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PANEL I DAY TWO OF THE EIGHTH PUBLIC HEARING OF THE NATIONAL 

COMMISSION ON TERRORIST ATTACKS UPON THE UNITED STATES 

RE: INTELLIGENCE POLICY AND NATIONAL POLICY COORDINATION

CHAIRED BY: THOMAS KEAN, FORMER GOVERNOR (R-NJ)

WITNESS: CIA DIRECTOR GEORGE TENET

216 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C.

8:33 A.M. EST, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 24, 2004 

MR. KEAN: I'd like to call today's hearing to order. 

Yesterday we looked at the diplomatic and military aspects of 

national counterterrorism policy leading to September 11th 2001. 

We heard from the current and the former secretaries of state and 

defense. Today we'll hear about intelligence policy and national 

policy coordination. 

Our first panel will investigate the CIA's efforts to disrupt 

al Qaeda operations and bin Ladin in the Afghanistan sanctuary. 

Shedding light on all this with Director of Central Intelligence 

George Tenet. 

Before we hear from him, we'll begin as we did yesterday with 

the staff statement. These statements are informed by the work of 

the Commissioners as well as the staff, and represent the staff's 

best effort to reconstruct the factual record. Judgments and 

recommendations are for commissioners and the Commission to make, 

which we will do during the course of our work, and most 

importantly in our final report. 

Delivering the statement on the role of intelligence policy 

and national counterterrorism policy will be our executive 

director, Dr. Philip Zelikow and our deputy executive director, 

Chris Kojm. 

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 our intelligence 

agencies in countering terrorism. These findings may help frame 

some of the issues for these hearings and inform the development 

of your judgments and recommendations. 

Today we will focus on the role of the Central Intelligence 

Agency as an instrument of national policy. The issues -- I want 

to emphasize this -- the issues related to the collection of 

intelligence, analysis and warning, and the management of the 

intelligence community will be taken up at the Commission's 
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hearing next month, by the way in which we expect to hear from 

DCI Tenet again. This report reflects the results of our work so 

far. We remain ready to revise our understanding of events are 

our investigation progresses. 

This staff statement represents the collective effort of a 

number of members of our staff. Alexis Albion, Michael Hurley, 

Dan Marcus, Lloyd Salvetti and Steve Dunne did much of the 

investigative work reflected in this statement. For this area of 

our work, we were fortunate in being able to build upon a great 

deal of excellent work already done by the congressional Joint 

Inquiry. The Central Intelligence Agency has cooperated fully in 

making available both the documents and interviews we've needed 

so far on this topic. 

I'd now like to turn to our deputy executive director and 

former deputy assistant secretary of State for intelligence, 

Christopher Kojm. 

MR. KOJM: Thank you. The CIA plays a dual role in 

counterterrorism. Like other members of the intelligence 

community, the CIA is an intelligence producer. It collects and 

analyzes foreign intelligence and provides this information to 

policymakers. When directed by the President, the CIA is also 

responsible for executing policy through the conduct of covert 

action. 

The director of central intelligence, from whom you will hear 

this morning, also has dual responsibilities. He is the 

President's senior intelligence advisor. He is also the head of 

an agency, the CIA, that executes policy. In speaking with the 

Commission, DCI Tenet was blunt, quote, "I am not a policymaker," 

end of quote. He presents intelligence and offers operational 

judgments, but he says it is ultimately up policymakers to decide 

how best to use that intelligence. Quote, "It is their job to 

figure out where I fit into their puzzle," end of quote, Tenet 

said. 

Both the DCI and the deputy director for operations, James 

Pavitt, invoked lessons learned from the Iran-contra scandal: The 

CIA should stay well behind the lines separating policymaker from 

policy implementer. "The CIA does not initiate operations unless 

it is to support of policy directive," said Tenet. For Pavitt, 

the lesson of Iran-contra was, quote, "We don't do policy from 

out here, and you don't want us to," end of quote. 
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Yet, as a member of the National Security Council, the DCI is 

one of a handful of senior officials who advises the President on 

national security. The DCI's operational judgments can and did 

influence key decisions on the U.S. government's policy toward al 

Qaeda. In the case of al Qaeda, the line between policymaker and 

policy implementer is hard to discern. 

Renditions. Under the presidential directives in the Clinton 

administration, Presidential Decision Directive 39 and PDD 62, 

the CIA had two main operational responsibilities for combating 

terrorism, rendition and disruption. We will first discuss the 

CIA's support with renditions. In other words, if a terrorist 

suspect is outside of the United States, the CIA helps to catch 

and send him to the United States or a third country. Overseas 

officials of CIA, the FBI and the State Department may locate the 

terrorist suspect, perhaps using their own sources. If possible, 

they seek help from a foreign government. Though the FBI is often 

part of the process, the CIA is usually the main player, building 

and defining the relationships with the foreign government 

intelligence agencies and internal security services. 

The CIA often plays an active role, sometimes calling upon 

the support of other agencies for logistical or transportation 

assistance. Director Tenet has publicly testified that 70 

terrorists were rendered and brought to justice before 9/11. 

These activities could only achieve so much. In countries 

where the CIA did not have cooperative relationships with local 

security services, the rendition strategy often failed. In at 

least two such cases when the CIA decided to seek the assistance 

of the host country, the target may have been tipped off and 

escaped. In the case of bin Ladin, the United States had no 

diplomatic or intelligence officers living or working in 

Afghanistan. Nor was the Taliban regime inclined to cooperate. 

The CIA would have to look for other ways to bring bin Ladin to 

justice. 

Disruptions. Under the relevant directive of the Clinton 

administration, foreign terrorists who posed a credible threat to 

the United States were subject to, quote, "preemption and 

destruction," end of quote, abroad, consistent with U.S. laws. 

The CIA had the lead. 

Where terrorists could not be brought to justice in the 

United States or a third country, the CIA could try to disrupt 

their operations, attacking the cells of al Qaeda operatives or 

affiliated groups. The CIA encouraged foreign intelligence 
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services to make creative use of laws already in place to 

investigate, detain and otherwise harass known or suspected 

terrorists. 

Disruptions of suspected terrorist cells thwarted numerous 

plots against American interests abroad, particularly during high 

threat periods. After the embassy bombings of 1998, the U.S. 

government disrupted planned attacks against at least one 

American embassy, in Albania. In late 1999, preceding the 

Millennium celebrations, the activities of 21 individuals were 

disrupted in eight countries. In two subsequent phases of 

intensive threat reporting, the Ramadan period in late 2000 and 

the summer prior to 9/11, the CIA again went into what the DCI 

described as Millennium threat mode, engaging a foreign liaison 

and disrupting operations around the world. 

At least one planned terrorist attack in Europe may have been 

successfully disrupted during the summer of 2001. Rendition and 

disruptions continued as an important component of U.S. 

counterterrorism policy throughout the period leading up to 9/11. 

They are still widely used today. 

Using covert action in Afghanistan. To disrupt bin Ladin

himself or his base in Afghanistan, a very different strategy of 

disruption would have to be developed. In 1996, as an 

organizational experiment, undertaken with seed money, the 

Counterterrorism Center at the CIA created a special issues 

station devoted exclusively to bin Ladin. Bin Ladin was then 

still in Sudan, and was considered by the CIA to be a terrorist 

financier. The original name of the station was TFL, standing for 

"terrorist financial links." The bin Ladin station was not a 

response to new intelligence, but reflected interest in and 

concern about bin Ladin's connections. 

The CIA believed that bin Ladin's move to Afghanistan in May 

1996 might be a fortunate development. The CIA knew the ground in 

Afghanistan, as its officers had worked with indigenous tribal 

forces during the war against the Soviet Union. The CIA 

definitely had a lucky break when a former associate of bin Ladin

walked into a U.S. Embassy abroad and provided an abundance of 

information about the organization. These revelations were 

corroborated by other intelligence. 

By early 1997, the UBL station knew that bin Ladin was not 

just a financier but an organize of terrorist activity. It knew 

that al Qaeda had a military committee, planning operations 

against U.S. interests worldwide, and was actively trying to 
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obtain nuclear material. Although this information was 

disseminated in many reports, the unit's sense of alarm about bin 

Ladin was not widely shared or understood within the intelligence 

and policy committees. Employees in the unit told us they felt 

their zeal attracted ridicule from their peers. 

In 1997, CIA headquarters authorized U.S. officials to begin 

developing a network of agents to gather intelligence inside 

Afghanistan about bin Ladin and his organization -- and prepare a 

plan to capture him. But 1998, DCI Tenet was giving considerable 

personal attention to the bin Ladin threat. 

Since its inception, the UBL station had been working on a 

covert action plan to capture bin Ladin and bring him to justice. 

The plan had been elaborately developed by the spring of 1998. 

Its final variant in this period used Afghan tribal fighters 

recruited by the CIA to assault a terrorist compound where bin 

Ladin might be found, capture him if possible, and take him to a 

location where he could be picked up and transported to the 

United States. 

Though the plan had dedicated proponents in the bin Ladin

unit, and was discussed for months among top policymakers, all of 

the CIA's leadership and the key official in the field agreed 

that the odds of failure were too high. They did not recommend it 

for approval by the White House. 

After the East Africa bombings, President Clinton signed 

successive authorizations for the CIA to undertake offensive 

operations in Afghanistan against bin Ladin. Each new document 

responded to an opportunity to use local forces from various 

countries against bin Ladin himself, and later his principal 

lieutenants. These were authorizations for the conduct of 

operations in which people on both sides could be killed. 

Policymakers devoted careful attention to crafting these 

sensitive and closely-held documents. 

In accordance with these authorities, the CIA developed 

successive covert action programs using particular indigenous 

groups or proxies who might be able to operate in different parts 

of Afghanistan. These proxies would also try to provide 

intelligence on bin Ladin and his organization, with an eye to 

finding bin Ladin and then ambushing him if the opportunity 

arose. 

The CIA's Afghan assets reported on about a half a dozen 

occasions before 9/11 that they had considered attacking bin 
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Ladin, usually as he traveled in his convoy along the rough 

Afghan roads. Each time the operation was reportedly aborted. 

Several times the Afghans said that bin Ladin had taken a 

different route than expected. On one occasion security was said 

to be too tight to capture him. Another time they heard women and 

children's voices from inside the convoy, and abandoned the 

assault for fear of killing innocents, in accordance with CIA 

guidelines. 

The Plan. As time passed, morale in the bin Ladin unit 

sagged. The former deputy chief told the Joint Inquiry that they 

felt like they were buying time, trying to stop bin Ladin and 

disrupting al Qaeda members until military force could be used. 

In June 1999, National Security Adviser Berger reported to 

President Clinton that covert action efforts against bin Ladin

had not been fruitful. 

In the summer of 1999, new leaders arrived at the 

Counterterrorism Center in the bin Ladin unit. The new director 

of that center was Cofer Black. He and his aides worked on a new 

operational strategy for going after al Qaeda. The focus was on 

getting better intelligence. They proposed a shift from reliance 

on the Afghan proxies alone to an effort to creating the CIA's 

own sources. They called the new strategy simply "the plan." The 

plan also proposed increasing contacts between the CIA and the 

Northern Alliance rebels fighting the Taliban. 

The Predator. The plan resulted in increased reporting on al 

Qaeda. Still, going into the year 2000, the CIA had never laid 

American eyes on bin Ladin in Afghanistan. President Clinton 

prodded his advisers to do better. National Security Council 

counterterrorism coordinator Richard Clarke helped assistant DCI 

for collection, Charles Allen, and Vice Admiral Scott Fry of the 

Joint Staff work together on the military's ongoing efforts to 

develop new collection capabilities inside Afghanistan. With the 

NSC staff's backing, the Counterterrorism Center and the military 

came up with a proposal to fly an unmanned drone, called the 

Predator, over Afghanistan to survey the territory below and 

relay video footage. That information, the White House hoped, 

could either boost U.S. knowledge of al Qaeda or be used to kill 

bin Ladin with a cruise missile. 

Assistant DCI Allen said that the CIA's senior management was 

originally reluctant to go ahead with the Predator program, 

adding that, quote, "It was a bloody struggle," end of quote. But 

the NSC staff was firm, and the CIA agreed to fly the Predator as 
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a trial concept. Drones were flown successfully over Afghanistan 

16 times in fall 2000. At least twice the Predator saw a security 

detail around a tall man in a white robe whom some analysts 

determined was probably bin Ladin. The Predator was spotted by 

Taliban forces. They were unable to intercept it, but the Afghan 

press service publicized the discovery of a strange aircraft that 

it speculated might be looking for bin Ladin. 

When winter weather prevented the Predator from flying during 

the remainder of 2000, the Counterterrorism Center looked forward 

to resuming flights in 2001. 

The U.S.S. Cole. When the American destroyer, the U.S.S. 

Cole, was bombed in Yemen in October 2000, al Qaeda was 

immediately suspected of having struck again. The 

Counterterrorism Center developed an offensive initiative for 

Afghanistan, regardless of policy or financial constraints. It 

was called the Blue Sky Memo. In December 2000, the CIA sent this 

to the NSC staff. The memo recommended increased support to antiTaliban groups and to proxies who might ambush bin Ladin. The 

Counterterrorism Center also proposed a major effort to back 

Northern Alliance forces in order to stave off the Taliban army 

and tie down al Qaeda fighters, thereby hindering terrorist 

activities elsewhere. 

No action was taken on these ideas in the few remaining weeks 

of the Clinton administration. The Blue Sky Memo itself was not 

apparently discussed with the incoming top Bush administration 

officials during the transition. The Counterterrorism Center 

began pressing these proposals after the new team took office. 

The Bush administration. The CIA briefed President-elect 

George W. Bush and the incoming national security officials on 

covert action programs in Afghanistan. Deputy DCI McLaughlin said 

that he walked through the elements of the al Qaeda problem with 

National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, including an 

explanation of the special authorities signed by President 

Clinton. DCI Tenet and Deputy Director for Operations Pavitt gave 

an intelligence briefing to President-elect Bush, Vice Presidentelect Cheney and Dr. Rice, which included the topic of al Qaeda. 

Pavitt recalled conveying that bin Ladin was one of the gravest 

threats to the country. President-elect Bush asked whether 

killing bin Ladin would end the problem. Pavitt said he and the 

DCI answered that killing bin Ladin would have an impact, but not 

stop the threat. 
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The CIA later provided more formal assessments to the White 

House, reiterating that conclusion. It added that the only longterm way to deal with the threat was to add al Qaeda's ability to 

use Afghanistan as a sanctuary for its operations. 

Arming Predator. During fall of 2000, Clarke and other

counterterrorism officials learned of a promising and energetic 

Air Force effort that was already trying to arm the Predator with 

missiles. Clarke and Assistant DCI Allen urged flying the 

reconnaissance version of the Predator in the spring as soon as 

the weather improved, and using the armed Predator against bin 

Ladin as soon as possible. 

DCI Tenet, supported by military officers and the Joint Staff 

balked at this plan. They did not want to go ahead with 

reconnaissance flights alone, and argued for waiting until the 

armed version was ready before flying Predator again. Given the 

experience in the fall of 2000, they worried that flying the 

reconnaissance version would forfeit the element of surprise for 

the armed Predator. They also feared one of these scarce aircraft 

might be shot down, since Taliban radar had previously tracked 

it, forcing it into a more vulnerable flight path. They also 

contended that there were not enough Predators to be able to 

conduct reconstruction flights over Afghanistan and still have 

aircraft left over for the testing then underway in the United 

States to develop the armed version. 

Clarke believed that these arguments were stalling tactics by 

CIA's risk-averse directorate of operations. He wanted the 

reconnaissance flights to begin on their own, both for collection 

and to allow for possible strikes with other military forces. He 

thought the reconnaissance flights could be conducted with fewer 

aircraft than had been used in 2000, so that testing on the armed 

version might continue.

DCI Tenet's position prevailed--the reconnaissance flights 

were deferred while work continued on the armed version. 

The armed Predator was being readied at an accelerated pace 

during 2001. The Air Force officials who managed the program told 

us that the policy arguments, including quarrels about who would 

pay for the aircraft, had no effect on their timetable for 

operations. The timetable was instead driven by a variety of 

technical issues. A program that would ordinarily have taken 

years was, they said, finished in months. They were, quote, 

"throwing out the books on the normal acquisition process just to 

press on and get it done," end of quote. 
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In July, Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley 

ordered that the armed Predator be ready by September 1st. CIA 

officials supported these accelerated efforts. The Air Force 

program manager told us that they were still resolving technical 

issues as of 9/11 and, quote, "We just took what we had and 

deployed it," end of quote. 

Meanwhile, policymakers were arguing about the unprecedented 

step of creating a missile system for use by an agency outside of 

the Department of Defense. DCI Tenet was concerned. At a meeting 

of NSC principals on September 4th, National Security Adviser 

Rice summarized a consensus that the armed Predator was not ready 

but that the capability was needed. The group left often issues 

related to command and control. In the meantime, the principals 

committee agreed that the CIA should consider going ahead with 

flying reconnaissance missions with the Predator. Shortly after 

the meeting, DCI Tenet agreed to proceed with such flights. 

Developing a new strategy. The new Administration's policy 

review apparently began in March, and continued throughout the 

spring and summer of 2001. At the end of May, National Security 

Adviser Rice met with DCI Tenet and their counterterrorism 

experts. She asked about, quote, "taking the offensive," end of 

quote, against al Qaeda, and asked Clarke and the 

Counterterrorism Center chief, Cofer Black, to develop a full 

range of options. A plan for a larger covert action effort was a 

major component of the new al Qaeda strategy codified in a draft 

presidential directive that was first circulated in early June. 

The emerging covert action built upon the ideas that the CIA 

and Clarke had been working on since December 2001. A noticeable 

change was that Rice and Hadley wanted to place less emphasis on 

the Northern Alliance and more on anti-Taliban Pashtuns. 

Clarke was impatient to get at least some money to the 

Northern Alliance right away in order to keep them in the fight. 

Meanwhile, the intelligence community began to receive its 

greatest volume of threat reporting since the Millennium plot. 

By late July, there were indications of multiple, possibly 

catastrophic terrorist attacks being planned against American 

interests overseas. The Counterterrorism Center identified 30 

possible overseas targets and launched disruption operations 

around the world. 

Some CIA officials expressed frustration about the pace of 

policymaking during the stressful summer of 2001. Although Tenet 
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said he thought the policy machinery was working in what he 

called a rather orderly fashion, Deputy DCI McLaughlin told us he 

felt a great tension, especially in June and July 2001, between 

the new Administration's need to understand these issues and his 

sense that this was a matter of great urgency. 

Officials, including McLaughlin, were also frustrated when 

some policymakers, who had not lived through such threat surges 

before, questioned the validity of the intelligence or wondered 

if it was disinformation, though they were persuaded once they 

probed it. 

Two veteran Counterterrorism Center officers who were deeply 

involved in bin Ladin issues were so worried about an impending 

disaster that one of them told us that they considered resigning 

and going public with their concerns. 

DCI Tenet, who was briefing the President and his top 

advisers daily, told us that his sense was that officials at the 

White House had grasped the sense of urgency he was communicating 

to them. 

By early August, DCI Tenet said that intelligence suggested 

that whatever terrorist activity might have been originally 

planned had been delayed. At the same time, the deputies 

committee reached a consensus on a new Afghan policy, paving the 

way for Northern Alliance aid. 

NSC principals apparently endorsed the new presidential 

directive on al Qaeda at their meeting on September 4th. On 

September 10th, Deputy National Security Adviser Hadley formally 

tasked DCI Tenet to draw up new draft authorities for the broad 

covert action program envisioned in that directive, including 

significant additional funding and involving Pashtun elements as 

well as the Northern Alliance. 

Events would, of course, overtake this tasking. Within days 

of the September 11th attacks, a new counterterrorism policy was 

in place. 

Key issue areas. The story of CIA activities before 9/11 

brings up a number of key issues for considering how policymakers 

made use of covert capabilities for attacking bin Ladin. Many CIA 

officers, including Deputy Director for Operations Pavitt, have 

criticized policymakers for not giving the CIA authority to 

conduct effective operations against bin Ladin. 
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This issue manifested itself in a debate about the scope of 

the covert actions in Afghanistan authorized by President 

Clinton. NSC staff and CIA officials differ starkly here. 

Senior NSC staff members told us they believed the 

President's intent was clear: He wanted bin Ladin dead. On 

successive occasions, President Clinton issued authorities 

instructing the CIA to use its proxies to capture or assault bin 

Ladin and his lieutenants in operations in which they might be 

killed. The instructions, except in one defined contingency, were 

to capture bin Ladin if possible. 

Senior legal advisers in the Clinton administration agreed 

that, under the law of armed conflict, killing a person who posed 

an imminent threat to the United States was an act of selfdefense, not an assassination. As former National Security 

Adviser Berger explained, "If we wanted to kill bin Ladin with 

cruise missiles, why would we not want to kill him with covert 

action?" Clarke's recollection is the same. 

But if the policymakers believed their intent was clear, 

every CIA official interviewed on this topic by the Commission, 

from DCI Tenet to the official who actually briefed the agents in 

the field, told us they heard a different message. 

"What the United States would let the military do is quite 

different," Tenet said, "from the rules that govern covert action 

by the CIA." CIA senior managers, operators and lawyers uniformly 

said that they read the relevant authorities signed by President 

Clinton as instructing them to try to capture bin Ladin, except 

in the defined contingency. 

They believed that the only acceptable context for killing 

bin Ladin was a credible capture operation. Quote: "We always 

talked about how much easier it would have been to kill him," end 

of quote, a former chief of the bin Ladin station said. 

Working-level CIA officers said they were frustrated by what 

they saw as the policy restraints of having to instruct their 

assets to mount a capture operation. When Northern Alliance 

leader Massoud was briefed on the carefully-worded instructions 

for him, the briefer recalls that Massoud laughed and said, 

quote, "You Americans are crazy. You guys never change." End of 

quote. 

To further cloud the picture, two senior CIA officers told us 

they would have been morally and practically opposed to getting 
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CIA into what might look like an assassination. One of them, a 

former Counterterrorism Center chief, said that he would have 

refused an order to directly kill bin Ladin. 

Where NSC staff and CIA officials agree is that no one at 

CIA, including Tenet and Pavitt, ever complained to the White 

House that the authorities were restrictive or unclear. Berger 

told us, quote, "If there was ever any confusion, it was never 

conveyed to me or the President by the DCI or anybody else." End 

of quote. 

The trouble with proxies. Senior CIA officials were cautious 

about engaging U.S. personnel within Afghanistan. CIA officers 

faced enormous dangers in Afghanistan, a large, desolate country 

in the midst of a civil war, where there were no reliable means 

for either inserting or extracting personnel. They did, however, 

take on significant risk. CIA teams penetrated deep into 

Afghanistan on numerous occasions before 9/11; for example, to 

evaluate air fields suitable for capture operations. 

These were hazardous missions. Officers flew through 

mountainous terrain on rickety helicopters, exposed to missile 

attack from the ground. CIA personnel continued these missions 

over the course of the next year, and on each occasion risked 

their lives. 

But reluctance to authorize direct action by CIA personnel 

against bin Ladin inside the Afghanistan sanctuary led 

policymakers to rely on local forces, or proxies. For covert 

action programs, proxies meant problems. First, proxies tend to 

tell those who pay them what they want to hear. The CIA employs 

many means to test and verify the truth of the intelligence its 

agents provide, but these tests are not foolproof. 

Second, a strategy emphasizing proxies takes significant time 

to produce the desired results. Proxy forces invariably need 

training and instruction to carry out operations. 

Both these factors bedeviled the CIA's use of proxy forces in 

Afghanistan before 9/11. The most widely-used forces were tribal 

fighters with whom CIA officers had established relations dating 

back over a decade to the jihad against Soviet occupation. 

CIA officers dealing with these tribal fighters had some 

confidence in their ability to target bin Ladin. These agents 

collected valuable intelligence at great personal risk. Yet when 
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it came to their ability to conduct paramilitary operations, 

senior CIA officials had their doubts.

As was mentioned, senior CIA officials did not go forward 

with the spring 1998 plan to use Afghan forces to capture bin 

Ladin. This was in part because they were not convinced that the 

Afghans could carry out the mission successfully. 

There's little evidence that the CIA leadership ever 

developed greater faith in the operational skills of these proxy 

forces for paramilitary action. Deputy Director for Operations 

Pavitt said he does not know if the attempted ambushes against 

bin Ladin that the tribal fighters reported ever actually 

occurred. 

CIA employed proxy forces other than the Afghan tribal groups 

against bin Ladin, but with no more confidence in their 

abilities. DCI Tenet thought the most able proxies were the 

hardened warriors of Massoud's Northern Alliance, who had been at 

war with the Taliban for years. 

Though there was continuing disagreement within the agency 

about relying on the Northern Alliance, CIA leaders put more and 

more weight behind this option through 2000 and 2001. They were 

always aware that the primary objective of Massoud's forces was 

to defeat the Taliban, not to find bin Ladin or attack al Qaeda. 

By deciding to use proxies to carry out covert actions in 

Afghanistan before 9/11, both administrations placed the 

achievement of policy objectives in the hands of others. 

In conclusion, before 9/11, no agency did more to attack al 

Qaeda, working day and night, than did the CIA. But there were 

limits to what the CIA was able to achieve by disrupting 

terrorist activities abroad and using proxies to try to capture 

bin Ladin and his lieutenants in Afghanistan. 

CIA officers were aware of these limitations. One officer 

recognized as early as mid-1997 that the CIA alone was not going 

to solve the bin Ladin problem. In a memo to his supervisor, he 

wrote, quote, "All we're doing is holding the ring until the 

cavalry gets here," closed quote. 

Deputy Director for Operations Pavitt told commission staff 

that doing stuff on the margins was not the way to get this job 

done. If the U.S. government was serious about eliminating the al 
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Qaeda threat, it required robust offensive engagement across the 

entire U.S. government. 

DCI Tenet also understood the CIA's limitations. He told 

staff that the CIA's odds of success in Afghanistan before 9/11 

were between 10 and 20 percent. This was not because the CIA 

lacked the capabilities to attack the target, he said, but 

because the mission was extremely challenging. 

Covert action was not a silver bullet, but it was important 

to engage proxies and to build various capabilities so that, if 

an opportunity presented itself, the CIA could act on it. "You 

could get really lucky on any given day," Tenet said. 

Indeed, serendipity had led to some of the CIA's past 

successes against al Qaeda, but, absent a more dependable 

government strategy, CIA senior management relied on proxy forces 

to get lucky for over three years, through both the late Clinton 

and early Bush administrations. 

There was growing frustration within this counterterrorist 

center and in the NSC staff with this lack of results. The 

development of the Predator and the push to aid the Northern 

Alliance were certainly products of this frustration. The 

Commission has heard numerous accounts of the tireless activity

of officers within the counterterrorist center and the UBL 

station, trying to tackle al Qaeda before 9/11. 

DCI Tenet was also clearly committed to fighting the 

terrorist threat. But if officers at all levels questioned the 

effectiveness of the most active strategy the policymakers were 

employing to defeat the terrorist enemy, the Commission needs to 

ask why that strategy remained largely unchanged throughout the 

period leading up to 9/11. 

MR. KEAN: Thank you very much. We will now hear from the 

senior official most involved in the formation and implementation 

of intelligence activities in support of counterterrorism policy, 

the distinguished and long-serving director of the Central 

Intelligence Agency, George Tenet. He will be joined by the 

distinguished deputy director of central intelligence, John 

McLaughlin. 

Director Tenet, by the way, has informed us that he believes 

it inappropriate for a director of central intelligence to 

discuss at a public hearing certain sensitive operational and 

matters and authorities, and this we certainly understand. We 
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agree with the director and would not want anything said here 

which would hurt American intelligence in any way whatsoever. I'm 

a little unhappy that some of the things that went on five years 

ago, that we can't discuss some of those that have already been 

printed in books, but we certainly will respect the director's 

judgment on those -- on those matters. 

Our staff statement does include a number of things that are 

unclassified. We've also had the opportunity to interview 

Director Tenet extensively in private on these subjects, and he 

has said that any time we need any further questions on these 

subjects, he would be very happy to accommodate us. I do urge my 

fellow commissioners to defer to the director's judgments on some 

of these very sensitive -- very sensitive areas. 

Director Tenet, Deputy Director McLaughlin, I would to ask 

you to raise your right hands: Do you swear or affirm to tell the 

truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? 

MR. TENET: I do. 

MR. JOHN MCLAUGHLIN: I do. 

MR. KEAN: Thank you very much. Your written remarks -- I 

guess you'll hopefully summarize those in 10 minutes or so and so 

we can get into questions. 

Vice Chairman Hamilton. 

MR. LEE HAMILTON: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I just 

wanted to kind of reiterate what the chairman said because of the 

importance of it. 

I think the director is always in a difficult spot when he 

testifies in public. This commission has a mandate to develop a 

full and complete accounting of the events of 9/11, and the 

Commission should press for all of the information that we need 

to fulfill that mandate. The director has a responsibility to 

carry out some of the most sensitive matters in the United States 

government. He has an obligation to find out information people 

don't want to give us, to carry out a lot clandestine operations, 

to protect the lives of a lot of people who carry out those 

missions, and, of course, to inform policymakers. 

There is obviously a tension between the mandate of the 

Commission and the responsibilities of the director. And it 

behooves both of us to try to be sensitive to the 
16

responsibilities of the other. For myself, I've spent decades 

handling top secret information, and I've been informed at least 

about scores it not hundreds of covert operations. And I do think 

that we on the Commission have to be very, very careful, and we 

have to realize what is at stake, and we have to respect the 

judgment of those who really do carry awesome responsibilities. 

Now, that respect does not mean that we accept without 

scrutiny what intelligence is given to us. That's not our 

responsibility. We should scrutinize it. But it does mean, it 

seems to me, that we not press excessively or too hard in public 

session when the director advises us that questions create risks 

to U.S. operations and to U.S. national security. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

MR. KEAN: Mr. Director. 

MR. TENET: Governor, thank you. I've submitted a very long 

statement, and it is not my intention to read that statement, and 

I want to get -- stay under the 10-minute deadline so we can get 

to questions, which is probably more productive in any event. 

MR. KEAN: Thank you, sir. 

MR. TENET: I welcome this opportunity to testify before you 

and the American people on the intelligence community's decisive 

role in the war on terrorism. What I will offer today both in my 

statement and in my answers to your questions is a personal 

perspective. Nothing I have worked on is more important or more 

personal. I'm a New Yorker. And like many others in our country, 

I have friends who were killed in the World Trade Center, the 

Pentagon, and in Pennsylvania. The fight against this enemy has 

shaped my years as director of central intelligence. 

September 11th is a tragedy that we will all carry with us 

for the rest of our lives. The community that I am privileged to 

lead and represent has also lost officers in this war. Those who 

now fight this battle through long days and nights are devoted to 

a single mission, trying to ensure that the terrorists who 

committed these atrocities will never live in peace. 

I have worked for two different administrations, two 

different political parties. Both sets of policymakers care 

deeply about the challenge of terrorism. The first group lived 

through the terrorist phenomenon and wrestled with difficult 

issues thoughtfully and diligently. The second group, this 
17

Administration, was working hard before September 11th to devise 

a comprehensive framework to deal with al Qaeda, based on the 

best knowledge that we in the intelligence community could 

provide. And during this time, the intelligence community did not 

stand still. 

You, as the Commission, must evaluate all this. I, as the 

director of central intelligence, must tell you, clearly, that 

there was no lack of care of focus in the face of one of the 

greatest dangers our country has ever faced. 

The recent years of this war are well publicized, but the 

early years are not. For us, the conflict started long ago, after 

we witnessed the emergence of Bin Ladin and al Qaeda in the early 

'90s. Bin Ladin was only just starting to expand his reach when 

we saw him as an emerging threat during his time in Sudan. In 

1996, he moved to Afghanistan. We characterized him as one of the 

most active financial sponsors of Islamic fundamental terrorism. 

During his years in Sudan, Bin Ladin was not yet the center 

for terrorist operational planning that he became in Afghanistan, 

but we were concerned enough about him that in January of 1996, 

we created a dedicated component in the Counterterrorism Center, 

the Bin Ladin Issue Station, that was staffed by officers from 

multiple agencies, with the mission of disrupting his operations. 

We also issued the earliest of what turned out to be a long 

series of warnings about Bin Ladin and al Qaeda, and I believe 

those warnings were heeded. 

This terrorism problem changed fundamentally after Bin Ladin

moved to Afghanistan in 1996. The country had become a haven of 

where terrorists could disseminate their ideology, plot, fundraise, and train for attacks around the world. In 1998, Bin Ladin

issued a fatwa, telling all Muslims it was their duty to kill 

Americans and their allies, civilian and military, wherever they 

may be. 

We recognized, through our collection analysis and disruption 

efforts of the '90s, that we had to change to meet this evolving 

threat. We had captured and rendered terrorists for years, but we 

knew we needed to go further to penetrate the sanctuary Bin Ladin

found in Afghanistan. We knew that because our technical coverage 

was slipping, al Qaeda's operational security was high. We were 

taking terrorists off the street, but the threat level persisted. 

And finally we had to operate against a target that was buried 

deep in territory controlled by the Taliban, an area where we 

needed to expand our on-the-ground presence. 
18

Standoff operations required predictive intelligence --

knowing precisely where a target would be many hours in advance. 

That, we did not have. We needed close in access to understand 

the target and maximize our chances for success. And while we 

were collecting, we continued to build a coalition of friendly 

services around the world that would expand our regional access. 

So, we did change. We developed a new baseline strategy in 

1999. Simply, we called it "the plan." We worked on the plan 

through the summer. We told our customers and counterparts in 

Washington all about it. Under this plan, we developed a broad 

array of both human and technical sources. Our efforts were 

designed to disrupt the terrorists and their plots, collect 

information, recruit terrorist spies, all to support new 

operational initiatives. 

To penetrate Bin Ladin's sanctuary, we also worked with 

Central Asian intelligence services and with the Northern 

Alliance and its leader, Ahmad Shah Masood, on everything from 

technical collection to building an intelligence capability to 

potential renditions. And we developed a network of agents inside 

Afghanistan who were directed to track bin Ladin. We worked with 

friendly tribal partners for years to undertake operations 

against him. Our human intelligence rose markedly from 1999 

through 2001. By September 11th, the map of Afghanistan would 

show that these collection programs, human networks, were in 

place in numbers to nearly cover the country. 

The array meant that when the military campaign to topple and 

destroy the Taliban began in October of 2001, we were able to 

support it with an enormous body of information and a large 

stable of assets. These networks gave us the platform from which 

to launch the rapid takedown of the Taliban. 

The worldwide coalition we built allowed us to respond during 

periods of high threat. The Millennium period was the first of a 

series of major coordinated operations among a coalition of 

countries. I told the President to expect between five and 15 

attacks against the United States. We disrupted terrorist attacks 

that saved lives. There were actions in 50 countries involving 

dozens of suspects, many of whom were followed, arrested, or 

detained. During the same time period we conducted multiple 

arrests in East Asia, leading to the arrest or detention of 45 

members of the Hezbollah network in a totally separate operation. 

During the Ramadan period in the fall of 2000, we helped 

break up cells planning attacks against civilian targets in the 
19

Gulf. These operations netted anti-aircraft missiles and hundreds 

of pounds of explosives and brought a bin Ladin facilitator to 

justice. We began to fly the Predator in reconnaissance mode in 

this time period. Finally, during the summer of 2001, reacting to 

a rash of intelligence reports, I personally contacted a dozen of 

my foreign counterparts. This intense period, and thanks to our 

partners' work, led to arrest and detentions in Bahrain, in 

Yemen, in Turkey. It led to disruptions in two dozen countries. 

We helped halt, disrupt, or uncover weapons caches and plans to 

attack U.S. diplomatic facilities in the Middle East and Europe. 

In a few minutes, I have described what thousands of people 

did over the course of years in this country and overseas, but 

despite these efforts we still did not penetrate the plot that 

led to the murder of 3,000 men and women on that Tuesday morning. 

Since September 11th, we have worked hard to enhance intelligence 

but also improve the integration of this government. We have 

strengthened our ties to law enforcement from having officers 

work jointly in the field in this country to breaking down walls 

that impeded cooperation, thanks to the PATRIOT Act. We have a 

new terrorist threat integration center. We have made much more 

comprehensive and integrated effort to fill critical gaps we had 

in our process of watch listening potential terrorists. We have a 

Department of Homeland Security. All of this is to make a final 

key point -- as a country, you must be relentless on offense, but 

you must have a defense that links visa measures, border 

security, infrastructure protection, and domestic warnings in a 

way that increases security, closes gaps, and serves a society 

that demands high level of both safety and freedom. We 

collectively did not close those gaps rapidly or fully enough 

before September 11th. We have learned and are doing better in an 

integrated environment that allows us to respond faster and more 

comprehensively than three years ago, and much more work needs to 

be done. 

Mr. Chairman, the war ahead is going to be complicated and 

long. You need an intelligence community, you need a Homeland 

Security Department, and we need stamina to continue in this 

fight, because it's going to go on for many years. Thank you very 

much, Mr. Chairman. 

MR. KEAN: Thank you very much, sir. Commissioner Fielding and 

I are going to lead our questioning followed by Commissioner 

Gorelick. 

MR. FIELDING: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Everybody bear with 

me, I don't know how long my voice is going to last this morning. 
20

Mr. Director, Mr. Deputy Director, thank you very much for coming 

and let us all express our appreciation to you both for the 

awesome task that you have and for the loyal service you have 

given to your country. We really appreciate your cooperation with 

our Commission and its work. 

I would like to start today by trying to put into context the 

testimony you have given and the written testimony you have given 

us. And in that regard, I would be appreciative if you would 

explain to us and describe to us how you communicated 

intelligence to President Clinton and to his national security 

advisors. 

MR. TENET: The principal method of communication obviously is 

-- went through our president's daily brief every morning, which 

we provided for the President for his reading; through the 

National Security Advisor Sandy Berger and on issues of 

terrorism, as you all know, there was a consolidated group called 

the CSG on terrorism at the NSC that funneled its way up. We 

participated to Mr. Berger and then onward to the President. 

In periods of high threat or in periods particularly 

subsequent to the East Africa bombings, in particular, we met 

with the President directly and in other time periods as well. So 

that was principally the way we interacted with him. 

MR. FIELDING: And what would be the role of the National 

Security Advisor? 

MR. TENET: The National Security Advisor's role is --

obviously, he runs the -- he ran the principals committee 

meetings that I sat at. He saw the President every day; he 

discussed the intelligence with him. The National Security 

Advisor and I met once a week and talked daily or a number of 

times a week on these kinds of matters, and so there was an 

intimate interaction with him during this time period. 

MR. FIELDING: Now, I think all of us were a little surprised 

to find out that Osama bin Ladin was actually being followed by 

you, even to the point of setting up a unit as early as 1997. 

MR. TENET: '96, sir. 

MR. FIELDING: '96 -- I'm sorry. But would you also explain to 

us what -- not just the UBL station was but what the Watch Fax 

was? Or at least it's been described to us as Watch Fax, I'm 

sorry. It was a UBL situation report? 
21

MR. TENET: Well, first of all, the unit we created --

obviously, the thought process behind it was we saw a phenomenon 

here that we were quite worried about, and we wanted to take a 

group of people offline to focus on this exclusively, grow it, 

over time, and help us understand how to drive operations and 

analysis against this phenomenon. The Watch Fax -- I don't know 

what you call it -- I guess there was almost a daily report. I 

guess this is what the Watch Fax is, that we sent to senior 

policymakers during different time periods and obviously there 

was constant communication in both administrations with the CSG, 

a terrorist group at the NSC. 

MR. FIELDING: See, that's what I was really trying to define, 

because we'd heard about this report and that it was prepared 

four or five times a week for most of the Clinton administration, 

but I'm trying to determine to whom it went. 

MR. TENET: I believe that was something we sent to Sandy 

Berger. Is that correct, John? 

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: That's my recall, yes. 

MR. FIELDING: Okay, and is our information correct with four, 

five, six days a week?

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: My recall is it was about five days a week.

MR. TENET: That’s my recollection. Yeah.

MR. FIELDING: Thank you. Now, during the period of 

transition, what was your specific role Mr. Director, in the 

transition to the new Administration in regard to the President 

and to his National Security Team?

MR. TENET: First, I was trying to figure out whether I was 

going to keep my job. But that’s a separate issue. (Laughter)

Second—-

MR. FIELDING: Who did you consult on that? (Laughter)

MR. TENET: It’s classified sir. (Laughter)

MR. FIELDING: I accept that sir. (Laughter)

MR. TENET: During the time period there was a transition 

team, and obviously we prepared transition books and lots of 

papers for the transition team. I believe your staff statement
22

even indicates that the Deputy Director of Operations and I met 

with the President and talked about Bin Ladin. I will be candid 

with you, the Deputy Director for Operations has a clear 

recollection of this session. I don’t have nearly as clear a 

recollection. We talked about terrorism in this time period. 

And obviously as the new Administration was formed up, early on 

Dr. Rice and Steve Hadley came out and thoroughly reviewed the 

authorities that we had on terrorism and the basis from which we 

were proceeding. So there was a fair discussion about this 

phenomenon, even early on.

MR. FIELDING: Were there any marked changes in your 

relationship with the White House?

MR. TENET: The principal difference is that I would see the 

President every day to conduct the daily brief with our briefer-—

usually six days a week. So this president wanted a face-to-face 

contact, and so I was in the Oval Office with him or at Camp 

David every day of the week. 

MR. FIELDING: How did that come about? Was that his specific 

request? 

MR. TENET: He expressed a distinct preference that that's the 

way we were going to work, and that's the way we did it. 

MR. FIELDING: Okay. Did that task you a little harder on the 

-- on a daily basis? 

MR. TENET: Well, it gets your adrenaline flowing early in the 

morning, sir. And obviously it's important. It's important 

because there's an active dialogue with the President on not only 

what we're writing but what we're thinking. And since I had been 

around for a while, I could give him some perspective on some of 

these issues. 

MR. FIELDING: Right. What was your interaction in the new 

Administration with the national security adviser? 

MR. TENET: Well, as in the previous administration, we would 

have weekly meetings, a regular meeting with the national 

security adviser. Obviously, some weeks, for scheduling purposes, 

it doesn't happen. But the same kind of relationship -- daily 

phone contact, weekly meetings. The national security adviser, of 

course, would be in the morning brief with the President, so I 

would see her there as well. 
23

MR. FIELDING: I was interested, in your prepared statement, 

when you described the interest that was a continuum, as I 

believe you said, between the administrations. But was there any 

change in attitude that you sense in regard to threat analysis or 

the acceptance of this threat that you were talking about? 

MR. TENET: No, sir, I think that both groups and both sets of 

policymakers -- obviously, one set lived through a period -- a 

much longer time period. But the new group also immediately 

understood what we were talking about here, and bin Ladin and al 

Qaeda became an agenda item early on with the national security 

adviser and the President. 

MR. FIELDING: I certainly respect your position on 

authorities and will observe your request and -- you know, we do 

have a dilemma with our commission, in that we have had witnesses 

who have testified different views of authorities. But I think 

that the public should be aware that you have -- we've also 

discussed this with you in closed session and will be able to, 

I'm sure, sort out the discrepancies before our final report is 

prepared. 

Then I'd like to talk about capabilities if my time doesn't 

run out and my voice doesn't run out. 

But before that, what was your working arrangement or your 

relationship with Mr. Clarke? In both periods of time. 

MR. TENET: Well, Mr. Clarke ran the CSG in both periods of 

time. At the working level, our chief CTC and our terrorism 

experts had almost daily contact with Mr. Clarke, and I'd have 

periodic contact with him as I bumped into him as meetings. 

MR. FIELDING: Was that pretty much a continuum, again? 

MR. TENET: Yeah. I believe that we pretty much maintained the 

same type of relationship, sir. 

MR. FIELDING: Let me just ask you a couple of specific 

questions before we get into capabilities. And this is really 

kind of important because there are some things that have been 

floating around that we're trying to come to ground on. 

Did you ever suggest actions to either president to respond 

to threats that were ever disapproved? 

MR. TENET: Actions that we would take, sir? 
24

MR. FIELDING: Yes, sir. 

MR. TENET: No, I don't believe so, no. 

MR. FIELDING: Has the President -- has either president ever 

denied a request from you for either enhanced legal authority or 

operational approval? 

MR. TENET: Sir, the approval process of authorities is 

something I don't want to get into in this session. 

MR. FIELDING: I'm sorry. 

MR. TENET: But in terms of both administrations, because of 

my relationship with the national security adviser and certainly 

in this environment with direct contact with the President, I 

gave the President very intimate understanding of what we were 

doing operationally around the world, particularly as we got into 

a high- threat period, in terms of disruption operations, 

countries I was contacting, things I might need from other 

policymakers to aid and abet my efforts. So there was a clear 

understanding of what we were doing around the world to deal with 

this problem. 

MR. FIELDING: And I'm sure you'd be respectful, but you 

wouldn't be shy if you felt you needed something from either 

president; is that correct? 

