More on the background of CNA, located in Alexandria, Virginia, which translated the statement from the "terrorists":
CNA’s approach to research is a modern iteration of Isaac Newton’s insight that direct observation of events and people increases one’s understanding of complex, dynamic processes.
That was the methodology CNA’s first researchers used when they pioneered the field of operations research and analysis by helping the Navy address the German U-boat threat in the early 1940s. Not content to study the problem from afar, this small group of MIT scientists insisted on deploying with Navy forces so they could directly observe operational challenges and collect the data needed for meaningful analyses. Their groundbreaking work resulted in anti-submarine warfare barrier equations that set the standard for future operations research methods.
Today's CNA, with more than 350 researchers at our headquarters and 45 analysts in the field, still takes this real-world approach to its work. Our research and analysis model uses on-site analysts to carefully observe all aspects of a process—people, decisions, actions, consequences—who collaborate with a research team based at our headquarters to assess data, and arrive at findings.
This model has proved valuable to a wide range of government decision makers, and work that began with national defense-related concerns addressed by the Center for Naval Analyses has grown to include a broad range of public interest issues that are addressed by the Institute for Public Research — including education, health care and public health,
homeland security, human capital management, and air traffic management.
http://www.cna.org/about/history
