National Policy Coordination
Staff Statement No. 8
Members of the Commission, with your help, your staff has developed initial findings to present to the public on the
coordination of national policy in dealing with the danger posed by Islamic extremist terrorism before the September 11
attacks on the United States. These findings may help frame some of the issues for this hearing and inform the
development of your judgments and recommendations.
This report reflects the results of our work so far. We remain ready to revise our understanding of events as our work
continues. This staff statement represents the collective effort of a number of members of our staff. Warren Bass,
Michael Hurley, Alexis Albion, and Dan Marcus did much of the investigative work reflected in this statement.
The Executive Office of the President, the Central Intelligence Agency, and other government agencies have made the
material available to us for the preparation of this statement.
The Structure of Policymaking
The National Security Act of 1947 created the National Security Council so that advice to the president from the State
Department could mesh with advice from the military establishment.
Since then, presidents have progressively redefined the Council’s functions, broadened participation, and greatly
elevated the status of its staff. Throughout, the NSC staff operated under the authority of the president with the duty
to ensure that the president’s policies are adequately developed, articulated, understood, and implemented purposefully
by the government as a whole.
Counterterrorism issues had not been a high priority during the administration of George H.W.
Bush. When the Clinton administration took office in 1993, terrorism issues were handled in a small directorate of the
NSC staff for “International Programs,” commonly referred to as “drugs and thugs.” Terrorist attacks early in the new
administration, particularly the 1993 attempt to blow up the World Trade Center, quickly changed this perspective.
The first World Trade Center attack also spotlighted the problem of how or whether the NSC could bridge the divide
between foreign policy and traditionally domestic issues such as criminal justice. That attack, handled by the FBI as a
matter for domestic law enforcement, had been carried out by a mixture of American citizens, resident aliens, and
foreign nationals with ties overseas.
President Clinton concluded that the National Security Act of 1947 allowed the NSC to consider issues of domestic
security arising from a foreign threat. The President later issued a formal directive on counterterrorism policy. This
was Presidential Decision Directive 39, signed in June 1995 after at least a year of interagency consultation and
coordination. That directive characterized terrorism as a national security concern as well as a matter for law
enforcement. It also articulated a “lead agency” approach to counterterrorism policy. It had four main program areas:
reducing vulnerabilities, deterring terrorism, responding to terrorism, and preventing terrorists from acquiring weapons
of mass destruction. In each area responsibilities were assigned to the departments and agencies of the government.
These efforts were to be coordinated by a subordinate NSC committee called the CSG. During the Clinton administration
these initials stood for “Counterterrorism and Security Group.” This committee was chaired by an NSC staff member,
Richard Clarke. The CSG was the place where domestic security agencies, such as the FBI, regularly met alongside
representatives from the traditional national security agencies.
Since 1989 each administration has organized its top NSC advisory bodies in three layers. At the top is the National
Security Council, the formal statutory body whose meetings are chaired by the president. Beneath it is the Principals
Committee, with cabinet-level representatives from agencies. The Principals Committee is usually chaired by the national
security adviser. Next is the Deputies Committee, where the deputy agency heads meet under the chairmanship of the
deputy national security adviser. Lower-ranking officials meet in many other working groups or coordinating committees,
reporting to the deputies and, through them, to the principals. The CSG was one of these committees.
This ordinary committee system is often adjusted in a crisis. Because of the sensitivity of the intelligence and the
military options being considered, President Clinton created a “Small Group” in which a select set of principals would
frequently meet without aides to discuss Khobar Towers or Usama Bin Ladin. The participants would usually be National
Security Adviser Samuel Berger, DCI George Tenet, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Defense Secretary William
Cohen, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Hugh Shelton, Deputy National Security Adviser James Steinberg, White House Chief
of Staff John Podesta, Richard Clarke, and Vice President Gore’s national security adviser, Leon Fuerth. Attorney
General Janet Reno and FBI Director Louis Freeh would sometimes participate.
National Security Adviser Berger told us that he designed the Small Group process to keep the highly-sensitive
information closely held. There were few paper records. One tradeoff in such a system was that other senior officials in
agencies around the government sometimes had little knowledge about what was being decided in this group, other than
what they could obtain from the principals or Clarke. This sometimes led to misunderstandings and friction.