MR. TENET: No, sir. 

MR. FIELDING: That's not correct? 

MR. TENET: No, sir; that is correct. 

MR. FIELDING: Right. 

I guess let me -- was there any predictable intelligence 

against bin Ladin that -- against him personally in 2001? 

MR. TENET: No, sir, I don't believe so, not in the 2001 time 

period. There were periods -- you talked about these yesterday. 

MR. FIELDING: Yeah. 

MR. TENET: There were these three particular instances where 

there was -- were there were --
25

MR. FIELDING: Yeah, but that was pre-2001. 

MR. TENET: That was '98 and 1999, sir. 

MR. FIELDING: Yeah, I want to get into those in just a 

second, but I just -- there have been so many questions about 

that, I thought that we just should come to ground on it. Without 

-- do you think -- again, the question that keeps coming up, do 

you think if you had gotten, in any way, shape or form, bin Ladin

in the year 2001 you would have prevented the two 9/11 attacks? 

MR. TENET: Mr. Fielding, I don't believe so. I believe that 

this plot line was off and running; Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was in 

the middle of it, operators were moving into this country. Any 

understanding of this -- we certainly understand that they had 

the operational flexibility to decide what to do, but this plot 

was well on its way. Decapitating one person -- even bin Ladin in 

this context -- I do not believe we would have stopped this plot. 

MR. FIELDING: Yesterday, if you followed the hearings at all, 

the phrase du jour was "actionable intelligence," and we heard 

DOD officials contend that the CIA was unable to provide 

actionable intelligence and that somehow limited their abilities 

to undertake military actions in Afghanistan. I guess, just kind 

of a generic -- I'd like you to discuss that a little. How would 

you explain that reaction and that position? Do you think it's 

valid? And if you do, was there ever an attempt between you and 

the DOD to enhance the abilities? 

MR. TENET: Let me answer that question a couple ways. First 

of all, there's a difference between intelligence and actionable 

intelligence. That there was intelligence in a number of 

instances was a fact, to be sure. Now the question is how do you 

evaluate the data. And in thinking about this last night, because 

these were interactive conversations among people thinking about 

specific scenarios -- here are the kind of criteria that occurred 

in phone calls and meetings to discuss this. 

Was the reporting single threaded? Could we maintain 

continuous eyes on the target without regard for compromise, 

given a tough security environment? What was the track record, 

reliability and certainty of this reporting? What did we know 

about the reporting source? Will the target be there long enough 

to take action, since launching a cruise missile is four or six 

hours away, it's not retargetable on the way in? What are the 

implications for collateral damage? Where is the target? If it's 
26

in a complex of buildings, is the target -- can the source data 

specifically tell you what building the target is in? 

Now, we -- it's interesting. In this time period we also 

created a book for principals with the imagery that we laid in 

about all the potential target sets that we might encounter so 

that -- the situations were obviously unpredictable, so that we 

could at least have people visualize what we were talking about 

as we were talking about whether or not we believed we had enough 

data to go forward in any of these instances. 

These -- you know, in most -- and I think most of these 

instances, decision-making had to be fairly rapid. We had to come 

to conclusions, and we all came out at the same place. The 

Pentagon would have views about collateral damage because they're 

firing a weapon, and we would have views about the quality of 

intelligence, and I must tell you that we all ended up at the 

same place. I would state my judgment about whether we had enough 

to meet these criteria. They would reflect on it from the 

perspective of collateral damage and other issues. But in no case 

did we disagree about a final decision or an outcome. 

MR. FIELDING: Well, who's "we?" Please help me with that a 

little. 

MR. TENET: Well, director of Central Intelligence, secretary 

of Defense, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, sometimes joined by his 

J-2, who -- his chief intelligence officer and the national 

security advisor. So this was an integrated discussion, and we 

tried to make sure that everybody had the same data to the extent 

that we could. And I'd inform them of new data and give them a 

sense of what I believed the quality of the intelligence was. 

MR. FIELDING: Well, yesterday we talked about the three 

events in '98 and '99 where there were occasions that it looked 

like there might be an opportunity, which then in each instance 

was deemed not to be operational. And the one that I find the 

most intriguing and the one that's been labeled as perhaps the 

lost opportunity more than any was the February '99 hunting camp, 

I guess it's been described, and the desert camp. And yesterday 

in the staff statement that was read, we were told about that and 

we were told that the intelligence seemed pretty strong, and that 

the preparations were made and then the strike was called off, 

and -- although the lead CIA agent in the field felt that it was 

very reliable intelligence. I guess, was there anything unique 

about the intelligence or the circumstances that necessitated 

that decision, and who made that decision? 
27

MR. TENET: I don't have a recollection of the uniqueness of 

the intelligence in question at the time. I'm going to go back 

and provide that for you. In fact, I'd like to go back and try 

and package up all the data at my disposal when we were thinking 

about these issues. 

I believe this was a collective decision. I also believe this 

target went away because the camp was ultimately dismantled. So 

in reading through your staff inquiry, your staff notes on this, 

I can't recall who made the call, but I know we were all in the 

same place about it, Mr. Fielding. 

MR. FIELDING: Yeah. Well, I would appreciate that on behalf 

of the Commission if you could do that because it seemed that 

this -- when the intelligence was so good, and that by the time 

the camp was dismantled days and days had passed. 

So I would appreciate --

MR. TENET: There's also a question, I believe, as to whether 

bin Ladin was inside or outside the camp --

MR. FIELDING: Of course. 

MR. TENET: -- it was a complicating issue in this whole thing 

-- and whether he was there or not. So there's a second 

complicating factor here. 

The third complicating factor here is, you might have wiped 

out half the royal family in the UAE in the process, which I'm 

sure entered into everybody's calculation in all this. 

But in any event, I would like -- I will try and reconstruct 

the data as best I can, in terms of what I had in my possession 

at the time. 

MR. FIELDING: I would appreciate it. Thank you. And thank you 

for your testimony. 

I see that little red light is on. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

MR. KEAN: Thank you. 

Commissioner Gorelick. 

JAMIE S. GORELICK: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 
28

Director Tenet, I would note at the outset that while other 

individuals in both administrations in our testimony have been 

referred to as "the secretary" or "the director" or by their last 

names, everyone who talks about you refers to you as "George." 

And I think that there's a reason for that. I think that you have 

developed strong personal relationships with all of the key 

players. That has served you and has served your agency very 

well. There's evident affection for you across two 

administrations, which is a hard thing to pull off. 

I do want to talk about covert authorities, consistent with 

the guidelines that you have laid down. 

MR. TENET: Sure. 

MS. GORELICK: And I will note for the record that while we 

are in agreement with the position that you've taken, we have 

these public charges that have been made in a book, through 

information provided, evidently, through the CIA. And we will 

want to address them privately with you. And I know you have 

indicated your availability to do that. 

MR. TENET: Absolutely. 

MS. GORELICK: But I just want to be very clear that if you 

felt that an authority that you had been given was insufficient, 

our staff statement says that your obligation was to seek clarity 

or to seek a new authority. Is that correct? 

MR. TENET: Yes. 

MS. GORELICK: The second issue I'd -- I'm sorry. Did you want 

to elaborate --

MR. TENET: Can I just give you a little perspective on this? 

Without going into specific covert actions, if I can just give 

you a little bit of a perspective a bout how you arrive at -- a 

covert action is an enormously sensitive tool that the President

uses, and covert action authorities are the culmination of three 

separate streams of thinking: operational proposals, legal 

determinations and policy determinations. 

In the democracy that we live in, all three become vital in 

the way authorities are presented to the President of the United 

States. 
29

In the case that we're talking about, without getting into 

all this, obviously very sensitive issues were discussed with 

regard to the provision of specific lethal authorities. And we 

won't go beyond that. 

My job is essentially -- I would say a couple of things to 

you about this issue, Commissioner Gorelick. One, I never went 

back and said, "I don't have all the authorities I need." 

And here is a key, fundamental point that everybody needs to 

understand about covert action. You need foreign intelligence to 

create operational opportunities that lead you to enhanced 

authorities and enhanced covert action. In part, one of the 

principal focus of changing our plan to get inside the sanctuary 

and develop greater access was so that we could enhance our 

operations and our access in order to prepare ourselves to have 

better covert action opportunities. 

The capability to do what you're asked to do is actually a 

lot more important than the authorities that you're granted. It's 

a very key point people have to understand. If I had ever felt 

that my capabilities grew -- and in fact when you look at the 

authorities that were granted in some cases based on 

intelligence, additional authorities were provided. If I felt 

that I had developed access or capability that required 

dramatically different authorities, I would have gone in and 

said, "This is what I have, this is what I think I can do; please 

give me these authorities," and I don't doubt that they would 

have been granted. 

MS. GORELICK: Thank you for that elaboration. And because of 

-- we have sort of left in your hands, actually, the degree to 

which you talk about this. 

MR. TENET: And I think this is the right way to talk about 

it. 

MS. GORELICK: Fine. And we will pursue it in private. But I 

appreciate both your answer and the elaboration on the answer. 

You in your statement make -- in both your written statement, 

which, with all due respect, we haven't had a chance to read, 

since we just received it and it's about an inch thick -- but in 

your oral statement you have a very impressive description of 

your activities in disrupting and trying to -- disrupting 

terrorist activities and trying to preempt terrorist activities

from 1996 on. 
30

MR. TENET: Right. 

MS. GORELICK: And that also comes through in the intelligence 

that we have seen in your reporting. 

And I think two things would be news to the American people, 

and should be news to the American people, and one is how engaged 

the CIA was and how engaged its foreign counterparts were on a 

daily basis checking and parrying and disrupting the activities 

of terrorists, particularly al Qaeda; and second, that the CIA 

and its foreign partners were in fact effective in disrupting 

many terrorist plots. Is that a fair summary? 

MR. TENET: It is. And let me just say, just as the secretary 

of State builds a diplomatic coalition and the military has 

foreign -- we systematically built a coalition of the willing 

with key regional partners who had the right access. And we did a 

lot of things to help them improve their capability. But here's 

something people have to understand; you can't do this alone. You 

need nations willing to take responsibility to help you in this 

fight. And that's what we recognized through authorities and 

other things we could do. So -- and this has grown steadily over 

the '90s and into the time period we are now. But there is a 

coalition of people that work this issue together. 

MS. GORELICK: And the CIA itself was active in these 

disruptions. And the point I'm trying to make here is that our 

nation was not simply responding via law enforcement, if you 

will, to the threat that was faced. You were out there very 

active, and in many cases successful, is that correct? 

MR. TENET: Ms. Gorelick, we used all the tools at our 

disposal. There were -- you know, I've testified there were over 

80 renditions. But renditions in and of themselves doesn't stop 

this. Active penetrations, disruptions of the kind you talked 

about were also being aggressively pursued through intelligence 

channels. 

MS. GORELICK: Thank you. 

Now, from April through August of '01, the intelligence that 

you were providing to senior policymakers in both the number of 

reports and in their content was hair-raising, similar, and maybe 

even more so than the reports during the Millennium, a very 

significant spike. And you have told us, "Our collection sources 

lit up during this intense period. They indicated that multiple 

spectacular attacks were planned, some of them in the final 
31

stages. The reports suggested that the targets were American, 

though some reporting simply pointed to the West or to Israel. 

The reporting by itself stood as a dramatic warning of imminent 

attack." And you noted that these warnings were widely 

disseminated in the government. 

Your agency has been faulted for not predicting that the 

attack would come in the United States and via an airplane. 

First of all, did you limit your reporting of threats to say 

that this event, whatever might be happening, was only going to 

possibly happen overseas? 

MR. TENET: The predominant focus and thread of the reporting 

took us overseas, but we could not discount the possibility of an 

attack on the homeland, although the data just didn't exist with 

any specificity to take you there. I mean, that was what was 

maddening about this. You see in my long testimony all the 

disruption efforts were things where people were actually getting 

wrapped up about to do things. We did not have the same kind of 

granularity inside the country, nor did the reporting take us, in 

a tactical sense, to give us the kind of specificity we needed to 

give us opportunities to do things that would have led us to 

conclude that the plot was inside the United States now. 

MS. GORELICK: But we will get -- if time permits me, in any 

event -- to the relationship with the FBI and the gaps in 

reporting in the United States and how that might have limited 

your ability to pinpoint what was happening -- what was happening 

here. But it's -- my view of the reporting is that it talked 

about threats to American interests. And while the specifics that 

you had were abroad, by no means did you say don't worry about 

the domestic United States. Is that correct? 

MR. TENET: Can I give you -- is it okay to give you some 

historical perspective on this? 

MS. GORELICK: As long as it's short. (Laughter.) I'm watching 

that light because my chairman -- (laughter) -- is going to give 

my colleagues a chance --

MR. TENET: I'm sorry, go ahead. It's okay. (Laughter.) 

MS. GORELICK: I've never seen you so easily intimidated

George. (Laughter.) I would like to ask how your colleagues in 

the Administration responded. My colleague Mr. Fielding asked you 

about the briefings that you did of the President, and I was 
32

struck by the comment in the -- that the President made in "Bush 

at War," that bin Ladin was not the focus of his national 

security team. He said: "I didn't feel that sense of urgency. My 

blood was not nearly as boiling." And I think that's a fairly 

candid comment on his part. Did he evidence that he was seized 

with the urgent nature? 

MR. TENET: Look, by the spring and summer, everybody was 

seized with the urgency of this nature by virtue of what I was 

telling them, and by this time period the CSG is meeting every 

day. We're taking actions to undertake disruptions. The Defense 

Department is taking security precautions at its facilities, the 

State Department is taking security precautions at facilities 

overseas. The CSG is issuing advisories to the FAA. So this 

period of time saw an enormous amount of activity, typical to the 

kind of activity we saw in previous threat periods. And all I can 

tell is the policymakers got it because I talked to all of them 

about it and they understood the nature of what we were dealing 

with. 

MS. GORELICK: Let me follow up on that because you have said, 

and this is a quote from you, "I went into Millennium threat 

mode" --

MR. TENET: Right. 

MS. GORELICK: -- your phrase, meaning what was done at the 

end of 1999. But in the Millennium threat mode, all of the 

principals were summoned to the NSC table to ensure that their 

departments could do everything they could. Now, while in the 

Administration in 2001 there were policy meetings, there were not 

deputies committee meetings and/or principals committee meetings 

around the threat. And to be sure the CSG was meeting, but as we 

will hear later today, the CSG operates at a different level. 

Now as it turns out, you didn't know what was inside the FBI. 

For goodness sakes, the FBI didn't know what was inside the FBI. 

Eighteen of the 19 hijackers entered this country after April 

2001. In the Millennium, Attorney General Reno, we have been 

told, literally turned the FBI upside down and shook it and got 

information out of it that it might not have been able -- it 

might not, in some way, disgorged. I mean, the NSC didn't know 

that al Midhar and al Hamzi were the subject of an FBI search; or 

that the FBI had found Arab men trying to take flying lessons but 

not to learn how to take off or land; or that the FAA didn't have 

the benefit of the State Department watchlist; or that there was 

this really sleepy response, I have to say, from the FAA -- a 
33

couple of, in my view, feckless advisories; and the Secretary of 

Transportation told us he didn't even know about the threats. 

When we interviewed Steve Hadley, he actually expressed 

surprise that there had been these daily meetings during the 

Millennium. So my question to you is, did you say, Steve, when 

we've had these spikes before we all got together so that we 

could find out what each other knew and to bring some intensity 

to this process? 

MR. TENET: Well, my sense -- no, I didn't say that. My sense 

of it -- my sense at the time was I was talking to the national 

security advisor and the President and the Vice President every 

day. I know that she was talking to her colleagues and 

principals. I know she had a meeting of domestic agencies 

sometime in July. I know the CSG was meeting. You know, maybe the 

method of communication was different. I did not see any less 

attention to what we were trying to do, and I certainly didn't 

get a sense that anybody was not paying attention to what I was 

doing and what I was briefing and what my concerns were and what 

we were trying to do. 

But can I -- I'm going to come back to my historical point 

because it's an important point, even if it takes a little bit of 

time. 

MS. GORELICK: I didn't -- my colleagues are telling me I 

didn't actually intimidate you! (Laughter.) Go right ahead, 

George. 

MR. TENET: One of the -- what is one of the most important 

systemic lessons for all this? I'll tell you what I think it is, 

okay? For a period of how many years -- go back to the mid-'90s 

all the way through 2001, what did we do relentlessly? We raced 

from threat to threat to threat. We resolved the threat; it 

either happened or it didn't happen. And from the homeland 

perspective, what was the galvanizing mechanism that forced real 

defensive preparation and measures to be put in place? 

So, you know, the question systemically is, if you go through 

the '90s and you're aware of hijackings, airline commissions --

and I'm not picking on a sector here. But my point is this, the 

country was not systemically protected because even in racing 

through all these threats, sometimes exhaustively -- we exhausted 

ourselves -- there was not a system in place to say, "You got to 

go back and do this and this and this." Okay? It's not 

criticizing anybody. But the moral of the story is, if you take 
34

in those measures systemically over the course of time and closed 

seams, you might have had a better chance of succeeding stopping, 

deterring or disrupting. 

So it's easy to go talk about what I didn't get them to do on 

day one, day two, or day three. That almost is the wrong way to 

talk about this from a historical perspective with a lot of 

experience, with a lot of mistakes we made and everybody else 

made -- no perfection in this deal; we didn't stop this attack. 

And so the question is looking forward, you know, how do you 

enhance your prospects of success? With respect to everybody, 

going to more meetings isn't necessarily going to help, okay? And 

different policymakers are going to basically communicate in 

different ways. So one size doesn't fit all, and you have to 

judge. I can only give you personal perspective from where I sat. 

MS. GORELICK: Let me make a comment because my time is up. 

First of all, not speaking for the Commission, but speaking 

for this commissioner, I completely agree with what you just 

said. The purpose of the meetings was to use essentially brute 

force to break through walls and barriers and seams and processes 

that were broken. That's not a solution. It is not a solution. 

And we will ask, particularly Dick Clarke, about this this 

afternoon, what are the mechanisms for seeing what the problems 

are systemically and fixing them. 

I raised the issue of the meetings because in the absence of 

those systemic fixes, all you can do is use brute force to bring 

everyone to the table and say: What do you know? Have you turned 

over every rock? And that's why I raised that question. 

But thank you very much for your comments and your testimony 

and your service. 

MR. KEAN: Thank you. I have one question. Part of our job, as 

you know, is to make recommendations at the end of our report. 

And nobody worked harder than the CIA. You were into this 

earlier. You tried to alert other people. You did all the right 

things in those areas. And yet we failed. We really failed. And 

the story is written up in books like "Ghost Wars" and so on, of 

the whole effort and the frustrating effort to try and penetrate 

that sanctuary in Afghanistan; to really find bin Ladin and to 

capture him and take him out or whatever is the story of one 

frustration after another. 
35

And I guess my question is, looking back at that period, when 

we probably did have some opportunities to get him and didn't, in 

hindsight, what did you need and what could you -- what --

government have given you, what authorities, what resources, what 

change -- what could have been done to change that history? What 

should we be doing now? Because wilderness is where these people 

are going to hide. They're going to hide in the wild places of 

this world, and we're going to have this situation again of 

trying to get bin Ladin or the future bin Ladins. 

MR. TENET: Governor, let me give you a big systemic answer 

that I feel pretty passionately about. You know, in about the 

mid-90s, at the time we were trying to take this all on, we 

started to rebuild the clandestine HUMINT operations capability 

that went away on this country. We were trying to recapitalize 

NSA. We're trying to get ourselves better imagery capability. 

And on the HUMINT side, I'm still five years away from being 

able to look at you in the eye say -- because it's terribly --

you've got recruit the right people, have the right training. And 

I -- we built all those things. 

There has to be -- you know, just like people talk about 

other instruments of power, there must be a relentless focus on 

ensuring that the intelligence capability this country has is 

allowed to grow in the critical areas that allow us to have 

capability inside sanctuaries where people are going to go hide. 

The investment strategy's laid out. The strategic game plan 

is there. People have to sort of take a look at this from the 

perspective of how do we ensure -- on just the capability side, 

we ensure that the country gets the intelligence it deserves, no 

matter what it costs. 

Now from the perspective of integration, the sharing of data, 

the relationship with -- on the domestic side, I mean, one of the 

things that obviously needs to be built here is seamless flows of 

data from your law enforcement community to your intelligence 

community that requires the law enforcement community to have --

and Bob Mueller is building a digital communications system that 

allows you to connect the dots of his empire in the United 

States, so all the data comes forward in a way that we can see it 

and feel it and touch it the same way, and understand its 

integrity. 

And all of that data that we collect, sir -- ultimately, we 

have to treat the state and local governments and their police 
36

forces as if they're part of this fight, in a way, because 

they're not really interested in how you did the operation; they 

need the data. Thousands of people who walk around our streets 

that can collect data need to be educated. 

Now to be sure, we'll get into longer-term intelligence, 

systemic issues, in April, I suspect. And to be sure, we have to 

ask ourselves some pretty tough questions about: Are we organized 

the right way? Is this the structure you want for the next 50 

years? It's been here for 57 years. What kinds of issues do we 

have to put on the table? All with the notion of fusing and 

integrating operations and data in a manner that's seamless, so 

that there's never the assertion that I didn't see this piece of 

information that could have saved lives. 

MR. KEAN: Do you believe you're getting the support from the 

Administration and the Congress to do that? 

MR. TENET: Yes, but we need to ensure that there's continuity 

in the approach over a long period of time. And this commission 

has to establish benchmarks and report cards and do-outs that the 

country has to have people come back and talk about every year, 

because as this thing fades, my fear is, people are going to say, 

"It's five years away, it's six" -- it's not. It's coming. 

They're still going to try and do it. And we need to sort of --

the men and women here who have lost their families have to know 

that we got to do a hell of a lot better. 

MR. KEAN: Vice Chairman Hamilton. 

MR. HAMILTON: Mr. -- (applause). Mr. Director, my questions 

may follow on from the two preceding ones, but maybe it'll help 

to elaborate. 

And I think I'm probably taking you outside, a little bit, of 

your bailiwick, which is intelligence, but I think all of us 

would agree that the primary responsibility of government is to 

protect and secure the people. And the question that keeps coming 

back to me and the question I think this Commission has to answer 

is why we were unable to do it. 

Now yesterday, I don't know if you had a chance to tune in to 

any of the proceedings here, but we had -- in both 

administrations they presented very long lists of things that 

they had done prior to 9/11 to keep the people secure. And I know 

those steps were taken with conviction and utter sincerity, and I 

don't believe there's any high- level public official that I've 
37

ever met that would not act to protect the American people. But 

the overarching fact, of course, is that we did not do it. And we 

lost a lot of people. So the question that we have to address --

and here I need some help from you -- is why were we unable to do 

it. 

MR. TENET: Three layers of answers. 

We didn't steal the secret that told us what the plot was. We 

didn't recruit the right people or technically collect the data, 

notwithstanding enormous effort to do so. Macro-issue. 

Second issue: We didn't integrate all the data we had 

properly, and probably we had a lot of data that we didn't know 

about that, if everybody had known about, maybe we would have had 

a chance. I can't predict to you one way or another. But you also 

had systemically a wall that was in place between the criminal 

side and the intelligence side. What's in a criminal case doesn't 

cross over that line. Ironclad regulations. So that even people 

in the Criminal Division and the Intelligence Divisions of the 

FBI couldn't talk to each other, let alone talk to us or us talk 

to them. Systemic issues like that; PATRIOT Act absolutely 

essential. 

Three: Visa policies, watch list policies. We didn't watchlist them; the FBI didn't find them. And you know, you have to 

make a determination. But we can't walk away from telling that, 

and we have. 

But there's a larger systemic question. Okay. Are we 

integrated in our watch lists? Is our visa policy commensurate? 

Do we know who's coming in and who's coming out? Are we getting 

the best data we possibly can? The truth is, is here's the 

unassailable fact: the terrorist is a smart operational animal. 

He's going to figure all this out. He's going to figure out your 

watchlist systems better and your visa systems better. He's going 

to infiltrate your country with phony documents and passports. 

And then the question's going to be, how good are you inside your 

country in understanding what these groups are doing; how good is 

your domestic intelligence capability -- precisely what Director 

Mueller is focused on. 

So those are different layers of the same problem, sir. But, 

you know, there's obviously that tactical thing that didn't go 

right, the cost -- you know, we -- we -- you know, I can't --

never going to get out of my head. But there are some other 

things. 
38

I think the deputy director would like to speak. He's getting 

restless here. 

JOHN MCLAUGHLIN (deputy director, CIA): No, I'm just thinking 

about Chairman Kean's question and your question, Mr. Hamilton. 

It's obviously the key question. And there are many, many 

components to it. The director's talked about a number of them. 

I think there are also issues of posture and resources. And 

while we were on the offensive prior to 9/11, and can document 

that in some of the ways that Commissioner Gorelick talked about 

with capture operations, and rendition operations, and relations 

with other services, the country, with all of its capabilities is 

now much more orchestrated into an offensive mix that is 

relentless. 

One thing the American people need to understand is that we 

are still at war every single day; that the director and I and 

others gather in a room every day and go over operations around 

the world that have an offensive component to them; meaning we 

are acting on intelligence to take down terrorists across the 

world. So the posture is very important not just for the CIA, but 

for all of the agencies that are working with us, posture --

MR. HAMILTON: And that posture was not present prior to 9/11. 

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: It wasn't present as a nation. And as the 

director said, this war is going to go on for a long time. We are 

not at the end of it. And we will have to stay in an offensive 

posture. And much of this will not be visible to the public. We 

will have to stay in an offensive posture 24/7. 

Resources. The Congress has been very generous with resources 

with us, and I'm not here to make a pitch for more resources at 

this point, other than to make the strong argument that this work 

is very resource-intensive. And we are very well resourced now. 

But when one of these captures fleets across the headlines, 

and there's a long list of them in the director's testimony --

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Tawfiq bin Attash, Ramzi bin al Shibh, 

all of these key figures -- it involves literally hundreds of 

people working sometimes weeks and months to accomplish that one 

thing, stations and individuals and agencies from every part of 

our government across continents. I could give you examples to 

demonstrate that, but it's very resource-intensive, laborintensive. 
39

MR. HAMLITON: Did -- is --

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: So offensive posture, hard work, laborintensive, and that's the way it's going to be for a long time. 

MR. HAMLITON: And in the lead up now to 9/11, were you short 

of resources? 

MR. TENET: Systemically? Absolutely. In terms of a, you know 

-- we --

MR. HAMLITON: Were you requesting them and --

MR. TENET: I went through this. 

MR. HAMLITON: -- asking for them? 

MR. TENET: Sure. I went through this with the staff. I don't 

want to have a resource discussion when we're talking about these 

things. It's not appropriate. But look --

MR. HAMLITON: I didn't bring it up. He brought it up. 

MR. TENET: Yes, sir. I understand. (Laughter.) I'm trying to 

get to him through you, sir. (Laughter.) But anyway, in any event 

--

(To Mr. McLaughlin.) You did well, though. 

In any event, you know, one of the things you might want to 

do, Mr. Hamilton, and I think the Commission may want to do, is 

you actually might want to come and sit out and see how it works 

today just to get a sense of what has changed. How is the 

integration really working? What is the relationship between the 

CIA, the FBI, TTIC and all these entities? How good is the data 

sharing? You should see it, make your own judgments, and think 

through what other systemic fixes we need to put in place. 

MR. HAMLITON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

MR. KEAN: Thank you. 

Senator Kerrey. 

MR. KERREY: Well, Mr. Chairman, let me first of all say for 

the record, since Dr. Rice is not going to be here in this, 

yesterday we heard both Secretary Wolfowitz and Secretary 
40

Rumsfeld refer to the failure of the Clinton administration to 

deliver a plan dealing with al Qaeda, and they spent seven or 

eight months developing their own plan. I was briefed this 

morning on that plan, and I would say fortunately for the 

Administration it's classified because there's almost nothing in 

it. It calls for more diplomacy; it calls for increased pressure; 

basically the same thing that Director Tenet just talked about, 

using tribals against al Qaeda; and lastly calls for some vague 

things to try to oust Mullah Omar. I mean, it's not, in my 

judgment, what it was sold to be, and I just -- I have to say 

that for the record. 

I would love to get Dr. Rice in front of this commission in 

the public to have her answer a series of questions about that 

because I would say -- (applause) -- Mr. Chairman, I do not 

believe the August 12th -- 20th attack on al Qaeda's camps in 

Afghanistan was a pin prick. 

My guess is if you were on the ground that day, you would 

say, I hope to hell this doesn't happen again. And I'll say for 

the record, sadly, it didn't happen again. 

That was the last time that mil ops were used against al 

Qaeda. Osama bin Ladin held a press conference to declare open 

war on the United States of America in February, 1998. And I 

appreciate that Afghanistan has fewer targets. But in the 

expression of frustration about not having enough military 

operations, so forth, I don't see in the record any requests for 

additional military operations. And I don't think we can look at 

Director Tenet and say that covert operations has to carry the 

day. I don't think it's enough. 

And so I just want to say for the record that I'm personally 

frustrated. I've been very critical of the Clinton 

administration. I took your phone call on the 19th of August, 

1998, to inform me as vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee 

that we were going to attack Afghanistan. And I told you then 

that I hoped it was big enough that they knew that the United 

States of America had done it. And I think our only mistake was 

not doing more -- (applause) -- not having seriatim attacks 

afterwords that allowed ourselves to say that we were going to 

try to destroy somebody who declared war upon us. 

Now, let me ask you a question relating to, again, this issue 

of policy. Why doesn't -- why didn't we change our strategic 

policy? That's a provocative question that staff asked in I think 
41

in an exceptional document that they read to the Commission

earlier.

Now, let me take you back to the summer of 2001. On the 5th 

of July, National Security Advisor Rice says that she's worried 

enough about the Millennium Plot, that is to say an attack on the 

United States of America, that she asked Dick Clarke to bring a 

new set of domestic agencies into the Counterterrorism Security 

Group, the CSG, to be briefed. Now, that included Customs, INS, 

FAA, some local law enforcement people as well; and as 

Commissioner Gorelick said earlier, I believe the warnings that 

were put out as a consequence of that were at the very least 

weak, given the possibilities of an attack on the United States 

demonstrated by the Millennium Plot. 

The President was worried enough that he asked you, according 

to staff, about the possibility of a domestic attack, and that 

produced the presidential daily, the famous presidential daily 

brief on the 6th of August, 2001. And -- you look confused. Is 

that --

MR. TENET: (Off mike.) 

MR. KERREY: Pardon me? 

MR. TENET: I don't think that's how it happened, but go 

ahead, sir. It doesn't -- please. I didn't mean to interrupt. 

MR. KERREY: Go ahead and correct me if it happened different. 

MR. TENET: I don't know if I can, but go ahead. 

MR. KERREY: Well, but the question that I've got is that 

after that briefing is produced -- after the document, the daily 

briefing is done on the 6th of August -- I don't understand why -

- I appreciate you said all the things that we could do going 

forward -- I don't understand why we didn't put an order out to 

get everything the FBI had, to get everything that everybody had 

in to try to determine whether or not it was possible an attack 

was going to occur in the United States of America. 

I just don't understand it, given the level of urgency that 

was demonstrated by Dr. Rice in talking to Mr. Clarke and 

demonstrated as well by the President in talking to you. Now, 

tell me if I got it wrong. 
42

MR. TENET: Well, sir, my perspective on it is I believed, 

through the mechanisms that we had in place -- through the CSG 

process, through principals consultations, I briefed the attorney 

general -- I believe people were doing all those things. I 

believe that -- I think people were doing everything they knew 

how to do to try and figure out what this was and what this 

wasn't. I did not -- I didn't get a sense of a lack of urgency on 

the part of people in this time period. 

SEN. KERREY: I appreciate that, Director Tenet, but I don't 

understand -- and I'll ask Dick Clarke later because he was 

chairing the CSGs all summer -- I mean, brings the FAA in, why in 

God's name doesn't he say, "You know, there's a possibility 

there's going to be a hijacking, and it could be a domestic 

hijacking," and it doesn't become a part of their planning. 

MR. TENET: I always --

SEN. KERREY: It doesn't become a part of their planning. They 

don't change the rules dealing with hijacking. And I'll have a 

chance to ask director -- Dick Clarke that later, but I mean we 

had all -- the FBI headquarters wasn't aware of the Phoenix memo, 

and you had all this stuff out there. And I appreciate you've got 

this wall that was separating intel and law enforcement and after 

PATRIOT and after 9/11 that changed, but even before that, it 

seems to me, given the level of concern about a possible domestic 

attack, that we should have swept that information up to try to 

find out if there was anything out there that indicated an attack 

was going to occur in the United States. 

(Pause.) You're -- I guess there's no question here, it's 

just a declaratory. (Laughter.) 

MR. TENET: I've always learned how to listen to you, Senator 

-- (laughter). 

SEN. KERREY: I don't get it, George. I mean, I don't 

understand why it wasn't done. And I don't think it's a resource 

question. I just don't understand why it wasn't done. 

Mr. Chairman, I guess there's no question there; this is all 

a statement, as it turns out. 

MR. KEAN: Okay. Thank you. 

Commissioner Ben-Veniste. 
43

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Good morning, Director Tenet. I want to 

start out by thanking you and the extraordinary people who work 

at CIA for their dedication to the task of countering the 

terrorist threat. As you know, I have been an admirer of you 

personally and, in the time that we have spent together, 

understand the tremendous pressures that individuals have been 

under in your agency to protect our country. 

Let me pick up on -- since my colleague, Senator Kerrey 

raised the question, with respect to the PDB of August 8 (sic), 

2001, Dr. Rice has made some statements to us, and to some extent 

publicly, with respect to the origin of that document. And is it 

fair to say that the recollection of CIA, which we have received 

in a written document from your office, contains a different 

recollection; that that August 8th (sic) PDB was initiated by 

individuals within the CIA and not as a direct request from the 

national security adviser? 

MR. TENET: I simply don't know. I don't know what we've 

responded or what the origin is. I just don't know. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: You might ask Mr. Bonk (ph), who's sitting 

behind you. 

(Pause while Mr. Tenet confers.) 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: It is correct that we have received a 

document from you, dated March 19, 2004, in which that correction 

is noted. 

MR. TENET: Would you like Mr. Bonk (ph) to respond? 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Well, he can whisper in your ear. So that 

the record is correct on this point, since it was raised by 

Senator Kerrey, I think it's appropriate, that we have been 

advised that the August 8th (sic) PDB -- I'm sorry, August 6th 

PDB was the product of individuals within CIA without prompting 

from national security --

MR. TENET: Commissioner Ben-Veniste, he only has a 

recollection. Let me come back for the record. I'll go back and 

look at this. I just don't --

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Well, I'll read into the record. The author 

of this piece, and others familiar with it, say they have no

information to suggest that this piece was written in response to 
44

a question from the President. And indeed, it goes on to say that 

it was prompted by an idea from the CIA. 

So we have these clarification, and it's appropriate that the 

record be as accurate as possible. 

Let me go to another question, and that is August '98, the 

missile attack; 60 Tomahawk missiles, more or less; 20 to 30 al 

Qaeda killed. Bin Ladin escaped, according to your intelligence, 

only with hours to spare. 

Yesterday we heard from the secretary of Defense who talked 

about these missiles attacks as "bouncing the rubble". Would you 

regard that attack in August of '98 as "bouncing the rubble"? 

MR. TENET: Well, you know that the '98 attack was predicated 

on intelligence that told us that there was going to be a 

gathering of senior al Qaeda leadership in one place. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Yes, I do. 

MR. TENET: So, the potential value there was high. I would 

say that continuing a program of cruise missile attacks wouldn't 

have been a smart thing to do subsequent to that, because I don't 

think it would have made much difference, unless there was some 

predictable intelligence. But I guess there's --

MR. BEN-VENISTE: And we could talk about whether the flying 

of the Predator in its reconnaissance mode might have developed 

similar intelligence in the spring of 2001. 

MR. TENET: Should we talk about that? 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Well, we can, but not on my nickel here. 

(Laughter.) 

Well, let me go into one other thing. The CIA provided 

massive aid to the Mujaheddin fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan 

on the theory that our enemy's enemy could be our friend. Fair 

enough. What has continued to puzzle and trouble me, George, is 

this: Didn't the CIA, knowing that -- knowing the proclivities 

and the extreme xenophobia of these jihadists, who the CIA had 

helped to arm and train -- why didn't the CIA seek to penetrate 

these organizations and keep close track of them in the years 

that follow the disbanding of the effort in Afghanistan? 
45

MR. TENET: Well, first of all, there was an accommodation of 

mutual convenience because we had a common enemy. And in fact, if 

you go back and look at some of the planning that we did, we went 

back and found people that used to work for us who became part of 

our networks again. Equally, you found other people that were 

fighting you, people who had become jihadists. There are people 

in Afghanistan today fighting us that we knew way back when, and 

people in Afghanistan today who are on our side. So, I mean, we 

had in advantage in terms of understanding all of the 

personalities on the ground, who they were, what their networks 

looked like; so it was a plus. 

But, you know, we drove the Russians out and essentially the 

United States left Afghanistan right after all of that. And the 

Taliban emerged and took a country down and allowed a terrorist 

organization to run a state. 

So the history here is interesting on all sides. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: But given the fact that these were people 

trained in lethal modalities, who hated foreigners in Muslim

countries, which is the basis of their attempt to throw the 

Russians out, don't you think you could have been more effective 

following up on some of these personalities, who include Osama 

bin Ladin? 

MR. TENET: Well, but we didn't train him, Richard. But the 

point of the matter is, a guy like Massoud is somebody we met in 

the conflict and continued to work with. I mean, you know, we 

kept track of some of these people. We didn't keep track of all 

of these people. None of -- many of them, you know, show up as 

jihadists in other conflicts around the world. 

So I wasn't around at the time, but I'm sure that the nature 

of our understanding of these relationships also helped us over 

the course of time as we were operating in Afghanistan. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

MR. KEAN: Commissioner Thompson. 

JAMES R. THOMPSON: You can talk about the Predator on my 

nickel, Mr. Director. (Laughter.) 

MR. TENET: Sir. 
46

MR. THOMPSON: But before you do, I want to read something to 

you. Talking about the Predator, Mr. Clarke says, "CIA had been 

blocking the deployment, refusing to be involved in running an 

armed version of the unmanned aircraft to hunt and kill bin 

Ladin." Is that statement true? 

MR. TENET: No. Blocking -- I'm sorry. Can you repeat that --

MR. THOMPSON: Sure. "CIA had been blocking the deployment of 

the Predator" --

MR. TENET: Right. 

MR. THOMPSON: -- "refusing to be involved in running an armed 

version of the unmanned aircraft to hunt and kill bin Ladin." 

MR. TENET: I don't think that -- look, Dick had contacts with 

all kinds of people in our building, and they had all kinds of 

disputes. But at this level -- (chuckles) -- we wanted to go 

ahead with arming that Predator. I mean, I don't -- I haven't 

read the book, so I don't know what the context is. 

MR. THOMPSON: Has anybody at CIA read the book? 

MR. TENET: Not yet, sir. 

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Just if I could add, Commissioner --

MR. THOMPSON: Yes, Mr. McLaughlin. 

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Well, my recall of that period -- and again, 

I haven't read the book, and I don't know what context that 

sentence sits in, what comes before and after -- but my recall of 

that period is, we were all trying to figure out how to arm the 

Predator. It was not a trivial task. And in that period of time, 

we all wanted to get it armed. 

The only issues were really a matter of timing and a matter 

of how it would be deployed, once it was armed -- and you know 

the story -- whether it would be deployed in a reconnaissance 

mode and armed mode, or just one of those. But that's my recall 

of where that story was with -- just not knowing the context of 

that sentence. 

MR. THOMPSON: The Predator couldn't fly in the winter. Is 

that correct? 
47

MR. TENET: That's correct. There were problems in the 

wintertime. 

MR. THOMPSON: And you had to go through all sorts of testings 

to arm it. Is that correct? Because it hadn't been designed as 

armed missiles --

MR. TENET: There was an extensive testing program that took 

you through the summer and -- or actually early fall of 2001, 

sir. 

MR. THOMPSON: So is it fair to say that the Administration

and everybody in it was trying to get to an armed Predator as 

quickly as possible? 

MR. TENET: Yes, sir. 

MR. THOMPSON: Mr. Director, I want to read for the public 

record two paragraphs in your written statement because I think 

they deserve the attention of the public record. 

Page 12, talking about the spiked reporting in the summer of 

2001: "The reporting was maddeningly short on actionable details. 

The most ominous reporting hinting at something big was also the 

most vague. The only occasions in this thread of reporting where 

there was an explicit or implicit location appeared to point 

abroad, especially to U.S. interests in the Middle East." 

And then on 13 there is a vast difference between being aware 

that a type of threat of exists -- and the type of threat would, 

for example, be the use of airplanes as weapons -- and having a 

specific warning of the date, time and location of a planned 

attack. We did not have intelligence of that specificity on which 

we could warn or take action. 

MEMBER OF THE PUBLIC: (Off mike.) 

MR. KEAN: Please sit down, sir. 

MEMBER OF THE PUBLIC: (Off mike.) 

MR. KEAN: The committee will stand in recess till the police 

restore order. (Brief pause.) You may proceed, sir. 

MR. THOMPSON: Mr. Tenet, do you have any idea of how many 

aircraft were in the air on September 11? 
48

MR. TENET: I don't, sir. 

MR. THOMPSON: If I said over 4,000, would that surprise you? 

MR. TENET: No. 

MR. THOMPSON: Had the President of the United States ever 

been told anything by anybody, but especially by the CIA, that 

would have allowed him to predict that on the morning of 

September 11th, four aircraft would be hijacked and used as 

weapons at specific locations? 

MR. TENET: Had we told him that, sir? Is that the question? 

MR. THOMPSON: Yes. 

MR. TENET: No, we did not. 

MR. THOMPSON: Okay. Were you able, using all sources of your 

intelligence, to tell him that? 

MR. TENET: I was not before the attack. 

MR. THOMPSON: In the period January to September, 2001, the 

CIA participated, along with other agencies, in the preparation 

of “the Plan,” as it's been described, responding to the threat 

of al Qaeda; is that correct? 

MR. TENET: That's correct. 

MR. THOMPSON: Were you ever dissatisfied with the pace of the 

Bush administration in the preparation of that plan? 

MR. TENET: No. 

MR. THOMPSON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, Mr. Director. 

MR. KEAN: Thank you. 

Congressman Roemer. 

MR. ROEMER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Welcome, Mr. Director. As a member of the Intelligence 

Committee and having traveled around the world to visit some of 
49

the locations where we have the dedicated people working for the 

CIA, I just want to remind you how highly you're held in esteem 

by those people. And I want to thank those people around the 

world for the spectacular job they do. 

I want to try, Mr. Director, if we can to talk about your 

role in the PDBs and the NSC's role in developing policy. As I 

said yesterday, I would hope that if we get Mr. Clarke here --

which he will be here in a few hours, sworn in to tell the truth 

-- that we would have Dr. Rice come and talk in the same way and 

on the same grounds and talk to us how policy was or was not 

developed during the first nine months of the Bush 

administration. Would you agree, Mr. Director, that the PDBs are 

not policy? As you said before, you are frustrated by racing 

around from event to event, trying to find out where they're 

coming at us next. Are you a policymaker? 

MR. TENET: No. 

MR. ROEMER: You're not a policymaker? The NSC, whether it be 

in the Clinton or the Bush administration, is tasked with 

developing the policy of the President of the United States, 

coordinating that policy with other agencies, and pushing it out 

and implementing it so something gets done, whether that's in the 

State Department policy or fighting al Qaeda. 

MR. TENET: Mr. Roemer, I obviously have an input into the 

policy process with the data I provide. 

MR. ROEMER: But I would --

MR. TENET: And from time to time I am asked -- although I 

don't inject unilaterally, I am asked for my views on issues. It 

doesn't happen all the time, but it occasionally happens and 

happens on terrorism occasionally. 

MR. ROEMER: With you not fulfilling the policymaker role, but 

that we agree that the NSC is the primary policymaker and 

coordinator for the President and the United States government --

I want to come back to that in a minute, but I want to come to 

the PDB itself. 

The PDB of August 6th, 2001, as you're aware, was 

declassified, or portions of it were declassified from a 

conversation with the CIA provided to the Joint Inquiry. It's a 

public document, declassified on page 206 of that public 

document, and I want to read you a couple of things that were 
50

included in the Joint Inquiry statement on that PDB of that 

August 6th, 2001 time period. 

A senior government official told the Joint Inquiry that the 

information included that bin Ladin had wanted to conduct attacks 

in the United States since 1997. It mentions al Qaeda, including 

some U.S. citizens, had resided in or traveled to the United 

States for years, and the group apparently maintained a support 

structure here. 

