PANEL I OF THE EIGHTH PUBLIC HEARING OF THE NATIONAL COMMISSION ON 

TERRORIST ATTACKS UPON THE UNITED STATES RE: FORMULATION AND 

CONDUCT OF U.S. COUNTERTERRORISM POLICY CHAIRED BY: THOMAS KEAN, 

FORMER GOVERNOR (R-NJ) WITNESS: FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE 

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT LOCATION: 216 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING, 

WASHINGTON, D.C. TIME: 9:02 A.M. EST DATE: TUESDAY, MARCH 23, 2004

 MR. KEAN: Good morning. As chairman of the National 

Commission on Terrorist Attacks on the United States I hereby 

convene our eighth public hearing. This hearing is going to run 

over the course of two days, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. today and 

from 8:30 to 5:30 tomorrow. 

 The focus of this two-day hearing will be the 

counterterrorism policy of the United States. We will take as our 

principal focus the period between the embassy bombings of 1998 

and the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks. In particular, 

this commission will review how our government responded to the 

increasing threat from Osama Bin Ladin and al Qaeda. We'll also 

examine the global war on terrorism today and seek from our 

witnesses perhaps some recommendations on how today we can do 

things to make America safer. 

 Over the next two days we'll hear from senior officials 

from both the Clinton and the Bush administrations on the topic of 

terrorism, Bin Ladin and al Qaeda. We will hear from former 

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright; current Secretary of State 

Colin Powell; former Secretary of Defense William Cohen; current 

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld; the director of Central 

Intelligence, George Tenet; former National Security Advisor 

Samuel Berger and former National Counterterrorism Coordinator 

Richard Clarke. 

 This commission had invited current National Security 

Advisor Dr. Condoleezza Rice to appear today. But the 

Administration has declined that invitation. We're disappointed 

that she's not going to appear to answer our questions about 

national policy coordination. But in her place the Administration

has designated Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. We 

have had extended private meetings with Dr. Rice. We have 

received a lot of information from her and she's been a very 

cooperative witness in that circumstance. We will reserve the 

right today to ask each of our witnesses, as well as Dr. Rice, to 

appear before this commission again and answer further questions. 

 It's not possible for this hearing to cover everything 

we've learned. We know more than we're able to present to the 
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public today. Yet we believe that we'll be able to bring before 

the American public a significant body today of new information. 

We'll present more, of course, in our final report. 

 Just one additional word. Our hearing today is on policy 

issues leading up to 9/11, and a number of our witnesses were also 

involved in the events of that particular day. We're going to 

hold a later hearing in June that will address in detail how our 

government responded to the attacks on that particular day of 

9/11. 

 Our first panel today will examine how the U.S. 

government used diplomacy as an instrument of national power to 

try and disrupt the al Qaeda network and in particular what it did 

to persuade the Taliban regime to arrest and to hand over Bin

Ladin and his lieutenants, or at least to expel them from Afghan 

territory. 

 As we did in January, we will proceed to introduction of 

panels, with staff statements. These statements are informed by 

the work of the Commissioners, as well as staff, represent the 

staff's best effort to reconstruct the factual record. I'll say 

judgments and recommendations are for commissioners, and the 

Commission will make those recommendations during the course of 

our work and, of course, in our final report. 

 I would now like to recognize Dr. Philip Zelikow, the 

Commission's executive director, who will introduce the first 

staff statement. He will be followed by Mr. Mike Hurley, who 

directs the investigation that pertains to the topic of today's 

hearing. 

 Mr. Zelikow. 

 PHILIP ZELIKOW (executive director): Members of the 

Commission, with your help, your staff has developed initial 

findings to present to the public on the diplomatic efforts to 

deal with the danger posed by Islamic extremist terrorism before 

the September 11th attacks on the United States. We will 

specifically focus on the efforts to counter the danger posed by 

the al Qaeda organization and its allies. 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 these topics as our 

work continues. This staff statement represents the collective 
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effort of a number of members of our staff. Scott Allan, Michael 

Hurley, Warren Bass, Dan Byman, Thomas Dowling and Len Hawley did 

much of the investigative work reflected in this statement. 

 We are grateful to the Department of State for its 

excellent cooperation in providing the Commission with needed 

documents and in helping to arrange needed interviews, both in the 

United States and in nine foreign countries. 

 We are also grateful to the foreign governments who have 

extended their cooperation in making many of their officials 

available to us as well. The Executive Office of the President 

and the Central Intelligence Agency have made a wealth of material 

available to us that sheds light on the conduct of American 

diplomacy in this period. 

 I'd now like to introduce Michael Hurley of our staff, 

noting that Michael is employed by an agency of the United States 

government and did three tours in Afghanistan after 9/11. He will 

now present an abbreviated version of this staff statement, 

omitting some of the historical background. Michael? 

 MICHAEL HURLEY: Counterterrorism and U.S. foreign 

policy. Terrorism is a strategy. As a way to achieve their 

political goals, some organizations or individuals deliberately 

try to kill innocent people, noncombatants. The United States has 

long regarded such acts as criminal. 

 For more than a generation, international terrorism has 

also been regarded as a threat to the nation's security. In the 

1970s, and 1980s, terrorists frequently attacked American targets, 

often as an outgrowth of international conflicts like the ArabIsraeli dispute. The groups involved were frequently linked to 

states. After the destruction of Pan American Flight 103 by 

Libyan agents in 1988, the wave of international terrorism that 

targeted Americans seemed to subside. 

 The 1993 attempt to blow up the World Trade Center called 

attention to a new kind of terrorist danger. A National 

Intelligence Estimate issued in July 1995 concluded that the most 

likely threat would come from emerging transient terrorist 

groupings that were more fluid and multinational than the older 

organizations and state- sponsored surrogates. This new terrorist 

phenomenon was made up, according to the NIE, of loose 

affiliations of Islamist extremists violently angry at the United 

States. Lacking strong organization, they could still get 

weapons, money and support from an assortment of governments, 
4

factions and individual benefactors. Growing international 

support networks were enhancing their ability to operate in any 

region of the world. 

 Since the terrorists were understood as loosely 

affiliated sets of individuals, the basic approach for dealing 

with them was that of law enforcement. But President Clinton 

emphasized his concern about the problem as a national security 

issue in a presidential decision directive -- PDD 39 in June 1995 

-- that stated the U.S. policy on counterterrorism. This 

directive superseded a directive signed by President Reagan in 

1986. President Clinton's directive declared that the United 

States saw terrorism "as a potential threat to national security 

as well as a criminal act, and will apply all appropriate means to 

combat it. In doing so, the U.S. shall pursue vigorously efforts 

to deter and preempt, apprehend and prosecute, or assist other 

governments to prosecute individuals who perpetrate or plan to 

perpetrate such attacks." 

 The role of diplomacy was to gain the cooperation of 

other governments in bringing terrorists to justice. PDD 39 

stated, "When terrorists wanted for violation of U.S. law are at 

large overseas, their return for prosecution shall be a matter of 

the highest priority and shall be a continuing central issue in 

bilateral relations with any state that harbors or assists them." 

If extradition procedures were unavailable or put aside, the 

United States could seek the local country's assistance in a 

rendition, secretly putting the fugitive in a plane back to 

America or some third country for trial. Counterterrorism in 

foreign policy in practice, four examples from 1995 to 1996. The 

staff's statement describes the first two examples -- Ramzi Yousef 

in 1995 and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in 1996 -- in more detail. 

 Please turn to the middle of page three, where I will now 

discuss the third example, Osama Bin Ladin. In 1996 he was based 

in Sudan. Under the influence of the radical Islamist Hassan al 

Turabi, Sudan had become a safe haven for violent Islamist 

extremists. By 1995, the U.S. government had connected Bin Ladin

to terrorists as an important terrorist financier. Since 1979 the 

secretary of State has had the authority to name state sponsors of 

terrorism, subjecting such countries to significant economic 

sanctions. Sudan was so designated in 1993. 

 In February 1996, for security reasons, U.S. diplomats 

left Khartoum. International pressure further increased as the 

regime failed to hand over three individuals involved in a 1995 

attempt to assassinate Egyptian President Hosny Mubarak. The 
5

United Nations Security Council imposed sanctions on the regime. 

Diplomacy had an effect. 

 In exchanges beginning in February 1996, Sudanese 

officials began approaching U.S. officials asking what they could 

do to ease the pressure. During the winter and spring of 1996, 

Sudan's defense minister visited Washington and had a series of 

meetings with representatives of the U.S. government. 

 To test Sudan's willingness to cooperate on terrorism, 

the United States presented eight demands to their Sudanese 

contact. The one that concerned Bin Ladin was a request for 

intelligence information about Bin Ladin's contacts in Sudan. 

 These contacts with Sudan, which went on for years, have 

become a source of controversy. Former Sudanese officials claim 

that Sudan offered to expel Bin Ladin to the United States. 

Clinton administration officials deny ever receiving such an 

offer. We have not found any reliable evidence to support the 

Sudanese claim. 

 Sudan did offer to expel Bin Ladin to Saudi Arabia and 

asked the Saudis to pardon him. U.S. officials became aware of 

these secret discussions certainly by March 1996. The evidence 

suggests that the Saudi government wanted Bin Ladin expelled from 

Sudan but would not agree to pardon him. The Saudis did not want 

Bin Ladin back in their country at all. 

 U.S. officials also wanted Bin Ladin expelled from Sudan. 

They knew the Sudanese were considering it. The U.S. government 

did not ask Sudan to render him into U.S. custody. 

 According to Samuel Berger, who was then the deputy 

national security adviser, the inter-agency Counterterrorism 

Security Group, CSG, chaired by Richard Clarke, had a hypothetical 

discussion about bringing Bin Ladin to the United States. In that 

discussion, the Justice Department representative reportedly said 

there was no basis for bringing him to the United States since 

there was no way to hold him here absent an indictment. 

 Berger adds that in 1996 he was not aware of any 

intelligence that said Bin Ladin was responsible for any act 

against an American citizen. No rendition plan targeting Bin

Ladin, who was still perceived as a terrorist financier, was 

requested by or presented to senior policymakers during 1996. 
6

 Yet both Berger and Clarke also said the lack of an 

indictment made no difference. Instead they said the idea was not 

worth pursuing because there was no chance that Sudan would ever 

turn Bin Ladin over to a hostile country. 

 If Sudan had been serious, Clarke said, the United States 

would have worked something out. However, the U.S. government did 

approach other countries hostile to Sudan and Bin Ladin about 

whether they would take Bin Ladin. One was apparently interested. 

No hand-over took place. 

 Under pressure to leave, Bin Ladin worked with the 

Sudanese government to procure a safe passage and possibly funding 

for his departure. In May 1996, Bin Ladin and his associates 

leased an Ariana Airlines jet and traveled to Afghanistan, 

stopping to refuel in the United Arab Emirates. Approximately two 

days after his departure, the Sudanese informed the U.S. 

government that Bin Ladin had left. It is unclear whether any 

U.S. officials considered whether or how to intercept Bin Ladin. 

 The fourth example, which I'll paraphrase from the staff 

statement, is Khobar Towers. In June 1996, an enormous truck bomb 

was detonated in the Khobar Towers residential complex for Air 

Force personnel in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. The Khobar bombing 

began as a law enforcement case. The Khobar bombing also was an 

intelligence case. 

 As we stated in the middle of page five, the Khobar case 

highlights a central policy problem in counterterrorism -- the 

relationship between evidence and action. Secretary of State 

Madeleine Albright emphasized to us, for example, that even if 

some individual Iranian officials were involved, this was not the 

same as proving that the Iranian government as a whole should be 

held responsible for the bombing. 

 National Security Adviser Berger held a similar view. He 

stressed the need for definitive intelligence judgment. The 

evidence might be challenged by foreign governments. The evidence 

might form a basis for going to war. Therefore, he explained, the 

DCI and the director of the FBI must make a definitive judgment 

based on the professional opinions of their experts. 

 In the Khobar case, as in some others, the time lag 

between terrorist acts and any definitive attribution grew to 

months, then years, as the evidence was compiled. 
7

 I'll now discuss the Afghanistan problem, beginning with 

the fourth paragraph on page six. 

 After suffering some disruption from his relocation to 

Afghanistan, Osama Bin Ladin and his colleagues rebuilt. In 

August 1996, he issued a public declaration of jihad against 

American troops in Saudi Arabia. In February 1998, this was 

expanded into a public call for any Muslim to kill any American, 

military or civilian, anywhere in the world. By early 1997, 

intelligence and law enforcement officials in the U.S. government 

had finally received reliable information disclosing the existence 

of al Qaeda as a worldwide terrorist organization. That 

information elaborated a command-and-control structure headed by 

Bin Ladin and various lieutenants, described a network of training 

camps to process recruits, discussed efforts to acquire weapons of 

mass destruction, and placed al Qaeda at the center among other 

groups affiliated with them in its Islamic army. 

 This information also dramatically modified the picture 

of inchoate new terrorism presented in the 1995 National 

Intelligence Estimate. But the new picture was not widely known. 

It took still more time before officials outside the circle of 

terrorism specialists or in foreign governments fully comprehended 

that the enemy was much larger than an individual criminal, more 

than just one man, UBL, and his associates. 

 For example, in 1996 Congress passed a law that 

authorized the secretary of State to designate foreign terrorist 

organizations that threaten the national security of the United 

States, a designation that triggered economic, immigration and 

criminal consequences. 

 Al Qaeda was not designated by the secretary of State 

until the fall of 1999. While Afghanistan became a sanctuary for 

al Qaeda, the State Department's interest in Afghanistan remained 

limited. Initially, after the Taliban's rise, some State diplomats 

were, as one official said to us, "willing to give the Taliban a 

chance because it might be able to bring stability to 

Afghanistan." 

 A secondary consideration was that stability would allow 

an oil pipeline to be built through the country, a project to be 

managed by the Union Oil Company of California, or UNOPAL.

 During 1997 working levels, State officials asked for 

permission to visit and investigate militant camps in Afghanistan. 

The Taliban stalled, then refused. In November 1997, Secretary 
8

Albright described Taliban human rights violations and treatment 

of women as "despicable." 

 A Taliban delegation visited Washington in December. 

U.S. officials pressed them on the treatment of women, negotiating 

an end to the civil war, and narcotics trafficking. Bin Ladin was 

barely mentioned. 

 U.N. Ambassador Bill Richardson led a delegation to South 

Asia and Afghanistan in April 1998. No U.S. official of this rank 

had been to Kabul in decades. Ambassador Richardson used the 

opening to support U.N. negotiations on the civil war. 

 In light of Bin Ladin's new public fatwa against 

Americans in February, Ambassador Richardson asked the Taliban to 

turn Bin Ladin over to the United States. They answered that they 

did not control Bin Ladin and that, in any case, he was not a 

threat to the United States. The Taliban won few friends. Only 

three countries recognized it as the government of Afghanistan: 

Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. 

 The Saudi effort and its aftermath. As we saw on the 

middle of page eight, Saudi Arabia was a problematic ally in 

combating Islamic extremism. Yet the ruling monarchy also knew 

Bin Ladin was an enemy. Bin Ladin had not set foot in Saudi Arabia 

since 1991, when he escaped a form of house arrest and made his 

way to Sudan. 

 Bin Ladin had fiercely denounced the rulers of Saudi 

Arabia publicly in his August 1996 fatwa, but the Saudis were 

content to leave him in Afghanistan so long as they were assured 

he was not making any trouble for them there. 

 Events soon drew Saudi attention back to Bin Ladin. In 

the spring of 1998, the Saudi government successfully disrupted a 

major Bin Ladin organized effort to launch attacks on U.S. forces 

in the Kingdom using a variety of manned portable missiles. 

Scores of individuals were arrested. The Saudi government did not 

publicize what had happened, but U.S. officials learned of it. 

 Seizing this opportunity, DCI Tenet urged the Saudis to 

help deal with Bin Ladin. President Clinton in May designated 

Tenet as his representative to work with the Saudis on terrorism. 

Director Tenet visited Riyadh a few days later, then returned to 

Saudi Arabia in June. 
9

 Crown Prince Abdullah agreed to make an all-out secret 

effort to persuade the Taliban to expel Bin Ladin for eventual 

delivery to the United States or another country. Riyadh's 

emissary would be the Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Turki Bin

Faisal. Director Tenet said it was imperative now to get an 

indictment against Bin Ladin. 

 A sealed indictment against Bin Ladin was issued by a New 

York grand jury a few days later, the product of a lengthy 

investigation. Director Tenet also recommended that no action be 

taken on other U.S. options, such as the covert action plan. Vice 

President Gore thanked the Saudis for their efforts. 

 Prince Turki followed up in meetings during the summer 

with Mullah Omar and other Taliban leaders. Employing a mixture 

of possible bribes and threats, he received a commitment that Bin

Ladin would be handed over. 

 After the embassy bombings in August, Vice President Gore 

called Riyadh again to underscore the urgency of bringing the 

Saudi ultimatum to a final conclusion. 

 In September 1998, Prince Turki, joined by Pakistan's 

intelligence chief, had a climactic meeting with Mullah Omar in 

Kandahar. Omar reneged on his promise to expel Bin Ladin. When 

Turki angrily confronted him, Omar lost his temper and denounced 

the Saudi government. The Saudis and Pakistanis walked out. 

 The Saudi government then cut off any further official 

assistance to the Taliban regime, recalled its diplomats from 

Kandahar and expelled Taliban representatives from the Kingdom. 

The Saudis suspended relations without a final break. 

 The Pakistanis did not suspend relations with the 

Taliban. Both governments judged that Iran was already on the 

verge of going to war against the Taliban. The Saudis and 

Pakistanis feared that a further break might encourage Iran to 

attack. They also wanted to leave open room for rebuilding ties 

if more moderate voices among the Taliban gained control. 

 Crown Prince Abdullah visited Washington later in 

September. In meetings with the President and Vice President, he 

briefed them on these developments. The United States had 

information that corroborated his account. Officials thanked the 

prince for his efforts, wondering what else could be done. 
10

 The United States acted, too. In every available 

channel, U.S. officials, led by State's aggressive 

counterterrorism coordinator, Michael Sheehan, warned the Taliban 

of dire consequences if Bin Ladin was not expelled. Moreover, if 

there was any further attack, he and others warned, the Taliban 

would be held directly accountable, including the possibility of a 

military assault by the United States. These diplomatic efforts 

may have had an impact. The U.S. government received substantial 

intelligence of internal arguments over whether Bin Ladin could 

stay in Afghanistan. The reported doubts extended from the 

Taliban to their Pakistani supporters and even to Bin Ladin

himself. For a time, Bin Ladin was reportedly considering 

relocating and may have authorized discussion of this possibility 

with representatives of other governments. We will report further 

on this topic at a later date. 

 In any event, Bin Ladin stayed in Afghanistan. This 

period may have been the high-water mark for diplomatic pressure 

on the Taliban. The outside pressure continued, but the Taliban 

appeared to adjust and learned to live with it. Employing a 

familiar mix of stalling tactics again and again, urged on by the 

United States, the Saudis continued a more limited mix of the same 

tactics they had already employed, Prince Turki returned to 

Kandahar in June 1999 to no effect. 

 From 1999 through early 2001, the United States also 

pressed the United Arab Emirates, one of the Taliban's only travel 

and financial outlets to the outside world to break off its ties 

and enforce sanctions, especially those relating to flights to and

from Afghanistan. Unfortunately, these efforts to persuade the 

UAE achieved little before 9/11. As time passed, the United 

States also obtained information that the Taliban was trying to 

extort cash from Saudi Arabia and the UAE with various threats and

that these blackmail efforts may have paid off. 

 After months of heated internal debate about whether this 

step would burn remaining bridges to the Taliban, President 

Clinton issued an executive order in July 1999, effectively 

declaring that the regime was a state sponsor of terrorism. U.N. 

economic and travel sanctions were added in October 1999 in U.N. 

Security Council Resolution 1267. None of this had any visible 

effect on Mullah Omar, an illiterate leader who was unconcerned 

about commerce with the outside world. Omar had no diplomatic 

contact with the West, since he refused to meet with non-Muslims. 

The United States also learned that at the end of 1999, the 

Taliban Council of Ministers had unanimously reaffirmed that they 

would stick by Bin Ladin. Relations with Bin Ladin and Taliban 
11

leadership were sometimes tense, but the foundation was solid. 

Omar executed some subordinates who clashed with his pro-Bin Ladin

line. 

 By the end of 2000, the United States, working with 

Russia, won U.N. support for still broader sanctions in U.N. 

Security Council Resolution 1333, including an embargo on arm 

sales for the Taliban. Again, these had no visible effect. This 

may have been because the sanctions did not stop the flow of 

Pakistani military assistance to the Taliban. In April 2001, 

State Department officials in the Bush administration concluded 

that the Pakistani government was just not concerned about 

complying with sanctions against the Taliban. 

 Reflecting on the lack of progress with the Taliban, 

Secretary Albright told us that we had to do something. In the 

end, she said it didn't work, but we did, in fact, try to use all 

the tools we had. Other diplomatic efforts with the Saudi 

government centered on letting U.S. agents interrogate prisoners 

in Saudi custody in cases like Khobar. Several officials had 

complained to us that the United States could not get direct 

access to an important al Qaeda financial official, Madani al 

Sayeed, who had been detained by the Saudi government in 1997. 

 American officials raised the issue, the Saudis provided 

some information. In September 1998, Vice President Gore thanked 

the Saudis for the responsiveness on this matter, though he 

renewed the request for direct U.S. access. The United States 

never obtained this access. 

 The United States also pressed Saudi Arabia and the UAE 

for more cooperation in controlling money flows to terrorists or 

organizations linked to them. After months of arguments in 

Washington over the proper role of the FBI, an initial U.S. 

delegation on terrorist finance visited these countries to start 

working with their counterparts in July 1999. U.S. officials 

reported to the White House that they thought the new initiatives 

to work together had begun successfully. Another delegation 

followed up with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states in January 

2000. In Saudi Arabia the team concentrated on tracing Bin

Ladin's assets and access to his family's money, exchanges that 

led to further fruitful work. 

 Progress on other topics was limited, however. The issue 

was not a consistent U.S. priority; moreover, the Saudis were 

reluctant or unable to provide much help. Available intelligence 

was also so non- specific that it was difficult to confront the 
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Saudis with evidence or cues to action. The Bush administration 

did not develop any diplomatic initiatives on al Qaeda with the 

Saudi government before the 9/11 attack. Vice President Cheney 

apparently called Crown Prince Abdullah on July 4, 2001, only to 

seek Saudi help in preventing threatened attacks on American 

facilities in the kingdom. 

 Pressuring Pakistan. Please go to the bottom of page 11. 

 Secretary Albright hoped to promote a more robust 

approach to South Asia when she took office, but the 

Administration had a full agenda of concerns, including a possible 

nuclear weapons program, illicit sales of missile technology, 

terrorism, an arms race, danger of war with India, and a 

succession of weak democratic government. The American ambassador 

to Islamabad in most of the immediate pre-9/11 period, William 

Milam, told us that U.S. policy had too many moving parts and 

could never determine what items had the highest priority. 

 A principal envoy to South Asia for the Administration, 

Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, explained the emphasis 

on nuclear weapons, both because of the danger of nuclear war and 

because nuclear proliferation might increase the risk that 

terrorists could access such technology. In May 1998, both 

Pakistan and India had tested nuclear weapons. These tests marked 

a setback to non-proliferation policy and reinforced U.S. 

sanctions on both countries. But the tests also spurred more 

engagement in order to reduce the threat of war. 

 Bin Ladin and terrorist activity in Afghanistan were not 

significant issues in high-level contacts with Pakistan until 

after the embassy bombings of August 1998. After the U.S. missile 

strikes on Afghanistan, Bin Ladin's network and the relationship 

with the Pakistani-supported Taliban did become a major issue in 

high-level diplomacy. 

 After the strikes, President Clinton called Pakistani 

President, Nawaz Sharif, and he was sympathetic to America's 

losses, but the Pakistani side thought the strikes were overkill -

- the wrong way to handle the problem. The United States asked 

the Saudis to put pressure on Pakistan to help. A senior State 

Department official concluded that Crown Prince Abdullah put a 

tremendous amount of heat on Sharif during his October 1998 visit 

to Pakistan. Sharif was invited to Washington and met with 

President Clinton on December 2, 1998. Tension with India nuclear 

weapons topped the agenda, but the leaders also discussed Bin

Ladin. Pakistani officials defended Mullah Omar and thought the 
13

Taliban would not object to a joint effort by others to get Bin

Ladin. 

 In mid-December President Clinton called Sharif, worried 

both about immediate threats and the longer-term problem of Bin

Ladin. The Pakistani leadership promised to raise the issue 

directly with the Taliban in Afghanistan, but the United States 

received word in early 1999 that the Pakistani army remained 

reluctant to confront the Taliban, in part because of concerns 

about the effect on Pakistani politics. In early 1999, the State 

Department Counterterrorism Office proposed a comprehensive 

diplomatic strategy for all the states involved in the Afghanistan 

problem, including Pakistan. It specified both carrots and 

sticks, including the threat of certifying Pakistan as not 

cooperating on terrorism. A version of this diplomatic strategy 

was eventually adopted by the State Department. Its author, 

Ambassador Sheehan, told us that it had been watered down to the 

point that nothing was then done with it. 

 By the summer of 1999, the counterterrorism agenda had to 

compete with cross-border fighting in Kashmir that threatened to 

explode into war. Nevertheless, President Clinton contacted 

Sharif in June urging him strongly to get the Taliban to expel Bin

Ladin. Clinton suggested Pakistan use its control over oil 

supplies to the Taliban and its access to imports through Karachi. 

The Pakistani leadership offered instead that Pakistani 

intelligence services might try to capture Bin Ladin themselves. 

 President Clinton met with Prime Minister Sharif in 

Washington on July 4th. The prime subject was resolution of the 

crisis in Kashmir. The President also complained to the prime 

minister about Pakistan's failure to take effective action with 

respect to the Taliban and Bin Ladin. Later, the United States 

agreed to assist in training a Pakistani special forces team for 

the Bin Ladin operation. Particularly since the Pakistani 

intelligence service was so deeply involved with the Taliban and 

possibly Bin Ladin, U.S. counterterrorism officials had doubts 

about every aspect of this new joint plan. Yet while few thought 

it would do much good, fewer thought it would do any actual harm. 

Officials were implementing it when Prime Minister Sharif was 

deposed by General Pervez Musharraf in October 1999. General 

Musharraf was scornful about the unit and the idea. 

 At first, the Clinton administration hoped that 

Musharraf's takeover might create an opening for action on Bin

Ladin. National security advisor Burger wondered about a trade of 

getting Bin Ladin in exchange for softer treatment of a relatively 
14

benign military regime, but the idea was never developed into a 

policy proposal. Meanwhile, the President and his advisors were 

anxious about a series of new terrorist threats associated with 

the Millennium and were getting information linking these threats 

to al Qaeda associates in Pakistan, particularly Abu Zubaydah. 

President Clinton sent the message asking for immediate help on 

Abu Zubaydah and another push on Bin Ladin, renewing the idea of 

using Pakistani forces to get him. 

 Musharraf told Ambassador Milam that he would do what he 

could, but he preferred a diplomatic solution on Bin Ladin. 

Though he thought terrorists should be brought to justice, he did 

not find the military ideas appealing. 

 Administration officials debated whether to keep working 

with the Musharraf government or confront the general with a 

blunter choice, to either adopt a new policy or Washington will 

draw the appropriate conclusions. One such threat would be to 

cancel a possible presidential visit in March. U.S. envoys were 

given instructions that were firm, but not as confrontational as 

some U.S. officials had advocated. Musharraf was preoccupied with 

his domestic agenda, but replied that he would do what he could, 

perhaps meeting with the Taliban himself. 

 Despite serious security threats, President Clinton made 

a one- day stopover in Islamabad on March 25th, 2000, the first 

presidential visit since 1969. The main subjects were IndiaPakistan tensions and proliferation, but President Clinton did 

raise the Bin Ladin problem. The Pakistani position was that their 

government had to support the Taliban, and that the only way 

forward was to engage them and try to moderate their behavior. 

They asked for evidence that Bin Ladin had really ordered the 

embassy bombings a year-and-a-half earlier. 

 In a follow-up meeting the next day with Undersecretary 

of State Thomas Pickering, President Musharraf argued that 

Pakistan had only limited influence over the Taliban. Musharraf 

did meet with Mullah Omar and did urge him to get rid of Bin 

Ladin. In early June, the Pakistani interior minister even joined 

with Pickering to deliver a joint message to Taliban officials, 

but the Taliban seemed immune to such pleas, especially from 

Pakistani civilians like the interior minister. Pakistan did not 

threaten to cut off its help to the Taliban regime. By September, 

the United States was again criticizing the Pakistani government 

for supporting a Taliban military offensive to complete the 

conquest of Afghanistan. 
15

 Considering new policies towards Afghanistan and 

Pakistan. The civil war in Afghanistan posed the Taliban on one 

side, drawn from Afghanistan's largest ethnic community, the 

Pashtuns, against the Northern Alliance. Pashtuns opposing the 

Taliban, like the Karzai plan, were not organized into a political 

and military force. The main foe of the Taliban was the Northern 

Alliance, led by Ahmad Shah Massoud, a hero of the Afghan jihad 

and a leader of ethnic Tajiks. The Taliban were backed by 

Pakistan. The Northern Alliance received some support from Iran, 

Russia and India. During 1999, the U.S. government began thinking 

harder about whether or how to replace the Taliban regime. 

Thinking in Washington divided along two main paths. The first 

path, led by the South Asia bureau at the State Department, headed 

by Assistant Secretary of State Karl Inderfurth and his 

counterpart on the NSC staff, was for a major diplomatic effort to 

end the civil war and install a national unity government. 

 The second path, proposed by counterterrorism officials 

in the NSC staff and the CIA, was for the United States to take 

sides in the Afghan civil war and begin funneling secret military 

aid to the Taliban's foe, the Northern Alliance. These officials 

argued that the diplomatic approach had little chance of success 

and would not do anything, at least in the short term, to stop al 

Qaeda. Critics of this idea replied that the Northern Alliance 

was tainted by associations with narcotics traffickers, that its 

military capabilities were modest, and that an American 

association with this group would link the United States to an 

unpopular faction that Afghans blamed for much of the misrule and 

war earlier in the 1990s. 

 The debate continued inconclusively throughout the last 

year-and-a-half of the Clinton administration. The CIA 

established limited ties to the Northern Alliance for intelligence 

purposes. Lethal aid was not provided. 

 The Afghan and Pakistani dilemmas were handed over to the 

Bush administration as it took office in 2001. The NSC 

counterterrorism staff, still led by Clarke, pushed urgently for a 

quick decision in favor of providing secret military assistance to 

the Northern Alliance to stave off its defeat. The initial 

proposed amounts were quite small, with the hope of keeping the 

Northern Alliance in the field tying down Taliban and al Qaeda 

fighters. 

 National security advisor Condoleezza Rice discussed the 

issue with DCI Tenet. In early March 2001, Clarke presented the 

issue of aid to the Northern Alliance to Rice for action. Deputy 
16

National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley suggested dealing with 

this as part of the overall review they were conducting of their 

strategy against al Qaeda. In the meantime, lawyers could work on 

developing the appropriate authorities. Rice agreed, noting that 

the review would need to be done very soon, but that the issue had 

to be connected to an examination of policy towards Afghanistan. 

Rice, Hadley, and the NSC staff member for Afghanistan, Zalmay 

Khalilzad, told us that they opposed aid to the Northern Alliance 

alone, contending that the program needed to include Pashtun 

opponents of the regime and be conducted on a larger scale. 

Clarke supported the larger program, but he warned that delay 

risked the alliance's defeat. 

 The issue was then made part of the reviews of U.S. 

policy towards Afghanistan and Pakistan. The government developed 

formal policy papers that were discussed by sub-cabinet officials, 

the deputies, on April 30th, June 27th and 29th, July 16th, and 

September 10th. During this same time period, the Administration

was developing a formal strategy on al Qaeda to be codified in the 

national security presidential directive, NSPD. The al Qaeda 

elements of this directive had been completed by deputies in July. 

On September 4th, the principals apparently approved the 

submission of this directive to the President. 

 The Afghanistan options debated in 2001 ranged from 

seeking a deal with the Taliban to overthrowing the regime. By 

the end of the deputies' meeting on September 10th, the officials 

had formally agreed upon a three-phase strategy. It called first 

for dispatching an envoy to give the Taliban an opportunity to

expel Bin Ladin and his organization from Afghanistan, even as the 

U.S. government tried to build greater capacity to pressure them. 

If this failed, pressure would be applied on the Taliban both 

through diplomacy and by encouraging anti-Taliban Afghans to 

attack al Qaeda bases, part of a planned covert action program, 

including significant additional funding and more support for 

Pashtun opponents of the regime. 

 If the Taliban's policy failed to change after these two 

phases, the deputies agreed that the United States would seek to 

overthrow the Taliban regime through more direct action. 

 MR. ZELIKOW: Excuse me, Mike. We've been asked to wrap 

up the staff segment so that we can proceed with the witnesses. 

Let me move immediately to the conclusion of the staff statement 

from here. 
17

 In conclusion, from the spring of 1997 to September 2001, 

the U.S. government tried to persuade the Taliban to expel Bin 

Ladin to a country where he could face justice and stop being a 

sanctuary for his organization. The efforts employed included 

inducements, warnings and sanctions. All these efforts failed. 

The U.S. government also pressed to successive Pakistani

governments to demand that the Taliban cease providing a sanctuary 

for Bin Ladin and his organization, and failing that, to cut off 

their support for the Taliban. Before 9/11, the United States 

could not find a mix of incentives or pressure that would persuade 

Pakistan to reconsider its fundamental relationship with the 

Taliban. 

 From 1999 through early 2001, the United States pressed 

the UAE, one of the Taliban's only travel and financial outlets to 

the outside world, to break off ties and enforce sanctions, 

especially related to air travel to Afghanistan. These efforts 

achieved little before 9/11. 

 The government of Saudi Arabia worked closely with top 

U.S. officials in major initiatives to solve the Bin Ladin problem 

with diplomacy. On the other hand, before 9/11, the Saudi and 

U.S. governments did not achieve full sharing of important 

intelligence information or develop an adequate joint effort to 

track and disrupt the finances of the al Qaeda organization. 

 Thank you. MR. KEAN: Thank you very much. 

 (Pause to switch witnesses.) 

 MR. KEAN: Our first witness today is Dr. Madeleine K. 

Albright, formerly our secretary of state. She is, I believe, 

well known to all in this audience, and has a distinguished career 

in public service. We are very pleased to have her appear before 

the Commission this morning, so welcome to you, Madam Secretary. 

She is accompanied by undersecretary -- former undersecretary for 

political affairs and one of the great public servants this 

country has, in my opinion, Ambassador Thomas Pickering, who has 

had, as I say, a very distinguished career in public service. 

 Madam Secretary and Ambassador Pickering, we would like 

to ask you if you could raise your hands so we may place you under 

oath. 

 Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole 

truth, and nothing but the truth. 
18

 MADELEINE K. ALBRIGHT: I do. 

 CHAIRMAN KEAN: Thank you very much. Madame Secretary, 

your prepared statement will be entered into the record in full, 

and we would ask you to summarize your statement. And, please 

proceed. 

 MS. ALBRIGHT: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Vice 

Chairman Hamilton and members of the Commission. I'm very pleased 

to be here. As you've just mentioned, Tom Pickering, the former 

undersecretary of state for political affairs and one of our most 

experienced and respected foreign service officers in U.S. 

history, is here with me. During my years as secretary of state, 

if I were traveling or otherwise occupied, Ambassador Pickering 

was the department's representative at White House meetings 

related to terrorism. We thought it would help in providing the 

most complete answers if Ambassador Pickering were available, as 

appropriate, to add his recollections to mine. 

 I would also like to emphasize at the outset my desire to 

be of as much help as possible to the Commission. We can't turn 

back the clock to before September 11th, but we must do everything 

we can to prevent similar tragedies, and we owe it to the families 

of the victims of 9/11 and to us all. 

 Mr. Chairman, we all know that history is lived forward 

and written backward. Much seems obvious now that was less clear 

prior to September 11. But I can say with confidence that 

President Clinton and his team did everything we could, everything 

that we could think of, based on the knowledge we had, to protect 

our people and disrupt and defeat al Qaeda. We certainly 

recognized the threat posed by the terrorist groups. 

 Although terror was not new we realized we faced a novel 

variation. Instead of being directed by a hostile country, the 

new breed of terrorist was independent, multinational and well 

versed in modern information technology. During our time in 

office, the transnational threat was a dominant theme in public 

statements, private deliberations and foreign relations. This was 

reflected in the Administration's decision to expand the CIA's 

counterterrorism center, intensify security cooperation with other 

countries, enlarge counterterrorism training assistance, double 

overall counterterrorism expenditures, increase anti-terrorist 

rewards, freeze terrorist assets, train first responders here at 

home, plan for the protection of infrastructure against cyber 

attacks, and reorganize the National Security Council with a 
19

mandate to prepare the government to shield our people from 

unconventional dangers. 

 As early as 1995, President Clinton said that, and I 

quote: "Our generation's enemies are the terrorists who kill 

children or turn them into orphans," unquote. The President

repeatedly told the United Nations that combating terrorism topped 

America's agenda and should top theirs. He urged every nation to 

deny sanctuary to terrorists and to cooperate in bringing them to 

justice. 

 Before Y2K we undertook the largest counterterrorism 

operation in U.S. history to that time. Cabinet members or their 

representatives met virtually every day for the sole purpose of 

detecting and preventing terrorist attacks. I fully embraced an 

aggressive policy before and especially after August 7th, 1998, 

when terrorist explosions struck our embassies in Kenya and 

Tanzania. This was my worst day as secretary of State. Within a 

week, we had clear evidence that Osama Bin Ladin was responsible. 

The question for us was whether to rely on law enforcement or take 

military action. We decided to do both. We prosecuted the 

conspirators we had captured, but we also launched cruise missiles 

at al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan. 

 The timing of the strikes was prompted by credible, 

predictive intelligence that terrorist leaders, possibly including 

Bin Ladin, would be gathering at one of the camps. The day after 

the strikes, the White House convened a meeting to study further 

military options. Our primary target, Bin Ladin, had not been 

hit, so we were determined to try again. 

 In subsequent weeks the President specifically authorized 

the use of force, and there should have been no confusion that our 

personnel were authorized to kill Bin Ladin. We did not, after 

all, launch cruise missiles for the purpose of serving legal 

papers. To use force effectively, we placed war ships equipped 

with cruise missiles on call in the Arabian sea. We also studied 

the possibility of sending a U.S. Special Forces team into 

Afghanistan to try and snatch Bin Ladin. But success in either 

case depended on whether we know where Bin Ladin would be at a 

particular time. 

 Although we consumed all the intelligence we had, we did 

not get this information; and instead, we occasionally learned 

where Bin Ladin had been or where he might be going or where 

someone who appeared to resemble him might be. It was truly 

maddening. I compared it to one of those arcade games where you 
20

manipulate a lever hooked to a claw- like hand that you think, 

once you put your quarter in, will actually scoop up a prize. But 

every time you try to pull the basket out, the prize falls away. 

 The Africa embassy bombings intensified our efforts to 

neutralize Bin Ladin and also to protect our own people. Every 

morning that I was in Washington I personally reviewed the latest 

information about threats to our diplomatic posts. I was struck 

by the number of danger signals we received and also by the 

difficulty of making a clear judgment about whether a threat was 

credible enough to warrant closing an embassy. Even as we took 

protective measures and looked for ways to use force effectively, 

we pressed ahead diplomatically. 

 Shortly after our cruise missile strikes, the Taliban 

called the State Department to complain. This led to a prolonged 

dialogue during which we repeatedly pushed for custody of Bin

Ladin. The Taliban replied by offering a menu of excuses. They 

said that surrendering Bin Ladin would violate their cultural 

tradition of hospitality and that they would be overthrown by 

their own people if they yielded Bin Ladin in response to U.S. 

pressure. Perhaps, they said, Bin Ladin will leave voluntarily. 

At one point, they told us he had already gone. In any case, we 

were assured that Bin Ladin was under house arrest. That was a 

lie since he continued to show up in the media threatening 

Americans. 

 In 1999 we developed a new strategy aimed at pulling all 

the diplomatic levers we had simultaneously. We went to each of 

the countries we thought had influence with the Taliban and asked 

them to use that influence to help us get Bin Ladin. One such 

country was Pakistan, whose leaders were reluctant to apply real 

pressure to the Taliban because it would alienate radicals within 

their own borders. There was a limit to the incentives we could 

offer to overcome this reluctance. Pakistan's nuclear tests in 

1998 had triggered one set of sanctions; a military coup in 1999 

triggered more. 

 Nevertheless, in our discussions with Pakistani leaders we 

were blunt. We told them that Bin Ladin is a murderer who plans to 

kill again; we need your help in bringing him to justice. Our 

ambassador delivered this message. So did Tom Pickering. So did 

I. So did the President of the United States. In return, we 

received promises but no decisive action. We couldn't offer 

enough to persuade Pakistani leaders such as General Musharraf to 

run the risks that would have been necessary. It was not until 

September 11th that Musharraf had the motivation in his own mind 
21

to provide real cooperation, and even that has not yet resulted in 

Bin Ladin's capture, though it apparently has led to several 

attempts on Musharraf's life. 

 The other two countries we went to were Saudi Arabia and 

the United Arab Emirates, and both agreed to deliver the right 

message. The Saudis sent one of their princes to confront the 

Taliban directly, and he came back and told us the Taliban were 

idiots and liars. The Saudis then downgraded diplomatic ties with 

the Taliban, cut off official assistance, and denied visas to 

Afghans traveling for non-religious reasons, and the UAE did the 

same. 

 Our diplomats, including Ambassador Pickering, also met 

directly with Taliban leaders. We told them that if we did not 

get Bin Ladin, we would impose sanctions, both bilaterally and 

through the U.N., which we did. We also warned them clearly and 

repeatedly that they would be held accountable for any future 

attacks traceable to al Qaeda. In retrospect, we know that the 

Taliban and Bin Ladin had a symbiotic relationship. The Taliban 

needed the money and muscle al Qaeda provided. Bin Ladin needed 

space for his operatives to live and train. And there was never a 

real chance the Taliban would turn Bin Ladin over to us or to 

anybody else. 

 Mr. Chairman, I would like now to offer briefly some of 

the recommendations for the future. We must begin by thinking 

clearly about what it is we need to do. We were not attacked on 

September 11th by a noun, terrorism. We were attacked by 

individuals affiliated with al Qaeda. They are the enemies who 

killed our fellow citizens and other -- and foreigners, and 

defeating them should be the focus of our policy. If we pursue 

goals that are unnecessarily broad, such as the elimination not 

only of threats but also of potential threats, we will stretch 

ourselves to the breaking point and become more vulnerable, not 

less, to those truly in a position to harm us. 