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Presidential Decision Directive 62 and the National Coordinator
In early 1998, the Clinton administration prepared a new presidential directive on counterterrorism. Its goals were to
strengthen the “lead agency” approach in ten program areas, reemphasize the importance President Clinton attached to
unconventional threats at home and abroad, and strengthen interagency coordination. The draft directive would strengthen
Clarke’s role by creating the position of a national coordinator for counterterrorism who would be a full member of the
Principals Committee or Deputies Committee for meetings on these topics.
The duties of the national coordinator were debated in the preparation of this directive. Prior episodes, including
Iran-Contra in the 1980s, had underscored the problems of operations run by White House or NSC staff whose legal
authorities are derived solely from the president and are therefore outside of the usual process of congressional
confirmation, budgeting, or oversight.
Responding to such concerns, the May 1998 directive, Presidential Decision Directive 62, provided that the coordinator
would not direct operations, that the CSG would ordinarily report to the Deputies Committee, and that the new structure
would not change the established budget process.
Nevertheless, as it evolved during the Clinton administration, the CSG effectively reported directly to principals, and
with the principals often meeting only in the restricted Small Group.
This process could be very effective in overseeing fast-developing but sensitive operations, moving issues quickly to
the highest levels, and keeping secrets. However, since the Deputies and other subcabinet officials were not members of
the CSG, this process created a challenge for integrating counterterrorism issues into the broader agenda of these
agencies and the U.S. government.
Clarke was a controversial figure. A career civil servant, he drew wide praise as someone who called early and
consistent attention to the seriousness of the terrorism danger. A skilled operator of the levers of government, he
energetically worked the system to address vulnerabilities and combat terrorists. Some colleagues have described his
working style as abrasive. Some officials told us that Clarke had sometimes misled them about presidential decisions or
interfered in their chain of command. National Security Adviser Berger told us that several of his colleagues had wanted
Clarke fired. But Berger’s net assessment was that Clarke fulfilled an important role in pushing the interagency process
to fight Bin Ladin. As Berger put it, “I wanted a pile driver."
Clarke often set the agenda and laid out the options, but he did not help run any of the executive departments of the
government. Final decision-making responsibility resided with others.
Changing Strategy against Bin Ladin and His Network
President Clinton often discussed terrorism publicly as the dark side of globalization. He was particularly and vocally
concerned about the danger of terrorists acquiring weapons of mass destruction, especially biological weapons. He tended
to receive his intelligence in written briefings rather than personally from the DCI, and he frequently would pass back
questions to follow up on items related to Bin Ladin or other terrorist threats. National Security Adviser
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Berger and others told us that the East Africa embassy bombings of August 1998 were a watershed event in the level of
attention given to the Bin Ladin threat. Before August 1998, several officials told us their attention on terrorism was
focused more on Iranian-sponsored groups, such as Hizbollah.
After the August 1998 military strikes against Afghanistan and Sudan, Clarke turned his attention to a government-wide
strategy for destroying the Bin Ladin threat. His proposed strategy was Political-Military Plan Delenda, circulated
among CSG and Small Group participants in late August and September 1998. As mentioned yesterday, the term “Delenda” is
from the Latin “to destroy,” evoking the famous Roman vow to erase rival Carthage. The plan’s goal was to immediately
eliminate any significant threat to Americans from the “Usama Bin Ladin network,” to prevent further attacks, and
prevent the group from acquiring weapons of mass destruction. The strategy sought to combine four main approaches:
-- Diplomacy to eliminate the sanctuary in Afghanistan and bring terrorists to justice;
-- Covert action to disrupt terrorist cells and prevent attacks. The highest priority was to target the enemy in
Afghanistan;
-- Financial measures, beginning with the just-adopted executive order to freeze the funds of Bin Ladin-related
businesses; and
-- Military action to attack targets as they were developed. This would be an ongoing campaign, not a series of
responses or retaliations to particular provocations.
This strategy was not formally adopted, and Cabinet-level participants in the Small Group have little or no recollection
of it, at least as a formal policy document. The principals decided against the rolling military campaign described in
the plan. However, Clarke continued to use the other components of the Delenda plan to guide his efforts.
The momentum from the August 1998 attacks and the initial policy responses to it carried forward into 1999. We have
described those responses in our other staff statements.
