Intelligence Failures 9/11 and Pearl Harbor Essay

Throughout history there are multiple intelligence failures such as 9/11 and Pearl Harbor. These failures are due to intelligence collected which was either delayed or misdirected to the rest of the intelligence community. Both events had catastrophic consequences and yet these tragic events has allowed the intelligence community to develop better security like warning signals and combat readiness to protect the United States. Pearl Harbor is still considered one of the worst intelligence failure in the history of the United States to date. During the upcoming months before the attack the U.S Naval Fleet intercepted and deciphered vast amounts of encrypted messages from Japan’s Imperial Navy. Due to manpower and at the time Japan†¦show more content†¦In the beginning of the Cold War the â€Å"United States had very little SIGNIT intelligence, HUMINT or IMINT intelligence either. This was due to since overflights of Soviet territory were impossible† (Schind ler). Because of this, this caused great delays in trying to infiltrate the Soviet Union and gather intelligence. HUMINT collection at that time was difficult because there was not much known about the Soviet Union and infiltrating Russia was difficult because the lack of intelligence this made is hard when it came o gathering HUMINT intelligence. Another issue the intelligence community ran into was HUMINT collectors were not equipped to understand other languages. This made it hard to recruit sources within the Soviet Union. As the Cold War raged on, the intelligence community along with working in tandem with the U.S government started to develop better technology and have a better understanding of how the Soviet Union works. The United States Airforce started flying dangerous reconnaissance missions through the use of ELINT collection. Unfortunately, many pilots lost their lives due to the Soviet Union shooting down their aircrafts. Later, the United States military revert ed back to SIGNIT intelligence in hopes of having more success. SIGNIT tends to be flexible, and is more responsive for the needs to infiltrate the Soviet Union at that time than any other form of intelligence collection (Aid and Wiebes). Using SIGNIT intelligence and the use ofShow MoreRelatedThe Attack On Pearl Harbor2762 Words   |  12 Pages There are two important dates that reside in the American history in the last century: the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 and the World Trade Center attacks on September 11, 2001 (as referred to as September 11th, or 9/11). On these two dates, the surprised events attacked on American civilians and military personnel. Both horrific events have many similarities and many differences in regards to who carried out the attacks, what the objectives were for the attacks and theRead MoreThe Attack On Pearl Harbor1856 Words   |  8 PagesJapanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and September 11, 2001. 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