TERRORISM BATTLE LIKE DRUG WAR ALL OVER AGAIN

Four years ago, a small but dedicated cadre of military intelligence
officers working in Southern California on domestic counterdrug support to
law enforcement took the initiative by shifting the thinking on how we saw
this "threat." Through analyzing the nature of this drug threat, it was
clear that our traditional methods of intelligence research and analysis
were inadequate to effectively target and defeat these transnational
clandestine organizations.These fundamentally criminal organizations
represented a new class of stateless enemies, much like the terrorist
enemies we face now. Drug cartels and terrorist networks have strong
similarities in how they work financially, logistically and managerially.In
the war against drugs, we engaged in a spectrum of warfare against a
clandestine and transnational foe just like the one that launched the wave
of terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Both
require a joint military and law enforcement approach.

Our nation's military involvement with "combating" transnational criminal
organizations began with the "War on Drugs" in the 1980s, but this role
became fully entrenched in the early 1990s.America and Congress mistakenly
thought the military was developing an ability to effectively combat this
new threat, and as with Vietnam before Tet, the Office of National Drug
Control Policy and the military dutifully reported victory after victory,
assuring all that we were winning the war. By the late 1990s, it was
apparent that the military's role in the drug war was actually an
incredibly expensive but lukewarm effort at best.Instead of learning
valuable lessons and developing important capabilities from our
experiences, we allowed "drug money" to corrupt the military and government
agencies from within.

We allowed senior leadership to pervert this money into simply justifying
expenditures for helicopter squadrons, engineer companies, and other
infrastructure to maintain its current size and configuration, and
hopefully grow even bigger.

In 1997, a plan was developed with the cooperation of multi-jurisdictional
law enforcement in Southern California to build a unique intelligence
research and analysis capability that could effectively tackle the
operational complexities and covert financial infrastructures of the
transnational criminal organizations that traffic in illegal drugs.This was
done with the explicit intent of someday applying this approach to
combating terrorism.It was a unique blend of some of the best practices of
military and national security intelligence, investigative intelligence,
competitive or business intelligence, international finance and trade,
mergers and acquisition due diligence, and fraud examination.It would have
built a cadre of highly trained intelligence analysts, military and
civilian law enforcement, with a toolbox of tailored analytical methods and
sources focused on this threat.

Before we could fully implement it, it was shot down from within.It didn't
buy more tanks, planes or "rotor hours," nor justify more troop units. It
became a lost opportunity with tragic consequences.Many within the
intelligence field fully understood the nature of this new threat, and
understood that the horrors of Sept. 11 were a very real possibility.

However, like outdated medieval knights struggling to maintain dominance in
a new world of conflict filled with mercenaries using muskets and cannons,
many in our top military leadership have been fighting a holding action
against adapting the force to truly meet the post-industrial era threat. It
is easy to attack the intelligence budget, but more difficult to quantify
the value of well-spent intelligence dollars.Those who push investment in
intelligence over investment in new armored vehicles and planes are not
held in high esteem.

Buying military defense systems is almost always seen as good, investing in
intelligence analysts is difficult to understand.Those who have dared to
voice that we are not effectively fighting the threat of today are burned
at the stake as heretics.

We did not use the unique opportunities afforded by the War on Drugs to
prepare for the war on terrorism.We will hear of Sept. 11's attack being
called an "intelligence failure." I differ strongly with the
terminology.While it may have been a failure not to have the intelligence
we needed in time to stop the attack, it was really a failure not to
develop the intelligence research and analysis capability that could have
produced this intelligence in time.

That was not so much the fault of the intelligence community, but more
accurately falls on the shoulders of those commanders and senior officials
who chose not to adapt to this different kind threat.

Instead, they pander to entrenched military and law enforcement "legacies,"
and do not allow us to prepare to combat a new and dangerous foe. Our
military culture has a career imperative that says nothing will happen on
my watch, and if it does it wasn't my fault.

Taking personal responsibility sounds good at West Point, but adroitly
shifting the blame makes modern-day generals.

We will hear some say that the Sept. 11 attack couldn't have been stopped.
Assuredly, this view will come from senior military officers and other top
government officials who didn't fight the fight to prepare for this war,
and who made sure nothing happened on their watch. Nothing did, and America
paid the price on that fateful Tuesday.---

Hal Kempfer is a strategic risk management consultant with extensive
experience in the military and law enforcement intelligence communities.