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.