WARTIME
After the attacks had occurred, while crisis managers were still sorting out a number
of unnerving false alarms, Air Force One flew to Barksdale Air Force Base in
Louisiana. One of these alarms was of a reported threat against Air Force One
itself, a threat eventually run down to a misunderstood communication in the hectic
White House Situation Room that morning.
While the plan at the elementary school had been to return to Washington, by the time
Air Force One was airborne at 9:55 A.M. the Secret Service, the President's
advisers, and Vice President Cheney were strongly advising against it. President
Bush reluctantly acceded to this advice and, at about 10:10, Air Force One changed
course and began heading due west. The immediate objective was to find a safe
location-not too far away-where the President could land and speak to the American
people. The Secret Service was also interested in refueling the aircraft and paring
down the size of the traveling party. The President's military aide, an Air Force
officer, quickly researched the options and, sometime around 10:20, identified
Barksdale Air Force Base as an appropriate interim destination.
When Air Force One landed at Barksdale at about 11:45, personnel from the local
Secret Service office were still en route to the airfield. The motorcade consisted
of a military police lead vehicle and a van; the proposed briefing theater had no
phones or electrical outlets. Staff scrambled to prepare another room for the
President's remarks, while the lead Secret Service agent reviewed the security
situation with superiors in Washington. The President completed his statement, which
for security reasons was taped and not broadcast live, and the traveling party
returned to Air Force One. The next destination was discussed: once again the Secret
Service recommended against returning to Washington, and the Vice President agreed.
Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska was chosen because of its elaborate command and
control facilities, and because it could accommodate overnight lodging for 50
persons. The Secret Service wanted a place where the President could spend several
days, if necessary.
Air Force One arrived at Offutt at 2:50 P.M. At about 3:15, President Bush met with
his principal advisers through a secure video teleconference.
Rice said President Bush began the meeting with the words, "We're at war," and that Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet said
the agency was still assessing who was responsible, but the early signs all pointed
to al Qaeda.6That evening the Deputies Committee returned to the pending
presidential directive they had labored over during the summer.
The secretary of defense directed the nation's armed forces to Defense Condition 3,
an increased state of military readiness.
For the first time in history, all nonemergency civilian aircraft in the United
States were grounded, stranding tens of thousands of passengers across the country.
Contingency plans for the continuity of government and the evacuation of leaders had
been implemented. 9 The Pentagon had been struck; the White House or the Capitol had
narrowly escaped direct attack. Extraordinary security precautions were put in place
at the nation's borders and ports.
In the late afternoon, the President overruled his aides' continuing reluctance to
have him return to Washington and ordered Air Force One back to Andrews Air Force
Base. He was flown by helicopter back to the White House, passing over the
still-smoldering Pentagon. At 8:30 that evening, President Bush addressed the nation
from the White House. After emphasizing that the first priority was to help the
injured and protect against any further attacks, he said: "We will make no
distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor
them." He quoted Psalm 23-"though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death .
. ." No American, he said,"will ever forget this day."
Following his speech, President Bush met again with his National Security Council
(NSC), expanded to include Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta and Joseph
Allbaugh, the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Secretary of
State Colin Powell, who had returned from Peru after hearing of the attacks, joined
the discussion. They reviewed the day's events.
IMMEDIATE RESPONSES AT HOME
As the urgent domestic issues accumulated, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Joshua
Bolten chaired a temporary "domestic consequences" group.
The agenda in those first days is worth noting, partly as a checklist for future
crisis planners. It began with problems of how to help victims and stanch the
flowing losses to the American economy, such as
Organizing federal emergency assistance. One question was what kind of public
health advice to give about the air quality in Lower Manhattan in the vicinity
of the fallen buildings.
Compensating victims. They evaluated legislative options, eventually setting
up a federal compensation fund and defining the powers of a special master to
run it.