In June 1999, National Security Adviser Berger and Clarke summarized for President Clinton what had been accomplished
against Bin Ladin. An active program to disrupt al Qaeda cells around the world was underway and recording some
successes. The efforts to track Bin Ladin’s finances with help from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates had not
yet been successful.
The U.S. government was pressing Pakistan and the Emirates to cut off support for the Taliban.
Covert action efforts in Afghanistan had not borne fruit. Proposals to intervene against the Taliban by helping the
Northern Alliance had been deferred. The intelligence needed for missile attacks to kill Bin Ladin was too thin, and
this situation was not likely to change.
Berger and Clarke said it was a “virtual certainty” that there would be more attacks on American facilities. They were
also worried about Bin Ladin’s possible acquisition of weapons of mass destruction, a subject on which they had recently
received some fragmentary but disturbing intelligence. The quality of that intelligence was unlikely to improve, his
advisers reported.
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Given this overall picture, they returned to the idea they had discussed in the fall of 1998, of a preemptive strike on
terrorist camps such as the one reportedly involved in WMD work.
Alternatively, they wrote, the government could retaliate after the next attack, but the camps might then be emptied.
The Small Group met to consider some of these ideas on June 24, 1999.
From some notes, it appears the Group discussed military strikes against al Qaeda infrastructure, but rejected this
approach for reasons including the relatively slight impact of strikes balanced against the potentially
counterproductive results.
The NSC staff kept looking for new options or ideas. Later in 1999, for example, the new leadership team at the CIA’s
Counterterrorist Center produced a plan for increased intelligence collection and relationships with other potential
partners for clandestine or covert action against Bin Ladin. Berger and Clarke made sure that these efforts received
both attention and authorizations to proceed.
The Millennium Alerts
As 1999 drew to a close, Jordanian intelligence discovered an al Qaeda-connected plot to attack tourists gathering in
Jordan for Millennium events. Intelligence revealed links to suspected terrorists who might be in the United States.
Meanwhile a Customs agent caught Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian jihadist, trying to cross with explosives from Canada into
the United States.
Both staff and principals were seized with this threat. The CSG met constantly, frequently getting the assistance of
principals to spur particular actions. These actions included pressuring Pakistan to turn over particular suspects and
issuing an extraordinary number of domestic surveillance warrants for investigations in the United States. National
Security Adviser Berger said that principals convened on a nearly daily basis in the White House Situation Room for
almost a month. The principals communicated their own sense of urgency throughout their agencies.
By all accounts, the Millennium period was also a high point in the troubled relationship with the FBI. Before 9/11, the
FBI did not ordinarily produce intelligence reports. Records of the FBI’s intelligence work usually consisted of only
the reports of interviews with witnesses or memoranda requesting the initiation or expansion of an investigation. The
senior FBI headquarters official for counterterrorism, Dale Watson, was a member of the CSG, and Clarke had good
personal relations with him and FBI agents handling al Qaeda-related investigations.
But the NSC staff told us that the FBI rarely shared information about its domestic investigations. The Millennium alert
period was an exception. After the Millennium surge subsided, National Security Adviser Berger and his deputy, James
Steinberg, complained that, despite regular meetings with Attorney General Reno and FBI Director Freeh, the FBI withheld
terrorism data on the grounds that it was inappropriate to share information related to pending investigations being
presented to a grand jury.
In a January 2000 note to Berger, Clarke reported that the CSG drew two main conclusions from the Millennium crisis.
First, it had concluded that U.S.-led disruption efforts “have not put too much of a dent” into Bin Ladin’s network
abroad. Second, it feared that “sleeper cells” or other
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links to foreign terrorist groups had taken root in the United States. Berger then led a formal Millennium after-action
review next steps, culminating in a meeting of the full Principals Committee on March 10.
The principals endorsed a four-part agenda to strengthen the U.S. government’s counterterrorism efforts:
-- Increase disruption efforts. This would require more resources for CIA operations, to assist friendly governments,
and build a stronger capacity for direct action;
-- Strengthen enforcement of laws restricting the activity of foreign terrorist organizations in the United States;
-- Prevent foreign terrorists from entering the United States by strengthening immigration laws and the capacity of the
Immigration and Naturalization Service; and
-- Improve the security of the U.S.-Canadian border.
