Wippl Reflects on US-Germany Relations Post-9/11
Professor Joseph Wippl published an article “Past is Always Present: Germany, 2001-2003: 9/11, Berlin, Curve Ball, Iraq” in the renowned research journal International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence. In the article, Wippl recounts his experience as a chief intelligence officer in Germany during the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks and how the attacks affected U.S.-Germany relations.
Following the attacks, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) informed Wippl that three out of the four pilots involved in the attacks had been radicalized in Hamburg, making Germany’s response to terrorism an even more urgent concern.
“Within a day of 9/11, German authorities began search and seizure investigations of the three pilots as well as Islamic radical elements in Hamburg and Germany,” said Wippl. “Guidance from headquarters was to apply pressure on the Germans to do more against terrorism in the way of action, not words, especially to arrest those somehow connected to the pilots and to the radical mosque which the pilots attended in Hamburg. The initial message was that if German authorities did not arrest them, we would grab them, presumably off the streets and cart them off somewhere.”
The professor explained that he was uncertain about such “grab” operations, as they increased the risk of further jeopardizing national security and damaging the political and economic relations the United States had cultivated with Germany
“I found the system was unable to articulate what the CIA and the U.S. government wanted the Germans to do, other than to do more in the War against Terrorism,” said Wippl.
Germany was expected to step up its efforts in the fight against terrorism as the United States had played a major role in Germany’s post-World War II reconstruction through the Marshall Plan and maintained a military presence in Germany. Simultaneously, Germans were expected to be the “tough guys” they had been at Stalingrad. Wippl explained how these expectations that Germany should be either submissive or aggressive were not well suited to intelligence or political relations in the 21st century, when constitutional democracy was the norm.
“To encourage Germany and others to focus their attention to combat terrorism was appropriate,” said Wippl. “To bully and to make demands on Germany to abandon its adherence to rule of law was not appropriate. To denigrate an ally for not participating in a needless war was not appropriate. Sensitivity to the recent German past of war and the Holocaust would have required judgment and patience and would have been appropriate.”
To read the full article, click here.
Joseph Wippl is a professor of practice of international relations at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies and a former CIA officer. In his extensive career of 30 years, he has served as an operations officer and operations manager in multiple locations overseas including Guatemala City, Luxembourg, Mexico City and Berlin. Before joining academia, he was the Richard Helms Chair for Intelligence Collection in the NCS training program. To know more about Professor Wippl, visit his faculty profile.