Based on the information present in the given passage, you need to write a correct answer to the given question. A correct answer is one that correctly and completely answers the question. Do not write answers that address the question partially or incorrectly. The correct answer must be contained in the given paragraph.

Paragraph- Sent 1: The Bush administration did not develop new diplomatic initiatives on al Qaeda with the Saudi government before 9/11.
Sent 2: Vice President Cheney called Crown Prince Abdullah on July 5, 2001, to seek Saudi help in preventing threatened attacks on American facilities in the Kingdom.
Sent 3: Secretary of State Powell met with the crown prince twice before 9/11.
Sent 4: They discussed topics like Iraq, not al Qaeda.U.S.-Saudi relations in the summer of 2001 were marked by sometimes heated disagreements about ongoing Israeli- Palestinian violence, not about Bin Laden.
Sent 5: The confirmation of the Pentagon's new leadership was a lengthy process.
Sent 6: Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz was confirmed in March 2001 and Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith in July.
Sent 7: Though the new officials were briefed about terrorism and some of the earlier planning, including that for Operation Infinite Resolve, they were focused, as Secretary Rumsfeld told us, on creating a twenty-first-century military.
Sent 8: At the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Shelton did not recall much interest by the new administration in military options against al Qaeda in Afghanistan.
Sent 9: He could not recall any specific guidance on the topic from the secretary.
Sent 10: Brian Sheridan-the outgoing assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict (SOLIC), the key counterterrorism policy office in the Pentagon-never briefed Rumsfeld.
Sent 11: He departed on January 20; he had not been replaced by 9/11.
Sent 12: Rumsfeld noted to us his own interest in terrorism, which came up often in his regular meetings with Tenet.
Sent 13: He thought that the Defense Department, before 9/11, was not organized adequately or prepared to deal with new threats like terrorism.
Sent 14: But his time was consumed with getting new officials in place and working on the foundation documents of a new defense policy, the quadrennial defense review, the defense planning guidance, and the existing contingency plans.
Sent 15: He did not recall any particular counterterrorism issue that engaged his attention before 9/11, other than the development of the Predator unmanned aircraft system.
Sent 16: The commander of Central Command, General Franks, told us that he did not regard the existing plans as serious.
Sent 17: To him a real military plan to address al Qaeda would need to go all the way, following through the details of a full campaign (including the political-military issues of where operations would be based) and securing the rights to fly over neighboring countries.
Sent 18: The draft presidential directive circulated in June 2001 began its discussion of the military by reiterating the Defense Department's lead role in protecting its forces abroad.
Question: What did the Secretary of State and the Crowned Prince talk about before 9/11?.
Iraq.

Paragraph- Sent 1: Madame White Snake: East Asian Femme Fatale of Old The Chinese legend of Madame White Snake, the snake demon that takes human form and becomes the wife of a man, has exerted a lasting influence over East Asian folktales and fiction for centuries.
Sent 2: Two quintessential novellas, "The Lust of the White Serpant" from Ugetsu Monogatari by the Japanese author Ueda Akinari and "Eternal Prisoner under Thunder Peak Pagoda" a traditional Chinese story, are both relatively complex and demonstrate not only the evolution of the White Snake figure to become a more believable human, but also what aspects may have given her enduring appeal.
Sent 3: While both these stories are ostensibly morality tales about the dangerous beauty of this femme fatale, the true source of pleasure from these narratives is the femme fatale's transgressive behavior, not her eventual punishment for it.
Sent 4: Early tales of Madame White Snake appeared in China as early as the Song Dynasty, and initially her portrayal was fairly direct, as a villainous demon who drains the life force out of her human husband.
Sent 5: But over time, characterizations of her became more complex, and the persona of Madame White Snake became more sympathetic, and perhaps even a model of the ideal Confucian wife, particularly in "Pagoda".
Sent 6: Whalen Lai notes, "She was a loving wife, a caring mother, rescuer of her family from the first flood, and, at that point, a general benefactor of man.
Sent 7: She took on the virtues of a traditional Chinese female, particularly forbearance".
Sent 8: But if she were really an ideal wife, why could she not live happily with her human mate?
Sent 9: Her dangerous sexuality is the key.
Sent 10: Femme fatale might seem an unusual term to apply to a character from pre-modern Chinese and Japanese literature who may exemplify the virtues of an ideal Confucian wife, since it is primarily associated with film characters, particularly those of the film noir genre.
Sent 11: But this term, which is relatively speaking, a neologism (The earliest uses were around the beginning of the 20th century.
Question: What kind of tales are "The Lust of the White Serpent" and the "Eternal Prisoner under Thunder Peak Pagoda?".
Demonstrate not only the evolution of the White Snake figure to become a more believable human, but also what aspects may have given her enduring appeal.

Paragraph- Sent 1: The inhabited history of the Las Vegas Valley stretches to 23,000 b.c.
Sent 2: , when much of the area was covered by a prehistoric lake.
Sent 3: During this period, the indigenous people lived in caves, hunting the mammals that gathered at the shoreline.
Sent 4: The landscape of the valley changed dramatically over the next 200 centuries.
Sent 5: The glaciers feeding the lake melted away and the lake evaporated.
Sent 6: Fossils tell an obscure story of man's slow and sporadic development.
Sent 7: Around 3000 b.c.
Sent 8: , native Archaic Indians began to develop a lasting hunting and gathering culture.
Sent 9: By this time, the valley was in much the same geographic state as it exists in today, with one exceptionthe presence of artesian springs that bubbled to the surface in several areas.
Sent 10: These springs fed a network of streams draining through the Las Vegas Wash to the Colorado River.
Sent 11: The areas surrounding the springs were desert oases: sprawling collections of grasses, trees, and wildlife.
Sent 12: Many springs lay in areas that would eventually become the center of the modern Las Vegas metropolis.
Sent 13: For about 4000 years, the Archaics thrived in a culture that included many signs of early civilization.
Sent 14: Signs of even more advancement appeared halfway through the first millennium a.d.
Sent 15: , when the Anasazi Indians inhabited the valley.
Sent 16: Far more progressive than the Archaics, the Anasazi utilized such formal agricultural techniques as irrigation to assist their harvest.
Sent 17: This permitted the Anasazi to achieve a benchmark of advanced societythe ability to live in permanent shelters year-round without need to follow wildlife.
Sent 18: Mysteriously, the Anasazi vanished from the valley around a.d.
Question: What permitted the Anasazi to achieve a benchmark of advanced society?.
Formal agricultural techniques.