 We also need to remember that al Qaeda is not a criminal 

gang that can simply be rounded up and put behind bars. It is the 

center of an ideological virus that has wholly perverted the minds 

of thousands and distorted the thinking of millions more. Until 

the right medicine is found, the virus will continue to spread, 

and that remedy begins with confidence. Bin Ladin and his cohorts 

have absolutely nothing to offer their followers except 

destruction, death and the illusion of glory. Puncturing this 

illusion is the key to winning the battle of ideas. 
22

 The problem is not combating al Qaeda's inherent appeal, 

for it has none. The problem is changing the fact that major 

components of American foreign policy are either opposed or 

misunderstood by much of the world. According to the State 

Department's Advisory Group on Public Diplomacy, published 

recently, the bottom has indeed fallen out of support for the 

United States. This unpopularity has handed Bin Ladin a gift that 

he has eagerly exploited. He is viewed by many as a leader of all 

those who harbor anti-American sentiments, and this has given him 

a following that is wholly undeserved. 

 If we are to succeed, we must be sure that Bin Ladin goes 

down in history not as a defender of the faith or champion of the 

dispossessed, but rather as what he is: a murderer, a traitor to 

Islam, and a loser. 

 The tarnishing of America's global prestige will require 

considerable time and effort to undo, and that's why we need longrange counterterrorism plans that take advantage of the full array 

of our national security tools. This plan must include the 

comprehensive reform of our intelligence structures; a vastly 

expanded commitment to public diplomacy and outreach, especially 

within the Arab and Muslim worlds; a far bolder strategy for 

stabilizing Afghanistan; revised policies towards the key 

countries of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia; expansion of the NunnLugar program to secure weapons of mass destruction materials on a 

global basis; a new approach to handling and sharing of 

information concerning terrorist suspects; and a change in the 

tone of American national security policy, to emphasize the value 

of diplomatic cooperation. And Secretary of State Powell has made 

a concerted effort to begin this. 

 Let me close by saying that I sympathize greatly with the 

President and others in positions of responsibility at this time. 

Each day brings with it the possibility of a new terrorist strike. 

The March 11 train bombings in Madrid remind us that despite all 

that is being done, our enemies have a broad range of targets. 

We should all expect and prepare ourselves for the likelihood that 

further strikes will take place on our own soil. And we must be 

united in making sure that if and when that happens, it will do 

absolutely nothing to advance the terrorists' goals; it will not 

cause divisions within and among the American people. On the 

contrary, it must bring us closer together and make us even more 

determined to fulfill our responsibilities. 

 For more than two centuries, our countrymen have fought 

and died so that liberty might live. And since September 11th, we 
23

have been summoned, each in our own way, to a new round in that 

struggle. We cannot underestimate the risks or anticipate the 

final victories will come easily or soon, but we can draw strength 

from the knowledge of what terror can and cannot do. Terror can 

turn life to death, and laughter to tears, and shared hopes to 

sorrowful memories. It can crash a plane and bring down towers 

that scrape the sky. But it cannot alter the essential goodness 

of the American people or diminish our loyalty to one another or 

cause our nation to turn its back on the world. 

 Mr. Chairman and members of the Commission, thank you 

very much for the opportunity to be here with you this morning. 

And I'd be very pleased now to answer your questions. 

 MR. KEAN: Thank you very much, Madame Secretary. 

 The lead questioners for this panel are Commissioner 

Lehman and Commissioner Roemer. They will each have 15 minutes 

for their questions. Additional questioners on this panel will be 

held strictly to the five-minute rule. 

 And, Commissioner Lehman, I believe you're going to start 

the questioning on behalf of the panel. 

 MR. LEHMAN: Since my colleague, Tim Roemer, was one of 

the originators of this commission, I will yield the -- (word 

inaudible) -- position to Tim. 

 MR. KEAN: So yielded. 

 MR. ROEMER: I want to thank the secretary for that 

gracious gesture. 

 I want to start, Mr. Chairman, by, I believe, 

underscoring something you said in your opening statement. You 

said that we have invited Dr. Rice to talk to this 9/11 

Commission. Well, we have a book issued by Richard Clarke which 

is a blistering attack on the Bush administration. We have Dr. 

Rice on the airwaves saying that she strongly condemns and 

disagrees with Mr. Clarke's assessments and analysis. I would 

hope that this discussion would not be for the airwaves and would 

not be a partisan type of discussion that we have, but belongs in 

this hearing room tomorrow in a substantive way so that the 10 

Commissioners can ask factually-based questions, and so the 

American people have the access to those answers to try to make 

this country safer. 
24

 So I would underscore your comments, Mr. Chairman, that I 

hope Dr. Rice will reconsider and come before our commission for 

the sake of the American people tomorrow. (Applause.) 

 Madame Secretary, I want to mention your book, if I may, 

"Madam Secretary." I don't need to mention a best-seller. You 

say in a chapter called "A Special Kind of Evil" that the African 

bombings, our embassies there, were the worst day of your tenure 

as secretary of State. We lost 224 people, 12 Americans. "The 

devil breathed down our neck that day, and three years later 19 

hijackers drove us into the jaws of hell" where we are today, 

trying to resolve some of these tough questions. The Clinton 

administration launched 79 cruise missiles 13 days after finding 

who did this. Had diplomacy run its course? Should we have taken 

the same kind of action that we took after the U.S. embassy 

bombings in Africa with the U.S.S. Cole? 

 MS. ALBRIGHT: Congressman Roemer, let me say that, as 

you pointed out, when the embassies were blown up it was my worst 

day. I went to Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. In Nairobi I saw the 

rubble and I saw the suffering of the African people, many of whom 

were in hospitals as a result of what had happened, and obviously 

many were dead. And I then brought the bodies home of the dead 

Americans, and sat with the coffins and talked with the families 

when I came back. And so for me this was a horrendous moment and 

one that I was bound and determined to figure out why it had 

happened and what we could do about it. 

 I asked Admiral Crowe to form a commission to determine 

various actions that we could take, and it was something that was 

on my mind constantly. I was very much in favor of the attack 

with the cruise missiles and was very much in favor, along with 

the rest of our team, to try to do everything we could to have 

further military attacks if and when we had predictable and 

actionable intelligence. And as I say in my statement, I believed 

fully that we were prepared to go. President Clinton had issued 

all the orders. We had kept armed submarines in the Arabian Sea 

and we were ready if there ever was actionable intelligence. 

 And so I did favor military action, but at the same time 

we had to continue to act diplomatically. 

 I have always believed that what is necessary is to use 

every tool in the American national security arsenal, whether it 

is military, diplomatic or economic, or legal. And we tried 

everything at the same time. 
25

 On the U.S.S. Cole, we were obviously prepared to 

respond, but we did not have definitive evidence that it really 

was committed by Osama Bin Ladin and al Qaeda; that evidence came 

after we were out of office. But had we had definitive evidence, 

I can assure you that we were prepared to act militarily. 

 MR. ROEMER: Let me ask you a question about that, Madame 

Secretary. There are three investigations going on with respect 

to the U.S.S. Cole: the Yemenis are doing one, the FBI is doing 

one and the CIA is doing one. In December the CIA comes forward, 

hedges the recommendation, comes forward with a preliminary 

judgment and says they can't, through command and control, prove 

that Osama Bin Ladin ordered it. Isn't it enough at this point to 

say al Qaeda did it, and respond in that kind of way, either in 

December, or certainly in the months that come after your 

administration? 

 MS. ALBRIGHT: Well, I think the real question is to try 

to figure out what really did happen, and when we left office we 

did not have all the answers to it, and as you point out, there 

were numerous investigations. I myself called the President of 

Yemen to help us in this issue and to press for additional 

investigations. I think the results came after we were out of 

office and I would have hoped that action could have been taken. 

But there was no definitive action of any kind at the time that we 

left office. 

 MR. ROEMER: In terms of the time that you spent as 

secretary of State on terrorism -- we'll have Secretary Powell 

follow you -- what percent of your time, if you can give us a 

rough estimation, did you spend? You had Middle East peace, you 

certainly were one of the driving forces in being a hawk with 

respect to Kosovo and using our military there. What percent of 

your time can you best estimate that you spent on counterterrorism 

policy? 

 MS. ALBRIGHT: It's very hard, Congressman, to give you 

an exact estimate. But I can tell you what I did, which is every 

morning, when I came into my office, I obviously read the 

intelligence, but I also met with the assistant secretary for 

security. I had changed the standard practice and named a law 

enforcement officer to that job, David Carpenter, who was a 

retired Secret Service agent, and so I had a real expert dealing 

with it. We spent whatever time was necessary in the morning, in 

order to go over the threats. Then either I or Ambassador 
26

Pickering, depending upon who was in town, went to the small 

meetings that took place on counterterrorism issues. 

 We talked about issues to do with terrorism, Osama Bin

Ladin, al Qaeda in so many meetings, whether they were official 

principals' meetings at the White House or the breakfasts that Mr. 

Berger and Secretary Cohen -- 

 MR. ROEMER: ABC breakfasts -- Albright -- 

 MS. ALBRIGHT: But the -- no, the -- 

 MR. ROEMER: The lunch --

 MS. ALBRIGHT: The ABCs were lunches. 

 MR. ROEMER: Okay. 

 MS. ALBRIGHT: (Chuckles.) The breakfasts were a little 

bit a larger, with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and Mr. Tenet 

and the ambassador to the United Nations. 

 And so -- but we talked about this constantly, and 

therefore it's hard to give you an estimate of the time. But it 

was very much --

 MR. ROEMER: Can you guess at all? Twenty percent? 

Fifty percent? 

 MS. ALBRIGHT: I would probably say somewhere about 35 

percent, because it was something that was constant, and it was 

very hard to quantify. 

 But I can tell you I started every single day trying to 

assess what the terrorist threats were and also how to direct the 

diplomacy in order to be able to make sure that we were dealing 

with this. I think maybe Ambassador Pickering can also tell you 

how much time he spent on it, because our activities were 

seamless. 

 THOMAS PICKERING (former undersecretary of State for 

Political Affairs): I think that the secretary's judgment in this 

and -- she used to call me after the morning meetings and give me 

orders to carry things out and get things done. 
27

 Given the number of meetings, particularly in crises 

periods leading up to the Millennium, for example, sometimes most 

of the day would be occupied in dealing with this particular issue 

and to all the meetings that -- the secretary mentioned she had 

many internal meetings in the State Department to plan for not 

only what she should do with the ongoing meetings at an 

interagency basis but also to get us thinking about new ideas, 

thinking out of the hat on this issue and trying to come up with 

new and different ways to deal with the problem. 

 MS. ALBRIGHT: So on some days, it was a hundred percent. 

So I think it's very hard to give you a real percentage. 

 MR. ROEMER: Let me, in my 15 minutes, move quickly 

through some things. I mentioned Secretary Powell will be coming 

next. I imagine you briefed Secretary Powell as he came into 

office in a transition. Did you let the secretary know that al 

Qaeda was going to be the kind of threat that he would need to 

spend 35 percent or 50 percent or a hundred percent, in some days, 

of his time fighting new, fluid, dynamic threat to this country? 

And what was his reaction or what was Dr. Rice's reaction to these 

types of briefings? 

 MS. ALBRIGHT: Well, let me explain a little bit of what 

happened, and the transition in the State Department is something 

that is done many times and is well put together. So I had 

general meetings with Secretary Powell. 

 Then, when he moved into his offices in the first floor 

of the State Department, I arranged to make sure that every 

assistant secretary briefed him on whatever the issue was. And 

Ambassador Sheehan, who was in charge of counterterrorism, briefed 

Secretary Powell in detail about the kinds of things that we have 

been talking about, in terms of al Qaeda and Osama Bin Ladin, et 

cetera. 

 In my general discussions with Secretary Powell I did 

point out that this was a major issue that had occupied a large 

portion of my time. But --

 MR. ROEMER: How did he react to that? 

 MS. ALBRIGHT: Well, I think he understood that this was 

a serious issue. And I am -- I only know what I've read in terms 

of Mr. Berger's conversations with Dr. Rice. But I know that I 

believe that Secretary Powell understood the dangers that were 

inherent. 
28

 MR. ROEMER: Let me move on to a very complicated 

relationship that the United States has with Saudi Arabia. I want 

to ask very bluntly and very frankly your opinion with regard to 

their cooperation to the United States, with the United States 

prior to 9/11. We were able to get the Saudis to cooperate on 

issues such as having Ambassador Turki go to yell at Mullah Omar 

in Afghanistan, but we could not get them to access al Qaeda's 

CFO. What kind of relationship was this? And did you personally 

press the Saudis hard in these kinds of instances when we needed 

access to high-level people like Madani al Tayyib? 

 MS. ALBRIGHT: I think, as you pointed out, our 

relationship with Saudi Arabia is a very complicated one. And the 

Saudi record is a mixed one, frankly. I think that they were 

helpful on a number of issues. I talked to Crown Prince Abdullah 

as well as Foreign Minister Saud about a number of issues, 

obviously including Bin Ladin and al Qaeda. We also spent a lot 

of time on Iraq, and we spent a lot of time in terms of issues to 

do around the Middle East peace process. They always did say that 

they would press and push on the Bin Ladin/al Qaeda front, but 

frankly, it's hard to say how effective it was at what times. 

 MR. ROEMER: Were you convinced they were pushing? 

 MS. ALBRIGHT: Well, I was convinced when they told me 

they were pushing. But the bottom line is that in effect, as you 

look at the record, there were questions about some of the 

financial aspects. And I do think that there is a mixed record. 

One of the things about the Saudis is that they often do more 

things in private than is evident publicly. But I would say the 

record was a mixed one. I would say we pushed as hard as we 

could. 

 MR. ROEMER: Let me ask you, Madame Secretary, in your 

book you say, and I quote, "Sadly, I was not surprised that we 

were attacked, or even shocked that the airplane hijacking was 

involved," unquote. 

 You were not surprised by that September 11th event? And 

you -- did you have intelligence or briefings indicating that 

hijackings were possible on September 11th? Why weren't you 

surprised? And did it include not being shocked that planes were 

used as missiles and weapons or that it was al Qaeda? 

 MS. ALBRIGHT: A number of responses to that, 

Congressman. I think that we were operating within an atmosphere 
29

where we were watching all kinds of potential attacks, and in fact 

foiled a number of them in the years that we were in office -- I 

kind of call them the dogs that didn't bite or bark because people 

didn't hear about them, but we -- so I think that we were always 

on the lookout, which is why I said I wasn't surprised, because we 

knew that there were a variety of attacks possible and we foiled 

some. In various briefings, we were told that there were all 

kinds of ways to do things -- car bombs or suitcases or bio or

chemical. And among the various parts of what we were briefed, 

there would be sometimes a mention of an airplane. But basically 

we were looking at all kinds of potential ways that there could be 

attacks. And so the sadness of this was that we always knew that 

some terrible -- we were always on the lookout for some terrible 

thing, and we were foiling many, many of the potential attacks. 

 MR. ROEMER: Madame Secretary, thank you very much. I've 

been slipped a note that my time has expired and I want to stick 

right to that, so that other commissioners can get in. Thank you, 

Mr. Chairman. 

 MR. KEAN: Thank you, Congressman. 

 Secretary Lehman. 

 MR. LEHMAN: Madame Secretary, welcome. I would like to 

follow up with -- on many of the same subjects here. One of the 

constant refrains we've had in the over a thousand interviews that 

we've done and through the documents that we have been studying is 

that there was a considerable dysfunction in the intelligence 

community, particularly with regard to sharing of information. A 

lot of people did not know about information that was in the 

government that was not shared -- "stove-piped" -- and many people 

were not playing with a full deck. So I'd like to -- (laughs) --

ask your own view -- (laughter) -- some even with intelligence --

(laughter) -- about starting with your entry as secretary of 

State. 

 You had been at the U.N. You were part of the inner 

circle, the NSC, the Cabinet. What was the picture that you had 

when you took over the reigns as secretary of State as to the 

nature of the threat, the terrorist threat? 

 MS. ALBRIGHT: When I came in as secretary, which was 

February 1997, there was no question that we knew about a variety 

of threats. I had, at the U.N., been involved with some of the 

issues to do with Sudan, where we were very concerned about the 

web of terrorist camps and support, et cetera, that were present 
30

in Sudan. If you remember, the Sudanese were implicated in an 

assassination attempt on President Mubarak, and it was as a result 

of that that we instituted or put in sanctions against Sudan. And 

so I clearly was aware of issues and was briefed, and also briefed 

in terms of some of the investigations to do with the World Trade 

Center.

 So one knew that there were various terrorist threats 

that we were dealing with, but on, as I pointed out in my remarks, 

kind of a whole new level of problems. And I did see, I have to 

say, something that you alluded to, which was a lack of 

communication already between the CIA and the FBI in terms of 

transmitting information to each other. And so what we tried to 

do was to bring them closer together, with some difficulty; I 

think some to do with the culture of both those agencies and 

something that I'd recommend, finally, that needs to be fixed. So 

I do think that there were issues in that regard, but on the whole 

I think there was a lot of intelligence available, and the 

question is how it was read. 

 MR. LEHMAN: Well, specifically on the '93 attack on the 

World Trade Center, we have been told by some very senior 

officials that the complete picture, the evidence of the al Qaeda 

links of the perpetrators were really not made known until after 

within -- shared within the government until after the trial of 

the blind Sheik, and the leaks of Abdul Rahman Yasin, for 

instance, were not widely known within the government. When did 

you, if you could think back, become aware of the close and many 

links between the '93 plotters and al Qaeda? 

 MS. ALBRIGHT: I can't remember exactly. I mean, I think 

that, you know, we began to know more about al Qaeda sometime in 

'96, '97. We knew Bin Ladin was a financier that was involved in a 

variety of activities. 

 But I honestly can't tell you exactly when I became aware 

of the various linkages. 

 MR. LEHMAN: Did you know about Abdul Rahman Yasin and 

his fleeing to Baghdad and his support and cooperation with 

Saddam's intelligence service? Did you see any significance in 

that? He being, of course, one of the main plotters of the '93 

bombing. 

 MS. ALBRIGHT: I can't say that I remember that. 
31

 MR. LEHMAN: Just on that theme, the fact that Abu Nidal 

and Abu Abbas were there, along with Yasin, was -- would this have 

been a reason to begin to look a bit at what the Iraqi secret 

service was doing with al Qaeda and with or without Saddam's 

knowledge? 

 MS. ALBRIGHT: Again, I -- my sense of all of this was 

that there were shadowy connections among a variety of groups. 

But in terms of this kind of specificity, frankly, that was not 

something that as secretary of State I would have been looking 

into. 

 MR. LEHMAN: One of the questions, again, that have often 

been raised is after -- as -- almost as soon as the Clinton 

administration came in, there was an attempt to assassinate 

President Bush. There was a very minor strike launched against 

the intelligence service of Saddam, intelligence headquarters, and 

with the insurance (sic) that no one would be there, so it would 

be in the middle of the night. After the Khobar bombing, there 

were many in the Administration who wanted to retaliate, but in 

fact nothing was done. After the '93 WTI (sic) attack, there 

essentially was nothing done pending the five-year trial. After 

the embassy bombing, there was, again, an attempt to make cruise 

missile attacks against the training camps and then against the 

pharmaceutical plant in Sudan. 

 As you'll recall, there were criticisms at the time that 

this was a "Wag the Dog" scenario, that it was during the various 

stages of the President's problems, and that there was no real 

evidence there, that it was an innocent pharmaceutical plant. 

 You were part of the inner sanctum at the time. In your 

view, was there real evidence that this was part of a Bin Ladin

network? 

 MS. ALBRIGHT: You've said a lot of different things. 

 Let me just say that I do believe that when we had 

evidence, we used force. And the response on the '93 -- on the 

attempted assassination of President Bush we reacted, I think, 

very strongly. That's certainly what the Iraqis thought. And I 

was the one that had the rather peculiar moment of delivering the 

message to the Iraqi ambassador at the United Nations, while 

sitting in his residence under a portrait of Saddam Hussein, that 

we were bombing Baghdad. So -- and then went to the Security 

Council with the proof of it. 
32

 So I think that we acted very well on that, and it should 

be a sign that we were prepared to use military force when it was 

appropriate and we had intelligence in order to make it effective. 

 I think on the issue of '98, we were prepared to use 

force, and did use it immediately after the bombings of the 

embassies, as I said earlier, on actionable intelligence. I 

believed and continue to believe that the plant in Sudan was 

connected to this network that Osama Bin Ladin had had in Sudan 

and that it was an appropriate strike. 

 And as you point out -- and I think this is the very hard 

part for all of us, Mr. Secretary, is that we have to put 

ourselves into the pre-9/11 mode, and that it was -- and it's hard 

because we've all been in our post-9/11 prism, where we should be, 

and yet things were very different before 9/11. And as you point 

out, we were mostly accused of overreacting, not under-reacting. 

And I believe we reacted appropriately. And as I said earlier, we 

would have acted more had we had actionable intelligence. And so 

I think we dealt very appropriately with the issue and I think our 

record stands well. 

 MR. LEHMAN: The reports at the time, and subsequently, 

have appeared in various places that the evidence involved with 

the pharmaceutical plant not only involved al Qaeda, and 

specifically Osama, but also the Iraqi -- various programs within 

the Iraqi government, let us say. Did you see any significance in 

that as something to worry about, perhaps the Iraqis' involvement 

with Osama might be a bit more than might appear? 

 MS. ALBRIGHT: I did not make the connection. But let me 

just say this; is that if you look at the record, I was as hawkish 

on Saddam Hussein as anybody; made more statements and took more 

actions, whether I was ambassador at the United Nations or 

secretary of State, in terms of trying to contain Saddam Hussein 

and make sure that he proceeded in terms of trying to live up to 

or fulfill the Security Council resolutions. And so I did not --

or do not remember making a link between what was happening in 

Sudan and the Iraqis. 

 I don't know, Tom, whether you have any. 

 MR. PICKERING: Mr. Secretary, I also participated in the 

meetings leading up to that decision. There were two pieces of 

evidence only that I was aware of that I thought were very, very 

important that helped, I believe, to crystallize the decision. 
33

 One was the report we had following chemical analysis of 

the actual sample of a precursor to VX nerve gas that did not 

occur in nature. It was very unique and was not used for any 

other known purpose. 

 And the other was the connection that the secretary just 

talked to you about of the plant with investments and activities 

of Saddam -- excuse me, of Osama Bin Ladin in Sudan. As you know, 

he spent time in Sudan prior to the attack on the plant. And I 

was not aware of any Iraqi connection until after the attack. 

 MR. LEHMAN: Thank you. Let me shift to Saudi Arabia. 

As I'm sure you all know, it is sort of common wisdom, or in the 

State Department one would say an urban myth, that the culture of 

the department is ruled by a pro-Saudi, pro-Sunni bent. And there 

are things that certainly give credence to that in the record 

leading up to 9/11: The fact that State never made any demarche 

to get after the Saudis had perhaps the second-most powerful man 

in al Qaeda in their possession from '95 on and didn't tell us for 

some time, and to this day has not been turned over to us; the 

fact that the activities of the Saudi ministry of religious 

affairs have really never gotten even onto the scope of the agenda 

between Saudi Arabia and the United States; the flow, this 

constant promotion of jihadist ideology around the world. 

 In your time -- and the fact, of course, which has 

recently become an issue, that despite the fact that the priests 

and ministers are in jail in Saudi for having Christian services, 

they are nevertheless -- Saudi was never listed on the annual list 

of State Department states who don't offer religious freedom. 

 In your time, did you find -- oh, one last; in our last 

hearing, Ms. Ryan, who headed the consular service, explained that 

the reason special attention was not given to Saudis seeking 

visas, even after Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, for instance, was 

indicted and he was given a visa, was because the State Department

had Saudi Arabia in a most-favored-nation status. And indeed, 

when we had the officer who did stop one of the hijackers, he said 

that he came under pressure from his colleagues because picking on 

a Saudi was very much not acceptable. 

 Do you find this was a problem? Is there a cultural 

problem, or is this purely a myth? 

 MS. ALBRIGHT: Well, I don't think there's a cultural 

problem. I think that basically there are those in the department 

that are responsible for our relationships with Saudi Arabia and 
34

there are people in the department who are responsible for our 

relationships with Israel or another country. And I think that, 

as secretary and as undersecretary, we took all those issues under 

consideration, obviously. 

 I do think, as I said earlier, our relationship with 

Saudi Arabia is an incredibly complicated one. We had forces 

stationed there. We were trying to figure out how to deal with 

Iraq. We understood the role of Saudi Arabia within the Arab 

world. And we pressed them. I personally pressed them on issues 

to do, believe it or not, on women's rights. I pressed them on 

the religious issues. I pressed them on questions to do with how 

they were using their charitable money. And we did push them at a 

variety of times. And as I said earlier, the record is mixed. 

But the relationship is complicated, and there are divisions 

within Saudi society. And I think it will continue to be a highly 

complex relationship for the United States. 

 MR. PICKERING: Also, Mr. Secretary, on the visa cases, I 

know all of you know from your own work and some of the work that 

has been done ahead of time, the State Department officers issuing 

visas relied on something called a watch list. And, in fact, the 

State Department had taken the initiative to develop the watch 

list in connection with certain criminal activities, and then 

expanded it in cooperation with the intelligence community to try 

to deal with terrorism, as we all saw terrorism becoming a much 

more serious problem. 

 And the tragedy of the issue is that apparently there was 

information available to the intelligence community, but it did 

not get into the watch list, something that every State Department 

officer in Saudi Arabia issuing visas had to consult before even 

thinking about issuing a visa, and that, unfortunately, the 

intelligence we had in our possession -- again, some of the 

stovepiping problem you related earlier, some of the 

compartmentation issue or some of the, I think, maybe uncertainty 

in the intelligence community about the importance of getting that 

information to the visa officers. 

 These officers interview people often to determine 

whether they're going to overstay their visa, become immigrants 

without going through the appropriate processes. I don't know 

that visa officers, except by happenstance, have any particular 

ability to detect terrorists, but maybe we have new profiles now 

that will help. But the watch list was the basis for that. And 

unfortunately, in that particular case the watch list was not up-
35

to-date, and therefore we missed those individuals that should 

have been caught by the visa process. 

 MR. LEHMAN: Thank you very much. 

 MR. KEAN: I just had one question. It seems to me that 

for years, at the end of the Clinton administration and into the 

Bush administration, we seemed to have a hope, which I don't quite 

understand, that the Taliban somehow would agree, through 

diplomatic pressure or through some other pressure, to give up 

Osama Bin Ladin in some way or other. 

 And it seems to go on for a few years, even though I 

can't find in anything I've read any justification, really, for 

that hope. I understand trying for a while. But weren't you 

probably coming to the end of your rope on those attempts, 

recognizing that this was a man who was leader of the Taliban, was 

somebody who wasn't even talking to people because they weren't 

Muslims, diplomatically? 

 MS. ALBRIGHT: I do think that we later learned about the 

very kind of, as I said, symbiotic relationship between the 

Taliban and Osama Bin Ladin. And if you look at it, it's hard to 

-- vain hope is the way, as you review it, that you feel. But at 

the time, you have to realize what our options were in terms of we 

needed to have them cough him up, so to speak. And basically we 

used every pressure point that we could. There were a variety of 

meetings that we had with them. We thought that we could either 

threaten or induce them to give him up. But even -- and I have to 

say, the options, let's say, of bombing them has not produced 

Osama Bin Ladin. So I think that you do have to look at the 

options that you have. And if we did not have the leverage, then 

perhaps the Pakistanis, for instance, who had closer relations 

with them, or the Saudis, we had hoped, would have that kind of 

relationship. But clearly this very knitted relationship was not 

something that was evident that we had good intelligence on. 

 MR. KEAN: Senator Kerrey. 

 MR. KERREY: Madam Secretary, first of all, it's very 

nice to see you again. 

 MS. ALBRIGHT: Thank you. 

 MR. KERREY: It seems to me during the Clinton 

administration there were two big mistakes, and I wonder if you'd 

comment on them. The first is that from 1993 through 2001, the 
36

United States of America was either attacked or we prevented 

attack by radical Islamists close to a dozen times, either where 

the attack was successful or where we interrupted the attack. 

 And during that period of time, not only did we not 

engage in any single military attack other than the 20th of 

August, 1998, there was no attack against al Qaeda during that 

entire period of time. Indeed, the presidential directive that 

was the operative one of '62, that was signed in May of 1998, 

didn't give the military primary authority in counterterrorism. 

They were still responsible for supporting the states and local 

governments if we were attacked, and they were still providing 

support for the Department of Justice in doing investigations. 

 And, it seems to me, especially -- you cited the '93 case 

with Iraq, the bombing of Iraq -- it seems to me that that was a 

terrible mistake. Indeed, the Commission has seen evidence that 

people at lower levels in the Department of Defense and Dick 

Clarke, himself, were preparing analyses suggesting more 

aggressive military efforts, and it went nowhere. So that's 

mistake Number 1 that I think was a big one. 

 The second one was after we had reason to believe that 

the Saudis were financing terrorists who were at least indirectly 

connected, if not directly connected, with killing Americans on 

the 7th of August 1998, that we didn't threaten to freeze their 

assets or actually freeze their assets. Something that, my guess 

is, would have a dramatic impact on the Kingdom's willingness to 

continue to behave in that fashion. Those are the two mistakes 

that I think were made during the Clinton administration. 

 The first one, I think, is a really large one, and I 

don't -- honestly, I don't understand -- if we're attacked and 

attacked and attacked, why we continue to send the FBI over like, 

you know, like Khobar Towers was a crime scene or these African 

embassy bombings was a crime scene. You said we had balance

between military effort and diplomacy and, frankly, I've got to 

say, it seems to me, it was very unbalanced in favor of diplomacy 

against military effort. 

 MS. ALBRIGHT: I think, Senator -- or -- Mr. President --

is that it is very difficult to assess what the targets would have 

been and, in many cases, some of the linkages that have been made 

now were not evident at the particular time and, to bomb at 

random, or use military force, I think, would have created a 

situation that would have made our lives, American lives, even 

more difficult within the Muslim world. These are judgments that 
37

have to be made, and I think I'm known well enough inside and 

outside the government as somebody who was always willing to match 

diplomacy with force. 

 And so I do believe that we used force when it was 

appropriate and strongly. So I think that --

 MR. KERREY: Madam Secretary, with great respect, after 

August of '98, you and I both know what we did. We led the North 

Atlantic Alliance to an effort against Kosovo, and that was the 

choice that was made. That was the threat that was considered to 

be the most important, and we used the military force against 

Belgrade. I think it's a straw man to say that we're going to 

have random bombing or indiscriminate bombing. That's not what 

we're proposing at all. We had -- I keep hearing the excuse, "We 

didn't have actionable intelligence." Well, what the hell does 

that say to al Qaeda? Basically, they knew, at the beginning of 

1993, it seems to me, that there was going to be limited, if any, 

use of military, and that they were also free to do whatever they 

wanted. 

 MS. ALBRIGHT: Senator, there never, as far as I know, 

was a discussion as to whether there was a choice between using 

force in the Balkans and using force against al Qaeda. That was 

not a choice that ever was discussed or made. There was not one 

or the other, and I think that the executive orders that President 

Clinton put out about using lethal force against Osama Bin Ladin -

- everything that we did in terms of the structure that we put 

together to freeze various assets and to go after them with every 

conceivable tool that we had, you, Senator, I know, were the only 

person that I know of who suggested declaring war. You were --

you know, in retrospect, you were probably right, but we used 

every single tool we had in terms of trying to figure out what the 

right targets would be and how to go about dealing with what we 

knew to be a major threat, and I reviewed it, and I am satisfied 

that we did what we could, given the intelligence that we had and 

pre-9/11, if I might say. I think that we have to keep being 

reminded of that, because there were whole questions, as Secretary 

Lehman said, that we'd overreacted, not the other way around. 

 MR. HAMILTON: Commissioner Fielding? 

 MR. FIELDING: Madam Secretary, Ambassador Pickering, 

thank you both very much for being here and for your service to 

our commission and to the country. 
38

 I have a follow-up question very similar to the two that 

have just been asked you. There was broad consensus among 

officials, civilian and military, prior to 9/11 that there was 

little or no congressional support or even public support for a 

large-scale U.S. military action against al Qaeda in the Afghan 

territory. Likewise, there was skepticism that we've been told 

about frequently within the U.S. government that the military 

really was reluctant to engage in any military action against bin 

Ladin in the Afghan and, in fact, as Senator Kerrey just said, but 

for the retaliatory strike after the East African Embassy 

bombings, there was no follow-up. 

 So we have the State Department communicating threats to 

the Taliban saying that -- and I guess it was around 1999 -- that 

they would be held accountable and that there would be military 

force, among other things, for any attack by al Qaeda against the 

United States. Now, that leads to me question -- did the Taliban 

have reason to believe that we would make good on that threat, 

that it was a valid threat? And, likewise, what steps -- when you 

formulate a policy to make that kind of a threat, what steps did 

you take to ensure that we, in fact, had a credible military force 

that could enforce that? 

 MS. ALBRIGHT: Well, first of all, as I said, President 

Clinton had ordered that lethal force be used. There were armed 

submarines in the Arabian Sea and a variety of bombers on standby 

and ready to go so that -- the orders were there. The President

also asked for a variety of options from the Pentagon in terms of 

special forces, a variety of -- as far as I know, there was no 

option off the table, and that there were questions about the 

Pentagon saying that these were not viable. 

 You will have Secretary Cohen here, and you can ask him 

these questions, but I do know that, from the perspective of one 

of the members of the principals committee and I, as secretary of 

state, can assure you that the President asked for a variety of 

military options. And so I, again, think that you have to -- from 

my perspective, the Pentagon did not come forward with viable 

options in response to what the President was asking for. 

 MR. PICKERING: I also think, Mr. Fielding, that the 

record is pretty clear on the intensive looks that we were giving 

to the target lists and what could be found and how to find Osama 

and could we see him? And we found that we may have seen him, but 

he wasn't there. Or perhaps he was going to be someplace, but it 

never panned out. But there are very clear indications using 

Afghan irregulars who were prepared to work with us, using the 
39

kinds of strikes that we used against the camps, looking at all of 

the other alternatives. This was a constant preoccupation that we 

had many times when I would phone the secretary on the secure 

phone and say, "We think it's about to happen," only to call her 

back 24 hours later and say, "No, it didn't work. The 

intelligence wasn't secure enough to know that we would be there 

to hit that particular target," who was Osama Bin Ladin, 

obviously. 

 So it was not something that, sort of, was done once and 

put aside and never thought about again. 

 MR. FIELDING: Oh, I appreciate that. But to get back to 

the second part of my question -- when you formulate a diplomatic 

policy, if you will, which says we are going to use force against 

you, and we're going to use our military if you don't resolve this 

in a diplomatic sense, my real question is -- what process do you 

go through before that decision is made to ensure that we really 

did have a credible military plan and force that could react to 

that to make our threat to the Taliban credible? 

 MS. ALBRIGHT: Well, we did, and Ambassador Pickering 

participated in many of these meetings. We had inter-agency 

meetings to talk about what our various options were, and I think 

we all felt it was appropriate to let the Taliban know that they 

would be held responsible if further action were held. And, as we 

made that -- the truth is that they didn't do anything in between 

the time that we made that point to them, and it was a threat that 

was out there, a Damocles sword, and we did have various options 

to deal with them with the cruise missiles off the submarines and 

other ways of bombing. I, personally, am not satisfied that we 

were able to get all the right answers out of the Pentagon. I 

think that is a question, and one of the issues always, in any 

inter-agency meeting, whether it was starting when I was 

ambassador at the United Nations, I would ask for a variety --

although at that case, not as appropriate as when I was secretary 

-- for a variety of options in terms of what could be done 

militarily, and I think you will have to ask Secretary Cohen, 

because we all dealt on this issue together, and I think -- the 

thing that is very hard to explain to people now is how much time 

we spent on all this, and we are constantly debating what we could 

do, given a pre- 9/11 atmosphere. It really was very, very 

different, and most people thought that we had made up the issues 

of terrorism, as Secretary Lehman pointed out. 
40

 So I hope, very much, that in considering all this, you 

do -- I know how hard it is for me, and I'm sure it's hard for you 

-- is to get back into the pre-9/11 mode. 

 MR. FIELDING: Thank you both very much. Thank you, Mr. 

Chairman. 

 MR. HAMILTON: Thank you. Commissioner Gorelick. 

 MS. GORELICK: Madam Secretary and Ambassador Pickering, 

thank you for being here and thank you for your service to this 

country. 

 I would like to probe a little bit further the issue of 

use of military force in Afghanistan. You, I think, once famously

said, in a different context, "What's the use of having this 

state-of-the-art military if we can never use it?" So I would 

like to know what your reaction was when there was developed a 

plan to use special forces to invade Afghanistan and to go and get 

Bin Ladin post the '98 -- the '98 embassy bombings when DOD 

opposed using this plan as unworkable and unwieldy. What was your 

view on their posture? 

 MS. ALBRIGHT: Well, let me say, and as I said in my 

opening remarks, the embassy bombings were something that was very 

-- deeply touched everything that I did at the State Department 

and affected, you know, when -- when Admiral Crowe presented his 

report, it was, I think, devastating in many ways. And he blamed 

me personally, so believe me it was something that as secretary of 

state I did feel responsible -- these were people who worked for 

me. And I felt very much that we needed to do everything we could 

to make sure that there was a retaliation against those who had 

done it, and that we had to pursue so that this would not happen 

again. 

 And I did press, as did others, for a variety of options. 

And the explanation about the special forces that was always hard 

was you either had a very small group that was then not able to 

protect itself, or one that was so large that would be detectable. 

And so the balance of trying to find the right special operations 

group was very difficult. But, you have to ask the military 

people this question, because --

 MS. GORELICK: Oh, we will. 

 MS. ALBRIGHT: -- President Clinton and I and Sandy 

Berger, we all pushed and pressed, as did Ambassador Pickering, 
41

because I think that we did see the linkage between diplomacy and 

the threat of force and the use of force. I spent most of my 

eight years in office thinking and talking about the linkages 

between diplomacy and the use of force, and that one underlines 

the other. And so I was -- I did my best, in fact, to question on 

this. 

 MS. GORELICK: Would you agree with the statement that 

Deputy Secretary of Defense Wolfowitz gave us, that if the DOD had 

gone to Congress before 9/11 and asked to invade Afghanistan, that 

we would -- they would not have been taken seriously? 

 MS. ALBRIGHT: I think I do agree with that, because it 

was very hard to get congressional support for military action. 

We had a hard time in various other areas, whether it was 

supporting peacekeeping operations or generally in terms of trying 

to get support, because I think there was a whole question about 

how serious this all was, despite the fact that I think we made 

many statements to the effect, as I said President Clinton, and 

Ambassador Pickering and I, and Sandy Berger, and Secretary Cohen 

spoke very often about the continuing danger of terrorism. But I, 

on this particular subject, I do agree with Undersecretary 

Wolfowitz. 

 MS. GORELICK: I appreciate the caveat. (Laughter.) You 

issued a demarche or a warning to the Taliban before the Cole, 

saying that you would hold, or the U.S. government would hold the 

Taliban responsible for any harm to Americans, is that correct? 

 MS. ALBRIGHT: We did, yes. 

 MS. GORELICK: And -- and after the Cole, you -- you, in 

answer to a question from -- from Secretary Lehman said -- or 

maybe it was Congressman Roemer, you said, well, we didn't know, 

by the time we left office, you didn't know that the attack on the 

Cole was the responsibility of Bin Ladin. Is that correct? 

 MS. ALBRIGHT: That is correct. 

 MS. GORELICK: But having made that threat, what is your 

view on the necessity for the U.S. government to have responded to 

the Cole forcefully when that conclusion of responsibility was in 

fact made? 

 MS. ALBRIGHT: Well, as I said, and you repeated, we did 

not have definitive proof. The definitive proof came during the 

Bush administration, and they had repeated the threat. So, I 
42

think you have to, again, ask them, in terms of how they saw 

whether they reacted appropriately once it was proven that the 

Cole was linked to al Qaeda, and -- but -- but I -- in our case, 

there was not definitive proof by the time we left office that it 

was, and we stood with our threat. 

 MS. GORELICK: Thank you. 

 MR. LEHMAN: Just to set the record straight, however, 

our investigations have indeed proved that the conclusion was 

reached in CIA at a much earlier time, in fact, as early as 

November, and certainly by December --

 MS. GORELICK: But not conveyed to decision-makers. 

 MR. LEHMAN: But not conveyed to decision-makers. That's 

--

 MS. ALBRIGHT: And I think that is a general issue that 

people need to look at, is how material comes up the system and 

who knows what at what time. I think, you know, that is an issue, 

how it is conveyed and at what time. 

 MR. KEAN: Senator Gorton. 

 MR. GORTON: Same general subject, Madam Secretary. I 

take from page six of your written statement. There would have 

been no reason to justify a military action, that is, an invasion 

of Afghanistan, but without the mega-shock of September 11th, 

there -- excuse me -- there would have been reason to justify 

military action, but without the mega-shock of September 11th, we 

would not have had a local staging ground to support such an 

attack, and diplomatic backing would have been virtually nonexistent. Would you not -- would you not say that exactly the same 

situation existed during the first eight months of the Bush 

administration, i.e., prior to 9/11? 

 MS. ALBRIGHT: I -- I do think that clearly 9/11 affected 

them as it did us, and, therefore, the question is, how they 

looked at the particular material. They seem to have felt also 

that there was not a justification. I think the question comes 

down to one of the last issues that Ms. Gorelick raised with us is 

whether when there was proof that al Qaeda and Osama Bin Ladin

were connected with the U.S.S. Cole, the threat having been made, 

why there was not a response at that time. I think that is the 

question --
43

 MR. GORTON: We're speaking of -- I'm asking this 

question, as this question relates to an invasion of Afghanistan 

to depose the Taliban and disperse al Qaeda. 

 MS. ALBRIGHT: I -- I do think -- this is my personal 

opinion -- that it would be very hard, pre-9/11, to have persuaded 

anybody that an invasion of Afghanistan was appropriate. I think 

it -- it did take the mega-shock, unfortunately, of 9/ll to make 

people understand the considerable threat, plus, there was not a 

staging area in Pakistan, and the variety of problems that we 

faced, I do think that this Administration faced also. 

 MR. GORTON: And pre-9/11, the only military response to 

any al Qaeda attack, whether successful or one of the many that 

you said was frustrated during your period of time, the only 

military response was the response in the immediate aftermath of 

the embassy backing, and while many other potential covert or 

cruise missile kinds of responses were considered, all ran up 

against an objection that the intelligence wasn't actionable, that 

you didn't know what the -- there was no appropriate target, or 

there could be collateral damage, so every such suggestion, you 

know, was frustrated and came to naught before 9/11, is that not 

correct? 

 MS. ALBRIGHT: Well, I have no way of judging what 

happened inside the Bush administration from January to September. 

 MR. GORTON: Well, you do know that nothing happened. 

 MS. ALBRIGHT: Well, I do know that. But I also do know 

that many of the policy issues that we had developed were not 

followed-up. And I have to say with great sadness to watch a -- an 

incoming Administration kind of take apart a lot of the policies 

that we did have, whether it had to do with North Korea or the 

Balkans, was difficult. So, I think -- I think you have to ask 

people that were in the Bush administration as to how they saw 

things on this particular issue. But I do think, in all fairness, 

that 9/11 was a cataclysmic event that changed things and that it 

-- they must have had similar reactions. But clearly there are 

many issues and many questions now about how they were responding 

to the terrorist threat and how seriously they took it. You are 

going to have some other witnesses here who will be more capable 

of responding to that question than I because I know nothing 

beyond what I read. 

