Sunday Times 2
Failure in security intelligence and preventive action
View(s):Failure in security intelligence is a common feature today, as has been seen in the 9/11 attacks, the January 6, 2021 Capitol Hill assault in the United States, and the 2019 Easter Sunday bomb attacks in Sri Lanka (SL).
In all these incidents, the issue was simply failure in security intelligence, more specifically in the breakdown of action that should have followed available intelligence. Intelligence and action are simply one, the one following the other as day follows night, a commonsense principle of everyday life.
But reasonable though this notion is, it is now become a bloated up high security language. Consequently, that simple idea has currently lost its bearings. The idea has now lost its peal beyond the sound. Security intelligence language has failed to bring intelligence and action together leaving a gaping disconnect between the two. That disjoint in the process bears heavily on the incidents of security failures, noted above. Since the run of these arguments has run into problems with some readers, a bare summary is offered at the outset of the incidents for discussion.
The 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon: Grassroots level intelligence was conveyed to the local authorities, but it was not taken up for action at higher levels. That intelligence failure was recognised only after later investigation.
The January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol: Intelligence, information and public knowledge were available but preventive action was not as it might have been.
The Easter Sunday bomb attacks in 2019: There was intelligence and action failure. Action failed or was hesitant despite the weight of the intelligence/information available.
These items listed bear heavily on the issue of failure of action following intelligence.
Easter attacks
The Sunday Times columnist Javid Yusuf wrote last week: “All the evidence in relation to the Easter attacks shows there was sufficient intelligence of the impending attacks but it was the law enforcement agencies which failed to act on such intelligence”.
This statement is cited in full since it contains with pointed accuracy the essence of the problem. This statement of Yusuf in fact spurred this article. His account of the instance was clear and precise. All other pronouncements since made at the instituted Commissions of Inquiry and elsewhere were of a dispersed nature. Plainly there was clutter in them about those advising, those coordinators, the policy makers, of security council members and a host of others than those for law enforcement. In the ensuing confusion the recommendations of the powers-that-be was in respect of those others than squarely on the law enforcement agencies. Issues were thereby simply befuddled in the end.
This had the further sequel that responsibility for action was diffused. The failure was then in respect of law enforcement on available intelligence, now attributed to many others. Such is even in violation of the law of conspiracy and courts. Much of the recommendations of the various commissions of inquiry cover beyond the limits of obiter dicta.
9/11 attack
Based on the investigations which followed the incident, it transpired that intelligence of some form had been conveyed to the local authorities at the local level, but these snippets did not penetrate through the many constitutional and organisational layers of the security arrangement in the US. One instance was of a person informing the local police of a suspicious neighbour. This was confirmed only months later after investigation.
January 6 attack
The general story of this is well known. But a media interview of some of the besieged police officers drew attention only to their psychological problems and much else than on the issue of action or want of action on the ample intelligence available. This avoidance of the central issue may have been for diplomatic and prudent reasons. Whatever that may be, the riveting issue of intelligence and action was not discussed. For instance, the Capitol may have been barricaded to prevent unauthorised and undesirable admittance that may have changed the course of history.
Conclusion
The resulting position now makes it clear that security activities cannot afford the luxury of a semantic exercise of word interplay between intelligence and action. The two are one. Rather unfortunately, however, this two-in-one is split up in some sort of constitutional terms as in the US or in some form of non-managerial separation of the agencies related to this task as in Sri Lanka. Details of this breakdown are given, albeit briefly, in the above account. In fact, commonsense and commonplace reality has been torn apart in security literature.
In the process, responsibility is often passed on from one to the other. The objective has got lost. It bears repetition: law enforcement of the law of conspiracy, of aiding and abetment, of the mens rea and actus reus inherent in criminal law enforcement.
To put this even more simply it is necessary to note the President, the Prime Minister and/or other political authorities together with other officers outside enforcement of the law, had not the mens rea and the actus reus offending the law. These others are liable otherwise, perhaps, politically.
(The writer is a Retired Senior Superintendent of Police. He can be contacted at seneviratnetz@gmail.com)