Learning from mistakes determines the future

Yoichi Funabashi, The Asahi Shimbun, Tokyo

This month marks the third anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States. Americans who underwent a direct attack on their homeland for the first time since Pearl Harbor have yet to recover from the shock.

Given the situation, it is natural that foreign policy and security, rarely a topic of debate in presidential elections since the Vietnam War, are high on the agenda this year. In the last three years, U.S. expenditure on national security grew by 50 percent. The last time the U.S. security budget had such a sharp rise in such a short period was during the Korean War.

Why couldn't the Sept. 11 attacks be prevented? What lessons must we draw from it?

The 9/11 Commission Report recently published by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, an independent bipartisan panel of intellectuals chaired by Thomas Kean and commissioned by Congress, tries to squarely answer these questions.

The report gives a detailed analysis about the lack of coordination between intelligence officials of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency who missed opportunities to thwart the planned attacks on 10 occasions.

The report recommends a new post -- "national intelligence director" -- be established to supervise intelligence organizations under a unified command.

The report is based on the acute awareness that "the government failed to protect the people," as Kean put it. It points out that the attacks revealed four kinds of failure: imagination, policy, capabilities and management.

On imagination, it is virtually impossible for bureaucrats who are preoccupied with "routine" affairs and orders to follow to imagine terrorist plans to hijack American commercial aircraft and use them as weapons. How about routinizing and institutionalizing imagination? The report suggests creating a "red team" of mock terrorists to study attacks on the United States as one possible way to understand and analyze what drives enemies.

The lack of imagination also comes from U.S. apathy to foreign cultures and history. In 2002, only six students enrolled at American universities got credits in Arabic. The report makes reference to "cultural asymmetry" arising from U.S. indifference to the world and delusions the world has harbored toward the United States since the 1990s when it emerged as the only superpower.

"To us, Afghanistan seemed very far away. To members of al- Qaeda, America seemed very close. In a sense, they were more globalized than we were," the report reads.

On the failure of management: Factionalism among government branches, human and bureaucratic walls blocking the sharing of information and organizational mechanisms stood in the way. In short, "there are no punishments for not sharing information." In order to break those walls, the report suggests the introduction of a "national intelligence director."

But I am not sure if this is a good idea. If such a post were created, the director could come to hold greater power than the president. I don't think such a system would help the nation counter terrorism more effectively. Just as excessive defense is no good, so are excessive mechanisms. The idea appears to reflect U.S. anxiety from a different angle. Properly speaking, it is the job of the White House to unify and command intelligence. That's what the National Security Council is for.

Each case offers tips for Japan to strengthen its foreign policy, defense and intelligence, all of which need to undergo reform. But reform is often mistaken for reorganization of the bureaucratic system. People are more important that systems. In other words, what is being questioned is the management ability of leaders to effectively train people and put systems to good use.

The commission went through some 2.5 million pages of official documents, interviewed 1,200 people from 10 countries and summoned 160 people, including the president and vice president, to testify in public hearings.

From the viewpoint of accuracy to recreate situations and its readability, the report is an excellent example of investigative journalism worthy of a Pulitzer Prize. The commission took the time and trouble to delve into the truth and published its findings to the public. Despite the countless problems the United States now faces, the report shows the strength of its documentation, or democracy. By contrast, if an incident similar to the Sept. 11 attacks were to hit Japan, would the Japanese public have access to such a report? The U.S. commission showed not only the significance of facts but also its ability to gather information. Congress displayed its competence to dig for the truth. And more than anything else, the United States showed its accountability to the people.

Throughout the Japan-China War, the Pacific War, Japan's defeat in the economic war of the 1990s and the North Korean abduction case, the Japanese government and the Diet failed to take the initiative to clarify the truth. They failed to produce a single report from which the nation could learn from.

Reading the report, I am once again overcome with anguish at this realization. Some countries learn from mistakes while others don't. That difference is probably what decides the rise and fall of countries.