 SEN. GORTON: So, at least during probably the year 2000, 

if not earlier, and 2001 up to 9/11, a rational al Qaeda could 
44

determine that terrorism was essentially cost free, or only at a 

cost so modest that it was well worthwhile. 

 MS. ALBRIGHT: I don't believe that, actually. I think 

that if you look at what we were doing, we were on an upward 

trajectory of ramping up our dealing with terrorist activities, 

whether it was putting the infrastructure into place that the Bush 

administration is using on tracking finances, on trying to get 

more money into the CIA, of developing counterterrorism centers 

and activities. So, I think no -- I mean, it's hard for me to get 

inside the head of al Qaeda, but no, I do not think they must have 

thought it was cost free. 

 MR. GORTON: Well, there we certainly disagree. I guess 

my time is up. 

 MR. KEAN: Yes. Our last question for this panel from 

Governor Thompson. 

 MR. THOMPSON: Madam Secretary, thank you for being here 

today. And thank you for your service to our country. 

 I must say that I am impressed with not only your record 

but the record of the Clinton administration in its efforts to 

pursue and stop al Qaeda, to provide appropriate responses on 

behalf of our country, and for the vigor and determination with 

which your administration acted in these affairs during the time 

that you were in office. 

 But I'd like to turn to -- to a subject that everybody 

else in Washington is talking about, so we might as well recognize 

the elephant in the room --

 MS. ALBRIGHT: So to speak. 

 MR. THOMPSON: Understanding as I do all the things that 

your administration did, I'm perplexed that even though you 

followed many of Mr. Clarke's suggestions, whether it was frequent 

principals meetings, frequent meetings of the small group, 

pressure on the Saudis, pressure on the Pakistanis, preparation of 

the Predator for military action, going after financing, issuing 

demarches, all of that, and where you didn't follow his advice you 

had reasonable and logical explanations for it, some of which 

you've talked about today, and some of which you've talked about 

in your written testimony -- for example, not providing military 

aid to the Northern Alliance or -- or putting boots on the ground 

in Afghanistan. But, none of the years of the Clinton effort, as 
45

vigorous as it was, either stopped the spread of al Qaeda, brought 

us Osama Bin Ladin or prevented September 11th. And it's really 

hard for me to see how a criticism can be leveled against the Bush 

administration which was brand-new, and had only seven months to 

try and look at and in many cases continue the policy of the 

Clinton administration towards al Qaeda and Osama Bin Ladin. This 

was not one of those things that blew up like the Balkans or North 

Korea. Is that a fair conclusion? 

 MS. ALBRIGHT: I think that fighting terrorism is a very 

difficult job, and it is clear from our experience of eight years 

I think it's very hard to find Osama Bin Ladin. We had a hard 

time. I regret that they have not been able to find him. It is 

very difficult. We are dealing with a brand-new threat in a way 

that spreads through these variety of groups where people are 

given sanctuary and where in fact I think there is a question in 

the long term how we deal with it in terms of educational issues, 

in terms of trying to get the moderate Muslims to help us -- some 

of the suggestions that I made. 

 I think what I consider, if I may say so, the great value 

of this commission is that you are going -- you are asking 

exactly these kinds of questions in terms of not just trying to 

place blame, but trying to learn lessons. When I was first told 

about the mandate of this commission, that is what it is, and so 

to get answers and learn lessons without in fact just trying to 

place blame. 

 I do think that it is important to understand how much 

attention was paid to fighting terrorism in the Bush 

administration. I can only talk about what we did, and that is 

that it was constantly on our minds, that President Clinton spoke 

about it all the time -- privately in meetings to foreign leaders 

as well as publicly -- that we did in fact create the national 

security system that allowed somebody like Dick Clarke in the job 

of being the coordinator, and that I think our record in dealing 

with this is one that established a variety of policies that I 

think were on the way towards helping us fight terrorism. But I 

am not going to say that it is easy, and it is the threat of our 

time. And the devil's marriage between these shady groups and the 

spread of weapons of mass destruction is unfortunately the problem 

that we are all dealing with that we cannot deed to our children 

and grandchildren. 

 So I am very glad that this commission is looking into 

this, because it is the lessons learned -- not so much the blame 

placing. 
46

 MR. THOMPSON: Thank you, Madam Secretary. Thank you, 

Mr. Chairman. 

 MR. KEAN: Thank you again for your testimony very much. 

And thank you for all your public service, Secretary Albright. 

 MS. ALBRIGHT: Thank you, governor. 

 MR. KEAN: And thank you, Ambassador Pickering, for being 

here with us. We are submitting a few, perhaps if we could, a few 

more questions for the record. 

 MS. ALBRIGHT: Absolutely. 

 MR. KEAN: And we look forward to your responses. 

 MS. ALBRIGHT: Thank you so much. Thank you. 

 MR. KEAN: Thank you very, very much. END.

PANEL II OF THE EIGHTH PUBLIC HEARING OF THE NATIONAL COMMISSION 

ON TERRORIST ATTACKS UPON THE UNITED STATES RE: FORMULATION AND 

CONDUCT OF U.S. COUNTERTERRORISM POLICY CHAIRED BY: THOMAS KEAN, 

FORMER GOVERNOR (R-NJ) WITNESS: SECRETARY OF STATE COLIN POWELL; 

ACCOMPANIED BY DEPUTY SECRETARY OF STATE RICHARD ARMITAGE 

LOCATION: 216 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C. TIME: 

11:06 A.M. EST DATE: TUESDAY, MARCH 23, 2004

 MR. KEAN: Our next witness is, I think, familiar to 

everybody in this room. He, too, has a record of tremendously 

distinguished service to this country in a number of different 

ways, both in a volunteer level as well as in the public service 

level. We welcome a senior member of the Cabinet, Secretary of 

State Colin Powell, of course accompanied by the distinguished 

deputy secretary of State, Richard Armitage. Thank you very much 

for coming. Mr. Secretary, Mr. Deputy Secretary, we would like, 

if we could, to ask you to raise your right hand that we may put 

you under oath. 

 Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth 

and nothing but the truth? 

 SEC. POWELL: I do. 
47

 MR. KEAN: Thank you very much. Secretary Powell, your 

prepared statement will be entered into the record in full. We 

would ask you, therefore, if you could summarize your remarks. 

 SEC. POWELL: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It's a 

great pleasure to be before the Commission today, and I thank you 

for the opportunity to appear before you regarding the events 

leading up to and following the murderous terrorist attacks of 

September 11th, 2001. It is my hope, as I know it is yours, that 

through the hard work of this commission, our country can improve 

the way we wage the war on terror, and in particular, better 

protect our homeland and the American people. 

 I'm pleased to have, of course, with me today Deputy 

Secretary Richard Armitage -- Rich Armitage. Secretary Armitage 

was sworn in on March 26th of 2001, two months into the 

Administration, and he's been intimately involved in the 

interagency deliberations on our counterterrorism policies. And 

of course he also participated in what are known as principals, as 

well as National Security Council meetings whenever I was on 

travel or otherwise unavailable. 

 Mr. Chairman, members of the Commission, I leave 

Washington this evening to represent President Bush and the 

American people at the memorial service in Madrid, Spain, honoring 

the over 200 victims of the terrorist attacks of 3/11, March 11th, 

2004. With deep sympathy and solidarity, our heart goes out to 

their loved ones and to the people of Spain. 

 And just last Thursday, in the garden of our embassy in 

Islamabad, Pakistan, I presided at a memorial service in honor of 

two State Department family members, Barbara Green and her 

daughter Kristen Wormsley, who were killed two years ago by 

terrorists while they worshipped in a church on a bright, 

beautiful spring morning. 

 I know that the families and friends of the victims of 

9/11, some of whom are listening and watching today, grieve just 

as the Spanish are grieving, and just as we at the Department of 

State did and still do for Barbara and Kristen. 

 Mr. Chairman, I am no newcomer to the horrors of 

terrorism. 

 In 1983, Secretary Armitage and I were working for 

Secretary of Defense Cap Weinberger, as was Secretary Lehman at 

that time, when 243 wonderful, brave Marines and Navy corpsmen 
48

were killed in Beirut, Lebanon. I was chairman of the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff in 1993 when the first bombing of the World Trade 

Center took place. In 1996 I may have been out of government, but 

I followed closely the events surrounding the Khobar Towers 

bombing in Saudi Arabia. 

 Khobar and all the other terrorist attacks over the years 

were very much a part of my consciousness as I prepared to assume 

the office of secretary of State under President George Bush. I 

was well aware of the fact that I was going to be sworn into 

office just three months after the U.S.S. Cole was struck in the 

harbor at Aden, Yemen, taking the lives of 17 sailors and wounding 

30 others. I was well aware -- very well aware -- that our 

embassies in Kenya and Tanzania had been blown up in 1998, 

injuring some 4,000 people and killing 220, 12 of them Americans -

- the highest number of casualties in a single incident in the 

State Department's history. 

 As the new chief executive officer of the Department of 

State, I was acutely aware that I would be responsible to 

President Bush -- he made this clear that this was my 

responsibility -- for the safety of the men and women serving at 

our posts overseas as well as for the safety and welfare of 

private American citizens traveling and living abroad. The 1999 

Crowe Commission report on embassy security became our blueprint 

for upgrading the security of all of our facilities. 

 Admiral Crowe had done an extensive review and made some 

scathing criticisms on how lax our country was in protecting our 

personnel who were serving abroad from terrorist attacks, and one 

of my first actions was to ask retired Major General Chuck 

Williams of the Army Corps of Engineers to come into the 

department and head our building operation. We wanted him to move 

aggressively to implement the Crowe recommendations and to protect 

our people and our installations, and he has done a tremendous job 

of that. At the beginning of this Administration we were building 

one new secure embassy a year. Today we are building 10 new 

secure embassies every single year. 

 As the President's principal foreign policy advisor I was 

well aware, as was the President and all the members of the new 

national security team, that communism and fascism, our old foes 

of the past century, had been replaced by a new kind of enemy, 

terrorism. We were well aware that no nation is immune to 

terrorism. We were well aware that this adversary is not 

necessarily a state and it often has no clear return address. We 

knew that this monster is hydra-headed, many-tentacled. 
49

 We knew that its evil leaders and followers espoused many 

false causes but have one common purpose, to murder innocent 

people. 

 Mr. Chairman, President Bush and all of us on his team 

knew that terrorism would be a major concern for us, as it has 

been for the past several administrations. During the transition 

from the Clinton to the Bush administration, we were pleased to 

receive the briefings and information that Secretary Albright and 

her staff provided us on President Clinton's counterterrorism 

policies and what they had done for the previous eight years 

before we came into office. 

 Indeed, on December 20th, four days -- four days -- after 

President Bush announced that I would be the next secretary of 

State, I asked for and got a briefing on our worldwide terrorism 

actions and policies from President Clinton's counterterrorism 

security group, headed by Mr. Dick Clarke. In addition to Mr. 

Clarke at this briefing, my very first briefing during the 

transition, also present were the CIA's counterterrorism director, 

Mr. Cofer Black; from the FBI, Dale Watson; also present were 

representatives from the Department of Defense, the Joint Chiefs 

of Staff, and from within the State Department, representatives of 

our own Bureau of Intelligence and Research, as well as our acting 

coordinator for counterterrorism. A major component of this 

briefing was al Qaeda's growing threat to the United States, our 

interests around the world and Afghanistan's role as a safe haven 

for al Qaeda. As a matter of fact, that part of the briefing got 

my attention, so much so that later I asked Mr. Armitage when he 

got sworn in to get directly involved in all these issues, and he 

did. 

 In addition, in my transition book that was provided to 

me by Secretary Albright, there was a paper from Mike Sheehan, 

Secretary Albright's counterterrorism coordinator. And I read it 

very carefully. That transition paper, under the rubric, "Ongoing 

Threat Environment," stated that, quote, "In close coordination 

with the intelligence community, we must ensure that all 

precautions are taken to strengthen our security posture, warn 

U.S. citizens abroad and maintain a high level of readiness to 

respond to additional incidents that might come along." The paper 

informed me that, quote, "The joint U.S.-Yemeni investigation of 

the U.S.S. Cole bombing continues to develop new information and 

leads but that it is still too early to definitely link --

definitively link the attack to a sponsor, i.e., Osama Bin Ladin." 

And under Taliban, the paper records that we must continue to 
50

rally international support for a new round of U.N. sanctions, 

including an arms embargo against the Taliban. The paper further 

stated we should maintain the momentum of getting others, such as 

the G-8, Russia, India, the Caucasus states, Central Asia, to 

isolate and pressure the Taliban. 

 It continued: "If the Cole investigation leads back to 

Afghanistan, we should use it to mobilize the international 

support needed for further pressures on the Taliban." 

 Let me emphasize that the paper covered a range of 

terrorism- related concerns and not just al Qaeda and the Taliban. 

 So the outgoing administration provided me and others in 

the incoming Administration with transition papers, as well as 

briefings, based on their eight years of experience, that 

reinforced our awareness of the worldwide threat from terrorism. 

All of us on the Bush national security team, beginning with 

President Bush, knew we needed continuity in counterterrorism 

policy. We did not want terrorists to see the early months of a 

new administration as a time of opportunity. 

 And for continuity, President Bush retained Director 

Tenet at the CIA. Director Tenet's Counterterrorism Center 

remained under the leadership of Cofer Black. He was kept on 

there until he joined the State Department last year to become my 

assistant secretary for Counterterrorism. 

 Dick Clarke was retained at the National Security 

Council. I retained Ambassador Edmund Hull as acting coordinator 

for Counterterrorism until I was able to bring a new team in a 

little bit later in the year, under the leadership of former 

Brigadier General Frank Taylor of the United States Air Force's 

Office of Special Investigations. He was Cofer Black's immediate 

predecessor. 

 I also retained David Carpenter as assistant secretary 

for Diplomatic Security and kept Tom Fingar on as acting assistant 

secretary for Intelligence and Research. Christopher Kojm, now a 

staff member of your commission, was a political appointee from 

the prior administration, and we kept him on as well, in order to 

show continuity during this period. And of course, FBI Director 

Louie Freeh provided continuity on the domestic side. 

 Early on we made clear to the Congress and to the 

American people that we understood the scope and compelling nature 

of the threat from terrorism. For example, on February 7th, 2001, 
51

just a few weeks into the Administration, my acting assistant 

secretary for Intelligence, Tom Fingar, who had served in the same 

capacity in the previous administration, testified before the 

Senate Select Committee on Intelligence regarding threats to the 

United States. In the first part of his testimony, he highlighted 

the threat from unconventional forces, saying, "The magnitude of 

each individual threat is small, but in aggregate, unconventional 

threats probably pose a more immediate danger to Americans than do 

foreign armies, nuclear weapons, long- range missiles, or the 

proliferation even of weapons of mass destruction and delivery 

systems." 

 Fingar then went on -- Mr. Fingar then went on to single 

out Osama Bin Ladin, saying that plausible, if not always 

credible, threats linked to his organizations target Americans and 

America's friends or interests on almost every continent. 

 Mr. Chairman, members of the Commission, the Department 

of State was well aware of the terrorist threat. 

 The new Bush administration, as had the Clinton 

administration, created counterterrorism and regional interagency 

committees to study the counterterrorism issue in a comprehensive 

way. The committees, in turn, reported to a Deputies Committee 

chaired by Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, on 

which Mr. Armitage was my representative. The deputies, in turn, 

reported to Cabinet-level Principals Committees, which answered to 

the National Security Council chaired by the President. 

 These committees, however, were not by any means the sum 

and substance of our interagency discussions on counterterrorism, 

nor did they represent all that was happening within the 

Administration on a day-to-day basis. 

 In order to keep in constant touch on counterterrorism 

issues, as well as all of the other items on our agenda, Secretary 

Rumsfeld, Dr. Rice and I held a daily coordination phone call 

meeting on every morning that were in town at 7:15. In addition 

to our regular and frequent meetings at the State Department, 

every morning at 8:30 I met with my staff and immediately had 

available at 8:30 information from my INR section, my intelligence 

people, as well as my counterterrorism coordinator, as well as the 

assistant secretary in charge of diplomatic security. We 

formalized regular luncheons with Dr. Rice, myself, the Vice 

President and Secretary Rumsfeld in order to make sure that we 

stayed in closest touch with each other not only on terrorism, but 

on all issues. 
52

 Above all, from the start, the President, by word and 

deed, made clear his interests and his intense desire to protect 

the nation from terrorism. He frequently asked and prodded us to 

do more. He decided early on that we needed to be more aggressive 

in going after terrorists, and especially al Qaeda. As he said in 

early spring, as we were developing our new comprehensive 

strategy, quote, "I'm tired of swatting flies." He wanted a 

thorough, comprehensive, diplomatic, military, intelligence, law 

enforcement and financial strategy to go after al Qaeda. It was a 

demanding order, but it was a necessary one. 

 There were many other compelling issues that were on our 

agenda that a new administration has to take into account: a 

Middle East policy that had just collapsed; the sanctions on Iraq 

had been unraveling steadily since 1998; relations with Russia and 

China were complicated by the need to expel Russian spies in 

February, and the plane collision with the Chinese fighter in 

April. There were many foreign leaders who were coming to the 

United States or wanted us to visit them to get engaged with the 

new administration. Yes, we had to deal with all of these 

pressing matters and more, but we also were confident that we had 

an experienced counterterrorism team in place. 

 President Bush and his entire national security team 

understood that terrorism had to be among our highest priorities, 

and it was. 

 Now, what did we do to act on that priority? Our 

counterterrorism planning developed very rapidly considering the 

challenges of transition and of a new administration. We were not 

given a counterterrorism action plan by the previous 

administration. As I mentioned, we were given good briefings on 

what they had been doing with respect to al Qaeda and with respect 

to the Taliban. The briefers as well as the principals conveyed 

to us the gravity of the threat posed by al Qaeda, but we noted 

early on that the actions that the previous administration had 

taken had not succeeded in eliminating the threat. As a result, 

Dr. Rice directed a thorough policy review, aimed at developing a 

comprehensive strategy to eliminate the al Qaeda threat, and this 

was in her first week in her new position as national security 

advisor. This decision did not await any deputies' or principals' 

committee review. She knew what we had to do and she put us to 

the task of doing it. 

 We wanted the new policy to go well beyond tit-for-tat 

retaliation. We felt that lethal strikes that largely missed the 
53

terrorists if you don't have adequate targeting information, such 

as the cruise missile strikes in 1998, might lead al Qaeda to 

believe that we lack resolve. These strikes had obviously not 

deterred al Qaeda from subsequently attacking the U.S.S. Cole. We 

wanted to move beyond the rollback policy of containment, criminal 

prosecution and limited retaliation for specific terrorist 

attacks. We wanted to destroy al Qaeda.

 We understood that Pakistan was critical to the success 

of our long-term strategy. To get at al Qaeda, we had to end 

Pakistan's support for the Taliban, so we had to recast our 

relations with that country. But nuclear sanctions caused by 

Pakistan's nuclear weapons tests and the nature of the new regime, 

the way President Musharraf took office, made it difficult for us 

to work with Pakistan. We knew, however, that achieving 

sustainable new relations with Pakistan meant moving more 

aggressively to strengthen our -- shape our relations with India 

as well. So we began this rather more complex diplomatic approach 

very quickly upon assuming office, even as we were putting the 

strategy on paper and deciding its other, more complicated 

elements. 

 For example, in February of 2001 Presidents Bush and 

Musharraf exchanged letters. Let me quote a few lines from 

President Bush's February 16th letter to President Musharraf of 

Pakistan. This was just a few weeks after coming into office. 

Quote, the President said to President Musharraf, "Pakistan is an 

important member of the community of nations and one with which I 

hope to build better relations, particularly as you move ahead to 

return to civilian constitutional government. We have concerns of

which you are aware, but I am hopeful we can work together on our 

differences in the years ahead.”

 "We should work together," the President continued, "to 

address Afghanistan's many problems. The most pressing of these 

is terrorism, and it inhibits progress on all other issues. 

 The continued presence of Osama Bin Ladin and his al 

Qaeda organization is a direct threat to the United States and its 

interests that must be addressed. 

 "I believe al Qaeda also threatens Pakistan's long-term 

interest. We join the United Nations in passing additional 

sanctions against the Taliban to bring Bin Ladin to justice and to 

close the network of terrorist camps in their territory." 
54

 The President concluded: "I urge you to use your 

influence with the Taliban to bring this about." 

 President Bush was very concerned about al Qaeda and 

about the safe haven given them by the Taliban. But he knew that 

implementing the diplomatic road map we envisioned would be 

difficult. The deputies went to work, reviewing all of these 

complex regional issues. Early on, we realized that a serious 

effort to remove al Qaeda's safe haven in Afghanistan might well 

require introducing military force, especially ground forces. 

This without the cooperation of a Pakistan would be out of the 

question. Pakistan had vital interests in Afghanistan and was 

deeply suspicious of India's intentions. Pakistan's and India's 

mutual fears and suspicion threatened to boil over into nuclear 

conflict as the Administration got into the early months of its 

existence. To put it mildly, the situation was delicate and 

dangerous. Any effort to effect change had to be calibrated very 

carefully to avoid misperception and miscalculation. Under the 

leadership of Steve Hadley, deputy national security advisor, the 

deputies met a number of times during the spring and summer to 

craft a strategy for eliminating the al Qaeda threat and dealing 

with the complex implications for Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. 

 So we began to develop this more aggressive and more 

comprehensive strategy, and while we did so, we continued 

activities that had been going on in the previous administration 

aimed at al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, including 

intelligence activities. For example, during the summer of 2001 

the CIA succeeded in a number of disruption activities against 

terrorist groups. These are activities where our agents create 

turmoil among those groups they know to be associated with 

terrorists so that the terrorists cannot assemble, cannot 

communicate, can't effectively plan, receive any support or money, 

and are generally unable to act in a coordinated fashion. You 

will hear more about these activities from Director Tenet 

tomorrow, but I want to emphasize that notwithstanding all these 

intelligence activities that were under way, at no time during the 

early months of our administration were we presented with a 

vetted, viable, operational proposal which would have led to an 

opportunity to kill, capture or otherwise neutralize Osama Bin

Ladin. 

 We never received any targetable information. 

 Let me return now to our diplomatic efforts. From early 

2001 onward, we pressed the Taliban directly and sought the 

assistance of the government of Pakistan and other neighboring 
55

states to put additional pressure on the Taliban to expel Bin

Ladin from Afghanistan and to shut down al Qaeda. 

 On February 8th, 2001, less than three weeks into the 

Administration, we closed the Taliban office in New York, 

implementing the U.N. resolutions passed the previous month, I 

must say with the strong support and the dedicated efforts of 

Secretary Albright and Undersecretary Pickering. 

 In March we repeated the warning to the Taliban that they 

would be held responsible for any al Qaeda attack against our 

interests. 

 In April 2001, senior department officials traveled to 

Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, to lay 

out our key concerns, including about terrorism and Afghanistan. 

We asked these Central Asian nations to coordinate their efforts 

with the various Afghan players who were opposed to the Taliban. 

We also used what we call the Bonn group of concerned countries to 

bring together Germany, Russia, Iran, Pakistan and the United 

States to build a common approach to Afghanistan. At the same 

time, we encouraged and supported the Rome group of expatriate 

Afghans to explore alternatives to the Taliban. 

 In May, Deputy Secretary Armitage met with First Deputy 

Foreign Minister Trubnikov of the Russian Federation to renew the 

work of the U.S.-Russia Working Group on Afghanistan. These 

discussions had previously been conducted at a lower level. We 

focused specifically on what we could do together about 

Afghanistan and about the Taliban. This, incidentally, laid the 

groundwork for obtaining Russian cooperation on liberating 

Afghanistan immediately after 9/11. 

 In June --

 MR. KEAN: Mr. Secretary, we are going to run out of 

time, if --

 SEC. POWELL: Yes. I will get shorter. 

 MR. KEAN: Thank you, sir. 

 SEC. POWELL: I just wanted to make the point that in 

June and July and August, we took every effort that was available 

to us to put pressure on Pakistan to cut its losses with the 

Taliban and to take every effort possible to make sure that 

Pakistan understood the need to bring Afghanistan around to 
56

eliminating the threat provided by al Qaeda and its presence in 

Afghanistan. 

 We also put into play a number of other options that were 

available to us. 

 As we know, during this period we looked at some of the 

ideas that Mr. Clarke's team had presented that had not been tried 

in the previous administration. These activities fit the longterm time frame of our new strategy and were presented to us that 

way by Mr. Clarke; in other words, these were long-term actions 

that he had in mind and not immediate actions that would produce 

immediate results. If his ideas made sense, we explored them. If 

they looked workable, we adopted them. 

 For example, we provided new counterterrorism aid to 

Uzbekistan because we knew al Qaeda was sponsoring a terrorist 

effort in that country, led by the Islamic Movement. We looked at 

the Predator. The Predator, at that time, in early 2001, was not 

an armed weapon that could be used to go after anyone. And Mr. 

Rumsfeld and Mr. Tenet will talk more about this, but by the end 

of summer period and as we entered September and October, it was a 

weapon that was useable and it was used extensively and 

effectively after 9/11, when it was ready. Other ideas such as 

arming the Northern Alliance with significant weaponry or giving 

them an added capability did not seem to be a practical thing to 

do at that time for the same sorts of reasons that Secretary 

Albright discussed earlier. 

 The basic elements of our new strategy, which came 

together during these early months of the Administration -- first 

and foremost, eliminate al Qaeda. It was no longer to roll it 

back or reduce its effectiveness. Our goal was to destroy it. 

The strategy would call for ending all sanctuaries given to al 

Qaeda. We would try to do this first through diplomacy, but if 

diplomacy failed and there was a call for additional measures, 

including military operations, we would be prepared to do it, and 

military action would be more than just launching cruise missiles 

at already-warned targets. In fact, the strategy called for 

attacking al Qaeda and the Taliban's leadership, their command and 

control, their ground forces and other targets. The strategy 

would recognize a need for significant aid not only to the 

Northern Alliance, but to other tribal groups that might help us 

with this. It would also include greatly expanding intelligence 

authorities, capabilities and funding. 
57

 While all this was taking place, Mr. Chairman, members of 

the committee, we did everything we could to protect the lives of 

American citizens around the world. As you know, the threat 

information that we were receiving from the CIA and other sources 

suggested that we were increasingly at risk, and the risk was 

looked to be mostly overseas. And while that is my 

responsibility, others in our administration were looking at the 

threat within the United States. But in response to these 

overseas threats, we issued threat warnings constantly. Every 

time the threat level went up, we would respond with appropriate 

threat warnings to our embassies, to our citizens around the world 

who were traveling or were living in foreign countries, warning 

them of the nature of the threat and encouraging them to take the 

necessary cautions. 

 So it is not as if we weren't responding to the threat. 

We were responding to the threat in the way that we could respond 

to the threat: with warnings, with emergency action, committee 

meetings in our embassies to make sure that we were buttoning down 

and buttoning up. 

 Mr. Chairman, this all continued throughout the summer. 

It reached a conclusion in early September, when all the pieces of

our strategy came together -- the intelligence part, the 

diplomatic part, military components of it, law enforcement, the 

nature of the challenge we had before us, which was to eliminate 

al Qaeda. It all came together on the 4th of September at a 

principals' meeting, where we concluded our work on the National 

Security Directive that would be telling everybody in the 

Administration what we were going to do as we moved forward. It 

took us roughly eight months to get to that point, but it was a 

solid eight months of dedicated work to bring us to that point. 

 And then, as we all know, 9/11 hit, and we had to 

accelerate all of our efforts and go on to a different kind of 

footing altogether. 

 I just might point out that with respect to Pakistan, 

consistent with the decisions that we had made in early September, 

after 9/11, within two days, Mr. Armitage had contacted the 

Pakistani intelligence chiefs, who were -- happened to be in the 

United States, and laid out what we now needed from Pakistan. The 

time for diplomacy and discussions were over; we needed immediate 

action. And Mr. Armitage laid out seven specific steps for 

Pakistan to take to join us in this effort. 
58

 We gave them 24, 48 hours to consider it, and then I 

called President Musharraf and said, "We need your answer now. We 

need you as part of this campaign, this crusade." And President 

Musharraf made a historic and strategic decision that evening when 

I spoke to him, and changed his policy and became a partner in 

this effort, as opposed to a hindrance to the effort. 

 Mr. Chairman, I have to also say that we were successful 

during this period in rounding up international support. The OAS, 

Organization of the Islamic Conference, the United Nations, NATO, 

the entire international community rallied to our effort. 

 To summarize all of this, Mr. Chairman, I might say that 

this Administration came in fully recognizing the threat presented 

to the United States and its interests and allies around the world 

by terrorism. We went to work on it immediately. The President

made it clear it was a high priority. The interagency group was 

working. We had continuity in our counterterrorism institutions 

and organizations. We kept demarching, as was done in the previous 

administration. But while we were demarching and while we were 

doing intelligence activities to disrupt, we were putting in place 

a comprehensive strategy that pulled all of these things together 

in a more aggressive way and in a way that would go after this 

threat in order to destroy it and not just keep demarching it. 

 We had eight or so months to do that, and in early 

September that strategy came together. And when 9/11 hit us and 

brought us to that terrible day that none of us will ever forget, 

that strategy was ready, and it was the basis upon which we went 

forward and we could accelerate all of our efforts. 

 While I was warning embassies and taking cover in our 

embassies in response to the threats, Secretary Rumsfeld was doing 

the same thing with military forces. Director Tenet was doing the 

same thing with his assets around the world. And our domestic 

agencies -- the FBI, the FAA -- were also looking at what they 

needed to protect the nation. Most of us still thought that the

principal threat was outside of the country. We didn't know, 

while we were going through this procedure and through these 

policies and putting together this comprehensive strategy, that 

those who were going to perpetrate 9/11 were already in the 

country, had been in the country for some time, and were hard at 

work. Anything we might have done against al Qaeda during this 

period or against Osama Bin Ladin may or may not have had any 

influence on these people who were already in the country, already 

had their instructions, already burrowed in and were getting ready 

to commit the crimes that we saw on 9/11. Nevertheless, we knew 
59

that al Qaeda was ultimately the source of this kind of terror, 

and we determined to go after it. 

 As Secretary Albright said earlier, we have many others 

things we have to do in the months and years ahead. We have to 

get our message out. We have to do more with public diplomacy. 

We have to do more with our allies and with our partners around 

the world. We are working on all of these issues. 

 But al Qaeda no longer has a safe haven in Afghanistan. 

The people of Afghanistan are on their way to democracy. I was 

there last week. There are going to be no more weapons of mass 

destruction or safe havens in Iraq. The people of Iraq have been 

liberated and they're on their way to a democracy. 

 And so I think we're trying to create conditions where we 

will bring the whole civilized world together against the threat 

of terrorism. 

 Mr. Chairman, I will end at this point, and my entire 

statement is available for your record. 

 MR. KEAN: Mr. Secretary, thank you very much for your 

testimony. 

 We'll begin this round of questioning with Commissioner 

Thompson, followed by Commissioner Gorelick. 

 MR. THOMPSON: Mr. Secretary, your testimony delivered 

here this morning, and in written form, has come close to this 

issue, but let me ask you directly. In the seven months between 

the time the Bush administration took office and September 11th, 

to your knowledge, did Mr. Clarke ever present to the Bush 

administration a new plan for dealing with al Qaeda, or was he, 

along with the rest of the NSC staff and the counterterrorism 

group, working on the NSPD that was eventually produced in 

September, without any complaint that things had to be done before 

that time? 

 SEC. POWELL: To the best of my knowledge -- and I'll ask 

Deputy Secretary Armitage to comment on this --

 MR. THOMPSON: Please. 

 SEC. POWELL: -- because he was so intimately involved --

is that in the early part of the seven-month period, and coming to 

sort of a climax April, we started to pull together the various 
60

threads of a new policy. But I'm not aware of a specific new plan 

that had been put forward. Dr. Rice had asked for a comprehensive 

study to be done of everything that we were doing up to that point 

from the previous administration, and any new ideas that would 

come along. But I'm not aware of a specific new plan that was 

presented for consideration by the principals for action by the 

National Security Council. 

 MR. ARMITAGE: No, I did not see a plan either, but it's 

quite clear, Governor, that Dick Clarke, who participated in most 

of the DC's in which -- Deputies Committee meetings in which I 

participated in, was quite impatient and was pushing the process 

quite well. 

 MR. THOMPSON: Mr. Secretary, taking into account both 

your military background and your present diplomatic position, in 

your opinion, would military aid to the Northern Alliance during 

the period February '91 to September '91 have prevented 9/11? 

 SEC. POWELL: No. 

 MR. THOMPSON: Would more frequent principals meetings in 

that period or more small-group meetings in that period prevented 

9/11? 

 SEC. POWELL: No, and I'm not quite sure I've followed 

the rationale between more meetings and preventing 9/11. We met 

constantly. It wasn't always at principals level, but there was 

no lack of communication between the principals; there was no lack 

of exchange of information and data. I was briefed every morning 

by my intelligence people, so were all the other principals. The 

President got daily briefings from the director of Central 

Intelligence, and we consulted with each other about all of these 

issues. So I don't think it was a lack of meetings that resulted 

in 9/11, if that's the suggestion. 

 MR. THOMPSON: In your opinion, would an invasion of 

Afghanistan between February of '91 and September of '91 prevented 

September 11th? 

 SEC. POWELL: I can't answer that. But I can say that 

those who were perpetrators of 9/11, who were actually going to 

conduct the attacks of 9/11, already had their instructions; they 

had their plans in place and they were in the process of 

infiltrating themselves into the United States, or they were 

already here. And invading Afghanistan and cutting off the head -

- if you succeeded in getting Osama Bin Ladin and destructing al 
61

Qaeda at that point, I have no reason to believe that would have 

caused them to abort their plans. 

 MR. THOMPSON: In fact, NATO is in Afghanistan today, and 

yet everyone who has testified before this commission, or been 

interviewed before this commission, still fears that we may yet 

suffer another attack on our soil. Is that not correct? 

 SEC. POWELL: That's correct. Al Qaeda has tentacles in 

many different parts of the world. We've been very successful. 

We believe we have eliminated a significant portion of the senior 

leadership that we knew about, but this does not eliminate the 

entire organization, and it's not the only organization that means 

us ill. 

 MR. THOMPSON: Let me take you back to the time you took 

office, early in 1991. Would you give us a summary version of the 

most pressing foreign policy issues that the nation, in your 

opinion, faced; how you ranked them; and where counterterrorism 

fit into this order of priority? 

 SEC. POWELL: There's no question that counterterrorism 

was in the top tier on this list. It's very difficult to 

rank/order them because they just come rushing in at you and you 

have to deal with them as they come. 

 I would say the Middle East peace problem was right 

there, one of the top ones. The discussions that President 

Clinton and Mrs. Albright -- Dr. Albright were having with the 

Palestinians and Israelis had essentially fallen apart just before 

the inauguration. And in fact, President Clinton and I spoke about 

it in his last day in office, that afternoon of January 19th, and 

he expressed his disappointment they didn't work. So that was a 

top one. Sanctions were falling apart with respect to Iraq and we 

had to arrest that collapse of the sanctions policy. We were 

interested in a new relationship -- what our relationship would be 

with Russia, with China. 

 And so lots of things press in and you have to deal with 

all of them, but there's no doubt that counterterrorism and 

terrorism was high on that list. The very reason -- the very 

first briefing I got was on terrorism, and Dr. Albright --

Secretary Albright certainly made clear that she thought it was a 

high priority. I was announced on Saturday the 16th, and the very 

next day -- Sunday the 17th -- I met with Dr. Albright at her home 

for the first time to start talking about these issues. 
62

 MR. THOMPSON: In May of 1991 you testified before the 

Senate Appropriations Committee and you said, "In my first three 

months I'm very satisfied with the level of interagency 

coordination and cooperation." Then you made specific reference 

to the FBI and the CIA. Now I realize you're only on the job 

three months at that time, but in light of what we've all heard 

since that time about the difficulties in getting the FBI and the 

CIA together on the issue of al Qaeda, do you think you were being 

a little optimistic about the degree of coordination? 

 SEC. POWELL: I was getting a steady stream of 

information from Director Tenet. I read the same thing the 

President read every morning and -- the PBD as it's known, and 

you're well familiar with it. And the PBD regularly talked about 

terrorist activities. My own intelligence operation, INR, fed me 

with a steady stream. I met on a regular basis, occasional basis 

-- regular basis with Director Freeh. I had access to FBI 

information. So I didn't feel that there was a lack of 

coordination or a lack of communications and interchange between 

the principals. 

 MR. THOMPSON: All of us, I'm sure, have a strong desire 

to prevent another Afghanistan. And there are places in the 

world, are there not, Mr. Secretary, either in Africa or Southeast 

Asia, that prevent -- that present that threat. Would you tell 

us, please, what the Administration and you are doing, both 

diplomatically and militarily, to head off this threat of another 

Afghanistan? 

 SEC. POWELL: Right after 9/11 and even before 9/11, we 

started to work with the countries of Central Asia. Uzbekistan, 

we knew, would be an important nation in this regard. And after 

9/11 we put a full court press on all of the nations of Central 

Asia, not only for access for our troops to do their work in 

Afghanistan, but to create new relations with them. And all of 

them have expressed a desire to have friendly relationship and, in 

some cases, a partnership with the United States. 

 And we did this, very sensitive to Russia's concerns 

about the United States being in that part of the world. But we 

were able to persuade the Russians over time that we had a common 

enemy in terrorism, and they should not fear the United States 

having these kinds of relations with Central Asian nations. 

 We also looked at some of the nations in Africa -- for 

example, Somalia, which is without a government. Secretary 

Rumsfeld -- and I'm sure he'll testify to this -- has been looking 
63

at our footprint around the world to see how best we can deploy 

our forces to deal with those nations of the world and those 

regions of the world that have the potential of serving as safe 

havens for terrorist activities. For example, we have a presence 

in Djibouti now that we didn't have previously, because we're 

concerned about the possibility of terrorists finding safe havens 

in that part of the world. 

 And so I think we have, through our diplomatic efforts, 

our intelligence efforts and our military footprinting, been very 

sensitive to the need to get ahead of the terrorists and to dry up 

these fertile places. Part of our public diplomacy effort goes to 

this effort as well. 

 MR. THOMPSON: One last question. 

 MR. ARMITAGE: If I may -- 

 MR. THOMPSON: Yes, go ahead, Mr. Armitage. 

 MR. ARMITAGE: -- there's one other element that the 

secretary has made a big part of our policy at the Department of 

State. And that is that a big portion of our assistance programs 

for almost every country is in good governance and democracy, 

because you're not going to have a failed state, we feel, if you 

have good, transparent governance and democracy. So -- it's not 

that it's new. It -- I think the amount of attention, the amount 

of money going to it is new and it's raised. 

 MR. THOMPSON: Prior to September 11th, would it have 

been possible, either for the Clinton administration or the Bush 

administration, to say to either the Saudis or the Pakistanis, as 

the President did after September 11th, "You're either with us or 

against us"? 

 SEC. POWELL: It's not clear how you would have 

communicated such a message and under what sort of circumstances. 

What would you have been saying to the Pakistanis at that point 

that would have persuaded them that it was a choice they had to 

make? 

 After 9/11, it was clear to the Pakistanis that we were 

going to take action against al Qaeda, and if that included taking 

action against the Taliban, if that included going into 

Afghanistan and removing that regime, we were going to do it. And 

what we were essentially saying to them at that point, "You've got 

to be with us." And I think without that kind of imperative --
64

9/11 plus the fact that we were determined to invade a country, if 

that's what it took to get rid of this threat -- I'm not sure you 

would have gotten the kind of response from the Pakistanis that we 

got on the 14th of September. 

 MR. THOMPSON: Thank you, Mr. Secretary. 

 MR. KEAN: Commissioner Gorelick? 

 MS. GORELICK: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

 And thank you, Secretary Powell and Secretary Armitage 

for being here today. Secretary Powell, it's been my pleasure 

over 25 years to have worked with you in two Democratic 

administrations. Just to protect you, I will note for the record 

you were in uniform. (Laughter.) 

 SEC. POWELL: (Chuckles.) 

 MS. GORELICK: So it's my pleasure to have the 

opportunity to question you today. 

 I'd like to return to some questions that Governor 

Thompson asked you at the outset, and they have to do with the 

appropriate role of the National Security Council in an area like 

terrorism, and particularly whether it is mostly a policymaking 

body, as it seems to have been in the policymaking process leading 

up to NSPD-9 directed to counterterrorism, or whether it has an 

operational role as well. 

 And you have been, I would say candidly, dismissive of 

the notion that more meetings would have been helpful. But I 

would note that by putting off until the perfect policy was in 

place a decision on flying the Predator, a decision on arming the 

Northern Alliance, a decision on the response to the Cole, there 

were operational implications to this -- in fairness -- prolonged 

policymaking process. There are gaps of six weeks between 

Deputies Committee meetings as this process unfolds. And then, 

during what has been called the "summer of threat," where you have 

the CIA director running around with his hair on fire, you all, 

the Cabinet, was never summoned to the White House to talk. Now, 

as I take it, your view is it wouldn't have made a difference. 

And Dick Clarke has said, well, actually, during the Millennium

process it did make a difference. 

 So I'd like to ask you, were you aware, for example, that 

within your department visas were being issued to the plotters of 
65

9/11 when these individuals in your consulate had no information 

from the CIA or the FBI that these were bad actors? Were you 

aware that your TIPOFF list, which had lists of terrorists who 

should be prevented from coming into this country, were not being 

given to the FAA so that those same people wouldn't fly on our 

aircraft? Did you -- did you sit in a meeting with the attorney 

general and say to him: Have you turned over every rock in your 

FBI so that I know how to respond as secretary of State to these 

threats? 

 SEC. POWELL: I wasn't being dismissive of meetings as 

not being useful. I was saying that there are many ways to 

communicate besides just having principals meetings. I could see 

the need for an almost daily meeting when I think of the Y2K 

situation just before New Year's Eve, when the whole world was 

sort of abuzz as to what was going to happen. That truly was a 

time that maybe you wanted to meet every single day. But we were 

not dismissive and did not fail to deal with issues like Predator 

or Northern Alliance. 

 The Predator was not ready as a weapon during the early 

months of 2001. Toward the latter part of that seven-month 

period, more information became available as to the capacity and 

the capabilities of the Predator as an armed weapon, and we all 

became more involved in it. And it was moved along at very, very 

rapid speed through the development process, almost through a 

"skunkworks" process, and it was used as soon as it was available. 

So having lots of principals meetings about whether the Predator 

was or was not armed wouldn't have served any particular purpose 

because that isn't the mechanism by which the Predator was being 

examined for use. 

 MS. GORELICK: Let me follow up just on that. 

 SEC. POWELL: The NSC -- if I just may, Ms. Gorelick. 

 MS. GORELICK: Sure. 