Some particular program ideas, like expanding the number of Joint Terrorism Task Forces across the United States, were
adopted. Others, like a centralized translation unit for domestic intercepts, were not. In its January hearing, the
Commission reviewed the progress of efforts on border and immigration issues.
Prodded to do more by President Clinton, the NSC staff pursued other initiatives in the spring of 2000. The NSC staff
pushed for better technical intelligence collection, working closely with Assistant DCI for Collection Charles Allen and
Vice Admiral Scott Fry of the Joint Staff. As we described earlier today, this effort spurred use of the Predator
reconnaissance aircraft in Afghanistan later in 2000 and produced other innovative ideas. A draft presidential directive
on terrorist fundraising apparently did not win approval.
Coordinating a Counterterrorism Budget
Overall U.S. government spending connected to counterterrorism grew rapidly during the late 1990s. Congress appropriated
billions of additional dollars in supplemental appropriations for improvements like building more secure embassies,
managing the consequences of a WMD attack, and protecting military forces.
Clarke and others remained frustrated, however, at the CIA’s spending on counterterrorism.
They complained that baseline spending at headquarters on Bin Ladin efforts or on operational efforts overseas remained
nearly level. The CIA funded an expanded level of activity on a temporary basis with supplemental appropriations, but
baseline spending requests, and thus core staffing, remained flat. The CIA told us that Clarke kept promising more
budget support, but could never deliver.
The Clinton administration began proposing significant increases in the overall national intelligence budget in January
2000, for Fiscal Year 2001. Until that time, at least, CIA officials
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have told us that their main effort had been to rebuild the Agency’s operating capabilities after what they said had
been years of cuts and retrenchment. They believed counterterrorism efforts were relatively well off compared with the
needs elsewhere.
In 2000 the budget situation in CIA’s counterterrorism effort became critical. The strain on resources from the alert
period had nearly exhausted available funds for the current fiscal year.
Among counterterrorism officials, frustration with funding levels was growing. In August 1999, the senior Defense
Department participant in the CSG noted that it seemed to him the CIA was “underfunding critical programs” in the covert
action budget for countering terrorism.
On top of these concerns, the Millennium after-action review recommended significantly more spending. National Security
Adviser Berger and DCI Tenet, along with their respective staffs, discussed where the money could be found, on the order
of $50-100 million.
Working with senior officials in the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Clarke had devised an innovative
process to develop and analyze a counterterrorism budget picture across the government. Spending for the CIA, however,
was handled under different procedures over which Clarke had less influence.
The White House initially preferred that the CIA find the money from within its existing funds.
The CIA insisted that its other programs were vital too, and that the administration should seek another supplemental
appropriation from Congress. The CIA’s argument ultimately prevailed, and Congress adopted a supplemental appropriation.
On August 1, 2000, Clarke outlined for Berger a few key goals he hoped the administration could accomplish before it
left office: to significantly erode al Qaeda’s leadership and infrastructure; to gain the still-pending supplemental
appropriations for the counterterrorism effort; and to advance the Predator program.
In August, Clarke urged that the CSG and the Principals Committee be ready for emergency meetings to decide whether to
fire cruise missiles if Bin Ladin were spotted by the Predator.
Berger noted to Clarke, though, that before considering any action he would need more than a verified location; he would
also need data on a pattern of movements to provide some assurance that Bin Ladin would stay in place.
In September, Clarke wrote that the drones were providing “truly astonishing” imagery, including a “very high
probability” of a Bin Ladin sighting. Clarke was also more upbeat about progress with disruptions of al Qaeda cells
elsewhere. Berger wrote back praising Clarke’s and the CSG’s performance while observing that this was no time for
complacency: “Unfortunately the light at the end of the tunnel is another tunnel."
The Attack on the U.S.S. Cole
The U.S.S. Cole was attacked on October 12 in Yemen. By November 11, Berger and Clarke reported to the President that,
while the investigation was continuing, it was becoming increasingly clear that al Qaeda planned and directed the
bombing. In an update two weeks later,
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the President was informed that FBI and CIA investigations had not reached a formal conclusion, but Berger and Clarke
expected the investigations would soon conclude that the attack had been carried out by a large cell headed by members
of al Qaeda and that most of those involved were trained at Bin Ladin-operated camps in Afghanistan. So far, Bin Ladin
had not been tied personally to the attacks, but there were reasons to suspect he was involved. In discussing possible
responses, Berger stated that inherent in them was the “unproven assumption” that al Qaeda was responsible for the
attack.