Determining federal assistance. On September 13, President Bush promised to
provide $20 billion for New York City, in addition to the $20 billion his budget
director had already guessed might be needed for the country as a whole.
Restoring civil aviation. On the morning of September 13, the national
airspace reopened for use by airports that met newly improvised security
standards.
Reopening the financial markets. After extraordinary emergency efforts
involving the White House, the Treasury Department, and the Securities and
Exchange Commission, aided by unprecedented cooperation among the usually
competitive firms of the financial industry, the markets reopened on Monday,
September 17.
Deciding when and how to return border and port security to more normal
operations.
Evaluating legislative proposals to bail out the airline industry and cap its
liability.
The very process of reviewing these issues underscored the absence of an effective
government organization dedicated to assessing vulnerabilities and handling problems
of protection and preparedness. Though a number of agencies had some part of the
task, none had security as its primary mission. By September 14, Vice President
Cheney had decided to recommend, at least as a first step, a new White House entity
to coordinate all the relevant agencies rather than tackle the challenge of
combining them in a new department. This new White House entity would be a homeland
security adviser and Homeland Security Council-paralleling the National Security
Council system. Vice President Cheney reviewed the proposal with President Bush and
other advisers. President Bush announced the new post and its first occupant-
Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge-in his address to a joint session of Congress on
September 20.
Beginning on September 11, Immigration and Naturalization Service agents working in
cooperation with the FBI began arresting individuals for immigration violations whom
they encountered while following up leads in the FBI's investigation of the 9/11
attacks. Eventually, 768 aliens were arrested as "special interest" detainees. Some
(such as Zacarias Moussaoui) were actually in INS custody before 9/11; most were
arrested after. Attorney General John Ashcroft told us that he saw his job in
directing this effort as "risk minimization," both to find out who had committed the
attacks and to prevent a subsequent attack. Ashcroft ordered all special interest
immigration hearings closed to the public, family members, and press; directed
government attorneys to seek denial of bond until such time as they were "cleared"
of terrorist connections by the FBI and other agencies; and ordered the identity of
the detainees kept secret. INS attorneys charged with prosecuting the immigration
violations had trouble getting information about the detainees and any terrorist
connections; in the chaos after the attacks, it was very difficult to reach law
enforcement officials, who were following up on other leads. The clearance process
approved by the Justice Department was time-consuming, lasting an average of about
80 days.
We have assessed this effort to detain aliens of "special interest." The detainees
were lawfully held on immigration charges. Records indicate that 531 were deported,
162 were released on bond, 24 received some kind of immigration benefits, 12 had
their proceedings terminated, and 8-one of whom was Moussaoui-were remanded to the
custody of the U.S. Marshals Service. The inspector general of the Justice
Department found significant problems in the way the 9/11 detainees were
treated.
In response to a request about the counterterrorism benefits of the 9/11 detainee
program, the Justice Department cited six individuals on the special interest
detainee list, noting that two (including Moussaoui) were linked directly to a
terrorist organization and that it had obtained new leads helpful to the
investigation of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
A senior al Qaeda detainee has stated that U.S. government efforts after the 9/11
attacks to monitor the American homeland, including review of Muslims' immigration
files and deportation of nonpermanent residents, forced al Qaeda to operate less
freely in the United States.
The government's ability to collect intelligence inside the United States, and the
sharing of such information between the intelligence and law enforcement
communities, was not a priority before 9/11. Guidelines on this subject issued in
August 2001 by Deputy Attorney General LarryThompson essentially recapitulated prior
guidance. However, the attacks of 9/11 changed everything. Less than one week after
September 11, an early version of what was to become the Patriot Act (officially,
the USA PATRIOT Act) began to take shape.
A central provision of the proposal was the removal of "the wall" on information
sharing between the intelligence and law enforcement communities (discussed in
chapter 3). Ashcroft told us he was determined to take every conceivable action,
within the limits of the Constitution, to identify potential terrorists and deter
additional attacks.