 SEC. POWELL: The NSC is principally a coordinating body, 

coordinating the development of policy, and in a crisis 

atmosphere, the NSC system also becomes somewhat operational as it 

pulls people together to deal with the crisis. 

 MS. GORELICK: Well, I would note that it was operational 

but only at the CSG level, which is, in most institutions and most 

organizations in the government, two, three, four levels down. 
66

 Let me just follow up very quickly on the Predator. The 

Predator had been used as a surveillance technique -- well, it 

hadn't been used, it had been tested -- up until the end of the 

Clinton administration, and then it literally was sat on the 

ground until it could be armed. Did you consider using it, as it 

had been used in Kosovo, to survey and then cue laser-guided 

missiles or other arms not on the Predator? 

 SEC. POWELL: You'll have to direct the question to 

Secretary Rumsfeld and Mr. Tenet, but my understanding is that it 

was used for reconnaissance purposes in the fall of 2000, and then 

during the winter season it was brought back to the United States 

for work and to start to determine its capability to handle a 

weapon. There was a time lag between the ability of the Predator 

to find something on the ground and then to deliver an ordnance 

from somewhere far away, like a cruise missile from one of the 

submarines or ships at sea. So there wasn't a direct action link 

in real time between "there's a target, hit it." That's what the 

Hellfire did. It gave you an immediate response. And it was not 

available until the fall of two thousand -- 

 MS. GORELICK: I will direct that question to later 

witnesses. I think that's a good suggestion. 

 SEC. POWELL: On the Northern Alliance, since you raised 

it, the opinion of our group, in whatever form -- whatever form it 

took this opinion, was that the Northern Alliance only controlled 

a small portion of Afghanistan at this point. It had been pretty 

beaten up. It was involved in some activities that we had some 

serious reservations about, and we did not feel that at that time, 

during that period, it was ready for a massive infusion of 

American assistance and what it would have done with such a 

massive infusion. 

 We didn't think it had the capability to march on Kabul 

or to take down the Taliban. And that was a judgment. It wasn't 

a judgment deferred, it was a judgment made at that time. Things 

changed after 9/11, when we were actually going to put people in 

with the Northern Alliance to give them the kind of capability 

that they ultimately acquired with our people. 

 MS. GORELICK: And in that regard --

 SEC. POWELL: On visas -- on visas, the 19 individuals 

who got into the United States -- it was nothing in the databases 

until the summer of 2001, when two of them were identified to us 

and we immediately took action against the visas that had allowed 
67

them into the country. But otherwise, these individuals were --

would not have tripped anyone's database. There was some 

discrepancies on the forms they filled out, but they were not the 

kinds of discrepancies that would have said to you, this is a 

terrorist. And they could have easily corrected those errors on 

the application forms and resubmitted them, and there was nothing 

in our consolidated database that would have said don't let these 

individuals in the country because they're terrorists. 

 MS. GORELICK: And it's just those sort of gaps that I 

personally believe can be addressed by having all the relevant 

parties in the room in a state where there is an emergency. 

 I do want to go on, though. I was struck by your I think 

candid -- very candid statement of the degree to which you were 

apprised of the terrorist risk when you took office and really 

seized with it. But as I go back and I look at what President 

Bush listed as his priorities for your department -- I think on 

the day actually that your selection was announced -- they were 

Russia, NATO, China, alliances in the Far East, our hemisphere, 

the Middle East and Iraq. And then when I look at Condi Rice's 

piece in Foreign Affairs describing essentially the Bush 

campaign's view of the world, it barely mentions terrorism. So I 

guess my question is, are you saying that your personal priorities 

were different from that of the Administration's? 

 SEC. POWELL: No, I think the terrorism threat and 

counterterrorism was a priority of the President. If you look at 

his Citadel speech, while he was still a candidate -- in the 

campaign he touched on it, and throughout the early months; and 

increasingly, as we got into the year, he focused more and more on 

the intelligence information that he was being provided by 

Director Tenet. I think you'll hear from Director Tenet that a 

significant percentage of the items in the daily PDB dealt with 

terrorism. 

 MS. GORELICK: What percentage of your time do you think 

you spent on terrorism before 9/11? 

 SEC. POWELL: I really don't know that I can make such a 

calculation. It was embedded in almost everything we were doing, 

but I don't know that I could tell you what percentage of time I 

spent on that one issue, and probably couldn't tell you what 

percentage of time I spent on any other issue you asked me about. 

 MS. GORELICK: I know it's a difficult question. Our 

staff statement notes that the National Intelligence Estimate 
68

described our enemy in terms of terrorism, as Islamic extremists 

angry at the United States. And so I was struck by the fact that 

the National Strategy for Combating Terrorism, which was issued 

last -- in February of '03, doesn't have a single word -- a single 

word -- about jihadists or Islamic extremists. 

 And it looks at terrorism as the enemy, but terrorism is a 

tool. It is not an enemy in itself; it's a tool. And really our 

enemy is quite distinguishable. 

 And you have been in this business, the national security 

business, for your entire life. So my question to you is, doesn't 

a strategy which blinks a reality like that doom us to failure? 

Don't we have to be focused on who the enemy is and have a 

strategy focused on getting that enemy? 

 SEC. POWELL: The enemy is not terrorism; it's terrorists 

or individuals, real live people out there who mean us ill. And 

we have studied them. We've designated them, put them on foreign 

terrorist lists. We've gone after them. We have gone after those 

countries diplomatically and militarily that support these kinds 

of terrorist organizations. 

 So I think we have a clear understanding of what we are 

going after, whether it's Abu Sayyaf, whether it's Hezbollah, 

whether it is al Qaeda. We have been working with friends around 

the world who are participating in this campaign against 

terrorism, whether it's President Uribe who is here today and the 

terrorist organizations he's fighting or whether it's with 

President Arroyo and the terrorist organizations she's fighting in 

the Philippines. And so it is not some esoteric term "terrorism," 

it's people we're after, terrorists, and they are the enemy. 

 MS. GORELICK: And would you agree that our principal 

adversary right now is Islamic extremists and jihadists? 

 SEC. POWELL: I would say that they are the source of 

most of the terrorist threats that we are facing. They fuel those 

individuals and organizations such as al Qaeda and Hezbollah. But 

principally al Qaeda right now I would say continues to be the 

number one organization we have to concern ourselves with. 

 MS. GORELICK: Your predecessor, who testified a few 

minutes ago, said that she issued a demarche, a threat to the 

Taliban before the Cole, saying if you permit people within your 

borders to do us harm you will face very serious consequences, by 

which she indicated she meant at least to consider military 
69

responses; and yet after the Cole all we did was issue another 

demarche. Weren't you afraid that we would be viewed as having 

issued an empty threat? 

 SEC. POWELL: We also issued demarches to the Taliban. 

One has to be careful in issuing such threats. But one also has 

to be mindful that it's one thing to issue a threat, but if you 

don't have something targetable to go after -- and it was not the 

plan in the previous administration and was not part of our early 

plans to go after the entire Taliban regime; we were focusing on 

al Qaeda and Taliban support of al Qaeda -- we wanted to go after 

al Qaeda. 

 And so yes, one has to be careful about issuing demarches 

and threats that you don't have the ability to follow up on with a 

full range of actions. That's one of the reasons that as we went 

through this process of strategy development throughout that 

seven-month period, we came to the conclusion that the answer had 

to be the elimination of al Qaeda and the threat posed by al 

Qaeda, whatever it took --

 MS. GORELICK: But you had the Cole -- pardon me. I'm 

sorry. You had the Cole hanging out there. They had done grievous 

harm to us. And we had previously threatened them with a 

response, and yet there was no response. Did you consider what to 

do in that intervening period to respond to the Cole? 

 SEC. POWELL: We did not take under advisement or take 

into account during that period the kinds of actions we were 

prepared to take after 9/11 because we knew that al Qaeda was 

responsible, but it wasn't clear how we could get at al Qaeda in a 

way that would destroy al Qaeda. And we had not yet reached the 

point of saying we're going to have to take down the Taliban 

regime. That came later. 

 MS. GORELICK: Well one -- one question. I was struck by 

your emphasis on the continuity from the Clinton administration 

and the number of people you carried forward and, frankly, the 

number of policies that you carried forward up until September 

11th. And I found it to be -- and I'd just ask you for a comment 

on this -- a marked contrast to the rather pointed criticisms from 

Condoleezza Rice of the Clinton administration policies. I mean, 

she has given speeches, she has been on the airwaves essentially 

saying that the policies she inherited, and that you inherited, 

were bankrupt, that they were feckless, that there was no 

response. 
70

 And yet, you have made, I think, a singular point here 

this morning of saying that up until September 11th, most of them 

were continued, at least until you completed this policy review, 

and then, in my observation, the policies that you indeed adopted 

as a Principals Committee on September 4th were actually following 

the trajectory of where the Clinton administration had been. 

 Would you care to comment on that? 

 SEC. POWELL: We took advantage of the expertise that 

existed with the individuals I listed, to include Dick Clarke. 

But in fact, the policy of the previous administration had not 

eliminated al Qaeda. It's a tough, tough target, as Dr. Albright 

said earlier. 

 And so we came in, kept many of these people in place. 

Over time, as we gained from their expertise and realized it was 

time to make a change, we brought in new people in Diplomatic 

Security, brought in a new director of INR, brought in new people 

in our counterterrorism branch and in other parts of the 

Administration. So we eventually brought in our people. 

 And I think that the policy that we came to and which was 

decided upon at that September 4th principals' meeting does take 

us to a new level of engagement and a new level of determination 

to eliminate this threat. And it reflected the kinds of 

discussions and judgments that were made by the deputies and the 

crisis group, the counterterrorism group, early in the year. And 

it did take us to a new level that said not just roll back but 

eliminate. And there is a clear distinction between what was 

going on at the end of the previous administration and what we 

were now prepared to do on 4th of September. 

 MS. GORELICK: Well, if I had more time, I would pursue 

that with you. But I thank you for your testimony today. 

 MR. KEAN: Just one brief question. You've been around 

government a long time in a number of administrations. Based on 

that experience, the period from March to August 2001 -- was that 

an exceptionally long time to develop a new policy of the kind of 

complexity of the President's policy on al Qaeda? 

 SEC. POWELL: Not really. It was a complex issue, and 

it's not as if we were not doing anything but sitting around 

working on NSPD. We were reaching out to Uzbekistan. We were 

continuing to work with Pakistan. We were engaged diplomatically. 
71

We were following up on various U.N. actions that had been taken. 

And so there was work going on. 

 Ms. Gorelick made reference to visas. We were in the 

process of reviewing our visa policy. We had the TIPOFF system, 

but it was not really serving the full intended purpose. It was 

going to be the basis of the Terrorist Threat Information Center 

that came later. 

 And so there were many things that were going on, and not 

just everybody standing still, waiting for an NSPD to be finished. 

Keep in mind that we dealt with the issue of what's the status of 

the Predator, what's the status of the Northern Alliance. And you 

may want to add a word to that, Rich. 

 MR. ARMITAGE: Thank you. The development of this --

what we consider to be a comprehensive policy was one that the 

members who are sitting on the Commission who served on Capitol 

Hill will recognize the complexities of. 

 Some of the things we had to do in order to move forward 

with Pakistan involved removing an unbelievable number of 

sanctions, which were put on by people with very strong views on 

Capitol Hill. We were already in the process of working that out. 

 That does not happen in a week. The same is true of 

India, who were under sanctions. So, as the secretary said, we 

weren't just sitting around. 

 Now, the question of the Northern Alliance has come up 

several times and people wonder why it was so hard to come to a 

decision. Well, beyond the drug dealing that they did, well, that 

caused us some trouble, beyond the human rights tragedy that they 

inflicted in the 1996 time period, that took us a little time to 

get over, it's not sufficient to be the enemy-of-our-enemy to be 

our friend. To be our friend, you have to share or be willing to 

at least embrace to some extent our values. And that's why the 

question of the Northern Alliance wasn't an easy one. It was a 

tough one. 

 MR. KEAN: Commissioner Ben-Veniste. 

 MR. BEN-VENISTE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

 And thank you, Secretary Powell, for your testimony here 

today and for your dedicated service to our country. As you know, 
72

I have long been a personal admirer of yours, and thank you again 

for your commitment and service. 

 Secretary Armitage, the Administration has asked that you 

be allowed to testify tomorrow in place of Condoleezza Rice. No 

one could suggest that her role is not central to our inquiry and 

that her knowledge is different from yours, as she was a direct 

liaison between the President and the CIA and the FBI on issues 

directly relevant to our inquiry. That is why the Commission

unanimously requested that Dr. Rice appear. 

 The only reason the Administration has advanced for 

refusing to make Dr. Rice available is a separation of powers 

argument: that presidential advisers ought not have to appear 

before the Congress. I would call to your attention a report by 

the Congressional Research Service dated April 5th, 2002, well 

before the controversy arose about Dr. Rice's appearance. In that 

report, there are many precedents involving presidential advisers. 

Lloyd Cutler, counsel to President Carter, testified, came up to 

Congress to answer questions. Zbigniew Brzezinski, assistant to 

the President for national security affairs, appeared in 1980. 

Samuel Berger appeared as a deputy assistant to the President for 

national security in May of 1994. 

 He reappeared as national -- in his function as national 

security adviser in September of 1997. John Podesta, chief of 

staff to President Clinton, and several others in the Clinton 

administration have appeared before congressional committees. And 

I may add that after this report was prepared, Governor Ridge 

appeared before two committees of the Congress. 

 So I would ask Mr. Armitage, without any disparagement of 

your service or of your knowledge, that when you leave here today 

you advise the Administration of this report. I've got an extra 

copy for you to take with you. (Laughter.) And we ask again, in 

all seriousness, that Dr. Rice appear. (Applause.) 

 Secretary Powell, let me ask you this. I'd like to turn 

your attention to the immediate events after 9/11. You were in 

Peru on that day. You flew back. It must have been a dreadfully 

painful experience on several levels, not the least of which was 

your inability during to communicate during that long trip back. 

Thereafter you met with members of the Cabinet and the President

at Camp David. And my friend, Secretary Lehman, has brought up 

the subject of Iraq with Secretary Albright. 
73

 You and I met with other members of the Commission on the 

21st of January of this year. 

 On that occasion, you advised us of a full-day meeting on 

Saturday, September 15th, in which the question of striking Iraq 

was discussed. You advised us that the deputy secretary of Defense 

advanced the argument that Iraq was the source of the problem, and 

that the United States should launch an attack on Iraq forthwith. 

 You advised us that Secretary Wolfowitz was unable to 

justify that position. Have I accurately described your

recollection of what occurred? 

 SEC. POWELL: There was a meeting of the National 

Security Council that Mr. Wolfowitz also attended on that day at 

Camp David, as you describe. There was a full day of discussions 

on the situation we found ourselves in, and who was responsible 

for it. And as part of that full day of discussion, Iraq was 

discussed, and Secretary Wolfowitz raised the issue of whether or 

not Iraq should be considered for action during this time. And 

after fully discussing all sides of the issue, as I think it is 

appropriate for such a group to do, the President made a tentative 

decision that afternoon -- I would call it a tentative decision --

that we ought to focus on Afghanistan, because it was clear to us 

at that point that al Qaeda was responsible, the Taliban was 

harboring al Qaeda, and that that should be the objective of any 

action we were to take. 

 He did not dismiss Iraq as a problem, but he said first 

things first -- we will examine all of the sources of terrorism

directed against the United States and the civilized world, but 

we'll start with Afghanistan. 

 Now, he confirmed that over the next couple of days in 

meetings we had with him. And when he came back down from Camp 

David, and we met on Monday, he made it a firm decision, and gave 

us all instructions as to how to proceed. And then he announced 

that to the nation later in the week. 

 And so he heard arguments -- as he should -- from all 

members of his administration on the different alternatives. And 

I think this is what a president would expect us to do. 

 MR. BEN-VENISTE: You have characterized --

 SEC. POWELL: And we decided on Afghanistan. 
74

 MR. BEN-VENISTE: Excuse me, you have characterized that 

Secretary Wolfowitz -- 

 MR. KEAN: This is the last question -- just time. 

 MR. BEN-VENISTE: -- Secretary Wolfowitz's position as 

whether or not we ought to attack Iraq. Is it not the case that 

he advocated for an attack on Iraq? 

 SEC. POWELL: He presented the case for Iraq, and whether 

or not it should be considered along with Afghanistan at this 

time. I can't recall whether he said instead of Afghanistan. We 

all knew that Afghanistan was where al Qaeda was. 

 MR. BEN-VENISTE: But was there any concrete basis upon 

which that recommendation was founded in your view to attack Iraq 

for 9/11? 

 SEC. POWELL: Secretary Wolfowitz was deeply concerned 

about Iraq being a source of terrorist activity. You will have a 

chance to talk to him directly about --

 MR. BEN-VENISTE: I've asked for your view, with all due 

respect, Secretary Powell. 

 SEC. POWELL: With all due respect, I don't think I 

should characterize what Mr. Wolfowitz's views were. 

 MR. BEN-VENISTE: No, I asked for your view. In your view 

--

 SEC. POWELL: My view --

 MR. BEN-VENISTE: -- was there a basis? 

 SEC. POWELL: My view was that we listen to all the 

arguments at Camp David that day. And Mr. Wolfowitz felt that Iraq 

should be considered as part of this problem having to do with 

program, and he considered -- he wanted us to consider whether or 

not it should be part of any military action that we were getting 

ready to take. We all heard the argument fully. We asked 

questions back and forth. And where the President came down was 

that Afghanistan was the place that we had to attack, because the 

world and the American people would not understand if we didn't go 

after the source of the 9/11 terrorists. 
75

 MR. BEN-VENISTE: I'm out of time and I'm going to listen 

to my chairman. 

 MR. KEAN: Thank you, sir. 

 MR. KERREY: Well, Mr. Secretary, to both you and 

Secretary Armitage, I mean I do -- I would prefer that Dr. Rice 

would be here tomorrow, but Dick you would be a fabulous national 

security advisor. (Laughter.) And you would be a dynamite one. 

So, that said, let me say that with great respect I'm having 

difficulty with -- you know, we spent eight months developing a 

plan -- because I don't think that's the central problem here. 

And my recollection of the presidential campaign -- and, by the 

way, my history was -- my actions in presidential campaigns were 

kept intact in 2000 -- I supported the loser in the primaries, so 

my memory may not be very good. But I don't recall terrorism 

being much of even an issue at all in the 2000 campaign, in part 

because it really -- even though it was on the policymakers' minds 

-- they were aware of the threat and they were aware of what was

going on, but I just don't recall it being a driving force in 

either one of the campaigns. Now, maybe I've got that wrong, but 

I don't think so. 

 And I think the central problem, Mr. Secretary, is 

something that all three of us have dealt with from time to time, 

and that was the use of military force in dealing with al Qaeda. 

I said earlier to Secretary Albright I think it was one of the big 

mistakes of the Clinton administration -- and, frankly, I think it 

was also a fault of the Bush administration, although I'm 

sympathetic that the secretary of Defense was not a primary actor 

in the war on terrorism. Indeed striking his recollection of the 

briefings on al Qaeda were considerably different than yours. His 

recollection may be different than he's testifying, but he just 

didn't -- it wasn't as clear. And it shouldn't be, because under 

Presidential Directive 62, which was signed by President Clinton 

in '68 -- in '98, excuse me -- that presidential directive didn't 

give the Department of Defense a primary role in the war on 

terrorism -- it just didn't -- in counterterrorism activities. So 

I -- and I've read the cautionary concern that General Zinni had, 

who was CINC of CENTCOM at the time, and other military leaders. 

I've had, in 12 years experience in the United States Senate, many 

times walked out wondering if I voted the right way. And among 

those moments was Desert Storm I, where I'm relatively certain 

today that I did vote the wrong way. But it came from a concern 

for body bags coming home, and would we be able to sustain the 

effort, the political effort. And I was likewise concerned about 

Bosnia -- ended up supporting the effort in Bosnia and Kosovo. 
76

But those who say we shouldn't be skeptical or concerned about use 

of military force I think have got it wrong. We should be. And 

we should, it seems to me, always wonder. 

 But I wonder if you see it that way. I mean, I wonder if 

you see that if you look from '93, when the World Trade Center I 

was hit the first time, and through September of 2001, al Qaeda 

never suffered a military response from us -- never -- other than 

on August 20th, which was a relatively small military attack -- a 

very limited military attack with absolutely no anticipation of 

boots on the ground being involved. And I'm just wondering -- I 

appreciate -- I'm asking a question as if you were secretary of 

Defense, secretary of State, national security adviser and perhaps 

even president -- not just secretary of State -- but I wonder if 

you see it that way as well, that our reluctance to give the 

secretary of Defense and the military a more prominent role in 

counterterrorism efforts contributed to our lack of preparation. 

Because the bottom line for me is it pains me to have to say that 

on the 11th of September that 19 men with less than a half of 

million dollars defeated every single defensive mechanism we 

had in place -- utterly -- it wasn't even a close call. They 

defeated everything we had in place on the 11th of September with 

hardly, it seems to me, any doubt their chance of success. And 

I'd just stop there and give you a chance to tell me what you 

think went wrong. 

 SEC. POWELL: Let me speak to our Administration, and 

then I'll speak more generally to get at the heart of the 

question. 

 I think in our deliberations and our meetings -- and Mr. 

Armitage may wish to speak to this -- the Pentagon was starting to 

develop plans. It was looking at contingencies that it might 

have to deal with. And you can pursue this with Secretary 

Rumsfeld this afternoon. But in this whole period to say that use 

of military force to get al Qaeda, when it wasn't going to be a 

surgical strike -- anybody who thinks that Osama Bin Ladin might 

just be laying around somewhere and you can go pick him up ---

well, maybe -- good luck -- but that's a wish, not a strategy or 

not a military action. 

 So you would have had really to go after al Qaeda by 

going after the Taliban -- and that meant invading another country 

and it meant invading another country without the support of any 

of the surrounding countries where you would need some access to 

get there. So I don't know that in this period from '93 through 

the summer of 2001 you had a sufficient political base and 
77

sufficient political understanding -- both here and in the 

international community -- that would have given you a basis for 

saying that we know enough about al Qaeda, we know enough about 

the Taliban, that we are going into -- invade this country and 

remove this threat. 

 MR. KERREY: Could I respond to that, because I --

 MR. KEAN: Just a minute response. 

 MR. KERREY: Yeah, a minute response, because Secretary 

Albright said the same thing. I was there in '91 when you and 

former President Bush and Secretary Cheney went to the world and 

persuaded the world that we needed to drive Iraq out of Kuwait. 

Public opinion wasn't on your side either when you began. Public 

opinion wasn't on the side of President Clinton when he suggested 

that we needed to intervene in Bosnia. It wasn't on the side of 

the Administration when they decided to intervene in Kosovo. It's 

rare that public opinion is on the side of a president or a 

political leader when it comes to using military force -- except 

after the fact. So it does seem to me to be -- and maybe it was 

sort of a strawman position to say, Gee, it would have been 

exceptionally difficult -- yes, it would have been exceptionally 

difficult, but history is replete of examples where political 

leaders made a decision in spite of public opinion being on the 

other side, and saying, I've got to persuade the people because I 

see it as being an urgent necessity. 

 SEC. POWELL: I don't think that in the case of al Qaeda 

and Afghanistan during this period. It came -- it rose to that 

level of urgent necessity. The people thought, we've got to go do 

this now, even if it includes a major invasion of a country 

without the support of the surrounding countries, do we have a 

sufficient cause or justification to undertake such action. 

 The previous administration can speak for itself, they 

spoke for themselves, they said they didn't see it. And, frankly, 

in our first seven months in office, as we looked at this, we 

realized that it might come to that, that's the realization we 

come to. And you come to these kinds of realizations after a 

great deal of study and debate, you don't walk in on the first 

day, and say, we have decided this is what has to be done. So, we 

discussed it with all of the experts who were in the previous 

administration and stayed over. We then brought over our new 

people, Mr. Armitage came in after two months, General Taylor came 

over after awhile, a lot of new people came in, and we put 

together a more comprehensive policy, and we reached conclusions 
78

in early September that it might come to that. And we have to 

understand that we might have to go in and take this kind of 

large-scale military action if that was the only way to eliminate 

this threat. 

 MR. ARMITAGE: (Inaudible) -- our discussions with the 

deputies, in the July time frame, where we began to discuss 

actually using military measures, if all the rest was not 

successful, that's a long ways from having a plan, a military 

plan, but these were things that, as the secretary has indicated, 

we talked about, we debated, and we realized eventually we were 

going to have to have in our quiver. 

 MR. KEAN: Congressman Roemer. 

 MR. ROEMER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome to both of 

you, Secretary Powell, and Secretary Armitage, and thank you again 

for your service and your time. 

 I join in the wide chorus of praise for you, Mr. 

Secretary, in your career, both in public service, but also in the 

private sector when you were trying to get the American people 

more engaged in volunteer service. 

 Let me pick somebody else who joins that praise of you 

who is widely condemning of almost everybody else in the Bush 

administration for not acting quickly enough on terrorism. 

Richard Clarke in his new book, on page 228, says, Colin Powell 

took the unusual steps during the transition of asking to meet 

with the CSG, the Counterterrorism Security Group, took notes, and 

was surprised at the unanimity of the recommendations, and the 

threat of al Qaeda. He paid careful attention and asked Mr. 

Armitage to follow up on it. Very blunt, very praiseworthy, very 

complimentary of your understanding the problem. 

 In that PowerPoint presentation that he made to you, he 

in fact said, they're here, one of the slides said that al Qaeda

was in the United States. Doesn't that, in fact, say two things, 

that nine months is too long to act, that you have to do some 

interim things, you have to take some immediate steps. And, two, 

if you're going to go from a rollback strategy to an elimination 

strategy, if you're going to go from swatting flies to 

exterminating the flies, you've got to have something to 

exterminate them with, whether it's the Predator, the Northern 

Alliance, aid to Uzbekistan, covert operations, you have to be 

taking some of these actions. 
79

 The U.S.S. Cole, why didn't we take at least some of 

those actions in the meantime as this nine-month bottom up review 

took place? 

 SEC. POWELL: I don't remember the specific PowerPoint 

slide, and I didn't turn to Mr. Armitage because he wasn't there 

yet, he didn't show up for another two months. And if Mr. Clarke 

was aware --

 MR. ROEMER: Just to be clear, he later asked Richard 

Armitage to get involved. 

 SEC. POWELL: But, there were others working for me at 

the time. At the time that he gave me the briefing, I was not the 

Secretary of State, this Administration was not in office, and if 

according to this slide Mr. Clarke and the members of the previous 

administration who were briefing me that day, this was the 20th of 

December, a month before inauguration, if they were aware that al 

Qaeda representatives were already in the country running around, 

and knew that, and knew that these 19, if that's the reference in 

that passage, were running around inside the country, the 

obligation, frankly, is on them. Not, why didn't we do something 

beginning a month later, why hadn't the done something while they 

were preparing the PowerPoint presentation. So I haven't read that 

section of the book. 

 MR. ROEMER: That's certainly in our questions to Mr. 

Clarke tomorrow, as he's a sworn participant tomorrow for over two 

hours, we intend to ask him many of those questions. As the Bush 

administration moved forward from January on, why not exercise 

some of these options? 

 SEC. POWELL: The options were not options. There was no 

option for an armed Predator. The armed Predator did not exist. 

 MR. ROEMER: The recon Predator? 

 SEC. POWELL: The recon Predator, it was analyzed very 

carefully, and I think Mr. Tenet will be speaking about this, that 

it was a waste of the asset at that point to have it fly around, 

and become identified, and its pattern of operation, method of 

operation become known to those on the ground who it was looking 

for, and the Taliban did have some aircraft that might have been 

capable of going up and taking the Predator down. A judgment was 

made that since we couldn't use the reconnaissance information 

from the Predator to immediately target that which the Predator 

found, let's not give away its signature and other aspects of its 
80

operational capability until we could to that. And it was a crash 

effort all during 2001, the first seven months of this 

Administration, to get it armed. And it was armed in September, 

as soon as it was armed, as soon as it was tested, and we knew 

what it could do, it was used, and it was used effectively, and it 

was used repeatedly. 

 The Northern Alliance question we've answered. This was 

not a force that had the capability to take down the Taliban, or 

to remove al Qaeda's presence in Afghanistan. And, as Secretary 

Armitage described, we had significant issues that we had to work 

our way through, these issues, and to do it in a way that did not 

offend other tribes, or other groups within Afghanistan that might 

have taken a dim view of what we were doing with the Northern 

Alliance. 

 MR. ROEMER: Mr. Secretary, then, this elimination of al 

Qaeda was a three or five year process, it was not anything that 

was going to take place any time soon. 

 SEC. POWELL: I think Mr. Clarke says that he saw it as a 

three to five year process. It is not a matter of okay, fine, I 

want to eliminate al Qaeda, so tomorrow morning I'm going to go do 

it. Al Qaeda did not quite present that kind of a target to you. 

You have to work diplomatically, politically, law enforcement, get 

inside the financing of al Qaeda and similar organizations, to 

ultimately bring them down, and to put them on the run. 

 MR. ROEMER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

 MR. KEAN: Thank you, Congressman. 

 Senator Gordon. 

 MR. GORTON: Mr. Secretary, you weren't able to read your 

entire statement, but I think your conclusion, which is both 

thoughtful and frightening, deserves to be on the oral record, as 

well as the written record, and it does lead to my one question. 

You say, that fundamental is this, sometimes you could do almost 

everything right and still suffer grievous losses from terrorist 

attacks. The recent train bombings in Spain demonstrate this 

tragic, but inescapable fact. Spanish authorities were well 

prepared. Spanish high capable security forces were on high 

alert, and security had been increased across the country. In 

fact, several weeks earlier they had apprehended terrorists with a 

truckload of explosives. Nonetheless, despite all their best 

efforts, and all their precautions, Spain still suffered these 
81

horrific attacks that produced such terrible casualties. Before 

this war is won there will be more such attacks. 

 Now, the fact that we don't like to talk about in public, 

for fear of what consequences it might have, is the fact that we 

have now gone two-and-one-half years in the United States without 

an Islamic extremist successful terrorist attack here. We have 

prevented some, but in a sense nothing has happened. I'd like you 

to give me your opinion to the extent that you feel able to do so, 

of the reasons for that, how much of it is blind luck, how much of 

it is the fact that we've hardened targets? How much of it is the 

fact or the proposition that we have more effective intelligence, 

and prevention than we did before 9-11? How much of it due to the 

fact that we have attacked the sources, the physical sources of 

it? And how much of it is due to the fact that all of these 

things together may simply not have ended terrorism, obviously it 

did not, but simply displaced it to Indonesia, to Morocco, to 

Turkey, to Saudi Arabia, to Spain, to places in which the targets 

are easier, and softer? 

 SEC. POWELL: Sir, we are still vulnerable, and we should 

accept that, and we will always be vulnerable, as long as we are a 

free and open society. But, we have done a number of things, I 

hope, have deterred attacks, made it harder for people to plot 

against the United States, perhaps scared them into thinking, 

well, we wouldn't be as successful as we might have been a couple 

of years ago, the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. 

The manner in which we took the TIPOFF database that Ms. Gorelick 

spoke about, and have now used it to create a much larger 

database. And we are pulling all the FBI, CIA, State Department 

databases into one system. The fact that we have changed our visa 

policy significantly, we're now starting to fingerprint people 

coming into the country and getting a better ID on them, the fact 

that we have done a lot of work on our borders. The fact that the 

Transportation Security Administration does a better job of 

looking at who's coming into the country at our airports, and 

other places of entry, points of entry. 

 So I hope that these defensive measures that we have 

taken are deterring the terrorists, and are giving the people who 

might come after us pause. Is there not a better place that we 

can go and conduct one of these terrible attacks, and make the 

same point to the world about our philosophy, and our evil intent. 

And maybe that's why they have gone elsewhere. I think it also 

illustrates why nobody is immune and we all have to work together. 

And so I hope that as a result of the attack in Spain, the attack 

in Bali, the attack in Riyadh, the attack in so many other places 
82

in the world will pull the civilized world together and do --

cause us to do a better job at sharing intelligence information, 

law enforcement information, financial cooperation, and direct 

action against terrorist organizations. 

 But I can't give you a measure for each one of these 

steps, Mr. Gorton. It's just not possible, and we're still 

vulnerable. A nation as large as ours, fairly open, and we can't 

shut down our openness. We cannot be so afraid that we don't let 

anybody into our country. 

 It's costing us now. We don't let students come to our 

universities because we're concerned, or they don't want to come 

to our universities because they're -- they are afraid of the 

difficulty of getting a visa, even if they're fully qualified for 

visa, or the harassment that they sometimes feel at our airports. 

So, we have to secure the homeland, but we also have to remain an 

open nation or the terrorists win. 

 But I hope that all of the efforts the President has 

taken over the last couple of years have contributed to our 

deterrent effect against terrorist activity. 

 MR. GORTON: So, you feel that to a certain extent there 

has been genuine deterrence -- 

 SEC. POWELL: We have --

 MR. GORTON: -- but also a significant degree of 

displacement. 

 SEC. POWELL: Well, deterrence for sure. We have made it 

a lot harder for people to come and move freely about our country, 

and they know we're working for them, and we know that the 

policies the President has put in place for the purpose of finding 

these folks before they get us. With respect to displacement, we 

know we have pretty much crippled their ability to work in 

Afghanistan. I can't say that we've gotten them all. There may 

be some remnants left. We also know they're trying to recreate 

themselves elsewhere. That's why what Secretary Rumsfeld is doing 

with his footprint of our military forces, and what Director Tenet 

is doing and will speak to you about, are so important. We've got 

to chase them, and find them wherever they surface in these other 

places in the world. 

 MR. GORTON: Richard? 
83

 MR. ARMITAGE: Probably the best deterrence, Senator, in 

addition to those the secretary has mentioned, is about the 500 al 

Qaeda that have been wrapped up by Pakistan, and the dozens who 

have been killed and arrested by the Saudis, particularly after 

their May 12th bombing. That's part of deterrence too. You've got 

to have the sharp edge, the pointy edge of the spear. 

 SEC. POWELL: Just to -- just to put a "P.S." on that, I 

mean, some of these organizations, particularly al Qaeda, thought 

they were getting a free ride in certain places. Well, they've 

now discovered there's no free ride in Saudi Arabia, and you see 

what President Musharraf's been doing in recent days, in that 

battle that's taking place up in the tribal areas, and they know 

they're going to be engaged. And you can be sure they're going to 

be engaged by Spanish authorities. And so, they know there is no 

longer any impunity associated with their actions, and the world, 

hopefully, is coming together. We must not let the success of 

some of these actions, such as the Spanish disaster, cause us to 

back away from the campaign against terrorism -- it's going to 

cause us to redouble our efforts. 

 MR. KEAN: Thank you very much, Secretary Powell, Deputy 

Secretary Armitage. Thank you for being with us. We would like 

to submit you a few more questions for the record, and we look 

forward to your reply on those. 

 And I've got to adjourn until 1:30. I would ask the 

audience, by the way, before you leave, the Capitol Police have 

asked us to announce that as people leave the room for lunch, 

please do not leave bags, packages, unattached things in the room 

because the Capitol Police may take them away -- (laughter) -- and 

they won't be here when you get back. 

 So, thank you all very much. We'll reconvene promptly at 

1:30, audience. And please, the Commissioners be here at that 

time. END.

PANEL III OF THE EIGHTH PUBLIC HEARING OF THE NATIONAL COMMISSION 

ON TERRORIST ATTACKS UPON THE UNITED STATES SUBJECT: FORMULATION 

AND CONDUCT OF U.S. COUNTERTERRORISM POLICY CHAIRED BY: THOMAS 

KEAN, FORMER GOVERNOR (R-NJ) WITNESS: FORMER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE 

WILLIAM COHEN LOCATION: 216 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING, 

WASHINGTON, D.C. TIME: 1:25 P.M. EST DATE: TUESDAY, MARCH 23, 2004
84

 MR. KEAN: Okay, I hereby reconvene the hearing. Our 

next panel will consider the extent to which the U.S. military was 

used to address the threat of terrorism against the United States 

during both the Clinton and the Bush administrations. 

 We'll begin with a staff statement on the role of the 

military, presented by our executive director Philip Zelikow. 

 MR. ZELIKOW: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Members of the 

Commission, with your help, your staff has developed initial 

findings to present to the public on the use of America's armed 

forces in countering terrorism before the 9/11 attacks. These 

findings may help frame some of the issues for this hearing and 

inform the development of your judgments and recommendations. 

 This report, like the others, reflects the results of our 

work so far. We remain ready to revise our understanding of these 

topics as our investigation progresses. The staff statement 

represents the collective effort of a number of members of our 

staff. Bonnie Jenkins, Michael Hurley, Alexis Albion, Ernest May 

and Steve Dunn did much of the investigative work reflected in 

this statement. 

 The Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence 

Agency have cooperated fully in making available both the 

documents and interviews that we have needed for our work on this 

topic. 

 I'm going to skip briefly over the role of the military 

in counterterrorism strategy, simply noting that in George H.W. 

Bush's presidency and the early years of the Clinton

administration, the Department of Defense was a secondary player 

in counterterrorism efforts, which focused on the apprehension and 

rendition of wanted suspects, and move directly to the narrative 

account of Operation Infinite Reach. 

 After the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar Es Salaam 

were attacked on August 7, 1998, President Clinton directed his 

advisers to consider military options. He and his advisers agreed 

on a set of targets in Afghanistan. Let me go to the paragraph on 

the Sudanese choice. 

 More difficult was the question of whether to strike 

other al Qaeda targets in Sudan. Two possible targets were 

identified in Sudan, including a pharmaceutical plant at which, 

the President was told by his aides, they believed VX nerve gas 

was manufactured with Osama Bin Ladin's financial support. 
85

 Indeed, even before the embassy bombings, NSC 

counterterrorism staff had been warning about this plant. Yet on 

August 11th, the NSC staff's senior director for intelligence 

advised National Security Adviser Berger that the bottom line was 

that "We will need much better intelligence on this facility 

before we seriously consider any options." 

 By the early-morning hours of August 20th, when the 

President made his decision, his policy advisers concluded that 

enough evidence had been gathered to justify the strike. The 

President approved their recommendation on that target, while 

choosing not to proceed with the strike on the other target in 

Sudan, a business believed to be owned by Bin Ladin. 

 DCI Tenet and National Security Adviser Berger told us 

that, based on what they know today, they still believe they made 

the right recommendation and that the President made the right 

decision. We have encountered no dissenters among his top 

advisers. 

 This strike was launched on August 20th. The missiles 

hit their intended targets, but neither Bin Ladin nor any other 

terrorist leaders were killed. The decision to destroy the plant 

in Sudan became controversial. Some at the time argued that the 

decisions were influenced by domestic political considerations, 

given the controversies raging at that time. 

 The staff has found no evidence that domestic political 

considerations entered into the discussion or the decision-making 

process. All evidence we have found points to national security 

considerations as the sole basis for President Clinton's decision. 

 The impact of the criticism lingered, however, as 

policymakers looked at proposals for new strikes. The controversy 

over the Sudan attack in particular shadowed future discussions 

about the quality of intelligence that would be needed about other 

targets.

 Operation Infinite Resolve and Delenda. Senior officials 

agreed that a principal objective of Operation Infinite Reach was 

to kill Osama Bin Ladin, and that this objective obviously had not 

been attained. The initial strikes went beyond targeting Bin

Ladin to damage other camps thought to be supporting his 

organizations. 
86

 These strikes were not envisioned as the end of the 

story. On August 20th, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 

General Hugh Shelton, issued a planning order for the preparation 

of follow-on strikes. This plan was later code-named Operation 

Infinite Resolve. 

 The day after the strikes, the President and his 

principal advisers apparently began considering follow-on military 

planning. A few days later, the NSC staff's national coordinator 

over counterterrorism, Richard Clarke, informed other senior 

officials that President Clinton was inclined to launch further 

strikes sooner rather than later. 

 On August 27th, Undersecretary of Defense Slocombe 

advised Secretary William Cohen that the available targets were 

not promising. There was, he said, also an issue of strategy --

the need to think of the effort as a long-term campaign. "The 

experience of last week," he wrote, quote, "has only confirmed the 

importance of defining a clearly articulated rationale for 

military action," closed quote, that was effective as well as 

justified. 

 Active consideration of follow-on strikes continued into 

September. In this context, Clarke prepared a paper for a 

political- military plan he called Delenda, from the Latin "to 

destroy." Its military component envisioned an ongoing campaign of 

regular small strikes occurring from time to time, whenever target 

information was right, in order to underscore the message of a 

concerted, systematic and determined effort to dismantle the 

infrastructure of the Bin Ladin terrorist network. Clarke 

recognized that individual targets might not have much value. But 

he wrote to Berger, "We will never again be able to target a 

leadership conference of terrorists, and that should not be the 

standard." 

 Principals repeatedly considered Clarke's proposed 

strategy, but none of them agreed with it. Secretary Cohen told 

us that the camps were primitive, easily-constructed facilities 

with rope ladders. The question was whether it was worth using 

very expensive missiles to take out what General Shelton called 

"jungle-gym training camps." That would not have been seen as very 

effective. 

 National Security Adviser Berger and others told us that 

more strikes, if they failed to kill Bin Ladin, could actually be 

counterproductive, increasing Bin Ladin's stature. "These issues 

need to be viewed," they said, "in a wider context." 
87

 The United States launched air attacks against Iraq at 

the end of 1998 and against Serbia in 1999, all to widespread 

criticism around the world. About a later proposal for strikes on 

targets in Afghanistan, Deputy National Security Adviser James 

Steinberg noted that it offered, quote, "little benefit, lots of 

blow-back against bomb-happy United States," closed quote. 

 In September 1998, while the follow-on strikes were still 

being debated among a small group of top advisers, the 

counterterrorism officials in the Office of the Secretary of 

Defense were also considering a strategy. Unaware of Clarke's 

plan, they developed an elaborate proposal for a, quote, "more 

aggressive counterterrorism posture," closed quote. The paper 

urged Defense to, quote, "champion a national effort to take up 

the gauntlet that international terrorists have thrown at our 

feet," closed quote. 

 Although the terrorist threat had grown, the authors 

warned that, quote, "We have not fundamentally altered our 

philosophy or our approach," closed quote. If there were new 

horrific attacks, they wrote that then, quote, "We will have no 

choice, nor, unfortunately, will we have a plan," closed quote. 

 They outlined an eight-part strategy to be more proactive 

and aggressive. The assistant secretary of Defense for Special 

Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict, Alan Holmes, brought the 

paper to Undersecretary Slocombe's chief deputy, Jan Lodal. The 

paper did not go further. Its lead author recalled being told by 

Holmes that Lodal thought it was too aggressive. Holmes cannot 

recall what was said and Lodal cannot remember the episode or the 

paper at all. 

 The President and his advisers remained ready to use 

military action against the terrorist threat. But the urgent 

interest in launching follow-on strikes had apparently passed 

by October. The focus shifted to an effort to find strikes that 

would clearly be effective to find and target Bin Ladin himself. 

