On Edge

Over the past year, I have been interviewed countless times, here and abroad, about the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. The questions ranged from silly to profound and I’m sure that some of my answers were less than satisfactory. It’s difficult to assess and analyze major events of this kind on the fly; it’s even more difficult and perilous to predict the future. What is less difficult is to measure the impact of that horrific day on the United States and to assess the government’s response from a law enforcement and security perspective.

Early attempts to assess the damage inflicted on Sept. 11 were concerned mainly with the number of lives lost and the economic impact. Both of these are relatively easy to measure, but the former was completely overestimated while the latter was widely underestimated. The early estimate of 7,000 killed was eventually reduced to a still-shocking 3,000. The initial predictions of the economic impact show how little the experts really know. What we viewed originally as a strike with limited impact, affecting mainly Lower Manhattan, we now know has had — and continues to have — national and international repercussions. Lastly, the impact on the American psyche, especially on New Yorkers, is incalculable. You would be hard-pressed to find an American who does not think that there will be another terrorist attack sooner or later. A "one year later" poll by the New York Daily News found that the vast majority of New Yorkers are sure there will be another attack. Thus, a year later, most New Yorkers — and I daresay most Americans — are still on edge. It appears that the institutions most responsible for reassuring Americans, from politicians to police to the private sector, have not done a very good job.

The private sector, specifically those concerned with security, reacted, much like their counterparts in law enforcement, by throwing bodies at the problem. There was a need to convince employees that the company cared and would spend whatever was necessary to reassure scared workers. The Wall Street Journal estimated that corporate spending on security would jump from $45 billion to $80 billion or even $100 billion. Had corporate spending continued unabated from Fall 2001, the Journal would have been right. By the end of the year, however, and with no new terrorist strike, corporations began to analyze and annualize their security costs, quickly concluded that these security measures were too costly and began to cut them. The further we moved from 9/11, the greater the cuts. To be fair, corporations continue to spend more on security than they did before Sept. 11, but a lot less than they did last fall. While this may be understandable, what is unforgivable is the complacent attitude that is emerging in some businesses. Some feel that the further we move from 9/11, the safer we are. But the average American believes that the further we move from 9/11, the closer we are to the next attack.

There is only one thing that could have prevented the Sept. 11 terrorist attack: good, hard, reliable intelligence. While I had many visceral reactions to the attack, my main professional reaction was to wonder how it could have happened. How could all four hijacking teams have escaped detection on the ground? How could we have been caught by surprise? Whose fault was it? A year later, some of my questions have been answered, though not satisfactorily. One thing is very clear; there was a massive failure of our intelligence gathering arrangements, especially at the national and international level.

As the national media and the U.S. Senate and House oversight committees began to ask questions, the biggest lie in law enforcement was exposed, the notion that all law enforcement agencies work well together. At the national, state and local levels, the law enforcement community appeared to be dysfunctional, non-communicative and uncooperative. Turf battles abounded and egos ruled the day. It was clear that the notion of a corporate approach to fighting crime was pure fiction. Whether the mission or target was a drug kingpin, a mafia boss and his organization, or a terrorist cell committed to the destruction of the United States, individual agencies tended to act as individuals rather than cooperative teams. Embarrassed by these revelations, federal law enforcement agencies, especially the FBI, pledged to improve their working relationships with others in federal, state, and local police agencies. To be fair, there have been some improvements in the last year, but big city police chiefs still complain that it can take as long as three months to get a colleague cleared to receive classified intelligence information.

As far as I am concerned, in the days and weeks following the attack, President Bush said and did all the right things. He articulated the anger and resolve of the average American. He made a great decision in choosing Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge to head the Homeland Security Office. Unfortunately, as the months passed, the steady hand of the President in the fight against terrorism was replaced by the not-so-stable figure of Attorney General John Ashcroft. The promise of more effective homeland security has not materialized; there have been too many internal squabbles and ego wars. The scope of this vital office, including its organizational structure, remains a mystery almost a year later. The promised report on Homeland Security due out this summer remains a mystery as summer ends.

The biggest disappointment of the past year has been the failure of the Justice Department under John Ashcroft to convince the American public that the war on terrorism can be conducted with minimal infringement on civil liberties. Time and again the attorney general has attempted to push the envelope regarding the powers of federal law enforcement and prosecution, except when they are opposed by his friends in the N.R.A. How else can he square his refusal to allow the FBI to check the "Active Terrorist Watch List" against gun purchasers' background-check lists, even though Justice Department lawyers have advised him that such checks were lawful? He further alienated and embarrassed FBI veterans by announcing to the world, on television, the arrest of a low level Chicago gang member as if he were in the top tier of al-Qaeda. John Ashcroft has clearly become an embarrassment to the administration and President Bush should fire him, name Tom Ridge to replace him as attorney general and appoint retiring Senator Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) to head the Office of Homeland Security. To paraphrase the president, what a trifecta!

John Timoney was Philadelphia Police Commissioner from 1998-2001, and is currently CEO of Beau Dietl & Associates in New York City.