The report cited uncorroborated information it obtained and 

disseminated in 1998 that bin Ladin wanted to hijack airplanes to 

gain the release of U.S.-held extremists; the FBI judgments about 

patterns of activity consistent with preparations for hijackings 

of other types of attacks; as well as information acquired in 

May, 2001, that indicated a group of bin Ladin supporters were 

planning attacks in the United States with explosives. Now, 

that's the Joint Inquiry public declassified statement about what 

was in the August 6th, 2001 PDB. Now, that's not saying that this 

was in New York on September 11th of 2001. That is saying there 

was a possibility of attacks domestically. 

Now, why weren't we concentrating more on those kinds of 

possibilities? You were running around saying something 

spectacular is going to happen. You were worried about this. You 

were on record from 1998 on saying you're at war with al Qaeda. 

But why wasn't the United States government more concerned about 

those attacks in the United States? 

MR. TENET: Congressman Roemer, I'd ask you this afternoon 

when you get Mr. Clarke here, who was the chairman of the CSG, to 

go through the process of what they were looking at, actions they 

were tasking, how they thought about this problem. I wasn't 

sitting in that room. I'd ask you to think about asking him how 

we dealt with this in this time period and find out what that 

response is. 

MR. ROEMER: So you're saying that it is the responsibility of 

the National Security Council --

MR. TENET: Well, the CSG --

MR. ROEMER: -- to develop the policy to go after the 

terrorists --

MR. TENET: Sir, the CSG is a mechanism where all of these 

issues come into play every time it meets. What is the threat? 
51

What actions do we take? What are we asking agencies to do? It's 

a focal point for the way this government has organized itself 

around terrorism for years. 

MR. ROEMER: So, you're saying it's them, not the CIA, that 

should have been attentive to this. 

MR. TENET: Well, the CIA is in the CSG meeting as well. I 

mean, everybody's at the table. The FBI's there, the NSC's there, 

CIA's there, domestic agencies are there. Throughout this time 

period -- I don't have access to the minutes and recordings of 

what happened. What actions were they tasking? How were they 

thinking about this? 

MR. ROEMER: If they're going through a bottom-up review --

MR. KEAN: Congressman, we've got to move on. We've run out of 

time. We've got one more commissioner. 

MR. ROEMER: Okay. 

Just to underscore my concerns here, Mr. Director, I really 

believe that we need better data mining and better coordination 

at the CIA to track that kind of information in the PDBs, so that 

you can task back to the policymakers in the White House about 

how to go after this threat and how to help develop this. 

Dr. Rice, Mr. Clarke and others we will talk to about their 

role in developing the government's coordination and the 

government policy with respect to this. 

Thank you again. 

MR. TENET: Thanks --

MR. KEAN: Thank you all. 

The last questions are going to come from Commissioner 

Lehman. 

MR. LEHMAN: Thank you. 

Mr. Director, I have three questions. One, first, a number of 

the interviewees and testimony that we've had have complained 

about an overly legalistic culture in dealing with operations and 

with intelligence that was particularly marked in the Clinton 

administration, but hasn't really changed much since. 
52

The '93 attack on the WTI -- on the World Trade Center, there 

were some very significant linkages that came out of that 

investigation: Ramzi Yousef, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the paying 

of legal bills by Osama bin Ladin to the assassin of the rabbi in 

Israel, Rabbi Kahane; and particularly the role, which still is 

not clear to us, of Abdul Rahman Yasin. All of this came out and 

these linkages were there in the investigation of the attack. But 

we have been told by a number of witnesses that there was such a 

total forensic policy towards that event that there was almost no 

sharing of this information. 

When did you learn about all these al Qaeda linkages to the 

'93 World Trace Center? Was it shared with you as it was 

developed? 

MR. TENET: Gosh, Commissioner Lehman, I don't get to -- I 

don't get to CIA till '95. I have to go back and look. I just 

don't recall when those things were shared. I'll go back and 

check. I don't remember. 

MR. LEHMAN: I'd appreciate that for the record. 

MR. TENET: Certainly. 

MR. LEHMAN: And -- but one of the issues that has troubled me 

is why with -- after it became known of Yasin's -- particularly 

Yasin's role and linkages, and the fact that he fled to Baghdad 

and was in the hands of the Iraqi intelligence, was there ever 

any effort made to render him, since -- and where is he now? 

MR. TENET: Yes. And I don't know if I can do this in the 

open, but the answer is yes, and I'd like to give you the details 

of that. 

MR. KEAN: Okay. We'll receive that in private. 

MR. LEHMAN: Thank you. 

Second question is the Cole. Yesterday we had the former 

secretary of State say that she was given no evidence of any 

linkages between al Qaeda and the Cole attack right up to the end 

of the administration, and there have been other witnesses that 

have said that CIA did not say there was a link to al Qaeda until 

well into or at least into the early months of the new 

Administration. 
53

MR. TENET: Sir, I believe that the briefing charts that we've 

reviewed would say that the briefing said something like the 

following. There are -- on a preliminary basis, we believe that 

there are operatives who are associated with al Qaeda that took 

part in this attack. There were some named individuals. The 

briefing also goes on to note that some of the data that is 

coming to us is coming from the Yemenis. We don't have direct 

access to some of their prisoners, et cetera, et cetera, et 

cetera. The briefing also then says that there -- we could not 

make a conclusive judgment about whether bin Ladin and his 

lieutenants had authority, direction and control over this 

operation, notwithstanding the fact there were named al Qaeda 

operatives who participated in the operation. I think I've got 

that about right; maybe there's more to it. 

So there is al Qaeda operatives as a link. There is no 

definitive, at that moment, authority, direction and control. You 

remember in the East Africa bombings you did have authority, 

direction and control through some means very, very quickly. And 

that's -- there were named individuals: Nashiri, Khallad, some 

other people who were al Qaeda operatives. And so there's a 

distinction between where these operatives -- what we couldn't 

take you to is until we got Nashiri and Khallad in custody over a 

year later -- well, a year after 9/11, the specific dates --

where they both told us definitively that bin Ladin was involved 

in the planning and the execution of this attack, we could not 

say definitively that we had that piece of data, while we had al 

Qaeda operatives of their stature involved in the attack. 

MR. LEHMAN: So that assessment was made, what, in -- not till 

January? 

MR. TENET: No, sir. I think that assessment is provided -- I 

think the same assessment is provided in December and in January. 

I mean, there were three different periods. My recollection 

is that there's a meeting in November, there's a meeting in --

there's a small group meeting in November, there's a principals' 

meeting in December --that I did not physically get to, I don't 

believe. John was there. And then there is follow-on material 

that's written in the January time frame. 

MR. LEHMAN: Thank you. My last question is, Mr. Clarke and 

others, as we've heard in the staff statement this morning, have 

stated that at least since the Church-Pike era, there is a very 

deeply entrenched culture in the Directorate of Operations 
54

against covert operations, and especially and strongly against 

assassination. Do you share Mr. Clarke's assessment? 

MR. TENET: No, I don't. Look, I know that -- look, you've 

asked three separate questions in one. Number one, to sort of 

talk about the culture of the Directorate of Operations without 

living and working there every day is a stretch. Okay? 

Number two, nobody ever talks about assassinations 

frivolously, ever. So one and the other, but the idea that, you 

know -- that they're risk-averse, couldn't get the job done, 

weren't forward- leaning -- I'm sorry. I've heard those comments, 

and I just categorically reject them. 

MR. LEHMAN: Do you also reject Mr. Clarke's statement that at 

least two of the most senior officials in DO said they'd resign 

rather than carry out --

MR. TENET: Well, I don't know that, because I think that was 

something you learned in your staff interviews. 

MR. TENET: And I don't -- and look, this is an issue --

there's some deeply felt -- held views here. But I mean, I don't 

know who said it and why they said it and -- here you go, sir. 

MR. LEHMAN: Thank you. 

MR. KEAN: With your permission, sir, Senator Gorton has asked 

for one final question. 

MR. TENET: Sir. 

MR. GORTON: Mr. Director, Commissioner Roemer's last question 

led me to ask you whether or not the "bright line" distinction 

established in 1947 between intelligence domestically and 

intelligence overseas, in your view, is now an anachronism, and 

whether some reorganization in that connection is in order. 

MR. TENET: It's -- I don't know if I understand the question. 

MR. GORTON: Should the CIA have some jurisdiction within the 

United States? 

MR. TENET: No, absolutely not. Under no circumstance. 

MR. GORTON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 
55

MR. KEAN: Okay. I want to thank you very, very much. We 

appreciate your testimony, appreciate your coming. 

 MR. KEAN: (Sounds gavel.) Bring the hearing back to order, 

please. 

We now move on to our next topic, which will focus on the 

strategies employed by the Clinton and Bush administrations 

against al Qaeda and how each administration directed and 

coordinated the key instruments of national power responsible for 

implementing those strategies. 

Before hearing from our national security advisor, Samuel 

Berger, our executive director, Dr. Philip Zelikow, and the 

general counsel, Mr. Daniel Marcus, will present a statement from 

the staff. 

PHILIP ZELIKOW (executive director of the Commission):

Members of the Commission, with your help, your staff has 

developed initial findings to present to the public on the 

coordination of national policy in dealing with the danger posed 

by Islamic extremist terrorism before the September 11th attacks 

on the United States. These findings may help frame some of the 

issues for this hearing and inform the development of your 

judgments and recommendations. This report reflects the results 

of our work so far. We remain ready to revise our understanding 

of events as our work continues. 

This staff statement reflects the collective effort of a 

number of members of our staff. Warren Bass, Michael Hurley, 

Alexis Albion and Dan Marcus did much of the investigative work 

reflected in this statement. The Executive Office of the 

President, Central Intelligence Agency and other government 

agencies have made the material available to us for the 

preparation of this statement. 

I now turn over to Dan Marcus, general counsel of the 

Commission and a former high-ranking official of the Department 

of Justice. Dan? 

DANIEL MARCUS (general counsel of the Commission): Thank you, 

Philip. 

The full staff statement is in the record and has been 

distributed. I'm going to skip around a little to try to save a 

little time here. I'm going to start on the bottom of the first 

page of the statement. 
56

The first World Trade Center attack spotlighted the problem 

of how and whether the NSC could bridge the divide between 

foreign policy and traditionally domestic issues, such as 

criminal justice. That attack, handled by the FBI as a matter for 

domestic law enforcement, had been carried out by a mixture of 

American citizens, resident aliens and foreign nationals with 

ties overseas. 

President Clinton concluded that the National Security Act of 

1947 allowed the NSC to consider issues of domestic security 

arising from a foreign threat. The President later issued a 

formal directive on counterterrorism policy, Presidential 

Decision Directive 39, signed in June 1995. That directive 

characterized terrorism as a national security concern as well as 

a matter for law enforcement. 

Jumping to the next paragraph. 

These efforts were to be coordinated by a subordinate NSC 

committee called the CSG. During the Clinton administration, 

these initials stood for Counterterrorism and Security Group. 

This committee was chaired by an NSC staff member, Richard 

Clarke. The CSG was the place where domestic security agencies 

such as the FBI regularly met alongside representatives from the 

traditional national security agencies. 

Since 1989, each administration has organized its top NSC 

advisory bodies in three layers. At the top is the National 

Security Council, the formal statutory body whose meetings are 

chaired by the President. Beneath it is the Principals Committee 

with Cabinet-level representatives from the agencies. The 

Principals Committee is usually chaired by the national security 

adviser. The third layer is the Deputies Committee, where the 

deputy agency heads meet under the chairmanship of the deputy 

national security adviser. Lower-ranking officials meet in many 

other working groups or coordinating committees, reporting to the 

deputies, and through them to the principals. The CSG was one of 

those committees. 

This ordinary committee system is often adjusted in a crisis. 

Because of the sensitivity of the intelligence and military 

options being considered, President Clinton created a small group 

in which a select set of principals frequently met without aides 

to discuss Khobar Towers or Osama bin Ladin. The participants 

would usually be many of the people who have appeared at these 

hearings yesterday and today: National Security Adviser Berger, 

DCI Tenet, Secretary of State Albright, Secretary of Defense 
57

Cohen; Hugh Shelton, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; 

Deputy National Security Adviser James Steinberg; the White House 

chief of staff, John Podesta; Richard Clarke, and Vice President 

Gore's national security adviser Leon Fuerth. Attorney General 

Reno and FBI Director Freeh would also sometimes participate. 

National Security Adviser Berger told us that he designed the 

small group process to keep highly sensitive information closely 

held. There were few paper records. One tradeoff of such a system 

was that other senior officials and agencies around the 

government sometimes had little knowledge about what was being 

decided in the small group, other than what they could obtain 

from the principals or from Clarke. This sometimes led to 

misunderstandings and friction. 

Presidential Directive 62 and the national coordinator. In 

early 1998, the Clinton administration prepared a new 

presidential directive on counterterrorism. Its goals were to 

strengthen the lead agency approach in 10 program areas to 

reemphasize the importance President Clinton attached to 

unconventional threats at home and abroad, and to strengthen 

interagency coordination. The draft directive would strengthen 

Clarke's role by creating the position of a national coordinator 

for counterterrorism who would be a full member of the Principals 

Committee or Deputies Committee for meetings on these topics. 

Skipping the next paragraph. 

As it evolved in the Clinton administration, the CSG 

effectively reported directly to principals, and with the 

principals often meeting only in this restricted small group. 

This process could be very effective in overseeing fastdeveloping but sensitive operations in moving issues quickly to 

the highest levels and in keeping secrets. However, since the 

deputies and other sub-Cabinet officials were not members of the 

CSG, this process created a challenge for integrating 

counterterrorism issues into the broader agenda of these agencies 

and the U.S. government. 

Clarke was a controversial figure. A career civil servant, he 

drew wide praise as someone who called early and consistent 

attention to the seriousness of the terrorism danger. A skilled 

operator of the levers of government, he energetically worked the 

system to address vulnerabilities and combat terrorists. Some 

colleagues have described his working style as "abrasive." And 

some officials told us that Clarke sometimes misled them about 

presidential decisions or interfered in their chain of command. 
58

National Security Adviser Berger told us that several of his 

colleagues had wanted Clarke fired, but Berger's net assessment 

was that Clarke fulfilled an important role in pushing the 

interagency process to fight bin Ladin. As Berger put it, quote, 

"I wanted a pile driver," close quote. 

Skip the next paragraph. 

Changing strategy about bin Ladin and his network. President 

Clinton often discussed terrorism publicly as the dark side of 

globalization. He was particularly and vocally concerned about 

the danger of terrorists acquiring weapons of mass destruction, 

especially biological weapons. He tended to receive his 

intelligence in written briefings rather than personally from the 

DCI, and he frequently would pass back questions to follow up on 

items related to bin Ladin or other terrorist threats. National 

Security Adviser Berger and others told us that the East Africa 

Embassy bombings of August 1998 were a wastershed event in the 

level of attention given to the bin Ladin threat. 

Skip to the next paragraph. 

After the August 1998 military strikes against Afghanistan 

and Sudan, Clarke turned his attention to a government-wide 

strategy for destroying the bin Ladin threat. His proposed 

strategy was called Political-Military Plan Delenda, circulated 

among CSG and small-group participants in late August and 

September 1998. As mentioned yesterday, the term "delenda" is 

from the Latin "to destroy," evoking the famous Roman vow to 

erase its rival, Carthage. The plan's goal was to immediately 

eliminate any significant threat to Americans from the Osama bin 

Ladin network, to prevent further attacks and to prevent the 

group from acquiring weapons of mass destruction. 

This strategy sought to combine four main approaches:

diplomacy, covert action, financial measures and military action. 

The strategy was not formally adopted, and Cabinet-level 

participants in the small group have little or no recollection of 

it, at least as a formal policy document. The principals decided 

against the rolling military campaign described in the plan, but 

Clarke continued to use the other components of the delenda plan 

to guide his efforts. 

Skip the next little paragraph. 

In June 1999, National Security Adviser Berger and Richard 

Clarke summarized for President Clinton what had been 
59

accomplished to date against bin Ladin. An active program to 

disrupt al Qaeda cells around the world was under way and was 

reporting some success. The efforts to track bin Ladin's finances 

with help from Saudi Arabia and the UAE had not yet been 

successful. The U.S. government was pressing Pakistan and the 

Emirates to cut off support for the Taliban. Covert action 

efforts in Afghanistan had not borne fruit. 

Proposals to intervene against the Taliban by helping the 

Northern Alliance had been deferred. The intelligence needed for 

missile attacks to kill bin Ladin was too thin and this situation 

was not likely to change. 

Berger and Clarke said it was of virtually certainty that 

there would be more attacks on American facilities. They were 

worried about bin Ladin's possible acquisition of weapons of mass 

destruction, a subject on which they had recently received from 

some fragmentary but disturbing intelligence. The quality of that 

intelligence was unlikely to improve, his advisors reported. 

Given this overall picture, they returned to the idea they had 

discussed in the fall of 1998 of a preemptive strike on terrorist 

camps, such as the one reportedly involved in WMD work. 

Alternatively, they wrote, the government could retaliate after 

the next attack, but the camps might then be emptied. 

The small group met to consider some of these ideas on June 

24th, 1999. From some notes it appears that the group discussed 

military strikes against al Qaeda infrastructure but rejected 

this approach for reasons including the relatively slight impact 

of strikes balanced against the potentially counterproductive 

results. 

The NSC staff kept looking for new options or ideas. Later in 

1999, for example, the new leadership team at the CIA's 

Counterterrorist Center produced a plan for increased 

intelligence collection and relationships with other potential 

partners for clandestine or covert action against bin Ladin. 

Berger and Clarke made sure that these efforts received both 

attention and authorization to proceed. 

The Millennium alerts. As 1999 drew to a close, Jordanian 

intelligence discovered an al Qaeda-connected plot to attack 

tourists gathered in Jordan for Millennium events. Intelligence 

revealed links to suspected terrorists who might be in the United 

States. Meanwhile, a customs agent caught Ahmed Ressam, an 

Algerian jihadist, trying to cross with explosives from Canada 
60

into the United States. Both staff and principals at the NSC were 

seized with this threat. 

The CSG met constantly, frequently getting the assistance of 

principals to spur particular actions. These actions included 

pressuring Pakistan to turn over particular suspects and issuing 

an extraordinary number of domestic surveillance warrants for 

investigations in the United States. Berger said that the 

principals convened on a nearly daily basis in the White House 

Situation Room for almost a month. The principals communicated 

their own sense of urgency throughout their agencies. 

By all accounts, the Millennium period was also a high point 

in the troubled relationship between the White House and the FBI. 

Before 9/11, the FBI did not ordinarily produce intelligence 

reports. Records of the FBI's intelligence work usually consisted 

only of reports of interviews with witnesses or memoranda 

requesting initiation or expansion of investigation. 

The senior FBI headquarters official for counterterrorism, 

Dale Watson, was a member of the CSG, and Clarke had good 

relations with him and with FBI agents handling al Qaeda-related 

investigations. But the NSC staff told us that the FBI rarely 

shared information about its domestic investigations. The 

Millennium alert period was an exception. 

After the Millennium surge subsided, Berger and his deputy, 

James Steinberg, complained that despite regular meetings with 

Attorney General Reno and FBI Director Freeh, the FBI withheld 

terrorism data on grounds that it was inappropriate to share 

information relating to pending investigations being presented to 

a grand jury. 

In a January 2000 note to Berger, Clarke reported that the 

CSG drew two main conclusions from the Millennium crisis. First, 

it concluded that U.S.-led disruption efforts, quote, "have not 

put too much of a dent," close quote, into bin Ladin's network 

abroad. Second, it feared that sleeper cells or other links to 

foreign terrorist groups had taken root in the United States. 

Berger then led a formal Millennium after-action review of 

next steps, culminating in a meeting of the full principals' 

committee on March 10th. 

The principals' committee endorsed a four-part agenda to 

strengthen the U.S. government's counterterrorism efforts: first, 

increase disruption efforts; second, strengthen enforcement of 
61

laws restricting the activity of foreign terrorist organizations 

in the United States; three, prevent foreign -- do a better job 

of preventing foreign terrorists from entering the United States; 

fourth, improve the security of the U.S.-Canadian border. 

We'll skip to coordinating a counterterrorism budget, lower 

down on page 6. 

Overall, U.S. government spending connected to 

counterterrorism grew rapidly during the late 1990s. Congress 

appropriated billions of additional dollars in supplemental 

appropriations for improvements like building more secure 

embassies, managing the consequences of a WMD attack and 

protecting military forces. 

Clarke and others remained frustrated, however, at the CIA's 

spending on counterterrorism. 

They complained that baseline spending at headquarters on bin 

Ladin efforts or on operational efforts overseas remained nearly 

level. The CIA funded an expanded level of activity on a 

temporary basis with supplemental appropriations, but baseline 

spending -- (clears throat) -- excuse me -- baseline spending 

requests, and thus core staffing, remained flat. 

The CIA, on the other hand, told us that Clarke kept 

promising more budget support but could never deliver it. The 

Clinton administration began proposing significant increases in 

the overall national intelligence budget in January, 2000, for 

fiscal year 2001. Until that time at least, CIA officials have 

told us that their main effort had been to rebuild the agency's 

operating capabilities after what they had said -- what they said 

had been years of cuts and retrenchment. They believed 

counterterrorism efforts were relatively well off compared with 

needs elsewhere. 

I'm now going to skip to the paragraph in the middle of the 

page -- middle of page 7 -- on August 1st, 2000. 

Clarke outlined for Berger a few key goals he hoped the 

administration could accomplish before it left office: to 

significantly erode al Qaeda's leadership and infrastructure; to 

gain the still-pending supplemental appropriations for the 

counterterrorism effort; and to advance the Predator program. 

In August, Clarke urged that the CSG and the Principals 

Committee be ready for emergency meetings to decide whether to 
62

fire cruise missiles if bin Ladin were spotted by the Predator. 

Berger noted to Clarke, though, that before considering any 

action he would need more than a verified location; he would also 

need data on a pattern of movements to provide some assurance 

that bin Ladin would stay where he had been sighted. 

In September, Clarke wrote that the drones, the Predators, 

were providing "truly astonishing" imagery, including, quote, a 

"very high probability" of a bin Ladin sighting. Clarke was also 

more upbeat about progress with disruptions of al Qaeda cells 

elsewhere. Berger wrote back praising Clarke's and the CSG's 

performance while observing that this was no time for 

complacency. Quote, from Berger: "Unfortunately the light at the 

end of the tunnel is another tunnel." 

The Attack on the U.S.S. Cole. The Cole was attacked on 

October 12 in Yemen. By November 11, Berger and Clarke reported 

to the President that, while the investigation was continuing, it 

was becoming increasingly clear that al Qaeda planned and 

directed the bombing. In an update two weeks later, the President

was informed that FBI and CIA investigations had not reached a 

formal conclusion, but Berger and Clarke expected that the 

investigations would soon conclude that the attack had been 

carried out by a large cell headed by members of al Qaeda and 

that most of those involved were trained at Bin Ladin-operated 

camps in Afghanistan. So far, bin Ladin had not been tied 

personally to the attacks, but there were reasons to suspect he 

was involved. 

In discussing possible responses, Berger stated to the 

President that inherent in them was the, quote, "unproven 

assumption," close quote, that al Qaeda was responsible for the 

attack. Berger told us that he wanted a more definitive judgment 

from the DCI before using force. By December 21, the CIA's 

preliminary judgment for principals was that, while al Qaeda 

appeared to have supported the attack, the agency still had no 

definitive answer on the, quote, "crucial question," close quote, 

of outside direction of the attack. Clarke added to us that, 

while both the State Department and the Pentagon had reservations 

about retaliation, the issue never came to a head because the FBI 

and the CIA had not provided that definitive conclusion about 

responsibility. 

The Cole attack prompted renewed consideration of what could 

be done. Clarke told us that Berger upbraided DCI Tenet so 

sharply after the Cole attack, repeatedly demanding to know why 

the United States had to put up with such attacks, that it led 
63

Tenet to walk out of a principals committee meeting. As we 

mentioned in our staff statement yesterday, Berger obtained a 

fresh briefing on military options from General Shelton. 

In December 2000 the CIA developed initiatives -- moving off 

the Cole now -- based on the assumption that policy and money 

were no longer constraints. The result was the "Blue Sky" memo, 

the so-called "Blue Sky" memo, which we discussed earlier today. 

This was forwarded to the NSC staff. 

As the Clinton administration drew to a close, the NSC 

counterterrorism staff developed another strategy paper, the 

first such comprehensive effort since the Delenda plan of 1998. 

The resulting paper, titled a "Strategy for Eliminating the 

Threat from the Jihadist Networks of al Qaeda: Status and 

Prospects," reviewed the threat, the record to date, incorporated 

the CIA's new ideas from the "Blue Sky" memo, and posed several 

near-term policy choices. The goal was to roll back al Qaeda over 

a period of three to five years, reducing it eventually to a rump 

group like others formerly feared but now largely defunct 

terrorist organizations of the 1980s. Quote, "Continued anti-al 

Qaeda operations at the current level will prevent some attacks, 

but will not seriously attrit their ability to plan and conduct 

attacks," Clarke and his staff wrote. 

Now we'll turn to the Bush administration. 

The Bush administration decided to retain Clarke and his core 

counterterrorism staff. 

National Security Adviser Rice knew Clarke from prior 

government service. She was aware he was controversial, but she 

and Hadley thought they needed an experienced crisis manager in 

place during the first part of the Administration. Working with 

Clarke, Rice and her deputy, Stephen Hadley, concentrated 

Clarke's responsibilities on terrorism issues and planned to spin 

off some of his office's responsibilities for cybersecurity, 

international crime and consequence management to other parts of 

the NSC staff. Clarke in particular wished to elevate the 

attention being given to cybersecurity. 

On May 8th, President Bush asked Vice President Cheney to 

chair an effort, a related effort, looking at preparations for 

managing a WMD attack and problems of national preparedness. That 

effort was just getting under way when the 9/11 attack occurred. 
64

Rice and Hadley decided that Clarke's CSG should report to 

the Deputies Committee, chaired by Hadley, rather than bringing 

its issues directly to principals. Clarke would still attend 

Principals Committee meetings on terrorism, but without the 

central role that he had played in the Clinton-era Small Group. 

Hadley told us that subordinating the CSG to the deputies would 

help resolve counterterrorism issues in a broader context. Clarke 

protested the change, arguing that it would slow decision-making. 

He told us that he considered this move a demotion to being a 

staffer rather than being a de facto principal on terrorism. On 

operational matters, however, Clarke could and did go directly to 

Rice. 

Clarke and his staff said that the new team, having been out 

of government for at least eight years, had a learning curve to 

understand al Qaeda and the new transnational terrorist threat. 

During the transition, Clarke briefed Secretary of Statedesignate Powell, Rice and Hadley on al Qaeda issues, including a 

mention of "sleeper cells" in many countries, including the 

United States. Clarke gave a similar briefing to Vice President 

Cheney in the early days of the Administration. 

Berger said he told Rice during the transition that she would 

spend more time on terrorism and al Qaeda than on any other 

issue. Although Clarke briefed President Bush on cybersecurity 

issues before September 11th, Clarke never briefed or met with 

President Bush on counterterrorism, which was a significant 

contrast from the relationship he had enjoyed with President 

Clinton. Rice pointed out to us that President Bush received his 

counterterrorism briefings directly from Director Tenet, who 

began personally providing intelligence updates at the White 

House each morning. 

Asked by Hadley to offer major initiatives, on January 25, 

2001 Clarke forwarded his December 2000 strategy paper and a copy 

of his 1998 Delenda plan to the new national security adviser, 

Condoleezza Rice. Clarke laid out a proposed agenda for urgent 

action by the new Administration: Approval of covert assistance 

to the Northern Alliance; significantly increase funding; 

choosing a standard of evidence for attributing responsibility 

for the Cole and deciding on a response; going forward with new 

Predator missions in the spring and preparation of an armed 

version; and more work on terrorist fundraising. 

Clarke -- I will try to wind up quickly because we're running 

late. Clarke asked on several occasions for early principals 
65

meetings on these issues and was frustrated that no early meeting 

was scheduled. 

No Principals Committee meetings on al Qaeda were held until 

September 4th, 2001. Rice and Hadley said this was because the 

Deputies Committee needed to work through many issues relating to 

the new policy on al Qaeda. The Principals Committee did meet 

frequently before September 11th on other subjects, Rice told us, 

including Russia, the Persian Gulf and the Middle East peace 

process. Rice and Hadley told us that although the Clinton 

administration had worked very hard on the al Qaeda program, its 

policies on al Qaeda, quote, "had run out of gas," and they 

therefore set about developing a new presidential directive and a 

new comprehensive policy on terrorism. 

I'm going to skip now, so that we can catch up on time, to 

the bottom of page 10, the last full paragraph. 

As spring turned to summer, Clarke was impatient for 

decisions on aid to the Northern Alliance and on the Predator 

program, issues managed by Hadley and the Deputies Committee. 

Clarke and others perceived the process as slow, and Clarke 

argued that the policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan did not need 

to be settled before moving ahead against al Qaeda. Hadley 

emphasized to us the time needed to get new officials confirmed 

and in place. He told us that they moved the process along as 

fast as they could, and the Deputies Committee met seven times 

from April until September 10th on issues related to al Qaeda, 

Afghanistan and Pakistan. 

Rice recalled that in May 2001, as threats of possible 

terrorist attacks came up again and again in the director's 

morning discussions with the President, the President expressed 

impatience with, quote, "swatting flies" and pushed his advisers 

to do more. And Rice and Tenet met at the end of May, along with 

their counterterrorism advisers, to discuss what Rice at the time 

called taking the offensive against al Qaeda. Within the NSC 

staff, Clarke was asked to put together a broad policy to 

eliminate al Qaeda, to be codified in the presidential directive. 

Moving to the next paragraph. 

Clarke and his staff regarded the new approach as essentially

similar to the proposal they had developed in December 2000 and 

put forward to the new Administration in January 2001. Clarke's 

staff produced a draft presidential directive on al Qaeda. Hadley 
66

circulated it to his counterparts in early June as, quote, "an 

admittedly ambitious program." 

The draft had its goal -- had the goal of eliminating the al 

Qaeda network as a threat over a multi-year period. It had 

headings such as "No Sanctuaries" and "No Financial Support." 

Skipping to the next paragraph, from April through July, 

alarming threat reports were pouring in. Clarke and the CSG were 

consumed with coordinating defensive reactions. In late June, 

Clarke wrote Rice that the threat reporting had reached a 

crescendo. 

Next paragraph.

On July 2nd, the FBI issued a national threat advisory. Rice 

recalls asking Clarke on July 5th to bring additional law 

enforcement and domestic agencies into the CSG threat 

discussions, and that was done. 

Last sentence of the paragraph.

On July 27th, Clarke reported to Rice and Hadley that the 

spike (in) intelligence indicating a near-term attack appeared to 

have ceased, but he urged them to keep readiness high; 

intelligence indicated that an attack had been postponed for a 

few months. 

In early August, the CIA prepared an article for the 

President's daily intelligence brief on whether or how terrorists 

might attack the United States. Neither the White House nor the 

CSG received specific, credible information about any threatened 

attacks in the United States. Neither Clarke nor the CSG were 

informed, however, about the August 2001 investigations that 

produced the discovery of suspected al Qaeda operatives in the 

United States, nor did the group learn about the arrest or FBI 

investigation of Zacarias Moussaoui in Minnesota. 

Let's skip to -- skip the next paragraph. 

At the beginning of August, Rice and Hadley again reviewed 

the draft presidential directive on al Qaeda. Rice commented that 

it was "very good," and principals needed to discuss it briefly 

before it was submitted to President Bush. This meeting was 

scheduled for September 4. 

Skip the next paragraph. 
67

The policy streams converged at a meeting of the principals' 

committee, the Administration's first such meeting on al Qaeda 

issues, on September 4. 

Before this meeting, Clarke wrote to Rice summarizing many of 

his frustrations. He urged policymakers to imagine a day after a 

terrorist attack, with hundreds of Americans dead at home and 

abroad, and ask themselves what they could have done earlier. He 

criticized the military for what he called its unwillingness to 

retaliate for the Cole or to strike Afghan camps. He accused 

senior CIA officials of trying to block the Predator program. He 

warned that unless adequate funding was found for the planned 

effort, the directive would be a hollow shell. He feared, 

apparently referring to Bush's earlier comment, that Washington 

might be left with a modest effort to swat flies, relying on 

foreign governments while waiting for the big attack. 

Rice chaired the meeting of principals. They apparently 

approved the draft directive. They agreed, as discussed earlier, 

that the armed Predator capability was needed, leaving open 

issues related to command and control of the Predator. Director 

Tenet was pressed to reconsider his opposition to starting

immediately with reconnaissance flights and, after the meeting, 

Tenet agreed to proceed with such flights. 

Various follow-up activities began in the following days, 

including discussions between Rice and Tenet, directives on 

September 10 from Hadley to Tenet to develop expanded covert 

action authorities, and that same day further deputies committee 

considerations of policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan. And 

then came the attacks of September 11th. 

MR. KEAN: Thank you all very much. (Pauses.) 

We are pleased to welcome before the Commission a witness who 

can offer us considerable insight into questions of national 

policy coordination, Mr. Samuel Berger, who served as President 

Clinton's national security advisor. 

Mr. Berger, we'd like to ask you to raise your right hand. Do 

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

nothing but the truth? 

MR. BERGER: I do. 

MR. KEAN: Thank you, sir. 
68

Mr. Berger, your written remarks will be entered into the 

record in full. We will ask you to summarize your opening 

statement. And welcome. 

MR. BERGER: Chairman Kean, Vice Chairman Hamilton, members of 

the Commission, families and friends, I'm pleased to be here 

today to share my reflections on the fight against terrorism, as 

well as my recommendations for the future. 

We can never forget what we lost on September 11th, more than 

3,000 lives cut short. It was the beginning of the age of 

catastrophic terrorism. The tragedy changed our perspectives and 

priorities as a nation, even as individuals. We have an 

obligation to explore the events that led up to that terrible 

morning. 

For all of the efforts of successive administrations, 

September 11 was not prevented. 

We were hit. We must learn the right lessons so that it never 

happens again. At the same time, it is easier to see how puzzle 

pieces fit together if you have in hand the final picture. 

History is written through a rear-view mirror but it unfolds 

through a foggy windshield. 

When President Clinton entered office in 1993, the 

intelligence community was primarily focused on the Soviet 

Union's collapse and the Cold War's end. During the 1980s, nearly 

500 Americans had been killed in terrorist attacks abroad, yet 

counterterrorism was not a priority of our government. From the 

beginning of our administration, the NSC was responsible for 

policy formulation and for seeking to implement President 

Clinton's commitment to fight terrorism. We met frequently on 

terrorism at the Cabinet level. During times of acute crisis, 

such as during the Millennium threat, we took on a more active 

management role. The day-to-day interagency working group, the 

Counterterrorism Security Group, reported to us. We provided 

stimulus to agencies across a broad counterterrorism strategy. 

What were the elements of our counterterrorism strategy? 

First, as our understanding of bin Ladin evolved in the mid1990s, from one of many financiers of terrorist groups to a 

galvanizer of anti-American hatred, our focus on him and his 

network increased. We established a dedicated CIA cell for 

tracking his activities. 
69

After the bombings of our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 

August 1998, the first time we had established bin Ladin's role 

in attacks against Americans, getting bin Ladin and stopping al 

Qaeda became a top priority. As has been reported, the President

gave the CIA broad, lethal and unprecedented authorities 

regarding bin Ladin and his lieutenants. 

The President's willingness to destroy Osama bin Ladin and 

his lieutenants was made unmistakably clear in August 1998, the 

one time we had actionable intelligence as to bin Ladin's 

whereabouts. The President ordered a cruise missile attack 

against him. According to the intelligence community at the time, 

20 to 30 al Qaeda lieutenants were killed, but bin Ladin was 

missed by a few hours. 

For the rest of our term, we tried continually to obtain 

actionable intelligence on bin Ladin and other top operatives. 

Unfortunately, such intelligence never emerged again. And it was 

our judgment that to attack primitive camps and fail to destroy 

bin Ladin or other al Qaeda leaders would strengthen al Qaeda and 

make us look weak. 

President Clinton pressed often for Special Forces options to 

get bin Ladin, boots on the ground. The military seriously 

considered such missions. But before 9/11, with no regional 

support or bases, daunting operational obstacles, and no lead 

time intelligence on bin Ladin's whereabouts, the military 

leadership concluded that any such mission likely would fail. 

Nonetheless, we continued to seek the whereabouts of bin 

Ladin and his lieutenants, and we were ready to act if we could 

locate them. 

Second, the CIA worked closely with liaison agencies 

worldwide to break up al Qaeda cells in more than 20 countries. 

Third, the CIA, together with foreign intelligence services, 

tracked down and captured more than 50 terrorists abroad, 

including the mastermind of the '93 World Trade Center bombing. 

Fourth, the intelligence and law enforcement communities 

prevented a number of bad things from happening: a plot against 

New York landmarks in 1993, a Manila-based plot to assassinate 

the pope and blow up 12 American airlines over the Pacific in 

1995, and the 1998 plot to attack the U.S. embassy in Albania. We 

sent a hundred troops, a hundred Marines, at that time. 
70

In late '99, as we approached the Millennium celebrations, 

the CIA warned us of five to 15 plots against American targets. 

This was the most serious threat spike during our time in office. 

I convened national security principals at the White House 

virtually every day for a month. During this Millennium period, 

plots were uncovered in Amman against the Radisson Hotel and 

religious sites, and against the Los Angeles airport. Terror 

cells were broken up in Toronto, Boston, New York and elsewhere. 

Fifth, we exerted strong pressure on the Taliban to give up 

bin Ladin. We withheld recognition of their regime. We imposed 

unilateral -- and then obtained multilateral -- economic 

sanctions. We froze assets and grounded their airline. We saw 

pressure on them from others, and we told the Taliban in January 

2000 that we would hold them directly responsible for any future 

al Qaeda attacks on American interests. 

President Clinton felt so strongly that he traveled to 

Pakistan in 2000, against the adamant advice of the Secret 

Service, to personally press General Musharraf. 

Sixth, we sought to track and freeze al Qaeda assets, though 

this proved extremely difficult. 

Seventh, we worked with Congress to more than double 

counterterrorism budgets at the FBI and CIA, and significantly 

increase counterterrorism funding for domestic security. 

Eighth, we sought to achieve greater integration, interagency 

coordination. We appointed an experienced senior official, 

Richard Clarke, to a new position of White House-based national 

counterterrorism coordinator; energized the Counterterrorism 

Security Group; designated lead agencies for each key 

counterterrorism function; and elevated terrorism to a high 

priority level for the intelligence community. 

Ninth, we moved forward to develop a plan to protect critical 

infrastructure in the United States, in coordination with the 

private sector; stepped up funding, training and equipment for 

first responders; and launched a $1.5 billion bioterrorism 

effort. 

Finally, the administration, from President Clinton on down, 

repeatedly spoke to the American people about this threat. In 

1995, President Clinton was the first world leader to bring the 

counterterrorism challenge before the United Nations. In 1996, he 

called terrorism "the enemy of our generation." Over his eight 
71

years in office, he gave 10 major speeches devoted solely to 

terrorism, delivered more than 60 significant remarks on the 

subject, and raised the issue in public statements more than 200 

times. Both he and the Vice President played a hands-on role in 

shaping and executing our counterterrorism strategy here and 

abroad. 

A few other things, Mr. Chairman. You asked me to address the 

attack on the U.S.S. Cole. We strongly suspected that al Qaeda 

was involved. But at the time President Clinton left office -- by 

the time he left office, neither the CIA nor the FBI had reached 

firm conclusions that al Qaeda was responsible. Something that is 

confirmed in your staff statement. I believe a president needs a 

confident judgment of responsibility upon which to base military 

action. 

You also asked about Saudi Arabia. The President and Vice 

President personally pressed Saudi officials to use their 

leverage against the Taliban. We know that a senior Saudi 

official went to Afghanistan to press the Taliban at our request. 

We know the Saudis cut back relations with the Taliban and cut 

off their funding. I cannot say that they used the full measure 

of their authority. 

You also asked about the transition. When our administration 

ended, we alerted the incoming team to the terrorist threat and 

al Qaeda. During the transition, Bush administration officials 

received intensive briefings on this. As has been reported, I 

told my successor that she would be spending more time on 

terrorism and al Qaeda than any other issue. I did my best to 

emphasize the urgency I felt. 

Members of the Commission, looking back at our years in 

office, there were successes, disappointments and frustrations. 

Sixty-seven American lives were lost to foreign terrorism during 

the Clinton administration. But fighting terrorism was a high and 

growing priority from the beginning of the Clinton administration 

to the end. 

For all of us now our challenge is to sharpen our ability to 

look forward. I have a number of recommendations for the future, 

which I describe in my written testimony. I hope you'll give me 

an opportunity to discuss them. For now, let me simply summarize 

by saying that I believe we need better integration in three 

areas. Number one, policy integration to ensure greater 

seamlessness between agencies that have traditionally been either 

domestic or externally focused so that we never again have a 
72

situation in which, for example, the FAA or INS is disconnected 

from national security. Two, intelligence integration to 

harmonize priorities and engage an ethic of jointness across the 

intelligence community -- domestic and foreign. And three, 

resource integration with a single national security budget that 

includes all military, homeland security, diplomatic and economic 

resources available to deal with the threats and challenges we 

face. 

I welcome a chance to elaborate further during our 

discussion. 

MR. KEAN: Thank you very much, Mr. Berger. 

Commissioner Ben-Veniste will now lead the questioning, 

followed by Commissioner Lehman. 

RICHARD BEN-VENISTE: Good morning, Mr. Berger. 

MR. BERGER: Good morning, Mr. Commissioner. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Our hearings today will be asymmetrical in 

the sense that your counterpart, National Security Adviser Dr. 

Condoleezza Rice, will not appear because the White House has 

refused to allow her to testify here. As I pointed out yesterday 

and I will point out in your presence, the Congressional Research 

Service of the Library of Congress looked at the issue of 

presidential advisers appearing before Congress. And even though 

we are not Congress ourselves, we are all out of government by 

the terms of the statute which creates us. 

I point out that you, on May the 3rd, 1994, as deputy 

assistant to the President for national security, appeared before 

the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations talking about our 

policy in Haiti in open session, and you appeared as national 

security adviser before the Senate Committee on Government 

Affairs on September 11th -- coincidentally -- 1997. This report 

also has numerous other entries, including the appearance of 

former National Security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski on September 

17th, 1980. And may I say, without denigrating anybody and the 

importance of their prior appearances, none of those appearances 

was as important as the 9/11 inquiry in which you are appearing 

today. 

Now, with respect to the function of the national security 

adviser, your function is to coordinate and to relay to the 
73

President information both of a foreign and domestic nature as it 

regards our national security; is that correct? 

MR. BERGER: That's correct, although the traditional focus of 

the National Security Council have been the traditional concerns 

of national security, which have been foreign threats, but that, 

obviously, has evolved over time. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: And it certainly evolved during your 

service. Specifically I point to the Millennium threat --

MR. BERGER: Yes. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: -- where the United States, as we have 

heard, at its highest levels was on battle stations. You convened 

meetings of the Cabinet to deal with that threat, did you not? 

MR. BERGER: Yes, I did. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: And that was on an intense and frequent 

basis; is that correct? 

MR. BERGER: It was on a daily basis, Mr. Commissioner, I 

think almost every day for a month. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: And is it correct that although, again, the 

focus of the threat was supposedly against assets overseas, 

indeed, as you have related in your opening remarks, plots 

involving North America and sleeper cells in North America, 

including Los Angeles, Toronto, Boston and others, were uncovered 

and thwarted by reason of the intensive efforts that were made 

during the Millennium time frame. 

MR. BERGER: I do believe that we thwarted threats and I do 

believe it was important to bring the principals together on a 

frequent basis for a number of reasons. Things happen when the 

number one person is in the room. So Director Tenet would say 

I've got a lead on so and so, and the attorney general would turn 

around to a person sitting behind her and say, "Can we get a FISA 

on this person?" And she'd say "the answer is yes, Attorney 

General." We got more FISAs in a shorter period of time than ever 

before in history. And when the principal spends an hour a day at 

the White House or more, he goes back or she goes back to her 

agency or his agency and she -- he or she shakes that agency for 

whatever it has. 
74

So I believe that the threat was sufficiently serious that it 

had to be operated at that level. You can't operate that, 

obviously, principals level as a routine matter, but this was not 

a routine situation. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Well, let me ask you this because I have 

continued to press the question of offense versus defense --

offensively going against bin Ladin and his operation wherever we 

could find them to disrupt them, to trace the funds that they use 

to finance their operations and so forth -- but defensively, 

equally important and particularly important in connection with 

9/11, to protect the United States. As our vice chairman, Lee 

Hamilton, said this morning, this is an area in which, obviously, 

we fail. 

Now with respect to sleeper cells in the United States, did 

you have at the time you left government, during the transition, 

have any reason to believe that al Qaeda's efforts to position 

sleepers/operatives in the United States had terminated?

