In February 2002, the two congressional intelligence committees launched a Joint Inquiry intothe terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 that destroyed the World Trade Center and a portion ofthe Pentagon. In a press release committee leaders announced that "Among the purposes of this jointeffort is ascertaining why the Intelligence Community did not learn of the September 11th attacks inadvance, and to identify what, if anything, might be done to better the position [of] the IntelligenceCommunity to warn of and prevent future terrorist attacks and other threats of the 21st Century." (1) After months of assembling data and taking testimony, public hearings began on September18, 2002 that included extended presentations of the staff findings and conclusions thus far reached bythe staff. The series of hearings concluded on October 17 with testimony by the Director of CentralIntelligence (DCI) and the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). It is expected thata final report will be prepared for release in early 2003. As the Joint Inquiry completes it work and committee members draft their final report, onNovember 27, 2002 Congress passed the FY2003 Intelligence Authorization Act which establishes an independent commission with a charter to conduct a wide-ranging investigation and assessmentof the events surrounding the 9/11 attacks. The commission, which will be headed by former NewJersey Governor Thomas H. Kean (appointed by President Bush on December 16, 2002 after theinitial appointee, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, withdrew), (2) is intended to take theevidence and findings produced by the Joint Inquiry into consideration as it undertakes its workwhich is planned to take some 18 months. The commission is expected to make recommendationsconcerning organizational and statutory changes to enhance the ability of the entire government toprevent future terrorist attacks. In the immediate aftermath of September 11, 2001, there was widespread support for aninvestigation of the performance of relevant agencies would be necessary following, in part, theprecedent of the congressional investigation of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. (3) TheAdministration indicated some concern at the time that a wide-ranging investigation could makeheavy demands on senior policymakers at a time of crisis (similar arguments had been made duringWorld War II and the major congressional inquiry of Pearl Harbor did not begin until after hostilitiesended in 1945). Nevertheless, public anxieties about a possible "intelligence failure" led to theconclusion that an official investigation was needed. The House voted to establish an independent commission to investigate the attacks during consideration of the FY2002 Intelligence Authorization bill ( H.R. 2883 ), but theprovision was dropped by the conference committee because some Members preferred that Congressconduct its own investigation with a mandate focused primarily on the role of intelligence and lawenforcement agencies. In February 2002, the two intelligence committees initiated a Joint Inquirywith a staff separate from that of the existing intelligence committees. Difficulties over staffassignments complicated the Inquiry's early months. The first staff director, L. Britt Snider, a formergeneral counsel of the Senate Intelligence Committee and inspector general of the CentralIntelligence Agency (CIA), resigned in April 2002 as a result of concerns about some of his staffappointments. It was some weeks later that Eleanor Hill, a former inspector general of the DefenseDepartment, took over as staff director. Public hearings, originally anticipated in May, werepostponed several times and finally began in mid-September. The Joint Inquiry staff has consisted of twenty-four professionals with backgrounds in intelligence collection, analysis, management, law enforcement, investigations and oversight. Thestaff was divided into five investigative teams to investigate different aspects of the question. Theteams are assigned to CIA, the FBI, and the National Security Agency (NSA). In addition,documents were collected and interviews conducted at other federal agencies, including the Treasury,Defense, State, Justice, Transportation, and Energy Departments as well as some private sectorindividuals and organizations. Ms. Hill indicated that the staff has reviewed over 400,000 pages ofdocuments, identified over 66,000 pages for the Inquiry's central records, and documented some 400interviews and technical discussions. (4) The hearings have also revealed some disagreements about Joint Inquiry procedures. Some Members have expressed concern about making public an interim report that had not been approvedby the committees. (5) Complaints have surfaced thatintelligence agencies have at times beenuncooperative in providing information to committee staff. On the other hand, great offense wastaken when a briefing book prepared by Inquiry staff for committee members to use on September26 suggested that a CIA official might "dissemble" in regard to a certain line of questioning. SomeMembers opposed the holding of public hearings prior to the completion of the investigation andthere have been reports of communications breakdowns within the committee. (6) Nevertheless, the