For decades, countless leaders have stated that a government’s primary duty is to protect its citizens, yet the 11th of September, 2001, demonstrated that this can fail: intelligence was available, but no one pieced the connections together, reports the BBC.
The attack on the Twin Towers shaped security, intelligence, and foreign policy for decades to come. On the 11th of September, 2001, as Al-Qaeda suicide pilots crashed into the World Trade Center skyscrapers, BBC journalist Frank Gardner had just finished a stint at the broadcaster’s Middle East bureau. While driving the journalist to Tel Aviv airport, a Palestinian taxi driver suddenly turned up the radio volume and said that something massive had happened in the US. The driver was not exaggerating—2,977 people lost their lives that day.
The attacks did not come out of the blue. The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had known for years about Al-Qaeda and the activities of its leader, Osama bin Laden. The CIA had even established a task force to capture bin Laden. Nine days after the attacks, then-US President George Bush declared a war on terror. The subsequent 25 years brought both significant successes and major failures in the field of intelligence on both sides of the Atlantic. Successes included the thwarting of terrorist plots and the arrest of criminals. What was the broader picture? How have intelligence, counter-terrorism operations, and strategic planning evolved over these 25 years?
No one disputes that the 9/11 attacks represented a serious intelligence failure.
At the time, both the CIA and the Federal Bureau of Investigation possessed information that—had it been properly shared between the agencies—could have prevented the terrorist attack. The subsequent report attributed the failure to shortcomings in imagination, policy, capabilities, and management within the US government. It concluded that the CIA and FBI failed to adequately assess and share intelligence, and to take the necessary steps to thwart the attack.
The major lessons have been learned—albeit not entirely—and information sharing among Western intelligence agencies has become far more comprehensive than it was in 2001. Since the 9/11 attacks, a comprehensive reorganization of US intelligence agencies has taken place, and the National Counterterrorism Center and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence have been established near Washington to facilitate the flow of necessary information among the 18 American intelligence agencies. The relationship between the CIA and Britain’s MI6 is arguably the closest of its kind in the world. This is complemented by the Five Eyes alliance, which coordinates the exchange of intelligence information among the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand.
However, catastrophic failures have occurred even after the Twin Towers terrorist attack. Prior to the US-led invasion of Iraq, MI6 allowed the intelligence in its possession to become politicized; this dealt the greatest blow to the British service’s reputation since the exposure of Soviet double agents in the 1950s and 1960s.
Facing immense political pressure to find evidence that Iraq—under Saddam Hussein—still possessed weapons of mass destruction,
MI6 passed flawed intelligence to the government of then-Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Iraq had previously possessed weapons of mass destruction, but these had been eliminated following the 1991 Persian Gulf War. After the 2003 invasion of Iraq, MI6 completely overhauled its procedures for evaluating intelligence obtained from field agents. There is now a clear separation between the work of active field agents (who gather information in places like North Korea or Iran, or from within terrorist groups) and the intelligence assessment team. The assessment team verifies the data and often requests additional information before drawing conclusions. General Richard Shirreff, who commanded a division in Iraq, stated that the 2003 invasion was based on flawed intelligence. He asked whether lessons had been learned from this, answered “no” himself, and remarked that “learning is not our strong suit.”
The invasion of Iraq prompted further inquiries, which eventually resulted in the Butler Report. It concluded that British intelligence regarding Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction was deeply flawed and relied on unverified sources.
MI5, too, has made mistakes amidst its numerous successes.
Lord Jonathan Evans, who led the service from 2007 to 2013, noted that following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the assessment was that Al-Qaeda—along with associated individuals and groups—posed the greatest security threat to Britain. However, with a database of 20,000 subjects of interest and numerous simultaneous investigations, MI5 did not always set its priorities correctly. In 2005, the service failed to prevent the terrorist attack carried out by suicide bombers in London, which claimed 52 lives. MI5 was aware of Mohammad Sidique Khan, the group’s leader, but did not know what he was planning to do. A similar error led to the Manchester Arena bombings in 2017.
Lord Evans noted that while the terrorist threat has not disappeared, the landscape has changed. Threats to national security—in various forms—emanate from Russia, Iran and its allied groups, and China.
One could argue that US President Donald Trump’s decision to launch attacks on Iran alongside Israel was also an intelligence failure. All US allies in the Persian Gulf region were aware of the possibility that Iran might close the Strait of Hormuz. The warning signs were clearly visible, yet Trump lacked a contingency plan when Tehran did exactly what had been predicted.
The immediate aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks was marked by the fear that a similar event might occur again.
Al-Qaeda had even threatened a swarm of planes carrying out attacks on buildings. In their haste to prevent a recurrence of such attacks, the US and its allies committed numerous human rights violations. Suspects were captured in Afghanistan and Pakistan, often based on flimsy evidence. Hundreds of individuals were transported to the Guantanamo base, where they were imprisoned without trial and subjected to torture. Human rights groups have described this as a moral stain on the US conscience. Scandals also emerged regarding the cruel treatment of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although some of the individuals involved were held accountable, critics have pointed out that high-ranking figures escaped punishment. The US continues to practice detention without trial at the Guantanamo base. Human rights violations also occurred in Great Britain following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. MI6 was involved in the 2004 abduction of Libyan Islamist Abdelhakim Belhaj and his wife in Thailand, and their subsequent rendition to Libya. There, they spent years in prison, where they were subjected to torture. The case later came to light, and in 2018, Great Britain issued a public apology.
Sir Alex Younger, who headed MI6 from 2014 to 2020, stated shortly after leaving office that by focusing on counter-terrorism operations, the British had overlooked China’s emergence as a military power and a strategic challenge.
In 2016, General Shirreff published the political thriller War With Russia, in which he predicted a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. In the wake of the 9/11 attacks,
Western nations were preoccupied with the War on Terror
—fighting the Taliban and ISIS, and attempting to stabilize the situation in Iraq—while failing to notice Russia and China developing massive armament programs featuring innovations in hypersonic missile technology. The military successes of both superpowers have significantly eroded the military superiority NATO once enjoyed. Like Iran, Russia, and North Korea, China is considered a challenging target for intelligence gathering. While the use of biometric data was still in its infancy in 2001, technological advancements have since made it much harder for agents to infiltrate China.
Alongside Russia, China is one of MI6’s primary targets. Sam Olsen, a senior analyst at the security intelligence firm Sibylline, noted that while Western intelligence agencies possess a great deal of information about China, the threat lies in the fact that they often see only isolated fragments without fully grasping how they fit together. China’s strength no longer resides solely in missiles, ships, and troops; it increasingly lies in semiconductors, critical minerals, batteries, ports, communication systems, and industrial capacity. Olsen emphasized that the challenge often lies not in gathering intelligence, but in interpreting it strategically.
Twenty-five years ago, US intelligence personnel held the pieces of the puzzle but failed to assemble them and clearly see what lay ahead. Ultimately, intelligence gathering is pointless if the information cannot be utilized for strategic purposes.
Read also: US urges NATO allies to leave ICC