Remembering 9/11, 25 Years Later

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1:38Carol Massar:Podcasts. Radio. News. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Tim Stenevek on Bloomberg Radio. Everybody of a certain age has their own 9-11 story. Absolutely. Yeah, where they were when they heard we were under attack. Mark Jacobson's 9-11 story is a bit different than many others. He was in the Pentagon that morning, just about 100 feet from where hijackers crashed American Airlines Flight 77 into the building. Yes, like so many, that day changed the course of Mark's life forever. He spent close to four years deployed to Afghanistan, both in a military and civilian capacity.

2:16Carol Massar:He was at the command table in Kabul on May 2, 2011. That's when U.S. forces captured and killed Osama bin Laden. He has seen a lot, certainly since 9-11. Dr. Mark Jacobson is a retired U.S. Naval Intelligence Officer. He served in Afghanistan with the Defense Intelligence Agency. He's also a senior fellow at Salve Regina University's Pell Center. He's a historian of the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C., and he joins us here in the Bloomberg Interactive Brokers Studio. I should note, too, full disclosure, he was my wife's professor at The Ohio State University. So that's how I first connected with you.

2:49And that was a long time ago, too. That was a lifetime ago, as well. It really was. I was teaching a class on terrorism after 9-11. Yeah. Hey, we are really grateful to have you here. Take us back to that day, that Tuesday morning in 2001. You know, it's interesting. I was telling a colleague earlier, I can't remember if I was in the Pentagon on the 10th of September, on that Monday. You know, it was Tuesday, September 11th. I had just returned from the West Coast where I was at a conference with my European colleagues. And one of the issues on the table was terrorism. What's the threat to each side?

3:23Should we worry about it as much as missile defense issues or resurgent Russia, China, all that? One of my colleagues later reminded me, I'd forgotten about this, that I told our European colleagues rather sternly that for us, it wasn't a matter of if, but when, when it came to terrorism. And, you know, there were people whose job it was every single day to think about the what ifs and what should we worry about in terms of terrorism back then. I was not one of them. But to me, it struck me that this is something that had been boiling up. We had watched it with the USS Cole a couple of years earlier.

4:02We had watched it even before that when it came to the strikes on the Al Qaeda training camps in Jalalabad, the strike in Sudan during the Clinton administration, Mogadishu 1993. 1993. So, but again, no one was thinking, yes, there's going to be an attack in two days in New York City and Washington, D.C. Now, I remember some strange things about that day. I remember I was listening to the Howard Stern show back when it was on regular FM radio. And there was a report that a two-engine, a small propeller plane had crashed into the Trade Center. And actually, I've been hearing, I didn't realize that that was broadcast all over the place, that lots of people had made that mistake.

4:44But I remember thinking, is this a rerun? I don't remember. Did a plane crash into the Trade Center? I think before I got into the Pentagon and, you know, my little drive from Arlington and then a long walk in from the parking lot, I think the second plane had hit by that point. because I remember coming into the building and thinking, I need to go tell my colleagues at the joint staff in the special operations division, the division that handled counterterrorism, I'm going to ask to come down and work with you. This is going to be a busy day, week, whatever. And my thought was that this is absolutely bin Laden.

5:21And anyone who was working the issues knew of the attempts to blow up airliners over the Pacific, I knew of bin Laden's involvement in a lot of other operations. What many of us didn't know at the time was that the presidential daily brief back in August had had the headline, Bin Laden determined to attack U.S. But we can talk about that later. I actually remember giving my sister, who was a reporter on the West Coast at the time, a heads up saying, you need to get into your station now. We're at war. And she was like, what are you talking about? So we had a normal routine except for the fact that we're all watching on our big CRT TVs at the time.

6:03No flat screens. We're watching the replays of the plane sitting in the Trade Center. People are just wondering, what do we do? And we're a policy office. We're about memos and paper. Our focus was actually Latin America, the Andean Ridge Counter-Narcotics. Well, just as I was about to walk from my office, which was, for those who remember the pictures behind the helipad on the E-ring, I was about to walk to go pick up our morning intelligence briefings from our office, which would have required me to walk right by ground zero there, where American Airlines Flight 77 hit. Just as I was about to get up, I got a call from a friend of mine, someone else in the counterterrorism world.

6:47and we were saying, how would you do it? Well, we do this all at once, right? We've got to probably figure about an hour before everybody gets their act together. So yeah, what do you think? Well, I'm hearing five planes, I'm hearing 10 planes. There's a lot of disinformation or misinformation out there at the time. And okay, I'll see you when I see you, good luck. And I hung up the phone and at that point, the cubicles in the room started shaking. You felt the overpressure. you it's it's the sound of I remember saying it was sounded like wood a pallet of wood dropping on concrete the whole building shook and then you start seeing the smoke start coming in you know you I reflecting back I think of as we were evacuating I mean just the first little bits of of humor I saw that my boss was in shock he was a retired army colonel fantastic leader but he's just looking at me and I realized I have to evacuate the room I have to help get everyone out And so a young sergeant and I moved everybody, had them put away their classified material, grab their things and go.

