the unworthy…)
I was asking that we consider the possibility that the need for translation was so acute that we were obliged to structure a feasible system for handling the risks and benefits. I am not wedded to my little multiple team member multiple cross check multiple polygraph mulitple plants of false intercepts to monitor the performance of our newest recruits in the war on terror.
And, of course, they would become privy to extraordinarily sensitive information immediately.
That’s why I stipulated big bucks. Because, in this emercency, the President is going to draft these fellows, and when they are not working they will be with their families isolate from the rest of the world. Period.
Sort of like Gitmo, but at 500-1000 per day, it will fly.
Recall, as well, I stipulated DAILY polygraphs.
(I’ve always thought that making folks strap on set of sensors at the Airport check in desk and asking them one question, would replace lots of tedious profiling-the question, “Are you hoping to land safely in _________”. Eveyone but the terrorist will have a heartfelt, solid, truthful “yes”
I was reaching, in the larger systems analysis sense, for some way that we can avoid drowning in that sea of noise, within which hides the important information.
I cannot believe that there are no computerized tranlation programs going Arabic/pashto/urdu, etc. to English. Granted, voice recognitjion software is bad enough on its own, without having to account for mumblin, colloqjuialisms, etc.
I deplore the consensus that even though the demands of the security apparat make it impossible even to consider ramping up such a vital (and yet essentially clerical…)task as translation. We see no alternative possibilities, and so, as you say, it bites us in the ass.
Of course I’m not saying that two days is so far off the charts as to render the intel worthless-but if you follow some of those google leads, you’ll see a description of a FRANTIC counterintel chief, Ashcroft off commercial planes by July, all vacations cancelled for any security related function,
Oh, all vacations cancelled except for the Great Texas Retreat. I think the Renaissance Weekends make a nice counterpoint to Crawford. Both the presidents are solid phonies, pretending to respect alot of other phonies, but what the hell.
I look forward to the day that Hunter Thompson gets invited to GWB’s ranch…
“The truth is, the airlines had sufficient info to have caught at least one group of hijackers. One of the leaders was on a watch list. He used his real name to buy a one way ticket… with cash!
The airline agent did not check the watchlist which would have set a lot of bells off if she had done so.”
I think it was even worse than that–I believe that two of the hijackers were pulled out of line at Logan (they WERE young male towelheads, after all…)and given the special once-over. THEN they were boarded…
Consider the recent outcome of newspaper reporters’ tests of the screening process. Somehow or other (I know its a small country, low volume of flying, etc) El Al manages to get people off the ground in acceptable time and still doesn’t ask Mohammed Atta if he wants the aisle or the window after flagging him for attention. Can we REALLY be SO fucking lame that we can’t stop more than 30% of the weapons or weapon surrogates (apparantly lead lined duffle bags go through without a peep–I guess you could put a body in there and have a transcontinental hearse, and the screeners wouldn’t care")
And while I’m sniveling about how soft all the thousands of soft targets in our society still are, I guess I have to wonder…
When does some of this shit start to stick to George?
Easier said than done, I’m afraid. Is this a true story? Where did you hear it?