 Military planning continues. Though plans were not 

executed, the military continued to assess and update target lists 

regularly in case the military was asked to strike. Plans largely 

centered on cruise-missile and manned aircraft strike options and 

were updated and refined continuously through March 2001. 
88

 Several senior Clinton administration officials, 

including National Security Adviser Berger and the NSC staff's 

Clarke, told us that President Clinton was interested in 

additional military options, including the possible use of ground 

forces. 

 As part of Operation Infinite Resolve, the military 

produced those options. We'll skip the next paragraph that 

details them and go to the relationship of the White House and the 

Pentagon, which was complex. 

 As Lieutenant General Gregory Newbold, director of 

operations for the joint staff, put it, "The military was often 

frustrated by civilian policymakers whose request for military 

options were too simplistic.” For their part, White House 

officials were often frustrated by what they saw as military 

unwillingness to tackle the counterterrorism problem.

 Skipping the next paragraph, go to General Shelton said 

that, quote, "Given sufficient actionable intelligence, the 

military can do the operation," closed quote. But he explained 

that a tactical operation, if it did not go well, could turn out 

to be an international embarrassment for the United States. 

 Shelton and many other military officers and civilian DOD 

officials we interviewed recalled their memories of episodes such 

as the failed hostage rescue in Iran in 1980 and the Blackhawk 

Down events in Somalia in 1993. 

 General Shelton made clear, however, that upon direction 

from policymakers, the military would proceed with an operation 

and carry out the order. 

 Skipping the next paragraph, let's go to the concerns 

expressed by the commander-in-chief of the U.S. Central Command, 

CENTCOM, General Anthony Zinni. 

 Before 9/11, any military action in Afghanistan would be 

carried out by CENTCOM. The Special Operations Command did not 

have the lead. It provided forces that could be used in a 

CENTCOM-led operation. The views of the key field commander, 

Kerry Craig White, General Zinni "told us he did not believe that 

some of the options his command was ordered to develop would be 

effective, particularly missile strikes." Zinni thought a better 

approach would have been a broad strategy to build up local 

counterterrorism capabilities in neighboring countries, using 

military assistance to help countries like Uzbekistan. This 
89

strategy, he told us, was "impeded by a lack of funds and limited 

interest in countries like Uzbekistan that had dictatorial 

governments." 

 Skipping the next paragraph, Let's emphasize that 

military officers explained to us that sending Special Operations 

forces into Afghanistan would have been complicated and risky. 

Such efforts would have required bases in the region. However, 

the basing options in the region were unappealing. Pro-Taliban 

elements of Pakistan's military might warn Bin Ladin or his 

associates of pending operations. The rest of the paragraph gives 

an example of that. 

 But go the next one: With nearby basing options limited, 

an alternative was to fly from ships in the Arabian Sea or from 

land bases in the Persian Gulf, as was later done after 9/11. 

Such operations would then have to be supported from long 

distances, overflying the airspace of nations that might not be 

supportive or aware of the U.S. efforts. 

 Finally, military leaders again raised the problem of 

actionable intelligence, warning that they did not have 

information about where Bin Ladin would be by the time forces 

would be able to strike. If they were in the region for a long 

period, perhaps clandestinely, the military might attempt to 

gather intelligence and wait for an opportunity. One Special 

Operations commander said his view of actionable intelligence was 

that if you give us the action we'll give you the intelligence. 

But this course would be risky, both in light of the difficulties 

already mentioned and the danger that U.S. operations might fail 

disastrously, as in the 1980 Iran rescue failure. 

 Cruise missiles as the default option. Cruise missiles 

became the default option, because it was the only option left on 

the table after the rejection of others. The Tomahawk's long 

range, lethality and extreme accuracy made it the missile of 

choice. However, as a means to attack al Qaeda and UBL-linked 

targets pre solution cruise missiles were problematic. Tomahawk 

cruise missiles had to be launched after the vessels carrying them 

moved into position. Once these vessels were in position, there 

was still an interval as decisionmakers authorized the strike, the 

missiles were prepared for firing, and they flew to their targets. 

Officials worried that Bin Ladin might move during these hours 

from the place of his last sighting, even if that information had 

been current. 
90

 Moreover, General Zinni told commission staff that he had 

been deeply concerned that cruise missile strikes inside 

Afghanistan would kill numerous civilians. The rest of the 

paragraph offers detail on that. 

 But let's go to the next section, No Actionable 

Intelligence. The paramount limitation cited by senior officials 

on every proposed use of military force was a lack of actionable 

intelligence. By this they meant precise intelligence on where Bin

Ladin would be and how long he would be there. National Security 

Adviser Berger said there was never a circumstance where the 

policymakers thought they had good intelligence but declined to 

launch a missile at UBL-linked targets for fear of possible 

collateral damage. He told us the deciding factor was whether 

there was actionable intelligence. If the shot missed Bin Ladin, 

the United States would look weak and Bin Ladin would look strong. 

 There were frequent reports about Bin Ladin's whereabouts 

and activities. The daily reports regularly described where he 

was, what he was doing, and where he might be going. But usually 

by the time these descriptions were landing on the desks of DCI 

Tenet or National Security Adviser Berger, Bin Ladin had already 

moved. Nevertheless, on occasion intelligence was deemed credible 

enough to warn planning for possible strikes to kill Osama Bin

Ladin. 

 Kandahar, December 1998. The first instance was in 

December 1998 in Kandahar. There was intelligence that Bin Ladin

was staying at a particular location. Strikes were readied 

against this and plausible alternative locations. The principal 

advisors to the President agreed not to recommend a strike. 

Returning from one of their meetings, DCI Tenet told staff that 

the military, supported by everyone else in the room, had not 

wanted to launch a strike, because no one had seen Bin Ladin in a 

couple of hours. DCI Tenet told us that there were concerns about 

the veracity of the source and about the risk of collateral damage 

to a nearby mosque. 

 A few weeks later to set the time, Clarke described the 

calculus as one that had weighed 50 percent confidence in the 

intelligence against collateral damage estimated at perhaps 300 

casualties. After this episode Pentagon planner intensified 

efforts to find a more precise alternative to cruise missiles, 

such as using precision strike aircraft. This option would 

greatly reduce the collateral damage. Yet, not only would it have 

to operate at long ranges from home bases and overcome significant 

logistical obstacles, but the aircraft also might be shot down by 
91

the Taliban. At the time, Clarke complained that General Zinni 

was opposed to the forward deployment of these aircraft. General 

Zinni does not recall blocking such an option. The aircraft 

apparently were not deployed for this purpose. 

 The Desert Camp, February 1999. During the winter of 

1998-99, intelligence reported that Bin Ladin frequently visited a 

camp in the desert, adjacent to a larger hunting camp in Helmand 

Province of Afghanistan, used by visitors from a Gulf state. 

Public sources have stated that these visitors were from the 

United Arab Emirates. At the beginning of February, Bin Ladin was 

reportedly located there, and apparently remained for more than a 

week. This was not in an urban area, so the risk of collateral 

damage was minimal. Intelligence provided a detailed description 

of the camps. National technical intelligence confirmed the 

description of the larger camp, and showed the nearby presence of 

an official aircraft of the UAE. The CIA received reports that Bin

Ladin regularly went from his adjacent camp to the larger camp 

where he visited with Emiratis. The location of this larger camp 

was confirmed by February 9, but the location of Bin Ladin's 

quarters could not be pinned down so precisely. 

 Preparations were made for a possible strike, against the 

larger camp, perhaps to target Bin Ladin during one of his visits. 

No strike was launched. 

 According to CIA officials, policymakers were concerned 

about the danger that a strike might kill an Emirati prince or 

other senior officials who might be with Bin Ladin or close by. 

The lead CIA official in the field felt the intelligence reporting 

in this case was very reliable. The UBL unit chief at the time 

agrees. The field official believes today that this was a lost 

opportunity to kill Bin Ladin before 9/11. 

 Clarke told us the strike was called off because the 

intelligence was dubious, and it seemed to him as if the CIA was 

presenting an option to attack America's best counterterrorism 

ally in the Gulf. Documentary evidence at the time shows that on 

February 10th Clarke detailed to Deputy National Security Advisor 

Donald Kerrick the intelligence placing UBL in the camp, informed 

him that DOD might be in a position to fire the next morning, and 

added that General Shelton was looking at other options that might 

be ready the following week. Clarke had just returned from a visit 

to the UAE, working on counterterrorism cooperation and following 

up on a May 1998 UAE agreement to buy F-16 aircraft from the 

United States. 
92

 On February 10th, Clarke reported that a top UAE official 

had vehemently denied that high-level UAE officials were in 

Afghanistan. Evidence subsequently confirmed that high-level UAE 

officials had been there. 

 By February 12th, Bin Ladin had apparently moved on and 

the immediate strike plans became moot. 

 In March, the entire camp complex was hurriedly 

disassembled. We are still examining several aspects of this 

episode. 

 Kandahar, May 1999. In this case, sources reported on 

the whereabouts of Bin Ladin over the course of five nights. The 

reporting was very detailed. At the time, CIA working-level 

officials were told the strikes were not ordered because the 

military was concerned about the precision of the sources 

reporting and the risk of collateral damage. Replying to a 

frustrated colleague in the field, the UBL unit chief wrote that, 

quote, "Having a chance to get UBL three times in 36 hours, and 

forgoing the chance each time, has made me a bit angry." The DCI 

finds himself alone at the table, with the other principals 

basically saying, We'll go along with your decision, Mr. Director 

-- and implicitly saying that "the agency will hang alone if the 

attack doesn't get Bin Ladin," close quote. These are workinglevel perspectives. 

 According to DCI Tenet, the same circumstances prevented 

a strike in each of the cases described above. The intelligence 

was based on a single uncorroborated source and there was a risk 

of collateral damage. In the first and third cases, the cruise 

missile option was rejected outright, and in the case of the 

second never came to a clear decision point. 

 According to National Security Adviser Berger, "the cases 

were really DCI Tenet's call," close quote. In his view, in none 

of the cases did policymakers have the reliable intelligence that 

was needed. In Berger's opinion, this did not reflect a risk 

aversion or a lack of desire to act on DCI Tenet's part. "The DCI 

was just as stoked up as he was," said Berger. Each of these 

times, Berger told us, "George would call and say we just don't 

have it." 

 There was a fourth episode involving a location in 

Ghazni, Afghanistan, in July 1999. We are still investigating the 

circumstances. 
93

 There were no occasions after July of 1999 when cruise 

missiles were actively ready for a possible strike against Bin

Ladin. The challenge of providing actionable intelligence could 

not be overcome before 9/11. 

 Skip the next section on Millennium plots and go directly 

to the section on the attack on the U.S.S. Cole. On October 12th, 

2000, suicide bombers in an explosives-Ladin skiff rammed into a 

Navy destroyer, the U.S.S. Cole, in the port of Aden, Yemen, 

killing 17 U.S. sailors and almost sinking the vessel. 

 Skip the remainder of the paragraph. After the attack on 

the U.S.S. Cole, National Security Adviser Berger asked General 

Shelton for military plans to act quickly against Bin Ladin. 

General Shelton tasked General Tommy Franks, the new commander of 

CENTCOM, to look again at the options. According to Director of 

Operations Newbold, Shelton wanted to demonstrate that the 

military was imaginative and knowledgeable enough to move on an 

array of options and to show the complexity of the operations. 

Shelton briefed Berger on 13 options that had been developed 

within the standing Infinite Resolve plan. CENTCOM also developed 

a, quote, "phased campaign concept," closed quote, for wider 

ranging strikes, including against the Taliban, and without a 

fixed end point. The new concept did not -- not include 

contingency plans for an invasion of Afghanistan. The concept was 

briefed to Deputy National Security Advisor Kerrick and other 

officials in December of 2000. 

 Neither the Clinton administration nor the Bush 

administration launched a military response to the Cole attack. 

Berger and other senior policymakers said that while most 

counterterrorism officials quickly pointed the finger at al Qaeda, 

they never received the sort of definitive judgment from the CIA 

or the FBI that al Qaeda was responsible that they would need 

before launching military operations. Documents show that in late 

2000, the President's advisors received a cautious presentation of 

the evidence, showing that individuals linked to al Qaeda had 

carried out or supported the attack, but that the evidence could 

not establish that Bin Ladin himself had ordered the attack. DOD 

prepared plans to strike al Qaeda camps and Taliban targets with 

cruise missiles in case policymakers decided to respond. 

 Essentially the same analysis of al Qaeda's 

responsibility for the attack on the U.S.S. Cole was delivered to 

the highest officials of the new Administration five days after it 

took office. The same day, Clarke advised National Security 

Advisor Rice that the government, quote, "should take advantage of 
94

the policy that we will respond at a time, place and manner of our 

own choosing and not be forced into knee-jerk responses." Closed 

quote. Deputy National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley told us 

that tit-for-tat military options were so inadequate that they 

might have emboldened al Qaeda. He said the Bush administration's 

response to the Cole would be a new, more aggressive strategy 

against al Qaeda. 

 Pentagon officials, including Vice Admiral Scott Fry and 

Undersecretary Slocombe, told us they cautioned that the military 

response options were limited. Bin Ladin continued to be elusive. 

They were still skeptical that hitting inexpensive and rudimentary 

training camps with costly missiles would do much good. The new 

team at the Pentagon did not push for a response for the Cole, 

according to Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, his 

deputy. Wolfowitz told us that by the time the new Administration

was in place, the Cole incident was stale. The 1998 cruise 

missile strike showed UBL and al Qaeda that they had nothing to 

fear from a U.S. response, Wolfowitz said. For his part, Rumsfeld 

also thought too much time had passed. He worked on the force 

protection recommendations developed in the aftermath of the 

U.S.S. Cole attack, not response options. 

 The early months of the Bush administration. The 

confirmation of the Pentagon's new leadership was a lengthy 

process. Deputy Secretary of Defense Wolfowitz was not confirmed 

until March 2001, and Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas 

Feith did not take office until July 2001. Secretary Cohen said 

he briefed Secretary-designate Rumsfeld on about 50 items during 

the transition, including Bin Ladin and programs related to 

domestic preparedness against terrorist attacks using weapons of 

mass destruction. Rumsfeld told us he did not recall what was 

said about Bin Ladin at that briefing. On February 8th, General 

Shelton briefed Secretary Rumsfeld on the Operation Infinite 

Resolve plan, including the range of options, and CENTCOM's new 

phased campaign plan. These plans were periodically updated 

during the ensuring months. 

 Brian Sheridan--the outgoing assistant secretary of 

defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, SOLIC, 

the key counterterrorism policy office in DOD, never briefed 

Rumsfeld. Lower level SOLIC officials in the office of the 

secretary of defense told us that they thought the new team was 

focused on other issues and was not especially interested in their 

counterterrorism agenda. Undersecretary Feith told the Commission

that when he arrived at the Pentagon in July 2001, Rumsfeld asked 

him to focus his attention on working with the Russians on 
95

agreements to dissolve the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and 

preparing a new nuclear arms control pact. Traditionally, the 

primary DOD official responsible for counterterrorism policy had 

been the assistant secretary of defense for SOLIC. The outgoing 

assistant secretary left on January 20th, 2001, and had not been 

replaced when the Pentagon was hit on September 11th. 

 Secretary Rumsfeld said that transformation was the focus 

of the Administration. He said he was interested in terrorism, 

arranging to meet regularly with DCI Tenet. But his time was 

consumed with getting new officials in place, preparing the 

Quadrennial Defense Review, the Defense Planning Guidance, and 

reviewing existing contingency plans. He did not recall any 

particular counterterrorism issue that engaged his attention 

before 9/11 other than the development of the Predator unmanned 

aircraft system for possible use against Bin Ladin. He said that 

DOD before 9/11 was not organized or trained adequately to deal 

with asymmetric threats. 

 As recounted in the previous staff statement, the Bush 

administration's NSC staff was drafting a new counterterrorism 

strategy in the spring and summer of 2001. National Security 

Advisor Rice and Deputy National Security Advisor Hadley told us 

that they wanted more muscular options. In June 2001, Hadley 

circulated a draft presidential directive on policy toward al 

Qaeda. The draft came to include a section that called for 

development of a new set of contingency military plans against 

both al Qaeda and the Taliban regime. Hadley told us that he 

contacted Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz to advise him that the 

Pentagon would soon need to start preparing fresh plans in 

response to this forthcoming presidential direction. 

 The directive was approved at the deputies' level in 

July, and apparently approved by top officials on September 4th 

for submission to the President. With the directive still 

awaiting the President's signature, Secretary Rumsfeld did not 

order the preparation of any new military plans against either al 

Qaeda or the Taliban before 9/11. Rumsfeld told us that 

immediately after 9/11, he did not see a contingency plan he 

wanted to implement. Deputy National Security Advisor Hadley and 

Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz also told us the military plans 

presented to the Bush administration immediately after 9/11 were 

unsatisfactory. 

 Roads not taken. Officials we interviewed flatly said 

that neither Congress nor the American public would have supported 

large scale military operations in Afghanistan before the shock of 
96

9/11, despite repeated attacks and plots, including the embassy 

bombings, the Millennium plots, concerns about al Qaeda to acquire 

WMD, the U.S.S. Cole, and the summer 2001 threat spike. 

 Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz warned that it would have been 

impossible to get Congress to support sending 10,000 U.S. troops 

into Afghanistan to do what the Soviet Union failed to do in the 

1980s. Vice Admiral Scott Fry, the former operations director for 

the JCS, noted that, quote, "A two or four division plan would 

require a footprint, troop level, and force that was larger than 

the political leadership was willing to accept." Closed quote. 

 Special Operations forces always saw counterterrorism as 

part of their mission and trained for counterterrorist operations. 

Quote, "The opportunities were missed because of an unwillingness 

to take risks and a lack of vision and understanding of the 

benefits when preparing the battle space ahead of time," closed 

quote, said Lieutenant General William Boykin, the current deputy 

undersecretary of defense for intelligence, and a former founding 

member of Delta Force. 

 Before 9/11, the U.S. Special Operations Command was a, 

quote, "supporting command, not a supported command. That meant 

it supported General Zinni and CENTCOM and did not independently 

prepare plans itself." 

 General Pete Schoomaker, the chief of staff of the U.S. 

Army and former commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command, 

said that if the Special Operations Command had been a supported 

command before 9/11, he would have had the al Qaeda mission, 

rather than deferring to CENTCOM's lead. Schoomaker said he spoke 

to Secretary Cohen and General Shelton about this proposal. It 

was not adopted. 

 Let me move now directly to our conclusions and finish. 

 In summary, our key findings to date including the 

following: In response to the request to policymakers, the 

military prepared a wide array of options for striking Bin Ladin

and his organization from May 1998 onward. When they briefed 

policymakers, the military presented both the pros and cons of 

those strike options, and briefed policymakers on the risks 

associated with them. 

 Following the August 20th, 1998 missile strikes, both 

senior military officials and policymakers placed great emphasis 

on actionable intelligence as the key factor in recommending or 
97

deciding to launch military action against Bin Ladin and his 

organization. Policymakers and military officials expressed 

frustration with the lack of actionable intelligence. Some 

officials inside the Pentagon, including those in the Special 

Forces and the Counterterrorism Policy Office, expressed 

frustration with the lack of military action. 

 The new Administration began to develop new policies 

towards al Qaeda in 2001, but there is no evidence of new work on 

military capabilities or plans against this enemy before September 

11th, and both civilian and military officials of the Defense 

Department state flatly that neither Congress nor the American 

public would have supported large scale military operations in 

Afghanistan before the shock of 9/11. 

 Thank you. 

 MR. KEAN: Thank you all very much. 

 We will now hear from former Secretary of Defense William 

Cohen. Secretary Cohen served with great distinction in the United 

States Senate before serving as Secretary of Defense during the 

second term of President Clinton. And, Mr. Secretary, we are very 

pleased that you consented to be with us today. And we'd like 

you, if you could, to raise your right hand so I may place you 

under oath. 

 Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole 

truth, and nothing but the truth? 

 Thank you very much. Your prepared statement will be 

entered into the record in full, and so we'd ask you to summarize 

your remarks as you'd like. 

 MR. COHEN: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I'd 

like to express my gratitude to the Commission for the important 

work that you are undertaking. I have had the opportunity, I 

think, to meet with either the members and/or staff on three prior 

occasions, and I am happy to be here today to contribute whatever 

I can to the important analysis that you are undertaking. 

 September 11th was a life-transforming event, I think, 

for all of us. It was a barbaric attack killing some 3,000 

Americans by turning airliners into cruise missiles. I think all 

of us have a solemn responsibility to the victims of September 

11th, to the victims' families, many of whom may be here today and 

certainly are watching, and also to the brave men and women in our 
98

military who continue to carry the battle and suffer the wounds in 

this war against terrorism. 

 Let me say on a personal note, my interest in the subject 

of terrorism began about a quarter of a century ago. I had 

attended an event -- conference -- in Bonn, Germany. A banker by 

the name of Hans Martin Schleyer, a businessman, had been 

assassinated by the Red Army faction, and the Europeans were eager 

to explore ways in which they could combat the scourge of 

international terrorism. During a time I served as a member of 

the United States Senate and the Armed Services Committee, I saw 

the bombing of our embassy in Beirut, the bombing of our marine 

barracks in Beirut, the bombing of Pan Am 103, the hijacking of 

TWA 847, the bombing of the West Berlin discotheque, the bombing 

of OPM Sang, and of Khobar Towers, among the many acts that were 

directed against the United States. 

 As a result, during that time I became convinced that our 

military was not organized to act swiftly enough in the age of 

what the Tofflers described as that of "Future Shock." I helped 

to write the Goldwater-Nichols Act, establishing the power and the 

leadership of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as a result of being 

concerned about what was taking place. That came, by the way, 

over the objection of the Pentagon during that time. 

 In 1986 I authored the legislation to establish the 

Special Operations Command, once again, I would point out, over 

the objections of the Pentagon, because I felt it was important to 

enable us to be able to respond to the emerging threats. I wrote 

and I spoke about the subject on numerous occasions convinced that 

the threat was growing, was becoming more organized, less sporadic 

and, when coupled with access to weapons of mass destruction, 

likely to pose an existential threat to the world. I carried 

these convictions to the Pentagon when President Clinton asked me 

to serve as the Secretary of Defense. I found that he not only 

shared my views, but he was prepared to support efforts to counter 

these threats with dollars, with deeds, as well as with his 

presidential words. In my experience, the threat of international 

terrorism remained a top priority for all members of his national 

security team throughout the years I served at the Pentagon. 

 In my written statement, I outlined some of the major 

initiatives that I had the department undertake between January of 

'97 and 2001. They included enhancing force protection; support 

for covert/special operations activity; designating and organizing 

the National Guard to serve as the first responders in the wake of 

attacks against our cities; organizing a joint task force for 
99

civil support to assist the cities and states against terrorist 

attacks that might take place; helping to train 100 major cities 

in consequence management against terrorist attacks; engaging in 

personal diplomacy and public appearances to alert the American 

people to the threat posed by anthrax, ricin, VX, and radiological 

materials, the danger of them falling into the hands of terrorist 

groups. These initiatives were undertaken as the department was 

engaged and waging war in Kosovo; we attacked Saddam Hussein in 

Operation Desert Fox; as we destroyed a suspected WMD site in 

Sudan; as we coped with the dangers of cyber attacks against our 

critical infrastructure including the unknown consequences of a 

critical massive cyber failure that was then known as Y2K. I 

believe that we devoted some $3 billion to $4 billion in defense 

spending at that time to cope with that fear that the terrorists 

would try to exploit that millennium turnover. We launched an 

attack upon al Qaeda's training camp in Afghanistan, as has been 

discussed earlier today; we continued efforts to capture or kill 

Osama Bin Ladin after discovering his role in the bombing of 

embassies in Africa and then later with the U.S.S. Cole; and we 

developed new intelligence-gathering capabilities that could be 

directed against Osama Bin Ladin and others as, again, you have 

discussed here earlier this morning. In addition, the Department 

also worked closely with the CIA, the FBI, and other agencies and, 

as a result, I believe we were able to thwart a number of 

terrorist activities directed fear against Americans and abroad. 

 I know the Commission is anxious to explore more 

specifically what happened or did not happen at the Defense 

Department, but I'd like to try and paint, in the few moments that 

I have, at least a broader perspective as well. I think all of us 

who have held a public trust have to be accountable for what we 

did or did not do during our careers in public service and holding 

the public trust. 

 But I want to put into perspective, as a former member of 

the Senate and a former member of the House of Representatives, as 

well, because I think as the Commission may find fault, indeed, 

that's, in all probability, that might be the goal of the 

Commission. I don't think so, but I hope you'll find the fault 

lines, as well, in our society as a whole, and if you'll just 

permit me four or five minutes to outline some of the challenges, 

I think, that all of us face, certainly while I was in the Senate, 

also at the Department of Defense. 

 I point out that on many occasions the Administration was 

able to secure the cooperation of Congress in the pursuit of its 

goals. There were a number of other occasions in which we did 
100

not. For example, some in Congress, the media, and the policy 

community accused those of us who were focused on the terrorist 

threat of being alarmist; of exaggerating the threat in order to 

boost our budgets. And countering this threat of terrorism was 

"the latest gravy train," according to one expert who was quoted 

in "U.S. News and World Report," in the belief that we were 

somehow indulging in a cynical hyperbole, I think, resulted in a 

number of legislative reactions. 

 There were tens of millions of dollars cut out of the 

Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, the so-called Nunn-Lugar 

Program, which I believe was one of the most important programs we 

could have passed, and that was to help reduce the accumulation of 

weapons of mass destruction, nuclear materials and others in the 

possession of the former Soviet Union. Tens of millions of 

dollars were cut from that program, I think posing a greater risk 

to us. We had to spend a significant amount of time trying to 

lobby to restore funds in that regard. 

 Congress blocked the cooperation with countries whose 

support was critical to the counterterrorism efforts, such as 

banning military cooperation with Indonesia, by way of example, 

the world's largest Muslim country that is a key battleground in 

the campaign against Islamic extremists and banning any meaningful 

cooperation with Pakistan, the front-line state in the global war 

on terrorism, who had reasons for this but, nonetheless, that was 

the reality. We had a program called "EIMET," which was designed 

to put our military into contact with the militaries of other 

countries to help educate them in the way that a civilized country 

and a democracy is able to subordinate the military/civilian rule 

and to pursue democratic values. Well, the program was terminated 

based on activities that took place in that country and elsewhere. 

 We had congressional committees who rejected requests for 

legislative authority to the Department to provide certain support 

to domestic activity or agencies to prevent or respond to 

terrorist actions in the United States. It was this -- with this 

in mind, that I try to combat this complacency and cynicism that I 

helped to create -- not to create, but I filled the membership of 

a commission that was led by former Senators Rudman and Hart, 

including the vice-chairman of this commission, and former Speaker 

Gingrich, along with retired senior military commanders and 

others. 

 In releasing the Commission's first report long before 

September 11th, Vice-Chairman Hamilton stated the fundamental 

issue. He said, "What comes across to me in this report more than 
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any other single fact is that the Commission believes that 

Americans are going to be less secure than they believe themselves 

to be, and so I think what we're trying to say in this report is 

that we lived in a very secure time, we're very fortunate for 

that, but we're going to be confronted with a lot of challenges to 

our national security that Americans do not believe we're going to 

be subject to, and that's really what comes out of this report for 

me more than any other single thing." 

 Well, I'll tell you, his remarks really resonated with 

me, because I recall at my very first press conference as 

Secretary of Defense back in 1997, I was asked, "Mr. Secretary, 

what is your greatest concern as you look toward the future?" And 

I'd like to just read my response -- "My greatest concern is that 

we're able to persuade the American people to having a viable, 

sustainable, national security policy is important even when there 

is no clearly identifiable enemy on the horizon. We still live in 

a very dangerous, disorderly world and, in many cases, we face 

dangers that are comparable to those we face in the past; namely, 

the proliferation of missile technology, the proliferation of 

weapons of mass destruction; and the spread of terrorism." 

 I believe that we have been complacent, as a society. I 

think that we have failed to fully comprehend the gathering storm. 

Even now, after September 11th, I think it's far from clear that 

our society truly understands the gravity of a threat that we face 

or is yet willing to do what I believe is going to be necessary to 

counter it. Even after September 11th, after the anthrax and the 

ricin attacks in the United States, I remain concerned that the 

controversy over not finding Iraq's weapons of mass destruction 

will lead to the erroneous assumption that all this talk about the 

dangers of WMD is just another exercise in the cynical 

exploitation of fear. After all, it is commonly noted -- it was 

noted here again this morning -- there were no attacks since 

September 11th. I think this is a dangerous delusion. The enemy 

is not only coming, he has been here. He will continue to try to 

examine our weaknesses and exploit the crevices in our security 

and destroy our way of living as well as our lives. 

 Mr. Chairman, I'll conclude here. I think you can deduce 

from my written statement, I believe that the Clinton 

administration, far more than any previous administration prior to 

September 11th, understood that the threat that terrorism poses to 

our country, I think it took far greater and more comprehensive 

action to counter it than previous administrations did by virtue 

of the growing threat. But in spite of all of this, the United 

States was hit in a devastating way. Even today with a global war 
102

on terrorism being waged, I believe we need to do far more to 

prevent the spread of virulent Islamic extremism, and to prevent 

terrorism from reaching our shores. I don't pretend to hold the 

keys to the kingdom of wisdom on what needs to be done in the 

future, but I think, as I said before, we all must stand 

accountable for our actions. 

 It's my hope that the Commission, again, will focus on 

the fault lines that run through our democratic system as we 

struggle to cope with the challenges of unprecedented proportions. 

I will outline just a couple of items which I think should be 

considered for the future. I think we have to develop an in-depth 

public discussion among our citizens as well as among elected 

officials regarding the compromises on privacy that we're willing 

to accept in order to remain free and safe. The current debate 

over access to personal data for aviation security purposes I 

don't think this encouraging. We have to elevate the public 

discussion on these matters, and do our best to remove from them 

electoral manipulation at least until we truly understand the 

issues and choices. 

 We have to reconcile the role that technology is going to 

play in our lives for good and ill, and try to maintain and assure 

that it remains our master, and we don't remain its slave. I 

don't think this is going to be an easy balance to strike, but I 

think it has to be done. 

 I think we have to consider establishing a domestic 

intelligence organization distinct from law enforcement and 

subject to appropriate control and regulation and oversight. I 

think we have to secure and eliminate on an accelerated basis 

fissile nuclear materials and chemical and biological weapon 

agents that pose a risk of diversion. This is going to require 

much more cooperation in relationship with Russia than we 

currently have. And I think we have to reenergize American 

engagement in the Middle East. I believe that the road to peace 

in the Middle East runs through Baghdad, and success in Baghdad 

may very well run through Jerusalem. The unabated violence can 

only serve, in my judgment, to remain a breeding ground for even 

more savagery and nihilism in the future, and this effort cannot 

await the counting of ballots in November. 

 And, finally, I think we need to persuade the free people 

of the world that the war on terror cannot be waged by America 

alone. As recent events demonstrate, religious extremists and 

fanatics don't recognize geographical boundaries. There are no 

rear lines, there are no pockets of tranquility. There are no 
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safe harbors for innocent civilians. Every one of us is on the 

front lines today. A virus or a bomb born in a distant laboratory 

or a factory is but a plane ride away from any place on this 

planet, so it's time for sober reflection, the charting of a 

responsible course of action. And to the extent I can contribute 

to this, Mr. Chairman, I'm prepared to answer your questions. 

 MR. KEAN: Mr. Secretary, thank you very much for a very 

articulate statement. 

 Commissioner Fielding, you are going to be in the 

questioning, followed by Commissioner Kerrey. 

 MR. FIELDING: Mr. Secretary, thank you very much for 

appearing here today. Also, thank you for the many hours you've 

spent with the Commission and the staff in preparing this, and 

your very fulsome prepared testimony as well as your remarks this 

morning. I would also like to express my personal high regard for 

you and for all the years of public service that you've given to 

this nation. Thank you. 

 We, of course, have a mission to fulfill, and one of the 

things that we obviously have to figure out is what happened on 

9/11, but equally important to our mission is to figure out the 

other factors that may have contributed to the situation we found 

on 9/11. And, obviously, again, one of those is the development 

of our counterterrorism strategy. Of course, we're going to pick 

your brain again today as far as the aspects of the military that 

fed into that. And my colleagues have a lot of questions, so I'll 

try to watch that little ball as much as anybody. 

 Under Presidential Directive 62, the military, of course, 

and the Defense Department didn’t have the leading role in 

counterterrorism efforts during your tenure. And yet, ironically, 

we've heard a lot of testimony and a lot of commentary that the 

military was being criticized for being reluctant to use its 

forces and to actually conduct military operations against al 

Qaeda and Bin Ladin. As a matter of fact, Richard Clarke's now 

very famous book, he says, “the White House wanted action, the 

senor military did not, and made it almost impossible for the 

President to overcome their objections.” And I know that you've 

seen other commentary like that. 

 The primary limitation that is often cited is that for 

each decision for using military force, there was this lack of 

actionable intelligence. And we've heard about it today, and 

we've heard about it a lot, and our understanding of that is what 
104

was stated earlier, that at a specific time you couldn't 

anticipate whether the location of Bin Ladin or his key followers 

might be so that it could be sufficiently determined that it was 

worthwhile to launch military reaction to it. 

 After August 20th of '98, there were at least three 

opportunities which we've been privy to use force against Bin

Ladin. However, in each case, it was determined that there wasn't 

actionable intelligence. 

 I guess the first question I'd like to say is, whose call 

is that? How does that decision become a factor, and a 

determinant factor, and in addition to that, if I could, given 

that you had setbacks using force, what was your assessment of the 

existing capabilities at that time of the CIA? 

 MR. COHEN: Which capabilities? 

 MR. FIELDING: The existing capabilities, to obtain what 

would be required as actionable intelligence, and to the extent 

that you found them deficient, what steps did you take to 

supplement and to put into action things that the Defense 

Department could do to beef up that capability? 

 MR. COHEN: On the second part, Mr. Fielding, I think 

that Senator Kerry and others would tell you that over the years 

one of the identifiable deficiencies within our intelligence 

collection capability is the absence of good HUMINT. That we have 

over the years tended to oscillate between focusing on technical 

capabilities, with our satellite gathering technologies, as 

opposed to developing human intelligence. With the fall of the, 

or the collapse of the Soviet Union, of course, that becomes a 

much more challenging objective to get good human intelligence in 

areas that are governed by tribal leaders where an individual 

perhaps can detect who is a remote cousin the minute they show up 

within 200 yards. So penetrating societies such as that become 

even more problematic, in terms of developing good human 

intelligence. And then you're called upon to try and develop 

assets on the ground. 

 Then the question is, who do you trust, and how can you 

trust them, and based on what evidence in the past that they have 

been credible. All of that goes into an analysis by the CIA, 

working with other intelligence agencies, Secretary Powell talked 

about INR, we have DIA, Defense Intelligence Agency, but

essentially we turn to the DCI to say, do we have good 

intelligence. We review the PDB, as has been discussed earlier 
105

today, we sit down at the Cabinet-level meetings with the 

President, or with the National Security Advisor and his team, and 

say, is this good enough intelligence to warrant taking good 

action. And each case has to be looked at in that regard.

 You mentioned August of '98. Frankly, it was following 

the bombing of the embassies in East Africa that the antenna were 

really up, we were collecting at a level that I saw -- it was 

unprecedented in terms of the amount of information coming in, 

pointing to Bin Ladin, and then getting the information there 

would a gathering of terrorists in Afghanistan. After reviewing 

all that information, a determination was made, this was a target, 

certainly, that we should attack. That, plus the so-called 

pharmaceutical plant in Sudan. But, it was that kind of a process 

whereby, what do we have, do we have to be certain, the answer is 

no, do you have to be pretty sure? I think that the answer is 

yes, if you're going to be killing a lot of people, we're prepared 

to engage in collateral damage if the target that we're after is 

certainly important. But, all those factors go into a decision. 

But, having actionable intelligence means reliable, and the basis 

of that reliability. 

 Single source information, usually I think George Tenet 

would tell you, not good enough. Maybe if they've got a single 

source that's truly reliable, they've had him in the past, that 

might be, under the circumstances. But, it all depends upon the 

quality of the people you've got on the ground, coupled with 

whatever you can put up in the air to locate certain targets. 

 MR. FIELDING: Who makes that final decision? 

 MR. COHEN: The President of the United States, the 

President of the United States makes the final decision. We make 

recommendations. We at the National Security Team would sit down, 

examine it, and then come to a consensus if we could. If we 

couldn't, frankly, we would go to the President with our 

individual recommendations. But, most of the time we are able to 

reach a consensus. And then the President will raise what has 

been recommended to him to act, or not to act, and then makes a 

decision. 

 MR. FIELDING: Just following up again on my earlier line 

of questioning, did you do anything, and were there any steps 

available that you felt were worth taking to augment the CIA's 

capabilities for collecting intelligence? 
106

 MR. COHEN: We worked with the CIA. There were some 

joint efforts as such, to reinforce the CIA. We had a cooperative 

program in terms of the unmanned aerial vehicles, there was some 

controversy over that, as well, I might add, but trying to find 

him was certainly a joint enterprise, in terms of technical 

capability, did we have people on the ground? The answer was, we 

did not, for the most part. 

 MR. FIELDING: Was that just not really a viable, 

realistic, option? 

 MR. COHEN: Again, in looking at Afghanistan, looking at 

the history of that country, look at the power, and the -- yes, 

the power and the relationship of the tribes in the region, the 

notion that we could put "special forces" in that region that 

would go undetected or uncompromised, I think was pretty remote. 

Was it possible? You could say it was possible. Was it 

advisable, we didn't think so at the time. I think in reflection 

we still don't think that was a viable option. 

 MR. FIELDING: I'd like to ask your opinion, because we 

have to evaluate the various -- the three incidents, and we've 

heard a lot of testimony, and a lot of writings, that that 

particular second event that I made reference to, I think it was 

in February of '99, the hunting camp with the UAE, that that was 

the lost opportunity. 

 MR. COHEN: Well, you know, as I recall there were at 

least three instances in which the initial intelligence take, as 

they called it, that we think we have him, and what we would then 

do is, quote, "spin up" the military at that point, namely our 

ability to target that particular area with the thought of taking 

that individual or group of people out. There were three 

instances. Each time, the -- the munitions and the people were 

“spun up,” that they were called off because the word came back 

"we're not sure -- this -- we're not quite sure." 

 In one instance, there was a -- an identify -- an 

identification that somehow we had Bin Ladin in our sights. 

Turned out it was a sheikh from UAE. Another -- there was another 

consideration of shooting down an aircraft that might be carrying 

Bin Ladin should he try to escape. That also proved to be 

reversed by the intelligence community saying, "We're not -- we 

don't think we have him." 
107

 So, there were three occasions following the attack on 

the camps in Sudan, but in each and every one of those occasions 

it came back on a second look saying, "We don't think that we've 

got enough here for -- to recommend to the President that we 

should take military action." And that came from the intelligence 

community, through the national security advisor, and we all sat 

and made a collective judgment -- okay, under the circumstances, 

we don't fire. 

 MR. FIELDING: Now, if you could assist us, if I can take 

you back to the August 20th attack and response attack -- after 

that happened, there was criticism about the pharmaceutical plant 

--

 MR. COHEN: Right. 

 MR. FIELDING: -- and there was also criticism in general 

about "trigger happy" and this sort of thing. And recalling that 

negative reaction, does that criticism affect the planning and use 

of military force in defending the United States, in this context? 

 MR. COHEN: I'm glad you asked that question, Mr. 

Fielding, because it's something that I have wanted to talk about 

for some time. In terms of the kind of poisonous atmosphere that 

existed then, that continues to exist today -- you're going to 

discuss Mr. Clarke's book with him tomorrow, but all of the 

accusations, questioning motives and calculations. 

 During that time, when the attack was launched in 

Afghanistan and Sudan, there was a movie out called "Wag the Dog." 

There were critics of the Clinton administration that attacked the 

President, saying this was an effort on his part to divert 

attention from his personal difficulties. I'd like to say for the 

record under no circumstances did President Clinton ever call upon 

the military and use that military in order to serve a political 

purpose. 

 When I took the office, I had a very clear understanding 

with the President, he was very clear with me -- under no 

circumstances would I ever be called upon to exercise any kind of 

partisan relationship, would participate in no politics, and would 

never allow the military to be used for a political purpose. 

President Clinton was true to his word. He never called upon us 

to do that. It was strictly on the merits. Now, that 

accusation surfaced again, and it was something of a concern to 

me, and I'll take just a few moments to express it. 
108

 In that -- that fall -- I should say that winter, in 

December of 1998, we decided to attack Saddam Hussein. It was 

called Operation Desert Fox. It was a four-day operation in which 

we launched a number of attacks upon his weapons of mass 

destruction sites, his missile production facilities, and killing 

a number of Republican Guards and others. 

 I got a call -- the day that that operation was launched, 

I received a call from Speaker Gingrich, and soon-to-be, or thento-be Speaker Livingston, asking me to come up to Capitol Hill. 

They said the House was in an uproar, there was a rage boiling in 

the House of Representatives. This clearly had to be politically 

inspired. I was eager to go up to the Hill. I had not been in 

the human rights for 20 years. And I walked that evening into the 

well of the House of Representatives -- there were almost 400 

people there that night, maybe more -- to a closed session of 

Congress. And I spoke for three hours, assuring every single 

member that the reason we attacked Saddam Hussein was because of 

his noncompliance with the Security Council resolutions, that at 

no time did the President of the United States ever seek to use 

that military strike in order to avoid or divert attention from 

the impeachment process. 

 I was prepared at that time and today to say I put my 

entire public career on the line to say that the President always 

acted specifically upon the recommendation of those of us who held 

the positions for responsibility to take military action, and at 

no time did he ever try to use it or manipulate it to serve his 

personal ends. 

 And I think it's important that that be clear because 

that "Wag the Dog" cynicism that was so virulent there I am afraid 

is coming back again, and I think we've got to do everything we 

can to stop engaging in the kind of self-flagellation and 

criticism, and challenging of motives of our respective 

presidents. 

 MR. FIELDING: Thank you. The -- that also is the 

conclusion of the staff and the staff report, but I'm glad you had 

a chance to elucidate on it. 

 On August 20th --

 MR. KEAN: Last question. 

 MR. FIELDING: Okay. Thank you. On August 20th, we 

heard about General Shelton undertaking a planning order for 
109

preparation of a -- the follow-on operations, and obviously there 

were never any follow-on operations that came to fruition. But, 

what directions did you give the military for development of 

military plans against Bin Ladin after August 20th, for our 

guidance? 

 MR. COHEN: Our plans were to try to, quote, "capture 

and/or kill" -- or kill, I should say in this particular case --

"capture or kill Bin Ladin." That was the directive that went 

out, the memorandum of notification. The President had signed 

several of those, refining them on each and every occasion. 

Taking that directive, we had our people in a position, should 

there be, quote, "actionable intelligence," -- again, the key 

word, and we can -- we should discuss that and debate that issue 

of what constitutes it, but whenever there was, quote, "actionable 

intelligence," we were prepared to take action to destroy Bin 

Ladin or the targets. 

