CIA after 911

CIA AFTER 9/11
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Introduction
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is a government intelligence agency developed in 1947 by the 33rd president of the United States of America (USA) under the national security act in response to tensions with the USSR after the Second World War (Jenkins 2016). The agency deploys human intelligence to gather intelligence on foreign lands and report to the United States. The agency operated under the Department of Central Intelligence (DCI) and reported directly to the president until 2004, when the office Director of National Intelligence was established. It meant that intelligence gathered by the agency went through the current director in office before reaching the president (Jenkins 2016). Critical changes in operations are evident in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks in the agency (Mueller et al., 2018). These were in line with the agency being in the frontline of implementation of the foreign policy.
President Bush was the ruling president when the twin towers attack happened in the USA. The famous attack known as 9/11 happened when nineteen Al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four jets and purposely crashed them. Two of the jets crashed in the World Trade Centre twin towers in New York, one in the Pentagon in Virginia and another in a field in Pennsylvania, though it was meant to crash in Washington (Jenkins 2016). These attacks resulted in deaths in the thousands in the United States. Before the killings in the mainland, the American embassies had been attacked in Tanzania and Kenya. The United States government had a task force in place, including the CIA but was not keen on following any attacks on aA-Qaeda or the Taliban. It was not until the 9/11 attacks that the government shifted its focus to the enemy. The president immediately recognized the attacks as acts of terror and launched the war against the enemies of the State. This appropriate response by the USA stakeholders to achieve the president’s agenda.
The USA government quickly shifted its agenda towards defending the country against terrorist attacks. It launched the term “war on terror," implied by the president as the government's efforts to ensure that America was safe (Harries 2018). The government wanted to focus on countries that produced and supplied the terrorists with weapons, identifying Iran, Iraq, and North Korea. Therefore, the United States troops were deployed to these countries and launched an attack on the ruling Taliban and Al-Qaeda (Harries 2018). The main target was their leader Osama Bin Laden.
The government initiative also called for the restructuring of the defense strategies before the attack, which included restructuring the CIA. The responsibilities and the budgeting would also change since the agency was now at the frontline in the terrorism war. After the attack, the CIA saw an increase in applications for employment to the agency (Harries 2018). The number of daily applications alone in the months following the attack was similar to the number they received in weekly applications before the attack.
Counterterrorism
Before the 9/11 attacks, no other agency was focused on foreign threats like the CIA. However, the agency was not keen on the threats it identified. Earlier on in 1996, Osama Bin Laden had declared war against the United States (Bean et al., 2021). The intelligence community has been accused of underestimating the threat, and several authors and newspapers have cited its failure as the reason why 9/11 happened. In its defense, however, the agency claims that there was no way of determining future threats, and it did all it could with the capacity it had.
One of the highlighted mistakes noted was the composition of workers whom the agency employed. The agency profile was that of employment of the best of the best in the country; however, it is worth noting that the composition was mainly white male characters. Bean et al. (2021) argue that this composition was essential in missing the warning signs implied by Osama in his video on the attack on the states. He argues that a different perspective from a diversified community would have pointed out some clues and prevented the attacks. The typical white American came from a privilege and would have easily missed seeing how his religion had influenced Osama in the video. It points out notable pointers like being in a cave, dressing like a prophet, fasting, and the beard key indicators that he was serious. Despite these pointers, the intelligence community has been making strides to be more inclusive and diversified, especially after 9/11, but it is yet to consider the agency as adequately diversified.
Another failure in the intelligence community was total reliance on human intelligence only. It was a weak point noted in how the attack happened. The terrorists were keen to use sophisticated computer programs that allowed for encrypted communication (Jenkins 2016). It was the case in 9/11, whereby the terrorists were in contact throughout the whole attack via emails. In response to this, the agency was keen to improve its surveillance and data collection techniques in the subsequent years.
Another notable failure was a miscommunication between the agencies. The history of the United States depicts independence in intelligence communities. The CIA, which concerned itself with foreign matters, rarely communicated with the federal bureau of investigation (Mueller et al., 2018). The FBI, whose jurisdiction was in homeland security, also rarely consulted with the CIA. One of the significant contributors to the 9/11 attacks as both agencies missed vital pointers that could have been evident if they worked together.
Changes to the Foreign policy
Under the Bush administration, advice to the president on foreign matters was by the vice president, the secretary of states, and the national security advisor. During his tenure, there were fundamental changes in how the United States related with foreign governments. In what is now known as Bush’s doctrine, the united states were to launch preemptive military strikes in the countries identified as the axis of evil (Mueller et al., 2018). The doctrine also saw an increase in foreign aid and defense budget as the president argued that his country was only safe if the other countries were safe. It would see an increase in the budget for the CIA. The administration also signed in the rendition, detention, and interrogation, which the CIA carried out. Like in the Reagan administration, this was used before but was not the primary strategy for how it came to be during the Bush era. It employed collaboration with foreign states whereby prisoners were transferred from one country to another for enhanced interrogation techniques.
Enhanced Interrogation techniques
A study done by (Harries, 2018) noted that in response to the Al-Qaeda 9/11 attack, the CIA got approval to use enhanced interrogation techniques under the Bush administration. The techniques were used on terrorists in undisclosed areas referred to as black sites. These were interpreted as strenuous activities carried out by CIA agents. The CIA would deploy a psychologist who helped them establish ways in which to torture the prisoners. Some of the ways included diet interference, nudity, beating, and binding in contorted ways. The aim was to get information, especially on the leaders of the terror groups or threats aimed at the United States. The authors also note that these allowances also applied to the department of defense at Guantanamo bay detention camp. The existence of such allowances resulted in criticism by the human rights watch. The department of justice issued secret memos in defense of the techniques arguing that they were not torture-based (Harries 2018). However, these allowances were made with president Obama assuming office in 2009 with his declaration of them as strenuous activities. In response to the president's action, the department of justice withdrew the memos, citing them as legally flawed arguments.
Human right abuses
In response to enhanced interrogation techniques, the CIA is guilty of circumventing the law and applying practices that would be deemed illegal, especially under internati...