The administration developed a proposal that eventually passed both houses of
Congress by large majorities and was signed into law on October 26.
Flights of Saudi Nationals Leaving the United States
Three questions have arisen with respect to the departure of Saudi nationals from the
United States in the immediate aftermath of 9/11: (1) Did any flights of Saudi
nationals take place before national airspace reopened on September 13, 2001? (2)
Was there any political intervention to facilitate the departure of Saudi nationals?
(3) Did the FBI screen Saudi nationals thoroughly before their departure?
First, we found no evidence that any flights of Saudi nationals, domestic or
international, took place before the reopening of national airspace on the morning
of September 13, 2001.24 To the contrary, every flight we have identified occurred
after national airspace reopened.
Second, we found no evidence of political intervention. We found no evidence that
anyone at the White House above the level of Richard Clarke participated in a
decision on the departure of Saudi nationals. The issue came up in one of the many
video teleconferences of the interagency group Clarke chaired, and Clarke said he
approved of how the FBI was dealing with the matter when it came up for interagency
discussion at his level. Clarke told us, "I asked the FBI, Dale Watson . . . to
handle that, to check to see if that was all right with them, to see if they wanted
access to any of these people, and to get back to me. And if they had no objections,
it would be fine with me." Clarke added,"I have no recollection of clearing it with
anybody at the White House."
Although White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card remembered someone telling him about
the Saudi request shortly after 9/11, he said he had not talked to the Saudis and
did not ask anyone to do anything about it. The President and Vice President told us
they were not aware of the issue at all until it surfaced much later in the media.
None of the officials we interviewed recalled any intervention or direction on this
matter from any political appointee.
Third, we believe that the FBI conducted a satisfactory screening of Saudi nationals
who left the United States on charter flights.
The Saudi government was advised of and agreed to the FBI's requirements that
passengers be identified and checked against various databases before the flights
departed.29The Federal Aviation Administration representative working in the FBI
operations center made sure that the FBI was aware of the flights of Saudi nationals
and was able to screen the passengers before they were allowed to depart.
The FBI interviewed all persons of interest on these flights prior to their
departures. They concluded that none of the passengers was connected to the 9/11
attacks and have since found no evidence to change that conclusion. Our own
independent review of the Saudi nationals involved confirms that no one with known
links to terrorism departed on these flights.
PLANNING FOR WAR
By late in the evening of September 11, the President had addressed the nation on the
terrible events of the day. Vice President Cheney described the President's mood as
somber.32The long day was not yet over. When the larger meeting that included his
domestic department heads broke up, President Bush chaired a smaller meeting of top
advisers, a group he would later call his "war council."33This group usually
included Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State Powell, Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld, General Hugh Shelton, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs (later to
become chairman) General Myers, DCI Tenet, Attorney General Ashcroft, and FBI
Director Robert Mueller. From the White House staff, National Security Advisor
Condoleezza Rice and Chief of Staff Card were part of the core group, often joined
by their deputies, Stephen Hadley and Joshua Bolten.
In this restricted National Security Council meeting, the President said it was a
time for self-defense. The United States would punish not just the perpetrators of
the attacks, but also those who harbored them. Secretary Powell said the United
States had to make it clear to Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the Arab states that the
time to act was now. He said we would need to build a coalition. The President noted
that the attacks provided a great opportunity to engage Russia and China. Secretary
Rumsfeld urged the President and the principals to think broadly about who might
have harbored the attackers, including Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Sudan, and Iran. He
wondered aloud how much evidence the United States would need in order to deal with
these countries, pointing out that major strikes could take up to 60 days to
assemble.
President Bush chaired two more meetings of the NSC on September 12. In the first
meeting, he stressed that the United States was at war with a new and different kind
of enemy. The President tasked principals to go beyond their pre-9/11 work and
develop a strategy to eliminate terrorists and punish those who support them. As
they worked on defining the goals and objectives of the upcoming campaign, they
considered a paper that went beyond al Qaeda to propose the "elimination of
terrorism as a threat to our way of life," an aim that would include pursuing other
international terrorist organizations in the Middle East.