MR. BERGER: No. We knew from the Millennium experience that 

there were al Qaeda operatives, people linked to al Qaeda that we 

busted up in Brooklyn, in Boston, and I believe two or three 

other places. The FBI had generally taken the position that there 

was not a significant al Qaeda presence in the United States. And 

that was the position that they took quite honestly, Mr. 

Commissioner, through the end of 2000 and when we left, that 

there was not a substantial presence and what presence was here 

was a sense -- we have it covered. But I certainly cannot say --

MR. BEN-VENISTE: They had it covered? 

MR. BERGER: We had it covered. I certainly cannot say that we 

could say that there was no presence here. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Now, in a threat environment, which we have 

received very substantial information about during the summer --

in fact, it's been called the “summer of threat,” where there was 

the highest level of threat indicators perhaps in the modern 

history of intelligence gathering -- was there any reason, in 

your view, to discount the possibility of a domestic attack 

against the United States, given the fact that al Qaeda had 

attacked us or al Qaeda- related operatives had attacked us in 

1993 at the World Trade Center; that you had broken up an attempt 

to bomb the Los Angeles International Airport; and with respect 

to the other North American operations which were disrupted 

during your watch? Was there any reason to think that the United 
75

States would be excluded from this potential huge operation that 

our intelligence agencies perceived would be coming? 

MR. BERGER: Mr. Ben-Veniste, I had no access to the 

intelligence during this period, so I can't make a judgment as to 

what it said or what it provided. The fact is that the track 

record after '93, after the World Trade Center, was just a few 

months after we came into office, was that we had blocked things 

in the United States. But I think there was no reason to feel 

sanguine that we were invulnerable in the United States. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Moreover, we have received information that 

suggests, ironically, that on September 10th, 2001, Attorney 

General Ashcroft axed $58 million from the FBI's counterterrorism 

budget. 

During your tenure, did you understand there to have been any 

specific request for counterterrorism funding that was denied? 

MR. BERGER: I believe that during our period, funding for 

counterterrorism at the FBI went up 350 percent. I believe that 

actually Director Freeh used that number when -- in his press 

conference when he left office in July of '01. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: With respect to the authorization for the 

use of force given to Director Tenet, he was reluctant to go into 

specifics, but he did say that there was no request for authority 

that was denied by President Clinton. Could you shed light on 

that as well? 

MR. BERGER: I will try, Mr. Commissioner. I've read some of 

these reports in the press and otherwise. 

Let me say first of all, there could not have been any doubt 

about what President Clinton's intent was after he fired 60 

Tomahawk cruise missiles at bin Ladin in August '98. I assure you 

they were not delivering an arrest warrant. The intent was to 

kill bin Ladin. Number one, his overall intent was manifest in 

August '98. 

Number two, I believe the director understood, and I think he 

reiterated today, that we wanted him to use the full measure of 

the CIA's capabilities. Only the CIA can judge what its 

capabilities are, and that then defines the scope of the 

authorization. We gave the CIA every inch of authorization that 

it asked for. If there was any confusion down the ranks, it was 

never communicated to me nor to the President. And if any 
76

additional authority had been requested, I am convinced it would 

have been given immediately. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Yesterday, the secretary of Defense 

indicated that missile attacks against al Qaeda in its location 

in Afghanistan would have been, I think he used the term, 

"bouncing the rubble." Did you regard the missile attack, which 

you just described, to be "bouncing the rubble"? 

MR. BERGER: No, the missile attack in August of '98 was 

attempting to be bouncing bin Ladin into rubble. We had specific 

intelligence that a large gathering would be there, that probably 

bin Ladin would be there. We struck with the intent of killing 

bin Ladin and/or his operatives. I deeply regret that we did not 

succeed. For the next two years we tried to get that kind of 

actionable intelligence. The President ordered submarines in the 

Arabian Gulf to stay there for over a year so that we would be 

six hours away from any strike -- six hours from a "go" to a hit. 

One of the reasons I was so -- and I will take one more 

second, Mr. Ben-Veniste -- one of the reasons I was so pleased 

with the Predator, which was developed at the end of our 

administration, was not because I was thinking about it as armed 

with a Hellfire missile -- was because our problem, as the 

director made very clear, was we often had one stream, one source 

of intelligence from tribals or others on the ground -- and we 

learned after 9/11, as we all watched this war, how unreliable 

some of these people are and their own vendettas and their own 

agendas. And I'd get a call from George and he'd say, you know, 

we've been watching something here for two or three days and 

we've got some information that we think bin Ladin might be in 

such a such a place over the weekend. And we'd get -- we'd all 

get ramped up. I'd call all the principals. I would brief the 

President. And in each of those instances, the director would 

come back -- came back and said, we just don't have it. And the 

Predator, as a intelligence platform, as a surveillance platform, 

would have given us the second source. If we had that 

intelligence saying he's going to be at Kandahar in this 

building, we could have put the Predator above him and then we 

would have known for damn sure where he was and we would have had 

a -- put a cruise missile six hours away from that site. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Now, with respect to -- in all fairness, the 

idea of putting a cruise missile there in six hours, you had 

events such as the stand-off between the Pakistanis and the 

Indians, both armed with nuclear weapons. And the notion of 

sending a cruise missile over either of those countries during 
77

extraordinary tense times was not something to be lightly done. 

Correct? 

MR. BERGER: Correct. When we --

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Or over -- let me just add --

MR. BERGER: Yeah. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: -- in doing so, it would be important, would 

it not, to advise these two countries that the missile that we 

were sending for the purpose of eliminating bin Ladin was not 

coming from either of them against the other. 

MR. BERGER: It's a very important point you raise, Mr. BenVeniste. When we attacked in August '98, we sent -- we obviously 

did not want to give them advance notice, because we quite 

honestly didn't trust the Pakistani army to not be penetrated. It 

was essentially -- Taliban was -- the Pakistani army was the 

midwife of the Taliban. There were very close relationships. 

We sent General Ralston to go have dinner, as I recall, with 

General Kara mat, the head of the Pakistani military. And as 

those missiles were heading into Pakistani airspace, General 

Ralston said, "By the way, General Kara mat, at this moment 

missiles are coming over your airspace," so that the Pakistanis 

would not read those as incoming missiles from India with nuclear 

warheads and we'd start a nuclear war. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: So clearly this was a nuanced question which 

-- any responsible person in your position would certainly want 

to factor in the possibility of the United States inadvertently 

triggering a nuclear war between India and Pakistan. 

MR. BERGER: That would certainly have to go into the 

planning. But I will tell you, had we had another opportunity to 

get bin Ladin, I certainly would have -- we would have figured it 

out. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Do you have any reason to understand now 

whether or not bin Ladin might have been warned back in '98 by 

Pakistani intelligence? 

MR. BERGER: There has been speculation to that effect, Mr. 

Ben-Veniste, that he was tipped off. I tend to doubt it, for --

the simple reason is that we also killed, apparently, a number of 

Pakistani ISI -- Pakistani intelligence officials who were at the 
78

camps at the same time. So one would think that had there been a 

tip, they would have gotten their own people out. So I have no 

reason to believe that's true, that the --

MR. BEN-VENISTE: And my last question -- I'll finish up on 

it. I see my time is over. 

When you say the Pakistani military was behind the Taliban 

and its creation, this was a significant problem from a diplomacy 

standpoint to deal with. Not only was the Taliban in control in 

Afghanistan and protecting bin Ladin, but that the situation in 

Pakistan was not particularly conducive to assisting the United 

States in eliminating bin Ladin, was it? 

MR. BERGER: I think it's a very important point, if I can 

take on minute on it. I believe we put as much pressure on 

Pakistan to put pressure on the Taliban as we possibly could 

through every means available to us. We didn't have any sticks. 

Congress -- because of the nuclear weapon sanctions, because of 

the other sanctions, there was nothing we could say, "We'll take 

this away from you," because we weren't giving them anything. But 

we leaned on them very, very heavily. We had the Saudis lean on 

them very, very heavily. The only thing we could have done, I 

think, that we didn't do was cut off their access to IMF loans, 

which would have collapsed Pakistan, and we would have had a 

failed nuclear state in South Asia, which probably would not have 

been the best thing for the United States. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Thank you, Mr. Berger, and thank you for 

your service to the country. 

MR. BERGER: Thank you. 

MR. KEAN: Commissioner Lehman? 

MR. LEHMAN: Thank you, Mr. Berger. And as a fellow survivor 

of the NSC --

MR. BERGER: (Chuckles.) 

MR. LEHMAN: -- I'm glad to see you're here. And please take 

my questions in the spirit of what this -- the mission of this 

commission is all about. People may be forgiven sometimes from --

for seeing it. Our real objective here is to come up with some 

real change recommendations drawing on your experience and those 

of your colleagues. 
79

MR. BERGER: I respect the responsibility that all of you 

have. 

MR. LEHMAN: So that's really the purpose. And we'll be 

spending more time with you to really get down to some hard 

proposals. And I know you've made some, and we look forward to 

working with you on it. 

But let me go to some of the criticisms that have been 

leveled at the U.S. government during the period of the Clinton 

administration. If you take the now famous Clarke book and 

related testimony that we've had, and so forth, I would say the 

gist of the criticism tends to be not that the senior officials, 

and particularly the White House did not recognize the threat and 

take it seriously, and indeed, issue direction, but that very 

frequently, according to Clarke, that direction was ignored or 

subverted or simply not carried out. 

So let me just start with some of the key milestones in the 

terror attacks as they developed against the United States, 

starting with the '93 attempt by Saddam to assassinate President 

Bush 41. 

According to testimony that we've had, the response of 

President Clinton was to take very strong action, and indeed a 

whole broad series of targets were selected and the direction was 

given to implement that retaliatory plan; but in fact, because 

Warren Christopher and some others argued strongly against that 

strong an attack, it ended up being reduced to a small cruise 

missile attack against the Iraqi intelligence headquarters in the 

middle of the night so nobody would be there. 

Tell us about your impression and what went on and what 

happened with that particular crisis. 

MR. BERGER: Let me first comment on your wind-up and then 

your pitch. (Laughter.) Your wind-up was "Clarke said we didn't 

listen." I don't think there's anything -- I've not read Clarke's 

book. 

MR. LEHMAN: (Laughs.) Nobody seems to have. (Laughter.) 

MR. BERGER: But -- At least I've not read the book. But I can 

think of only two things that Dick recommended that we did not 

pursue, and we can come back to these. One was arming the 

Northern Alliance; the other was attacking the camps whether we 

knew anybody was there or not. We'll come back to those two 
80

things. On every other matter -- you can ask Mr. Clarke this 

afternoon -- I believe the things he recommended and some of the 

things that we actually recommended to him, because it all wasn't 

just a one-way communication -- were undertaken. 

With respect to the bombing of the intelligence headquarters, 

I don't believe it's accurate that those were scaled back because 

of Secretary Christopher's reservations. This was what the 

chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Secretary Powell --

Chairman Powell at that time -- and the other national security 

principals recommended. We took down their intelligence 

headquarters. It's like them taking down Langley. And I suspect 

if somebody took down Langley, we would not call that a pinprick. 

And we said at the same to them that if they ever tried terrorism 

again against the United States, the consequences will be severe. 

And as far as I know, from 1993 on they never did. 

MR. LEHMAN: Let's talk about the '93 World Trade Center 

investigation. We now know that three of the key planners and 

players were al Qaeda, and indeed one of them was able to escape 

and was given safe haven in Baghdad right up until, as far as we 

know, the present day. We have received many criticisms of the 

handling of that crisis at the time in that it was handled as a 

criminal problem, and that the information gathered in the 

investigation, that would have turned the light bulb on in the 

policy community as to the extent of the al Qaeda participation, 

was never shared within the intelligence community until after 

the trial. 

MR. BERGER: Mr. Lehman, I think this is -- and I'm not 

attributing this to you -- I think this is a good example of 

reading history backwards. In 1993 we had no notion of the 

linkage of Ramzi Yousef to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others who 

ultimately were tied to bin Ladin. These were things that were 

learned in '97 and '98. You know, when you turn the book upside 

down and when you start with the last chapter and you read 

backwards, it's a hell of a lot easier --

MR. LEHMAN: But that's my point. I mean, the fact that as 

this was all being developed and was disseminated in '97, it 

would have been disseminated a lot earlier because a lot of it 

was developed during the investigation. 

MR. BERGER: Well, there's no question we've learned since 

9/11 -- I've learned since 9/11 -- that the mechanisms of 
81

information sharing within the FBI and between the FBI and the 

rest of the government were even worse than I thought they were. 

In 1993 my predecessor, Tony Lake, and I went over to meet 

with the attorney general and asked to sign a memorandum of 

understanding so we would agree what could be shared between law 

enforcement and national security because there is some 

legitimate concern about politicizing law enforcement. That's not 

a frivolous concern. Americans don't want the White House 

manipulating law enforcement matters. It took -- we couldn't get 

that done for eight years. 

And we've learned since 9/11 that not only did we not know 

what we didn't know, but the FBI didn't know what it did know. 

(Laughter.) And I think this is -- we haven't talked much about 

the FBI in the hearings that I listened to yesterday and today. I 

hope that you'll look at this -- I know you will -- because I 

think that there was a sclerosis here. 

MR. LEHMAN: Yeah, I think that's a very -- a very good point. 

Of course--

MR. BERGER: Let me -- excuse me --

MR. LEHMAN: Sorry. 

MR. BERGER: There are extraordinarily dedicated people who 

work at the FBI. Let me distinguish the institution from the 

individuals. I mean, these are people who put their lives on the 

line to save you and I and to protect us. And I'm not trying in 

any way to cast any aspersions on them. It's an institution, at 

least in my time, that was not oriented towards this terrorism 

threat. 

MR. LEHMAN: Well, I agree with that. And I think most of the 

witnesses we've had do agree with it. But they also paint a 

picture, and particularly Clarke, of an FBI that basically sent 

around nothing in writing in sharing of intelligence, and a 

Justice Department that was much more worried about getting 

convictions of caught terrorists than they were focused on 

spreading the information to prevent other terrorists. 

And Clarke is particularly scathing about Janet Reno in the 

Justice Department and her unwillingness to fund more translators 

for the information that was gathered and was very much leaning 

in the other direction of the President from covert operations 

and so forth. 
82

MR. BERGER: Let me say this in defense of Attorney General 

Reno. First of all, I reject the notion that we handled this as a 

law enforcement matter during the large portion of the Clinton 

administration. We were operating under the Law of Armed 

Conflict, which you are very familiar with, Secretary Lehman; not 

under law enforcement principles. And the Attorney General 

approved that. We weren't reading Miranda warnings. We weren't 

going through legal channels. All of those Moons that we talked 

about this morning were all authorized under the Law of Armed 

Conflict and at no point did the attorney general interpose a 

legal objection to anything that we wanted to do. She may have 

disagreed with a personal matter on some things, but she never 

interposed a legal obstacle to anything we wanted to do. 

MR. LEHMAN: Well -- but that's Clarke's point in a way, and 

that of others of the thousand people that we've interviewed. 

Clarke calls those MONs "Talmudic," and written in such a way as 

to make it virtually impossible for the bureaucracy and their 

lawyers to approve the operations that were intended. 

And there's no question, by the way, in the evidence that 

we've gathered, that the President's intentions and your 

intentions were as you have stated them. But as perceived by the 

CIA and the Defense Department and their lawyers, the authorities 

would not have permitted -- and all I'm saying is this is not my 

view; I'm recounting testimony that we have under oath that it 

was the firm belief, particularly in CIA but also in many areas 

of the JCS, that there could not be a kill without organizing an 

elaborate effort to capture. And so what I'm trying to get at is 

your view on this disconnect between testimony we have from out 

in the bureaucracy as the perception and what your intentions 

were. 

MR. BERGER: I think Director Tenet answered this question 

this morning. He said I got -- it all depends on what my 

capabilities were. If I had the capability to do a kill, he was 

implicitly saying, I would have done a kill. I would have gone 

and asked for the authority to do a kill, straight out. All of 

the authorities he got envisioned that -- that there could be a 

kill. 

And that the people we were working for would have been taken 

care of, dead or alive. So I don't think they were Talmudic. 

I don't think there was any question -- again, if there was 

confusion down the line in the CIA or out in the field, it was 

never communicated back to us. And somebody should have come to 
83

us and said, "You know, our guys are wringing their hands out 

here because they think they can do a lot more than they can do," 

because you had a president who wanted to do everything possible 

to get this guy. 

And I think George basically answered it this morning by 

saying, "We didn't have the capability to do anything more. And 

if we got that capability, I would have gone to the White House 

and I would have gotten the authority." 

MR. LEHMAN: Now, with regard to the Department of Defense, 

many of the witnesses have said that when the President wanted 

options, the famous black ninja kind of option, the only thing 

that he ever got out of the Pentagon was either a pin-prick or 

lobbing some cruise missiles or the Normandy invasion. Those are 

Mr. Clarke's words. 

MR. BERGER: I don't think that's entirely fair. On a number 

of occasions we went to the Pentagon and we said, "What are the 

military options here, from commando-type operations to more 

robust operations?" They went back and looked at those options 

and would come back to us. And basically there was a range of 

options. 

I remember one briefing, I think there were 12 options or 13 

options in their briefing. All of them, however, suffered from 

the same problem. They were not feasible. That is to say that, in 

the absence of Pakistan for basing, in the absence of any of the 

neighbors having to stage 900 miles away without being able to 

put any kind of backup on the ground, going over those mountains, 

landing in terrain we'd never seen before, getting our people out 

of there at minimal cost to our own soldiers, and in the absence 

of actionable intelligence as to where he was, that these would 

fail or that it likely would fail. 

So I don't think there was an unwillingness of the military 

to take on the mission if the conditions were different. 

MR. LEHMAN: There is -- to follow up on that question, after 

the '98 bombing attacks, there essentially were no more military 

actions taken except in Iraq. And I find it a little curious that 

we were bombing virtually every day in Iraq but were reluctant to 

go after the conveyor belt that Clarke talked about at the same 

time. 

MR. BERGER: Well, there were other military actions in Bosnia 

and Kosovo, but I'm sure you're not referring to those. We 
84

discussed at various times, Mr. Secretary, whether serial bombing 

of the camps, intermittent bombing of the camps, two weeks of 

bombing of the camps, 17 days' bombing of the camps, was a 

sensible option. It was a subject of many discussions. 

And I think the judgment that we reached, that we came to, 

was that to use military power in that way and not to get bin 

Ladin, not to get any of his top lieutenants, but to use our 

military power to bomb the camps, kill a bunch of people, sure, 

knock down a bunch of jungle gyms, as Hugh Shelton described 

them, would actually have strengthened bin Ladin and al Qaeda, 

glorified him and made us look weak. 

And that's why we were constantly seeking intelligence with 

respect to leadership targets that would have enabled that to 

have some greater force. 

MR. LEHMAN: One last question, and that is on the Cole. Since 

Clarke used the word "Talmudic," frankly, your response on 

waiting and you didn't really know about Cole sounds a little 

Talmudic. 

I mean, the time to retaliate for the Cole would have been 

the day after the Cole, because, as you have rightly pointed out, 

the administration was basically at war with al Qaeda. And there 

was certainly enough evidence, although admittedly not to the 

satisfaction of the Justice Department perhaps and their 

evidentiary rules, but it was certainly not the IRA that blew up 

the Cole. And you knew that there had been a previous al Qaeda 

attempt on the Sullivan in the same harbor. Why wasn't there 

enough action to retaliate? I mean enough evidence. 

MR. BERGER: I believe, before the President uses military 

force in retaliation, that he needs a clear judgment from his 

senior advisers that they're responsible. The day after Pan Am 

103, we would have bombed Syria, Mr. Secretary. 

MR. LEHMAN: But you told --

MR. BERGER: May I finish? 

MR. LEHMAN: Yeah, go ahead. 

MR. BERGER: We thought TWA 800 was terrorism. It was not 

terrorism. People actually -- dozens of people saw the missile 

strike TWA 800 as it went up over Long Island. 
85

MR. LEHMAN: Yeah, but you just told us --

MR. BERGER: Preliminary judgments, I have come to learn, are 

not the same as judgments. And when the CIA was ready -- they 

were certainly not sitting on their hands. And when they were 

ready to come back and say, "It's our best judgment that this is 

al Qaeda," we should have acted. That did not happen on our 

watch, sir. 

MR. LEHMAN: But, in fact, it did happen on your watch. It 

happened in November and December. 

MR. BERGER: Your own staff, sir, says it didn't happen on our 

watch. Your own staff says there was a preliminary judgment -- a 

preliminary judgment. 

MR. LEHMAN: I differ with you on that. But the fact is, the 

reality is that you've already testified that if you'd have found 

bin Ladin out in the open, you would have attacked him anyway, 

even without the Cole being hit. 

MR. BERGER: Correct. 

MR. LEHMAN: But you wouldn't attack him because of the Cole. 

That's a little --

MR. BERGER: No, I don't follow you, sir. What I'm saying is, 

I believe that when responsibility was ascribed for the Cole, I 

certainly would have recommended a strong response, including a 

response against the Taliban, because in January of 2000 we had 

warned the Taliban, if there was any other attack by bin Ladin

and al Qaeda, we would hold them responsible. 

So this turns on what's the threshold of action. And I think 

a preliminary judgment, which is what your staff statement 

describes it as, a preliminary judgment -- is not sufficient for 

the President to go to the world and saying, "I've gone to war 

with Afghanistan on the basis of preliminary judgment," or on the 

basis of, quite honestly, Dick Clarke's opinion. 

When the CIA came back and said, "Sir, we believe this is al 

Qaeda," I believe I would have been in favor of acting. I don't 

think we were at that point. And I'd seen enough situations in my 

eight years where preliminary judgments were wrong. 

The Egypt Air plane that went down was terrorism. Oklahoma 

City, sir, was foreign terrorism for quite some time until we 
86

found out that it wasn't foreign terrorism. So I want to see the 

director of Central Intelligence, at least, as the chief adviser 

to the President on intelligence, come to the President and say, 

"Mr. President, there's no certainties in this world. We can't be 

100 percent sure. But we believe that this is an al Qaeda 

operation." At that point, I think it would have been right for 

action. 

MR. KEAN: I've got one quick question, just to follow up, 

really. Have you read this book, "Ghost Wars"? 

MR. BERGER: No, I've just read the two excerpts, Governor,

from the Washington Post. 

MR. KEAN: It's a good book. It confirms a lot of what we're 

finding out in this investigation. I'd recommend it. But one of 

the things it does detail, similar to our findings, is that there 

was a real disconnect. 

MR. BERGER: There was -- excuse me? 

MR. KEAN: There was a real disconnect between what you all 

believed was the policy in Washington and what was going on in 

Afghanistan, including the famous comment by Massoud when he was 

told -- when he read an order, a legal opinion, as to what could 

be done and couldn't be done with bin Ladin. 

And I guess my question is, it seems a fact, to me, anyway, 

from the book and from our research, that there was this 

disconnect. You were meeting every day. I mean, you were meeting 

every week, anyway. You had principals and everything else. You 

had a clear understanding of what was going on. How could this 

occur? How could --

MR. BERGER: Well, perhaps that's a question you should ask 

the director of Central Intelligence, because there was no

communication -- or Cofer Black, who was in the White House twice 

a week and never took me aside and said, "Sandy, we've got a real 

problem in the field because the instructions are confusing," or, 

"We've got a lot more capacity to act than you've given to us" --

never, never. 

MR. KEAN: Somewhere there was a disconnect. 

MR. BERGER: Well --

MR. KEAN: It obviously affected policy. 
87

MR. BERGER: I would say one thing about that, though. And I 

think Director Tenet mentioned it this morning. You've got a lot 

of stovepipes in this government. And someone who is sitting down 

there at the sixth level or the seventh level or a soldier who 

was on a battleship or a CIA operative who was out in the field 

doesn't have 360-degree vision on what's going on. So all he 

knows or she knows is what she is ready to do and willing to do, 

and may not know about the whole picture. That's why you've got 

to channel this through an integrated system, one central person. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Mr. Chairman? 

MR. KEAN: Governor Thompson is next. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Yes, I understand it. There is a document 

which we have recently received from CIA, and I don't know how 

much about it we can discuss, but it would shed light on the 

issue of what CIA operatives in the field told Mr. Massoud at the

appropriate time. 

And I will tell you, Mr. Chairman -- and I'm sure you have 

not yet seen that document -- that it removed ambiguity in terms 

of whether Mr. Massoud would be rewarded whether or not bin Ladin

was killed or captured. 

MR. BERGER: Governor, the last thing I -- let me not say it. 

Let me let you pursue it. 

MR. KEAN: Okay. Governor Thompson. 

MR. THOMPSON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Berger, thank you for your testimony today and for your 

service to our country. I will repeat something I said yesterday 

-- I don't know whether you heard it or not -- but that I was 

complimentary of the Clinton administration for its vigorous 

pursuit of terrorists, al Qaeda, UBL and all those things that 

you have testified to this morning. 

On page three of your prepared remarks, there are two 

paragraphs that I think, in essence, you've discussed here today. 

I'll just highlight them. "It was our judgment that to fire on 

primitive camps and fail to destroy bin Ladin or key al Qaeda 

figures would have fortified bin Ladin and made the U.S. look 

weak and feckless. And given the circumstances that prevailed at 

the time, including no support from Pakistan or other neighbors, 

no base near Afghanistan and no lead-time intelligence, the 
88

military leadership concluded that such a mission -- that is, 

boots on the ground in Afghanistan -- would fail." 

Those were the conclusions yesterday, as I understand the 

testimony, from Cohen, Albright, Powell, Rumsfeld, and this 

morning from Tenet. And so you associate yourself with those

views from those five --

MR. BERGER: Yes. 

MR. THOMPSON: -- people? Okay. When did you brief Condi Rice 

about terrorism? 

MR. BERGER: Well, as you of course recall, we had somewhat of 

a truncated transition --

MR. THOMPSON: Uh-huh. 

MR. BERGER: -- because we had an elongated election. I think 

I met with Dr. Rice on three occasions, and then she received 

specific briefings from several members of my staff -- an hour, 

two-hour briefings, along with her deputy and -- and perhaps 

others. In my first briefing with her, we talked about this 

issue. I wanted very much to convey to her --

MR. THOMPSON: Al Qaeda -- you discussed al Qaeda? 

MR. BERGER: Yes. I wanted very much to convey to her the 

sense of urgency that I felt, because they had been out of 

government for some time, and the world had changed. And I said 

to her at that time, and she's acknowledged this publicly, that 

the number one issue that you're going to be dealing with is 

terrorism, and generally, and al Qaeda specifically. Then, she 

had a specific factual briefing, Governor, from -- I believe Mr. 

Clarke and his team, and I went to no other briefings that she 

went to, staff briefings, except that one. And I showed up at 

that briefing in the beginning and I said, "Condi, I'm here 

simply to emphasize how important this is. I'm not going to stay 

through the whole thing, but I just wanted to underscore how 

important I think this is." 

So, in every way that I knew how, Governor, I tried to convey 

that this was our -- now our top priority as a country. 

MR. THOMPSON: So, when Mr. Clarke says in this book that 

nobody will acknowledge they've read except members of the 

Commission --
89

MR. BERGER: Well, I'm eager -- I'm eager to read it, I just 

haven't had a chance to. 

MR. THOMPSON: I'm sure you will be. When he said that in his 

meeting with the national security advisor, Ms. Rice, I'll quote, 

"As I briefed Rice on al Qaeda, her facial expression gave me the 

impression that she had never heard the term before." So, since 

you discussed it with her, that impression of Mr. Clarke's would 

be erroneous, is that correct? 

MR. BERGER: I don't -- I can't comment on that, Governor. I 

wasn't present. I don't know the circumstances of that. I did --

I know what the sequence was, quite honestly, of my meeting with 

her and Dick's meeting with her. All I can tell you is what I 

said to her and what I did. 

MR. THOMPSON: Okay. Going to page seven of your prepared 

remarks, and I don't want to give the impression I'm picking on 

this or poaching on my friend Kerrey's territory in discussing 

the Cole, but he's finally moved me to the point where I think I 

need to. And your testimony this morning seems to be somewhat at 

odds with Director Tenet's testimony this morning, so I just want 

to get it clear in my own head. 

You say, on page seven of your prepared statement, "By the 

time President Clinton left office, however, neither the CIA nor 

the FBI had reached firm conclusions that al Qaeda was 

responsible for that assault," that is the Cole. 

Director Tenet told us this morning, as I recall his 

testimony, that during December, when the Clinton administration 

was still in office, the CIA had reached the judgment that al 

Qaeda was -- al Qaeda was responsible because the assault was 

carried out by known al Qaeda operatives, I think was his phrase, 

they just couldn't conclude that Osama Bin Ladin had command and 

control over that operation. 

Can you shed some light on this apparent difference? 

MR. BERGER: I'm reading now from your staff statement this 

morning, which says, on the issue of the Cole, the Bush 

administration received essentially the same, quote, "preliminary 

judgment," --

MR. THOMPSON: Uh-huh. 
90

MR. BERGER: -- that had been briefed to the Clinton 

administration in December. And I -- I listened to George this 

morning, and it was a little bit hard to track, which he usually 

isn't, but all I can tell you is that what we were told was that 

the evidence led -- pointed to al Qaeda for sure, and they were -

- they were -- and that preliminary judgment was that it was --

that it was al Qaeda. I believed a very sharp response would have 

been called for after the Cole. I believed to have sustained that 

in the court of world opinion you would have needed -- the 

President would have stood up and said based on the preliminary 

judgment of my intelligence community, I -- I bombed Afghanistan. 

I just don't think that would have cut it. 

MR. THOMPSON: Well, but as I understand Director Tenet's 

testimony, he could have stood up and said we know that specific 

al Qaeda operatives bombed the Cole. 

MR. BERGER: Well, I -- I -- I can't comment on Director 

Tenet's testimony because I was not watching it without doing 

some other things at the same time, like finishing my own 

statement. But I will tell you my own recollection, sir --

MR. THOMPSON: Sure. 

MR. BERGER: -- and what is, I think, the record, and that is 

that there -- that in December, we were increasingly convinced 

that it was al Qaeda, that the CIA had reached a preliminary 

judgment to that effect, but they still had work to do, and did 

not have a judgment -- strike the word "preliminary." At that 

point, I think we would have been faced with a policy decision, 

as Mr. Tenet made perfect -- made clear that's not his decision, 

it's for the President, ultimately, of how to respond. 

MR. THOMPSON: One last point. You made somewhat of a 

reference to the fact that you thought that, Osama Bin Ladin or 

al Qaeda aside, the Taliban, Afghanistan bore some responsibility 

in this as well, and you had specifically warned them that if 

this happened again -- and this was pre-Cole -- they would be 

held responsible as well. I agree with that, and in all this sort 

of back and forth about whether there were suitable targets in 

Afghanistan and whether we should go bomb the camps one more 

time, whether there were people there or not, just to show our 

resolve, it is a fact, is it not, that there were targets in 

Afghanistan that belonged to the Taliban, to Afghanistan -- their 

civil seat of government, Mullah Omar's house, I'm sure we knew 

where that was. Would you, under the right circumstances, have --
91

have concurred in a decision to take it out on the Taliban as 

well? 

MR. BERGER: I can only speak for myself personally --

MR. THOMPSON: Sure. 

MR. BERGER: -- Governor. That would have been my personal 

recommendation, given the warning that we gave in January of 

2000, that we would have struck not just whatever al Qaeda 

targets were available, but we would have struck Taliban targets 

as well. And now, we've since learned the Taliban was prepared to 

be destroyed --

MR. THOMPSON: Uh-huh. 

MR. BERGER: -- rather than give up Bin Ladin. So, this --

they were fused at the hip. I think that's a judgment that we 

reached, you know, in mid-1999 and early 2000, that you -- it 

would be very difficult to break the Taliban from -- from al 

Qaeda. 

MR. THOMPSON: Thank you, Mr. Berger. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

MR. KEAN: Senator Kerrey. 

MR. KERREY: Mr. Berger, I noticed -- and I appreciate you're 

a private citizen now, and I saw you back there working on your -

- on your statement, so it may just be an oversight that you did 

not draw attention to the February 23rd, 1998 press conference 

that Osama Bin Ladin held in Khost, Afghanistan and that he 

brought, and that he brought -- with a satellite telephone 

delivered to an Arabic-speaking newspaper in London. This seems, 

as I read it, it reads like a declaration of war. And I wonder if 

that's just an oversight, or whether or not you don't believe 

that that's a --

MR. BERGER: Senator Kerrey --

MR. KERREY: -- and important -- (inaudible) --

MR. BERGER: -- I've -- I've watched prior testimony 

yesterday, and your statements to that -- on this subject. I 

believe we were at war with al Qaeda. Number one, the President

sounded the alarm. I have something for the record here --

MR. KERREY: But just help me --
92

MR. BERGER: Let me -- let me --

MR. KERREY: Actually, before you do that, because I've got 

five minutes here, and I know where you're going, and I just --

do you regard the 23rd --

MR. BERGER: (Inaudible.) 

MR. KERREY: -- do you regard the 23rd February '98 

declaration as strategically important? 

MR. BERGER: Absolutely. The fatwas were terribly important. 

The document I wanted to show you -- this is -- it's not like we 

weren't talking about the terrorism, the Taliban and Afghanistan. 

We sounded the alarm. Number two, we used all the instruments 

that we had available to us -- whether those were military or 

covert or otherwise. 

MR. KERREY: I didn't --

MR. BERGER: I think we were at war with the Taliban, Senator. 

MR. KERREY: Sandy, I've got five -- I didn't have enough time 

to compliment you in the way that I would like to have done, but 

let's presume that I had 15 minutes to deliver compliments about 

all the things you're doing. I think you're a great strategic 

thinker, but when this is -- when your statement doesn't include 

--

MR. BERGER: I only had 10 minutes in my statement, Senator --

MR. KERREY: Okay. But -- so you regard the 23rd February 

press conference in Khost, Afghanistan as a declaration of war 

against the United States? 

MR. BERGER: I -- I --

MR. KERREY: Was it --

MR. BERGER: I regarded all of the fatwas, I mean, there were 

several of them, as growing indication that this -- this 

individual was a strategic, lethal threat to the United States. 

MR. KERREY: I just -- even -- even --

MR. BERGER: There's more than that fatwa. There's more than 

that. Your case is stronger than you're making it. 
93

MR. KERREY: No, but --

MR. BERGER: It's not just one -- it's not one press 

conference. 

MR. KERREY: I know --

MR. BERGER: He issued several fatwas. 

MR. KERREY: Not just several fatwas. He -- first of all, he 

declared his willingness and then demonstrated his capability to 

kill Americans, and he was in Afghanistan. And what's -- but I 

keep scratch my head and wondering -- even Dr. Rice, at the end 

of an eight-year -- eight-month planning process comes up with a 

three-part plan, the first part is continued diplomacy to try to 

get Osama Bin Ladin released from the Taliban. That was the --

that was part number one of the plan. 

And I just -- I'm -- I mean, it seems to me -- and it's 

reasonable, by the way -- it's not unreasonable to say, under the 

circumstances, we just didn't regard this as a strategic threat, 

comparable, for example, to the problems that we were having 

between Pakistan and India, because it -- it -- if you -- I just 

-- I just -- I regard this as an enormously important strategic 

moment. 

And I understand that I've got hindsight looking back on it, 

and I see it that way, perhaps a bit more than I did on the 23rd 

of February 1998. But it -- it seems as well if you regard it as 

a declaration of war, it would seem to dictate everything that 

follows afterwards, and it would seem to rule out any diplomacy 

with the Taliban to try to get the release of bin Ladin. 

MR. BERGER: I considered -- I go back farther than that, 

Senator. I consider, from at least August 20, 1998, when he 

attacked our embassies and when we could establish that it was 

responsibility of al Qaeda that we were at war with al Qaeda, and 

that was one further piece of evidence as well as other fatwas --

(inaudible) --

MR. KERREY: We only used military against a person who 

declared war on us, against whom we had declared war -- we only 

used our military against them one time -- the 20th of August 

1998. 

MR. BERGER: There are three ways to use military, Senator, it 

seems to me -- number one, we could have invaded Afghanistan. I 
94

do not believe -- and I know you may disagree with this -- I do 

not believe before September 11th that the American people or the 

international community would have supported an invasion and 

occupation of Afghanistan, which already, since 9/11, has gone on 

for two-and-a-half years in the absence before 9/11. We could 

have used force by using Special Forces, which we constantly went 

back to General Shelton and Secretary Cohen and say, "What are 

the options here?" The options were lousy. We could have used 

force by bombing camps that were empty or that were jungle gyms 

and killed 25 or 30 or 40 CI -- not CIA -- al Qaeda operatives --

and the next day bin Ladin would have had a press conference, and 

he would have been sitting on top of that cruise missile, waving 

at us in contempt. 

So use for how? I think before 9/11 -- the one way to use 

force to eliminate al Qaeda, it seems to me, in a sanctuary, 

would be to invade Afghanistan. I do not believe that this 

country was ready to invade Afghanistan before September 11th, 

notwithstanding the fact we had a president who, in 1996, said 

this is the challenge of our generation, this is the threat of 

our generation. 

MR. KERREY: I don't -- I mean -- you persuaded the American 

people that military effort was necessary in Bosnia. You didn't 

have the House of Representatives with you. You barely had a 

majority in the Senate. You persuaded the American people that 

war was necessary to get Slobodan Milosevic to stop his terror in 

Kosovo. 

MR. BERGER: Yeah, and we also had 19 democracies in NATO, and 

both of those cases that were standing with us together. 

MR. KERREY: The point is only that -- the arguments that I 

find to be most unpersuasive is, say, we couldn't have gotten it 

done because nobody had been with us, because there are several 

examples during the Clinton administration where you all wanted 

to do something, you believed it was important, and you came to 

the American people over and over and over, I thought, heroically 

and correctly, to get public opinion on your side. That's what 

it's all about. If you'd come to Congress and said, "We're at 

war. Somebody just declared war on us," and I could understand 

not doing it until the 7th of August. But after the 7th of 

August, it seems to me that should have been the U.S. 

declaration, and every policy option we had should have followed 

that, and all diplomacy should have been abandoned. 
95

MR. BERGER: I think we were at war after the 7th of August 

using military, covert instruments, rolling back al Qaeda cells, 

trying to put as much economic and other pressure on the Taliban. 

What we did not do is invade Afghanistan, and we'll just have to 

disagree on this, Senator. I do not believe that was conceivable 

before 9/11. 

MR. KEAN: Congressman Roemer. 

MR. ROEMER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome, Mr. Berger. 

Thank you, again, for your service through the Clinton years in 

fighting terrorism. Thank you for your time today, and thank you 

for the thoughtful recommendations that you put in your 

statement. I hope we get a chance to discuss those a little bit 

since part of our mandate is to look forward and try to make the 

country safer. 

Let me, without beating a dead horse or poking a dead horse 

or embalming a dead horse here, poke a little bit more on the 

U.S.S. Cole. In our staff statement, we say that there was an 

exchange between you and Mr. Tenet, where Mr. Tenet ended up 

walking out of the room. Was that over the U.S.S. Cole?

MR. BERGER: You know, I read that, and I do remember --

obviously -- first of all, George Tenet is a good, close, 

cherished friend of mine. Passions run strong sometimes on issues 

such as this, and I do remember there was one episode where 

George left early. 

(Laughter) 

And suddenly, but I can't honestly say that I --

MR. ROEMER: -- was he in a good mood or a bad mood when he 

left? 

MR. BERGER: He was not in a good mood at me, but I can't 

honestly remember exactly what the approximate cause of that was. 

MR. ROEMER: Do you remember the approximate date for his bad 

mood? 

MR. BERGER: No, I don't. It didn't happen often. It didn't 

happen --

MR. ROEMER: There is a great deal of frustration, I think, 

for some of us in looking back, as you said, through the rearview 
96

mirror, which is easier to do, and we see some of these 

preliminary judgments put forward by the CIA, where they can't 

get command and control up to Osama bin Ladin, but it was 

definitely operatives of al Qaeda. And we have a tough time 

understanding that -- why we can't go forward and retaliate 

against al Qaeda generally. Did you, in your frustration and your 

concern about this, did you try to push the President on a more 

forward-leaning, aggressive approach to the guilt with respect to 

the U.S.S. Cole?

MR. BERGER: I think that I believe that the CIA and the FBI 

was doing everything possible. Now, we had some problems with the 

Yemenis during the Cole investigation, and they were restricting 

some access to some of our people, and the President of the 

United States called the President of Yemen, I believe, on two 

occasions but certainly on one occasion. 

MR. ROEMER: This is on the Yemeni investigation -- and FBI 

and the CIA, and he is calling on the --

MR. BERGER: -- and the President called the President of 

Yemen and said, "You've got to cooperate with our people. We're 

not going to put up with this," and that problem was resolved. 

Obviously, there were an awful lot of Americans suddenly swarming 

into Yemen after the Cole.

So we were providing support to the CIA and the FBI as they 

conducted their investigation. I don't believe they were dragging 

their feet. 

MR. ROEMER: I know I am putting you in a difficult position 

with both Mr. Tenet and the President, but back to my question --

do you recall trying to push the President a couple of times --

MR. BERGER: I wasn't trying to be non-responsive, 

Congressman. I don't believe there was because I don't believe 

they were dragging their feet. I left off the first half of my 

sentence. I mean -- I don't think that our perception was that 

they needed a kick in the rear end on this. My view was that the 

highest levels in the CIA felt the same -- you know, George and I 

talked about this issue, you know, behind my closed door two or 

three times a week in 1999 and 2000, and I had no doubt in my 

mind that he felt the same sense of urgency that I did. 

MR. ROEMER: Back to the briefing --

MR. KEAN: -- last question, Congressman. 
97

MR. ROEMER: Back to the briefing that you gave to Dr. Rice, 

which you have said several times, and I think that she has 

acknowledged. Did that briefing include any reference to sleeper 

cells in the United States? I know the Clinton administration had 

done an after-action report on the Millennium and found the 

presence of sleeper cells. Did you brief that or did Mr. Clarke 

or did anybody else brief administration officials on that 

particular aspect? 

MR. BERGER: There was two parts of my interaction with Dr. 

Rice. One was in my office, and one of the two or three times 

that we had a chance to meet during the transition. She was still 

in California -- she was commuting back and forth. And as -- I've 

already reported on that conversation. There was a detailed, 

specific, factual slideshow briefing that she was given, along 

with others, and that was conducted by Mr. Clarke. I came to the 

beginning of that in the situation room and said I wanted to show 

up to show up. I wanted to show up because I wanted to emphasize 

how important this was as far as I was concerned, and I stayed, 

perhaps, for the first five minutes, and then I left. So I don't 

know what the substance of that briefing was and whether 

specifically sleeper cells came up. 

MR. ROEMER: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

MR. KEAN: Thank you, Congressman. Commissioner Fielding. 

MR. FIELDING: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Berger, I'll just 

try to ask three brief things just to kind of fill in some 

blanks. First of all, following up on Commissioner Roemer, you 

know, we're studying an event that is a colossal and tragic 

failure of our system, and there was one bright light as we're 

looking through this, and that was the Millennium Plot and the 

success of the Millennium Plot in averting problems. And, as I 

understand, there was commissioned and presented in March of 

2000, an after-action report on that. To your knowledge, was that 

after-action report ever shared with the incoming Administration? 

MR. BERGER: Let me put it in context -- first of all, I 

requested the after-action report. It was presented to me in 

February. We had a principals meeting on it on March 10th. There 

were 29 recommendations. They basically were accepted subject, in 

some cases, to funding. Some of them -- a lot of them had to do 

with domestic security issues, and the President then submitted a 

$300 million supplemental to the Congress for additional money 

and reprogrammed $79 million within the CIA budget to counter 

terrorism. 
98

Now, some of those recommendations were implemented; as we 

learned since 9/11 some of them were not. I do not know whether 

or not that was presented to Dr. Rice but, of course, the people 

who had originally drafted it were still at the White House. 

MR. FIELDING: Okay, so we should look elsewhere for the 

answer to that? 

MR. BERGER: Right. 

MR. FIELDING: Okay, thank you. Now, I thought I had the 

authorities issue nailed down until you said something. 

MR. BERGER: Okay, I'm sorry if I confused you. 

MR. FIELDING: No, no, you said that your interpretation with 

George Tenet was saying was that the capacity was the real issue, 

and that if he had the chance to do a kill, he would have gone 

and gotten the authority to do it. 

MR. BERGER: I believe that to be the case and I believe that 

to be the way I heard Mr. Tenet this morning. 

MR. FIELDING: Right. But if that's the case -- that's what I 

thought, too. But if that's the case, wouldn't the inference be 

that he didn't have the authority? 

MR. BERGER: No, he didn't have the capability. 

MR. FIELDING: No, but wouldn't it also be the inference --

MR. BERGER: These MONs -- you know, they're not -- Talmudic 

is one way to describe them. 

MR. FIELDING: So I've heard. 

MR. BERGER: But the instructions -- that was not your 

description. 

MR. LEHMAN: You can use "Jesuitical" if you'd rather. 

