15 Years and Billions of Dollars: US ‘at a Stalemate’ in its War on Terror

On Wednesday, nearly 15 years after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, Thomas Kean, once co-chairman of the 9/11 Commission, admitted during a conference call that the US has not reached any significant advance in its fight against terror.

"We're not winning; we're simply at a stalemate," Kean said.

Although there have not been major attacks similar to 9/11, there have been many smaller attacks, he acknowledged.

"Around the world, the situation is probably even more dangerous than it was on 9/11," he opined.

In 2001, the Bush Administration created the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which has spent billions of dollars on its anti-terror policies. But those expenditures have only managed to replace one fumbling bureaucracy with another, Kean and 9/11 Commission co-chair former Rep. Lee Hamilton suggest, according to the Hill.

Hamilton said that the DHS must improve their actions and do something "with a great deal of robust implementation. We don't want to go another 15 years before we get our strategy right."

The 9/11 Commission named several areas prone to security breaches. Among them are bureaucratic oversight that impedes efficient intelligence agency communication. "And until the Congress decides that it's going to have a single oversight committee for homeland security, and not this panoply of 94 different committees, that's not oversight, that's a total lack of oversight," Kean said.

The 9/11 Commission was established in 2002, charged with giving recommendations to prevent future terror attacks. It was also responsible for giving an account of circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001 attacks.