Rice chaired a Principals Committee meeting on September 13 in the Situation Room to
refine how the fight against al Qaeda would be conducted. The principals agreed that
the overall message should be that anyone supporting al Qaeda would risk harm. The
United States would need to integrate diplomacy, financial measures, intelligence,
and military actions into an overarching strategy. The principals also focused on
Pakistan and what it could do to turn the Taliban against al Qaeda. They concluded
that if Pakistan decided not to help the United States, it too would be at
risk.
The same day, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage met with the Pakistani
ambassador to the United States, Maleeha Lodhi, and the visiting head of Pakistan's
military intelligence service, Mahmud Ahmed. Armitage said that the United States
wanted Pakistan to take seven steps:
to stop al Qaeda operatives at its border and end all logistical support for
Bin Ladin;
to give the United States blanket overflight and landing rights for all
necessary military and intelligence operations;
to provide territorial access to U.S. and allied military intelligence and
other personnel to conduct operations against al Qaeda;
to provide the United States with intelligence information;
to continue to publicly condemn the terrorist acts;
to cut off all shipments of fuel to the Taliban and stop recruits from going
to Afghanistan; and,
if the evidence implicated bin Ladin and al Qaeda and the Taliban continued to
harbor them, to break relations with the Taliban government.
Pakistan made its decision swiftly. That afternoon, Secretary of State Powell
announced at the beginning of an NSC meeting that Pakistani President Musharraf had
agreed to every U.S. request for support in the war on terrorism. The next day, the
U.S. embassy in Islamabad confirmed that Musharraf and his top military commanders
had agreed to all seven demands." Pakistan will need full US support as it proceeds
with us," the embassy noted." Musharraf said the GOP [government of Pakistan] was
making substantial concessions in allowing use of its territory and that he would
pay a domestic price. His standing in Pakistan was certain to suffer. To
counterbalance that he needed to show that Pakistan was benefiting from his
decisions."
At the September 13 NSC meeting, when Secretary Powell described Pakistan's reply,
President Bush led a discussion of an appropriate ultimatum to the Taliban. He also
ordered Secretary Rumsfeld to develop a military plan against the Taliban. The
President wanted the United States to strike the Taliban, step back, wait to see if
they got the message, and hit them hard if they did not. He made clear that the
military should focus on targets that would influence the Taliban's behavior.
President Bush also tasked the State Department, which on the following day delivered
to the White House a paper titled "Game Plan for a Political- Military Strategy for
Pakistan and Afghanistan." The paper took it as a given that Bin Ladin would
continue to act against the United States even while under Taliban control. It
therefore detailed specific U.S. demands for the Taliban: surrender Bin Ladin and
his chief lieutenants, including Ayman al Zawahiri; tell the United States what the
Taliban knew about al Qaeda and its operations; close all terrorist camps; free all
imprisoned foreigners; and comply with all UN Security Council resolutions.
The State Department proposed delivering an ultimatum to the Taliban: produce Bin
Ladin and his deputies and shut down al Qaeda camps within 24 to 48 hours, or the
United States will use all necessary means to destroy the terrorist infrastructure.
The State Department did not expect the Taliban to comply. Therefore, State and
Defense would plan to build an international coalition to go into Afghanistan. Both
departments would consult with NATO and other allies and request intelligence,
basing, and other support from countries, according to their capabilities and
resources. Finally, the plan detailed a public U.S. stance: America would use all
its resources to eliminate terrorism as a threat, punish those responsible for the
9/11 attacks, hold states and other actors responsible for providing sanctuary to
terrorists, work with a coalition to eliminate terrorist groups and networks, and
avoid malice toward any people, religion, or culture.