Berger told us he wanted a more definitive judgment from the DCI before using force. By December 21, the CIA’s
“preliminary judgment” for principals was that, while al Qaeda appeared to have supported the attack, the CIA still had
no definitive answer on the “crucial question” of outside direction of the attack. Clarke added to us that while both
the State Department and the Pentagon had reservations about retaliation, the issue never came to a head because the FBI
and the CIA had not provided a definitive conclusion about responsibility.
The Cole attack prompted renewed consideration of what could be done. Clarke told us that Berger upbraided DCI Tenet so
sharply after the Cole attack—repeatedly demanding to know why the United States had to put up with such attacks—that it
led Tenet to walk out of a Principals Committee meeting. As we mentioned in our staff statement yesterday, Berger
obtained a fresh briefing on military options from General Shelton.
In December 2000, the CIA developed initiatives based on the assumption that policy and money were no longer
constraints. The result was the “Blue Sky memo,” which we discussed earlier today. This was forwarded to the NSC staff.
As the Clinton administration drew to a close, the NSC counterterrorism staff developed another strategy paper, the
first such comprehensive effort since the Delenda plan of 1998. The resulting paper, a “Strategy for Eliminating the
Threat from the Jihadist Networks of al Qida: Status and Prospects,” reviewed the threat, the record to date,
incorporated the CIA’s new ideas from the “Blue Sky” memo, and posed several near-term policy choices. The goal was to
“roll back” al Qaeda over a period of three to five years, reducing it eventually to a “rump group” like other formerly
feared but now largely defunct terrorist organizations of the 1980s. “Continued anti-al Qida operations at the current
level will prevent some attacks,” Clarke and his staff wrote, “but will not seriously attrit their ability to plan and
conduct attacks."
The Bush Administration
The Bush administration decided to retain Clarke and his core counterterrorism staff. National Security Adviser Rice
knew Clarke from prior government experience. She was aware he was controversial, but she and Hadley thought they needed
an experienced crisis manager in place during the first part of the administration. Working with Clarke, Rice and her
deputy, Stephen Hadley, concentrated Clarke’s responsibilities on terrorism issues, and planned to spin off some of his
office’s responsibilities—for cybersecurity, international crime, and consequence management—to other parts of the NSC
staff. Clarke in particular wished to elevate the attention being given to the cybersecurity problem. On May 8,
President Bush asked Vice
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President Cheney to chair an effort looking at preparations for managing a WMD attack and problems of national
preparedness. It was just getting underway when the 9/11 attack occurred.
Rice and Hadley decided that Clarke’s CSG should report to the Deputies Committee, chaired by Hadley, rather than
bringing its issues directly to the principals. Clarke would still attend Principals Committee meetings on terrorism,
but without the central role he had played in the Clinton-era Small Group. Hadley told us that subordinating the CSG to
the Deputies would help resolve counterterrorism issues in a broader context. Clarke protested the change, arguing that
it would slow decision-making. Clarke told us that he considered this move a demotion to being a staffer rather than
being a de facto principal on terrorism. On operational matters, however, Clarke could and did go directly to Rice.
Clarke and his staff said that the new team, having been out of government for at least eight years, had a learning
curve to understand al Qaeda and the new transnational terrorist threat.
During the transition, Clarke briefed Secretary of State-designate Powell, Rice, and Hadley on al Qaeda, including a
mention of “sleeper cells” in many countries, including the United States.
Clarke gave a similar briefing to Vice President Cheney in the early days of the administration.
Berger said he told Rice during the transition that she would spend more time on terrorism and al Qaeda than on any
other issue. Although Clarke briefed President Bush on cybersecurity issues before 9/11, he never briefed or met with
President Bush on counterterrorism, which was a significant contrast from the relationship he had enjoyed with President
Clinton. Rice pointed out to us that President Bush received his counterterrorism briefings directly from DCI Tenet, who
began personally providing intelligence updates at the White House each morning.
Asked by Hadley to offer major initiatives, on January 25, 2001 Clarke forwarded his December 2000 strategy paper, and a
copy of his 1998 Delenda plan, to the new national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice. Clarke laid out a proposed agenda
for urgent action by the new administration:
-- Approval of covert assistance to the Northern Alliance and others.
