UNCLASSIFIED

Event: Professor Bard O'Neill, National War College

Type of Event: Interview

Date: September 3, 2003

Special Access Issues: None

Prepared by: Lorry Fenner

Team Number: 2

Location: National Defense University SCIF

Participants - non-Commission: Professor Bard O'Neill; a representative of the

Department of Defense (DoD)

Participants - Commission: Col. Lorry Fenner, Gordon Lederman

(U) BACKGROUND.

(U) Professor O'Neill is currently a Professor of National Security Strategy and Director
of the Study of Insurgency and Counterterrorism as well as a Middle East expert at the
National War College (NWC). He served 21 years in the Air Force as a Plans and
Intelligence Officer (including in Vietnam) and Academic Instructor (Political Science)
as well as a missile officer. He teaches and speaks to government, intelligence, and
academic groups on terrorism and UBL and al Qa'ida.

(U) THE FRAMEWORK FOR ANALYSING INSURGENCYATERRORISM.

(U) Professor O'Neill has been devising and refining this framework for 30 years and
applying it to terrorism cases for approximately fifteen years. He4 has also been studying
and teaching about the Middle East and Islam for over thirty years and has applied the
Framework to specific Middle Eastern and Islamic terrorist groups.

(U) With the Framework he and his students devised the 10 Principles of
Counterterrorism. He also applied it to al Qa'ida before 9/11. He and his students
devised a "National Strategy" against UBL in the year 2000. His frustration has been in
the lack of government focus, commitment and will against this target.

(U) FBIS/OSINT

(U) This is Professor O'Neill's primary source for his analytical and academic work. He
had high praise for FBIS. He uses it 7 days a week (for 30 years). It is his most
important source (LtGen Ervin Rokke, former head of DIA and former President of
NDU, once agreed with him that it is the most important source).

UNCLASSIFIED
 UNCLASSIFIED

He only critiques FBIS on technicalities. Their new portal is too slow. What takes him
45 minutes with the old system takes him 3 hours with the new. He has passed on this
critique to them. He assesses the FBIS product as excellent especially in its broad range.
He looks at it every morning and every evening - first Middle East, next Terrorism, and
next leads as to SE Asia, etc.. He has one concern that the Saudi portions are from
already translated sources. He wants to know what the Saudis say in Arabic. He
suggests that we ask whether they have had to pull linguists to other areas. This is
important to winning the public information campaign. One item he sends to faculty and
students is fatwas. Bin Laden's are pretty clear. That is a high priority for him. He
advised us to ask those who criticize FBIS if they really read it and if they read it every
day,. He believes one must really follow it not just pulse it from time to time. That's a
commitment an analyst needs to make.

(U) He has not been surveyed by FBIS as a customer except when they were
implementing their new technologies as mentioned above. He does routinely give them
feedback.

(U) TRADECRAFT FOR COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS/METHODOLOGY FOR

CT?

(U) Newsweek and FBIS are reporting something big is going to happen (UBL had a
terrorist conference) and it's probably bio and will be spectacular. We are only getting
general information but it's very similar to that before 9/11. Analysts must put together
with classified sources (although we've degraded HUMINT in his view). They lack
imagination (Einstein said it was more important than knowledge).

(U) Before 9/11 he gave a talk on Homeland Security to government employees. There
was no one from FBI or DoJ. We replicate stovepipes and now DHS has inherited the
stovepipes intact.

(U) He and Randy Larsen (ANSER) asked an FBI/CIA crowd if they had a red team
effort. FBI said they knew they needed one but didn't have enough people. CIA had a
new one. So we had no imaginative "dot connectors".

(U) Sharing information is essential too but it takes a cultural change. Culture change
needs to happen on top of structural change (DHS). CIA and CTC people have told him
things have changed in sharing but not enough and there is some backsliding. CTC
people right after 9/11 were unfettered by their supervisors. Now the supervisors are
looking over shoulders more with a chilling effect.

(U) There must be incentives and disincentives for behaviors. That's the only way to
change a culture of hoarding information. People must "pay a price" for lack of
cooperation, but we find that they still get promoted. People must be rewarded for
sharing information. We must tackle culture change now and fast. He encourages
students rather than writing a report on cultural obstacles to better performance to write a
paper on how to change the culture. None has done so.

UNCLASSIFIED
 UNCLASSIFIED

(U) He does not discount that there are some real security issues around sharing
information (sources and methods), but we must find the happy medium in the FBI for
instance between keeping information secure for legal case issues and guarding for career
purposes.

(U) In April 2001, before 9/11, Coffer Black (head of CTC) told a class in the NWC
SCIF, that something big was coming, and that it very likely could be in the US. He said
he had his resignation already signed in his drawer and ready to pull out when it
happened and he would get blamed. The mid-level of the FBI also had grave concerns
before 9/11. But there was a lack of specifics. Still they new that there was an imminent
threat. Clarke (NSC) thought so and he was right.

(U) Even after WTC '83 when he briefed people about terrorists and the CBRN danger
people would go "yadda, yadda, yadda" and "glaze over". He believes it was very clear
before 9-11 and is very clear now - from FBIS, from the "Caves" (info we recovered
from Afghanistan and KSM), and the press that UBL is planning "unbelievable" and
apocalyptic things. UBL has mentioned 6 nukes in 6 cities simultaneously. It won't be
that but it will probably be bio.

(U) The purpose of terrorism is to instill fear. Intel is rightly concerned with WMD, and
therefore discount that the terrorist have the capability. Because most WMD use is hard
and complicated, but they can do something much less and still reach the "fear" goal. It
can be selective rather than "mass" which reduces the technological problems for the
terrorists.