 Were there plans to use Special Forces to supplement the 

Northern Alliance if they were able to apprehend and hold on to 

Bin Ladin? The answer was "yes." There were packages that were 

developed with our Special Forces at Fort Bragg. 

 There were a number of proposals, quote, "on the table" 

or "on the shelf" prepared to -- to be utilized in the event that 

we were certain -- not certain to a hundred percent degree, but 

reasonably certain that he was going to be at a given area. I 

know a question has been raised, well, why wouldn't you put a unit 

in there with the anticipation that they could help gather 

intelligence and track him down? And I tried to address this in 

my written statement, but consider the notion, we have 13,500 

troops in Afghanistan right now, not to mention the Pakistanis, 

and we can't find Bin Ladin to date. 

 So, the notion that you're going to put a small unit, 

however good, on the ground, or a large unit, and put them into 

Afghanistan and track down Bin Ladin, I think is folly. But, if 

we had people on the ground, if we had the Northern Alliance, if 

they were reliable, did we have people prepared to go? The answer 

was "yes." General Shelton I think will tell you it's very 

difficult to kill an individual with a missile. We all now that. 

You're talking about six hours from the time, quote, "spun up," 

you've got the coordinates, GPS signals, target that individual --

you're six hours away. To put troops on the ground, it was 

probably double that time. By the time you take a package and fly 

them from Fort Bragg, or compose some elements that were already 

in the Gulf, you're talking more than six hours. 
110

 So, the answer is, why didn't you have forces on the 

ground in Afghanistan? And the point I'm simply trying to make is 

that the notion that you could put thousands, or hundreds, or even 

tens of people on the ground and hope to locate him under those 

circumstances I think is simply unrealistic. 

 MR. FIELDING: Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Thank you, Mr. 

Chairman. 

 MR. KEAN: Senator Kerrey. 

 MR. KERREY: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr. 

Secretary, nice to see you again. 

 MR. COHEN: Nice to see you, Senator. 

 MR. KERREY: First of all, let me say, as you were 

introducing yourself, I had not, until I prepared for this hearing 

realized, and you reinforced it, that you were the father of the 

Special Operations Command. And it must have given you a 

considerable amount of pride to see how effective special 

operations units were in Afghanistan, Iraq, and according to the 

reports today, in the Hindu Kush again, trying to -- trying to run 

down Bin Ladin as we speak. And --

 MR. COHEN: Senator Kerrey, you may recall, one of the 

complaints that used to come from the Pentagon and the executive 

branch is that Congress engages in too much micro-management. I 

think that was the case, and the -- also, the reformation of the 

Joint Chiefs of Staff, with Goldwater-Nickels, of macromanagement, but I thought it played a very important role. 

 MR. KERREY: Sir, both of those were. And they want you 

to micromanage when they've got something they want you to 

support. (Laughter.) 

 Well, let me also say with great respect, I do think that 

-- that -- I do think that in '98, that a special operations unit 

with an element of surprise could have had a tremendous impact at 

that particular point. It's a judgment call you've got to make. 

It's a much different situation than it is today, and I appreciate 

that very much. 

 One -- look, one of the problems I think that -- that I 

have with this whole thing is that we were attacked on 11 

September 2001 by the same people that attacked the Cole on the 
111

12th of October 2000, by the same people who attempted to attack 

the Sullivan (sic) a few months earlier, by the same people who 

were responsible for multiple Millennium attacks in 1999, by the 

same people who attacked our embassies on the 7th of August 1998, 

and now, as we understand it, by the same people who have had 

previous attacks back to the 1990s, perhaps up to and including 

the World Trade Center bombing one. 

 So, it's not just that it's -- that we were attacked 

successfully by 19 men with less than a half-a-million dollars --

utterly -- I mean, they just defeated every single defensive 

mechanism we had up in place. It's that we're -- that this is the 

same group that had attacked us on many other occasions in the 

past. And that's why I keep coming to the question -- why would 

we have a presidential directive in place in 1998 that said that 

the Department of Defense and our military was going to be used 

principally for a response, if we were attacked, in a local and 

state situation and to support what the Department of Justice is 

doing? 

 I don't understand why the military wasn't given a 

priority and a primary role in the fight against not just 

terrorism, but the fight against Osama Bin Ladin. I mean, I 

presume you've seen the declaration of war that he released on the 

23rd of February, 1998. That was very precise; again, issued by 

somebody who had demonstrated not just a willingness to kill 

Americans but the capacity to kill Americans. 

 And every single time I heard the Administration come up 

before the Intelligence Committee that I was on -- we just tried 

to keep doing what you had done for years before -- it was, "We're 

going to send the FBI to investigate this stuff." And I would 

say, "My God, I don't understand this. They killed airmen in 

Khobar Towers. They attacked our facilities in East Africa. They 

attacked our sailors on the Cole. I don't understand," and still 

today don't understand, why the military wasn't given a dominant 

role. 

 And I wonder, if you're looking back on it today, do you 

think we underutilized the military during the 1990s in the war 

against, in this case, radical Islamists led by Osama Bin Ladin? 

 MR. COHEN: First of all, I've seen your comments about 

the need to declare war against al Qaeda. We were at war with al 

Qaeda. We weren't declaring it as such and the President going to 

Congress saying, "Let's declare war against al Qaeda." 
112

 I take your point about Bin Ladin being very precise. He 

was very precise in issuing a personal fatwa against me. I was 

put on the list. There was a price tag. There were several 

attempts, which I don't have to go into details about, going after 

me. 

 So I was very much aware that this was a war that had 

been declared against the United States, including members of the 

President's Cabinet personally, putting us at risk as well as our 

military personnel. 

 The use of the military, the only use I could have seen 

in terms of could we have done more against Bin Ladin, was really 

talked about putting a massive force into Afghanistan over the 

objection -- you've heard this this morning, and it's something 

that I had to take into account -- could we, in fact, take a much 

more aggressive military operation against Bin Ladin without the 

support of Pakistan or any of the neighboring countries? 

 General Zinni's name has been surfaced on several 

occasions here. When you recommend people to advise you -- and I 

was the one who recommended that General Zinni be the commander of 

the CENTCOM -- you look at their background, you look at their war 

record, you look at how they've conducted themselves and you 

hopefully trust their judgment. 

 General Zinni made a number of recommendations which I 

took to heart, because he was of the opinion that had we taken 

certain types of military action, it would have been, quote, 

"ineffective, counterproductive." He was the same general who 

recommended that we not overreact when there was a military coup 

in Pakistan, saying, "Wait a minute. I've worked with this 

general. I think we may be able to persuade him to be much more 

supportive than he has been, we think, in the past." 

 As a result of that kind of relationship that General 

Zinni had with General Musharraf, and later President Musharraf, 

we were able to help thwart attacks during the Millennium. So you 

have to at some point put some judgment in the experts that you 

call upon to give you advice. 

 Could I have second-guessed the chairman of the Joint 

Chiefs, General Shelton? Yes. Could I have second-guessed 

General Zinni? Did I have reason to, based upon my experience with 

them? And the answer was no. I put a lot of faith in their 

recommendations and their judgment. And I never found them, 

quote, "risk-averse." They really were more mission-successful in 
113

their orientation, saying, "If we do this, we're likely to 

succeed. If we do the following, we're likely to fail." Those 

were the kinds of decisions we had to make. 

 So what could have been done? We had lethal authority. 

We were not -- Sandy Berger said we weren't trying to send simply 

a summons to Bin Ladin in Afghanistan. We were trying to kill 

him, him or anyone else who was there at the time. That was, you 

know, what they call a warning shot to the temple. We were trying 

to kill Bin Ladin and anyone there that went to that camp. 

 Did we have the kind of information that would have 

allowed us to get him later? We didn't see it. It was never 

recommended. I can't account for everything that you've heard, 

but there was never a recommendation that came to the national 

security team that said, "We've got a good shot at getting him; 

let's take military action and do it." The only other alternative 

would have been, could we have persuaded Pakistan, "Get out of the 

way; we're coming; we don't need your support; we're going to 

invade Afghanistan"? 

 I leave it to you, Senator Kerrey, and to others who have 

served in Congress. Do you think it's reasonable that, under the 

circumstances, that any president, including President Clinton, 

could have gone to Congress in October of 2000 and said, "These 

people are trying to kill us, and now therefore we're going to 

invade Afghanistan and take them out"? I don't think so. But 

there are -- other members can disagree; judgment call. You've 

sat on the other side of that decision. 

 MR. KERREY: Well, that presumes that the President would 

come to Congress and request authorization for action. There, as 

you know, have been many moments when the President doesn't 

request such authorization; he just does it. 

 MR. COHEN: Let me make one other point. You remember 

Kosovo. 

 MR. KERREY: Yeah. 

 MR. COHEN: Here we had a campaign going on in Kosovo. I 

don't know how many times you came to the White House, but there 

were meetings after meetings with members of Congress coming down 

to the President saying, "This is a bad idea. When are you going 

to get out? What's the exit strategy? How much is it going to 

cost us?" 
114

 We had to sustain a 78-day bombing campaign, frankly, 

without the support of Congress. And it was a successful 

campaign. And as a result of that, we saved a lot of lives. But 

I give you that as an example to say the notion that somehow 

President Clinton or even President Bush, absent 9/11, could have 

walked into the halls of Congress and said, "Declare war against 

al Qaeda," I think is unrealistic. 

 MR. KERREY: Mr. Chairman, I'd say you're making my 

argument. I mean, I supported what the President did in Kosovo. 

I supported what he did in Bosnia. I was in the minority both 

times. But that didn't stop him from doing it. 

 MR. COHEN: But he had the --

 MR. KERREY: The fact that it was difficult, the fact 

that it was hard, the fact even at times it was unpopular, he 

believed in it and he rallied the American people to the cause. 

 MR. COHEN: He also rallied allies. 

 MR. KERREY: He didn't do that with Bin Ladin. 

 MR. COHEN: But he also rallied allies to the cause. You 

had the NATO countries involved in Bosnia and Kosovo. You had --

after 9/11, you have him rallying the international community to 

help go into Afghanistan. 

 Prior to that time, I dare say there is not a single 

country that would have been supporting the President of the 

United States declaring war and invading Afghanistan prior to 

9/11. You can disagree with that judgment. I don't think there 

was a single country. And I frankly think that Congress would 

have overwhelmingly rejected it. 

 MR. KERREY: I would disagree. I'd respectfully 

disagree. First of all, again, as I said, there are many 

instances where the President doesn't even come to Congress; I 

mean, Operation Just Cause in Panama. He didn't come to Congress 

and say, "Gee, is it okay to do that?" Grenada, the President

didn't come to Congress and say, "Is that okay to do it?" And 

Bosnia and Kosovo, the very examples that you cite, the President

didn't have the support of Congress and he went ahead and did it. 

I think he did the right thing. 

 But the fact that it's unpopular, that it's difficult, 

that our allies are not necessarily with it, shouldn't deter a 
115

president who believes that what we have is a serial killer on our 

hands, who had begun killing us at least as early as 1993, who had 

issued a very specific declaration of war calling Islamic men to 

join an Islamic army on the 23rd of February, 1998, and then 

demonstrated that he had the capacity in a very sophisticated way 

on the 7th of August to carry out that threat. 

 And what did we -- I mean, I just -- we did not -- we had 

a round in our chamber and we didn't use it. That's how I see it. 

And I don't know if it would have prevented 9/11, but I absolutely 

do not believe that just because the commander-in-chief sits there 

and says, "Gee, this thing is unpopular; therefore I can't do it," 

I don't think that's a good argument. 

 MR. COHEN: Senator Kerrey, let me --

 MR. KERREY: And I know Secretary Rumsfeld is going to 

use it here in a few minutes, and I'm going to be just as harsh 

with him. I don't buy it. 

 MR. COHEN: Well, Senator Kerrey, let's go back to the 

Persian Gulf War, '91. MR. KERREY: Yeah. 

 MR. COHEN: There you had Saddam Hussein invading Kuwait. 

There you had the President of the United States, President Bush 

41, going to the international community, gathering support, and 

then deciding to come to the Congress to get congressional 

support. Close call. I think it passed the Senate by four votes 

under those extraordinary circumstances. 

 But I would submit to you, the notion that you be able, 

in the fall of 2000, to have rallied the Congress and the country 

to invade Afghanistan and to have had the support of Pakistan, 

Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, all of the other people in the region, I 

don't think is realistic. Judgment call; we can be faulted for 

that. I just don't think it was feasible. 

 MR. KERREY: Well, let me just say for the record, better 

to have tried and failed than not to have tried at all. And I 

think in this particular case, again, what you've got, the thing 

that's most troubling about 9/11, is that it was carried out by 

the same group of people that had killed Americans the previous 

October, that had tried to kill Americans on the Sullivan (sic)

just before that in the summer of 2000. 
116

 It's a serial series of events stretching back for a 

decade. That's the problem, with a declaration of war by the guy 

who's leading the organization. 

 MR. COHEN: And we were trying to kill those members 

whenever we could find them. But you're not talking about people 

sitting in a city waiting to be attacked. It's like mercury on a 

mirror. You're talking about individuals who can hide. 

 I mean, let's look at what's taking place today. I point 

out again, you've got thousands of people on the ground in 

Afghanistan, with the support of Pakistan, and we still are unable 

to track him down and to kill him. 

 MR. KERREY: If you look at the performance of the 

Special Operations units in northern Afghanistan and the war 

against Afghanistan, and they leveraged thousands of GIs, they 

were enormously effective; likewise in Iraq, and likewise again 

right now in Afghanistan. 

 MR. COHEN: I agree. I think we owe them a tremendous 

amount of gratitude for all of the sacrifice they make and the 

training they have. That's the reason we are the finest in the 

world, because of that training. 

 MR. KERREY: What was the military objective on 20 

August, 1998? 

 MR. COHEN: The military objective was to kill as many 

people in those camps as we could, to take out the pharmaceutical 

plant, because we had reason to believe -- actionable 

intelligence. 

 MR. KERREY: But there were more men south of Kandahar 

than there was up by Khost. Why did we attack that particular 

camp? 

 MR. COHEN: Well, because the intelligence was that we 

believed that Bin Ladin and his associates were going to be there. 

We went after as many as we could, as high as we could. We didn't 

know whether he'd be there for sure. We hoped he would be there. 

He slipped away apparently. 

 MR. KERREY: Did you consider putting a Special Ops team, 

a relatively small Special Ops team, just to get eyes on the 

prize, just to be able to be sort of forward air controllers to 
117

tell -- rather than having to rely on satellites or travels to 

tell you where Bin Ladin was? 

 MR. COHEN: I think that the judgment was that it was a 

more discreet operation, likely to be less compromised than if we 

tried to put people on the ground at that time. Again, you can 

question that judgment, but that was the recommendation coming 

that had the best chance of success of getting him. 

 MR. KERREY: We're going to hear from Secretary Rumsfeld 

in a little bit, and I wanted to ask you one last question in that 

regard. During the transition, you briefed the secretary on 50 

items, and also briefed him on al Qaeda. And perhaps he's going 

to recall -- but in a previous interview he didn't remember much 

about the briefing on al Qaeda. Can you offer any reason for 

that? 

 MR. COHEN: I listed -- since I had limited time with 

Secretary Rumsfeld, I knew that he had -- was quite familiar with 

the office, and what I tried to do was to give him the whole 

panoply in a very short period of time, knowing that there were 

going to be specific briefings by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs 

and others, the Joint Staff, the national security adviser and 

also the CIA. So we tried to cover as many subjects as we could. 

The very first subject had to do with a major threat to the United 

States involving al Qaeda or Bin Ladin's associates, but an 

extremist group launching an attack domestically. I don't think I 

want to talk about it any more than that, but that was the number 

one item. Everything else on the item -- were issues that I 

thought he at least should be aware of, but number one was my 

concern -- and, frankly, I came to Capitol Hill, I met I think 

with just a total of eight to ten people to talk about the threat 

that existed and what needed to be done to help counter it. But I 

don't think I want to talk about the --

 MR. KERREY: Let me say in conclusion, Mr. Secretary, as 

I said in the beginning, if Goldwater-Nichols Special Operations 

Command, the men and women of the Air Force, Army, Navy, Marine 

Corps and Coast Guard that won the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, 

that was your troops, and you ought to feel very proud of them. 

Thank you. 

 

 MR. COHEN: Thank you very much. 

 MR. KEAN: Governor Thompson. 
118

 MR. THOMPSON: Mr. Secretary, let me see if I could get 

this straight. We've been talking for the last half hour on the 

issue of response to the U.S.S. Cole. If I understand the 

testimony of a lot of people, the Clinton administration didn't 

believe it had proof sufficient of al Qaeda's responsibility 

before they left office, and perhaps the Bush administration felt 

it wasn't on their watch and they had other fish to fry. And 

passing that you seem to suggest in your answer an earlier

question that the only option for a military reprisal for the 

bombing of the Cole was an invasion of Afghanistan. And I think 

most people would agree -- and certainly prior testimony has cited 

that that just was not an appropriate response. We had no place 

to forward-base from, we had no coalition. It was much different 

than Kosovo, where we had overflight rights and we had allies. 

 But am I wrong in believing that just as appropriate a 

response would have been action against the Taliban -- not 

necessarily just against Osama Bin Ladin and his al Qaeda 

followers? We knew where Mullah Omar lived presumably -- what 

about a missile strike on Taliban facilities -- not just their 

training camps, but on their civil seats of government? There 

would have been collateral damage, yes, but I think you said you 

were willing to accept collateral damage, and the 13 sailors we 

lost in the Cole were not collateral damage, they were direct 

damage. Was any consideration given to reprisals against the 

institutions and facilities, civil government of the Taliban for 

the Cole? 

 MR. COHEN: There were a number of proposals, and I 

can't recall specifically, but I think Mr. Clarke may be talking 

about those tomorrow. But there were a number of recommendations 

to go in and flatten a number of areas. 

 During that time we did not have specific information 

this was Bin Ladin. Frankly that was my suspicion. It could have 

been other Islamic extremists that were operating out of Yemen. 

We knew -- we found out in retrospect there had been a previous 

attack that was unsuccessful against the Sullivan (sic). But that

was my suspicion. 

 We were trying to get Bin Ladin in any event. Whether it 

was before the Cole or after the Cole, we were still looking for 

ways in which we might attack Bin Ladin. 

 So there were some recommendations to actually just 

flatten a number of areas. It was the considered judgment at the 

time that that would not have either gotten Bin Ladin, or resulted 
119

in a positive reaction by either Pakistan -- that we were courting 

at that point to try and persuade them to join us in this effort -

- or any of the others in the region. So it was determined again 

that it would have been -- would not been effective and it might 

have been counterproductive. That was the judgment call at the 

time. 

 As the secretary of Defense, I have to make 

recommendations to the President. I have to do so certainly 

filled with passion in terms of what had happened to the Cole. I 

went to those funerals and services, and I met with all the 

families, and so it was pretty important to me. I had to also 

take into account what would have been the impact of launching an 

attack against the Taliban at that point, when we didn't have the 

support of Pakistan, who was officially still supporting the 

Taliban -- would that have been counterproductive and less 

effective? Our judgment was that it would not have been 

effective, and we didn't do it. 

 MR. THOMPSON: Do you think it's appropriate to assert, 

as some people have, that one of the first acts of a brand-new 

national administration, in this case the Bush administration, 

would have been to go to war over the Cole? 

 MR. COHEN: No. I think the first act of the 

Administration is to assess all of the information it can to make 

an informed judgment, to take actions -- not only one action --

but to see what are the consequences of that action. I don't 

think any administration should take precipitous action. It 

should look at the facts and then make a determination: What are 

the consequences of this? What is the follow-up? If we take 

action to attack the Taliban, what will -- how much will it take, 

how many forces will we -- all of these factors had to be taken 

into account, and I think you never take step one without asking 

yourself what's step five and six -- where are we? So, no, I 

don't fault the Administration for not doing it immediately. 

 MR. THOMPSON: Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Thank you, Mr. 

Chairman. 

 MR. KEAN: Commissioner Gorelick. 

 MS. GORELICK: Mr. Secretary, thank you for your 

testimony today. It is quite impressive, as always, very 

thoughtful and broad-gauged. 
120

 I have been troubled about something that perhaps you can 

help on. You were in these meetings where the various 

possibilities of getting Osama Bin Ladin were discussed. We now 

have huge and selective leaks coming from various levels of the 

CIA who are saying we really had him, we had great intelligence, 

we could have gotten him, and the policymakers overruled us. But 

at the same time you have Sandy Berger, and I think yourself, and 

others, saying, No, the director of CIA told us the intelligence 

was not good enough, and he was not recommending going forward. 

 And that leaves us in a very peculiar position. Either 

the people below George Tenet didn't know what was happening above 

his level or at his level. Or he was telling them one thing and 

telling you another. Or maybe there's some third possibility. 

But this is an important issue for us to understand: Did we have 

it, did we not have it, was it good, was it not good, and how 

could there be this dispute on something so fundamental? And I 

would just like your view on this. 

 MR. COHEN: There are 23,000 people who work at the 

Pentagon. Secretary Lehman probably knows from his own experience 

how disconcerting that can be in terms of trying to maintain 

control and to maintain the flow of information coming up through 

the Department of the Navy or the Department of Defense. There 

were 3,000 people on the Office of the Secretary of Defense staff 

that we tried to reduce by a third -- that was one of my goals in 

taking the office itself -- but 2,000 people in the Office of 

Secretary of Defense. I can assure you there are people inside 

the Pentagon who say, If only they had listened to me -- If only 

this memo had gotten to the boss we would have taken the following 

action. And I think all policymakers have to come to the 

following conclusion: You are judged by the people that you 

appoint. You pick the best people you can, you rely upon their 

judgment. If you find that you have to question their credibility 

or their judgment, you get rid of them. But the notion that 

somehow there's somebody down in the bowels that has a different 

view or has submitted a different analysis that if only it had 

gotten to the right people would have made a difference -- I think 

you have to take that into account. But if the director of 

central intelligence says we don't have it, then you have to rely 

upon that. If he says we do have it, you rely upon that as well, 

say, Okay, under these circumstances we take the following action. 

 If the chairman of the Joint Chiefs comes to me and says, 

I recommend the following -- you have to rely upon that unless you 

doubt his actions. I'll give you an example. The chairman of the 

Joint Chiefs -- I selected him for that position because he was 
121

the commander of Special Operations Command. And for that 

specific reason I wanted to have more emphasis placed upon Special 

Forces than we had placed in the past. I saw what he did -- and I 

put this in my written testimony -- I saw what he did in Bosnia 

and Kosovo. We had some operation called the PIFWCS -- these were 

persons who had been indicted for war crimes, and there were socalled snatch operations. I saw some of the plans that were put 

into effect to grab certain people. I saw Chairman Shelton 

saying, Don't do it that way -- here's a better way. Now, here's 

how you are really going to make this thing successful. So I came 

to see how he operated and to rely upon his judgment, and if I had 

any doubts that he was giving me the straight information, which I 

never have, then I would have been derelict in my duty in not 

calling him on it. So I think you have to take into account one 

of the challenges this Commission faces, all of us face -- how do 

we have better vertical integration? You've had information about 

what took place in some of the field offices in the FBI, 

information that didn't get put up the line, didn't get shared 

horizontally. How do we construct a system that allows for better 

vertical information of intelligence and then horizontal, crossfertilization, or sharing that information? A tough job -- you've 

got different cultures, you've got different sources and methods 

and standards, but it has to be done. 

 Now, it will never deal with the issue that you're 

raising now. If someone at whatever level -- second, third, fourth 

level down -- says, "I have a better idea," or "I have 

information, it's just not getting to the right people." You will 

always have that problem, but you have to rely upon the judgment 

of the people that you appoint. 

 MS. GORELICK: But you were convinced that the director 

of Central Intelligence in these instances aid to you and your 

fellow policymakers, "We don't have it." 

 MR. COHEN: On every occasion, he mentioned -- he said 

that exactly. He would come in initially, because he was getting 

some raw information, saying, "I think we're going to have it." 

Then, "We do have it." And then he would go back, and he would 

refine it, and after, again, we were prepared to take action say, 

"We don't think so." 

 To his credit -- I mean -- this is not a fault of George 

-- this is to his credit -- saying, "Let's be sure as we can. If 

we're going to kill people, innocent people, as well as carrying 

out this operation, let's be as sure as we can that we've got the 

right target, the right information, and minimize, if we can, 
122

killing innocent people." That's his job, and I think he did it 

well. 

 MS. GORELICK: Thank you. 

 MR. KEAN: Senator Gorton? 

 MR. GORTON: Mr. Secretary, help me, with your experience 

and wisdom, with this very troubling two-word phrase that --

 MR. COHEN: -- "actionable intelligence?" 

 MR. GORTON: "Actionable intelligence" -- it seems to me 

that actionable intelligence with respect to going after Osama Bin

Ladin after 1988, must have been based on the proposition that 

almost the sole goal is getting, capturing, or killing Osama Bin

Ladin, and that what a lack of actionable intelligence meant was 

either, one, you didn't have a 90 percent chance of finding him 

where whatever intelligence you had said he would be or, two, if 

you could, you were going to kill 300 or 400 other people while 

you were doing it -- that the collateral damage would be too great 

to run the risk. But actionable intelligence on August 20th, 

after the embassy bombings, it seems to me, must have been softer 

than that. And actionable intelligence must have meant, "Well, we 

know there's a camp there, and we're pretty sure there are going 

to be some bad guys there and, besides, blowing up those two 

things was so bad, we've got to do something." Tell me if that's 

correct. But, most of all, tell me what, in general terms for the 

future, actionable intelligence means. How much of it is the goal? 

How much of it is your certainty that you can attain that goal? 

And how much of it is just related to the fact that under some 

circumstances you are going to have to do something even if though 

you aren't certain that you'll be a success? 

 MR. COHEN: Senator Gorton, let me give you a real case 

involving actionable intelligence. The so-called pharmaceutical 

plant in Sudan, and I'm going to use that as an example, because 

there we were given information that Bin Ladin, following the 

bombings of the embassies in East Africa, was seeking to get his 

hands on chemical and biological weapons to inflict as many --

kill as many people as he could. We were real concerned about 

that; I was very concerned about that. Intelligence started to 

come in about this particular plan. They had been gathering 

information on it, and I think I point this out in my written 

testimony, but, frankly, I apologize not getting it to you much 

sooner. I'm still working on it as of yesterday, last night. 
123

 But to give you an example, this particular facility, 

according to the intelligence we had at that time, had been 

constructed under extraordinary security circumstances, even with 

some surface-to-air missile capability or defense capabilities; 

that the plant itself had been constructed under these security 

measures; that the -- that the plant had been funded, in part, by 

the so-called military industrial corporation; that Bin Ladin had 

been living there; that he had, in fact, money that he had put 

into this military industrial corporation; that the owner of the 

plant had traveled to Baghdad to meet with the father of the VX 

program; and that the CIA had found traces of EMPTA nearby the 

facility itself. According to all the intelligence, there was no 

other known use for EMPTA at that time other than as a precursor 

to VX. 

 Under those circumstances, I said, "That's actionable 

enough for me," that that plant could, in fact, be producing not 

baby aspirin or some other pharmaceutical for the benefit of the 

people, but it was enough for me to say we're going to take -- we 

should take it out, and I recommended that. 

 Now, I was criticized for that, saying, "You didn't have 

enough." And I put myself in the position of coming before you and 

having someone like you say to me, "Let me get this straight, Mr. 

Secretary. We've just had a chemical weapons attack upon our 

cities or our troops, and we've lost several hundred or several 

thousand, and this is the information, which you had at your 

fingertips -- you had a plant that was built under the following 

circumstances; you had a manager that went to Baghdad; you had 

Osama Bin Ladin, who had funded, at least, the corporation; and 

you had traces of EMPTA; and you did what? You did nothing?" Is 

that a responsible activity on the part of the Secretary of 

Defense? And the answer is pretty clear. 

 So I was satisfied, even though that still is pointed as 

a mistake -- that it was the right thing to do then. I believe --

I would do it again based on that kind of intelligence. So that 

was an example of actionable intelligence. 

 When it comes to other circumstances, you have to weigh

it -- each and every case. You say do you take action just for 

the sake of take it and do something? I think we have a greater 

responsibility. Before I decide or make a recommendation to the 

President of the United States to launch a missile that's going to 

kill a lot of people, I want to make sure, as much as I can, it's 

not out of passion but out of as much reasoned analysis as I can 

make to say, "This is a target that poses a threat to us, Mr. 
124

President, and, yes, there are risks that you're going to kill 

some innocent people, but we have an obligation to take it out." 

It's individual analysis. I can't give you specifics on it. I 

gave you an example of where I thought it was the right thing. 

 MR. GORTON: A thoughtful answer preempted any further 

questions. 

 MR. KEAN: Secretary Lehman. 

 MR. LEHMAN: Mr. Secretary, I'd like to follow up on 

Senator Kerrey's line of inquiry --

 MR. COHEN: A good Navy man does that. 

 MR. LEHMAN: I always follow the black shoes. The 

question I have is, in the testimony of a number of the witnesses 

we've had and, of course, in Mr. Clarke's book, your Pentagon 

comes in for a lot of criticism for, basically, along two lines, 

the most important of which is that whenever there was an 

opportunity and a quest for options -- when the President

requested options, and so forth -- the only thing the Joint Chiefs 

could come up with -- the Pentagon could come up with -- was 

either lob a few cruise missiles or the Normandy Invasion. And I 

recall the debates over the creation of the Special Operations 

Command, in which I was initially skeptical and became a strong 

advocate as you laid out the case very well for that legislation, 

which was to provide a president with something in between a much 

more discriminating set of options between the kind of things that 

came out of the Chiefs all those decades, which is either launch 

an alpha strike to the carriers, send in the 101 Airborne, or 

carpet bomb with B-52s. 

 And yet it seems that every time that a request was made 

for some set of options, at least this is the testimony we have --

the alternative was always given, "Well, we can't invade 

Afghanistan. Congress will never do it, so the only thing we have 

is to fire a few cruise missiles." And, clearly, as Senator 

Kerrey was suggesting, there are lots of potential discrete 

options in between -- like putting specialized Special Operations 

forces on the ground. Now, this is before. Yes, it takes 13,000 

today, and they can't find him, but before the war in Afghanistan, 

there was a lot of -- he was much more accessible. So there were 

options. But somehow the Special Operations Command either did 

not, because it was, as our staff pointed out, a supporting rather 

than a supported command, or because not much has changed after 

all these years with the new operations command -- did not come up 
125

with discrete options. Why was that? And is Mr. Clarke's 

criticism a valid one? 

 MR. COHEN: Well, first, I would take issue with the fact 

that the Joint Chiefs of Staff can only go from B-1 bombers or 

cruise missiles or the Normandy Invasion. If you look at what 

took place in both Bosnia and Kosovo, Special Forces played a key 

role over there in terms of some of these operations. JSOC was 

always on tap to do whatever was reasonable to do. I would have 

to place my judgment call in terms of do I believe that the 

chairman of the Joint Chiefs, former commander of Special Forces 

command, is in a better position to make a judgment on the 

feasibility of this than, perhaps, Mr. Clarke? I had to make that

kind of a call. Was Richard Clarke in a better position, say, 

this has a greater chance of success or General Shelton? I 

indicated that I relied upon the senior military advisor to me, 

the President of the national security team. 

 I have no reason to, in any way, doubt that he was very 

straight with me and was not trying to rig the system so he only 

had one or two options but, rather, I think he always felt we are 

prepared to take action; to put Special Forces on the ground if 

there is a reasonable opportunity to achieve the mission. To do 

anything less than that, to put those young people at risk with 

the enormity of the task of that country, that size, with that 

many caves with -- by the way, the support of the Taliban and not 

the support of Pakistan, I'd have to question whether or not that 

was reasonable to do so. I did, and I supported the chairman 

saying, "This doesn't make a good deal of sense in terms of 

putting those young men's lives at risk when the potential for 

success is very limited, if not de minimis." 

 MR. LEHMAN: You'll be pleased to know that he's even 

harsher on the CIA's capability in these kinds of --

 MR. COHEN: Anybody can be critical -- you can criticize 

the agency, you can criticize DOD. The real issue is what action 

do we take from here? Where are the fault lines? Where does this 

fault lie? If you think that we were irresponsible in not putting 

a small unit into Afghanistan when you had virtually no support 

activities. For example, I mentioned those operations in Kosovo. 

They had incredible intelligence support just tens of miles away. 

Now you're going to put a small unit of Special Forces into 

Afghanistan where there is no intelligence support miles away but 

thousands of miles away. What do you do in terms of search and 

rescue? This is something I know that you were concerned about, 

certainly, as Secretary of the Navy. What about CSAR? If we lose 
126

one of our pilots or lose one of our people, you've got to send in 

search and rescue. Well, how about refuelers for the C-130 

gunships, et cetera? All of those factors are involved on the 

part of military planning. Do you just put Special Forces in and 

say, "We know how good you are, go do the job and good luck?" The 

answer is no. You try to make sure you protect them as much as 

you can and measure the probability of success against the risk 

that they are put at. 

 MR. LEHMAN: That brings me to the point of my -- of 

these questions, really. Many witnesses have criticized CIA for 

really not having the capability for covert operations and special 

operations, and yet they've been called upon to do them. On the 

other hand, the Pentagon has been criticized because they don't 

want to do them, and so I guess the question that has arisen in

our minds is perhaps there should be a straightforward assignment 

of the counterterrorism mission to SOCOM and not pretend that CIA 

can do it with civilians and not leave the Special Operations 

Command as just a supporting operation to the CINCS who are not 

likely to have the kind of focus for doing this that at SOCOM. 

What would you think of that kind of reform? 

 MR. COHEN: Well, actually, I think that Secretary 

Rumsfeld may be in the process of recommending that. I think he 

may see the use of Special Forces in a way that achieves that kind 

of more centralized role in being a support element and being a 

more central player in terms of Special Forces designed to go out 

and kill or capture a number of the terrorist groups. 

 I would also offer another comment, if I can, on this war 

on terror. It's my own personal judgment that the war on terror 

is, for the most part, not going to be won on the battlefield. I 

really believe that ultimately, aside from Iraq, which is a big 

aside, but aside from Iraq, I believe the war has to be waged by 

the sharing of information on almost a global basis. Again, I 

pointed my opening statement that we are all at risk now. We have 

to start sharing information, and it's going to require good 

police work -- sort of what the Brits did by knocking down the 

door and finding a group of people with ricin in their possession 

-- sharing that kind of information and covert operations, police 

work, Special Forces, and, ultimately, finally, the military 

option. But I think that's really what's going to be required for 

the war against terror, and I think Special Forces are being 

charged with a higher level of activity is probably warranted. 

 MR. LEHMAN: One final question -- another line of 

criticism from a fair number of our witnesses has been that in 
127

making decisions and recommendations from commanders for action of 

this type, that there has been a huge growth in the role of 

general counsels, shall we say, epitomized by the CENTCOM general 

counsel refusing to -- or advising the CINC that he could not 

shoot at Omar because that would violate the assassination order. 

I know that didn't happen on your watch. But just as an issue, it 

seems to us time and time again, we see in interviews and queries 

that everyone seems to be afraid to move in the policy level, and 

particularly in the Pentagon, without having a CYA memo from the 

legal counsel. 

 MR. COHEN: I was not aware of any inhibition or 

prohibition against the Pentagon taking action directed against 

Osama Bin Ladin or anyone else. There was no question in my mind 

that both the agency and the military had complete authority to 

take whatever legal action was necessary. I never saw anything 

that would have inhibited that. 

 MR. LEHMAN: Thank you. 

 MR. KEAN: Congressman Roemer. 

 MR. ROEMER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, 

thank you again for a very, very helpful and thought-provoking 

statement that you gave us. I want to probe and push a little bit 

harder on two things that you've already talked about a little 

bit. One is the decision to fire the missiles into Sudan at the 

El Shifa plant. You've outlined in very specific detail three or 

four reasons why you decided to do that, and why you might have 

regretted doing that at a later point. 

 MR. COHEN: I never regretted doing it. 

 MR. ROEMER: There were three or four reasons you were 

glad you did it, and why those things could have come back to 

haunt you. 

 MR. COHEN: Okay. 

 MR. ROEMER: You can clarify my question in your answer. 

With respect to Sudan, every single person in the Clinton 

administration has told us that it was a very difficult decision, 

but they didn't have regrets about it, as you have not had any 

regrets about it, and that they were roundly criticized for it, 

not only because there was some theory on Capitol Hill about Wag 

the Dog, which you have clarified, I think, in your remarks, but I 

want to push harder on the other part of this. 
128

 A couple of the people, including Sandy Berger in the 

private sessions with us said, and remember the editorials across 

the country saying, they didn't get Bin Ladin, they created, 

according to an Economist article, the Economist accused them of 

maybe creating 100 Osama Bin Ladins because they did not kill him 

with the cruise missile strikes. How does that not impact to some 

degree your decision subsequently, when you're having these kinds 

of decisions come forward, to make the tough call as you did in 

this particular instance? 

 MR. COHEN: It had no impact. I looked at the question, 

I was satisfied. I regret that one life was lost during that 

particular attack. We were very precise. We timed it, as a 

matter of fact, so there would be very few, if any, people at the 

plant. It was at nighttime, it was timed simultaneously with the 

attack virtually in Afghanistan, so that we didn't lose the 

surprise element, and we tried to minimize any collateral damage 

to the extent that we could. But we were prepared to take that 

down. 

 The Wag the Dog issue I think was unfortunate, it was 

untrue, but that was something of the reality of what was taking 

place on Capitol Hill. As far as the criticism was concerned, it 

had no deterrence whatsoever in terms of our commitment to look 

for, hunt for, and to capture or kill Bin Ladin. I do want to 

urge one cautionary note, and that is that even though it's 

important to capture or kill Bin Ladin, I think that we should 

understand that doesn't end it any more than capturing Saddam 

Hussein has stopped some of the terrorist actions. I think that 

we have seen al Qaeda doesn't have a central headquarters, doesn't 

fly a flag, it is spread through many countries, and I know it can 

be argued that because there were no prior actions taken it's even 

more disseminated now. But the fact is, we would take action 

against Bin Ladin or his associates wherever we thought we could 

do so successfully. 

 What we didn't want to do was to take actions that 

satisfied the passion of the moment, that gave us a sense, well, 

we're doing something, but in fact had the effect of simply 

generating opposition to what we were doing, undercutting the 

sharing of intelligence, cooperation, making our goal of actually 

capturing or killing him more difficult. So, that was the only 

hesitation we had, does this action that is being proposed have a 

probability of success? Is it likely to achieve our goals, or is 

it more likely to undercut our efforts? Those were the only 

considerations that we had. 
129

 MR. ROEMER: I'm very happy to hear that. Let me ask you 

the question to look forward. Secretary Rumsfeld, who will be with 

us momentarily, wrote a memo that I think outlined the problem in 

the future, absolutely to the point. And he said, as you just 

indicated, that the military is not the only weapon, that it's one 

of many arrows in the quiver, one of many tools in the toolbox to 

use. 

 I'd like to push you a little bit harder on a country 

that is absolutely critical to the United States in our future, 

and that's Indonesia. What specifically, as these training camps 

produce this wrath of hatred, and jihadists, what can we do, even 

if we're out there with the military killing people, and trying to 

eliminate the terrorists, and the jihadists, what can we do as 

they're cranking out these human conveyor belts of terrorists, and 

education in a place like Indonesia to replace the madrassas with 

a practical education, or what can Indonesia do? What can we do 

on IMET, what can we do reaching out to the moderates and the 

government there? How can we begin to put new types of military 

and State Department and intel efforts to reach out to these types 

of critically important countries in the future? 

 MR. COHEN: Thank you, Congressman Roemer. You had the 

Secretary of State here earlier, Secretary Powell. I think he 

laid out some of the "diplomatic initiatives" that have to be 

undertaken. Some of it involves diplomacy, it involves the use of 

economic both incentives, and disincentives, it involves 

sanctions, it involves a variety of things. But, most of all it 

requires engagement on the part of the United States, on a very 

aggressive, diplomatic fashion. Sheik Zalman, who is the Crown 

Prince of Bahrain, if any of you have not had occasion to meet 

with him I'd recommend that you talk to this young man. He's one 

of the most progressive young leaders that I've met, certainly in 

my travels, but especially in the Gulf region, along with King 

Abdullah of Jordan. But, Sheik Zalman made an observation a few 

months ago, which I endorse, basically pointing to the problem 

that the United States has in dealing with this issue, that much 

of the Arab world looks through two lenses, one lens focused on 

how we conduct ourselves in Iraq, now that we're there, how we 

successfully resolve, or achieve success in Iraq, and treat the 

Iraqi people in that process, and the other has to do with the 

Middle East conflict. Many Muslims throughout the world also look 

through the lens of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 

 So I think we have to become much more engaged there, as 

well. That's why I mentioned I don't think it should wait until 
130

November elections are over, I think we have to reenergize that 

process now. And I have my own thoughts about what needs to be 

done, and have written about that. In addition to that, we have 

to engage Indonesia diplomatically, militarily. The IMET program 

is one of the most important programs that we have. The sharing 

of educational materials, exercises, planning with other 

militaries, because of the superiority, I believe, of men and 

women who serve us, because of their excellence in education, 

discipline, leadership, fellowship, all the things that make us 

the greatest force, military force on the face of the earth, we 

should be trying to share that talent, technology, techniques with 

other countries. And yes, they may be accused of not living up to 

our standard of human rights, all the more reason why we should 

engage them, al the more reason why we have to persuade them that 

this is the way a military has to operate, not with clubs and 

batons, not with the law of rule, but the rule of law. That also 

has to take place. So IMET is important. 

 I think we also have to go to other countries who support 

the madrasas, and say, you are feeding the flames of future 

destruction here. That requires education, it requires giving 

countries, also, hope. Now, I'll come back to Palestine, the 

Palestinians for a moment. Unless you see people who have an 

opportunity for either sovereignty, dignity, and opportunity, 

you're likely to see continued festering of violence in the 

region. You have to give people a sense of hope. Economic hope, 

individual liberty in terms of their opportunities, all of that is 

involved. So that requires us to be engaged in a very aggressive 

way diplomatically. The military, by the way, plays a role, a 

great role in diplomacy. We have our State Department, and they 

do an outstanding job with very limited resources, but the 

military also plays a very big role. When our men and women in 

uniform go to a country, and people are able to judge them, and 

see how good they are, how disciplined, how well led, how 

technically capable, et cetera, how good they are as human beings, 

they make a judgment about us, and they say, we want to be like 

you. We want to have the same capability, we want to develop a 

relationship with you. We need to do more of that. 

 So every time there's an issue that comes up on the Hill 

that says, well, abuse of human rights, cut off IMET, we should be 

holding on to IMET. I could carry on at length about this 

particular requirement, and I know that there are people on the 

Hill who would object to that, but I think we have a better chance 

of influencing people in their judgments about us, and helping to 

persuade them that the way of the future is to have a military 

like that of the United States and our allies, to subordinate that 
131

military to civilian rule, to educate the military, to help 

persuade them that they have -- they are in this war against 

terror with us. All of that comes about with diplomacy, and a 

very strong military capability, and diplomatic effort. 

