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Running head: INTERAGENCY COOPERATION

INTERAGENCY COOPERATION

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Running head: INTERAGENCY COOPERATION
The 9/11 threat refers to a series of four well planned and coordinated attacks, targeting

key US landmarks, by an Islamic terror group, believed to be the al-Qaeda led by Osama bin

Laden. The attacks were suicidal in that the terrorists hijacked four US airlines and then

redirected the planes towards the landmarks, claiming a great deal of lives.

As a result, the US government responded strongly by official declaration on war on

terrorism. Terrorism is a global issue and well co-ordinated as the terror groups never work in

isolation but are networked together and one supports another. Therefore an attack on one terror

group causes the other ones to respond.

Consequently, there is a great need for all the government agencies to come together and

build consensus in order to pull together efforts in the 21 century and forge forward on war on

terrorism post the September 9th attacks. The major area that could be of great use in building

this collective action includes and not limited to the media.

The media is the major source of information especially to the public and therefore can

be used to fuel propaganda or confidence between the agencies and the public in general

(Brigitte.L.Nacos, 2007). In most cases instead of building confidence, the media tend to focus

on the worst sides of the attacks, magnifying the attacks hence causing fear and public anger

towards the government.

In addition, journalists in their digging and looking for information tend to unearth a lot

of data as it is believed threats for the 9/11 attacks between the al-Qaeda and the government

were heaving followed by the media. This could be of use if relevant agencies could rally behind

the president in his support (Brigitte.L.Nacos, 2007)

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Running head: INTERAGENCY COOPERATION
If well used, the media could be of use in building collective action and co-ordination by

passing forth the right information and bringing on board the specific agencies to respond to

them. In the long run, the media could be a tool used to build confidence in the different

agencies.

Centralization of the ability to deal with terrorism is also an undoing to building

interagency co-ordination. The Whitehouse could decentralize this ability by building capacity

and empowering other government units to deal with terrorism unlike when it solely depends on

the Whitehouse to make the decisions on terror and counter terrorism activities.

Power sharing could also be another strong area that can be used to build collective

action. This will help reduce the blame game that was witnessed after the 9/11 attacks. In

addition, sharing power will tend to form a web like administration and not only the congress

making the calls on such matters

Its also believed that independent commissions like the Rand Beers and the Richard

Clarke commissions warned that the government was not prepared enough to deal with terrorism

and in addition made it clear that since the US was experiencing attacks outside of the US soils

the probability of them experiencing it on their own land and soil was extremely high. (Perrow,

2006)

However the government failed to act on their recommendations, saying that terrorism

was not a top priority for the government at that time and what followed was such a devastating

attack. Therefore in order to build co-ordination, the government should take into consideration

the recommendations made by such independent commissions and committees set to look into

matters of national interest.

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Running head: INTERAGENCY COOPERATION
Despite the desire to collaborate and work together, the US government agencies have a

great deal of hurdles and challenges to overcome before multiagency co-ordination and co-

operation could be witnessed. This includes the challenge of communication, the agencies tend

to only focus on specific different areas hence only provide information to another agency that

will suite their interest and not share the critical data. What results is a clattered focus with the

agencies each focusing on different aspects.

There is also the hurdle of leadership, where at times only qualifies personnel and

resources from a specific department are needed during the event of disaster or urgency yet you

find the leader of the department unwilling to authorize dispatch of the personnel and the

relevant resources to be used (Kevin.J. Storm, 2008)

Moreover, culture and departmental standards developed within each agency tend to be

differentiated and does not complement each other or support the general or major government

vision and mission. This is further made worse with the strict legal and statutory requirements,

making it hard for an agency to penetrate through the strict chain of commands and channels in

order to get support.

In order to counter terrorism in the 21st century, the government has no option but to

leverage and bring on board any entity that is willing to support the war against terrorism. The

private sector is one of the players. This will be easy as both the private sector and government

business as usual is usually heavily impacted in times of such attacks.

The private sector operates a great deal of infrastructure and this could be used in

developing preparedness plans especially when it comes to finances and the telecommunication
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Running head: INTERAGENCY COOPERATION
industry (Neal, 2008). If a good and trusted partnership is created, it will generally improve the

US governments ability to secure such critical facilities easily and affordably.

Innovation is also a key characteristic of the private sector. If the government could

partner well with the sector they could benefit from the daily innovation breakthroughs that

could later be adopted in the public sector to counter terror activities.

Information sharing is also another platform to leverage on. This is because, most of the

private sector players tend to be in possession of critical security information but have no idea

where and whom to deliver the information to. Therefore in order to foster good public-private

partnerships against terrorism, a lot of changes should be made.

Creating an effective organization structure to enhance open communication and

information sharing is a great change needed to enhance this partnership (Mary Atkinson, 2008).

Since it involves sharing information, what of information security? Therefore structures should

be put in place to enhance privacy of communication as well as security of the information

shared.
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Running head: INTERAGENCY COOPERATION
References

Brigitte.L.Nacos. (2007). Post 9/11 Terrorism Threats, News coverage and Public Perception in

The US. International journal of conflict and violence, 1(2), 105-126.

Kevin.J. Storm, J. E. ( 2008, July). Interagency Co-ordination:A case study of the 2005 London

Train Bombings. National Institute of Justice Journal(260).

Mary Atkinson, M. J. (2008, April 3). Multiagency Working Together and Its Implication and

Practice. Literature review on Multiagency Working. Dubai, United Arab Emirates:

CFBT EducationTrust.

Neal, S. R. (2008). Leveraging the private sector to Combat Terrorism. Perspective on Terrorim,

2(3).

Perrow, C. (2006, April 1). Disaster After 9/11. Journal of the NPS center for Homeland Defence

and Security.
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Running head: INTERAGENCY COOPERATION