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mation over newfangled electronic systems, like email, to other agencies of the
U.S. government.
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Security concerns also increased the difficulty of recruiting officers quali-
fied for counterterrorism.Very few American colleges or universities offered
programs in Middle Eastern languages or Islamic studies.The total number of
undergraduate degrees granted in Arabic in all U.S. colleges and universities in
2002 was six.
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Many who had traveled much outside the United States could
expect a very long wait for initial clearance.Anyone who was foreign-born or
had numerous relatives abroad was well-advised not even to apply.With budg-
ets for the CIA shrinking after the end of the Cold War, it was not surprising
that, with some notable exceptions, new hires in the Clandestine Service
tended to have qualifications similar to those of serving officers: that is, they
were suited for traditional agent recruitment or for exploiting liaison relation-
ships with foreign services but were not equipped to seek or use assets inside
the terrorist network.
Early Counterterrorism Efforts
In the 1970s and 1980s, terrorism had been tied to regional conflicts, mainly
in the Middle East.The majority of terrorist groups either were sponsored by
governments or, like the Palestine Liberation Organization, were militants try-
ing to create governments.
In the mid-1980s, on the basis of a report from a task force headed by Vice
President George Bush and after terrorist attacks at airports in Rome and
Athens, the DCI created a Counterterrorist Center to unify activities across the
Directorate of Operations and the Directorate of Intelligence.The Countert-
errorist Center had representation from the FBI and other agencies. In the for-
mal table of organization it reported to the DCI, but in fact most of the Center's
chiefs belonged to the Clandestine Service and usually looked for guidance to
the head of the Directorate of Operations.
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The Center stimulated and coordinated collection of information by CIA
stations, compiled the results, and passed selected reports to appropriate stations,
the Directorate of Intelligence analysts, other parts of the intelligence commu-
nity, or to policymakers.The Center protected its bureaucratic turf.The Direc-
tor of Central Intelligence had once had a national intelligence officer for
terrorism to coordinate analysis; that office was abolished in the late 1980s and
its duties absorbed in part by the Counterterrorist Center. Though analysts
assigned to the Center produced a large number of papers, the focus was sup-
port to operations.A CIA inspector general's report in 1994 criticized the Cen-
ter's capacity to provide warning of terrorist attacks.
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Subsequent chapters will raise the issue of whether, despite tremendous tal-
ent, energy, and dedication, the intelligence community failed to do enough in
coping with the challenge from Bin Ladin and al Qaeda. Confronted with such
questions, managers in the intelligence community often responded that they
had meager resources with which to work.
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