 MR. ROEMER: Thank you very much. I hope this commission 

will take into consideration those very provocative and thoughtful 

recommendations into our recommendations at the end of the day. 

 Thank you. 

 MR. KEAN: Secretary Cohen, thank you very, very much, 

not only for your testimony today, but I know you've given very 

generously of your time to this commission in private sessions 

with staff, and for that I thank you very much. I hope that we'll 

have additional questions, and I know we're going to want to talk 

to you a bit more as we get into our recommendations that you will 

help us there also. 

 MR. COHEN: Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

 MR. KEAN: Thank you very much. 

 (Applause.) 

PANEL IV OF THE EIGHTH PUBLIC HEARING OF THE NATIONAL COMMISSION 

ON TERRORIST ATTACKS UPON THE UNITED STATES RE: FORMULATION AND 

CONDUCT OF U.S. COUNTERTERRORISM POLICY CHAIRED BY: THOMAS KEAN, 

FORMER GOVERNOR (R-NJ) WITNESS: SECRETARY OF DEFENSE DONALD 

RUMSFELD; ACCOMPANIED BY DEPUTY SECRETARY OF DEFENSE PAUL 

WOLFOWITZ; AND GENERAL RICHARD MYERS, CHAIRMAN, JOINT CHIEFS OF 

STAFF LOCATION: 216 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C. 

TIME: 3:31 P.M. EST DATE: TUESDAY, MARCH 23, 2004

 MR. KEAN: We will now hear from the secretary of 

Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. Secretary Rumsfeld has had wide 

experience in several senior positions throughout the government. 

We are pleased to welcome him before us this afternoon. He's 

accompanied by his distinguished deputy secretary of Defense, Paul 

Wolfowitz, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General 

Richard Myers. Mr. Secretary, Mr. Deputy Secretary, General 

Myers, we would ask you if you could raise your right hand and --

so that we may place you under oath. 

 Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole 

truth, and nothing but the truth? 
132

 SEC. RUMSFELD: I do. 

 MR. WOLFOWITZ: I do. 

 GEN. MYERS: I do. 

 MR. KEAN: Thank you very much. 

 Mr. Secretary, your written remarks will be entered into 

the record in full, and we would ask you to summarize any remarks 

in the opening statement. You may proceed. Thank you. 

 SEC. RUMSFELD: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and 

Vice Chairman, members of the Commission. I thank you for 

undertaking this important work. 

 I would just mention that General Myers and Paul 

Wolfowitz have been intimately involved in the work of the 

department prior to September 11th, on September 11th, and 

subsequent to September 11th. 

 First, let me express my condolences to the people of 

Spain. The March 11th bombings will leave that nation changed. 

Certainly the families that lost loved ones on September 11th --

some of whom I am sure are listening today -- must feel a bond 

with the families in other countries who have lost their fathers 

and mothers and brothers and sisters and sons and daughters to 

terrorism. They understand the pain and the heartbreak and the 

suffering of the families whose loved ones perished. The recent 

attacks are deadly reminders that the world's free nations are at 

war. 

 I also want to thank the courageous men and women in 

uniform all across the globe who risk their lives so that all of 

us can live in freedom. 

 This commission has an important opportunity. 

 Those in positions of responsibility in government are, 

of necessity, focused on dozens of issues. This commission, 

however, can focus on one important topic: get it right and 

provide insights that can be of great value to us. You've been 

asked to try to connect the dots after the fact, to examine events 

leading up to September 11th, and to consider what lessons, if 

any, might be taken from that experience to prevent future 

dangers. 
133

 It isn't an easy assignment, yet the challenge facing our 

country before September 11th and still today is even more 

difficult. Our task is to connect the dots not after the fact, 

but before the fact; to try to stop attacks before they happen, 

and that must be done without the benefit of hindsight, hearings, 

briefings, or testimony. 

 Another attack against our people will be attempted. We 

can't know where or when or by what technique. That reality 

drives those of us in government to ask the tough questions. When 

and how might that attack be attempted, and what will we need to

had done, today and everyday before the attack, to prepare for and 

to, if possible, prevent it? 

 On September 11th, our world changed. It may be tempting 

to think that once the crisis has passed that things will go back 

to the way they were. Not so. The world of September 10th is 

past. We have entered a new security environment, arguably the 

most dangerous the world has known. And if we are to continue to 

live as free people, we cannot go back to thinking as the way the 

world thought on September 10th. For if we do, if we deal with 

the problems of the 21st century through a 20th century prism, we 

will most certainly come to wrong conclusions and fail the 

American people. 

 I saw the destruction terrorists wreaked on September 

11th. At the impact site, moments after the American Airlines 

Flight 77 hit the Pentagon, one could see the flames, smell the 

burning fuel, see the twisted steel and the agony of victims. And 

once the crisis passed, I asked the question posed to this 

commission: what, if anything, could have been done to prevent it? 

 First, I must say, I knew of no intelligence during the 

six-plus months leading up to September 11th that indicated 

terrorists would hijack commercial airliners, use them as missiles 

to fly into the Pentagon or the World Trade Center towers. 

 The President set about forming what is today a 90-nation 

coalition to wage the global war on terrorist networks. He 

promptly sent U.S. and coalition forces -- air, sea and ground --

to attack Afghanistan, to overthrow the Taliban regime, and 

destroy that al Qaeda stronghold. 

 In short order the Taliban regime was driven from power, 

al Qaeda's sanctuary in Afghanistan was removed, nearly two-thirds 

of their known leaders have been captured or killed. A 
134

transitional government is in power, and a clear message was sent: 

terrorists who harbor terrorists will pay a price. 

 Those were bold steps. And today, in light of September 

11th, no one questions those actions. Today I suspect most would 

support a preemptive action to deal with such a threat. 

Interestingly, the remarkable military successes in Afghanistan is 

(sic) taken largely for granted, as is the achievement of bringing 

together a 90-nation coalition. 

 But imagine that we were back before September 11th, and 

that a U.S. president had looked at the information then 

available, gone before the Congress and the world and said "We 

need to invade Afghanistan, overthrow the Taliban, and destroy the 

al Qaeda terrorist network," based on what little was known before 

September 11th. How many countries would have joined? Many? 

Any? Not likely. We would have heard objections to preemption 

similar to those voiced before the coalition-launched Operation 

Iraqi Freedom. We would have been asked, how can you attack 

Afghanistan when it was al Qaeda that attacked us, not the 

Taliban? How can you go to war when countries in the region don't 

support you? Won't launching such an invasion actually provoke 

terrorist attacks against the United States? 

 I agree with those who have testified here today -- Mrs. 

Albright, Secretary Cohen and others -- that unfortunately, 

history shows that it can take a tragedy like September 11th to 

waken the world to new threats and to the need for action. We 

can't go back in time to stop the attack. But we all owe it to 

the families and the loved ones who died on September 11th to 

assure that their loss will, in fact, be the call that helps to 

ensure that thousands of other families do not suffer the pain 

they have endured. 

 President came to office with a determination to prepare 

for the new threats of the 21st century. The bombing of the Cole

on October 12th, 2000 was seen both as evidence of the al Qaeda 

threat and the need to adjust U.S. policy. The more one studies 

terrorism, the more one becomes convinced that the approach to 

fighting it that had evolved over several decades really wasn't 

working. Treating terrorism as a matter of security, combating it 

through national and international law enforcement techniques, and 

taking defensive measures against terrorist attacks simply weren't 

enough. After the attack on the Marine barracks in Beirut, the 

first World Trade Center attack, the embassy bombings in East 

Africa, and the attack on the Cole, reasonable people have 

concluded that the value of that approach had diminished. 
135

 A more comprehensive approach required a review not only 

of U.S. counterterrorism policy, but also U.S. policies with 

regard to other countries, some of which have not previously been 

at the center of U.S. relations, as Secretary Powell testified 

this morning. 

 Dr. Rice has stated that she asked the National Security 

Council staff in her first week in office for a new presidential 

initiative on al Qaeda. In early March, the staff was directed to 

craft a more aggressive strategy aimed at eliminating the al Qaeda 

threat. The first draft of that approach, in the form of a 

presidential directive, was circulated by the NSC staff in June of 

2001, and a number of meetings were held that summer at the deputy 

secretary level to address the policy questions involved, such as 

relating an aggressive strategy against Taliban to U.S.-Pakistan 

relations. 

 By the first week of September, the process had arrived 

at a strategy that was presented to principals and later became 

NSPD-9, the President's first major substantive national security 

decision directive. It was presented for a decision by principals 

on September 4th, 2001, seven days before the 11th, and later 

signed by the President, with minor changes and a preamble to 

reflect the events of September 11th, in October. 

 While this review of counterterrorism policy was under 

way, the Department of Defense was developing a review of U.S. 

defense strategy. On February 2nd, less than two weeks after 

taking office, I traveled to Germany for the Conference on 

Security Policy. Already we were focused on the problem of 

unconventional or "asymmetric" threats. 

 On the flight, I was asked about the principles that 

would drive our defense review. I answered that the 1991 Persian 

Gulf War had taught the world that taking on Western armies, 

navies and air forces directly was not a good idea. It was 

therefore likely that potential adversaries would look for socalled asymmetrical responses, everything from terrorism to cyber 

attacks, to information warfare, cruise missiles and short-range 

ballistic missiles, to longer-range missiles and weapons of mass 

destruction. 

 I won't repeat the long list of actions that Secretary 

Powell presented this morning in his excellent presentation. 
136

 During the last decade, the challenges facing the 

intelligence community have grown more complex. Director Tenet 

will testify tomorrow and will provide a description of the 

challenges facing the intelligence community. We were concerned 

about the risk of surprise. In June of 2001, I attended the first 

NATO defense ministers' meeting in the 21st century. I told my 

colleagues about Vice President Cheney's appearance before the 

Senate for his confirmation hearings as secretary of Defense in 

March of 1989. During his hearings, a wide range of security 

issues were discussed, but not one person uttered the word "Iraq." 

And yet within a year, Iraq had invaded Kuwait and that word was 

in every headline. I wondered what word might come to dominate my 

term in office that wasn't raised by members of the Senate 

Committee during my hearings. 

 Three months later, we learned the answer: Afghanistan 

and al Qaeda. 

 These were the kinds of threats that we were preparing to 

meet and deal with in the months before September 11th. 

 And during those early months, we made progress in the 

effort to transform for the era of surprise and unconventional 

threats. 

 Our actions included a congressionally required 

Quadrennial Defense Review, completed just days before the 9/11 

attacks, where we laid out the transformation objectives of the 

department, identified as our first priority the defense of U.S. 

territory against a broad range of asymmetric threats; in short, 

homeland defense. 

 We developed a concept for new defense planning guidance 

and new contingency planning guidance. We found that many if not 

most of the war plans that existed were in need of updating, and 

that the process for developing contingency plans was too lengthy. 

In May of 2001 we began the process of streamlining the way the 

department prepares war plans, reducing the time to develop plans 

and increasing the frequency at which the assumptions would be 

updated. 

 I should add that, for much of that period, most of the 

senior officials selected by the President had not been cleared or 

confirmed by the Senate. Nonetheless, the few new civilians and 

the many civilian officials who stayed on to help and the military 

leaders did a great deal of work. Indeed, because we were doing 

these things in the department as well as in the National Security 
137

Council Policy Review, we were better prepared to respond when the 

9/11 attack came. 

 The day of September 11th. On the morning I was hosting 

a meeting for some of members of Congress, and I remember 

stressing how important it was for our country to be prepared for 

the unexpected. Shortly thereafter someone handed me a note saying 

a plane had hit one of the World Trade Center towers. Shortly 

thereafter I was in my office with a CIA briefer when I was told a 

second plane had hit the other tower. 

 Shortly thereafter, at 9:38, the Pentagon shook with an 

explosion of a then-unknown origin. I went outside to determine 

what had happened. I was not there long because I was back in the 

Pentagon with a crisis action team shortly before or after 10:00 

a.m. On my return from the crash site and before going to the 

Executive Support Center, I had one or more calls in my office, 

one of which was with the President. 

 I went to the National Military Command Center where 

General Myers, who was the vice chairman of the Chiefs at that 

time, had just returned from Capitol Hill. We discussed and I 

recommended raising the Defense Condition level from five to three 

and the Force Protection level. 

 I joined the air threat telephone conference call that 

was already in progress, and one of the first exchanges was with 

the Vice President. He informed me of the President's 

authorization to shoot down hostile aircraft coming to Washington, 

D.C. 

 My thoughts went to the pilots of the military aircraft 

who might be called upon to execute such an order. It was clear 

that they needed rules of engagement telling them what they could 

and could not do. 

 They needed clarity. There were standing rules of 

engagement, but not rules of engagement that were appropriate for 

this first-time situation where civilian aircraft were seized and 

being used as missiles to attack inside the United States. It may 

well be the first time in history that U.S. armed forces in 

peacetime have been given the authority to fire on fellow 

Americans going about their lawful business. 

 We went to work to refine the standing rules of 

engagement. I spent the remainder of the morning and the 

afternoon participating in the air threat conference, talking to 
138

the President and the Vice President, General Myers and others, 

and thinking about the way forward. During the course of the day, 

the President indicated he expected us to provide him with robust 

options for military responses to that attack. 

 In my first weeks in office I had prepared a list of 

guidelines to be weighed before committing U.S. forces to combat, 

and I shared them with the President, back in January or February 

of 2001. The guidelines included a number of points, including 

one that -- if the proposed action (is) truly necessary, if lives 

are going to be put at risk, there must be a darn good reason, and 

that all instruments of national power should be engaged before, 

during and after any use of military force, and that it's 

important not to dumb down what's needed by promising not to do 

things: for example, by saying we won't use ground forces. 

 A few days after September 11th I wrote down some 

thoughts on terrorism and the new kind of war that had been 

visited upon us. I noted that it will take a sustained effort to 

root the terrorists out, that the campaign is a marathon, not a 

sprint, that no terrorist or terrorist network such as al Qaeda is 

going to be conclusively dealt with by cruise missiles or bombers. 

The coalitions that are being fashioned will not be fixed; rather, 

they'll change and evolve, and it should not be surprising that 

some countries will be supportive of some activities in which the 

U.S. is engaged while other countries may not. And we can live 

with that. 

 And this is not a war against Islam. The al Qaeda 

terrorists are extremists who views are antithetical to those of 

most Muslims. There are millions of Muslims around the world who 

we expect to become allies in this struggle, unquote. 

 In the following day we prepared options to deal with the 

Taliban in Afghanistan. The President issued an ultimatum to the 

Taliban. When they failed to comply, he initiated the global war 

on terror and directed the Department of Defense to carry out 

Operation Enduring Freedom against the al Qaeda and their 

affiliates and the Taliban regime in Afghanistan that harbored and 

supported them. This, of course, was a Department of Defense 

where the armed forces of the United States had historically been 

organized, trained and equipped to fight armies, navies and air 

forces, not to chase down individual terrorists. 

 In the aftermath of September 11th, the department has 

pursued two tracks. We have prosecuted the global war on terror 

in concert with other agencies of the government and our coalition 
139

partners, but in addition, we have continued, we have had to 

continue, and, indeed, accelerate the work to transform the 

department so that it has the ability to meet and defeat the 

threats of the 21st century -- different threats. 

 There's been success on both fronts. The coalition has 

been successful in overthrowing two terrorist regimes, hunted down 

hundreds of terrorists and regime remnants, disrupted terrorist 

financing, disrupted terrorist cells on several continents. 

 We've also established Northern Command, a new command 

dedicated to defending the homeland. We've expanded the Special 

Operations Command in significant ways and given them additional 

authorities, authorities they need today and will certainly need

in the future. 

 We've established a new assistant secretary for Homeland 

Defense for the first time, and an undersecretary of Defense for 

Intelligence. 

 The coalition’s actions have sent a message to the 

world's terrorist states that harboring terrorists and the pursuit 

of weapons of mass murder carry with it unpleasant costs. By 

contrast, countries like Libya, that abandoned the support of 

terrorism and the pursuit of those weapons, can find an open path 

to better relations with the world's free nations. 

 In the period since September 11th, the Administration, 

several committees of Congress and now this commission, have been 

examining what happened on that day. A number of questions have 

been raised. 

 Some have asked: When the Administration came into 

office was there consideration of how to deal with the U.S.S.

Cole? 

 It's a fair question. One concern was that launching 

another cruise missile strike months after the fact might have 

sent a signal of weakness. Instead, we implemented the 

recommendations of the Cole Commission and began developing a more 

comprehensive approach to deal with al Qaeda, resulting in NSPD-9. 

 Some have asked: Why wasn't Bin Ladin taken out, and if 

he had been hit, could it have prevented September 11th? 

 I know of no actionable intelligence since January 20 

that would have allowed the U.S. to capture or kill Bin Ladin. It 
140

took ten months to capture Saddam Hussein in Iraq -- and coalition 

forces had passed by the hole he was hiding in many many times 

during those months. They were able to find him only after someone 

with specific knowledge told us precisely where he was. What that 

suggests, it seems to me, is that it is exceedingly difficult to 

find a single individual who is determined to not be found. 

Second, even if Bin Ladin had been captured or killed in the weeks 

before September 11th, no one I know believes it would necessarily 

have prevented September 11th. Killing Bin Ladin would not have 

removed the al Qaeda's sanctuary in Afghanistan. Moreover, the 

sleeper cells that flew the aircraft into the World Trade towers 

and the Pentagon were already in the United States months before 

the attacks. Indeed, if actionable intelligence had appeared, 

which it did not, 9/11 would likely still have happened. And, 

ironically, much of the world would likely have called the 

September 11th attack an al Qaeda retaliation for the U.S. 

provocation of capturing or killing Bin Ladin. 

 Some have asked whether there were plans to go after al 

Qaeda in Afghanistan before 9/11 and, if so, why weren't they 

successfully implemented? 

 I have recently reviewed a briefing that I am told was 

presented to me in early February. The briefing I saw was not 

something that I would characterize as a comprehensive plan with 

al Qaeda, to deal with al Qaeda and the sanctuary in Afghanistan. 

It was a series of concepts or approaches. I am told that I asked 

the briefer many questions and that the team went back to work on 

refining it, and that the work they did in the ensuing months 

helped to prepare the department for the successful invasion of 

Afghanistan soon after September 11th. The NSC was at work during 

the spring and summer of 2001 developing the new counterterrorism 

policy needed to inform new war plans. And we were at the same 

time in the process of overhauling U.S. contingency plans. 

 Some have asked: Could the development of the armed have

Predator been accelerated? 

 First, let me say that any suggestion that the Predator 

was delayed by policy discussions or debates would be inaccurate. 

 I know George Tenet plans to talk about this tomorrow, but 

I'm told that when the development plans were presented, it was 

estimated that it would take several years. They were presented, 

I believe, to General John Jumper in one of his previous posts. 

In fact, it was done in less than a year, and the armed Predator 

was deployed and played a role in the success of Operation 
141

Enduring Freedom even before it had been officially certified as 

ready for deployment. 

 I've been asked to make a few comments about the future. 

Today we face adversaries who take advantage of our open borders 

and our open societies to attack people. They hide in plain 

sight. They use institutions of everyday life -- planes, trains, 

cars, letters, e- mails -- as weapons to kill innocent civilians. 

And they can attack with handfuls of people at a cost of a few 

hundred thousands of dollars, while it requires many tens of 

thousands of people and billions of dollars to defend against such 

attacks. 

 Rooting out and dealing with terrorist enemies is tough. 

It will require that we think very differently than we did in the 

last century. The recommendations that this commission may make 

could help. For example, you might consider some of the following 

thoughts: 

 How can we strengthen the intelligence community and get 

better arranged for the 21st century challenges? 

 I've heard arguments in the wake of 9/11 that we need to 

consolidate all the intelligence agencies and put them under a 

single "intelligence czar." In my view, that would be doing the 

country a great disservice. There are some activities, like 

intelligence, and research and development, where it's a serious 

mistake to think that you're advantaged by relying on a single, 

centralized source. In fact, fostering multiple centers of 

information has proven to be better at promoting creativity and 

challenging conventional thinking. There may be ways we can 

strengthen intelligence, but centralization is most certainly not 

one of them. 

 A possibility might be to consider reducing stovepipes. 

It's true that the more people who know something, the more likely 

that information will be compromised. We know that. It's a 

dilemma. There's a tension there. We need to weigh that risk of 

expanding access, and thereby risking compromise, against the 

danger of keeping information so tightly stovepiped that people 

who need to integrate it with other information are kept in the 

dark. I should add that it is increasingly difficult to 

distinguish between information that contributes to so-called 

national intelligence as opposed to information that is necessary 

for military intelligence and focuses on the battlefield. I would 

say that just as it would be unwise to concentrate everything 

under a single intelligence czar in an effort to improve national 
142

intelligence, it would be equally undesirable to concentrate 

everything under the Department of Defense so that one could 

improve military intelligence. It seems to me that either would 

be an unfortunate approach. 

 How can we wage war not just on terrorist networks, but 

also on the ideology of hate that they spread? 

 The global war on terror will, in fact, be long. And I'm 

convinced that victory in the war on terror will require a 

positive effort as well as an aggressive battle. 

 We need to find creative ways to stop the next generation 

of terrorists from being recruited, trained and deployed to kill 

innocent people. For every terrorist that coalition forces 

capture or kill, still others are being recruited and trained. 

And to win the war on terror, we have to win the war of ideas, the 

battle for the minds of those who are being recruited and financed 

by terrorist networks across the globe. 

 Can we transform the nomination and confirmation process 

so there are not long gaps with key positions unfilled every time 

there's a new administration? As I've indicated, for most of the 

seven months leading up to September 11th, the department's work 

was done without many of the senior officials responsible for 

critical issues. We ought to consider whether in the 21st century 

we can afford the luxury of taking so long to put in place the 

senior officials for national security, and try to fashion the 

necessary reforms to the clearance, nomination and confirmation 

process. 

 Another thought: Could our nation benefit from a 

Goldwater- Nichols-like law for the executive branch of the U.S. 

government? If you think about it, the Goldwater-Nichols Act in 

the 1980s helped move Department of Defense towards a more 

effective joint approach to warfighting. It was a good thing. 

But to do so, each of the services had to give up some of their 

turf, some of their authority. And today one could argue that the 

interagency process is such that the executive branch is 

stovepiped much like the four services were 20 years ago, and ask 

the question, could we usefully apply that concept of the 

Goldwater-Nichols law to the government as a whole? 

 Let me conclude by saying that despite the work of the 

coalition, terrorist attacks continue, most recently in Madrid. 

It's almost certain that in the period ahead, somewhere more 

terrorist attacks will be attempted. What can be done? 
143

 Not long ago we marked the 20th anniversary of a 

terrorist attack in Beirut, Lebanon, when the suicide bomb truck 

attacked the Marine barracks, and that blast killed more than 240 

Americans. Soon after that attack, President Reagan and Secretary 

of State Shultz asked me to serve as the Middle East envoy for a 

period. That experience taught me lessons about the nature of 

terrorism that are relevant today as we prosecute the global war 

on terror. 

 After the attack, one seemingly logical response was to 

put a cement barricade around the buildings to prevent more truck 

bombings, a very logical thing to do; and it had the effect of 

preventing more truck bombings. 

 But the terrorists very quickly figured out how to get 

around those barricades, and they began lobbing rocket-propelled 

grenades over the cement barricades. And the reaction then was to 

hunker down even more, and they started seeing buildings along the 

Corniche that runs along the sea in Beirut draped with metal wire 

mesh coming down from several stories high, so that when rocketpropelled grenades hit the mesh, they would bounce off, doing 

little damage. It worked, again, but only briefly. 

 And the terrorists again adapted. They watched the 

comings and goings of embassy personnel and began hitting soft 

targets. They killed people on their way to and from work. 

 So for every defense -- first barricades, then wire mesh 

-- the terrorists moved to another avenue of attack. 

 One has to note that the terrorists had learned important 

lessons: that terrorism is a great equalizer. It's a force 

multiplier. It's cheap. It's deniable. It yields substantial 

results. It's low-risk, and it's often without penalty. They had 

learned that a single attack, by influencing public opinion and 

morale, can alter the behavior of great nations.

 Moreover, I said that free people had learned lessons as 

well: that terrorism is a form of warfare that must be treated as 

such. Simply standing in a defensive position, absorbing blows, is 

not enough. It has to be attacked, and it has to be deterred. 

 That was 20 years ago. 

 When our nation was attacked on September 11th, the 

President recognized what had happened as an act of war and that 
144

it must be treated as such, not a law enforcement matter. He knew 

that weakness would only invite aggression and that the only way 

to defeat the terrorists was to take the war to them and to make 

clear to states that sponsor and harbor them that such actions 

would have consequences. 

 That's why we have forces risking their lives fighting 

terrorists today. And to live as free people in the 21st century, 

we cannot think that we can hide behind concrete barriers or wire 

mesh. We cannot think that acquiescence or trying to make a 

separate peace with terrorists to leave us alone, but to go after 

our friends, will work. Free people cannot live in fear and remain 

free. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

 MR. KEAN: Mr. Secretary, thank you very much. 

 Our questioning will be led by Commissioner Kerrey, 

followed by Commissioner Gorton. 

 ROBERT KERREY: Well, Mr. Secretary, very good to see you 

again. You're still a terrific witness, my favorite witness ever. 

 SEC. RUMSFELD: Thank you. 

 MR. KERREY: I would first of all like to know how many 

cars it took to get all you guys over here. (Laughter.) I mean, 

that's a big group. 

 Let me just read back to you what you said 20 years ago, 

Mr. Secretary: that simply standing in a defensive position, 

absorbing blows, is not enough; that terrorism must be deterred. 

And I say with great respect, it seems to me, up to the 11th of 

September, we were standing in a defensive position, taking blows. 

I mean, I'm going to give you the same line that I gave former 

Secretary Cohen when he was here earlier. 

 I mean --

 SEC. RUMSFELD: And I'm going to give you the same 

answers. I thought he did a good job. 

 MR. KERREY: All right. Well -- (laughter) -- we'll see 

if they're the same answers. (Laughter.) 

 SEC. RUMSFELD: (Laughs.) 
145

 MR. KERREY: I mean, this was -- it wasn't just that we 

were attacked on the 11th of September, Mr. Secretary; it's the 

same group of people that hit the Cole on the 12th of October, the 

same group of people that tried to hit the Sullivan (sic) a few 

months before that, the same group of people that were responsible 

for Millennium attacks against the United States that we had 

interrupted -- and in Jordan, the same group of people that hit 

our East African embassy bombings (sic) on the 7th of August, and 

we now believe the same group of people who were responsible for 

other attacks against the United States. This was an army led by 

Osama Bin Ladin who declared war on us on the 23rd of February, 

1998. And we had all kinds of reasons to -- I've heard them all. 

And they're all wonderful -- as to why the only military attack we 

had was a single attack on the 20th of August, 1998, and other 

than that, there wasn't anything. And 19 men, as a consequence, 

defeated us utterly with less than a half a million dollars. And 

it -- I just -- I ask you, wouldn't a declaration of war either by 

President Clinton or President Bush prior to this, not just to go 

after Bin Ladin, but to say to the DOD, DI -- the CIA and other 

agencies, you got to work together, you got to put together a 

terrorist list of radical Islamists that we believe are connected 

to these things to prevent them from coming into the United States 

of America, you got to make sure you consider all options and 

possibilities that might be used against us. You said you 

received no specific intelligence about the possibility of being -

- a plane being used as a bomb. 

 And Mr. Secretary, you're well known as somebody who 

thinks about all kinds of terrible possibilities that might happen 

that nobody else is thinking about. I mean, that's what you do --

so well -- as you're -- when you're going into a difficult 

situation. I mean, it seems to me that a declaration of war, 

either by President Clinton or by President Bush, prior to 9/11 

would have mobilized the government in a way that at least would 

have reduced substantially the possibility that 9/11 would have 

happened. Do you agree or not? (Pause.) That's a different 

question than I gave Secretary Cohen. I'm getting better at this 

-- (laughter). 

 SEC. RUMSFELD: It is. I was going to use his answer, 

and now I can't. (Light laughter.) 

 (Pause.) Possibly. Let me -- let me put it that way. 

The problem with it -- it sounds good the way you said it. 

 I try to put myself in other people's shoes. And try to 

put yourself in the shoes of the new Administration that had just 
146

arrived. And time had passed; we were in the process of bringing 

people on board. And the President said he wanted a new policy 

for counterterrorism. Making a declaration of war -- in February 

or March or April, for the sake of argument -- without having 

fashioned the policy to follow it up, which they were working on, 

without having taken the kinds of steps in the Department of 

Defense to review contingency plans and get them up to date, get 

the assumptions current for the 21st century, without having tried 

to strengthen the Special Operations forces, it seems to me might 

have been a bold stroke that would have sounded good, but when not 

followed up with the kind of capabilities that we were able to 

follow it up with on October 7th, when we put forces and 

capabilities into Afghanistan, might -- so it might not have been 

a great idea. 

 I don't think it would have stopped September 11th. 

 MR. KERREY: Well, let me put it this way to you. Let's

say that the Federal Aviation Administration had heeded some 

warnings about the possibility of a hijacking and it altered the 

procedures in American airports to prevent these hijackers from 

being able to get onto the planes in the first place, or had 

different procedures on the airplanes on the morning of the 11th 

of September to make certain that the pilots were locked up front 

and that the passengers didn't remain in their seats and 

cooperate. (Applause.) 

 Let's say -- please, I'm -- let's say that 9/11 hadn't 

happened. Would you have gone to the American people and carried 

out the strategy that you say you worked on all year long and you 

came up with on the 4th of September? Because the President would 

have had to go to the American people and said, we're going to 

work to eliminate the al Qaeda network, we're going to use all 

elements of national power to so do -- diplomatic, military, 

economic, intel, information, law enforcement -- and we're going 

to eliminate sanctuaries for al Qaeda and related terrorist 

networks, and if diplomatic efforts fail to do so we're going to 

consider additional measures. Earlier in your testimony you said 

all the reasons why to do such a thing would provoke angry 

response. Would the Administration have put this policy in place 

were it not for 9/11? 

 SEC. RUMSFELD: I believe we would have. One can't 

announce that for a certainty because 9/11 happened, but it had 

been worked on, developed, and was ready to go into place. The --

 MR. KERREY: Well, then, doesn't, Mr. Secretary --
147

 SEC. RUMSFELD: In June and July, when the intelligence 

spike took place, there were a good number of steps that were 

taken. My responsibilities, as you know, were overseas and not 

domestically, but forces were alerted. Embassies were alerted, as 

Secretary Powell indicated today. There were a number of steps 

taken by the Transportation Department with respect to airlines 

and cautions and warnings there. So it's not as though the 

intelligence that was gathering had not been understood and 

addressed, and a great number of steps in addition to the 

development of the policy taken. 

 MR. KERREY: Well, I got to say, Mr. Secretary, if that's 

the case -- and I trust you; I believe you on this point -- then I 

don't think it's a good argument to say that the American people 

wouldn't have accepted something prior to 9/11 that was unpopular 

because you just said that, absent 9/11, you would have 

recommended to the President to put in place a policy that would

have been exceptionally unpopular and difficult to sell. I 

believe he should of, by the way, regardless of whether or not 

9/11 happened. But it doesn't work. The argument falls on its 

face if you say, please understand, we couldn't have done this 

before 9/11 if you say you would have done it absent 9/11. 

 SEC. RUMSFELD: I understand. 

 MR. KERREY: All right. Let me say -- Dr. Rice has said 

that the national security team was briefed on the threat of al 

Qaeda in the transition and that it was well understood -- this is 

what she said in The Washington Post yesterday -- it was well 

understood by the President and his national security team, the 

principal. In the interview that we did with you, you seemed not 

to be as clear as Dr. Rice was or at least Secretary Powell was. 

And by the way, I'm very sympathetic to that, given that the 

Department of Defense did not have that kind of authority over 

counterterrorism activity, so perhaps that would be the reason you 

were not. 

 But in the interview, you indicated that you didn't 

recall that briefing. And in your testimony, you also referenced 

-- I love to hear that even you have moments that you forget you 

were at a briefing and people were telling you something. Do you 

recall the briefings on al Qaeda by Secretary Cohen and --

 SEC. RUMSFELD: Secretary Cohen commented on it today. 

We did have one or two meetings. He had a long list of items --

there must have been 40 or 50-plus items. I have given it to the 
148

committee. The first item was the one that concerned him the 

most, and it involved a sensitive item that was very much on his 

mind that was terrorism- related, but to my recollection, not al 

Qaeda-related. 

 MR. KERREY: It seems to me that Dr. Rice is overstating 

the case a bit in that statement saying that the threat of al 

Qaeda was well understood by the President and his entire national 

security team. 

 SEC. RUMSFELD: Oh, I don't think that's an 

overstatement. 

 MR. KERREY: No? 

 SEC. RUMSFELD: I think certainly the people in the 

Administration who came in didn't arrive out of cellophane 

packages, they --

 MR. KERREY: But you didn't get a briefing by the 

Counterterrorism Security Group, nor by SOLIC? 

 SEC. RUMSFELD: I did not get a briefing by -- that 

Secretary Powell got, no. I was briefed by members of the Joint 

Staff and other people in the policy departments of the Department 

of Defense. 

 MR. KERREY: Dr. Rice also said that she wasn't satisfied 

with the off-the-shelf military response options that were 

available after the Cole, the so-called tit-for-tat options that -

- I think she was referring to 20 August, 1998, against the camps 

in Afghanistan. Did she ask for military options? Or were there 

military options requested during your term? Because our 

investigation shows that there were no new military plans 

developed against al Qaeda or Bin Ladin prior to September 11th. 

 SEC. RUMSFELD: The -- I think it's accurate to say --

(To General Myers) -- General Myers, you may want to chime in 

here. But I think it's accurate to say that there were military 

options, and I'd characterize it as "options" and not a 

comprehensive plan to deal with al Qaeda and countries that harbor 

al Qaeda, but options to react, response options, military 

response options to deal with specific terrorist events. And I 

was briefed on them, as I indicated in my testimony. And I 

suspect that Dr. Rice was briefed on them. 
149

 I could just say that I don't remember ever seeing -- in 

the first instance, I don't remember anyone seeing -- anyone being 

briefed on military proposals to react to something where they 

were fully satisfied, nor do I ever remember military people being 

fully satisfied with the intelligence available. 

 That's the nature of the world we live in. 

 Dick, do you want to comment? 

 GEN. MYERS: I would just add that we did after the Cole

continue some of the planning that had gone on before -- since 

'98, actually -- and developed some additional options. I think 

we briefed the committee on those --

 SEC. RUMSFELD: We did. 

 GEN. MYERS: -- at least the staff. 

 MR. KERREY: That's why I am confused when the national 

security advisor in the Post says that we didn't have an al Qaeda 

plan; no plan was given to the new Administration on how to deal 

with al Qaeda. And then she goes on to say that -- was not 

satisfied with the off-the- shelf options that were available. 

And especially in the second case, we don't see any evidence that 

during the Bush administration there were any new requests that 

came to DOD asking for new military options. If there was 

dissatisfaction with the national security advisor, you would 

think she would have sent a request over for alternative military 

options. 

 SEC. RUMSFELD: Well, first of all, my recollection is 

that Sandy Berger has agreed with Dr. Rice that a plan for the al 

Qaeda was not handed from one administration to the other; and 

second, my understanding is that the joint staff, after I was 

briefed and asked a lot of questions, went back down and continued 

working on those response plans throughout that period and that 

that was one of the reasons why we were in a position to respond

so promptly after September 11th. 

 GEN. MYERS: That's correct. 

 MR. KERREY: I said it to Secretary Powell earlier, but 

I'll say to you as well, Mr. Secretary, I don't understand this 

we're-waiting- for-a-plan thing at all. I really don't. I mean, 

we're dealing with an individual who has led a military effort 

against the United States for 10 years and has serially killed a 
150

significant number of Americans over that period of time. And 

why, in God's name, I got to wait eight months to get a plan? 

 I mean, I'm very sympathetic to the problems that you 

mentioned. Paul wasn't on board, I guess, until March, and lots of 

other -- your last appointment -- I think you had in your 

testimony -- wasn't there, your key appointment wasn't there until 

August or something like that. I'm very sympathetic to all the 

difficulties of transition. But it's still -- I still get in my 

head, why do we need a brand new military -- you know, a fullblown plan like we're building a house or something here? 

 SEC. RUMSFELD: Well, let me just make one comment and 

maybe someone else would like to respond. But Afghanistan was 

harboring the al Qaeda. Afghanistan was something like 8,000 

miles from the United States. It was surrounded by countries that 

were not particularly friendly with the United States of America. 

Afghanistan, as I said publicly on one occasion, didn't have a lot 

of targets. I mean, you can go from an overhead and attack 

Afghanistan, and in a very short order, you run out of targets 

that are lucrative. You can pound the rubble in an al Qaeda 

training camp 15 times and not do much damage; they can put tents 

right back up. It's not like -- the country has suffered for 

decades in drought, in civil war, in occupation by the Soviet 

Union. And trying to deal with them from the air, in my view --

and that is essentially what the courses of action were that I saw 

--

 MR. KERREY: Oh, I appreciate that, Mr. Secretary. 

 But you said earlier that even absent 9/11, your strategy 

would have been to eliminate the al Qaeda network, to use all the 

elements of national power to do so, to eliminate the sanctuaries 

for al Qaeda and related terrorist networks. I appreciate that is 

it a tough mission; yes. But your declaratory earlier was that 

you would carry that out even absent 9/11. 

 SEC. RUMSFELD: And I would say that that's one of the 

reasons that Secretary Powell and I and others in the department, 

in the government, spent time connecting with countries in that 

part of the world in ways that were unusual and distinctly 

different than had been the case previously, from the very first 

day of the Administration. 

 MR. KERREY: You're off the hook. My time's up. It's 

off to Senator Gorton. 
151

 MR. KEAN: Senator Gorton. 

 MR. GORTON: Mr. Secretary, on page 10 of your written 

statement you express what I think is justified frustration in the 

extended period of time it took you to get a team in place with 

which to make these decisions. You list nine of your senior 

staff, the earliest of whom was confirmed on the 3rd of May, 2001, 

and the last of whom, interestingly enough an assistant secretary 

for international security policy, not until August 6th. And you 

say that the confirmation system -- that kind of confirmation 

system and those delays just don't work in the 21st century. 

 I can greatly sympathize with you on that, but you leave 

out one very important factor. When were those nine people 

nominated and actually sent to the Senate? 

 SEC. RUMSFELD: Well, I wasn't suggesting in this that I 

-- in fact, I hope I phrased it more elegantly than you did --

(laughter). My point here -- I hope -- my point, whether I made it 

well or not, my point is not simply the Senate confirmation, but 

the clearance process, the entire process. Finding them, putting 

them through the FBI, putting them through multiple ethics -- it 

took weeks for people to fill out their ethics forms. It cost a 

fortune for some people to fill out their ethics forms. And then 

you have to go from the one in the executive branch to the one in 

the United States Senate and have that filled out, in different 

forms. Some of you may have been through this. It's an amazing 

process. And then some guy walks in and gives you a drug test. 

(Laughter.) It is not just the Senate, although the Senate can be 

a problem -- with all respect. (Laughter.) 

 MR. GORTON: Thank you for that clarification. So in 

your view, it's the whole process. 

 SEC. RUMSFELD: Entirely, yes. 

 MR. GORTON: From a new Administration finding who they 

want, getting them through various clearances, and then the 

Senate. But we don't know here how long the Senate part of that 

took in any one of these cases. 

 SEC. RUMSFELD: Well, I know, and I could give it to you, 

if you're interested. 

 MR. GORTON: I think that -- I think I would be 

interested. 
152

 SEC. RUMSFELD: We tried to parse it out to see where 

each -- how long each piece took. And the Senate is just a part 

of it. 

 MR. GORTON: Okay, thank you. 

 On page 16 of your statement -- and you referred to this 

in connection with Senator Kerrey's questions -- you ask and 

answer the question with respect to why nothing was done with 

respect to the attack on the Cole in the Bush administration. And 

you say in fact, to do it four months later might have sent a 

signal of weakness. 

 Now, were the reasons for no specific response to the 

Cole: one, that you were still uncertain about who was responsible 

to (sic) it; two, that by the time you were in office, say in 

February of 2002, it was simply too late to respond specifically 

to an incident that had taken place the previous October; or 

three, that there just wasn't anything to shoot at? 

 SEC. RUMSFELD: Let me respond this way. First of all, 

it was seven-and-a-half months -- someone earlier specified that 

it was all year, which is not really the case; it was seven-and-ahalf months between the day the President was sworn in and the day 

of September 11th -- seven-and-three-quarters months, for the sake 

of precision. 

 You say nothing was done. A great deal was done. The 

Cole Commission did a good job. They made a whole series of 

recommendations, and the Department of Defense implemented those 

recommendations. In my view, that is not nothing. 

 You're right, as the time passed, two things were 

happening; time was passing since the event of the Cole attack, 

where 17 Americans and military personnel were killed, time passed 

and we became farther and farther away from that event. And the 

other thing that was happening is that the policy was being 

developed to deal with al Qaeda and the country that was harboring 

them. Last, and as you got closer to that and you got farther 

away from the Cole event, it became logical, it seems to me, to 

look more towards the comprehensive approach than some sort of a 

repeat of what had happened after the embassy bombings or after 

some of the earlier events which, without criticizing the 

responses that took place then, the fact that that had been all 

there was led us -- me, I should say, to feel very deeply that the 

President ought not to simply fire off cruise missiles; that in 

the event he was going to make a response, he had to put people on 
153

the ground, he had to put people at risk, he had to show a 

seriousness of purpose or the Administration would be seen as a 

continuum from the lobbing cruise missiles after an attack, with 

relatively modest effect. 

 MR. GORTON: Your statement, both oral and written -- in 

following up on that -- is quite impressive with respect to the 

preparation for a broader policy that took place in the seven 

months prior to 9/11. 

 And on September 4th, there was a fairly definitive 

recommendation, which you say would almost certainly have been 

adopted even in the absence of 9/11. 

 SEC. RUMSFELD: Oh, I think I said that I would have 

favored adopting it. 

 MR. GORTON: Okay. 

 SEC. RUMSFELD: I don't want to prejudge what would have 

happened. 

 MR. GORTON: All right. I'll modify the question of that 

point. 

 That program, as we understand it, had three parts. 

First, there'd be one more diplomatic attempt with the Taliban to 

see if they would give up Osama Bin Ladin. Second, we would begin 

to arm the Northern Alliance and the various tribes in Afghanistan 

to stir up trouble there and hope that perhaps they could capture 

Osama Bin Ladin. And third, if those didn't work, there would be 

a military response that would be substantial, much more than 

lobbing cruise missiles into the desert. But was we understand 

it, this was seen as a three-year program if we had to go to the 

third stage. 

 My question is, given World Trade Center I, given the 

embassy bombings, given the Millennium plot, given the Cole, given 

the declaration of war by Osama Bin Ladin, what made you think 

that we had the luxury of that much time, even seven months, much 

less three years before we could cure this particular problem? 

 SEC. RUMSFELD: Well, let me answer two ways. 