7:50And the two sort of humorous things looking back on it, I remember, for some reason, I kept thinking, when you leave and when you evacuate an airplane, you're not supposed to bring anything, right? So I left my wallet. I left my passport happened to be with me that day. I left my bag, keys. Just I took off my suit jacket and I just left it on my desk as we walked out. The second thing I remember is we were in the E-ring, so the outside ring of the Pentagon. And I remember our office manager, another enlisted person from the Air Force, trying to lock the front door. And this is not the new Pentagon.

8:26These are the old World War II doors with the frosted glass. And he's having trouble locking it. Meanwhile, there's flames coming in. And it's like, hey, Mike, I think we're okay. I don't think we need to lock it. And then we evacuated. I mean, we were, again, about 120 feet from impact, but we were fortunate in that the plane had hit the new part of the Pentagon, which was structurally more sound. People behind us, near us were killed. Colleagues and friends in the chief of naval operations intelligence plot office, these are naval intelligence professionals, were killed. We were fortunate. But I do remember stepping out in front of the helipad, out the emergency exits, and the first thing I see on the ground is silver metal with this zinc chromate color.

9:11And being an avid model airplane builder as a kid, I knew that zinc chromate color was rustproofing for the inside of an airplane. Wow. And you saw the red, and it was pretty clear it was an American Airlines plane. But it was a long day. The only other thing that I sort of remember, and it's hard to get through this part, is no one can get through to me. And I remember telling my parents a couple of weeks earlier, oh, you want to know where I work? I work right under the helipad. And what's the picture that's going out on international TV is all the flames coming out. My father was able to get through to me.

9:47And he got somewhat choked up. We were only on for a couple of seconds. But that was, yeah, the few things, I don't even remember some of the other calls people got through. But if you remember this, the cell phone networks were just down. And it was hard for people to get through.

10:02Carol Massar:I will say it was the same for those of us. I was down at the New York Stock Exchange and the same thing. And my husband, we just couldn't, you know, everything was wiped out. And there were just eight hours or so before we could somehow connect. And I want to ask you, are we immune from something like this happening again? No. Is the intelligence better? Yes. Even with the tensions between the White House and its traditional allies? Yes and no. So let me explain. I think if there's been consistency from Obama through, well, let's say even from George W. Bush through Obama, through Trump, Biden, and Trump Part II, I think the counterterrorism apparatus has largely survived.

10:52And in this, I'm talking about the intelligence community, the CIA, the FBI, the Department of Defense, and others. and I think that the strategy and operational machinery, I'm not talking about the political or the policy making I'm talking about at the operational level I think that strengthens so much in the years after 9-11 for the better I think it's hard to completely take that away regardless of political decisions about where the threat is I don't think that's the problem I worry. I also don't worry about one of the main problems with 9-11 in terms of intelligence sharing, the FBI not speaking with the CIA.

11:34And then, of course, we have a whole new thing where after 9-11, law enforcement began to get greater capabilities. And I mean, nowhere is that clearer than in New York City, right? NYPD has an incredible intelligence apparatus. But as the intelligence community, particularly the FBI, shifted to the prevention of terrorist attacks, and actually specifically the FBI, it's not the priority to investigate, but let's prevent. I think that machinery is there. The question is, can this administration keep that commitment to making counterterrorism a primary mission for the FBI and make sure they have the resources and personnel required to do that?

12:10What about starting at the beginning with this stuff? I mean, you're a former Army psychological operations specialist. You advised Generals Petraeus and McChrystal on foreign affairs. You served in Bosnia in the 90s, Afghanistan in the 2000s, as Carol mentioned. You understand propaganda and espionage history. What about when it comes to sort of the soft power of the United States, the USAID, the Peace Corps, those sorts of things? Should we be doing more before it gets the level of people who want to destroy the United States? I just watched Moneyball the other day, and I keep thinking about undervalued.

12:47Yeah. USAID, the single most undervalued organization in the U.S. government, maybe not just from foreign foreign policy standpoint, but maybe overall. What we Carol, we were talking a little bit about lessons learned and what's works, what doesn't work. One of the areas I think we never understood well enough was the value that USAID has as a counterterrorism organization. Their ability to understand violent extremism and combat it before these people start dropping bombs and blowing things up.

13:21Carol Massar:Meaning what specifically? Helping countries to develop governance structures to address grievances, helping to create civil society, and literally helping to prevent conflict or mitigate conflict. USAID working with organizations that you might be familiar with, like the Carter Center. I mean, their entire job is to combat this sort of or prevent this sort of growth of extremism and violence and eventually violence. If you fail at that mission, that's when you have to start dropping bombs and calling in the military and special operations and all that. But the real acumen when it comes to skill would be, let's solve this before you start creating something that is a direct threat to the American people and our allies.