MR. BERGER: I'm not going to --

MR. BEN-VENISTE: I have some influence on laymen in the 

interim. 
99

MR. BERGER: Right. But they're drafted with the CIA. Often 

they're usually drafted initially at the CIA. The instructions to 

the field are drafted by the CIA. We don't draft them at the NSC. 

So my view was, did some of these say -- some of these were 

strictly -- some of these authorities -- and I'm on very thin ice 

here; the chairman will rule me out of order if I get too far --

some of these authorities explicitly involved killing. Some of 

the authorities were capture or kill. We don't open up the spider 

hole in Iraq and blow out Saddam Hussein's brains. Capturing has 

some value. If we could bring this guy back and shake him down, 

that would be a good thing. 

But there was never any question in my mind that, if capture 

was not possible, kill was acceptable and that if they wanted 

more explicit authority, that was ambiguous; if they thought that 

capture was a predicate to kill, attempt to capture. 

I imagine a confrontation with bin Ladin and what should be a 

lot of guns fired. And chances are he'd be killed. And maybe, if 

we were lucky, we'd catch a convoy and somebody would be able to 

get his car, but no one's going to take -- none of the people we 

were dealing with were going to take a heck of a lot of risk to 

do that. 

So, you know, I anticipated he would be killed. I also 

believed that if Director Tenet wanted more explicit authority, 

more specific authority, more targeted authority, he certainly 

understood that he could go back to the White House and he had a 

very sympathetic president and a very sympathetic national 

security adviser. 

MR. FIELDING: Okay, well, thank you. Let me just -- one last 

thing, because I've been trying to run something to ground. 

MR. KEAN: (Off mike.) 

MR. FIELDING: Yes, Mr. Chairman. But when we're talking about 

the three occasions between December '98 and mid-'99, I'm 

particularly trying to get a handle on who and why the so-called 

desert camp incident was aborted. And what happened there? Nobody 

seems to say, "Well, it was our decision." There seemed to be 

really good intelligence, and it went for a period of days, and 

then suddenly it was aborted. So anything you can shed --

MR. BERGER: I cannot distinguish that incident from the two 

or three other incidents where I would get information either 
100

from Mr. Clarke or from Mr. Tenet that we had some opportunity, 

that we were watching this very, very carefully; stay tuned. 

I would get them authorization from all the principals and 

put the President on alert that something might be possible. In 

each of those cases, the director of CIA would come back to me 

and say, "I do not believe we have reliable enough intelligence 

to recommend going forward." And we did discuss it, as he said 

this morning. It was interactive. But there was never a situation 

in which we were presented information that bin Ladin was here 

and we didn't take it because of civilian casualties or any other 

reason. 

The only other thing I would add is, I've been told that a 

subsequent review of that episode suggested bin Ladin never was 

there. I don't know whether that's true or not. At the time, we 

were told -- the assessment was it was not reliable information. 

And the judgment was to fire a bunch of cruise missiles, or, as 

President Bush has said, $10 million cruise missiles to knock 

down a $10 tent, would have made bin Ladin look stronger, 

glorified him in the Islamic world, created more terrorists, and 

not made us look stronger or advance the cause of fighting 

terrorism. 

MR. FIELDING: But there was an after-action report. 

MR. BERGER: I'm sure there was. 

MR. FIELDING: Thank you. 

MR. BERGER: Let me --

MR. FIELDING: Oh, I'm sorry. 

MR. BERGER: Excuse me. Let me correct the record. I'm not 

sure there was. I believe there was, Mr. Fielding. And I remember 

being told that, but I've never seen an after-action report. 

MR. FIELDING: Well, thank you, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

MR. KEAN: Our last questioner before lunch will be 

Commissioner Gorelick. 

MS. GORELICK: Dangerous to stand between this commission and 

lunch. 
101

Very quick questions, then. First of all, as I understand it, 

you have now associated yourself with the comments of Secretaries 

Albright, Powell, Rumsfeld, Cohen, echoing the testimony of 

Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz, that it would have been impossible, 

both in terms of Pakistan's willingness to provide the necessary 

assistance and in terms of the Congress of the United States, to 

have invaded Afghanistan in the way that would have been 

necessary to tear down the Taliban and get bin Ladin prior to 

9/11. Is that correct? 

MR. BERGER: Yeah, I think it would not have been feasible and 

it would not have been sustainable, either domestically or 

internationally. 

MS. GORELICK: Second of all, while we cannot discuss -- we 

were not able to discuss the issue of covert authorities other 

than in vague generalities with Director Tenet, he did say that 

if he wanted more authority from you, if he wanted to clarify an 

ambiguity with you, it is his view that it was his obligation to 

come to you. Is that your understanding as well? 

MR. BERGER: Absolutely -- yes, although it could have worked 

the other way as well. If I had something that I wanted him to 

think about, I'm sure he would have entertained it. But 

generally, if he had more capability, he would have come back to 

us and said, "We need more authority." 

MS. GORELICK: Third, with respect to this issue of the Cole, 

just assume with me for the moment that on January 25th, when 

there was a new administration, the CIA's advice to that new 

Administration was equally as hedged as it was when you left 

office and that administration made no conclusion with regard to 

responsibility for the Cole until the President announced post9/11 that it was the responsibility of al Qaeda. 

Do you think that administration had an obligation, until the 

advice was unhedged, if you will, to take action in retaliation 

for the Cole? 

MR. BERGER: Let me say this. This is not a static situation. 

This information is developing every day. Every day they're 

getting more information. The investigation gets farther, more 

conclusive. 

As we left, it was a preliminary judgment. As they came in, 

it was a preliminary judgment. The point at which it no longer 

became a preliminary judgment, became a judgment, there would 
102

have been a responsibility to make a decision with respect to how 

to respond. 

MS. GORELICK: I'll make two factual comments just as a 

commissioner here. Number one, our staff has a view on whether 

the CIA's hedging was appropriate, based upon the factual record 

that we have. And number two, Deputy National Security Adviser 

Hadley has told us that his Administration's response would come 

via this new policy that was in the works in the spring and 

summer of '01. 

Thank you very much for your testimony and your service to 

the country. 

MR. KEAN: I have one last question. We're through, but this

question comes from some members, some family members, so I 

wanted to make sure and ask it. 

Prior to 9/11, did you have any intelligence that planes 

could be used as missiles? 

MR. BERGER: I saw no intelligence which drew our attention to 

that as any more likely than truck bombs, car bombs, 

assassinations, embassies. What I'm saying is, there were 

hundreds of thousands of pieces of intelligence. 

Were there -- I take it from the Graham-Goss report there 

were a number of documents which talked about that. But I do not 

recall ever being told that this was a modality that was likely, 

any more likely than others. Indeed, I think, you know, the 

intelligence took us to other kinds of methods of terrorism 

rather than this one. 

MR. KEAN: Thank you very much, Mr. Berger. Thank you very 

much for your testimony and thank you for your service. If we 

have additional questions later on, I hope we can get them to 

you. 

I do have a note from the Capitol police saying, "Please do 

not leave unattended bags or packages on your chairs or seats or 

in the room or they may not be here when you get back." 

We're going to have a brief lunch, because we have to stay on 

time. And I would ask the Commission to be back at 1:30. 

 MR. KEAN: I'd like to call the hearing back to order. And we 

have our witnesses here and should be coming out shortly. 
103

(PAUSE) 

Our next witness is Mr. Richard Clarke, who served as the 

former national coordinator for counterterrorism at the National 

Security Council. Mr. Clarke served on the National Security 

Council staff with great dedication. We are pleased to have him 

here with us, to join us. 

Mr. Clarke, could I ask you to raise your right hand so we 

may place you under oath? 

Do you swear or affirm to tell the whole truth and nothing 

but the truth? 

MR. RICHARD CLARKE: I do. 

MR. KEAN: Thank you very much, sir. Now, Mr. Clarke, your 

written remarks will be entered into the record in full. We'd ask 

you to summarize your statement, and please proceed. 

MR. CLARKE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Because I have submitted 

a written statement today, and I have previously testified before 

this commission for 15 hours, and before the Senate-House Joint 

Inquiry Committee for six hours, I have only a very brief opening 

statement. 

I welcome these hearings because of the opportunity that they 

provide to the American people to better understand why the 

tragedy of 9/11 happened, and what we must do to prevent a 

reoccurrence. I also welcome the hearings because it is finally a 

forum where I can apologize to the loved ones of the victims of 

9/11, to them who are here in the room, to those who are watching 

on television, your government failed you. Those entrusted with 

protecting you failed you. And I failed you. We tried hard, but 

that doesn't matter because we failed. And for that failure, I 

would ask, once all the facts are out, for your understanding and 

for your forgiveness. 

With that, Mr. Chairman, I would be glad to take your 

questions. 

MR. KEAN: The questioning will be led by Senator Gorton --

are you leading off, or Commissioner Roemer? 

MR. GORTON: Tim is. 

MR. KEAN: Commissioner Roemer. 
104

MR. ROEMER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome, Mr. Clarke. I 

want to thank you, as I start my questions, for your 30 years of 

public service to the American people. I want to thank you for 

your sworn testimony before the 9/11 Commission, over 15 hours. 

And I really want to say, Mr. Clarke, that there are a lot of 

distractions out there today -- the books, a lot of news media, a 

lot of accusations flying back and forth. I want you to 

concentrate, to the degree you can, on the memos, on the e-mail, 

on the strategy papers, and on the time that we're tasked with 

looking at on this 9/11 Commission between 1998 and September the 

11th. 

You coordinated counterterrorism policy in both the Clinton 

and the Bush administrations. I want to know, first of all, was 

fighting al Qaeda a top priority for the Clinton administration 

from 1998 to the year 2001? How high a priority was it in the 

Clinton administration during that time period? 

MR. CLARKE: My impression was that fighting terrorism in 

general, and fighting al Qaeda in particular, were an 

extraordinarily high priority in the Clinton administration, 

certainly no higher a priority. There were priorities probably of 

equal importance, such as the Middle East peace process, but I 

certainly don't know of one that was any higher in the priority 

of that administration. 

MR. ROEMER: With respect to the Bush administration, from the 

time they took office until September 11th, 2001, you had much to 

deal with -- Russia, China, G-8, Middle East. How high a priority 

was fighting al Qaeda in the Bush administration? 

MR. CLARKE: I believe the Bush administration in the first 

eight months considered terrorism an important issue but not an 

urgent issue. They -- well, President Bush himself says as much 

in the -- his interview with Bob Woodward in the book "Bush at 

War." He said, "I didn't feel a sense of urgency." George Tenet 

and I tried very hard to create a sense of urgency by seeing to 

it that intelligence reports on the al Qaeda threat were 

frequently given to the President and other high-level officials. 

And there was a process underway to address al Qaeda. But 

although I continued to say it was an urgent problem, I don't 

think it was ever treated that way. 

MR. ROEMER: Now, you have said, in many ways you've issued 

some blistering attacks on the Bush administration, but you have 

not held those criticisms from the Clinton administration either. 
105

We heard from Mr. Berger earlier that you were critical of the 

Clinton administration on two areas: not providing aid to the 

Northern Alliance, and not going after the human conveyor belts 

of jihadists coming out of the sanctuaries in Afghanistan. Are 

there more in the Clinton administration years -- the U.S.S. 

Cole, the response there? 

MR. CLARKE: Well, I think, first of all, Mr. Berger is right 

to say that almost everything I ever asked for in the way of 

support from him or President Clinton I got. We did enormously 

increase the counterterrorism budget of the federal government, 

initiated many programs, including one that is now called 

homeland security. Mr. Berger is also right to note that I wanted 

a covert action program to aid Afghan factions to fight the 

Taliban, and that was not accomplished. He is also right to note 

that on several occasions, including after the attack on the 

Cole, I suggested that we bomb all of the Taliban and al Qaeda 

infrastructure, whether or not it would succeed in killing Bin 

Ladin. I thought that was the wrong -- the wrong way of looking 

at the problem. 

Now --

MR. ROEMER: Let me --

MR. CLARKE: -- I think the answer is essentially Mr. Berger 

got it right. 

MR. ROEMER: Okay. Let's move into, with my 15 minutes, let's 

move into the Bush administration. On January the 25th, we've 

seen a memo that you had written to Dr. Rice, urgently asking for 

a principals review of al Qaeda. You include helping the Northern 

Alliance, covert aid, significant new '02 budget authority to 

help fight al Qaeda --

MR. CLARKE: Uh-huh. 

MR. ROEMER: -- and response to the U.S.S. Cole. You attached 

to this document both the Delenda Plan of 1998 and a strategy 

paper from December 2000. Did you get a response to this urgent 

request for a principals meeting on these, and how does this 

affect your time frame for dealing with these important issues? 

MR. CLARKE: I did get a response. The response was that in 

the Bush administration I should, and my committee, the 

counterterrorism security group, should report to the deputies 

committee, which is a sub-cabinet level committee, and not to the 
106

principals, and that therefore it was inappropriate for me to be 

asking for a principals meeting. Instead, there would be a 

deputies meeting. 

MR. ROEMER: So, does this slow the process down to go to the 

deputies rather than to the principals or a small group, as you 

had previously done? 

MR. CLARKE: It slowed it down enormously, by months. First of 

all, the deputies committee didn't meet urgently in January or 

February. Then, when the deputies committee did meet, it took the 

issue of al Qaeda as part of a cluster of policy issues, 

including nuclear proliferation in South Asia, democratization in 

Pakistan, how to treat the problems, the various problems, 

including narcotics and other problems in Afghanistan , and, 

launched on a series of deputies meetings extending over several 

months to address al Qaeda in the context of all of those 

interrelated issues. That process probably ended, I think, in 

July of 2001, so we were readying for a principals meeting in 

July, but the principals' calendar was full, and then they went 

on vacation, many of them, in August, so we couldn't meet in 

August, and therefore the principals met in September. 

MR. ROEMER: So, as the Bush administration is carefully 

considering from bottom up a full review of fighting terrorism, 

what happens to these individual items, like a response to the 

U.S.S. Cole --

MR. CLARKE: Well --

MR. ROEMER: -- like the Predator? Why aren't these decided in 

the shorter time frame as they're also going through a larger 

policy review of how this policy affects Pakistan and other 

countries -- important considerations, but why can't you do both? 

MR. CLARKE: The deputies committee, its chairman, Mr. Hadley, 

and others, thought that all these issues were sufficiently 

interrelated, that they should be taken up as a set of issues, 

and pieces of them should not be broken off. 

MR. ROEMER: Did you agree with that? 

MR. CLARKE: No, I didn't agree with much of that. 

MR. ROEMER: Were you -- were you frustrated by this process? 
107

MR. CLARKE: I was sufficiently frustrated that I asked to be 

reassigned. 

MR. ROEMER: When was this? 

MR. CLARKE: Probably May or June -- certainly no later than 

June. And there was agreement in that time frame, in the May or 

June time frame, that I would be -- my request would be honored 

and I would be reassigned on the first of October to a new 

position to deal with cyber security, a position that I requested 

be created. 

MR. ROEMER: So, are you saying that the frustration got to a 

high enough level that it wasn't your portfolio; it wasn't doing 

a lot of things at the same time. It was that you weren't getting 

fast enough action on what you were requesting? 

MR. CLARKE: That's right. My view was that this 

Administration, while it listened to me, either didn't believe me 

that there was an urgent problem or was unprepared to act as 

though there were an urgent problem. 

And I thought, if the Administration doesn't believe its 

national coordinator for counterterrorism when he says there's an 

urgent problem, and if it's unprepared to act as though there's 

an urgent problem, then probably I should get another job. 

I thought cyber-security was and I still think cyber-security 

is an extraordinarily important issue for which this country is 

very underprepared. And I thought perhaps I could make a 

contribution if I worked full-time on that issue. 

MR. ROEMER: You then write a letter or a memo on September 

the 4th to Dr. Rice expressing some of these frustrations. 

Several months later, if you say the time frame is May or June 

when you decided to resign, a memo comes out that we have seen on 

September the 4th. 

You are blunt in blasting DOD for not willingly using the 

force and the power. You blast the CIA for blocking Predator. You 

urge policymakers to imagine a day, after hundreds of Americans 

lay dead at home and abroad after a terrorist attack, and ask 

themselves what else they could have done. You write this on 

September the 4th, seven days before September 11th. 

MR. CLARKE: That's right. 
108

MR. ROEMER: What else could have been done, Mr. Clarke? 

MR. CLARKE: Well, all of the things that we recommended in 

the plan or strategy -- there's a lot of debate about whether 

it's a plan or a strategy or a series of options -- but all of 

the things we recommended back in January were those things on 

the table in September. They were done. They were done after 

September 11th. They were all done. I didn't really understand 

why they couldn't have been done in February. 

MR. ROEMER: Well, let's say, Mr. Clarke -- I think this is a 

fair question -- let's say that you asked to brief the President

of the United States on counterterrorism. Did you ask that? 

MR. CLARKE: I asked for a series of briefings on the issues 

in my portfolio, including counterterrorism and cyber-security. 

MR. ROEMER: Did you get that request? 

MR. CLARKE: I did. I was given a briefing opportunity to 

brief on cyber-security in June. I was told I could brief the 

President on terrorism after this policy development process was 

complete. And we had a principals meeting and a draft national 

security policy decision that had been approved by the deputies 

committee. 

MR. ROEMER: Let's say, Mr. Clarke, as gifted as you might be 

in eloquence and silver-tongued as anyone could be, and let's 

say, let's imagine, that instead of saying no, you asked for this 

briefing to the President, you said you didn't get it after eight 

months of talking -- let's say you get this briefing in February, 

after your memo to Dr. Rice on September the 25th, and you meet 

with the President of the United States in February and you brief 

him on terrorism. 

Tell me how you convince the President to move forward on 

this and get this principals meeting that doesn't take place 

until September the 4th moved up so that you can do something 

about this problem? 

MR. CLARKE: Well, I think the best thing to have done, if 

there had been a meeting with the President in February, was to 

show him the accumulated intelligence that al Qaeda was strong 

and was planning attacks against the United States, against 

friendly governments. 
109

It was possible to make a very persuasive case that this was 

a major threat and this was an urgent problem. 

MR. ROEMER: And you think this would have sped up the 

deputies process and the principals process? Do you think the 

President would have reached down then and said something to the 

national security team to --

MR. CLARKE: I don't know. 

MR. ROEMER: -- expedite this? 

MR. CLARKE: I don't know. 

MR. ROEMER: Well, you worked for President Clinton. You saw 

what meetings with presidents could do there. Is this a magical 

solution, or is it something that presidents might say right back 

to you, "Listen, Dick, I've got many other things I've got to do 

here -- the Middle East peace process, Bosnia, Kosovo, the Korean 

peninsula." How likely is it that we are able to see some kind of 

result from a meeting like that? 

MR. CLARKE: I think it depends in part on the President. 

President Bush was regularly told by the director of Central 

Intelligence that there was an urgent threat. On one occasion --

he was told this dozens of times in the morning briefings that 

George Tenet gave him. On one of those occasions, he asked for a 

strategy to deal with the threat. 

Condi Rice came back from that meeting, called me and relayed 

what the President had requested. And I said, "Well, you know, 

we've had this strategy ready since before you were inaugurated. 

I showed it to you. You have the paperwork. We can have a meeting 

on the strategy any time you want." 

She said she would look into it. Her looking into it and the 

President asking for it did not change the pace at which it was 

considered. And as far as I know, the President never asked 

again. At least I was never informed that he asked again. I do 

know he was thereafter continually informed about the threat by 

George Tenet. 

MR. ROEMER: Let me ask you, with my yellow light on, a 

question about the summer 2000 alert. You were saying, the CIA 

was saying, everybody was saying, "Something spectacular is about 

to happen" -- spiking in intelligence; something terrible was 

about to happen. 
110

You told us in some of our interviews you only wish you would 

have known at that time, in that summer, what the FBI knew with 

regard to Moussaoui, the Phoenix memo and terrorists in the 

United States. 

What could you have done with some of that information, with 

the spiked alerts, with the spectacular attack on the horizon, in 

the summer of 2001? 

MR. CLARKE: Well, Congressman, it is very easy, in 

retrospect, to say that I would have done this or I would have 

done that. And we'll never know. 

I would like to think that had I been informed by the FBI 

that two senior al Qaeda operatives who had been in a planning 

meeting earlier in Kuala Lumpur were now in the United States, 

and we knew that, and we knew their names -- and I think we even 

had their pictures -- I would like to think that I would have 

released or had the FBI release a press release with their names, 

with their descriptions, held a press conference, tried to get 

their names and pictures on the front page of every paper --

America's Most Wanted, the evening news -- and caused a 

successful nationwide manhunt for those two, two of the 19 

hijackers. 

But I don't know, because you're asking me a hypothetical, 

and I have the benefit now of 20/20 hindsight. 

MR. ROEMER: Thank you, Mr. Clarke. Mr. Chairman, thank you 

for the patience on the time. 

MR. KEAN: Okay, thank you, sir. Senator Gorton. 

MR. GORTON: Mr. Clarke, you got the position as the head of 

this Counterterrorism and Security Group, CSG, when? In about May 

of 1998. Is that correct? 

MR. CLARKE: No, Senator, actually I got it in the first Bush 

administration, in the fall of 1992. 

MR. GORTON: But it got to the level of being up there at the 

White House and being a very important position in 1998? 

MR. CLARKE: What happened in 1998 -- let me go back. The 

Counterterrorism Security Group, the CSG, goes back to the Reagan 

administration. It's been around for that long. I started 

chairing it during the last few months of the Bush administration 
111

in 1992; continued to chair it throughout the Clinton 

administration and into the second Bush administration. 

In 1998, President Clinton signed a presidential directive 

that created a new title for the chairman of that group. The 

chairman had always been a special assistant to the President. 

That was the title. 

Under the new directive in 1998, the title became national 

coordinator for counterterrorism. But I think there's something I 

need to say about that title. The actual title was national 

coordinator for security, infrastructure protection and 

counterterrorism. And the press, thinking that title was too long 

and not sexy enough, immediately turned it into “terrorism czar.”

If you look at the presidential decision directive in 1998 

that created this position, it is replete with what the national 

coordinator cannot do and what resources the national coordinator 

would not have. 

It was not a counterterrorism czar, especially when compared 

to people like the drug czar. It gave me --

MR. GORTON: It was a staff position, not an action position, 

in other words. 

MR. CLARKE: It gave me all of the responsibility and none of 

the authority. 

MR. GORTON: And later in 1998, of course, we had the 

explosions, the attack on the two embassies. 

MR. CLARKE: Right. 

MR. GORTON: And shortly after that, the administration took 

its one military response to terrorism in the attacks on 

Afghanistan and the Sudan. Were those actions taken on your 

recommendation? Were you a part of the decision-making process in 

calling for that reaction? 

MR. CLARKE: Senator, I was. But if I may be a little picky, 

this was not the administration's first or only use of military 

action in response to terrorism. The administration began in the 

first five months of the Clinton administration -- the first five 

months of the administration -- six months -- to use military 

force --
112

MR. GORTON: -- the first to al Qaeda --

MR. CLARKE: -- the first time that we had an al Qaeda attack 

on the United States facilities. It was the first time that al 

Qaeda had attacked us and we had been told it was al Qaeda. In 

retrospect, many years after these attacks occurred, FBI and CIA 

began to say that things like the World Trade Center attack in 

1993 might have been done by an early-stage al Qaeda. 

MR. GORTON: In August of 1998, did you recommend a longerlasting military response or just precisely the one that, in 

fact, took place? 

MR. CLARKE: I recommended a series of rolling attacks against 

the infrastructure in Afghanistan. Every time they would rebuild 

it, I would propose that we blow it up again, much like, in fact, 

we were doing in Iraq, where we had a rolling series of attacks 

on their air defense system. 

MR. GORTON: And shortly after that you came up with the socalled "Delenda Plan," as I understand it? And is our staff 

report accurate in saying that it had four principal approaches -

- diplomacy, covert action, various financial members, and 

military action? Is that a reasonable summary that our staff has 

given us? 

MR. CLARKE: Yes, sir. Yes, sir. 

MR. GORTON: And also is our staff accurate in saying that the 

strategy was never formally adopted, but that you were 

authorized, in effect, to go ahead with the first three but not 

with the fourth? 

MR. CLARKE: Yes, sir. 

MR. GORTON: And at various times thereafter, you did 

recommend specific military responses under specific 

circumstances, did you not? 

MR. CLARKE: Yes, sir. 

MR. GORTON: Each of which was rejected for one reason or 

another? 

MR. CLARKE: That's correct. 
113

MR. GORTON: Then, in the early winter of 1999, when the CIA 

came up with a plan to attack a hunting camp in Afghanistan, 

which it felt that Osama bin Ladin was present or was not 

present, that recommendation or that plan, you know, was 

ultimately aborted. Did you recommend against that plan? 

MR. CLARKE: Yes, Senator, what I did was to call the director 

of Central Intelligence and say that I had finally been presented 

with satellite photography of the facility, and it was very clear 

to me that this looked like something other than a terrorist 

camp. It looked like a luxury hunting trip, and I asked him to 

look into it personally. When he did, he called back, and he said 

that he was no longer recommending the attack. 

MR. GORTON: Okay. So you never recommended either for or 

against an attack on that camp? 

MR. CLARKE: Well, I think -- I don't want to split hairs. By 

calling the director of Central Intelligence and suggesting to 

him that this did not look to me like a terrorist facility and 

urging him to look into it, he certainly had the impression that 

I wasn't in favor of it, absolutely. 

MR. GORTON: Well, did it make any difference as to what kind 

of camp it was if it was likely that Osama bin Ladin was there? 

MR. CLARKE: Well, it did in two respects. The administration 

had adopted a policy with regard -- let me back up -- after the 

bombings in 1998, we kept submarines off the coast of Pakistan 

loaded with cruise missiles for the purpose of launching a 

follow-on attack when we could locate bin Ladin. The intelligence 

that we got about where bin Ladin was, was very poor. The DCI, 

Mr. Tenet, characterized that intelligence himself on repeated 

occasions, as very poor. On one occasion we thought we knew where 

he was, and there were two problems. One, the intelligence was 

poor, according to George Tenet and, two, the collateral damage 

would have been great, according to the Pentagon. 

When I looked at this facility, it looked to me like the 

intelligence was, again, poor, because it didn't look like a 

terrorist camp. And the probability of collateral damage would 

have been high, I thought, since I believed, based on the 

satellite photography, that people other than terrorists were 

there. The decision ultimately was George Tenet's, and George 

Tenet recommended no action be taken. I don't know, in retrospect 

-- your staff might -- but I don't know, in retrospect, whether 

it proved to be true that bin Ladin was in the vicinity or not. 
114

MR. GORTON: In any event, every recommendation for military 

action or covert action from late 1998 until the year 2000 ran up 

against the objection of actionable -- that it was not based on

actionable intelligence, that wonderful phrase we've heard in the 

last two days. Is that not correct, because of uncertainty as to 

whether bin Ladin was present; uncertainty about collateral 

damage, et cetera? 

MR. CLARKE: That's true in describing actions aimed at Osama 

bin Ladin himself. There were other covert-action activities 

taken, which we obviously can't go into here, but there was a 

pre-existing finding on terrorism under which CIA was operating 

and CIA was able to do some things outside of Afghanistan against 

the al Qaeda network using that authority. 

MR. GORTON: And at the very end of the Clinton 

administration, after the attack on the Cole, there was

triggered, either by the Cole or by everything else, that a new 

set of initiatives resulting in what is called a “Blue-Sky memo,”

is that correct? 

MR. CLARKE: That's right. 

MR. GORTON: And were you a part of that? Was that -- did you 

draft it? Was it your plan? 

MR. CLARKE: The Blue-Sky memo I believe you are referring to 

was part of an overall update of the Delenda Plan. And it was a 

part generated by the Central Intelligence Agency. We, my staff, 

generated the rest of the update. 

MR. GORTON: And the goal of that plan was to roll back al 

Qaeda over a period of three to five years, reducing it 

eventually to a rump group, like other terrorist organizations 

around the world? 

MR. CLARKE: Our goal was to do that to eliminate it as a 

threat to the United States, recognizing that one might not ever 

be able to totally eliminate everybody in the world who thought 

they were a member of al Qaeda. But if we could get it to be as 

ineffective as the Abu Nidal organization was toward the end of 

its existence, it didn't pose a threat to the United States. 

That's what we wanted. The CIA said if they got all the resources 

they needed, that might be possible over the course of three 

years at the earliest. 
115

MR. GORTON: And then Delenda and that Blue-Sky proposal, I 

take it, were pretty much the basis of what you recommended to 

Condoleezza Rice in January of 2001, covert assistance to the 

Northern Alliance, you know, more money for CIA activities, 

something called choosing a standard of evidence for attributing 

responsibility for the Cole, new Predator reconnaissance missions 

and more work on funding? 

MR. CLARKE: That's right, Senator. The update to the Delenda 

Plan that we did in October-November-December of 2000 was handed 

to the new National Security Advisor in January of 2001. It 

formed the basis of the draft National Security presidential 

directive that was then discussed in September of 2001 and signed 

by President Bush as NSPD-9, I believe, later in September. 

MR. GORTON: What do you mean by a standard of evidence? I'm 

troubled by this fuzzy phrase, "actionable intelligence," and 

let's take the Cole on that. As we've heard from Director Tenet, 

in November and then, more precisely, in December of 2000, they 

pretty much concluded that the Cole was took place through al 

Qaeda people, but they couldn't prove that it had been directed 

by Osama bin Ladin. Was the amount of intelligence available in 

November and December of 2000 -- in 2001, in your view, 

actionable intelligence that could have been the appropriate 

basis for a specific response to the Cole?

MR. CLARKE: The phrase that you read, "the standard for 

actionable," was a way of my addressing this problem, and I 

wanted to get us away from having to prove either in a court of 

law legal standard or even in some fancy intelligence community 

standard, that went through a prolonged process that took months. 

I thought we could disassociate the attack on the Cole from any 

attacks that we did on the Taliban and al Qaeda. If people wanted 

to further study who was guilty of attacking the Cole, and the 

FBI had deployed hundreds of people to do that, and CIA was 

saying that there were some people involved who might have been 

al Qaeda. 

I thought, "Fine, if you want to have that kind of standard, 

and you want to have that kind of process, fine, then let's 

separate that, and let's bomb Afghanistan, anyway, and not tie 

the two together." But it seemed to my staff -- and we're looking 

at the same intelligence that the CIA was looking at -- it seemed 

to us within two days of the attack on the Cole that we could put 

together an intelligence case that this was an al Qaeda attack by 

the local al Qaeda cell in Yemen. And that is of course the 

conclusion that the CIA came to in January or February of the 
116

next year, based on pretty much nothing but the evidence that we 

had available to us within two days. 

MR. GORTON: Now, since my yellow light is on, at this point 

my final question will be this. Assuming that the recommendations 

that you made on January 25th of 2001, based on the line of --

based on Blue Sky, including aid to the Northern Alliance which 

had been an agenda item at this point for two and a half years 

without any action, assuming that there had been more Predator 

reconnaissance missions, assuming that that had all been adopted, 

say, on January 26, year 2001, is there the remotest chance that 

it would have prevented 9/11? 

MR. CLARKE: No. 

MR. GORTON: It just would have allowed our response after 

9/11 to be perhaps a little bit faster? 

MR. CLARKE: Well, the response would have begun before 9/11. 

MR. GORTON: But -- yes, but we weren't going to -- there was 

no recommendation on your part or anyone else's part that we 

declare war and attempt to invade Afghanistan prior to 9/11? 

MR. CLARKE: That's right. 

MR. GORTON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

MR. KEAN: Thank you, senator. 

I just have one question. Taking it back further, you've been 

there longer than anybody really in this particular slot, and 

looking at terrorism, and looking at it well, if you -- is it 

resources? Is it change of policy? Or what is it over the years, 

taking all your years there for two administrations or three 

administrations even, what could we have done? And I'm trying to 

find not only what we could have done but what should we be doing 

perhaps in the future because we were beaten. I mean, we were 

really beaten by these guys, and 3,000 people died. And what --

is there anything that you can think of over that long period had 

we done differently as a country, as a policy, what have you, 

that could have made a difference? 

MR. CLARKE: Well, I think, governor, there's a lot in 

retrospect, with 20/20 hindsight. 

MR. KEAN: Yeah, I'm asking in 20/20 hindsight.
117

MR. CLARKE: Because we have that opportunity now. I think, 

you know, al Qaeda probably came into existence in 1988 or 1989, 

and no one in the White House was ever informed by the 

intelligence community that there was an al Qaeda until probably 

1995. The existence of an organization like that was something 

that members of the National Security Council staff suspected in 

1993. National Security Adviser Anthony Lake urged CIA to create 

a special program to investigate whether there was some 

organization centered around bin Ladin. It was not done because 

CIA decided there was probably an organization; it was done 

because the national security adviser thought there was probably 

an organization. 

Had we a more robust intelligence capability in the late 

1980s and early 1990s, we might have recognized the existence of 

al Qaeda relatively soon after it came into existence. And if we 

recognized its existence and if we knew its philosophy, and if we 

had a proactive intelligence covert action program -- that's both 

more on the collection side and more on the covert action side --

then we might have been able to nip it in the bud. But as George 

Tenet I think explained this morning, our HUMINT program, our spy 

capability, had been eviscerated in the mid 1980s and early 

1990s, and there was no such capability, either to either know 

that al Qaeda existed, let alone to destroy it. 

And there's something else that I think we have to understand 

about the CIA's covert action capabilities. For many years they 

were roundly criticized by the Congress and the media for various 

covert actions that they carried out at the request of people 

like me in the White House -- not me, but people like me. And 

many CIA senior managers were dragged up into this room and 

others and berated for failed covert action activities. And they 

became great political footballs. 

Now, if you're in the CIA and you're growing up as a CIA 

manager over this period of time, and that's what you see going 

on, and you see one boss after another, one deputy director of 

operations after another being fired or threatened with 

indictment, I think the think you learn from that is that covert 

action is a very dangerous thing that can damage the CIA as much 

as it can damage the enemy. 

Robert Gates, when he was deputy director of CIA and when he 

w as director of CIA, and when he was deputy national security 

adviser, Robert Gates repeatedly taught the lesson that covert 

action isn't worth doing. It's too risky. That's the lesson that 
118

the current generation of directorate of operations managers 

learned as they were growing up in the agency. 

Now, George Tenet says they're not risk averse, and I'm sure 

he knows better than I do. But from the outside, working with the 

DO over the course of the last 20 years, it certainly looks to me 

as though they were risk averse, but they had every reason to be 

risk averse, because the Congress, the media, had taught them 

that the use of covert action would likely blow up in their face. 

MR. KEAN: Okay, thank you very much. 

Commissioner Ben-Veniste. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Good afternoon, Mr. Clarke. I want to focus 

on the role of the national security adviser and your 

relationship with the national security adviser in the Clinton 

administration as compared with the Bush administration. Can you 

point to any similarities or differences? 

MR. CLARKE: Well, I think the similarity is that under all 

four national security advisers for whom I worked I was told by 

each of the four, beginning with Brent Scowcroft, that if I ever 

had any -- I hate to use the word, senator, but "actionable 

intelligence" -- the phrase -- if I ever had reason to believe 

that there was something urgent that they could act on, that I 

could interrupt anything that they were doing -- that I had an 

open door at any time I needed it, day or night, if there was 

something about to happen. 

I think the difference between the two national security 

advisers in the Clinton administration and the national security 

adviser in the Bush administration is that on policy development 

I dealt directly with the national security advisers in the 

Clinton administration, but policy development on 

counterterrorism I was told would be best done with the deputy 

national security adviser. So I spent less time talking about the 

problems of terrorism with the national security adviser in this 

Administration. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Let me move to substance in terms of the 

level of threat during the summer of 2001 and your involvement in 

coordination of both foreign and domestic intelligence. That was 

definitely a part of your function, was it not? 

MR. CLARKE: Yes, sir. 
119

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Now, before I get to that, and before I 

forget doing so, I want to express my appreciation for the fact 

that you have come before this commission and stated in front of 

the world your apology to what went wrong. To my knowledge, 

you're the first to do that. (Applause.) 

This does not detract from the fact that there were so many 

people who we have met over this past year who were engaged in 

trying to keep our country safe and who have worked tirelessly to 

achieve that goal. 

In the Millennium threat we knew -- and we've covered this 

with Sandy Berger to some considerable extent -- that sleeper 

cells in North America had been activated and that we had rolled 

them up and prevented, among other things, an attack on the Los 

Angeles International Airport. With respect to the level of 

threat and the intelligence information that you were receiving, 

is it fair to say that in the summer of 2001 the threat level 

either approached or exceeded anything that you had previously 

been receiving? 

MR. CLARKE: I think it exceeded anything that George Tenet or 

I had ever seen. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: And I think the phrase which has received 

some currency in our hearings of someone's hair being on fire 

originated with you, of saying that basically you knew that 

something drastic was about to happen, and that the indicators 

were all consistent in that regard. 

MR. CLARKE: That's right. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Did you make a determination that the threat 

was going to come from abroad as an exclusive proposition, or did 

you understand that given the fact that we had been attacked 

before, and that plans had been interrupted to attack us before, 

that the potential existed for al Qaeda to strike at us on our 

homeland? 

MR. CLARKE: The CIA said in their assessments that the attack 

would most likely occur overseas, most probably in Saudi Arabia, 

possibly in Israel. I thought, however, that it might well take 

place in the United States, based on what we had learned in 

December '99, when we rolled up operations in Washington State, 

in Brooklyn, in Boston. 
120

The fact that we didn't have intelligence that we could point 

to that said it would take place in the United States wasn't 

significant in my view because, frankly, sir -- I know how this 

is going to sound, but I have to say it -- I didn't think the FBI 

would know whether or not there was anything going on in the 

United States by al Qaeda. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Well, the FBI was the principal agency upon 

which you had to rely -- is that not the case? 

MR. CLARKE: It is. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Now, with respect to what you were told --

you we the principal coordinator for counterterrorism for the 

chief executive, flowing up and down through you, correct? 

MR. CLARKE: Yes, sir. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Did you know that the two individuals who 

had been identified as al Qaeda had entered the United States and 

were presently thought to be in the country? 

MR. CLARKE: I was not informed of that. Nor were senior 

levels of the FBI. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Had you known that these individuals were in 

the country, what steps -- with the benefit of hindsight, but 

informed hindsight, would you have taken, given the level of 

threat? 

MR. CLARKE: To put the answer in a context, I had been saying 

to the FBI and to the other federal law enforcement agencies, and 

to the CIA, that because of this intelligence that something was 

about to happen that they should lower their threshold of 

reporting -- that they should tell us anything that looked the 

slightest bit unusual. 

In retrospect, having said that over and over again to them, 

for them to have had this information somewhere in the FBI and 

not told me I still find absolutely incomprehensible. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Was --and I will have to end it here, 

although I'd like to go further -- was the information with 

respect to Moussaoui and his erratic behavior in flight school 

ever communicated to you? 

MR. CLARKE: Not to me. 
121

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Given the fact that there was a body of 

information with respect to the use of planes as weapons within 

the intelligence community's knowledge, had you received 

information about Moussaoui training to fly a commercial 

airplane? Would that have had some impact on the kinds of efforts 

which might be made to protect commercial aviation? 

MR. CLARKE: I don't know. The information to which you refer, 

information in the intelligence community's knowledge about al 

Qaeda having thought of using aircraft of weapons -- that 

information was old, relatively speaking -- five years, six years 

old -- hadn't recurred to my knowledge during those five or six 

years, and has to be placed -- to give the intelligence community 

a break -- it has to be placed in the context of the other 

intelligence reports. The volume of intelligence reports on this 

kind of thing, on al Qaeda threats and other terrorist threats, 

was in the tens of thousands -- probably hundreds of thousands 

over the course of five or six years. Now in retrospect to go 

back and find the report six years earlier that said perhaps they 

were going to use aircraft as weapons is easy to do now. But I 

think the intelligence community analysts can be forgiven for not 

thinking about it, given the fact that they hadn't seen a lot in 

the five or six years intervening about it, and that here were so 

many reports about so many other things. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: And yet -- with your indulgence, Mr. 

Chairman. 

MR. KEAN: -- indulgence. (Laughter.) 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: And yet an FAA advisory went out. The FAA 

advised on the potential for domestic hijackings. 

MR. CLARKE: I asked them to. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: And had you known on top of that that there 

was a jihadist who was identified -- apprehended in the United 

States before 9/11, who was in flight school, acting erratically? 

MR. CLARKE: I would like to think, sir, that even without the 

benefit of 20/20 hindsight, I could have connected those dots. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Thank you. 

MR. KEAN: Commissioner Kerrey. 
122

MR. KERREY: Mr. Clarke, first of all, let me thank you for 

doing what I think all of us who had any responsibilities during 

the late 1990s-early 2000 have responsibility to do, which is to 

apologize to the families for letting them down. I think it was a 

courageous gesture, and I think it'd be a lot easier for us to, 

in a non- judgmental fashion, figure out what went wrong and what 

to do in the future if we'd all sort of start off our inquiries 

with that declaration. I appreciate very much the sincerity of 

that. 

And let me also say I feel badly, because I presume that you 

are at the moment receiving terrible phone messages and e-mail 

messages. And I hope you don't take it personal, because it --

you're just caught in one of these moments -- I can barely see 

you because of all the cameras I'm having to look through. No, 

it's okay. I'm just kidding. I'm just trying to illustrate the 

attention that's being paid to you. And --

MR. CLARKE: Senator, I -- I think I knew what the price would 

be. 

MR. KERREY: I think -- well, you're a smarter man than most 

of us, then, because I think you can sort of know it 

theoretically, but until you get in it, it's -- it can be quite 

surprising. And let me also thank you for over a quarter-century 

of public service. I mean, you really in many ways are an example 

of a single individual coming to government and demonstrating 

that you can make a difference over a long period of time. And 

you have. And I think as badly as you feel toward the families 

that are sitting behind you, there are many families that are 

today unknowingly the recipient of your service, because we did, 

thanks to you and thanks to many others who were working with 

you, prevent an awful lot of bad things from happening as well. 

So let me start off with that. And let me also start off by 

saying that I think that one of the things we got to try to do is 

get to a point where we can have honest disagreements and let 

those disagreements permit us to discover where -- where, in 

fact, we've got common ground. I find, in fact, arguments almost 

being necessary -- and you, again, are a very good demonstration 

of that. You almost always, with your declaratories, provoke a 

good argument. And it's those arguments that allow us to discover 

where our common ground is. 

Let me say, in one area I disagree with you -- it's on the 

Delenda. You said in response to Senator Gorton earlier that it 

would not have prevented 9/11. It would not have resulted -- it 
123

was not a declaration of war. You weren't advocating declaring 

war. I believe Delenda would have necessitated a declaration of 

war, and probably one of the reasons that it was rejected, as 

well as other options that I think would have substantially 

reduced the risk of 9/11 had we followed your advice -- one of 

the reasons it probably was not taken up by the National Security 

Council and the President was that it would have required that 

draconian of a step, and I've -- you've heard me say it before, 

but I think it's one of the mistakes that we made. 

Let me ask you, just specific to the use of airplanes as a 

weapon, because it -- you know, it seems so obvious -- and again, 

it seemed obvious -- this seems so obvious after the fact. I 

mean, it was such a simple and easy strategy that was put in 

place. But in your case, in '96 with the Olympics, you raised a 

concern about a small Cessna being used to attack the Olympics in 

Atlanta. 

In I think it was -- was it '98, in December '98? -- you were 

head of the CSG when -- chairman of the CSG -- when there was a 

big concern on the East Coast about the possibility of someone 

connected to Osama bin Ladin hijacking a commercial aircraft out 

of New York City. That warning went out. 

During the Millennium scare, as well, you sent a memo to 

Berger discussing the possible domestic threats, and the quote is 

that is there a threat to civilian aircraft. In March 2001, 

another CSG item on the agenda mentions the possibility of 

alleged bin Ladin interests in "targeting U.S. passengers planes 

at the Chicago airport," end of quote. 

And it seems to me that we had a broad, general understanding 

that it was possible that hijacking might be on the list of 

things that were going to be used. And I'm just -- I remember 

Administrator Garvey, when she came before this commission a 

month or so ago, all their attention was overseas, she said. I 

mean, if you listen and look at the documents on the day of 9/11, 

it just inescapably leads you to the conclusion that we were 

surprised by hijacking. And I just -- I wonder if you've got a 

perspective on how it's possible that we were surprised by 

hijacking, let alone a multiple hijacking simultaneously 

occurring at the same moment. 

MR. CLARKE: Well, Senator, I would distinguish between 

hijackings in general and hijackings that then turned the 

aircraft into suicide weapons. There had been hijackings by 
124

terrorists going back for 20, 25 years, and the United States had 

some programs in place to deal with that. 

In 1996, after the TWA 800 crash, the President appointed a 

commission on aircraft safety and security, that looked at 

whether we needed to augment our protection against hijacking. 