 Number one, I didn't come up with the three years. I 

tend to scrupulously avoid predicting that I am smart enough to 

know how long something's going to take because I know I don't 
154

know. Where that number came from I don't know. In fact, dealing 

with the terrorism threat is going to take a lot longer than three 

years, and in fact dealing with the Afghanistan piece of it took a 

lot less, as you point out. It seems to me that the -- it's 

interesting that you cite that because, in fact, the President and 

Secretary Powell made an attempt early on, one last try to 

separate the Taliban from the al Qaeda and it failed; not 

surprisingly -- they had been rather stiff -- but it failed flat. 

 MR. GORTON: It even failed after 9/11, didn't it? 

 SEC. RUMSFELD: That's my point. After 9/11, it failed 

flat. 

 And the other concern we had was that we had precious 

little information about the groups in Afghanistan. It was -- we 

had enough information that there were people knowledgeable who 

were concerned that if all we did was help the Northern Alliance 

as opposed to some other elements in the country, we may end up 

being quite unsuccessful; and that the goal was to try to get a 

broader base of support in the country, and that took some time. 

 And the part you left out was that we decided -- I 

decided, the President decided, everyone decided quite early that 

we had to put U.S. forces in that country. And that was not a 

part of that plan. That was something that came along after 

September 11th. 

 MR. GORTON: Well, Mr. Secretary, that's a good answer, 

but it isn't an answer to the question that I asked you. The 

question --

 SEC. RUMSFELD: My question (sic) is, I don't know. 

 MR. GORTON: The question --

 SEC. RUMSFELD: The three years -- I just don't know. 

 MR. GORTON: The question that I asked you was, what made 

you think, even when you took over and got these first briefings, 

given the history of al Qaeda and its successful attacks on 

Americans, that we had the luxury even of seven months before we 

could make any kind of response, much less three years? 

 SEC. RUMSFELD: And my answer was -- on point, I said I 

didn't come up with three years. And I can't defend that number. 
155

I don't know where that came from. 

 With respect to seven months, I've answered. My 

testimony today lays out what was done during that period. 

 Do you have -- you phrase it, "Do you have the luxury of 

seven months?" And reflecting on what happened on September 11th, 

the question is obviously, the good Lord willing, things would 

have happened prior to that that could have stopped it. But

something to have stopped that would have had to happen months and 

months and months beforehand, not five minutes or not one month or 

two months or three months. 

 And the counterargument, it seems to me, is, do you have 

the luxury of doing what was done before and simply just heaving 

some cruise missiles into the thing and not doing it right? I 

don't know. I -- we thought not. It's a judgment. 

 MR. GORTON: Let me ask you the same question that I 

asked of Senator (sic) Powell. At one level, you could claim --

but you're too modest and too cautious to claim -- that your 

policies since 9/11 have been successful; that is to say, there 

has not been another successful terrorist attack on the United 

States. We all know, as Senator (sic) Powell pointed out, that 

that risk is still there, and it's going to be there for as long 

as any of us can imagine. But nonetheless, we've now gone two and 

a half years without any such attack. 

 What do you think of -- or how do you evaluate the -- our 

provisional success in that connection? How much of it is just 

luck? How much of it is hardened targets, the steps we've taken 

for homeland security? How much of it is more effective 

intelligence and prevention, both through your department and 

elsewhere? How much of it is due to the fact that we've attacked 

the source and to a large extent, in Afghanistan, at least, 

eliminated it? 

 Give me your own views as to what you think we've done 

right and the importance of those things that we've done right. 

And how much have we ended or reduced the amount of terrorism in 

the world itself, and how much have we just displaced it and 

caused it to take place in other places? 

 SEC. RUMSFELD: As a former pilot, one of the things you 

always did was you never talked about the fact there hadn't been a 

flight accident for a long time --
156

 MR. GORTON: That's true. 

 SEC. RUMSFELD: -- and with good reason. You start doing 

that, and something happens. The fact is, a terrorist can attack 

anytime, anyplace, using every -- any technique, and we can't 

defend everywhere at every moment against every technique. And we 

could have a terrorist attack anywhere in the world tomorrow. And 

we have to recognize that. This is a tough business we're in. 

And it is difficult. And it's challenging. 

 Now, to the good side. A 90-nation coalition is a big 

thing. The fact that all of those countries are cooperating, 

sharing intelligence, helping to find bank accounts, helping to 

put pressure on terrorists coming across their borders, helping to 

put pressure on things moving across their borders -- is it 

perfect? No. Are things still porous? Yes. Is money still 

getting there? Yes. But everything is harder. Everything is 

more difficult today. It's tougher to recruit, it's tougher to 

train, it's tougher to retain, it's tougher to finance, it's 

tougher to move things, it's tougher to communicate with each 

other for those folks. Someone asked me what is Saddam -- is 

Osama Bin Ladin masterminding all of this. And I said, you know, 

who knows? But if I were in his shoes I think I'd be spending an 

awful lot of time trying to not get caught. Most of his time is 

probably spent trying not to get caught. And so he's busy. And 

that's a good thing. And there's been a lot of pressure. How to 

put a value on that: I don't know. 

 What worries me is the last point I mentioned in my 

prepared remarks, and that was this issue of how many people are 

coming in the intake, how people are being trained to go out and 

kill innocent men, women and children. We've got a lot of good 

things going on, capturing and killing and putting pressure on 

terrorists today. And every day that cooperation within our 

government and between 90 nations gets better and better and 

better. The intelligence fusion cells that are taking place, the 

cooperative arrangements between the United States and other 

militaries, the cooperative arrangements between the Department of 

Defense and the CIA, every day they get better. 

 But at the same time, we know of certain knowledge that 

money is going to madrassa schools that are training people to 

kill people, and that's a problem. 

 MR. GORTON: Thank you, Mr. Secretary. 

 Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 
157

 MR. KEAN: Commissioner Ben-Veniste. 

 MR. BEN-VENISTE: Good afternoon, Mr. Secretary. There 

are a number of different questions I'd like to ask, but my time 

is limited. 

 I'd like to first mention something that Commissioner 

Gorton brought up, and that is the question of transition. And I 

think this commission ought to have a recommendation, particularly 

with respect to the intelligence community and those Cabinet 

agencies that are charged with protecting the safety of the United 

States, in terms of the way the transition takes place. It seems 

as though things are done on the fly. People have other 

objectives. They have many things to do coming in. It appears 

from what we have heard that the Administration officials leaving 

government in the Clinton administration were willing to be 

generous with their time, but they didn't always connect up with 

the right people it seems. And I think we ought to have a 

recommendation with respect to institutionalizing transition in 

these times, which require immediate response to issues. 

 I want to focus on two things, I guess. One, I'm 

astounded that this past week, a week ago, we saw on television a 

videotape of the Predator. Now, the Predator, we were told, was 

of such a high security classification that the classification 

itself was secret. You couldn't even mention the name of the 

classification. And I just don't understand how a videotape of 

the Predator comes into the public access in that way, and I just 

make that as a commentary. 

 With respect to your comment about domestic intelligence 

and what we knew as of September 10th, 2001, your statement was 

that you knew of no intelligence to suggest that planes would be 

hijacked in the United States and flown into buildings. Well, it 

is correct that the United States intelligence community had a 

great deal of intelligence suggesting that the terrorists, back 

since 1994, had plans -- discussed plans to use airplanes as 

weapons, loaded with fuel, loaded with bombs, loaded with 

explosives. The Algerians had a plan in '94 to fly a plane into 

the Eiffel Tower. The Bojinka plot in '95 discussed flying an 

explosive-Ladin small plane into CIA headquarters. Certainly CIA 

was well aware of that. There were plans in '97 using a UAV. In 

'98 an al Qaeda- connected group talked about flying a commercial 

plane into the World Trade Center. In '98 there was a plot broken 

up by the Turkish intelligence involving the use of plane as a 

weapon. 
158

 In '99 there was a plot involving exploding a plane at an 

airport. Also in '99 there was a plot regarding an explosive-Ladin

hang glider. In '99 -- or in 2000 there was a plot regarding 

hijacking a 747. And in August of 2001, there was information 

received by our intelligence community regarding flying a plane 

into the Nairobi embassy -- our Nairobi embassy. 

 And so I suggest that when you have this threat spike in 

the summer of 2001 that said something huge was going to happen, 

and the FAA circulates, as you mentioned, a warning which does 

nothing to alert people on the ground to the potential threat of 

the jihadist hijacking, which only, it seems to me, despite the 

fact that they read into the Congressional Record the potential 

for a hijacking threat in the United States in the summer of 2001, 

it never gets to any actionable level. Nobody at the airports is 

alerted to any particular threat. Nobody flying the planes takes 

action of a defensive posture. 

 I understand that going after al Qaeda overseas is one 

thing, but protecting the United States is another thing. And it 

seems to me that a statement that we could not conceive of such a 

thing happening really does not reflect the state of our 

intelligence community as of 2001, sir. 

 SEC. RUMSFELD: A couple of comments. I quite agree with 

you, there were a number of reports about potential hijacking. I 

even remember comments about UAVs. I even have seen things about 

private aircraft hitting something. But I do not recall ever 

seeing anything, in the period since I came back to government, 

about the idea of taking a commercial airliner and using it as a 

missile. I just don't recall seeing it. And if it -- (To General 

Myers) -- Maybe you do, Dick. Do you? 

 GEN. MYERS: No, I do not. 

 SEC. RUMSFELD: (To Mr. Wolfowitz) Do you? 

 MR. WOLFOWITZ: No. 

 MR. BEN-VENISTE: Well, the fact is that our staff has --

and the Joint Inquiry before us, I must say, has come up with 

eight or 10 examples which were well known in the intelligence 

community. My goodness, there was an example of individual who 

flew a small plane and landed right next to the White House -- 

 SEC. RUMSFELD: I remember. 
159

 MR. BEN-VENISTE: -- crash-landed that. 

 The CIA knew that there was a plot to fly an explosiveLadin plane into CIA headquarters. So we do, within our 

intelligence community, have very much in mind the fact that this 

is a potential technique. 

 You put that together with the fact that there is a 

heightened threat level; people like Director Tenet, people like 

Richard Clarke are running around, as they say, with their hair on 

fire in the summer of 2001, knowing something big is going to 

happen; and yet everybody is looking overseas. 

 SEC. RUMSFELD: Let me make two comments on that. One, 

the spike in that summer -- you're correct; there was a good deal 

of concern about it. And you suggested that warnings did not go 

out. My recollection is, a lot of warnings did go out. 

 Now I have nothing to do with warnings inside the United 

States. 

 MR. BEN-VENISTE: I understand. 

 SEC. RUMSFELD: We had to do with warnings of force 

protection ex-U.S. And the State Department -- Colin testified to 

that this morning -- that the State Department had a whole lot of 

alerts. So there was attention to that. 

 The second thing I'd say is, the -- oh, how to put this? 

-- in three years, since I've been back in the Pentagon, there 

have been people running around with their hair on fire a lot of 

times. It isn't like it's once or twice or thrice. We are seeing 

so much intelligence, so much information that is of deep concern 

that we have scrambled airplanes; we have sent ships to sea, to 

protect them; we have gone up to a high level of alert on a number 

of occasions, because of these types of spikes in intel activity, 

in most instances, when something does not follow --

 MR. BEN-VENISTE: Let me just --

 SEC. RUMSFELD: -- maybe because we went to high alert, 

maybe because they go to school on us. 

 MR. BEN-VENISTE: Let me follow that briefly, to say that 

we knew that terrorists had attacked us in '93 at the World Trade 

Center. We knew in the Millennium plot in December of '99 that al 
160

Qaeda had an operative sleeper in the United States or coming to 

the United States, who planned to blow up LAX. That was 

interdicted. They were on high alert during the Millennium plot, 

and they thought about domestic terrorism in that regard. 

 And now, as we get into 2001, it just seems to me like 

we're looking at the white truck that had everyone captivated 

during the hunt for the sniper. Everybody was looking in the 

wrong direction. 

 Why weren't people thinking about protecting the United 

States? We knew that there were two al Qaeda operatives in the 

United States, and yet that information does not get circulated. 

It doesn't get to the people at the airports. It doesn't go on 

"Most Wanted" on television, where people could identify such 

individuals. We know that a man named Moussaoui has been 

identified as somebody who took lessons on just how to steer an 

airplane; not how to take it off, not how to land it, just how to 

steer it. So it seems to me when you make the statement, sir, 

that we didn't know that planes might be used as weapons in the 

summer of 2001, I just have to take issue with that. 

 SEC. RUMSFELD: Well, I didn't say "we" didn't know, I 

said "I" didn't know. And if -- I just was handed a civil 

aviation circular that people did know and they sent it out on 

June 22nd, 2001. 

 MR. BEN-VENISTE: They sent it out, but nobody did a 

thing about it. Nobody got anybody at our borders to identify 

individuals who might be suspect, to give them greater scrutiny. 

 SEC. RUMSFELD: Well, may I --

 MR. BEN-VENISTE: Somebody was found simply through the 

good works of a customs agent who used his native intelligence and 

picked up probably the 20th hijacker in that way. 

 SEC. RUMSFELD: Let me put something into some context. 

The Department of Defense, as Senator Kerrey has indicated 

earlier, did not have responsibility for the borders. It did not 

have responsibility for the airports. 

 MR. BEN-VENISTE: I understand. 

 SEC. RUMSFELD: And the fact that I might not have known 

something ought not to be considered unusual. Our task was to be 

oriented out of this country --
161

 MR. BEN-VENISTE: I understand. 

 SEC. RUMSFELD: -- and defend against attacks from

abroad. And a civilian aircraft being hijacked was a law 

enforcement matter to be handled by law enforcement authorities 

and aviation authorities, and that is the way our government was 

organized and arranged. So that those questions you're posing are 

good ones and they're valid and they ought to be asked, but they 

ought to be asked of people who had the statutory responsibility 

for those things. And it seems to me that you've had that 

opportunity. 

 MR. BEN-VENISTE: The only reason I put them to you, sir, 

was because of your comment in your opening statement. 

 SEC. RUMSFELD: Right. I was confessing ignorance. 

 MR. KEAN: Thank you very much, Commissioner. 

 Commissioner Gorelick. 

 MS. GORELICK: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

 And thank you, Mr. Secretary and your colleagues, for 

being here today and for sharing your thoughts with us. 

 I'd like to start where Commissioner Ben-Veniste left off 

in his dialogue with you. If one looks at the PDBs and the SEIBs 

that were available to you personally, if all you do --

 SEC. RUMSFELD: What's a SEIB? I'm sorry. 

 MS. GORELICK: I'm sorry. It's the Senior Executive 

Intelligence Brief. So these are the -- these are the daily 

briefings that go to people at your level and just below you. If 

you look at the headlines, only the headlines of those in the 

period that has come to be known as the summer of threat, it would 

set your hair on fire, not just George Tenet's hair on fire. I 

don't think it is fair to compare what all the intelligence 

experts have said was an extraordinary spike that plateaued at a 

spike level for months with spikes that happen, come and go, and 

are routine. You were right --

 SEC. RUMSFELD: I was seeing the PDB, and shared that 

concern. 
162

 MS. GORELICK: Pardon me? 

 SEC. RUMSFELD: I was seeing the PDB each morning and 

shared that concern. 

 MS. GORELICK: Well, I expect that you would. So now I 

would like to talk about the items that -- the aspects that were 

in your control. 

 I had a conversation with Secretary Wolfowitz's -- one of 

his predecessors when the 1996 Olympics were being planned about 

what do we do when aircraft, an aircraft is being hijacked and is 

flying into a stadium at the Olympics. What is the military's 

response? What is its role? And it has always been my assumption 

that even though, yes, you were looking out, that you have a 

responsibility to protect our airspace. So my question is, in 

this summer of threat, what did you do to protect, let's just say, 

the Pentagon from attack? Where were our aircraft when they --

when a missile is heading toward the Pentagon? Surely that is in 

-- within the Pentagon's responsibility, to protect -- force 

protection, to protect our facilities, to protect something -- our 

headquarters, the Pentagon. Is there anything that we did to --

at the Pentagon to prevent that harm in the summer, spring and 

summer of '01? 

 SEC. RUMSFELD: First, let me respond as to what the 

responsibility of the Department of Defense has been with a 

hijacking. 

 As I said, it was a law enforcement issue. And the 

Department of Defense has had various understandings with FAA 

whereby when someone squawks hijack they have an arrangement with 

the Department of Defense that the military would send an airplane 

up and monitor the flight, but certainly did not have -- in a 

hijack situation did not have authority to shoot down a plane that 

was being hijacked. The purpose of a hijack is to take the plane 

from one place to another place where it wasn't intended to be 

going, not to fly into the building. 

 Second, with respect to the defense of the Pentagon, 

you're quite right. The force protection responsibilities do fall 

on the military. And just to put it right up on the table, we're 

in the flight pattern for National Airport. There's a plane that 

goes by, you know, how many yards from my window 50 times a day. 

 I don't know how far it is, but anyone who's been in that 

office has heard it roar right by the window. There isn't any way 
163

to deal with that at all. And force protection tends to be force 

protection from the ground. 

 Dick, do you want to comment? 

 GEN. MYERS: I would just say that since the Cold War, 

the focus of North American Aerospace Defense Command was outward, 

was not inward. The hijacking agreement with the FAA was as the 

secretary described it. It would be a call and a response to the 

hijack, but certainly not with the thought of shooting it down. 

It was to monitor -- try to get it to follow instructions and then 

follow it to its ultimate destination, if we could. 

 MS. GORELICK: That is consistent with the story that we 

have been told throughout the military. I would just say that to 

me -- and again, 20-20 hindsight is perfect, but if I were 

sitting at the Pentagon and seeing the kind of threats that were 

coming in that summer, I would say to myself is business as usual 

appropriate? I mean, the question I have is whether you thought 

to say, should our -- should we have defenses pre-positioned in a 

way that we don't? We know that our forces -- that our aircraft 

from NORAD came too late to the Pentagon. 

 GEN. MYERS: Well, sure, we changed our whole air defense 

posture at the end of the Cold War. We went from about 22 sites 

to down about seven, as I believe, between U.S. and Canada, 

purposefully and at direction of senior leadership. 

 Let me just mention one other thing. The threat spike 

that I remember and that I recall from that summer of '01, were --

and the things that I was reading -- and I was the vice chairman 

then, so I might not have gotten all the PDBs; but I think I 

probably saw them eventually, saw the intelligence eventually --

were external to the United States. That's where the threat was 

and that's where we took action. And we sorted ships. We changed 

force protection conditions -- particularly in Central Command, 

but other places around the world -- based on that intelligence. 

But I don't remember reading those documents to an internal 

threat. 

 MS. GORELICK: Well -- 

 SEC. RUMSFELD: And it certainly was not "business as 

usual." When we saw those threats, a whole host of steps were 

taken by way of force protection. 
164

 MS. GORELICK: May I ask one more question, Mr. 

Chairman? 

 We can't go into the content of the PDBs and the SEIBs 

here, and I can't even characterize them in order to ask you the 

next question that I would ask. So let me ask you this: Was it 

your understanding that the NORAD pilots who were circling over 

Washington, D.C., that morning had indeed received a shoot-down 

order? 

 SEC. RUMSFELD: When I arrived in the command center, one 

of the first things I heard -- (to General Myers) and I was with 

you -- was that the order had been given, and that the pilots --

correction -- not the pilots, necessarily, but the command had 

been given the instructions that their pilots could, in fact, use 

their weapons to shoot down commercial airliners filled with our 

people in the event that the aircraft appeared to be behaving in a 

threatening way and an unresponsive way. 

 MS. GORELICK: You make a distinct there between the 

command and the pilots. Was it your understanding that the pilots 

had received that order? 

 SEC. RUMSFELD: I'm trying to get in time because -- (to 

General Myers) -- Do you --

 GEN. MYERS: No, I think my understanding -- I've talked 

to General Eberhart, commander now of NORAD, and I think he's 

briefed the staff, and I think what he told the staff, what he 

told me, as I recall, was that the pilots -- at the appropriate 

point when the authority to engage civilian airliners was given, 

that the pilots knew that fairly quickly. I mean, it went down 

through the chain of command. 

 SEC. RUMSFELD: It was on a threat conference call that 

it was given, and everybody heard it simultaneously. The question 

then would be -- the reason I'm hesitant is because we went 

through two or three iterations of the rules of engagement, and in 

the end, we ended up delegating that authority to -- at the lowest 

level, I believe, to two stars. 

 GEN. MYERS: Correct. 

 SEC. RUMSFELD: And the pilot would be -- then describe 

the situation to that level. To the extent that level had time, 

they would come up to General Eberhart, and to the extent General 

Eberhart had time, he would come up to me, and to the extent I had 
165

time I might talk to the President, which in fact I did do on 

several occasions during the remainder of the day with respect to 

international flights heading to this country that were squawking 

hijack. 

 MS. GORELICK: I'm just trying to understand whether it 

is your understanding that the NORAD pilots themselves who were 

circling over Washington, as you refer to in your statement, 

whether they knew that they had authority to shoot down a plane? 

And if you don't know, it's fine to say that. But you mention 

them your statement, and I would like to know, if you know the 

answer. 

 SEC. RUMSFELD: I do not know what they thought. In 

fact, I haven't talked to any of the pilots that were up there. I 

certainly was immediately concerned that we did know what they 

thought they could do, and we began the process quite quickly of 

making changes to the standing rules of engagement -- Dick Myers 

and I did -- and then issuing that. And we then went back and 

revisited that question several times in the remaining week or two 

while we were still at various stages of alert. And we have since 

done that in connection with several other events, such as the 

Prague summit. 

 MS. GORELICK: As you know, we were not intending to 

address the issues of "the day of" in this hearing, and it is the 

subject of a full additional hearing, and we may be back to you 

with these questions with a more precise timeline for you to look 

at. 

 Thank you very much. 

 MR. KERREY: Thank you. 

 Congressman Roemer? 

 MR. ROEMER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

 I want to just start by thanking you, Secretary Rumsfeld, 

General Myers, and Secretary Wolfowitz for your strong leadership 

for our men and women across the world in the armed services and 

the battles that they're fighting every day to protect us from 

this jihadist threat. We're very appreciative of your time and 

your statements and your recommendations here for the 9/11 

Commission. 
166

 Secretary Rumsfeld, my first question for you is a simple 

one. Did you consider al Qaeda to be a first-order threat? And 

particularly in the spring and the summer of 2001, how did you 

practice this priority? 

 SEC. RUMSFELD: I and others in the Administration did 

consider it a serious threat. The intelligence -- correction, go 

back through history. Their prior behavior, the statements that 

have been indicated by Senator Kerrey and the intelligence threat 

reports that one would read as we went along drove one to a 

conclusion that they were active, that they had been successful in 

some attacks and that they were planning, talking, chattering and 

hoping to do various types of damage. 

 I tried in my remarks to lay out how we addressed the 

concern. One level was at the National Security Council level and 

the planning and the process there. A second was to address the 

department as a whole and see if we couldn't strengthen our 

special forces, strengthen our agility, develop the ability to 

move faster, to move with smaller elements rather than large 

footprints, to --

 MR. ROEMER: But the special ops were not used during 

that time period, correct? 

 SEC. RUMSFELD: Not against al Qaeda. They were used in 

some other things, as I recall. 

 MR. ROEMER: So with reference to al Qaeda --

 SEC. RUMSFELD: But the changes to special ops are still 

taking place. It'll take probably another year for the process to 

-- for them to move from a supporting to a supported command 

requires them to develop the planning functions in key locations 

around the world and to rearrange themselves, both with respect to 

their organizational structure and their equipment. 

 MR. ROEMER: Let me put the question this way. And 

you're one that likes metrics and I like metrics to try to measure 

what kind of effectiveness we're having. The Clinton 

administration, fairly or unfairly, used a metric to say during 

the Millennium that they had a small group of the principals --

secretary of Defense, secretary of State, national security 

adviser, the President of the United States, Mr. Clarke -- that 

would meet almost on a daily basis during that millennium and try 

to make sure that they were taking in intelligence, responding to 

the terrorist threat, trying to push from the top down to the 
167

bottom decision-making on how to counter al Qaeda. What was your 

method of trying to fight al Qaeda from the DOD during the spring 

and summer, when these spikes and this intelligence were coming 

in? 

 You've got some very capable people. I see Mr. Cambone, 

sitting behind you, that is really very proficient in this. What 

were you doing and how were you pushing that out to the different 

departments, as the Clinton administration, for good or bad, 

successfully or unsuccessfully -- I'm not saying their model was 

the best one. 

 SEC. RUMSFELD: Well, we did it differently. You've 

mentioned the fact that they had a principals' meeting that met 

frequently. Our arrangement, as Secretary Powell mentioned this 

morning, was to -- Colin and Condi Rice and I talked every 

morning. We tended to talk after our intelligence briefings. We 

were able to discuss the items that we felt were important and 

needed action. We had lunch once a week, in addition to all of 

the principals' committee meetings and the National Security 

Council meetings. 

 Internally, we did a great deal with respect to Paul 

Wolfowitz and General Myers and our team, as it came on board, in 

terms of focusing the department. 

 But it was a different approach, just a fact. 

 MR. ROEMER: To the metric of the Clinton administration 

-- and again, I'm -- we'll be talking to Mr. Clarke tomorrow, 

probably grilling him on what the Clinton administration did right 

and did wrong. One of the metrics, again, for the Clinton 

administration was principals' meetings and how many they had on a 

particular topic, right or wrong. Were there principal meetings 

on al Qaeda and terrorism before September the 4th? 

 SEC. RUMSFELD: Oh, there were certainly principals' 

meetings where it was discussed. Whether it was the sole topic or 

not, the records -- you have those records, and you would know. 

 MR. ROEMER: Right. 

 SEC. RUMSFELD: I left out a --

 MR. ROEMER: Our records say no --

 SEC. RUMSFELD: Is that right? 
168

 MR. ROEMER: -- that the first principals' meeting on 

terrorism was not until September 4th. 

 SEC. RUMSFELD: Just solely on that topic. 

 I should add a couple of other things that were going on. 

The -- in addition to meeting with the President in the National 

Security Council meetings, I was meeting with the President every 

week separately. And unquestionably, as we -- Dick, General 

Myers, and I do it together almost always, and often Secretary 

Wolfowitz. 

 The other thing we did was, I made a decision early on 

that the single most important thing we could do that would 

benefit us in terms of these types of problems would be to develop 

an exceedingly close link with the Central Intelligence Agency and 

the intelligence community. And as a result, George Tenet, who I 

knew and respected, and I started eating lunch with either Paul or 

Dick Myers or Steve Cambone, and one or two of his key people, 

depending on the topic, and have done it consistently for the last 

three years. And we did it during that period. And it has, in my 

view, been critically important to link those two institutions 

together, and I do believe they are as well linked together today 

as probably ever in history. 

 GEN. MYERS: I would -- I would say there's one other 

thing that the secretary did as well. And that was when 

developing the QDR, which we had to start right after the 

secretary came into office, by law, was to develop as part of our 

strategy, articulate for the first time in my memory that we had 

to set aside forces for homeland defense. And it's the first time 

we've ever articulated that in our strategy, which set us up 

pretty well when we wanted to create NORTHCOM, Northern Command, 

because we thought about it up to that point. But that was just 

one example. I mean, there are lots of things we did in that area 

that were different. 

 SEC. RUMSFELD: And also, I forget the timing of it, but 

we worked to get the Congress to allow us to establish an 

undersecretary for intelligence that Dr. Cambone now sits in. 

 MR. ROEMER: With respect to Dr. Albright's testimony 

this morning, some of us were critical of the Clinton 

administration's failure to respond to the U.S.S. Cole bombing. 

That took place -- as you know, 17 sailors were killed -- on 

October the 12th, 2000. They had several months to deal with 
169

that, and they had a CIA briefing in December which was hedged, 

which wanted to try to point command and control to Osama Bin

Ladin, although they said al Qaeda was responsible. Why didn't we 

take action in the Bush administration? I know you said in your 

opening statement that it was old and stale. 

 The terrorists attacked the World Trade Center in 1993. 

And then they came back seven years later and attacked the same 

World Trade Centers. "Stale" and "old" and "patience" are words 

that I'm not sure -- you know, they're -- at least "patience" is 

in the jihadist lexicon. Why don't we, why didn't we adopt that 

kind of approach earlier, to say we are going to make you pay a 

price for this? Four months from now, four years from now, we're 

going to go after your camps. We're going to tell terrorists that 

come from Morocco or Algeria or other places we may not get Bin

Ladin with a cruise missile, but we're going to maybe get some 

people coming from other terrorist organizations. They're going 

to think twice before they come to a sanctuary. 

 SEC. RUMSFELD: Well, I wish that were the case. You 

could -- you can hit their terrorist training camps over and over 

and over and expend millions of dollars in U.S. weapons against 

targets that are dirt and tents and accomplish next to nothing. 

From a cost-benefit ratio, it just doesn't compute. Second, the 

risk -- the bigger risk is that they will assume again that the 

United States is -- basically that's all they can do, is to pop a 

weapon into a training camp, bounce the rubble another couple of 

times and then stop. And we've seen enough of the terrorists that 

they have gone to school on us, they watched what happened in 

Somalia, they have watched various reactions to their activities 

and come to conclusions about it. And to the extent they think 

you're weak, they'll go after you. And to the extent they think 

you're not weak and you put pressure on them, you complicate their 

lives. 

 And we were -- right or wrong, I and many of us were 

concerned that another missile attack after we get into office in 

February or March or April, without having a policy, without 

having a plan that was different, distinctly different, would be a 

mistake and indeed a sign of weakness, not strength. 

 MR. ROEMER: We've just heard, Mr. Secretary, from many 

people who have said that while these training camps may have been 

categorized as jungle gyms or playgrounds with swings, rope swings 

on them, that other people said that they were human conveyor 

belts of jihadists determined to kill Americans anywhere they 

could. 
170

 SEC. RUMSFELD: That's true. 

 MR. ROEMER: So the cost-benefit ratio of a milliondollar cruise missile to taking out some people that can come kill 

others was one we just didn't consider, I don't think, in the 

right kind of cost-benefit analysis in the long run. 

 One final question. 

 Secretary Wolfowitz, this is -- again, to be fair, and I 

want to shoot straight with you on this, we have Mr. Clarke coming 

up tomorrow, and he has a reference in his book to a December --

excuse me, to an April 30th deputies meeting where he claims --

and we want to know if this is accurate or not so that we can ask 

him the direct questions tomorrow -- he claims that in this 

meeting, when they are talking about a plan to go forward to go 

after Bin Ladin and al Qaeda, that you brought up the subject of 

Iraq and that you said -- you put too much attention on Iraq as a 

sponsor, as a state sponsor of terrorism, and not enough emphasis 

on al Qaeda as a transnational sponsor of terrorism. I have just 

two comments or two questions on that. One would be, is that 

fairly accurate? Is his portrayal of that deputies meeting 

accurate at all or accurate to some degree? And secondly, in an 

interagency meeting, where dialogue and discussion of these things 

should take place -- that's what the interagency process is about 

-- isn't that where these discussions should take place, that 

opinions should be bounced back and forth and debate should be 

heated at times about the different threats to the world? 

 MR. WOLFOWITZ: Thanks for giving me a chance to comment. 

Before I do that, let me just make a comment on the last exchange 

you had with Secretary Rumsfeld. 

 MR. ROEMER: Please. 

 MR. WOLFOWITZ: And it applies to quite a few comments, 

including Senator Gorton's question about the luxury of seven 

months. I think there's a basic difficulty of understanding what 

a plan really is. A plan is not a military option. A military 

option is to a plan what a single play in football is to a whole 

game plan. And this notion that there's a single thing that if we 

had only done it, it would work, is like a "Hail Mary pass" in 

football, which is what a desperate losing team does in a hope 

that maybe they can pull things off at the end. 
171

 A plan has got to anticipate what the enemy will do next. 

It has to anticipate what the government of Pakistan will do. It 

has to anticipate what world reaction will be. It has to go down 

many pathways. And it's not a timetable. No one can tell you 

what's going to happen next. You have to be able to call plays 

and call audibles. And that's why to put a plan together in seven 

months wasn't a long period of time, even if we'd had everybody on 

board. It was actually rather fast. 

 And I give you as an illustration, in 2002, in January, 

when the President said okay, I want to see military options for 

Iraq, it wasn't until nine months later, I believe, that he 

finally said okay, I see that we have a military option against 

Iraq. And that still wasn't a plan because that only allowed him 

to go to the United Nations and be prepared to use all necessary 

means, it wasn't a decision to use all necessary means. And 

General Franks' planning continued for another five or six months. 

 So I think there's, A, a failure to understand just how 

complex planning is. And we could get into this. 

 But to Senator Gorton, I fail to understand how anything 

done in 2001 in Afghanistan would have prevented 9/11. 

 And certainly, Congressman Roemer, the option you present 

of killing a few relatively low-level al Qaeda in some camp in 

Afghanistan might have been a worthy thing to do as part of a 

general plan, but it certainly wasn't going to affect 9/11 -- 

 MR. ROEMER: Well, Paul, just --

 MR. WOLFOWITZ: -- except, as the secretary said, to have 

made 9/11 look like a retaliation. 

 So let's keep some clarity. 

 MR. ROEMER: Again, perspective. The point is not --

we're not saying that you could have prevented or should have 

prevented, with that particular one action, 9/11. We're saying 

that there's no silver bullet. 

 MR. WOLFOWITZ: Let's be clear, the retaliation -- the 

retaliation --

 MR. ROEMER: There were a host of options that could have 

been out there. There are a host of things. 
172

 MR. WOLFOWITZ: -- for the embassy bombings did nothing 

to prevent the attack on the Cole, right? 

 MR. ROEMER: We're not just saying, you know, a cruise 

missile going into Afghanistan. We're talking about the breadth 

of policy here, Northern Alliance; covert operations --

 MR. WOLFOWITZ: And Congressman, that's exactly what took 

seven months. 

 MR. ROEMER: -- cruise missiles. 

 MR. WOLFOWITZ: It was started in April with the notion 

of attriting the Taliban --

 MR. ROEMER: Okay, fair enough. 

 MR. WOLFOWITZ: -- by assisting the Northern Alliance. 

By September, we said the goal is to eliminate Afghanistan as a 

sanctuary for al Qaeda, a much more ambitious thing. 

 With respect to Mr. Clarke, and let me say, I haven't 

read the book yet. I was called by a reporter on the weekend with 

a quote from the book attributed to me. I tried to get the book. 

It wasn't available in bookstores. It was only available to 

selected reporters. And I got it yesterday, but I did not have 

time to read it in the last 24 hours. I'll get to it at some 

point. 

 But with respect to the quote that the reporter presented 

as having been put in my mouth, which was an objection to Mr. 

Clarke suggesting that ignoring the rhetoric of al Qaeda would be 

like ignoring Hitler's rhetoric in "Mein Kampf," I can't recall 

ever saying anything remotely like that. I don't believe I could 

have. In fact, I frequently have said something more nearly the 

opposite of what Clarke attributes to me. I've often used that 

precise analogy of Hitler and "Mein Kampf" as a reason why we 

should take threatening rhetoric seriously, particularly in the 

case of terrorism and Saddam Hussein. So I'm generally critical 

of the tendency to dismiss threats as simply rhetoric, and I know 

that the quote Clarke attributed to me does not represent my views 

then or now. And that meeting was a long meeting about seven 

different subjects, all of them basically related to al Qaeda and 

Afghanistan. 

 By the way, I know of at least one other instance of Mr. 

Clarke's creative memory. Shortly after September 11th, as part 
173

of his assertion that he had vigorously pursued the possibility of 

Iraqi involvement in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, he wrote 

in a memo that, and I'm quoting here, "when the bombing happened, 

he focused on Iraq as the possible culprit because of Iraqi 

involvement in the attempted assassination of President Bush in 

Kuwait the same month," unquote. In fact, the attempted 

assassination of President Bush happened two months later. It 

just seems to be another instance where Mr. Clarke's memory is 

playing tricks on him. 

 MR. ROEMER: You're doing pretty well for not having read 

the book, Paul. (Laughter.) 

 MR. WOLFOWITZ: I read the quote. 

 MR. ROEMER: Let me just say --

 SEC. RUMSFELD: Mr. Chairman? 

 MR. KEAN: Congressmen, we've got to move on to the next 

Commissioner. 

 MR. ROEMER: Okay. Let me just say in conclusion, thank 

you for those remarks, and we do have Secretary Armitage in the 

private interviews with us saying that he thought that the 

committee process has not moved speedily before or after 9/11, the 

deputy meeting process and the process on a seven-month or ninemonth plan. 

 MR. WOLFOWITZ: Government doesn't move fast enough in 

general. I agree with that. 

 SEC. RUMSFELD: Mr. Chairman, may I make a comment also? 

I want to make certain there's no misunderstanding. I would have 

supported missile attacks on training camps anywhere had I 

believed that we could have achieved the goal that you suggest of 

killing jihadists. 

 And the issue is that what happens is, frequently, we know 

that people are posted and they know when things are going to 

happen, and people empty those camps from time-to-time. In fact, 

we've seen reactions when ships or planes or missiles begin to go 

someplace that they go to school on that and move out. So the 

fact that a weapon costs a lot more than a training camp is no 

reason not to do it. The only reason for not doing it is if you, 

as I indicated, are working on a plan that you think is more 
174

comprehensive and you believe you can do a better job a different 

way. 

 MR. ROEMER: Thank you. 

 MR. WOLFOWITZ: In case I wasn't clear, I was not 

dismissive of al Qaeda as a threat. The whole meeting was about 

al Qaeda. I also believed that state support for terrorism was a 

problem, but I've never been dismissive of al Qaeda, I think 

precisely because I think terrorism is such a serious problem, as 

I testified as early as my confirmation hearing. 

 MR. ROEMER: Thank you. 

 MR. KEAN: The last questioner from the Commission is 

Secretary Lehman. 

 MR. LEHMAN: Thank you. 

 Mr. Secretary, I hesitate to cite Mr. Clarke as an 

authority after the last exchange -- (chuckles) --

 SEC. RUMSFELD: (Chuckles.) 

 MR. LEHMAN: -- but he is extremely critical, as has been 

reported, about successive responses or lack of responses over the 

prior eight years from the Pentagon when options -- not plans, but 

options -- were requested by the White House to retaliate against 

Khobar, against various options. You yourself are reported by 

another -- about the same credibility author as being particularly 

unhappy about the options presented to you by the Chiefs after 

9/11. 

 I assume from what I read in the press that what is under 

way now in planning and moving SOCOM from being a supporting to a 

supported staff moves in the direction of somewhat 

institutionalizing the flexibility and the agility that you all 

demonstrated so brilliantly in the Iraq war. And that leads to 

the question that our staff has been looking into and others have 

recommended to us -- that perhaps the dichotomy that we have 

between the Title 50 responsibilities of CIA and the Title 10 

responsibilities of your building is obsolete, and that, really, 

probably SOCOM, or its -- what it devolves into, may well be, or 

should be, designated as the chosen instrument for transnational 

counterterrorism particularly, and that the Title 50 issues be 

dealt with head on and CIA be gotten out of the covert and special 
175

operations missions and have all of them under the authority of 

SOCOM. 

 SEC. RUMSFELD: Let me make a couple of comments, 

Secretary Lehman. 

 First, the reports that I've been unhappy about military 

plans. Dick Myers will agree with me that that is probably partly 

due to the plans and partly due to my -- the fact that I'm 

genetically impatient. And you can be sure that the men and women 

in the Department of Defense, in the combatant commands, in the 

joint staff, do a superb job. They really do a wonderful job. 

When they bring up something to Dick Myers or to me, we do not 

accept it. We question it, we push it, we probe it, we challenge 

it, we test it. And we force them to go back and answer 50 other 

questions. And so it's not surprising that people say we're 

unhappy. 

 I think that the result of the superb job General Franks 

did with his team is an example of the product, and it was truly 

remarkable what he did and what the Special Forces people did when 

they were put in there in small numbers, all across that country, 

to work with the local militias in Afghanistan, and accomplish 

what they accomplished in such a short period of time, with such 

precision and such skill and such courage. 

 The question you asked, I am -- I don't feel that I've 

spent enough time thinking about it to know how to answer your

question. It's a question that is probably fair to ask. The way 

we solve our problems is that on -- if you take the agency and the 

Department of Defense, what we have done is recognize there's a 

seam between us, just as there's seam between our combatant

commands in the areas of responsibility, and that we have to 

address the seam. 

 And how do you do that? And very often, we do it where 

George Tenet will say, Look, we're going to do x, and we need x 

number of your people to join our team; we don't have those 

competences. And we'll use the authorities that he has and some 

of our skill sets. It might be radio people, it might be medical 

people, it might be something else. And they then execute an 

activity with people on loan to them, functioning under their 

authority. And the reverse. There are times when we do things 

under our authorities. And they second people to our activities. 

 Now, that's how you get around the problem. And it's --

it seems to me that it isn't perfect. But life isn't perfect. 
176

There are always going to be seams, no matter how you organize or 

how you arrange yourself. And you can have a lousy organizational 

arrangement, and you can have authorizations that date back to the 

Industrial Age, and you have good people, and you can find ways to 

solve a lot of those problems. And you could have a perfect 

organizational arrangement and people that aren't working together 

well, and it's terrible. 

 Dick, do you want to comment on that? 

 GEN. MYERS: Well, I -- you know, I probably haven't 

finished my thinking on this, either. But you're correct in terms 

of SOCOM. It was essentially a fifth service, organized, trained 

and equipped. What the secretary has recommended to the President

and what the President has done has given them -- made them 

operational. And so now they're -- they have the operational 

responsibility. It will take some years for them to grow into 

that. But they're being pushed very hard to do that. 

 In terms of the relationship between the Department of 

Defense and the CIA in operations, I don't view it as a zero-sum 

game. I think there's room in the battle space for lots of 

players with different skills. 

 The question is, how do we put them together, I think, was 

what the secretary was talking about. And that teamwork -- I can 

only speak for the time that I've been here, but the teamwork is 

pretty darn good, actually. 

 MR. LEHMAN: Thank you very much. 

 GEN. MYERS: And I would make one other comment on that, 

Secretary Lehman. The Special Operations Command, besides having 

the operational responsibility, is also being provided special 

authorities. And I will just stop there. 

 MR. KEAN: Thank you very much. Thank you, General 

Myers, Assistant Secretary Wolfowitz, Secretary Rumsfeld. 

 I might say this. Secretary Rumsfeld, I think people 

ought to know, has been extraordinarily helpful to this commission 

from day one. The time he spent with us, the time we (sic) spent 

with members of the Commission, the time he spent with members of 

our staff is very deeply appreciated, and I hope you allow us to 

come back to you as we move toward the recommendation stage, 

because we need your help and your wisdom. 
177

 SEC. RUMSFELD: Indeed we will, and thank you very much. 

We -- what you're doing is enormously important, and we wish you 

well. 

 MR. KEAN: Thank you very much. 

 Tomorrow we'll turn our attention to the topic of 

clandestine and covert action and furtherance of counterterrorism 

policy goals and national counterterrorism policy coordination. 

It was a long day today. It's going to be longer tomorrow. 

Eight-thirty the gavel will fall. (Strikes gavel.) 

END.