14:08Carol Massar:Because when people don't feel satisfied in a society, they're going to look for solutions, right? And that leads to, in many cases, extremism. Correct? Yeah, one of the areas where we failed to adequately resource or accomplish our mission in Afghanistan was not understanding that the Taliban and their supporters felt completely disenfranchised from the Afghan government. Likewise, you know, this is oversimplifying it, but I had a professor who used to say, well, you never saw a country go communist where the people weren't hungry. And I don't want to boil it down to something as simple of, oh, we're unsatisfied, so we're going to start becoming suicide bombers.

14:45No, but you don't have to wait until they become suicide bombers to deal with the issues. This may be governance issues. This may be educational issues. This may be medical and health care issues. This is very controversial, though, because if you remember, in the 90s, it was the whole argument against nation building. The Bush administration campaigned in 2000 about, well, we're not going to be about nation building. And then all of a sudden, we're involved in two huge nation building projects. I mean, you can't try and define the war the way you want it or the conflict the way you want it. You have to understand it the way it is and address it with the appropriate tools.

15:23And sometimes those are special forces. Sometimes those are Navy SEALs killing people. Sometimes those are USAID employees. Sometimes it's bags of rice. Exactly. But that's, you know, bags of rice can be incredibly effective.

15:37Carol Massar:No, I know. I know. I wasn't belittling, but I'm just saying it just shows the range. We're speaking with Dr. Mark Jacobson, retired U.S. Naval Intelligence Officer. He served in Afghanistan with the Defense Intelligence Agency. He's also a historian of the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C. Mark, maybe that's a good segue to bring us to today into the current conflict between Iran and the U.S. and Israel. What, in your view, is the solution to this? Negotiation. I mean, we are in, let me draw this back. We have three minutes. Terrorists love to see governments overreact. I mean, that's the idea.

16:20You do something bad, the government overreacts, and people are so upset they go to support you. After 9-11, I think we made the right moves, did a lot of good, made a good effort in Afghanistan. We can talk about it another time. But the failure, one of the failures, was widening the war. From the very first night, the Bush administration, especially the Secretary of Defense, Rumsfeld, his deputy Wolfowitz, were thinking about Iraq. Saddam must be involved. We're going to have to deal with Iraq. Major failure. I think with Iran, there was a failure to understand how the Iranians would react and a presumption that they would react the way they always had.

17:03Carol Massar:So bad intelligence? No, I think bad policymaking. In fact, I think that the intelligence was fairly clear that the Iranians would strangle the Strait of Hormuz when provoked. Now, there's going to be arguments from the White House. No, we weren't briefed on that. No, we were. Then historians have a job to do, right? Figure this out. But I am very confident that this had been anticipated. This was not a failure of imagination. This was a failure to understand how the Iranians would react. The other piece is, you know, the political war has to be waged in a political context. the political view was this is going to be a short, sharp shock.

17:39That's it. We'll be done in a couple of weeks. The failure to anticipate that the enemy and their vote is going to be for a longer war. I mean, that's why we are where we are today. This is a long, drawn-out conflict, and we planned for something that was short. Are we less secure, the United States? If we are, I don't think—

17:58Carol Massar:Or the world at large, but yeah. Look, I think overall we're more secure from an external threat like terrorism than we were 25 years ago. And that's thanks to police departments, the intelligence community, and actually pretty good action on the part of Congress and the executive branches and the various administrations. I am worried, conversation for another time, about domestic cohesion and about our inability to deal with the threat of disinformation by the Russians and the Chinese. But I'm also worried about the fact that we are undervaluing our allies. Our allies have always given us the strength to get done what we need to get done on the foreign policy front.

18:36Danes and Canadians bled with American soldiers in Afghanistan. And I worry that we are so focused on the day-to-day politics of this, we're failing to understand the strength that they give us economically, militarily, and in terms of being able to act in the world in our interests. and our allies are willing to say, okay, you're the leader of the free world. We're going to give you a bit of leeway here.

19:02Carol Massar:Okay. My producer is going to yell, but real quickly, who's our biggest threat? Is it China? Is it Russia? Is it some unknown? Just real quickly. I'm worried about China over the long term. I'm worried about a Russia where Putin seems to be losing his grip on power and also believes that the United States is weak. And when our enemies believe we are weak, they are more likely to act out in their own interests under the belief that we simply don't have the political cohesion or the military power to respond. Come back. Delighted to. Interesting. Yeah. And it just the world and kind of we're living in, right?

19:43It's a wickedly complex world out there.

19:45Carol Massar:Yeah. Well, we're, we are glad to have you and, and And we are grateful for you to share your experience abroad and here in the U.S. with us today. Mark Jacobson, he's a historian at the International Spy Museum. He's a retired U.S. Naval Intelligence Officer. He served in Afghanistan with the Defense Intelligence Agency, also senior fellow at the Pell Center at Salve Regina University.

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