And it made several recommendations. Most of those 

recommendations were carried out; not all of them. One of the 

things it rejected was federalizing the aircraft searching 

process that is now done by the Transportation Security Agency, 

because it would have cost so much money, and it would have 

required such a big federal bureaucracy. At the time, when there 

had been no recent hijacking, I assume the Commissioners on that 

commission thought they were making the right recommendation. 

Many of their recommendations for increased security, however, 

were carried out. 

But as to your question about using aircraft as weapons, I 

was afraid, beginning in 1996, not that the Cessna would fly into 

the Olympics but that any size aircraft would be put into the 

Olympics. And during my inspection of the Atlanta Olympic 

security arrangements a month or two before the games, I was 

shocked that the FBI hadn't put into effect any aircraft air 

defense security arrangements. So I threw together an air defense 

for the Atlanta games, somewhat quickly, but I got an air defense 

system in place. 

We then tried to institutionalize that for Washington, to 

protect the Capitol and the White House. And that system would 

have been run by the Secret Service. It would have involved 

missiles, anti-aircraft guns, radar, helicopters. Secret Service 

developed all the plans for that. Secret Service was a big 

advocate for it. But they were unable to get the Treasury 

Department, in which they were then located, to approve it, and I 

was unable to get the Office of Management and Budget to fund it. 

MR. KERREY: But certainly, there's just the two-sentence 

response -- I mean, the papers were full of stories about men and 

women using suicide as a device in carrying out terrorist 

objectives. The second intifada was in full force in -- beginning 

in late 2000 through 2001. So I -- perhaps on the second 

question, if I get the chance, we can continue this discussion. 

MR. CLARKE: Well, I'd enjoy that. The bottom line here is, I 

thought I -- I agree with you, and I thought I had made a 

persuasive case that we needed an air defense system, as well as 

an airport system, not just to stop hijackers at baggage 
125

inspection, but to deal with them if they got through that and 

were able to hijack an aircraft. I thought we needed an air 

defense system. And we got a little of that air defense system 

implemented, but only a little. 

MR. KERREY: Put me on the list, if we have a chance to do a 

second round. 

MR. KEAN: Will do. 

Governor Thompson. 

JAMES R. THOMPSON: Mr. Clarke, as we sit here this afternoon 

we have your book and we have your press briefing of August 2002. 

Which is true? 

MR. CLARKE: Well, I think the question is a little 

misleading. The press briefing you're referring to comes in the 

following context. 

Time magazine had published a cover story, article, 

highlighting what your staff briefing talks about. They had 

learned that -- as your staff briefing notes, that there was a 

strategy or a plan and a series of additional options that were 

presented to the national security adviser and the new Bush team 

when they came into office. Time magazine ran a somewhat 

sensational story that implied that the Bush administration 

hadn't worked on that plan, and this, of course, coming after 

9/11, caused the Bush White House a great deal of concern. 

So I was asked by several people in senior levels of the Bush 

White House to do a press backgrounder to try to explain that set 

of facts in a way that minimized criticism of the Administration. 

And so I did. 

Now, we can get into semantic games of whether it was a 

strategy, or whether it was a plan, or whether it was a series of 

options to be decided upon. I think the facts are as they were 

outlined in your staff briefing. 

MR. THOMPSON: Well, let's take a look, then, at your press 

briefing, because I don't want to engage in semantic games. 

You said, "The Bush administration decided then, you know, 

mid- January" -- that's mid-January 2001 -- "to do two things: 

one, vigorously pursue the existing policy" -- that would be the 

Clinton policy -- "including all of the lethal covert action 
126

findings, which we have now made public to some extent." Is -- is 

that so? Did they decide in January of 2001 to vigorously pursue 

the existing Clinton policy? 

MR. CLARKE: They decided that the existing covert action 

findings would remain in effect. 

MR. THOMPSON: Okay. 

"The second thing the Administration decided to do is to 

initiate a process to look at those issues which had been on the 

table for a couple of years and get them decided." Now, that 

seems to indicate to me that proposals had been sitting on the 

table in the Clinton administration for a couple of years, but 

that the Bush administration was going to get them done. Is that 

a correct assumption? 

MR. CLARKE: Well, that was my hope at the time. It turned out 

not to be the case. 

MR. THOMPSON: Well then, why in August of 2002, over a year 

later, did you say that it was the case? 

MR. CLARKE: I was asked to make that case to the press. I was 

a special assistant to the President. And I made the case I was 

asked to make. 

MR. THOMPSON: Are you saying to me that you were asked to 

make an untrue case to the press and the public and that you went 

ahead and did it? 

MR. CLARKE: No, sir. Not --

MR. THOMPSON: What are you saying? 

MR. CLARKE: -- not "untrue". Not an untrue case. I was asked 

to highlight the positive aspects of what the Administration had 

done, and to minimize the negative aspects of what the 

Administration had done. And as a special assistant to the 

President, one is frequently asked to do that kind of thing. I've 

done it for several presidents. (Pause, laughter.) 

MR. THOMPSON: Well, okay. 

"Over the course of the summer they developed implementation 

details. Principals met at the end of the summer, approved them 

in their first meeting, changed the strategy by authorizing the 
127

increase in funding fivefold." Did they authorize the increase in 

funding fivefold? 

MR. CLARKE: Authorized, but not appropriated. 

MR. THOMPSON: Well, but the Congress appropriates, don't 

they, Mr. Clarke? 

MR. CLARKE: Well, in this -- within the executive branch 

there are two steps as well. Within the executive branch there's 

the policy process, which you can compare to authorization, which 

is to say, we'd like to spend this amount of money for this 

program. And then there is the second step, the budgetary step, 

which is to find the offsets. And that had not been done. In 

fact, it wasn't done until after September 11th. 

MR. THOMPSON: "Changing the policy on Pakistan" -- was the 

policy on Pakistan changed? 

MR. CLARKE: Yes, sir, it was. 

MR. THOMPSON: "Changing the policy on Uzbekistan" -- was it 

changed? 

MR. CLARKE: Yes, sir. 

MR. THOMPSON: "Changing the policy on the Northern Alliance 

assistance" -- was that changed? 

MR. CLARKE: Well, let me back up. I said "yes" to the last 

two answers. It was changed only after September 11th. It had 

gone through an approvals process, it was going through an 

approvals process with the deputies committee. And they had 

approved it, the deputies had approved those policy changes. It 

had then gone to a principals committee for approval. And that 

occurred on September 4th. And those -- those three things which 

you've mentioned were approved by the principals. They were not 

approved by the President. And therefore, the final approval 

hadn't occurred until after September 11th. 

MR. THOMPSON: But they were approved by people in the 

Administration below the level of the President --

MR. CLARKE: Approved --

MR. THOMPSON: -- and were moving towards the President. Is 

that not correct? 
128

MR. CLARKE: Yes, over the course of many, many months. They 

went through several committee meetings at the subcabinet level, 

and then there was a hiatus, and then they went to, finally, on 

September 4th, a week before the attacks they went to the 

principals for their approval. And, of course, the final approval 

by the President didn't take place until after the attacks. 

MR. THOMPSON: Well, is that eight-month period unusual? 

MR. CLARKE: It is unusual when you are being told every day 

that there is an urgent threat. 

MR. THOMPSON: But would the policy involved, changing, for 

example, the policy on Pakistan -- right? So you would have to 

involve those people in the Administration who had charge of the 

Pakistani policy, would you not? 

MR. CLARKE: The secretary of State has -- as a member of the 

principals committee has that kind of authority over all foreign 

policy issues. 

MR. THOMPSON: Changing the policy on the Northern Alliance 

assistance: that would have been DOD? 

MR. CLARKE: No, governor, that would have been the CIA. But 

again, all the right people to make those kinds of changes were 

represented by the five or six people on the principals 

committee. 

MR. THOMPSON: Well, they were also represented on the smaller 

group, were they not, the deputies committee? 

MR. CLARKE: But they didn't have the authority to approve it. 

They only had the authority to recommend it up -- further up the 

process. 

MR. THOMPSON: Well, is policy usually made at the level of 

the principals committee before it comes up? 

MR. CLARKE: Policy usually originates in working groups, 

recommendations and differences, then are floated up from working 

groups to the deputies committee. If there are differences there, 

policies -- policy recommendations and differences are then 

floated up to the principals. And occasionally, when there's not 

a consensus at the principals level, policy recommendations and 

options or differences go the President. Now, the President makes 
129

these kinds of decisions. By law, in fact, many of the kinds of 

decisions you're talking about can only be made by the President. 

MR. THOMPSON: And you said that the strategy changed from one 

of rollback with al Qaeda over the course of five years, which it 

had been -- which I presume was the Clinton policy -- to a new 

strategy that called for the rapid elimination of al Qaeda. That 

is in fact the timeline, is that correct? 

MR. CLARKE: It is, but it requires a bit of elaboration. As 

your staff brief said, the goal of the Delenda plan was to roll 

back al Qaeda over the course of three to five years so that it 

was just a nub of an organization, like Abu Nidal, that didn't 

threaten the United States. 

I tried to insert the phrase early in the Bush administration 

in the draft NSPD that our goal should be to eliminate al Qaeda, 

and I was told by various members of the deputies committee that 

that was overly ambitious, that we should take the word 

"eliminate" out and say "significantly erode." And then following 

9/11 we were able to go back to my language of "eliminate" rather 

than "significantly erode." And so the version of the national 

security Presidential Decision Directive that President Bush 

finally got to see after 9/11 had my original language of 

"eliminate," not the interim language of "erode." 

MR. THOMPSON: Then you were asked when was that --

MR. KEAN: Okay. Governor, one more question 

MR. THOMPSON: -- thank you, Mr. Chairman -- when was that 

presented to the President, and you answered the President was 

briefed throughout this process. 

MR. CLARKE: Yeah. The President apparently asked on one 

occasion that I'm aware of for a strategy, and when he asked that 

he apparently didn't know that there was a strategy in the works. 

I therefore was told about this by the national security adviser. 

I came back to her and said, well, there is a strategy; after 

all, it's basically what I showed you in January. It's stuck in 

the deputies committee. She said she would tell the President

that and she said she would try to break it out of the deputies 

committee then. 

MR. THOMPSON: So you believe that your conference with the 

press in August of 2002 was consistent with what you've said in 
130

your book and what you've said in press interviews the last five 

days about your book? 

MR. CLARKE: I do. I think the thing that's obviously 

bothering you is the tenor and the tone. And I've tried to 

explain to you, sir, that when you're on the staff of the 

President of the United States you try to make his policies look 

as good as possible. 

MR. THOMPSON: Well, with all respect, Mr. Clarke, I think a 

lot of things beyond the tenor and the tone bother me about this. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

MR. KEAN: Thank you, Governor. 

Commissioner Gorelick? 

MS. GORELICK: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr. 

Clarke, for your testimony today. 

You have talked about a plan that you presented to Dr. Rice

immediately upon her becoming national security adviser and that 

in response to questions from Commissioner Gorton you said that 

elements of that plan, which were developed by you and your staff 

at the end of 2000 -- many elements became part of what was then 

called NSPD 9, or what ultimately became NSPD 9. 

When Dr. Rice writes in The Washington Post, "No al Qaeda 

plan was turned over to the new Administration," is that true? 

MR. CLARKE: No, I think what is true is what your staff found 

by going through the documents, and what your staff briefing 

says, which is that early in the Administration, within days of 

the Bush administration coming into office, that we gave them two 

documents. One -- and in fact, I briefed Dr. Rice on this even 

before they came into office. One was the original Delenda plan 

from 1998, and the other document was the update that we did 

following the Cole attack, which had as part of it a number of 

decisions that had to be taken. So that she characterizes it as a 

series of options rather than a plan. I'd like to think of it as 

a plan with a series of options. But I think we're getting into 

semantic differences. 

MS. GORELICK: Thank you. 
131

I'd like to turn to NSPD 9, the document that was wending its 

way through the process up until September 4th. The document is 

classified, so I can only speak of it in generalities. 

But as I understand it, it had three stages which were to 

take place over -- according to Steve Hadley, the deputy national 

security adviser -- over a period of three years. One -- the 

first stage was we would warn the Taliban. The second stage was 

we would pressure the Taliban. And the third stage was that we 

would look for ways to oust the Taliban based upon individuals on 

the ground other than ourselves, at the same time making military 

contingency plans. 

Is that correct? 

MR. CLARKE: That's right. Although the military contingency 

plans had always been around, but there was no -- there's nothing 

in the original draft NSPD that was approved by the principals to 

suggest U.S. forces would be sent into Afghanistan on the ground. 

MS. GORELICK: And the covert -- in addition to that, Director 

Tenet was asked to draft anew some additional covert action 

authorities. Is that right? 

MR. CLARKE: That's right; in part because Mr. Hadley found 

the existing six memorandums of covert action authority to be 

Talmudic. It's actually, I think, Mr. Hadley who gets credit for 

that word. 

But it wasn't meant to expand them significantly, other than 

providing aid, direct aid, to Afghan factions.

MS. GORELICK: Now you have just described, then, the 

skeleton, if you will, of what was approved by the Administration

as of September 4th, and we know that no further action was taken 

before September 11th. And so I would read to you -- and these 

are questions I would have put to Dr. Rice, had she been here, 

and I will put to her -- the White House designee, Secretary 

Armitage -- she says, "Our strategy," she says, "which was 

expected to take years, marshaled all elements of national power 

to take down the network, not just respond to individual attacks 

with law enforcement measures. Our plan called for military 

options to attack al Qaeda and Taliban leadership, ground forces 

and other targets, taking the fight to the enemy where he lived." 

Is that an accurate statement, in your view? 
132

MR. CLARKE: No, it's not. 

MS. GORELICK: In addition to the items that were left hanging 

during this period of time that we've talked about, in your view 

-- the Predator, the issue of aid to the Northern Alliance, your 

response to the Cole -- the other item that we have heard about 

that was deferred until the policy emerged was action on the set 

of covert authorities or the draft of covert authorities that 

Director Tenet supplied to the NSC in -- I believe it was March 

of '01. Is that true? 

MR. CLARKE: Yes. 

MS. GORELICK: And no action was taken on those until after 

9/11. Is that correct? 

MR. CLARKE: That's correct. 

MS. GORELICK: After the Millennium, you were asked by Sandy 

Berger -- and he testified about it this morning -- to do an 

after- action report. And he described how there were 29 

recommendations and a huge supplemental, et cetera. 

The report doesn't address some of the systemic issues, and 

you, above maybe anybody else, saw the systemic problems. I mean, 

you have described yourself the problems with the FBI, the wall 

between the FBI and the CIA. We've heard about the disconnect 

between the State Department watchlist and the FAA no-fly list. 

We've heard about really the inadequacy of our visa program and 

consular effort. 

So my question for you is this. You had a great shot after 

the Millennium to take a whack at these problems, which you no 

doubt must have seen, or maybe -- I'll give you the benefit of 

the doubt; perhaps there's some you hadn't seen. 

Why was the after-action report, post-Millennium, as modest 

as it was? Why didn't it address these fissures and these gaps in 

the system? 

MR. CLARKE: Well, it made 28 or 29 recommendations. Had all 

of those recommendations been easy to do, they would have been 

implemented before or after the after-action report. Many of the 

28 or 29 recommendations were implemented, but some of them 

weren't, because we went pretty far in the art of the practical, 

the art of the possible with those recommendations. And that's 
133

probably why some of them never got done. And some of them still 

haven't been done. 

I've learned over time that if you go for the perfect 

solution, the best solution, you don't get very far in actually 

achieving things. You can write nice reports if you're at the 

Brookings commission or something, but if you want to get 

something done in the real world, you do what is doable and you 

try to do a little bit more, but you don't shoot for the moon. 

And I think some of the systemic things that are obvious to you -

- I know they are -- were more practical after 9/11 than they 

were after the Millennium. 

Remember, in the Millennium we succeeded in stopping the 

attacks. That was good news. But it was not good news for those 

of us who also wanted to put pressure on the Congress and 

pressure on OMB and other places because we were not able to 

point to -- and I hate to say this -- body bags. You know, 

unfortunately, this country takes body bags -- it requires body 

bags sometimes to make really tough decisions about money and 

about governmental arrangements. 

And one of the things I would hope that comes out of your 

commission report is a change -- a recommendation for a change in 

the attitude of government about threats; that we be able to act 

on threats that we foresee, even if acting requires boldness and 

requires money and requires changing the way we do business, that 

we act on threats in the future before they happen. The problem 

is that when you make that recommendation before they happen, 

when you recommend an air defense system for Washington before 

there's been a 9/11, people tend to think you're nuts. And I got 

a lot of that. You know, when the Clinton administration ended, 

35 Americans had died at the hands of al Qaeda over the course of 

eight years. And a lot of people said behind my back, and some of 

them to my face, why are you so obsessed with this organization? 

It's only killed 35 Americans over the course of eight years. Why 

are you making such a big deal over this organization? 

That's the kind of mindset that made it difficult for us, 

even though the President, the national security adviser and 

others, the DCI, knew there was a problem and were supporting me, 

but the institutional bureaucracy in the FBI and in DOD and in 

CIA and in OMB and on the Hill, because I spent a lot of time up 

here trying to get money and trying to get -- change authorities, 

couldn't see the threat because it hadn't happened. 
134

MS. GORELICK: Well, that's a very sobering statement, 

particularly from someone whose reputation is as aggressive as

your reputation is. And it makes me think that individuals who 

are less of a "pile driver," to use Sandy Berger's words, must 

feel even less able to push for change. 

Thank you. 

MR. KEAN: Secretary Lehman. 

MR. LEHMAN: Thank you. 

Dick, since you and I first served 28 years ago in the MBFR 

delegation, I have genuinely been a fan of yours. I've watched 

you labor without fear or favor in a succession of jobs where you 

really made a difference. And so when you agreed to spend as much 

time as you did with us in, as you say, 15 hours, I was very 

hopeful. 

And I attended one of those all-day sessions and read the 

other two transcripts, and I thought they were terrific. I 

thought, here we have a guy who can be the Rosetta stone for 

helping this commission do its job to help to have the American 

people grasp what the dysfunctional problems in this government 

are. And I thought you let the chips fall where they may. You 

made a few value judgments which could be debated, but by and 

large, you were critical of the things, institutions and people 

that could have done better and some that did very badly. 

And certainly the greater weight of this criticism fell 

during the Clinton years, simply because there were eight of them 

and only 7- 1/2 months of the Bush years. I don't think you, in 

the transcripts that we have of your classified interviews, 

pulled punches in either direction. And frankly, a lot of my 

questioning this past two days has been drawn from some of the 

things that you articulated so well during the Clinton years, 

particularly because they stretched from the first, as you 

pointed out, attempt by Saddam to assassinate President Bush 41 

right up through the end of the administration. 

But now we have the book. And I've published books, and I 

must say I am green with envy at the promotion department of your 

publisher. I never got Jim Thompson to stand before 50 

photographers reading your book. (Laughter.) And I certainly 

never got "60 Minutes" to coordinate the showing of its interview 

with you with 15 network news broadcasts, the selling of the 

movie rights and your appearance here today. So I would say bravo 
135

-- (laughter) -- until I started reading those press reports. And 

I said, this can't be the same Dick Clarke that testified before 

us, because all of the promotional material and all of the spin 

in the networks was that this is a rounding, devastating attack, 

this book, on President Bush. That's not what I heard in the 

interviews. And I hope you're going to tell me, as you apologize 

to the families for all of us who were involved in national 

security, that this tremendous difference -- and not just in 

nuance, but in what it is you choose to -- the stories you choose 

to tell -- is really the result of your editors and your 

promoters, rather than your studied judgment, because it is so 

different from the whole thrust of your testimony to us. 

And similarly, when you add to it the inconsistency between 

what your promoters are putting out and what you yourself said as 

late as August '05 (sic), you've got a real credibility problem. 

And because of my real genuine long-term admiration for you, I 

hope you'll resolve that credibility problem, because I'd hate to 

see you become totally shoved to one side during a presidential 

campaign as an active partisan selling a book. 

MR. CLARKE: Thank you, John. (Laughter.) 

Let me talk about partisanship here, since you raise it. I've 

been accused of being a member of John Kerry's campaign team 

several times this week, including by the White House. 

So let's just lay that one to bed. I'm not working for the 

Kerry campaign. 

Last time I had to declare my party loyalty, it was to vote 

in the Virginia primary for president of the United States in the 

year 2000, and I asked for a Republican ballot. 

I worked for Ronald Reagan, with you. I worked for the first 

President Bush, and he nominated me to the Senate as an assistant 

secretary of State, and I worked in his White House. And I've 

worked for this President Bush, and I'm not working for Senator 

Kerry. 

Now, the fact of the matter is, I do co-teach a class with 

someone who works for Senator Kerry. That person, whose name is 

Randy Beers. Randy Beers and I have worked together in the 

federal government and the White House and the State Department 

for 25 years. Randy Beers worked in the White House for Ronald 

Reagan. Randy Beers worked in the White House for the first 

President Bush, and Randy Beers worked in the White House for the 
136

second President Bush. And just because he is now working for 

Senator Kerry, I am not going to disassociate myself from one of 

my best friends and someone who I greatly respect and have worked 

with for 25 years. And yes, I will admit I co-teach a class at 

the Harvard University and Georgetown University with Mr. Beers. 

That, I don't think, makes me a member of the Kerry campaign. 

The White House has said that my book is an audition for a 

high- level position in the Kerry campaign. So let me say here, 

as I am under oath, that I will not accept any position in the 

Kerry administration, should there be one -- on the record, under 

oath. 

Now as to your accusation that there is a difference between 

what I said to this commission in 15 hours of testimony and what 

I am saying in my book and what media outlets are asking me to 

comment on, I think there's a very good reason for that. In the 

15 hours of testimony, no one asked me what I thought about the 

President's invasion of Iraq. And the reason I am strident in my 

criticism of the President of the United States is because by 

invading Iraq -- something I was not asked about by the 

Commission, but something I chose to write about a lot in the 

book -- by invading Iraq, the President of the United States has 

greatly undermined the war on terrorism. 

(Pause.) 

MR. KEAN: Commissioner Fielding. 

FRED F. FIELDING: Mr. Clarke, thank you for being here. 

I guess I shared John's feelings when I read your interviews 

with the staff as well, because it gave a perspective of somebody 

that bridged different administrations and really had a chance to 

see it. And of course you were looking at it from a different 

level than some of the other people we'd interviewed. 

And likewise, I was a little taken back when I saw the hoopla 

and the promotion for the book, and where I saw this transcript 

that just came forward today. 

But what's bothering me now is that not only did you 

interview with us, but you also spent more than six hours with 

the congressional Joint Inquiry. And I've read your information. 

And, I mean, that's a very serious body and very serious inquiry 

-- not that we're not. But I can't believe that over six hours 

you never expressed any concern to them that the Bush 
137

administration didn't act with sufficient urgency to address 

these horrible potential problems, if you felt that way. And, I 

mean, did you ever list for the Joint Inquiry any of the measures 

that you thought should have been taken that weren't? 

MR. CLARKE: I think all the measures that I thought should 

have been taken were in the plan that I presented in January of 

2001, and were in the NSPD that the principals approved in 

September, September 4th, 2001. There were no additional measures 

that I had in mind, other than those that I presented. And as I 

did explain, both to the Commission and to the Joint Inquiry, 

those proposals which ultimately were adopted by the Principals 

Committee took a very, very, very long time to make it through 

the policy development process. 

MR. FIELDING: Well, I understand that. But -- but I think the 

charges that you've made are much more -- I think they're much 

deeper than that. 

Let me ask you a question, because it's been bothering me as 

well. You've been involved intimately in PDD-39 and in PDD-62. 

The latter certainly very much implicates your own position. How 

long did it take for those to be developed and signed? 

MR. CLARKE: I'm not sure I recollect that answer. Perhaps the 

staff could find out. Your general answer about how long does it 

take PDDs to be signed, I've seen them signed in a day, and I've 

seen them take three years. 

MR. FIELDING: Well, of course, we've all seen that. But these 

were -- obviously, 62 was a very important one. Obviously the one 

that we're talking about that was developed was an extremely 

important one, and it was one that you put a lot into yourself, 

and it was in the beginning of a new administration. 

Anyway --

MR. CLARKE: Sir, if I may? 

MR. FIELDING: Yeah. 

MR. CLARKE: There's also the issue that was raised earlier by 

another member of the Commission as to whether all of the pending 

decisions needed to be rolled up into a national security 

presidential directive or whether, based on the urgency of the 

intelligence, some of them couldn't -- like arming the Predator 

to attack and kill bin Ladin, why did that have to wait until the 
138

entire policy was developed? Weren't there pieces like that that 

could have been broken off and decided right away? I certainly 

urged that. I urged that beginning in February when I realized 

that this policy process was going to take forever. 

MR. FIELDING: Oh no, I understand and I understand your 

testimony that you did that. What I don't understand is if you 

had these deep feelings and deep concerns about the lack of 

ability and urgency within the Bush administration that you 

didn't advise the Joint Inquiry. I mean, was the -- did you feel 

it not necessary to tell them that the Bush administration was 

too preoccupied with the Cold War issues or Iraq at that point? 

MR. CLARKE: I wasn't asked, sir. I think I provided the Joint 

Inquiry -- as a member of the Administration at the time, please 

recall, I provided the Joint Inquiry all the facts it needed to 

make the conclusions which I have made about how long it took and 

what the development of the policy process was like and the 

refusal of the Administration to spin out for earlier decision 

things like the armed Predator. 

MR. FIELDING: Well, it obviously will be that -- the members 

of the Joint Inquiry to make that decision and judgment, but you 

must agree that it's not like -- going before a Joint Inquiry is 

not like going before a press background briefing. And as you 

said -- I think your description was I tried to highlight the 

positive and play down the negative, but the Joint Inquiry wasn't 

asking you to do that. They were asking you to come forward, 

weren't they? 

MR. CLARKE: I answered very fully all of the questions the 

Joint Inquiry had to ask. They said that themselves in their 

comments to me and in their report. I testified for six hours and 

I testified as a member of the Bush administration. And I think, 

sir, with all of your experience in this city you understand as 

well as I do the freedom one has to speak critical of an 

administration when one is a member of that administration. 

MR. FIELDING: I do understand that, but I also understand, 

you know, the integrity with which you have to take your job. 

But thank you, sir. 

MR. KEAN: Thank you. We're starting on a second round now of 

questioning. 

Congressman Roemer. 
139

MR. ROEMER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Having served on the Joint Inquiry, the only person of this 

9/11 panel to have served on the Inquiry, I can say in open 

session to some of Mr. Fielding's inquiries that, as the Joint 

Inquiry asked for information on the National Security Council 

and we requested that the national security advisor, Dr. Rice, 

come before the Joint Inquiry and answer those questions, she 

refused and she didn't come. 

She didn't come before the 9/11 Commission. And when we asked 

for some questions to be answered, Mr. Hadley answered those 

questions in a written form. So I think part of the answer might 

be that we didn't have access to the January 25th memo. We didn't 

have access to the September 4th memo. We didn't have access to 

many of the documents and the e-mails. We're not only talking 

about Mr. Clarke being before the 9/11 Commission for more than 

15 hours, but I think in talking to the staff, we have hundreds 

of documents and e-mails that we didn't previously have, which 

hopefully informs us to ask Mr. Clarke and ask Dr. Rice the tough 

questions. And I have some more tough questions for you, Mr. 

Clarke. (Applause.) 

On the FBI, you've said that the FBI did not do a very good 

job. I think I'm paraphrasing you in much easier language than 

you've used, but that during the Millennium, which may be the 

exception to the rule, they performed extremely well in sharing 

information. How do we get the FBI to do this on a regular basis? 

We still have problems here today. Or is that not an option for 

us? 

We don't have time, Mr. Clarke -- I mean, I appreciate 

everybody going after everybody in Washington, D.C. We don't have 

time to make these kinds of arguments and attacks if we're going 

to get this situation right in the future in this country and 

prevent, or hopefully prevent, the next one; when we do know 

something for certain, and that is that groups like al Qaeda want 

to get dirty bombs, they want to get chemical and biological 

weapons, and they want to come after America. 

So how do we get this situation solved, Mr. Clarke? What do 

we do with the FBI? What's your recommendation? 

MR. CLARKE: In a perfect world, I believe we could create a 

domestic intelligence service that would have sufficient 

oversight; that it would not infringe on our civil liberties. In 

a perfect world, I would create that domestic intelligence 
140

service separately from the FBI. In the world in which we live, I 

think that would be a difficult step to go directly to. And so 

what I proposed instead is that we create a domestic intelligence 

service within the FBI, and as fast as we could, develop it into 

an autonomous agency. 

I am very fearful that such an agency would have potential to 

infringe on our civil liberties, and therefore I think we would 

have to take extraordinary steps to have active oversight of such 

an agency. And we'd have to explain to the American people in a 

very compelling way why they needed a domestic intelligence 

service, because I think most Americans would be fearful of a 

secret police in the United States. But frankly, the FBI culture, 

the FBI organization, the FBI personnel are not the best we could 

do in this country for a domestic intelligence service. 

MR. ROEMER: We will certainly be looking to people in future 

hearings for their recommendations in a host of different areas. 

So I hope that you might think through this area a little bit 

more and be available to us. 

Mr. Clarke, let me ask you some difficult questions for you 

to get at the complexity of our relationship with the Saudis. On 

the one hand, I think it's fairly -- there's a great deal of 

unanimity that the Saudis were not doing everything they could 

before 9/11 to help us in a host of different areas. Fifteen of 

the 19 hijackers came from there. We had trouble tracking some of 

the financing for terrorist operations, that we still have too 

many of the madrassas and the teachings of hatred of Christians 

and Jews and others coming out of some of these madrassas. We 

need to broaden and deepen this relationship. I will ask you a 

part A and a part B. Part A is where do we go in this difficult 

relationship? And part B is, to further look at that difficulty 

here, you made a decision after 9/11. And I'd like to ask you 

more about this -- to allow a plane of Saudis to fly out of the 

country. And when most other planes were grounded, this plane 

flew from the United States back to Saudi Arabia. I'd like to 

know why you made that decision, who was on this plane, and if 

the FBI ever had the opportunity to interview those people. 

MR. CLARKE: You're absolutely right that the Saudi Arabian 

government did not cooperate with us significantly in the fight 

against terrorism prior to 9/11. Indeed, it didn't really 

cooperate until after bombs blew up in Riyadh. 

Now, as to this controversy about the Saudi evacuation 

aircraft, let me -- let me tell you everything I know, which is 
141

that some -- in the days following 9/11, whether it was on 9/12 

or 9/15 I can't tell you, we were in a constant crisis management 

meeting that had started the morning of 9/11 and ran for days on 

end. We were making lots of decisions, but we were coordinating 

them with all the agencies through the video teleconference 

procedure. Someone -- and I wish I could tell you who, but I 

don't know who -- someone brought to that group a proposal that 

we authorize a request from the Saudi embassy. The Saudi embassy 

had apparently said that they feared for the lives of Saudi 

citizens, because they thought there would be retribution against 

Saudis in the United States as it became obvious to Americans 

that this attack was essentially done by Saudis, and that there 

were even Saudi citizens in the United States who were part of 

the bin Ladin family, which is a very large family -- very large 

family. 

The Saudi embassy, therefore, asked for these people to be 

evacuated; the same sort of thing that we do all the time in 

similar crises, evacuating Americans. 

The request came to me and I refused to approve it. I 

suggested that it be routed to the FBI and that the FBI look at 

the names of the individuals who were going to be on the 

passenger manifest and that they approve it or not. I spoke with 

the at that time the number-two person in the FBI, Dale Watson, 

and asked him to deal with this issue. The FBI then approved --

after some period of time, and I can't tell you how long --

approved the flight. 

Now, what degree of review the FBI did of those names, I 

cannot tell you. How many people there are on the plane, I cannot 

tell you. But I have asked since, were there any individuals on 

that flight that in retrospect the FBI wishes they could have 

interviewed in this country, and the answer I've been given is 

no, that there was no one who left on that flight who the FBI now 

wants to interview. 

MR. ROEMER: Despite the fact that we don't know if Dale 

Watson interviewed them in the first place. 

MR. CLARKE: I don't think they were ever interviewed in this 

country. 

MR. ROEMER: So they were not interviewed here. We have all 

their names. We don't know if there has been any follow-up to 

interview those people that were here and flown out of the 

country. 
142

MR. CLARKE: The last time I asked that question, I was 

informed the FBI still had no desire to interview any of these 

people. 

MR. ROEMER: Would you have a desire to interview some of 

these people that --

MR. CLARKE: I don't know who they are. 

MR. ROEMER: We don't know who they are. 

MR. CLARKE: I don't know who they are. The FBI knew who they 

were, because they --

MR. ROEMER: Given your confidence and your statements on the 

FBI, what's your level of comfort with this? 

MR. CLARKE: Well, I will tell you in particular about the 

ones that get the most attention here in the press, and they are 

members of the bin Ladin family. I was aware for some time that 

there were members of the bin Ladin family living in the United 

States. And, let's see, in open session I can say that I was very 

well aware of the members of the bin Ladin family and what they 

were doing in the United States, and the FBI was extraordinarily 

well aware of what they were doing in the United States. And I 

was informed by the FBI that none of the members of the bin Ladin

family, this large clan, were doing anything in this country that 

was illegal or that raised their suspicions. And I believe the 

FBI had very good information and good sources of information 

about what the members of the bin Ladin family were doing. 

MR. ROEMER: I've been very impressed with your memory, 

sitting through all these interviews that the 9/11 Commission has 

conducted with you. I press you again to try to recall how this 

request originated, who might have passed this on to you at the 

White House Situation Room, or who might have originated that 

request for the United States government to fly out -- how many

people on this plane? 

MR. CLARKE: I don't know. 

MR. ROEMER: We don't know how many people were on a plane 

that flew out of this country. Who gave the final approval, then, 

to say "Yes, you're clear to go, it's all right with the United 

States government to go to Saudi Arabia"? 
143

MR. CLARKE: I believe after the FBI came back and said it was 

all right with them, we ran it through the decision process for 

all of these decisions that we were making in those hours, which 

was the Interagency Crisis Management Group on the video 

conference. 

I was making -- or coordinating a lot of decisions on 9/11 in 

the days immediately after. And I would love to be able to tell 

you who did it, who brought this proposal to me, but I don't 

know. The two -- since you press me, the two possibilities that 

are most likely are either the Department of State of the White 

House Chief of Staff's Office. But I don't know. 

MR. ROEMER: Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

MR. KEAN: Senator Gorton? 

MR. GORTON: One more question on that subject. When the 

approvals were finally made, and when the flight left, was the 

flight embargo still in effect or were we flying -- or was that 

over? We were flying once again? 

MR. CLARKE: No, sir. No, Senator. The reason that a decision 

was needed was because the flight embargo -- the grounding was 

still in effect. 

MR. GORTON: We talked a little bit in my earlier round of 

questioning about this frustrating phrase "actionable 

intelligence." And one of your recommendations to the new 

Administration, according to our staff report, was to choose a 

standard of evidence for attributing responsibility for the Cole, 

and deciding on a response. Did that express a frustration that 

you had had for the previous several years that the phrase 

"actionable intelligence" often seemed to be an excuse for people 

not doing anything that perhaps they had other reasons for not 

wanting to do? Did you want a broader definition either of how 

much intelligence one needed or how broad action should be? 

MR. CLARKE: Yes. 

MR. GORTON: Yes to both? 

MR. CLARKE: Yes to both. 
144

MR. GORTON: Okay. Could you tell me, you know, what your 

previous frustrations had been and what kind of test you would 

have imposed? 

MR. CLARKE: Well, I think if you go back to 1993 when the 

attempted assassination on the first President Bush occurred in 

Kuwait, the process we put in place then was to ask the FBI, 

working with Secret Service, to develop a set of evidence, and 

CIA to develop separately an intelligence case. 

And that took from February of '93 through the end of May. 

And it was done in a way that was reminiscent of a criminal 

process. At least the FBI case was. The CIA case was an 

intelligence case and had different sources of information, 

different standards for what was admissible, and a more lenient 

standard for making a determination. But I think beginning then, 

I was frustrated by that kind of evidentiary process. 

Now, I heard Sandy Berger this morning point out that 

immediately following the Pan Am 103 terrorist attack, the 

assumption in the intelligence and law enforcement communities 

was that it was a Syrian attack. And I recall that. He's quite 

right. And it turned out not to be a Syrian attack. He pointed 

out that in the days and weeks after the TWA 800 crash we assumed 

that it was a terrorist attack. There were eyewitnesses of what 

appeared to be a missile attack. But after exhaustive 

investigations that went of for years, in the case of the NTSB --

and the FBI -- a determination was made that it was not a 

terrorist attack. And I believe that that is the accurate 

determination. Mr. Berger made other examples: Oklahoma City and 

whatnot. 

I think we have to distinguish between rushing to judgment 

after a terrorist event, which, as Mr. Berger said, is a mistake, 

because sometimes the evidence changes, sometimes the evidence 

develops. We saw this in Spain just two weeks ago, where for the 

first day after the attacks in Madrid the evidence really looked 

like it was the Basque Separatist Group. And I know there are 

political charges against the Spanish government for having 

distorted intelligence, but there was a lot of intelligence the 

first day that suggested it was the Basque terrorist group. So we 

do need to be careful not to rush to judgment after a terrorist 

attack. 

On the other hand, what I'm suggesting, what I was suggesting 

in that paper that you referred to, is that we not necessarily 

have to wait for a terrorist attack in order to attack a 
145

terrorist group. But when you sometimes do that, you get into 

trouble. 

President Clinton got into a lot of trouble, a lot of 

criticism for blowing up a chemical plant in Sudan. 

To this day, there are a lot of people who believe that it 

was not related to a terrorist group, not related to chemical 

weapons. They're wrong, by the way. But the President had decided 

in PDD-39 that there should be a low threshold of evidence when 

it comes to the possibility of terrorists getting their access --

getting their hands on chemical weapons. And he acted on that 

basis, and when he acted on that basis, he and his advisers were 

all heavily criticized. 

So I was suggesting there and what I am suggesting here now 

is that while Sandy Berger is right and we should not rush to 

judgment after a terrorist attack as to who did it until there is 

ample intelligence evidence, not criminal evidence; on the other 

hand, we should feel free to attack terrorist groups without 

waiting for them to attack us, if we make a policy and an 

intelligence judgment that they pose a threat. 

MR. GORTON: I have one follow-up question on that. Between

January and September of 2001, was there any actionable 

intelligence, under either the narrow or broader definition, that 

caused you to recommend an immediate military response to some 

provocation? 

MR. CLARKE: I suggested, beginning in January of 2001, that 

the Cole case was still out there and that by now, in January of 

2001, CIA had finally gotten around to saying it was an al Qaeda 

attack and that therefore there was an open issue, which should 

be decided, about whether or not the Bush administration should 

retaliate for the Cole attack. 

Unfortunately, there was no interest, no acceptance of that 

proposition, and I was told on a couple of occasions, well, that, 

you know, that happened on the Clinton administration's watch. I 

didn't think it made any difference. I thought the Bush 

administration, now that it had the CIA saying it was al Qaeda, 

should have responded. 

MR. GORTON: But there was no other January-to-September 

incident that caused you to recommend a military response, I 

gather. 
146

MR. CLARKE: In the general definition, I think there was. You 

know, what we had discussed in the general definition was not 

waiting for the terrorist attack but feeling free to use military 

activity as a -- or covert action activity; it doesn't have to be 

military -- covert action activity as a way of taking the 

offensive against terrorist organizations that look like they 

threaten the United States. And what our plan or strategy or list 

of options included was covert action activity to be taken -- to 

go on the offensive against al Qaeda in Afghanistan. 

MR. GORTON: Through surrogates or through direct 

intervention? 

MR. CLARKE: That was a combination of both, but it was -- the 

determination of how that would be structured would be left to 

the CIA. 

MR. GORTON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

MR. KEAN: Senator Kerrey? 

MR. KERREY: Well, Mr. Clarke, let me say at the beginning 

that everything that you've said today and done has not damaged 

my view of your integrity. It's very much intact as far as I'm 

concerned, and I hope that your pledge earlier not to be a part 

of the Kerry administration did not preclude you from coming to 

New York sometime and teaching at the New School. (Laughter.) So 

-- And let me also say this document of Fox News earlier, this 

transcript that they had, this was a background briefing, and all 

of us that have provided background briefings for the press 

before should beware. I mean, Fox should say “occasionally fair 

and balanced” after putting something like this out -- (laughter) 

-- because they violated a serious trust. (Applause.) All of us 

that come into this kind of an environment and provide background 

briefings for the press I think will always have this as a 

reminder that sometimes it isn't going to happen; that is, 

background. Sometimes if it suits their interests they're going 

to go back, pull the tape, convert it into a transcript and send 

it out into the public arena and try to embarrass us or discredit 

us. So I object to what they have done and I think it's an 

unfortunate thing they did. 

Let me say as well that you and I have some disagreements and 

I'm going to get into them. First of all, I do not want to go 

back to the bad old days when covert operations could be done in 

an environment where the people thought they could do something 

in violation of U.S. law or that they could come to Congress and 
147

lie about it, thinking that that was okay. I mean, that's what we 

-- (chuckles) -- were directing our attention to. Perhaps there 

were some personnel mistakes that were made in the response to 

the problems in Guatemala in particular, but I don't want to go 

back to the bad old days where guys could go out there and 

operate, not have to worry about U.S. law and not have to worry 

about whether or not they came and lied to Congress. 

MR. CLARKE: Nor do I, Senator. 

MR. KERREY: And secondly, I don't see it, as you do, that the 

war in Iraq has increased the threat of terrorism. I honestly 

don't, unless you say that the threat of terrorism in Iraq has 

unquestionably gone up as a consequence of al Qaeda feeling even 

more opposition to freedom in Iraq than they do to freedom in the 

United States. They feel much more threatened by having an Arab 

democracy than they do by having a democracy in the United 

States, and so I don't see it that way. 

And though I don't go as far as the Administration has done 

with drawing the connection to al Qaeda, I do think that the 

presence of Abdul Rahman Yasin in Iraq certainly causes some 

suspicions to be raised. And I wonder -- I presume you know who 

Abdul Rahman Yasin is, and I wonder if you could comment on that. 

I mean, what conclusions do you draw by the fact that we have an 

individual who we believe was a part of the conspiracy to attack 

the World Trade Center in the -- World Trade Center 1 in February 

of -- February 1993; an associate of Ramzi Yousef, who was 

connected at least indirectly to the second attack; I wonder what 

conclusions you draw from the fact that Yasin has been given at 

the very least a place that he could hang out? And he is on the 

lam again; we're still hunting him and trying to find out where 

he is in Iraq today. 

MR. CLARKE: Let me go back into the history of 1993, which is 

when we first heard about this man. In 1993 when the truck bomb 

exploded at the World Trade Center, we didn't know there was an 

al Qaeda. No one had ever said that. And the initial reports --

and I mean initial by the sense of about a year or two -- the 

initial reports from the FBI's investigation of that attack 

suggested that the attackers were somehow a gang of people from 

five or six different countries who had found each other and come 

together, almost like a pick-up basketball team; that there was 

no organization behind it. Eventually, in retrospect the FBI and 

the CIA were able to discover that there was an organization 

behind it, and that organization is what we now call al Qaeda. 
148

Most of the people directly involved in that conspiracy were 

identified and tracked down by the FBI and CIA and arrested or 

snatched and brought back to the United States. Mr. Yasin was the 

one who wasn't. And the reason he wasn't was he was an Iraqi. He 

was the only Iraqi in the group. There were Egyptians, there were 

other nationalities. He was an Iraqi, and therefore, when the 

explosion took place and he fled the United States, he went back 

to Iraq. And we were obviously, for obvious reasons, unable to 

either snatch him or get him to be extradited to the United 

States. 

But the investigation, both the CIA investigation and the FBI 

investigation made it very clear, in '95 and '96 as they got more 

information, that the Iraqi government was in no way involved in 

that attack. And the fact that one of the 12 people involved in 

the attack was Iraqi hardly, it seems to me, is evidence that 

they were, that the Iraqi government was involved in the attack. 

The attack was al Qaeda, not Iraq. 

The Iraqi government, because, obviously, of the hostility 

between us and them, didn't cooperate in turning him over, and 

gave him sanctuary, as it did give sanctuary to other terrorists; 

but the allegation that has been made that the 1993 attack on the 

World Trade Center was done by the Iraqi government I think is 

absolutely without foundation. 

MR. KERREY: Can you see where a reasonable person might say 

that if Yasin is given a safe haven inside of Iraq prior to 9/11, 

that the Iraqis are at least unwilling to do what is necessary to 

bring someone that we believe is responsible for killing 

Americans in 1993 to justice? 

MR. CLARKE: Well, the Iraqis were, absolutely, the Iraqis 

were providing safe haven to a variety of Palestinian terrorists. 

as well. absolutely. As were the Iranians, as were the Syrians. 

MR. KERREY: Thank you. 

