Tuesday, April 13, 2004

Determinative Analysis

Help me out, will ya, peoples?  I don’t understand the title of the PDB.  That’s not a peanut-dutter bangwich, you know - it’s the presidental daily briefing.  On August 6 ‘01 the PDB included a nugget entitled ‘Bin Ladin Determined to Strike within the U.S.’ or something like that. 

There is some question whether this document was entirely “historical” in nature, or if it gave reasonable notice of the likelihood of terror attacks on U.S. soil.  However, this ambiguity arises from, and could have been avoided by changing, one single word - one word that rendered this critical piece of security analysis effectively useless. 

“Determined?” Are we saying, this guy is bound and determined to strike at a U.S. target, so even though we don’t know for sure which one it will be, we can expect him to keep trying?  Or are we saying, we have determined that he’ll strike a U.S. target.  In other words, does “determined” mean “intends” or “verified”?  In once case, the threat is vague and openended.  In the other, it is specific and clear. 

I remember an old SNL skit about nuclear reactors where an inspector warns the crew, “you can’t put too much water in the cooling towers.” The crew spends the rest of the night debating whether that means “you shouldn’t put in too much water” or “it’s impossible to put in too much water.” There, the two interpretations would have led to very different responses.  Here, the only response I think we had to the 8/6/01 PDB was to reissue it on 8/7 with some of the more alarming bits removed. 

The ambiguity of the word “determined” falls within a narrow ambit - either interpretation should have driven a reasonable person to take precautions. Needless to say, precautions were not taken.  John Ashcroft turned down an FBI-requested increase in counter-terrorism funding on September 10.  So whether the threat was vauge or specific, we apparently decided not to invest in responding to it.  Mr. Ashcroft, I know you don’t do caffeine, nor do you dance - but you’re going to have to do some pretty fast dancing to explain why we ignored the warning in that PDB.  In the meantime, can anyone tell me what “determined” is determined to determine?