September-October 2002 public hearings and the public statements of Ms. Hill have provided insights into the directions taken by the Joint Inquiry staff as well as the staffconclusions that the two committees may draw from the investigation as they prepare their report. Public hearings included testimony by representatives of victims' families, by law enforcement andintelligence officials involved in the counterterrorism efforts, by outside experts on the intelligenceand law enforcement communities, and by current and former senior officials from the NationalSecurity Council (NSC) and the intelligence and law enforcement communities. Eleanor Hill, in her initial public statement before the Joint Inquiry on September 18,emphasized: ... the Intelligence Community did have general indications of a possible terrorist attack against the United States or U.S. interests overseas in thespring and summer of 2001 and promulgated strategic warnings. However, it does not appear to datethat the Intelligence Community had information prior to September 11 that identified preciselywhere, when and how the attacks were to be carried out. (7) Ms. Hill traced the history of the Intelligence Community's concern with the international terrorist threat back into the 1980s and its focus on Al Qaeda from the early 1990s. ACounterterrorist Center (CTC) had been established at the CIA in 1986 consisting of personnel fromvarious intelligence agencies and the FBI. By mid-2001 it consisted of some 400 personnel; aspecial unit within the CTC to monitor Osama bin Laden had been created in 1996. Ms. Hill tracedthe response of agencies to the series of terrorist attacks, including the one on the New York WorldTrade Center in February 1993, an unsuccessful plot to bomb New York City tunnels, the 1996Khobar Towers bombing, a plot to kill the Pope in Manila and blow up 12 U.S.-owned airliners overthe Pacific Ocean, a plan to attack the Los Angeles Airport in December 1999, the August 1998bombings of two U.S. Embassies in Africa, and the attack on the USS Cole in October2000. Despiteextensive casualties and property damage that have been inflicted by Al Qaeda, she noted thateffective intelligence and law enforcement work by U.S. agencies, in cooperation with foreigncountries, disrupted other planned attacks that would have been very costly. Ms. Hill surveyed the response of government agencies to terrorist attacks prior to 2001 and noted that they represented a threat much different from those that existed during the Cold War. Bythe mid-1990s, however, a National Intelligence Estimate called attention to a "new breed" ofterrorists who had no state sponsor, was loosely organized, had an Islamic agenda, and a "penchantfor violence." (8) By1996 attention had focused onOsama bin Laden and Al Qaeda operating out ofAfghanistan. Ms. Hill discussed the increasing focus of intelligence and law enforcement agencieson terrorism and the augmentation and creation of special units to track them, cooperative effortswith foreign governments to suppress terrorist groups and to arrest individuals involved in terrorism,the development of new legal strategies, and the expansion of the FBI presence overseas. Ms. Hill noted that intelligence agencies issued growing warnings of attacks in the spring and summer of 2001 although she acknowledged that it was the "general view" of intelligence officialsthat an attack was more likely to occur overseas. She cited a briefing prepared for senior governmentofficials in early July 2001: Based on a review of all-source reporting over the last five months, we believe that UBL [Bin Laden] will launch a significant terrorist attack against U.S.and/or Israeli interests in the coming weeks. The attack will be spectacular and designed to inflictmass casualties against U.S. facilities or interests. Attack preparations have been made. Attack willoccur with little or no warning. (9) The Staff Director further suggested that although the Intelligence Community had consistently reported on Al Qaeda activities, a comprehensive listing of terrorist threats to the United States hadnot been prepared, nor was specific attention given to the possibility of using hijacked aircraft toattack U.S. facilities. Despite the threat warnings issued in mid-2001, there was not a comprehensiveeffort to educate the American public. As Ms. Hill indicated in a lengthy statement on September 24, the Inquiry devoted extensive attention to an electronic communication sent in July 2001 from the FBI field office in Phoenix,Arizona, calling for further investigation of individuals with possible ties to foreign terroristorganizations who were attending flight colleges and universities in the U.S. The communication(often referred to as the "Phoenix Memorandum") was forwarded to FBI Headquarters, but did notreceive sustained attention there nor were its recommendations acted upon prior to September 11. The episode reflected a number of administrative, legal, and policy barriers that, taken together, Ms.Hill argued, may have prevented the FBI from perceiving a pattern of planning for a terrorist attackusing commercial aircraft. She concluded: "The FBI handling of the Phoenix EC is symptomaticof a focus on short-term operational priorities, often at the expense of long-term strategic analysis."