MR. KEAN: Commissioner Ben-Veniste. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: I just wanted to say that having sat in on 

two days of debriefings with you, Mr. Clarke, and having seen 

excerpts from your book, other than questions you weren't asked, 

I have not perceived any substantive differences between what you 

have said to us and what has been quoted from your published 

work. 
149

Having said that, I'll cede my time to Congressman Roemer, if 

he'll give me his time with Condoleezza Rice. (Laughter.) 

MR. CLARKE: That may not be a good deal. 

MR. ROEMER: Submit those questions for the record, Mr. 

Commissioner. 

MR. KEAN: Is that all? 

Commissioner Thompson? 

MR. THOMPSON: Mr. Clarke, in this background briefing -- as 

Senator Kerrey has now described it -- for the press in August of 

2002, you intended to mislead the press, did you not? 

MR. CLARKE: No, I think there's a very fine line that anyone 

who has been in the White House, in any administration, can tell 

you about. And that is when you are special assistant to the 

President and you're asked to explain something that is 

potentially embarrassing to the Administration -- because the 

Administration didn't do enough or didn't do it in a timely 

manner, and is taking political heat for it, as was the case 

there -- you have a choice. Actually, I think you have three 

choices. 

You can resign, rather than do it. I chose not to do that. 

Second choice is --

MR. THOMPSON: Why was that, Mr. Clarke? You finally resigned 

because you were frustrated. 

MR. CLARKE: I was at that time, at the request of the 

President, preparing a national strategy to defend America's 

cyber space, something which I thought then and think now is 

vitally important. I thought that completing that strategy was a 

lot more important than whether or not I had to provide emphasis 

in one place or other while discussing the facts of this 

particular news story. 

The second choice one has, Governor, is whether or not to say 

things that are untruthful. And no one in the Bush White House 

asked me to say things that were untruthful, and I would not have 

said them. 
150

The third choice that one has is to put the best face you can 

for the Administration on the facts as they were, and that is 

what I did. And I think that is what most people in the White 

House in any administration do when they're asked to explain 

something that is embarrassing to the Administration. 

MR. THOMPSON: You will admit that what you said in August of 

2002 is inconsistent with what you say in your book? 

MR. CLARKE: No, I don't think it's inconsistent at all. I 

think, as I said in your last round of questioning, Governor, 

that it's really a matter here of emphasis and tone, and that 

it's really -- I mean what you're suggesting perhaps is that as 

special assistant to the President of the United States, when 

asked to give a press backgrounder, I should spend my time in 

that press backgrounder criticizing him. I think that's somewhat 

of an unrealistic thing to expect. 

MR. THOMPSON: But what it suggests to me is that there is one 

standard -- one standard of candor and morality for White House 

special assistants and another standard of candor and morality 

for the rest of America. I don't get that. 

MR. CLARKE: I don't think it's a question of morality at all. 

I think it's a question of politics. 

MR. THOMPSON: Well, I -- (interrupted by applause). I'm not a 

Washington insider, I've never been a special assistant in the 

White House. I'm from the Midwest. So I think I'll leave it 

there. 

MR. KEAN: Congressman Roemer? 

MR. ROEMER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I appreciate your patience, this has been, I'm sure, a long 

day for you Mr. Clarke. I want to explore a little bit more, 

since we've heard from Mr. Tenet on this issue today, the 

Predator issue. As you know, the Predator first came out of use 

in Kosovo, and it was used in various activities to -- with a 

laser on it to track Serb tanks to help us go after these tanks. 

It was flown in 2000 in the Clinton administration as a recon 

vehicle, unmanned recon vehicle. In 2001 we had a debate, a 

complex debate that I can understand both sides of. Took several 

months to try to resolve it. There are two issues here on the 

recon Predator and on the armed Predator. Mr. Tenet said that 

they were not blocking the armed Predator. You have said that 
151

they were blocking the armed Predator. How do we reconcile these 

two? And please take us through a little bit of this. I want to 

ask you if it would have made much of a difference getting the 

unarmed up, and if the armed could have been put up earlier than 

October of 2001? 

MR. CLARKE: Let me begin in the first few months of the year 

2000. President Clinton was enormously frustrated because he had 

authorized, in effect, the assassination of bin Ladin and his 

lieutenants by CIA. 

He had also authorized in principle the use of military 

forces -- cruise missiles -- to attack and kill bin Ladin and his 

lieutenants. And none of this had happened because the CIA had 

been unable to use its human intelligence resources in 

Afghanistan to provide -- I'm sorry, senator -- actionable 

intelligence. (Light laughter.) On the occasions when we had 

things that looked like actionable intelligence, the three or 

four occasions, the director of CIA himself said the intelligence 

wasn't good enough. 

So the President was very mad. And he asked Sandy Berger and 

me to come up with a better way. I asked the director of the 

Joint Staff, Admiral Fry, and the associate DCI, Charlie Allen, 

to form a task force to come up with a better way. They proposed 

flying the Predator in Afghanistan. CIA's Directorate of 

Operations, the director of the Directorate of Operations, 

opposed the use of Predator in 2000 for reconnaissance purposes. 

He said that if there were additional resources available to pay 

for the Predator operation, he would prefer to use them on human 

intelligence. 

MR. ROEMER: And how much are we talking about, Mr. Clarke? 

MR. CLARKE: Pennies, relatively. 

MR. ROEMER: Hundreds of thousands of dollars? 

MR. CLARKE: Some of it cost hundreds of thousands. The whole 

program was in the low millions, I think. 

In any event, this slowed things down, obviously. Mr. Berger 

took up my cause with the director of Central Intelligence and 

got their agreement that they would fly the reconnaissance 

version. It was flown in September and October of 2000, 11 

flights. And the Directorate of Operations put a lot of 

restrictions on those flights, in part because they were afraid 
152

that the aircraft would be shot down and they would have to pay 

for it. I tried to point out that even if the aircraft were shot 

down, the pilot would return safely to home. But that didn't seem 

to persuade them. 

In any event, during those flights, at CIA's insistence, they 

were designed as a proof of concept operation, meaning that we 

could not have cruise missiles, other military activity, other 

covert action -- capabilities cued to this, so that when the 

Predator did see bin Ladin, as it did, I think, on three 

occasions, but clearly on one in that time frame, there were no 

military assets available, there were no covert action assets 

available at the insistence of the CIA, because they wanted this 

only as a proof of concept operation. 

Fast forward to 2001. The flights had been suspended because 

of the winter, during which they couldn't fly. We then became 

aware that there was a long-term program in the Air Force to arm 

the Predator. Johnny Jumper, the head of the Air Force, thought 

that it might be possible to crash -- probably the wrong word --

to accelerate this program and arm the Predator right away. 

General Jumper directed that that happen. It happened in a matter 

of months, not a matter of years, and it appeared to work in 

tests in the western United States. 

When on September 4th we held the principals meeting that's 

been discussed, the issue on the table was would the CIA fly the 

armed Predator. And CIA took the view in the principals meeting 

that it was not their job to fly armed UAVs and they did not want 

to fly the armed Predator under their authority. I was informed 

by people who had -- who were in the CIA that during the 

discussions inside CIA, people in the Directorate of Operations 

had raised objections saying, for example, that if CIA flies the 

armed Predator and it kills bin Ladin, then CIA agents all around 

the world will be at risk of retaliation attack by al Qaeda. I 

didn't think that was a very persuasive reason because I thought 

CIA agents were already at risk of attack by al Qaeda. 

In any event, as the September 4th principals meeting ended, 

CIA had not agreed to fly the mission. September 11th happened. 

CIA then agreed to fly the armed Predator mission. It went into 

operation very quickly in Afghanistan. It found the military 

commander --

MR. ROEMER: Within a month? 
153

MR. CLARKE: I think within a month. It found the military 

commander of al Qaeda, and because it was armed then, it could 

not only find things, it could kill them. And it launched a 

missile, a Hellfire missile, at the military commander of al 

Qaeda and killed him and his associates. 

I hope that answers the question. 

MR. ROEMER: That answers the question. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

MR. KEAN: Okay. 

Mr. Clarke, thank you very much. Thank you not only for your 

testimony today, but thank you for your extraordinary time you 

spent already with the Commission and your willingness to help us 

with our report. (Applause)

MR. KEAN: (Strikes gavel.) Will the hearing -- back to order, 

please. 

We would -- the final official appearing before us today is 

Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. We appreciate very 

much his appearing before us today. We would have -- in place of 

Condoleezza Rice. We would have liked to have Dr. Rice today. We 

appreciate Dr. Rice's testimony to us in private session. We wish 

she had appeared today in public session, but since she has not, 

we appreciate you and your long public service and thank you very 

much for coming, sir. 

Now, as I understand, Dr. Armitage is not going to issue a 

statement -- oh, yes. Would you raise your hand, sir? You're 

already sworn, I think --

MR. : (Off mike.) 

MR. KEAN: Doesn't last over from this morning? 

MR. : (Off mike.) 

MR. KEAN: How long does a swearing-in last before --

MR. ARMITAGE: (Off mike) -- that, Mr. Chairman. (Laughter.) 

MR. KEAN: Is it like something that wears off? (Laughter.) I 

think you're still sworn, sir. 
154

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Your still under oath. 

MR. KEAN: Yeah. Thank you very much. So we will -- the -- you 

have an opening statement. 

MR. ARMITAGE: Well, not -- it's not much of a statement. I 

jotted some ideas down. I'm not sure I can read them, because I 

was in the car. 

MR. KEAN: (Chuckles.) Yeah. 

MR. ARMITAGE: But it's not more than a minute or two, Mr. 

Chairman, if I may. 

I think, regarding Dr. Rice, I'm very pleased to hear you say 

how forthcoming and candid she was. She's of course prepared to 

meet with you all in camera at any time. This is, I think, not 

her personal wish; it's a matter of separation of powers and 

things of that nature. 

Mr. Ben-Veniste is the lawyer here; he can take it wherever 

he wants. I'm not. 

RICHARD BEN-VENISTE: Overruled! (Laughter.) 

MR. ARMITAGE: Not yet. (Laughter.) You'll have your time. 

I want to just take two minutes, sir, and tell you where I 

think we are, at least from what I've gleaned thus far. Each 

individual who witnesses these hearings and the important work 

you all are doing will make their own mind up. But here's what 

I'm kind of hearing. 

I think there was a pretty smooth hand-off from the 

administration of President Clinton to the Administration of 

President Bush, particularly in the counterterrorism area. 

The reason I say that is because there was, for transitions, 

I think a stunning continuity. When the Bush administration came 

in there were a number of issues that had been on the table for a 

couple of years. And they weren't on the table because the 

Clinton administration wasn't working like crazy; they were on 

the table because -- we're meeting on these matters -- they were 

on the table because they were difficult, knotty issues. 

We made the determination under the guidance of Dr. Rice and 

the President to vigorously pursue the policy which we inherited 
155

while developing our own approach to the problem of al Qaeda 

specifically and terrorism more generally, and along the way we 

tried, at least though the deputies level, to make decisions and 

to approve things and push them up the food chain. The President

said that he was tired of swatting flies, gave us a little more 

strategic direction. It was clear to us that rollback was no 

longer a sufficient strategy and that we had to go to the 

elimination of al Qaeda. And to that end, at least through the 

deputies prior to the horror of September 11th, decisions were 

approved to arm the Predator, to increase the assistance to 

Uzbekistan, to work with the Northern Alliance in a bigger way, 

to try to reinvigorate what was going on with Pakistan. And 

certainly, in order to bring some stability to South Asia, we had 

to have a different relationship with India and one that's not 

hyphenated, Indo-Pak. 

So I saw in both administrations a lot of people working 

terrifically hard, doing the best jobs they could. But a lot of 

people in successive administrations working just as hard as they 

can on the issue is not a source of any satisfaction for anyone. 

I don't think any of us or anyone who's worked on these issues 

can feel any sense of satisfaction with 3,000 of our fellow 

citizens horribly murdered. 

So the inevitable evisceration of Osama bin Ladin personally 

will be a very good thing, but in itself it's not going to bring 

any satisfaction or justice. True satisfaction and true justice, 

in my belief, will only come for Americans, and for that matter 

now for Spaniards and Turks and Saudis and Moroccans, when we’ve

put an end to terrorism. The terrible thing is I'm afraid that's 

going to be at some far out date in the future, and we just have 

to steel ourselves for it. 

So thank you, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Vice. I look forward to 

your hearing. 

MR. KEAN: Thank you very much for your opening comments. 

Commissioner Ben-Veniste will now begin the questioning. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Mr. Secretary, I want to thank you for your 

service to the country. 

MR. ARMITAGE: Thank you. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: And my comments to you are not meant as any 

personal criticism. You are here because the Administration asked 
156

you to come here. We asked for Dr. Rice. The NSC is the lead on 

coordinating and implementing counterterrorism in its policy 

during the key investigative period that we are charged with 

investigating, from 1998 to 9/11/2001. 

The State Department was one of several line agencies that 

White House staff worked to coordinate. It was a spoke in the 

wheel, not the hub. The hub was Dr. Rice. Just as Sandy Berger 

was for the Clinton administration, Dr. Rice would be to provide 

us with our understanding here. 

In some respects, I think you're in the position of Admiral 

Stockdale when in 1992 he said, "Why am I here?" (Laughter.) I'd 

like to ask that question of you. When did you learn that you 

would be the person to testify, that the White House would 

request that you come here today? 

MR. ARMITAGE: First of all, the 13th Amendment applies to me 

as well as it does to all of my colleagues, Mr. Ben-Veniste. 

(Laughter.) And I'm under no force to be here. They did request 

me. 

I'm here, I think, in large measure because like Dick Clarke, 

who is a long-time colleague, I was in on the beginning, I was in 

on the take-off of this back in 1983, and through the initial 

embryonic setting up of counterterrorism centers, and the 

embryonic efforts at the agency, et cetera, and the rendering of 

Fawaz Yunis and these fellows. So I'm here because I've been 

involved for a while. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Well, Mr. Clarke said that the folks in the 

Bush administration, Bush II, came in with more or less the same 

agenda that they had left with in Bush I. And so in certain 

regard, you actually were not in on the transition, isn't that 

so? You did not receive classified briefings until your 

confirmation, which I believe was in March. Is that right? 

MR. ARMITAGE: Yes, it was. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: And so all of the initial briefings, you 

were not party to. Is that correct? 

MR. ARMITAGE: I was not in the initial briefings for the 

President. I was on his team, of course. And I did have a 

clearance from 1997 on because of my work on the National Defense 

Panel, which eventually formed the basis for the President's 

Citadel speech and homeland security. 
157

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Well, you told us that you were not privy to 

the initial briefings because the powers that be decided that 

those who were not yet confirmed would not get those briefings. 

MR. ARMITAGE: The powers that be and the U.S. Senate, who 

looks very poorly on any administration -- incoming 

administration people even being perceived as taking an active 

participation role in decision-making. However, in the period of 

time leading up to my confirmation, I certainly had briefings 

from the entire organization in the State Department, to include 

counterterrorism. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Now, the 13th Amendment notwithstanding, may 

I ask you when it was that you were advised that you would be 

requested by the Administration to come up here in lieu of Dr. 

Rice? 

MR. ARMITAGE: I'd say about 10 days ago. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Hmm. That's interesting. 

MR. ARMITAGE: It might have been a week, but 10 days -- so a 

week to 10 days. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: We were advised not quite that long ago that 

you would be coming. And the --

MR. ARMITAGE: No, I think in fairness, I was told that if I'd 

do it, I'd be welcome. However --

MR. BEN-VENISTE: We welcomed you yesterday. 

MR. ARMITAGE: However, there was a big debate in the 

Administration about this because, as I said in my opening 

remarks, I think Dr. Rice, if she were left to her own personal 

judgment, she'd be very pleased to appear. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Well, you know, I agree with you. We had a 

useful period of time with her. She understood that we would need 

to question her again because we did not have the PDBs and other 

materials that she recognized would be necessary to complete her 

interview at the time that we did question her. On the other 

hand, there are a number of things which we would have liked to 

explore with her in person. 

And I just want to end with saying that from my personal 

standpoint, although the Commission has unanimously requested 
158

repeatedly that Dr. Rice come before us, my own view is that the 

President has said repeatedly through his spokesperson that he 

remains committed to full cooperation with this commission. 

Now, I've brought to your attention, and all joking aside, 

the fact that other national security advisers have come before 

the Congress and have testified in open session, including Mr. 

Berger, including Zbigniew Brzezinski. And my point is that if 

the White House wanted to fully cooperate and make Dr. Rice 

available, there would be no impediment for their doing so. 

And I'll leave it at that. 

MR. ARMITAGE: Well, if I may, sir. I was under the very 

strong impression that sitting national security advisors have 

not testified in open session before. However, they have, as Dr. 

Rice did, certainly participated in commissions as far back as --

that I know to the Tower Commission. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: That's why I offered you this report from 

the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress, 

which documented times and places for Brzezinski and twice for 

Berger, who did in fact come and testify in open session. 

MR. ARMITAGE: I was also -- I see you're the attorney, I'm 

not. You went to law school, I went into the Navy. I defer to 

your legal judgments on this. But --

MR. BEN-VENISTE: I think it's not a fair fight, frankly --

MR. ARMITAGE: If I may --

MR. BEN-VENISTE: And I think the --

MR. ARMITAGE: If I may --

MR. BEN-VENISTE: I think the White House has again "overlawyered" this, because they've created impressions here that are 

unnecessary, in my view -- and just speaking for myself. 

I'd like to get into substance. 

MR. ARMITAGE: I'd love to, but I'd just say I think those 

situations which you describe, sir, are all distinguishable, one 

from the other, for different reasons. But, as I say, you're the 

lawyer. I'm not. 
159

MR. BEN-VENISTE: They're all for reasons that I've explained 

on the record; none of which, I would have to say, sir, even 

approaches the seriousness of the mission of this committee --

that is looking into how it was that this country was attacked 

and 3,000 souls lost on 9/11/2001, in the worst attack on our 

homeland in the history of this country. 

Now, substance. Start the clock. (Laughter.) 

MR. ARMITAGE: It's going to be one of those afternoons, is 

it? (Laughs.) 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Is it correct that -- let me go to the 

period of just prior to 9/11. At this point you were confirmed. 

MR. ARMITAGE: Yes, sir. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: At this point you were aware -- were you 

not? -- of the most heightened alert level in the United States 

up to that point, with respect to the potential for a terrorist 

attack of significant magnitude. 

MR. ARMITAGE: Yes, I was. I was one of those to whom Director 

Tenet turned, along with other seniors in the Administration, and 

made it very clear that we had a big problem. He didn't know 

where and he didn't know when. But he said it was coming. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: And we have heard from Mr. Clarke -- who 

continued on into the Administration as the coordinator for 

counterterrorism, although in a somewhat reduced capacity from 

his status in the Clinton administration -- that there certainly 

was no way that they could rule out an attack upon the United 

States. 

MR. ARMITAGE: Right. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: And do you agree with that? 

MR. ARMITAGE: Oh, yes, I do. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Now, Dr. Rice told us that Mr. Clarke had 

briefed her that there were al Qaeda sleeper cells in the United 

States. 

Dr. Rice told us that she did not know what basis Mr. Clarke 

had for that. She told us that the FBI was trying to actively 

find al Qaeda personnel. She did not, she told us, talk to 
160

Richard Clarke prior to 9/11 about the potential for al Qaeda 

sleeper cells. Were she here, I would ask her the question as to 

why she did not discuss the issue of al Qaeda sleeper cells in 

the United States with her counterterrorism coordinator. Do you 

have any information you might be able to shed on that subject? 

MR. ARMITAGE: No, of course not. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Dr. Rice, following 9/11, made a statement 

that -- I want to make sure I get it right -- (searches 

documents) -- she said, "I don't think anybody could have 

predicted that those people could take an airplane and slam it 

into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into 

the Pentagon, that they would try to use an airplane as a 

missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile." Do you recall that 

she made that statement publicly? 

MR. ARMITAGE: No, I didn't see that. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Similarly, yesterday Secretary of Defense 

Rumsfeld made a statement with respect to anticipating the use of 

commercial airplanes as weapons, and then, after I questioned him 

about it, he retracted that statement and said that he personally 

could not have -- or did not imagine that such a thing might 

happen. Dr. Rice told us privately that she wished to correct 

that statement which she had made publicly by saying to us that 

she misspoke, and that she, like Secretary Rumsfeld yesterday, 

would say that she could not have imagined using planes as 

missiles. 

Can you shed any light on who, then, in the apparatus of 

protecting the United States against threats both foreign and 

domestic, ought to be coordinating this information for the 

benefit of the President? 

MR. ARMITAGE: I know that the director of Central 

Intelligence had on at least one occasion, to my knowledge, 

talked about hijacking of aircraft. I just don't think we had the 

imagination required to consider a tragedy of this magnitude. I 

don't know what other answer to tell you. We didn't have a 

homeland security czar. We've traditionally generally in 

terrorism unfortunately looked overseas. Of course, that's the 

major direction of Secretary Powell's and my attention. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Well, can you tell me, since you're sitting 

in for Dr. Rice, what it was that Dr. Rice had before her to 
161

suggest that the United States might be a target in this period 

of extraordinarily heightened threat during the summer of 2001? 

MR. ARMITAGE: Oh, I can't. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Dr. Rice told us that at some point, I think 

it was in early July, because of the extraordinarily increased 

threat level that the intelligence services were picking up that 

the President asked her to go back and collect for her or get a 

report for her on what the potential was for a domestic incident 

of some magnitude. Are you familiar with the fact that Dr. Rice 

took that position? 

MR. ARMITAGE: No, I'm not. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: I believe she's expressed it publicly in 

recent days. 

MR. ARMITAGE: I'm not aware of it. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Have you paid attention to at least some of 

the appearances Dr. Rice has made on the airwaves?

MR. ARMITAGE: No, actually I haven't. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: You own a television? 

MR. ARMITAGE: Yeah, and it's generally on, and I won't tell 

you what it's on. (Laughter.) 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: (Laughs.) 

MR. ARMITAGE: But --

MR. BEN-VENISTE: I guess it -- (chuckles) -- wasn't on any of 

the talk shows --

MR. ARMITAGE: Look, I --

MR. BEN-VENISTE: -- because she's been on about every one of 

them --

MR. ARMITAGE: You know what --

MR. BEN-VENISTE: -- but not here before the Commission. 
162

MR. ARMITAGE: Administration witnesses are on those shows all 

the time. And I'm sorry; when you see one of your colleagues up 

there, you don't stop in the airport and stare. (Laughter.) You 

don't stop everything you're doing. You do your work because it's 

hard enough as it is without being diverted. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Well, I appreciate that --

TIMOTHY J. ROEMER: Mr. Ben-Veniste, you might want to have 

Mr. Armitage clarify his remarks. I'm sure the TV is on 

basketball these days. Isn't it, Mr. Armitage? (Laughter.) 

MR. ARMITAGE: You know a little too much, Commissioner 

Roemer! 

MR. ROEMER: I hope to know more. Dr. Rice --

MR. BEN-VENISTE: You know, it's tough serving on a commission 

with two of these Hoosiers, let me tell you. (Laughter.) All they 

want to do is watch basketball. 

But in seriousness, with respect to your position here as --

in --

MR. KEAN: This is the last question. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Well, actually, I get a couple more because 

of the initial non-substantive areas that that we went back and 

forth on. 

MR. : (Off mike.) (Laughter.) 

MR. KEAN: I don't think that's the rules, but --

(Laughter.) 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Okay. But it's --

MR. LEHMAN : Talmudic reasoning --

MR. BEN-VENISTE: (Chuckles.) No whinging! 

If the chairman will indulge me for just two questions, in 

preparation for appearing here as Dr. Rice's doppelganger, did it 

not occur to you to familiarize yourself with what it was she was 

saying or had said? 
163

MR. ARMITAGE: I'm not here as Dr. Rice's replacement. I'm 

here as someone who's been involved in counterterrorism for 

several administrations, over a long period of time. That's why 

I'm here. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Well, you -- I thought you were here 

yesterday in that capacity. But with --

MR. ARMITAGE: I was here yesterday to support the secretary 

of State, sir. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Let me ask you whether you were aware of the 

fact that the CIA has now said that the August 6th, 2001, 

Presidential Daily Brief, which Dr. Rice has indicated to us, 

privately, was prepared at the request of the President, was in 

fact prepared independently of any request, so far as they knew, 

by the CIA. 

MR. ARMITAGE: I read the document sometime after it was 

passed around to the seniors, which is generally what happens to 

the deputies, and was unaware of that. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Mr. Chairman, I would have more questions of 

the Dr. Rice-Armitage -- (laughter) -- team, and if we have 

remaining time, I'd like to ask those. 

MR. KEAN: You may. We may. 

Commissioner Thompson. 

JAMES R. THOMPSON: Well, Mr. Secretary, I'm willing to accept 

you in your own capacity --

MR. ARMITAGE: Thank you, Governor. (Laughs.) 

MR. THOMPSON: -- not as anybody's substitute. 

When the Bush administration took office in January of 2001, 

you had, I believe, quite a long and complex foreign policy 

agenda. Is that right? 

MR. ARMITAGE: Yes, sir. 

MR. THOMPSON: China, Russia, missile defense, Iraq, Middle 

East peace process, just to name a few. 

MR. ARMITAGE: India was on there as well. 
164

MR. THOMPSON: And India, Pakistan, nuclear power in Asia. The 

list probably is endless and probably changed daily -- or was 

added to daily, let me clarify. 

Would you give a sort of a rough order ranking, if you could, 

or if it's appropriate, and then indicate to me where you think 

the issue of terrorism and counterterrorism fit into that order 

of priority? 

MR. ARMITAGE: Yes, sir. I don't know that I can adequately 

order them. But I can say that Secretary Powell's view, I think 

as evidenced by the fact that the first briefing that he 

received, at his request, was on counterterrorism was that this 

was a real problem. And he'd seen it from several different 

seats, NSC as well as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. 

But we don't have the luxury, as I think he tried to explain 

yesterday, of actually ranking them in order. I'll tell you why. 

Let's say that in early April the entire administration was 

spending the entire day on counterterrorism, and we had a 

military aircraft knocked out of the sky by a Chinese fighter. 

And so for the next 13 days, Secretary Powell and I and the 

President and Dr. Rice were intimately involved and continually 

involved in that. And then when that resolved itself, we went 

back to the other agenda. And then there are trips and meetings 

of people who are coming and going that raise issues to a higher 

level for a time, or lower them for a time. 

So I don't think I can satisfy you with a one, two, three. 

From our point of view, terrorism and counterterrorism were 

urgent. 

MR. THOMPSON: You were a new administration, so I presume 

that during this period of time you were sort of besieged by 

ambassadors and representatives of other nations wanting to take 

make your measure and communicate with you. 

MR. ARMITAGE: I know you'll be shocked to find out that most 

of them already had during the campaign. They generally do make 

sure they check with the political opposition just so they won't 

be surprised at anything when a new administration starts. 

MR. THOMPSON: Both in his book and his testimony here today, 

Mr. Clarke complained that the eight-month gap between the time 

the Administration took office in January of 2001 and the time 

that the PSDB was produced in September, I believe September 4th 
165

of 2001, was an inordinately long time to formulate a process. Do 

you agree with that? 

MR. ARMITAGE: No, I don't. But I'd like to say the words of 

Samuel Clemens come to mind, and that is even though you're on 

the right track, you can get run over if you're not going fast 

enough. 

And I think it is the case, it's certainly in hindsight that 

we weren't going fast enough. 

Now, you can make your own judgments about whether we were 

moving faster or slower than other administrations. But there 

were a lot of complex issues, and we thought we were getting --

or trying to get our arms around ALL of them and not just pieces 

of them. 

MR. THOMPSON: The establishment of a policy dealing with al 

Qaeda that was finally presented -- ready for presentation to the 

President in September of 2001 obviously involved more than 

simply a military response to al Qaeda. Pakistan was involved, is 

that correct? 

MR. ARMITAGE: Yes, sir. 

MR. THOMPSON: And so, those charged with the responsibility 

of dealing with Pakistan and trying to balance between keeping 

the Pakistanis flexible had to be a part of the policy, is that 

right? 

MR. ARMITAGE: Governor -- yes, thank you. This is an 

important point, and it gets to something Senator Kerrey was 

talking about, I think twice yesterday, he was quite frustrated 

with. 

You know, the giving of an order by the President improved 

the relationships with Pakistan so that we can have a better 

chance of uprooting the Taliban, et cetera. That's a pretty 

simple statement, and it doesn't look like much. But if you peel 

back the onion, what you see in Pakistan's case is we'd had over 

10 years of divorce from their military, we had no inroads there, 

we had very limited intelligence work, we had no political 

relationship worth a damn with them. We had stopped all the World 

Bank or international financial institutions lending. We didn't 

have many places of purchase. So, the order given to improve 

relationships with Pakistan, then the far -- as you go down the 

food chain, there are more and more and more activities that are 
166

associated with doing just what the President wanted, and that's 

true of all these issues. You could add in the al Qaeda case Iran 

-- was part of it, as we -- we actually had to work with Iran 

once we were -- if we had military action. So, it is complicated. 

MR. THOMPSON: Uzbekistan? 

MR. ARMITAGE: Uzbekistan was a special complication for two 

reasons: the affection for human rights there was not what we 

wanted and desired, and that we're -- we had some questions about 

whether we'd be able to base there, and what would be the 

reaction of the Russian Federation? So we had to work those 

things out. 

MR. THOMPSON: You needed more funding? 

MR. ARMITAGE: Funding, I think Dick Clarke and others have 

spoken to it. Making a decision to fund is one thing, and then 

going through the appropriations process is quite another. 

MR. THOMPSON: How to get arms to the Northern Alliance, if 

that was to be the policy. 

MR. ARMITAGE: Getting arms to them was not so difficult. It 

was making sure that we wouldn't be, one, embarrassed by what 

they were. And no matter the charismatic nature of Ahmed Shah 

Massoud, and he was quite charismatic, that doesn't make up for 

raping, drug dealing, et cetera, which many of the Northern 

Alliance had been involved with. So it's not easy. And that's 

why, I think, you don't see -- we're not sitting up here saying, 

"Well, why didn't people do it in the '98 time frame? They had 

two years." The fact, they're hard. It's difficult. It's not like 

falling off a log. 

MR. THOMPSON: During the Bush administration -- the early 

part of the Bush administration when the decision was made to put 

the CSG under the Deputies Committee rather than under the 

Principals Committee, where it had sat during the Clinton 

administration, did Mr. Clarke ever complain to you about that 

change? 

MR. ARMITAGE: Not to me, sir, no. But I was not in the entire 

Bush administration. I was in and out. I three times did special 

jobs, one of them -- two of them which took a year apiece, but I 

was out as a private citizen for some of that time as well. 
167

MR. THOMPSON: You've been quoted as saying earlier that the 

Deputies Committee hasn't worked as speedily before since 9/11. 

What did you mean by that? 

MR. ARMITAGE: I was frustrated as anyone else that it takes a 

long time to fashion a policy. I'm one of those -- a difference 

with Commissioner Gorelick -- I think we need fewer meetings, not 

more, as we've all got to put into effect the decisions that are 

made at these meetings. So that's been a frustration of mine. I 

think Paul Wolfowitz evidenced his own frustration with it 

yesterday. 

MR. THOMPSON: Of course, on some of these issues, you can 

never work speedily enough; is that correct? 

MR. ARMITAGE: I'm sorry, sir? 

MR. THOMPSON: On some of these issues, you can never work 

speedily enough. It's part of the --

MR. ARMITAGE: No, that's unfortunately true. 

MR. THOMPSON: Let me go back to my previous question because 

I think you misunderstood me. I wasn't talking about the first 

Bush administration, I was talking about the second. 

MR. ARMITAGE: I'm sorry. 

MR. THOMPSON: During the period January to September, 2001, 

did Mr. Clarke ever complain to you or within your hearing or to 

anybody else, to your knowledge, about the switch from -- his 

activities being taken from the Principals Committee to the 

Deputies Committee? 

MR. ARMITAGE: No, sir. 

MR. THOMPSON: Was there a reason why the Bush administration 

did not respond to the attack on the Cole, even though the 

Clinton administration had not responded? 

MR. ARMITAGE: We were coming to the view that al Qaeda was 

responsible. The President had been frustrated by sort of lack of 

a real target that he could hit in a meaningful way. And it was 

when that NSPD was framed up, finally, for the President it was -

- a strong mention of the Cole was in it. 
168

As I recall -- I know my own building, when I first got 

there, would give us warnings to be careful; the evidence is not 

deep enough, it's not strong enough. It certainly wouldn't have 

held up in a court of law, but I think there was a good deal of 

frustration: it would hold up in a court of our opinion. But for 

the reasons I spoke, we didn't move. 

MR. THOMPSON: The NSPD on al Qaeda, do you know how that came 

about? Who was writing it? Who was directing it? Who was 

contributing to it? 

MR. ARMITAGE: Well, Dick was writing some of it, Dick Clarke, 

and others in the regional bureaus were writing some of it. When 

the deputies looked at it, we would make comments on it. 

I have one difference with my former colleague, Dick Clarke, 

on what I just heard backstage. I remember the version that the 

deputies had having "elimination" of al Qaeda in it, and Dick I 

think said it didn't -- it wasn't in the -- it was removed by the 

deputies. And I must say that is not in my recollection at all, 

but I'm sure the staff has the draft of the NSPDs and you can 

come to your own conclusion. 

MR. THOMPSON: Do you want to give us a summary of sort of 

what our relations with the Saudis were prior to 9/11 and then 

afterwards? Were you ever completely happy with the Saudis and 

the cooperation they were giving us in the war on terrorism? 

MR. ARMITAGE: Nobody has been satisfied. The relationship has 

been described as complex. Okay -- (chuckles) -- it's more than 

that. It's also one that occasionally has real troubles in it, 

troubles. We've had severe differences of agreement over 

everything from religious freedoms -- and the Saudis have been 

cited in all three of the Religious Freedom Reports of this 

Administration. We've had problems at OPEC on occasion with them. 

We've had a lot of problems. We had problems in counterterrorism 

cooperation until May 12, and after the May 12 bombings in Riyadh 

I would say the scales fell from their eyes and they've been 

really getting after it. That's the version -- or that's the view 

of our counterterrorism folks, Cofer Black and others who are 

working with him. It's the view I think of our Treasury folks, 

who finally are getting real purchase on financing and the 

informal financing networks that feed these horrible people. 

MR. THOMPSON: Do you know anything about the decision that 

was made to allow the Saudis to fly their people out of 

Washington immediately after September 11th? 
169

MR. ARMITAGE: No, sir. 

MR. THOMPSON: Part of our responsibility, Mr. Armitage, is to 

look to the future and to find ways to present to the 

Administration and to the American people and to the Congress 

that we can, if humanly possible, lessen the odds on another 

September 11th. Would you give us some notions of what you, if 

you were in our place, would recommend on that score? 

MR. ARMITAGE: I think you've got a terribly heavy 

responsibility; the responsibility to be completely fair and 

honest without being seen as being partisan. It's hard. It's hard 

when this tragedy has built up over -- I think since 1989, 

frankly. It culminated in the attack on 2001. I'd like to give 

you the easy answer and say, oh, we've got to completely depoliticize the people who work in the organization, the 

counterterrorism field. 

But that's the wrong answer, because you do need occasionally 

some new blood to come into the herd and to spur things up and 

make sure you're not drinking your own bath water; that you do

things in a new way on occasion and that you don't just rely on 

the old tried-and-true tricks. So I don't know that I have any 

corner on wisdom. Clearly, we have to continue to look very 

closely at the CIA law enforcement and personal liberties of our 

citizens issues and weave our way through those very carefully, 

but very astutely. And it seems to me that's the first issue. 

The second is I think the direction that Director Tenet has 

taken the Central Intelligence Agency has been extraordinarily 

noteworthy, but some of us were around at a time when the agency 

was frightened away from doing the dirty, hard and dangerous work 

that needs to be done to secure our nation. And I think to the 

extent that you can make covert actions more acceptable and more 

understood more broadly, then you'll be doing the Lord's work. 

MR. THOMPSON: Would it cheer you to know that in the more 

than a year that this commission has been in operation, we've 

never taken a partisan vote? 

MR. ARMITAGE: I'm not surprised. 

MR. THOMPSON: Have you read this book? 

MR. ARMITAGE: I'm the only honest person in Washington. 

MR. THOMPSON: (Laughs.) 
170

MR. ARMITAGE: I gave it the Washington read. 

MR. THOMPSON: You looked in the index to see if your name was 

in it. 

MR. ARMITAGE: And then what was said about me. (Laughter.) 

MR. THOMPSON: I think I ought to quit there, Mr. Chairman. 

MR. KEAN: Okay. I've got a brief question, Mr. Secretary. 

MR. ARMITAGE: Yes, sir? 

MR. KEAN: We've had a response coming out of, I guess -- I 

don't know if they came out of the Congress, previous 

administrations, but the policy generally is that we expect the 

world really to live up to our values, particularly in areas like 

human rights; and when they don't, we have certain sanctions. And 

we do the same thing if somebody is proliferating a nuclear --

people who do things that we think are bad and don't like; we 

have various sanctions that we impose. But every time we impose a 

sanction -- (inaudible) -- you had with Pakistan on this one --

every time we impose a sanction, we lessen our contact or our 

leverage on that particular society or that particular country. 

So as they have less and less contacts and leverage from us, 

they've, of necessity, turned sometimes to our enemies, sometimes 

other places. And it almost seems to be counterproductive. 

Now, I understand the reasons for the policy. But in this new 

world we live in -- in a world where terrorism is the enemy, and 

particularly Islamic terrorism -- is this always the best policy 

to pursue, to sort of isolate these countries who are doing 

things that we don't approve of internally? 

MR. ARMITAGE: No executive branch witness of any political 

stripe will ever argue for sanctions or for anything that in any 

way inhibits the power of the only nationally elected leader. You 

can just take that as a given. And I'm -- (chuckles) -- right on 

board with that. 

There has to be a way to show -- it has to be discipline, in 

any administration, to be able to show our displeasure and to 

ourselves withhold assistance or stop trips, all these millions 

of things that go -- short of sanctions. But bureaucracies do go 

on, and they kind of run on their own steam, and left to their 

own devices, no bureaucracy is going to say, "Oh, no, you can't 

cut my assistance to Pakistan," you know, “voluntarily.”
171

By the same token, members of Congress get extraordinarily 

frustrated with some of the same old State Department and other 

witnesses coming up, saying the same old things. And they want to 

feel good, and they want to do something, so they put sanctions 

on. And when they do that, we argue as strenuously as we can to 

please give us the flexibility, the presidential waiver 

flexibility, et cetera, sometimes with effect and sometimes to no 

effect. 

But I think it's generally accepted now that engagement is 

better than non-engagement, except in the most abhorrent 

countries. 

MR. KEAN: Commissioner Gorelick? 

JAMIE S. GORELICK: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, 

Secretary Armitage, for returning to us as a witness in your own 

right and also for Dr. Rice. 

MR. ARMITAGE: Thank you. 

MS. GORELICK: You are a wonderful public servant, and we 

appreciate your service. And you may be the last honest person, 

although we didn't ask the other witnesses if they looked at the 

index. 

You're in a difficult position for the questions I have, 

because I have been troubled personally by what I feel are 

hyperbolic statements by National Security Adviser Rice about the 

matters that we have under discussion, statements that she's made 

in the press but not to us here publicly, where we can discuss 

them with her. 

I'm not going to ask you rhetorical questions. I'm going to 

ask you questions I do think that you can answer. 

The first is this. We seem to have a consensus of every 

Cabinet officer of the two administrations that we've had before 

us in two days of questioning that -- A, that you could not have 

invaded Pakistan -- I'm sorry; it's late in the day -- that one 

could not have invaded Afghanistan prior to 9/11. And that --

your boss testified to that. And do you agree with that? 

MR. ARMITAGE: Well, yeah, there was no way to get there 

without overflight. I think we could have put troops in 

Afghanistan. We wouldn't have been able to support them. So I 

certainly agree with it. 
172

MS. GORELICK: But you couldn't have gotten congressional 

approval? 

MR. ARMITAGE: I'm more inclined to Senator (Kerrey's view on 

that. I was one of these who -- in the late '80s, when we had a 

lot of trouble in the Persian Gulf, the U.S. Senate was entirely 

opposed to an Operation Earnest Will, where we wanted to actually 

escort ships that were getting attacked by the Iranians. 

And the President and his team showed the leadership and got 

it done. And I generally think that the executive branch, when 

they put the point on the spear, can get things done. 

MS. GORELICK: Well, let's explore that some. Secretary 

Rumsfeld, I think in a very persuasive statement, when asked 

about what could have been done with regard to the Cole, said 

that he advised the President that the only response that he 

could make that would be effective would be to put people on the 

ground, boots on the ground. 

Do you agree with that? 

MR. ARMITAGE: I think given what we've heard over the last 

two days about lack of targets or targetable intelligence --

whatever Senator Gorton was saying -- yes, I would. 

MS. GORELICK: Now, you all in the Deputies Committee, and 

ultimately the Principals Committee, worked for seven-plus months 

on NSPD 9. 

MR. ARMITAGE: That's right. 

MS. GORELICK: As we've been talking about, that's the policy 

that went to the principals on September the 4th of '01. 

MR. ARMITAGE: Right. 

MS. GORELICK: And as we see it, it had three elements. The 

first stage was warning the Taliban in no uncertain terms. The 

second stage was pressuring the Taliban -- diplomatic pressure,

other pressures on the Taliban. And the third was trying to 

figure out a way to oust the Taliban, but not with our boots on 

the ground, with somebody else's boots on the ground, and then 

maybe -- and then have some contingency planning, although as 

Dick Clarke said, that was part of the usual process to have 

contingency plans in the wings. 
173

You just said that you might have suggested -- and maybe I --

I don't want to put words in your mouth -- that the President

could have, should have advocated to Congress and to policymakers 

putting boots on the ground. I don't see any boots on the ground 

in NSPD 9. Is that correct? 

MR. ARMITAGE: Well, first, it's not necessarily correct that 

I would advocate putting boots on the ground. 

MS. GORELICK: Oh, I didn't mean to put words in your mouth. 

MR. ARMITAGE: No, but it's an important point. As far as this 

citizen is concerned, the decision to commit men and women, who 

are also sons and daughters, to combat is an extraordinarily 

important one, and not to be done to just feel good; to be done 

to absolutely accomplish a mission. Now, sometimes I'm accused of 

being, you know, a foot-dragger, not wanting to go along on the 

use of force. But I'm sorry, that's my view. 

Having said that, the Taliban -- there were a lot of reasons 

we were handling them somewhat gently. 

Some of our citizens were still there. Some of OUR NGOs were 

the only thing keeping some segments of the Afghan population 

alive, through feed programs and things of that nature. So you 

don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water, generally. 

And so, it -- the question with the Taliban is a tough one. 

There was no question about -- I think in anybody's mind about 

the desirability of putting soldiers on the ground if we could 

catch or capture or kill bin Ladin, but as a discreet element. 

MS. GORELICK: That would be more -- right. Not a -- I'm 

talking about an invasion of the sort that we did post-9/11. And 

there is nothing in that -- in the NSPD 9 that came out of 

September 4th that we could find that had an invasion plan, a 

military plan. And even that plan, Deputy National Security 

Adviser Hadley said, was contemplated to take three years. 

MR. ARMITAGE: Right. 

MS. GORELICK: So I would ask you whether it is true that --

whether it is true, as Dr. Rice said in the Washington Post, "Our 

plan called for military options to attack al Qaeda and Taliban 

leadership, ground forces and other targets, taking the fight to 

the enemy where he lived." Was that part of the plan as -- prior 

to 9/11? 
174

MR. ARMITAGE: No, I think that was amended after the horror 

of 9/11. 

MS. GORELICK: Pardon me? 

MR. KEAN: Your time. 

MS. GORELICK: Oh, I see my -- I see my time is up. I have 

more questions to which I would like to return, if I might. 

MR. HAMILTON: Commissioner Lehman. 

MR. LEHMAN: Thank you. 

Mr. Secretary, I think it's particularly appropriate that 

you're here as wrap-up witness along with Dick Clarke, because 

you and Dick more or less started in the counterterrorism 

business at about the same time ---

MR. ARMITAGE: Actually, I was before him. (Laughs.) 

MR. LEHMAN: Sorry -- as particularly -- as boots on the 

ground. But I'd like to get your perspective on the long view, 

specifically back to a trauma that you and I both lived through 

in the Pentagon in '83, when our Marines were killed in the 

terrorist suicide attack in Beirut. And it's particularly apropos 

to this -- to our mission, because Osama bin Ladin has cited that 

as a seminal event in his awakening to the vulnerability of the 

U.S. And it also illustrates, particularly since in the last 

year, as a result of a trial, some of the most sensitive 

classified documents have become declassified, it illustrates 

some of the deep dysfunctions in our government, particularly in 

the handling of intelligence and in making of decisions based on 

intelligence. 

And as you'll recall, we did not retaliate even though, we 

now know, that there was an intercept directly of the Iranian 

government ordering the assassination of our Marines. And that 

was in the hands of a few, although not all, policymakers. And as 

a result, even though the President wanted a retaliation, no 

retaliation was ever ordered for that. 