(U) He considers CBRN as "threshold" weapons because of their psychological effects -

vs. high explosives.

(U) He thinks we should all define out terms up front. We need operational definitions.
He thinks we can reach an internationally accepted definition of terrorism. It differs from
guerrilla warfare.

(U) KEY QUESTIONS FOR THE 1C AND METHODOLOGIES?

(U) We need to ask the right/comprehensive questions. What do we know? What do we

not know? Intel feedback loop - let's collect that information. The Framework provides
the questions to ask.

(U) In formulating a govt response to insurgency/terrorism the first question is - what do

we know about "x"? What is the group(s)'s ultimate goal, intermediate, short-term? Do
they have internal differences (can we exploit those?)? What forms of warfare are they
using/more than one (conventional, guerrilla, terrorism) (what will be the military's
role?)?

(U) He can provide us with a course syllabus.

UNCLASSIFIED
 UNCLASSIFIED

(U) What strategy are they using (which tools - pol, mil, soc, eco, information, etc.)? al
Qa'ida uses diplomacy, publicists, money, etc. (lots of non-violent tools). Does UBL
have a "National Strategy"? Does he have a Mao like strategy that he has either copied
or came to independently? What is UBL's foundational thinking - which strategists or
political theorists has he read? For our govt response we need a systematic scheme using
all our tools and resources -just as we assume now he has. We should also ask questions
about his operating environment - physical and human. He doesn't have to have a
majority - it's better for him if the majority is apathetic. How do they get popular
support - esoteric appeals? Is ideology important? Exoteric appeals - what are the
population's material grievances? If they use terrorism, they may be hoping for
overreaction by the government, they may just want to demonstrate potency, they may
want to build momentum with small victories, some use coercion.

(U) Should we target their resources?

(U) How are they organized - small cell? Centralized? A hybrid with both? Al Qa'ida
is a hybrid.

(U) Where do they get external support - how, why, what, from whom? Moral, political,
monetary, sanctuary?

(U) The bottom line is we ask a systematic set of questions about terrorism/insurgency
and then to run counterterrorism/counterinsurgency the government response should be
based on another set of systematic questions and planning so that we have a
comprehensive, systematic scheme for analysis and response which must be interagency.
Prof O'Neill's understanding is that Counterterrorism and Counterinsurgency (CTC and
Nontraditional/Transnational Issues - DI) are separate in the CIA and shouldn't be.

(U) Education and Training

(U) The Presidential Commission on Protection of Critical Infrastructure addressed

Homeland Security and emphasized the criticality of education and training at all levels
using a broad approach. Professor O'Neill thinks one needs to combine discussion,
symposia and classroom instruction. And we have to have education in changing
bureaucratic cultures. Education is one way to change cultures. When he spoke to Ike
Skelton he suggested that we now need to go beyond Goldwater-Nichols Jointness to true
Interagency and Skelton wanted to copyright that as "Jointness-plus". The problem at the
National War College is that it's JCS funded and focused on things you can respond to
with planes and tanks and ships. He thinks it should be renamed the national Security
College and go beyond Professional Military Education to National Security Education.
They need an FBI, DoJ, and HHS person on faculty and more civilian agency and even
private/commercial students as well as state and local people. But the students have to be
those who will be involved in national security. He briefed groups in Texas - mostly state
and local law enforcement. They said they could provide great local intelligence to the
federal level if they knew what we needed - "the National Guard is not good enough."

UNCLASSIFIED
 UNCLASSIFIED

(U) APPLICATION OF THE FRAMEWORK TO TRANSNATIONAL

(U) A French analyst has applied it to Eurolslam proposing that it has a "transnational"
goal.

(U) UBL has a strategy for protracted warfare/insurgency and is flexible. His goal is to
"destroy our economy" - he wants to bleed us. He wants to Islamicize the world. He
knows he wants to go after our "joints" - like the Post story on the GeoMason Univ PhD
student who is studying the critical nodes.

(U) He teaches for CIA-DIA a military analyst course (IMAC) that uses the Framework
and Case studies. They at first reject the Farnmework as a Cold War paradigm. He can
show them it's not by using it to anaylse Iraq, UBL and al Qa'ida.

(U) WAS 9/11 AN INTELLIGENCE FAILURE?

(U) Yes. A failure of imagination. Brain storming is closed off. We block channels in
the field from those who were willing to be different - inside organizations and we don't
share information (fusion). SA O'Neal in NYC, Minneapolis SA, Phoenix were all
squelched. We are also not allowed to associate with unsavory sorts (which is what
O'Neal did and why the Bureau got rid of him. He didn't fit.

(U) And we don't have a good red team effort.

(U) Some had speculated about airliners as weapons. It's why Israel shot down the
Libyan jet liner.

(U) We need cultural change.

(U) We need leadership to focus (National Interest) and promote coordination and
cooperation. And the leaders must be knowledgeable and open-minded so they will listen
to people like Clarke - who was warning.

(U) We don't have to have the specifics right away. If analysts could have identified
even general trends, it should spawn the next level of questions to give to collectors (and
integrate state/local and international). We need the feedback loop and then policy
response.

(U) THE GOALS OF THE 9/11 COMMISSION.

(U) Impart these complex ideas at different levels.

(U) For the bureaucracy you need something short. Give the analysts a page and a half of
essential questions to address.

UNCLASSIFIED
 UNCLASSIFIED

(U) For teaching/pedagogical level you need to do case studies at schools. You teach the
framework and then have them work in groups of 2-3 to actually apply it themselves.
Then they feedback to the framework to improve it and the questions. Lectures are
worst. J34 had a CT executive seminar for 2 weeks where they had days filled with
lectures and then a short wargame - that is not effective teaching.

UNCLASSIFIED