The Agencies Confer When they learned a second plane had struck the World Trade Center, nearly everyone in the White House told us, they immediately knew it was not an accident. The Secret Service initiated a number of security enhancements around the White House complex. The officials who issued these orders did not know that there were additional hijacked aircraft, or that one such aircraft was en route to Washington. These measures were precautionary steps taken because of the strikes in New York. The FAA and White House Teleconferences. The FAA, the White House, and the Defense Department each initiated a multiagency teleconference before 9:30. Because none of these teleconferences-at least before 10:00- included the right officials from both the FAA and Defense Department, none succeeded in meaningfully coordinating the military and FAA response to the hijackings. At about 9:20, security personnel at FAA headquarters set up a hijacking teleconference with several agencies, including the Defense Department. The NMCC officer who participated told us that the call was monitored only periodically because the information was sporadic, it was of little value, and there were other important tasks. The FAA manager of the teleconference also remembered that the military participated only briefly before the Pentagon was hit. Both individuals agreed that the teleconference played no role in coordinating a response to the attacks of 9/11. Acting Deputy Administrator Belger was frustrated to learn later in the morning that the military had not been on the call. At the White House, the video teleconference was conducted from the Situation Room by Richard Clarke, a special assistant to the president long involved in counterterrorism. Logs indicate that it began at 9:25 and included the CIA; the FBI; the departments of State, Justice, and Defense; the FAA; and the White House shelter. The FAA and CIA joined at 9:40. The first topic addressed in the White House video teleconference-at about 9:40-was the physical security of the President, the White House, and federal agencies. Immediately thereafter it was reported that a plane had hit the Pentagon. We found no evidence that video teleconference participants had any prior information that American 77 had been hijacked and was heading directly toward Washington.

Question: "Did the CIA participate in discussion about the US President's safety?"

Answer: "No they were not concerned"

Response: no

While this process moved along, diplomacy continued its rounds. Direct pressure on the Taliban had proved unsuccessful. As one NSC staff note put it, "Under the Taliban, Afghanistan is not so much a state sponsor of terrorism as it is a state sponsored by terrorists." In early 2000, the United States began a high-level effort to persuade Pakistan to use its influence over the Taliban. In January 2000, Assistant Secretary of State Karl Inderfurth and the State Department's counterterrorism coordinator, Michael Sheehan, met with General Musharraf in Islamabad, dangling before him the possibility of a presidential visit in March as a reward for Pakistani cooperation. Such a visit was coveted by Musharraf, partly as a sign of his government's legitimacy. He told the two envoys that he would meet with Mullah Omar and press him on Bin Laden. They left, however, reporting to Washington that Pakistan was unlikely in fact to do anything," given what it sees as the benefits of Taliban control of Afghanistan." President Clinton was scheduled to travel to India. The State Department felt that he should not visit India without also visiting Pakistan. The Secret Service and the CIA, however, warned in the strongest terms that visiting Pakistan would risk the President's life. Counterterrorism officials also argued that Pakistan had not done enough to merit a presidential visit. But President Clinton insisted on including Pakistan in the itinerary for his trip to South Asia. His one-day stopover on March 25, 2000, was the first time a U.S. president had been there since 1969. At his meeting with Musharraf and others, President Clinton concentrated on tensions between Pakistan and India and the dangers of nuclear proliferation, but also discussed Bin Laden. President Clinton told us that when he pulled Musharraf aside for a brief, one-on-one meeting, he pleaded with the general for help regarding Bin Laden." I offered him the moon when I went to see him, in terms of better relations with the United States, if he'd help us get Bin Laden and deal with another issue or two." The U.S. effort continued.

Question: "Who was for President Clinton visiting Pakistan and who was against it?"

Answer: "Secret service was for"

Response: no

On to the Twentieth Century: The British extended their control over the peninsula by putting together the whole panoply of colonial administrationcivil service, public works, judiciary force, police force, post office, education, and land regulationwith teams of British administrators, teachers, engineers, and doctors to go with it. At the same time, the tin industry, dominated by Chinese using labor-intensive methods in the 19th century, passed increasingly into Western hands, who employed the modern technology of gravel pumps and mining dredges. Petroleum had been found in northern Borneo, at Miri, and in Brunei, and the Anglo-Dutch Shell company used Singapore as its regional depot for its oil supplies and exports. But the major breakthrough for the Malay economy was the triumph of rubber, when Singapore's new garden director, Henry Ridle ("Rubber Ridley" to his friends, "Mad Ridley" to all doubting Thomases) had developed new planting and tapping methods and painstakingly spread his faith in rubber around the peninsula. World demand increased with the growth of the motor-car and electrical industries, and sky-rocketed during World War I. By 1920, Malaya was producing 53 percent of the world's rubber, which had overtaken tin as its main source of income. The Malay ruling class again took a back seat. Together with effective control of the rubber and tin industries, the British now firmly held the reins of government. The sultans were left in charge of local and religious affairs, content with their prestige, prosperity, and security. The census of 1931 served as an alarm signal for the Malay national consciousness. Bolstered by a new influx of immigrants to meet the rubber and tin booms of the 1920s, non-Malays now slightly outnumbered the indigenous population. The Great Depression of 1929 stepped up ethnic competition in the shrinking job market, and nationalism developed to safeguard Malay interests against the Chinese and Indians rather than the British imperial authority. Though hampered by the peninsula's division into the States and the Straits Settlements, relatively conservative Muslim intellectuals and community leaders came together at the Pan-Malayan Malay Congress in Kuala Lumpur in 1939. In Singapore the following year, they were joined by representatives from Sarawak and Brunei. Teachers and journalists urged the revival of the common Malay-Indonesian consciousness, split by the Anglo-Dutch dismemberment of the region in the 19th century. This spirit became a factor in the gathering clouds of war.

Question: "Who was joined by representatives from Sarawak and Brunei in Singapore?"

Answer: "The sultans"

Response:
no