And Osama is our authority to say that the fact that there 

was no retaliation and it was followed by the withdrawal of the 

United States from Lebanon, exactly what the purpose of the 

attack was to achieve, laid the groundwork for a tide of 

subsequent terrorist acts. 
175

There were repetitive and growing instances of terrorism over 

the years. There were a few instances of retaliation. I would 

have to say they were episodic. The Tripoli bombing was one. But 

I'd really like to have you share with us your overall 

perspective of both the effects of immediate retaliation -- like 

we did not do in '83, we did not do for the Cole, we did not do 

in the '93 World Trade Center, we did not do after '98 -- and 

also the reasons why we didn't that seem to run through so many 

of them, which is stovepiping and lack of full picture, and 

always voices saying, well, we don't yet have a full picture; 

there may be Lebanese civilians in the target area; or, we don't 

know whether the Cole was really -- whether they were al Qaeda. 

MR. ARMITAGE: Yes, sir. 

As you, I was personally affected by that tragedy, those 

Marines and Navy corpsmen who were killed. 

And I remember a discussion with you when you and I were on 

the same page. We wanted to put a cruise missile in the window of 

the Iranian ambassador in Damascus. Is that not a quote that you 

--

MR. LEHMAN: That is correct. 

MR. ARMITAGE: -- and we thought it would be very salutary. 

MR. LEHMAN: Had them all in New Jersey. 

MR. ARMITAGE: However, the Beirut bombing -- I think the 

reason we were very slow and did not retaliate had to do more 

with the huge policy differences about why we were there. 

Remember the mission of the Marine Corps there? You argued 

against it. It was called presence. We didn't know what presence 

was. And slowly, over time, we became a factor in someone else's 

civil war and we were seen as taking sides, and boom, we got hit. 

That's exactly what happened. So I think each episode is a little 

bit sui generis. 

Now on the question of Hezbollah, who did that, I don't think 

that we knew -- why, we didn't know then what we know now about 

the worldwide nature of these guys. I've called them the real Ateam of terrorism because they are global and they can reach out 

when they're ready. We have to make sure we understand what we're 

getting into. And I would have said the Beirut bombing, though 

you and I were on the same side, I'm not sure we understood what 

we were getting into. 
176

And I think each of these other things are sui generis. The 

decision of Mr. Clinton to knock out the intelligence 

headquarters was great. Our decision in '86 to bounce Tripoli 

around a little bit, and we almost got the colonel. And that 

would have been a fine thing, but you remember the discussion we 

had in the U.S. Congress at the time? Big debate about whether we 

were trying to assassinate somebody. And we won that debate 

because he was the military commander and this was a military 

retaliation, so it wasn't a violation of 12333, the executive 

order. But these are the kind of things that, in that day, we'd 

argue about. Because of the horror of 9/11 it's been pretty much 

swept aside. I think we're in a new day from the fights that we 

used to have, not with each other but in general. 

MR. LEHMAN: (Chuckles.) Thank you. 

MR. KEAN: Congressman Roemer. 

MR. ROEMER: Thank you. 

I just have one question --

MR. ARMITAGE: Yes, sir. 

MR. ROEMER: -- for the secretary, and I will yield the rest 

of my time to Commissioner Gorelick, who has some more questions. 

I join in thanking the Commission -- or thanking you from the 

Commission, Mr. Secretary. In my 16 years as a member of Congress 

and as a staff member up on Capitol Hill, your reputation is one 

for directness, for honesty, refreshing comments to people, 

dedication to public service, and I appreciate you being here and 

appreciate the tough role that you're serving in in serving our 

country. 

That doesn't mean to say that I wouldn't like to have Dr. 

Rice here to continue the good dialogue that she gave us in 

private in public. And if the Administration has this compelling 

and convincing story that I think the American people should 

hear, it shouldn't be in the privacy of a SCIF [Secure 

Compartmented Information Facility]. It should be out in public 

because we do have some disagreements, from what Mr. Clarke said 

today. 

And Mr. Clarke and Dr. Rice had some of these conversations. 

So it would be helpful -- I would really hope that the 

Administration might reconsider their decision because Dr. Rice 
177

is such an articulate and compelling person, as you are, to tell 

the story --

MR. ARMITAGE: Much less articulate and much less compelling! 

(Laughter.) 

MR. ROEMER: Actually, very refreshing and very direct. And 

that's how Mr. Clarke I think has a reputation for being direct -

- trying to get things done. 

One of the things that you said in your private interview to 

the 9/11 Commission staff was that you're not a patient guy, you 

like to get things moving along. You said that the deputies 

process has not worked, quote, "speedily before or since 9/11." 

Unquote. 

Can you expand on that a little bit? 

MR. ARMITAGE: Yeah. I've long held the view, and it's well 

known in the Administration, as I said, we ought to have less 

meetings and be more crisp. I miss some things, but I'm fairly 

crisp. 

I was impatient on this and other issues. But I think all of 

my colleagues wanted to get it exactly right. And I'll tell you 

from my point of view in the Department of State, and this is a 

factual point, it is not a partisan comment; I found a State 

Department, and Secretary Powell stepped into a State Department 

which for almost 12 years had been neglected in terms of 

management, in terms of budgets and everything else. And my 

impatience with a lot of these meetings had to do with the 

necessity of getting back to try to do our part, along with our 

colleagues in the Department of State, to resuscitate that place 

and make it something that would make you and the members of our 

public at large proud of what they did. That's where my 

impatience came from. 

MR. ROEMER: Well I appreciate and respect that desire to try 

to get things done in Washington, D.C., Mr. Secretary. 

And as Mr. Clarke said today, in about the spring of 2001 he

became very frustrated with this process that you said was moving 

too slowly. 

And in an interview on TV with Lisa Myers, Dr. Rice said 

this, and I quote, "We were then able to really, on an 

accelerated basis, over the next 230 days to put in place a 
178

policy that was more robust, that really did envision a fairly 

dramatic restructuring of our diplomatic initiatives, that put 

real funding behind the intelligence." And she went on. 

Now, let's just have a legitimate discussion about was there 

real funding for that? People have said no, there was not real 

funding behind that. 

Was it an accelerated basis? No. Some people wanted that 

process to move much more quickly. How can we get it done better 

in the future? 

So that's the only point I'm making. I'd yield the rest of my 

time to Commissioner Gorelick. (Laughter.) 

MR. ARMITAGE: Commissioner, do you want me to --

MR. ROEMER: You have 30 seconds, I think, Commissioner 

Gorelick. (Laughter.) 

MR. ARMITAGE: Commissioner, do you want me to respond or --

MS. GORELICK: (Off mike.) 

MR. ROEMER: I'm on a roll. No -- if you want to, Mr. 

Secretary. 

MR. ARMITAGE: The definition of whether eight months was too 

long or not, each of you will have to come to your own conclusion 

on. I would suggest you need to bounce it against other such 

deliberations of those who came before, and probably people will 

be deliberating this long after. It's a relative thing, and it's 

relative to what. And as we look back, clearly, as I said 

earlier, in the Samuel Clemens -- that we were on the right 

track. We weren't going fast enough. 

Now I'm -- as every witness up here has said is -- is -- I 

don't need these to look backwards. 

MR. ROEMER: Thank you, sir. 

MR. KEAN: Commissioner Ben-Veniste. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: I want to emphasize publicly what

Commissioner Jim Thompson had said, and that is that this 

commission has never had a partisan vote. And I think the public 

needs to hear that, because there's a lot of interest in the 
179

media and elsewhere in this town in trying to make this 

commission into some partisan operation. That's not the case. We 

have worked together now for a year, under extraordinary 

leadership from our chair and vice chair. And we may have 

differing opinions -- and we do, and we express those to each 

other -- but this has not been a partisan commission. And I 

believe that we will be able to satisfy the expectations of the 

public in doing our work in a nonpartisan way, in an objective 

and professional way, which will make for a credible final report 

that this commission will issue.

Let me ask two things. One, I thank you for your refreshing 

and direct answers and candor, Mr. Secretary. When you indicated 

that you looked through the index of Mr. Clarke's book, that 

sparked me to borrow Mr. Thompson's copy and take a look at page 

30. And in that regard, there is a discussion of the immediate 

aftermath of 9/11, when the top leaders of our country assembled 

at Camp David with the President. 

On that occasion, according to Mr. Clarke -- and, I guess, as 

previously reported by my friend Bob Woodward in his book --

there was a discussion of the possibility of an invasion of Iraq, 

utilizing 9/11 as the pretext for that invasion. According to Mr. 

Clarke's book, both you and Secretary Powell resisted any notion 

put forward by Secretary Rumsfeld or Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz 

that the events of 9/11 justified the invasion of Iraq. Could you 

comment on that? 

MR. ARMITAGE: I was not at Camp David. I was off on another 

mission for the President, to go to Russia. My secretary was 

there. He spoke about his remembrance of what went on there. 

There was no question in our mind that Afghanistan was where 

we had to go. Secretary Rumsfeld and Mr. Wolfowitz have their own 

views. I don't think it was unreasonable in the wake of this 

horror to speculate on how much of an interaction al Qaeda and 

others might have had with Iraq. But the President, as was 

reported to me by the secretary, listened carefully, made the 

decision to remove the others from the table, and concentrate on 

Afghanistan when he came down from Camp David that Monday. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Putting aside the Camp David part of my 

question, is it correct that you discussed with Mr. Clarke in the 

aftermath of 9/11 the fact that the secretary of Defense and his 

deputy were advocating for a strike against Iraq? 
180

MR. ARMITAGE: I don't recall that conversation; it's 

possible. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Do you recall the event itself, that the 

secretary and the deputy were advocating for an invasion of Iraq? 

MR. ARMITAGE: I was not at that -- I don't have that separate 

knowledge. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: No one told you about that. 

MR. ARMITAGE: Oh, we've had the debates in this 

Administration about Iraq, about when and how to strike Iraq. But 

on the immediate aftermath of September 11th, I think everyone 

quickly fell in line. But the President had made his decision 

that's where we're going to spend our efforts. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Well, prior to the decision being made, my 

question focuses on whether it was advocated for. 

MR. ARMITAGE: You've read Mr. Woodward's book and you've 

talked to the secretary. He said that Mr. Wolfowitz had strong 

views, that he's not bashful, and I think the President welcomes 

all those views. But I was not there. I can read the book -- I 

mean, and just report that. But I -- I wasn't there. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Finally, with respect to the Cole, in your 

interview with our staff you indicated that as of the transition 

the evidence was not yet presented to the White House that al 

Qaeda was responsible for the Cole. Is that correct? 

MR. ARMITAGE: I recall the staff members who talked to me 

indicating there was -- what they felt was a very stunning piece 

of intelligence and asking me had I seen it, regarding the Cole. 

And I had not. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: In the "stunning piece of intelligence" --

MR. ARMITAGE: The implication to me was that this was sort of 

a smoking gun, but I had not seen it. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: That indicated that, in fact, while 

reasonable people may have had some doubt prior to this piece of 

intelligence being presented, that following the presentation of 

this piece of intelligence there was little doubt or no 

reasonable doubt --
181

MR. ARMITAGE: They did not show me the intelligence and I 

haven't seen it, so I don't know what they were talking about. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Well, let's just then focus on your state of 

mind --

MR. KEAN: Last question --

MR. BEN-VENISTE: -- as of the transition. Was the FBI telling 

you, was the CIA telling you, the new Administration, that al 

Qaeda was responsible for the Cole? 

MR. ARMITAGE: I did not have conversations with the FBI and 

had conversations with the CIA only after I got in. My 

conversations during the transition -- my transition into office 

-- were primarily with the counterterrorism staff. Secretary 

Powell had made it very clear to me that he felt this was a big 

problem and he wanted me to spend my time with the 

counterterrorism -- our counterterrorism people, learning what 

tools we had, what was available to us and how we could implement 

them. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Well, when did you learn for the first time 

that al Qaeda was responsible for the Cole? 

MR. ARMITAGE: I don't know the exact date. I think it's just 

like building coral -- came to the conclusion. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Some time after March. 

MR. ARMITAGE: Yes, that would be my recollection. 

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Mr. 

Secretary. 

MR. KEAN: Senator Gorton? 

MR. GORTON: Mr. Secretary, I want to go through a bit of our 

history with al Qaeda and our attempts to get at bin Ladin, and 

make a few statements and see whether or not you agree with them, 

disagree with them or want to supplement them. 

I think we've pretty much found -- it's in our staff reports 

-- that the United States didn't recognize, begin to recognize, 

the seriousness of bin Ladin as more than a financier until 

essentially after he had left Sudan and had found refuge in 

Afghanistan. 
182

Secondly, that very shortly after he got to Afghanistan, the 

Taliban seized control of a large part of the country. 

Third, that while there were many diplomatic efforts in the 

Clinton administration, and perhaps -- and even some -- even one 

-- at least one last one in the Bush administration, through 

diplomacy to get the Taliban to give up bin Ladin, in retrospect, 

in this 20-20 hindsight, that was going to be absolutely 

impossible. As it turned out, the Taliban was willing to be 

destroyed before it would give up bin Ladin. But it would have 

been, for all practical purposes, impossible for anyone to have 

made -- come to that conclusion any earlier than it actually 

happened. 

Fourth, that effective military action, either against al 

Qaeda or against the Taliban itself, required a large American 

presence that was impossible without the aid and assistance of 

Pakistan or Iran, which we weren't going to get, or Uzbekistan, 

because they're the only significant countries that border on it. 

And fifth, that while some of the policies that were at least 

inchoate in the Bush administration were to change our policies 

toward Pakistan, it was actually only 9/11 that, in effect, gave 

us the ability to say you're with us or against us, and to 

require a really quick decision on the part of Pakistan to be on 

our side in what was now evidently a war as far as everyone in 

the world was concerned, and that you would have had a very 

difficult time in getting Pakistan to that point in the absence 

of a 9/11. 

Is that an accurate statement of our history, in your view as 

--

MR. ARMITAGE: I think it is an accurate statement. If I can -

- I don't want to advise (sic) and extend your remarks --

(chuckles) --

MR. GORTON: I think you should. 

MR. ARMITAGE: -- or whatever you used to say. 

MR. GORTON: I want you to. 

MR. ARMITAGE: But on the question of Pakistan, we did give 

them a black and white choice, I mean no question about it, and 

gave them one day to think about it. But I don't think they could 

have even come to that decision if there hadn't had been some 
183

preparatory diplomatic work by the President of the United 

States, who had communicated at least twice with President

Musharraf, and the secretary of State who was also developing a 

relationship with him and his foreign minister at the time, 

Foreign Minister Sattar, as well as by others in our department 

who were traveling back and forth. 

So the ability to say yes by Pakistan, I think, was to some 

degree -- and you can put whatever percentage on it you want -- a 

function of the diplomacy and the credibility that the President

and his Administration had shown to the Pakistanis that we would 

stick with them this time. One of their major gripes was that we 

used them and pitched them as soon as the Soviet war was over, 

and they don't want to be a Dixie cup. And so I think that to a 

certain extent that seven or eight months of diplomacy that went 

into Pakistan made it easier for them to say yes without 

conditions. 

MR. GORTON: And perhaps one other commentary. There was a 

very serious attempt -- Dick Clarke expressed his frustration 

sometimes when there was no action -- to find and eliminate Osama 

bin Ladin, more than al Qaeda as a whole, for an extended period 

of time. And in retrospect, I take it that's been a lot more 

difficult task. We haven't been able to find bin Ladin at this 

point after two-years-plus in Afghanistan on the ground, and so I 

suppose it's probably accurate to say that the chances of finding 

him with a cruise missile or with any of the less invasive ways 

than we actually engaged in was going to be extraordinarily 

difficult, if not impossible? 

MR. ARMITAGE: Yes, sir. 

MR. GORTON: Thank you. 

MR. ARMITAGE: I agree with that. 

MR. KEAN: Commissioner Gorelick. 

MR. GORTON: Thank you. 

MS. GORELICK: Mr. Secretary, I have just a few additional 

questions. You indicated that in the NSPD 9 that was the subject 

of the September 4th meeting, that there was a strong mention of 

the Cole in it. I think that's what you said; I don't mean to put 

words in your mouth if that's not what you said. But in any 

event, there was no response to the Cole in it. 
184

MR. ARMITAGE: No. The response came after the 9/11, and it 

was wrapped in our activities in NSPD 9 after 9/11, which the 

President finally signed, wrapped in. So I might have misspoken 

on this. 

MS. GORELICK: Well, I think you were trying to say -- well, 

let's not have me talk about what you were trying to say. But as 

of September --

MR. ARMITAGE: (Laughs.) I need the help. 

MS. GORELICK: (Laughs.) You need help? We all need help. It's 

very late in the day. 

As of September 4th, the steps contemplated -- warning the 

Taliban, pressuring the Taliban, et cetera -- were not -- there 

was no military or other forceful response to the Cole in that as 

of September 4th. Is that correct? 

MR. ARMITAGE: There were contingency plans, but they're not 

specific to the Cole. 

MS. GORELICK: Or -- and they were way down the line. They got 

-- they got --

MR. ARMITAGE: Truncated.

MS. GORELICK: -- the third stage got -- became the first 

stage after 9/11, but they were not the first stage as 

contemplated on September 4th. 

In addition to -- and I don't mean to seem fixated on this, 

but it just -- it kind of sticks in my craw. In addition to 

saying in the Washington Post and to Russert and other news shows 

that this -- the policy that was being developed in the spring, 

marshaled military might against al Qaeda and the Taliban, which 

it did not do, Dr. Rice also says that because 16 of the 19 

hijackers were here as of June 2001 nothing that could have been 

done that spring would have made a difference, the hijackers 

almost certainly, she says, would have carried out their plan. I 

would note that of the four -- that 18 of the 19, including three 

of the four pilots, came to this country after April. So it 

depends on what date you choose, and others came -- the three of 

the four pilots came in after June. So while it is true that I 

have said why didn't you meet -- why didn't you -- why didn't you 

act on these urgent matters while you were doing the policy, I'm 

not somebody who loves meetings for meetings. My question is, 
185

wasn't -- in retrospect, don't you think that there were actions 

you could have taken prior to 9/11 on an urgent basis to try to 

address the very high level of threat that you were seeing? 

MR. ARMITAGE: Well, given all that we know now, anyone who 

wouldn't say yes would be wrong. So obviously, the answer has to 

be yes. We've found out these characters were down in San Diego. 

If we'd have known about that, that would have done something. 

You heard Mr. Clarke earlier say he hoped he could have connected 

all the dots, had he known all those things. But we didn't. And 

so, that's where we are, and the chips will fall where they may. 

On the question of meetings, I don't think that the 

significance of the director's meeting with the President almost 

every day, personally directly, and the principals having a phone 

call every day in which they discussed not only intelligence, but 

any impending policy issues, that that is a new way of doing 

business. Now, you'll say, oh, the telephone calls, everyone 

makes calls. Not in a consistent way with the purpose of talking 

about what went on, or what's on that day, or the intelligence 

they've all just read because they had the CIA briefers in. 

So I don't want to -- I'm not going to quarrel with you --

(chuckles) -- on the question of meetings at all, but meetings 

alone don't accomplish much. There were a lot of things that went 

on in this Administration in the beginning that had been --

weren't the fault of the Clinton administration. They weren't the 

fault of any specific administration. But a lot had atrophied and 

a lot of old- think was still around. It had been around from 

successive generations -- successive administrations, and all of 

that had to be cleared out. 

MR. LEHMAN: Just a correction for the record. I believe that 

all of the pilots were in the country by the 1st of January and 

all of the muscle by June. 

MS. GORELICK: No, they went in -- three of them went out and 

came back in in the spring. 

MR. KEAN: All right, with that, we'll --

MS. GORELICK: They came back -- I mean, we have that -- we 

have that -- we --

MR. LEHMAN: They had arrived. Some went in and out, but they 

were --
186

MS. GORELICK: They came back again was the point I was --

MR. LEHMAN: They were coming in and out. 

MS. GORELICK: -- was trying to -- what I was trying to make, 

and the record is what it is. 

Again, I very much appreciate your testimony. You are not 

Condi Rice, but you have been very helpful to us nevertheless. 

Thank you. 

MR. KEAN: Mr. Secretary, thank you very much. We hope we can 

ask you perhaps some more questions for the record as time goes 

on before we finish. I thank you and all those who have testified 

before us today and the public who's taken the trouble to attend. 

This now concludes our hearing. We will hold our next hearing 

in Washington, D.C. April 13th and 14th, when the Commission will 

focus on law enforcement and the issue of intelligence. (Sounds 

gavel.) Adjourned. 

END.

PRESS CONFERENCE FOLLOWING HEARINGS DIRKSEN SENATE OFFICE BUILDING, 

WASHINGTON, D.C.

5:15 P.M. EST, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 24, 2004 

AL FELZENBERG (deputy for communications): A couple of ground 

rules before we start. I'm Al Felzenberg. I'm the deputy for 

communications for at the 9/11 Commission. 

Governor Kean and Congressman Hamilton will make a brief 

opening statement, and then when they finish, what I'd like to do 

is when I call on you, would you please give your name and your 

affiliation. And try to talk loudly because you don't have mikes. 

These acoustics are better than we had last time, but they're not 

good. 

So with that, I'll turn it over to Governor Kean and 

Congressman Hamilton. I thank you all for staying with us for two 

days. 

MR. KEAN: Yeah, thank you. It's been a long two days. 

We want to begin our remarks with these three observations, 

and then we'll make some comments about what we've learned in the 

just concluded hearings. 
187

First, we'd both like to commend our fellow commissioners for 

their questions, for their strong participation in the hearings. 

We've had a civil discussion on some grave questions and some of 

the most difficult questions that a government can possibly face. 

Second, we will observe that there really aren't as many 

disagreements as we might have expected on the facts. There is 

substantial agreement among participants about what did occur and 

did not occur with respect to the key elements of policy on 9/11. 

Third, we would observe that we and our fellow commissioners 

have experienced considerable frustration these past two days. We 

keep wrestling with the question: What could have been done and 

what should have been done at some stage or other over the past 

eight years to prevent 9/11? 

And this leads to a discussion of what we have learned in 

these hearings. We've learned of systematic failure. There was 

poor communication between law enforcement and intelligence, and 

there was poor communication within the FBI. These points were 

made to us by National Security Adviser Berger, the director of 

Central Intelligence, and Richard Clarke. DCI Tenet told us, "We 

raced from threat to threat to threat. 

There was not a system in place to close the seams. We did 

not develop a systematic approach." 

We learned of the DCI's perspective and the special 

authorities the President provided him. He stressed the 

importance of foreign intelligence collection. He stressed that 

better intelligence led to the development of better 

capabilities, and that better capabilities preceded asking for 

new authorities. National Security Advisor Berger told us he 

would have recommended favorably that the President approve any 

request for additional authorities. 

MR. HAMILTON: Thank you, Chairman. 

We learned that policymakers were reluctant to use force. 

They wanted strong evidence and clear judgments about 

responsibility before recommending the use of force in response 

to attacks on American interests. 

We learned that the military briefed policymakers on military 

options and the risks of military operations. 
188

We learned that senior officials, both civilian and military, 

were prepared to proceed with the use of force when the 

intelligence was good enough, when they thought the intelligence 

was actionable. 

We learned that the departments of State and Defense in two 

administrations took many actions to address terrorism. The list 

of actions is long and detailed. We are also left with the 

impression that the national security priorities of both 

administrations were to a large extent focused elsewhere. 

We do not want overstate the criticism. As Secretary Albright 

reminds us, it is hard to remember how the world looked before 

9/11, because it changed so much because of 9/11. 

Every administration faces terrible choices about how it 

allocates its limited time and resources. Every decision is 

revisited in the light of what happened afterword. We heard 

strong arguments about why more could not have been done. An 

invasion of Afghanistan was inconceivable; cruise missile strikes 

were too hard. There was one thing we did not hear: no one 

offered a pre-9/11 strategy to win. 

We learned that policies to persuade the Taliban to give up 

bin Ladin failed. We, as a nation, learned too late that Mullah 

Omar would rather surrender his country than surrender bin Ladin. 

We learned that the United States had many important 

priorities in its priorities toward Pakistan. The clarity of a 

single policy choice for Pakistan -- you're with us or against us 

in the war against terrorism -- did not emerge until after 9/11. 

We learned that Saudi Arabia was an important player in 

diplomatic efforts to force the Taliban to surrender bin Ladin, 

but its cooperation on intelligence-sharing and tracking finances 

before 9/11 fell short. 

We learned that senior officials in both administrations do 

not believe Congress or the American public would have supported 

large- scale military operations in Afghanistan before 9/11. 

We thank each of our witnesses, past and present officials, 

for their testimony yesterday and today. They have advanced our 

understanding of the choices policymakers faced and the choices 

they made. 
189

Thank you, and the governor and I are prepared to respond to 

questions. 

MR. FELZENBERG: Okay. When I call on you, will you please 

give your name and affiliation and try to speak up? The gentleman 

up here. Thank you. 

Q I'm Lance Gay with Scripps-Howard Newspapers. Within the 

next year or so, Congress is going to plan to take up the issue 

of reauthorizing the PATRIOT Act, which includes the right of the 

CIA to get material out of grand jury indictments. Could you ask 

both of you, in light of what you've discovered from this 

experience, do you think that that provision has merits or 

doesn't have merits? And your commission doesn't get into the 

other civil rights issues, the privacy issues other people are 

raising about this, but if you can just comment on what Congress 

should do with that --

MR. HAMILTON: I don't pretend to be expert on the PATRIOT

Act. I think all of us are concerned about taking steps that 

might be harmful to civil liberties, and we certainly will be 

reviewing carefully the PATRIOT Act. 

I do think there is one element of the PATRIOT Act that we 

find beneficial to policy, and that is that part of it which 

reduces the stovepiping, the fact that you don't -- did not have 

prior to 9/11 the connecting of the dots, the flow of information 

among agencies, and even within agencies. I am not enough of an 

expert in the PATRIOT Act to be able to point you to the 

provision that deals with that, but we had several witnesses 

comment that the PATRIOT Act was responsible for breaking down 

those barriers. 

MR. KEAN: Yeah, we also had -- and I'm not an expert on the 

act, either, and obviously it'll be part of our recommendations 

when the whole commission discusses it, but we did have witness 

after witness tell us that the PATRIOT Act has been very, very 

helpful, and if the PATRIOT Act, or portions of it, had been in 

place before 9/11, that would have been very helpful. So what 

we've got to do is look at the whole act and recognize the fact 

that there may be pieces of it that need revision at this point, 

and -- but that hopefully nobody will throw out the baby with the 

bath water. 

MR. FELZENBERG: Ms. Zakaria? Yeah. 

Q After all that you've heard --
190

MR. FELZENBERG: Could you tell them your affiliation, please? 

Q Oh, sorry. Toby Zakaria with Reuters. After all that you've 

heard in these last two days, do you believe that 9/11 could have 

been prevented? 

MR. KEAN: Well, I've gotten in trouble for this before. 

(Laughs, laughter.) It'll be, obviously, some of the conclusions 

of our report; I've always said yes. But I believed that when we 

started. So it's not -- to me it's not a new belief, and it's not 

blaming anybody. 

It's just a whole series of events that I think, had they 

gone differently in one way or another, it might not have 

occurred. 

MR. FELZENBERG: David. 

Q David Corn from The Nation. At the end of today's hearings, 

some of the family members were quite upset. They walked out when 

Armitage was speaking, but they also called for the resignation 

of the executive director, Philip Zelikow, over there, citing his 

involvement in the transition briefings and his relationships --

working relationship with Condoleezza Rice and noting that a lot 

of the issues that you have or some of the conflict that you have 

involved the Presidential Daily Briefs, Condoleezza Rice's 

appearances here, what happened in that transition period. What 

do you say to the family members who now believe that the 

Commission is not being run by someone who they have full faith 

and confidence in? 

MR. KEAN: Simply that we don't agree with them. I have full 

confidence in our executive director. If you had seen the 

candidates who appeared before us for the position, he was by far 

the most qualified. I don't have any question about his 

integrity. He's taken the same recusals as members of the 

Commission and other members of the staff. There is nothing 

that's come out in the last month or so that -- or more -- that 

we didn't know already as commissioners, and so nothing has come 

out that has changed our opinion. He will not participate in 

those areas of the work that were part of the transition. 

Q Do you see any appearance issue when -- you know, without 

challenging his qualifications or even his integrity, that people 

-- these are very contentious issues, and the fellow in charge of 

the Commission is in some ways a participant and in some ways 

close to key participants. 
191

MR. HAMILTON: I must say I don't know that I have heard from 

the families specifically what they mean by conflict of interest 

and why there is a conflict of interest beyond the fact that he 

was a part of the transition team. 

Now, as you'll recall, in the Bush administration the 

transition was a very abbreviated period of time because of the 

Florida controversy, so Mr. Zelikow worked on that transition 

team for a very short period. We apply the same rules to him as 

we apply to the Commissioners, and that is, they recuse 

themselves from those matters in which they were directly 

involved, and he has done that. 

I would reinforce what the chairman has said. I've worked now 

with Phil Zelikow for about a year and three or four months. I'm 

not of the same political party that he is. I have found him 

extremely competent, very knowledgeable. I have never once found 

him, I think, in any way pulling his punches with regard to this 

investigation. Indeed, my experience with him has been the 

opposite, that he has been very aggressive in trying to fulfill 

the mandate of the Commission. 

So I share the chairman's confidence in him. We've got a very 

talented staff. It's a very diverse staff. It is not an easy 

staff to lead, for a variety of reasons, and I think he's done a 

very, very good job. 

MR. FELZENBERG: The lady up here, please. 

Q Anne Hoy with Newsday. The Democrats on the Commission seem 

to stress one line of questioning and the Republicans another. Is 

the Commission too divided along partisan lines, and would that 

in any way affect the way you're going to write the report? 

MR. KEAN: No, I don't believe so. Every now and then there's 

a question or two from somebody that may cross the line a bit and 

be seen as partisan. 

But if you take the fact that, you know, we're in an election 

year in this town, which is -- this town is more divided than 

I've ever seen it; it's an awful atmosphere. I'm getting on a 

train shortly, and I'll be very happy. (Laughter.) But in that 

atmosphere -- we've now been working a year; we've had some very 

contentious issues -- there's never been a vote on the Commission

where five Republicans have opposed five Democrats. We've had 

differences, but they've been across party line, not on party 

lines. And I believe, you know, these are 10 Americans that want 
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to a job together, and I know all of us have talked, and we're 

going to do our very best to get a unanimous report. I mean, 

whether we'll be able to achieve that, I don't know, but I 

suspect if we're not able to achieve it, it may not be on 

partisan ground. It may be because some of us just have very 

strong feelings on how things are going to be worded or issues 

are going to be handled. 

But I believe that -- as I say, well, it's very hard, and 

occasionally a bit of partisanship breaks out, but I think that 

overall, this is a commission that is -- this is a commission 

who's struggling to be nonpartisan or bipartisan at a very 

difficult time in this country's history. 

MR. HAMILTON: I might just say that I think your question and 

your observation is a correct one. We certainly did have in the 

last two days some questions and comments that had more of a 

partisan tinge to them than they -- we've had in the past. But 

just keep in mind when this hearing occurred. I mean -- (laughs) 

-- it occurred right at the point of Dick Clarke's book coming 

out. It occurred right after a weekend in which the partisan guns 

were firing at full blaze here. And this commission does not 

operate in a sterile vacuum. We're part of the process that goes 

on here in Washington. 

So I can understand the question, but I fully agree with what 

the chairman has said. And I believe in the hearings that'll 

follow, you'll see a different tone and fewer partisan shots. 

MR. KEAN: I might say, by the way, working with the Vice 

Chair is one of the real joys of this job, and I think since 

we've -- since we've been working together, I think we've had 

only one disagreement where we voted different ways, and at that 

point, he voted with the Republicans and I voted with the 

Democrats. 

(Laughs.) 

MR. FELZENBERG: Larry? 

MR. HAMILTON: And only one instance when the chairman was 

wrong. (Laughter.) 

MR. FELZENBERG: Larry, please. 

Q Larry Arnold, Bloomberg News. Do you believe that the 

document that Mr. Clarke helped put together at the end of the 
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Clinton administration and was handed over to members of the Bush 

administration in that first week was a plan? The word clearly 

has become important as to whether a plan was handed over from 

one administration to the other. 

MR. KEAN: I don't know. Again, how do you use the word 

"plan"? Obviously they had some strategies; whether it was a 

complete plan, I don't know. But I think everybody has their own 

definitions of that. 

MR. HAMILTON: I must say, I don't have a precise recollection 

of what's in that document. I think I have seen it. But it does 

seem to me to be a very semantic kind of a problem, but I don't 

think I can comment directly on your question. 

MR. FELZENBERG: The gentleman in the yellow tie back there. 

Q David Goldin from the New York-1. Do you find that Mr. 

Clarke's book coming out this week may have been a distraction? 

And would the Commission and those of us watching the Commission

and people at home reading about it and watching about it had 

been better off if this book had come out, say, even next week? 

(Laughter.) 

MR. KEAN: Well, he moved the publication date on us, to the 

same date as the hearing. We couldn't do anything about that. But 

he -- and so here we were, and we handled it as best we could. 

Mr. Clarke's been very helpful to us over time. He gave us 15 

hours of testimony in private. He's a pivotal figure. He said 

today, I guess, his change in tone from his private testimony to 

his public testimony was because of his very strong opposition to 

the war in Iraq, I guess -- the position on Iraq and what he felt 

that did to the war on terrorism. So that may have changed his 

position a bit. 

But it's not anything we can do anything about, that timing 

of that book. 

Q So was it appropriate for him to move the publication date? 

MR. KEAN: I think his publisher must have thought it was very 

appropriate -- (laughter) -- and it's been very successful. 

(Laughs.) As somebody said in the Commission, would it were my 

book! (Laughs.) 

MR. FELZENBERG: The gentleman in the back. Mr. Morris. In the 

back, yeah. 
194

Q Vince Morris with the New York Post. There's a fair amount 

of testimony that suggests that Director Tenet was very cautious 

the last few years, maybe cautious to a fault. Do you agree with 

that? 

MR. KEAN: I believe that -- and I accept what Director Tenet 

said, that -- while he says the CIA did not get gun-shy, I think 

-- and this is my personal opinion, it's not a commission 

opinion, but that the events of the '80s, early '90s, where the 

Congress, as he said -- or somebody else, I guess Armitage said, 

where really director after director, and operative after 

operative was called up and sort of reamed out by the United 

States Congress, or in some cases brought up on charges, really 

did have a dampening effect not only on what they felt they could 

do, but also on recruitment. I mean, he said it would take him --

what did he say, six -- five, six, seven years to rebuild the CIA 

from that period. 

The CIA was not a very good thing to go into for a while. 

When I was in college, I think the guy who recruited for the CIA 

was the dean of the college. It was a very prestigious 

organization to go into. Some years later, the CIA was kicked off 

campus and most good colleges didn't even allow them to recruit 

on campus because of the kind of reputation they got after some 

of those hearings. 

And so, yes, I think they were a little gun-shy -- my own 

opinion. 

But secondly, there was some reason. And thirdly, it's a 

national tragedy that we lost a tremendous -- a generation of 

very good people who might have been into the -- gone into the 

CIA, might have had the language skills, might have had the 

expertise, and might have really been out there helping the 

country very dramatically at this point. 

MR. HAMILTON: One of the things that impressed me in the twoday hearings was the fact that the policymakers, many of whom 

obviously have different parties and different views, the policy 

makers almost unanimously were very cautious in their -- in their 

use of force, in their approval of the use of force. While those 

of us who do not have the official responsibility of sending 

young men and women into battle were a little more enthusiastic 

about the use of force, I don't know that that's a bad thing. 

It's an awesome decision. 
195

I've had to vote any number of times on sending young men and 

women into battle. And you may think it's a casual thing, but 

believe you me, it's not, because you know your vote, even though 

it may be a large margin or a small margin, is going to mean the 

end of somebody's life. So I think there's an awesome sense of 

responsibility that comes upon a policymaker when they make this 

decision. And it's very easy for those of us to look back and 

say, oh, my gosh, we should have used force there; it's now clear 

that if we'd have knocked out bin Ladin, we'd have saved 

ourselves a lot of trouble. 

And I think Madeleine Albright said to -- said to someone, I 

guess you were right. I think she said that to Senator Kerrey. 

It's easy in retrospect to do this. 

But believe me, I want public -- personally -- I'm expressing 

a personal opinion here -- I want public officials who look at 

this question of the use of force with very great care and who 

demand, as Director Tenet did, a second opinion or a second 

source, and who weigh carefully the consequences of the use of 

force. We cannot predict the consequences of force. And some good 

things happen as a result of it, but almost invariably some bad 

things happen as well. 

So this came through to me as one of the important comments 

or the important themes, if you would, of the hearings. 

MR. FELZENBERG: Shawn Waterman. Why don't we go over here. 

Q Yes, Shawn Waterman from UPI. Just picking up on that 

point, sir, and without wishing to appear enthusiastic about the 

use of force, it seems from staff statements and the testimony 

over the last couple of days that there was at least one occasion 

on which a consideration other than actionable intelligence --

viz, the presence of members of the royal family of the United 

Arab Emirates -- might have been -- you know, might have impinged 

on the decision to use force. I'd like to hear your opinions 

about that. 

And secondly, Congressman Hamilton, you said invasion was out 

of the question. You talked about cruise missile strikes. Missing 

from the list was the use of special forces. And I wondered 

whether you might have any initial reflections on the direction 

policy-wise you might be thinking in now that it's clear the 

Custer plan was there, that there was -- you know, that there may 

have been missed opportunities in that regard as well. 
196

MR. HAMILTON: I'm not sure I can comment on the first one, 

because I don't feel like I know that much about the 

circumstances of it. 

With regard to the second point, I think that you always want 

to have the capability of special forces available. It does give 

the policymaker an additional tool. And I think we've been moving 

in that direction now for some time, and I think it's been 

accelerated under Secretary Rumsfeld. Now, special forces can 

mean an awful lot of different things, but you want the 

capability that special forces can give. But even if you think of 

special forces as being 10 or 20 or 50 or several hundred people, 

you're still putting them into risks and you're still talking 

about killing people and you're still talking about the 

possibility of them being killed, and so it's a very serious 

matter. 

MR. KEAN: Yeah. This is the choice, by the way, which 

fascinated me that Director Tenet was talking about we had. We 

were trying to use surrogates. I guess we didn't want to use 

special forces, so we were trying to get these -- some of these 

Afghan groups, who we knew because they had worked with the CIA I 

guess in the jihad against the Soviets, and use them as 

surrogates. And some of them went to change sides and some of 

them were taking money, and I guess we weren't quite sure who was 

who, and it's very, very difficult. So in some cases, you know, 

you make a decision: special force or no special forces, but when 

you try to use surrogates it's not always so successful. 

MR. FELZENBERG: The gentleman in the back next to Mr. Kerrey 

up here. Okay. 

Q Yes, hi. I'm Rich Dubrath from NBC News. After listening to 

the testimony for the past two days, are you accepting of Dr. 

Rice's reluctance to testify publicly? 

MR. KEAN: Well, there's one thing -- the first thing about 

Dr. Rice is that she will answer all our questions, so there is 

not a question that we have today that she will not answer or a 

question we've had in the past that she won't answer. 

Q Is that under oath? 

MR. KEAN: The problem is that she has not done it in public. 

We would like her to do it in public, and we'd like her to do 

it in public, frankly, because she's so good. I mean, in my own 
197

personal opinion, she is one of the most able people that's 

currently serving in the government, and she was integral to the 

kind of story which we're investigating. So when we have a whole 

bunch of people testifying, and she doesn't come, there's a gap 

there. And what we heard in private, we would like to have the 

public hear also, not because there's anything to hide, but 

because there's stuff to learn. 

And I think this Administration shot itself it in the foot by 

not letting her testify in public. I think she would have been a 

real asset, not only to the hearing, but an asset to this 

Administration, had she testified today. 

MR. FELZENBERG: The gentleman over here. The red tie. Sorry. 

Q Dick Stevenson with The New York Times. Mr. Clarke 

testified today that the Bush administration pre-9/11 brought 

less urgency to the job of confronting terrorism than had the 

Clinton administration. Does that, do you think, accurately 

capture your impression of what they did in those seven or eight 

months? And what do you make of what was or wasn't in NSPD 9 as 

of September 10th? And do you think that that adequately would 

have addressed the problem that we saw erupt on 9/11? 

MR. KEAN: Well, that second part first -- I think it would 

have been -- it was too late, obviously, at that point. I mean, 

had it been done a couple years earlier, it might have. 

But the first part -- we're going to have to sort that out as 

a commission. 

I mean, we have very different degrees of testimony, from 

what we heard today from Mr. Clarke, to people who said, no, 

there was a heightened sense of interest in this Administration. 

And as a matter of fact, Mr. Tenet said "I was meeting every day 

with the President, which I wasn't in the last administration, 

giving him this stuff. And he was engaged, and he was actively 

working on it." And so, we've got a lot of -- we've got some 

conflicts here. And as a commission, we've just got to go over 

the various testimony, over all the various conflicts, and come 

out where we come out. 

Q Can you give us a personal view on that at this point? 

MR. KEAN: I do not -- I get in great trouble with fellow 

commissioners when I express too many personal views. So I'd 
198

rather wait till we have a full discussion on the Commission, and 

--

MR. FELZENBERG: This gentleman in the first row here. 

MR. HAMILTON: I -- I might just say --

Q Sorry. 

MR. HAMILTON: I -- I'm sorry, go ahead. 

Q No, go ahead, sir. 

MR. HAMILTON: Well, on the question of where do you rank the 

terrorism in the list of national security threats, we had a lot 

of testimony from both administrations about how high they ranked 

it. And that's -- that's a question I have on my mind, frankly, 

and I don't pretend to have a conclusion at this point. And I 

think it's one of the key questions that the Commission will have 

to address. 

I think it was Dick Clarke who said that the Bush 

administration looked at the counterterrorism policy as important 

but not urgent, if I recall his language. 

And I remember thinking to myself, that's something we've 

really got to come to a conclusion on. This is the toughest 

problem of government, ranking of priorities. And it is one that 

it's very, very hard to pin a policymaker down on because it is 

so tough. And yet it's so critically important that they do it 

because you don't have resources to do everything and you don't 

have the time to do everything. 

So that's a roundabout way of saying that that question is 

still very active in my mind. 

MR. FELZENBERG: Why don't we take two more questions. One up 

here, the gentleman. 

Q Brad Wright from CNN. Of the systemic failures that -- or 

of the poor systems that Director Tenet talked about in his 

testimony today, how many do you think are still in place, if the 

same thing were to happen over again? 

MR. KEAN: Oh, that's a tough question and one I'm not sure 

I'm ready to answer. We're looking at those things and we're 

getting testimony from a number of areas on the various systems 
199

that were in place on 9/11 and the changes that have been made, 

both the CIA, FBI, a number of other agencies. But I'm not sure 

I'm ready to make a conclusion at this point. 

MR. HAMILTON: I don't have any doubt that the Administration

officials are trying very hard to reduce the so-called systemic 

failures or the connecting-of-the-dots problem. And I basically 

found myself nodding in agreement as Dr. Tenet talked about the 

systemic failures. Now, the difficulty with this is it is such a 

huge task. The government receives at any given point in time 

literally hundreds of thousands if not millions of bytes of data. 

And the problem is to get the right information to the right 

person at the right time. And a lot of that data comes to you in 

languages other than English. 

So the director's correct I think. We have to see what can be 

done to improve the management, if you would, of an enormous 

amount of data, I mean, unbelievable amounts of data. You just 

cannot imagine unless you've seen it how much data we can produce 

in a matter of seconds in this -- with this technological 

capability that we have. And 99.999 percent of it is totally 

irrelevant and has nothing to do with what you're interested in. 

But whatever the percentage is left there -- (laughs) -- becomes 

absolutely crucial to you when it is connected -- maybe not by 

itself, but when it is connected to other bits of data. And so 

you've got to extract that, you've got to put it together, and 

you've got then to get it to the right person. It doesn't do you 

a bit of good if the President of the United States knows the 

information, and the commander in the field at the barracks, the 

Marine barracks in Lebanon did not have the information. I'm not 

suggesting that was the case there, but you see the illustration. 

If the commander doesn't have the information, it doesn't help 

you. 

MR. FELZENBERG: Jason, did you have one back there? 

Q I was just wondering -- Jason Ryan with ABC News. When do 

you intend to meet with President Bush and Vice President Cheney, 

and also with former presidents (sic) Clinton and Gore? 

MR. KEAN: We haven't got the Bush-Cheney meetings on the 

schedule as yet. We've -- we're still hoping that he'll -- he 

will meet with the whole commission. The whole commission very 

much wants to meet with him. But at this point, it's the chairman 

and the vice chairman and a member of the staff. But we're still 

pushing on making our request. 
200

MR. FELZENBERG: Alright. Thank you very much, gentlemen, 

ladies. 

END.