-- Significantly increased funding to pay for this and other CIA activity in preparation of the administration’s first
budget, for Fiscal Year 2002.
-- Choosing a standard of evidence for attributing responsibility for the U.S.S. Cole and deciding on a response.
-- Going forward with new Predator reconnaissance missions in the spring and preparation of an armed version of the
aircraft.
-- More work on terrorist fundraising.
Clarke asked on several occasions for early Principals Committee meetings on these issues and was frustrated that no
early meeting was scheduled. He wanted principals to accept that al Qaeda was a “first order threat” and not a routine
problem being exaggerated by “chicken little"
alarmists. No Principals Committee meetings on al Qaeda were held until September 4, 2001.
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Rice and Hadley said this was because the Deputies Committee needed to work through the many issues related to new
policy on al Qaeda. The Principals Committee did meet frequently before 9/11 on other subjects, Rice told us, including
Russia, the Persian Gulf, and the Middle East peace process.
Rice and Hadley told us that although the Clinton administration had worked very hard on the al Qaeda problem, its
policies on al Qaeda “had run out of gas,” as Hadley put it. On March 7, Hadley convened an informal meeting of some of
his counterparts from other agencies to discuss al Qaeda. After reviewing the background on the issues, Clarke pressed
for immediate decisions on covert assistance to the Northern Alliance and others, as well as for Predator reconnaissance
missions. Development of a new presidential directive on terrorism was also discussed.
The proposal for aid to the Northern Alliance was moved into this policy review. This was discussed in more detail
yesterday in Staff Statement No. 5 on diplomacy. In April, the deputies decided not to approve new aid to the Northern
Alliance, pending decisions about a broader aid program that would include other opposition groups in Afghanistan.
The administration took action on the intelligence budget for Fiscal Year 2002. It proposed a 27 percent increase in CIA
counterterrorism spending.
On the issue of the Cole, the Bush administration received essentially the same “preliminary judgment” that had been
briefed to the Clinton administration in December. Clarke consistently pressed officials to adopt some standard of
evidence that would permit a response. He recommended on January 25 that the United States adopt the approach of
responding at a time, place, and manner of its choosing, “and not be forced into a knee-jerk response.” Rice agreed with
the time, place, and manner point. Hadley added that the discussion of retaliation was less about the evidence and more
about what to do. Rice and Hadley told us they did not want to launch cruise missiles in a “tit-for-tat” strike as in
1998, which they considered ineffectual.
According to Rice, President Bush had the same reaction: don’t do something weak. There was no formal decision not to
retaliate. Hadley told us the new administration’s response to the Cole would take the form of a more aggressive
strategy on al Qaeda.
We have discussed the Predator program earlier today in Staff Statement No. 7. Additional policy direction on terrorist
fundraising was incorporated in the planned presidential directive.
As spring turned to summer, Clarke was impatient for decisions on aid to the Northern Alliance and on the Predator
program, issues managed by Hadley and the Deputies Committee. Clarke and others perceived the process as slow. Clarke
argued that the policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan did not need to be settled before moving ahead against al Qaeda.
Hadley emphasized to us the time needed to get new officials confirmed and in place. He told us that they moved the
process along as fast as they could. The Deputies Committee met seven times from April to September 10 on issues related
to al Qaeda, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
Rice recalled that in May 2001, as threats of possible terrorist attacks came up again and again in DCI Tenet’s morning
discussions with President Bush, the President expressed impatience with “swatting flies” and pushed his advisers to do
more. Rice and Tenet met at the end of May,
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along with their counterterrorism advisers, to discuss what Rice at the time called “taking the offensive” against al
Qaeda. This led to a discussion about how to break the back of Bin Ladin’s organization. Within the NSC staff, Clarke
was asked to put together a broad policy to eliminate al Qaeda, to be codified in the presidential directive. The
Deputies Committee discussed complementary policies that would be adopted on Afghanistan and Pakistan as well.
Clarke and his staff regarded the new approach as essentially similar to the proposal they had developed in December
2000 and had put forward to the new administration in January 2001.
Clarke’s staff produced a draft presidential directive on al Qaeda. Hadley circulated it to his counterparts in early
June as “an admittedly ambitious program."
