Effective Counterterrorism: The Rick Rescorla Factor

Not a trace of 9/11 World Trade Tower hero Rick Rescorla was recovered. Homeland Security needs to analyze his special DNA for that missing link in our anti-terror attack strategy. Men with the uncanny ability – personified by Rescorla – to get inside the mind of the terrorist, predict his attack, and act decisively in the midst of that terror attack are sorely missing. Rescorla did all of that and rescued 2,700 from certain death on 9/11 and died trying to rescue more.

Clark Erwin, the homeland Security director of the Aspen Institute in his book Open Target: Where America Is Vulnerable to Attack, asks the key question. With the 265,000 members of Homeland Security with a multi-billion dollar budget, is the United States more secure now than before the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Towers?

Most counter-terrorism experts accept the reality there will be additional terrorism attacks in the Middle East, Europe, Asia, and the United States. Many planned attacks will be thwarted by good intelligence, but there will be attacks which cannot be prevented.

There are several factors we must understand regarding counter-terrorism. First, it is difficult, often impossible to infiltrate many terrorist groups so we can have the best operational intelligence. Second, a small group of terrorists can affect great harm. Effective terrorist groups do not need thousands of members. In fact the smaller the group, the better the discipline, the group is often more effective. Third, the effective power of explosives has increased greatly in the past few years. Today it takes little training to become an explosive expert. Also, effective explosives like C 4 (1930’s technology) can be made to look like rope, bread flour, and other indistinguishable items. Fourth, it is possible to recruit suicide terrorist as it has been done for over a thousand years. During the Crusades with Richard the Lion Hearted fighting Saladin, the Assassins tried several times to kill Saladin. The promise of paradise has had an irresistible appeal to young assassins for over a thousand years. Fifth, there are groups which have the single goal to destroy Americans and attack American installations. Few Americans understand this deep, pathological hatred terrorist groups have for America.

In the intelligence cycle there are groups which collect indicators; groups which analyze the indicators; and groups which act or do not act on evaluated intelligence. It is always easier to be show intelligence failures after the fact. After every major terrorist attack there often after the fact discovery of reports predicting the attack. For example Rick Rescorla, the security director of Morgan Stanley at the World Trade Towers predicted both the 1993 and the 2001 World Trade terrorists attacks.

The Rick Rescorla story is on Wikipedia. It is also told in the book Heart of a Soldier by James B. Stewart, and Baptism: A Vietnam Memoir by Larry Gwin. He enlisted in the British Army in 1957. He was trained as a paratrooper and intelligence soldier for duty in Cyprus during the conflict. He was sent to Rhodesia during the insurgency as a paramilitary policeman. He resigned from the British Army and joined the criminal division of the London Police service. In 1963 he immigrated to the US and joined the US Army. After Ft Benning Infantry, Officers Candidate School (OCS) he joined the 2^nd Battalion, 7^th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division. In October, 1965, he was a platoon leader at the deadly battle at Ia Drang Valley, Vietnam . Colonel Hal Moore, his commanding officer, described Lt Rescorla as the best platoon leader he had ever worked with. Rescorla was a natural combat leader.

Years later as a retired Army colonel he became the security director of Morgan Stanley at the World Trade Center. A combat soldier must always analyze the downside risk in an operation. Rick Rescorla assembled a small team of fellow combat veterans and analyzed the scenario that there would be a terrorist attack through the unsecured basement at the World Trade Center. That terrorist attempt occurred in 1993. Rick Rescorla then did another report analyzing what would be the next terrorist attempt on the World Trade Center. He predicted terrorists would fly planes into each World Trade Tower. He sent the report to Morgan Stanley, the NY Port Authority, the NY Police, the FBI, etc. At least Morgan Stanley allowed him to have mock evacuations every three months. They put special lights in the stairways and increased communication systems within the Morgan Stanley floors. When the 2001 9/11 attack occurred, Rick Rescorla ordered Morgan Stanley employees to evacuate the World Trade Tower. The NY Port Authority then ordered everyone back in the building. Rescorla countermanded the NY Port Authority order and got 2,700 World Trade # 2 and 1,000 World Trade # 5 (a nine-story low rise) Morgan Stanley employees evacuated out alive. He went back into World Trade # 2 to look for stragglers and was killed when the building collapsed. His body has never been found.

In any counter-terrorism effort, what our nation lacks is the Rick Rescorla factor. We have few individuals who are trained to think like the enemy. In ancient Chinese texts on warfare it was stressed you must know the enemy. Even after defining the negative scenario, we have so few experts who can act on the evaluated intelligence. The official at the NY Port Authority who ordered World Trade workers to return to their office had no experience to evaluate the negative scenario. The Morgan Stanley officer who allowed Rick Rescorla to have mock evacuations understood the seriousness of his negative scenario. In the US the purpose our education is to create citizens with rational prudent minds. We do not have a totalitarian police state which watches and controls the masses. Without universal military training few understand the military consequences of events.

What we lack is the Rick Rescorla factor. We lack a large number of experts who can think like a terrorist; know how to prepare for a terrorist attack; prevent a terrorist attack; and act during a terrorist attack. As a nation we can only be safer from terrorist attack when we train more Rick Rescorlas and listen to their negative scenarios. The negative scenario is not part of the American character. There will be other terrorist attacks and hopefully we can learn from those attacks how to prevent future attacks. As a Ft Benning, Infantry School graduate, I salute Rick Rescorla.