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The 9/11 Commission and a National Counterterrorism
Center: Issues and Options for Congress
Summary
The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (hereafter
9/11 Commission) issued its Final Report in July 2004. As one of its 41
recommendations, the 9/11 Commission recommended the creation of a National
Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). As proposed by the commission, an NCTC would
have two primary functions -intelligence and joint operational planning. The director
of an NCTC would be appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the
Senate, and would report to the commission's proposed new National Intelligence
director. On August 27, 2004, the President signed an executive order establishing the
NCTC. Legislatively, there are numerous bills which have proposes the codification of
an NCTC.
The commission's recommendation would use the existing Terrorist Threat
Integration Center (TTIC) as the foundation for an NCTC, a concept incorporated in
both the executive order and in some draft legislative proposals. Appendix I compares
the main provisions of the 9/11 Commission's NCTC recommendation with the existing
executive order and some draft legislative proposals on this matter. The TTIC's primary
mission is to fuse, analyze and disseminate terrorism threat intelligence across the U.S.
government. Prior to the publication of the Final Report, the Intelligence Community
was moving to collocate the TTIC with elements of the FBI's Counterterrorism Division,
and components of the Central Intelligence Agency's Counterterrorism Center.
Although the TTIC itself does not have any operational role, the functions and roles of
the as yet un-named new entity, while devoid of a statutory basis, may be approaching
the commission's NCTC concept.
This report, which will be updated, examines a number of issues as Congress
considers codification of an NCTC. One issue is whether the centralization remedy the
commission has recommended fits the problems associated specifically with the 9/11
intelligence failure and, perhaps more broadly, the systemic maladies affecting the
Intelligence Community. While some say centralization is a remedy for lack of
intelligence coordination, particularly across the foreign/domestic divide, others say it
may have an unintended effect of creating a "Groupthink" bias, or an inclination of
groups working under pressure to bolster information which supports the group's
perceived conclusion, while discounting contradictory information. Some believe that
the success of the Goldwater-Nichols DOD Reorganization Act of 1986 in improving
inter-service relationships and in breaking down the individual military services'
"stovepipe" problems makes it a valid model for Intelligence Community reform.
Others note that Goldwater-Nichols applied to one cabinet department sharing the
specialized military culture and with the military's unique mission of war-fighting. They
argue that this does not necessarily make it a good model for a broad range of separate
civilian and military agencies trying to improve analysis and operation. There may be
no ideal model for Intelligence Community reform. The "joint operational planning"
role recommended for an NCTC may be worthy of debate, as it is open to interpretation.
There are at least four options for congressional consideration: (1) NCTC with
intelligence and operational planning duties, (2) NCTC restricted to an intelligence role,
(3) NCTC restricted to an operational planning role, and (4) status quo plus - viewing
the newly forming collocated entity as a pilot program for a potential NCTC.
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Masse, Todd. The 9/11 Commission and a National Counterterrorism Center: Issues and Options for Congress, report, October 22, 2004; Washington D.C.. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc822062/m1/2/: accessed May 22, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.