The draft had the goal of eliminating the al Qaeda network as a threat over a multi-year period. It had headings such as
“No Sanctuaries” and “No Financial Support.” The draft committed the administration to providing sufficient funds to
support this program in its budgets from Fiscal Year 2002 to Fiscal Year 2006. Specific annexes dealt with activities to
be undertaken by the CIA and planning to be done by the Defense Department.
From April through July, alarming threat reports were pouring in. Clarke and the CSG were consumed with coordinating
defensive reactions. In late June, Clarke wrote Rice that the threat reporting had reached a crescendo. Security was
stepped up for the G-8 summit in Genoa, including air-defense measures. U.S. embassies were temporarily closed. Units of
the Fifth Fleet were redeployed from usual locations in the Persian Gulf. Administration officials, including Vice
President Cheney, Secretary Powell, and DCI Tenet, contacted foreign officials to urge them to take needed defensive
steps.
On July 2, the FBI issued a national threat advisory. Rice recalls asking Clarke on July 5 to bring additional law
enforcement and domestic agencies into the CSG threat discussions. That afternoon, officials from a number of these
agencies met at the White House, following up with alerts of their own, including FBI and FAA warnings. The next day,
the CIA told CSG participants that al Qaeda members “believe the upcoming attack will be a ‘spectacular,’ qualitatively
different from anything they have done to date.” On July 27 Clarke reported to Rice and Hadley that the spike in
intelligence indicating a near-term attack appeared to have ceased, but he urged them to keep readiness high;
intelligence indicated that an attack had been postponed for a few months.
In early August, the CIA prepared an article for the president’s daily intelligence brief on whether or how terrorists
might attack the United States. Neither the White House nor the CSG received specific, credible information about any
threatened attacks in the United States. Neither Clarke nor the CSG were informed about the August 2001 investigations
that produced the discovery of suspected al Qaeda operatives in the United States. Nor did the group learn about the
arrest or FBI investigation of Zacarias Moussaoui in Minnesota.
Arguments about flying the Predator continued. Rice and Hadley, contrary to Clarke’s advice, acceded to the CIA view
that reconnaissance flights should be held off until the armed version was ready. Hadley sent a July 11 memo to his
counterparts at the CIA and the Defense
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Department directing them to have Predators capable of being armed ready to deploy no later than September 1.
At the beginning of August Rice and Hadley again reviewed the draft presidential directive on al Qaeda. Rice commented
that it was “very good,” and principals needed to discuss it briefly, just for closure, before it was submitted to
President Bush. This meeting was scheduled for September 4.
The directive envisioned an expanded covert action program against al Qaeda, including significantly increased funding
and more support for the Northern Alliance, anti-Taliban Pashtuns, and other groups. But the authorities for this
program had not yet been approved, and the funding to get this program underway still had not been found. Although the
administration had proposed a larger covert action budget for FY 02, the Congress had not yet appropriated the money and
the fiscal year had not begun. The planned covert action program would need funds going well beyond what had already
been budgeted for the current fiscal year, including the supplemental passed at the end of 2000. This budget problem was
not resolved before 9/11.
The policy streams converged at a meeting of the Principals Committee, the Administration’s first such meeting on al
Qaeda issues, on September 4. Before this meeting, Clarke wrote to Rice summarizing many of his frustrations. He urged
policymakers to imagine a day after a terrorist attack, with hundreds of Americans dead at home and abroad, and ask
themselves what they could have done earlier. He criticized the military for what he called its unwillingness to
retaliate for the Cole attack or strike Afghan camps. He accused senior CIA officials of trying to block the Predator
program. He warned that unless adequate funding was found for the planned effort, the directive would be a hollow shell.
He feared, apparently referring to President Bush’s earlier comment, that Washington might be left with a modest effort
to swat flies, relying on foreign governments while waiting for the big attack.
Rice chaired the meeting of principals. They apparently approved the draft directive. As discussed earlier today, they
agreed that the armed Predator capability was needed, leaving open issues related to command and control. DCI Tenet was
also pressed to reconsider his opposition to starting immediately with reconnaissance flights and, after the meeting,
Tenet agreed to proceed with such flights.
Various follow-up activities began in the following days, including discussions between Rice and Tenet, Hadley’s
September 10 directive to Tenet to develop expanded covert action authorities, and, that same day, further Deputies
Committee consideration of policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan. Then came the attacks on September 11.
ENDS