President Bush recalled that he quickly realized that the administration would have
to invade Afghanistan with ground troops.
But the early briefings to the President and Secretary Rumsfeld on military options
were disappointing. 43 Tommy Franks, the commanding general of Central Command
(CENTCOM), told us that the President was dissatisfied. The U.S. military, Franks
said, did not have an off-the-shelf plan to eliminate the al Qaeda threat in
Afghanistan. The existing Infinite Resolve options did not, in his view, amount to
such a plan.
All these diplomatic and military plans were reviewed over the weekend of September
15-16, as President Bush convened his war council at Camp David.
Present were Vice President Cheney, Rice, Hadley, Powell, Armitage, Rumsfeld,
Ashcroft, Mueller, Tenet, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, and Cofer
Black, chief of the DCI's Counterterrorist Center.
Tenet described a plan for collecting intelligence and mounting covert operations. He
proposed inserting CIA teams into Afghanistan to work with Afghan warlords who would
join the fight against al Qaeda.46These CIA teams would act jointly with the
military's Special Operations units. President Bush later praised this proposal,
saying it had been a turning point in his thinking.
General Shelton briefed the principals on the preliminary plan for Afghanistan that
the military had put together. It drew on the Infinite Resolve "phased campaign"
plan the Pentagon had begun developing in November 2000 as an addition to the strike
options it had been refining since 1998. But Shelton added a new element-the
possible significant use of ground forces- and that is where President Bush
reportedly focused his attention.
After hearing from his senior advisers, President Bush discussed with Rice the
contents of the directives he would issue to set all the plans into motion. Rice
prepared a paper that President Bush then considered with principals on Monday
morning, September 17. "The purpose of this meeting," he recalled saying,"is to
assign tasks for the first wave of the war against terrorism. It starts today."
In a written set of instructions slightly refined during the morning meeting,
President Bush charged Ashcroft, Mueller, and Tenet to develop a plan for homeland
defense. President Bush directed Secretary of State Powell to deliver an ultimatum
to the Taliban along the lines that his department had originally proposed. The
State Department was also tasked to develop a plan to stabilize Pakistan and to be
prepared to notify Russia and countries near Afghanistan when hostilities were
imminent.
In addition, Bush and his advisers discussed new legal authorities for covert action
in Afghanistan, including the administration's first Memorandum of Notification on
Bin Ladin. Shortly thereafter, President Bush authorized broad new authorities for
the CIA.
President Bush instructed Rumsfeld and Shelton to develop further the Camp David
military plan to attack the Taliban and al Qaeda if the Taliban rejected the
ultimatum. The President also tasked Rumsfeld to ensure that robust measures to
protect American military forces against terrorist attack were implemented
worldwide. Finally, he directed Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill to craft a plan to
target al Qaeda's funding and seize its assets.
NSC staff members had begun leading meetings on terrorist fund-raising by September
18.
Also by September 18, Powell had contacted 58 of his foreign counterparts and
received offers of general aid, search-and-rescue equipment and personnel, and
medical assistance teams.
On the same day, Deputy Secretary of State Armitage was called by Mahmud Ahmed
regarding a two-day visit to Afghanistan during which the Pakistani intelligence
chief had met with Mullah Omar and conveyed the U.S. demands. Omar's response was
"not negative on all these points." But the
administration knew that theTaliban was unlikely to turn over Bin Ladin.
The pre-9/11 draft presidential directive on al Qaeda evolved into a new directive,
National Security Presidential Directive 9, now titled "Defeating the Terrorist
Threat to the United States." The directive would now extend to a global war on
terrorism, not just on al Qaeda. It also incorporated the President's determination
not to distinguish between terrorists and those who harbor them. It included a
determination to use military force if necessary to end al Qaeda's sanctuary in
Afghanistan. The new directive-formally signed on October 25, after the fighting in
Afghanistan had already begun-included new material followed by annexes discussing
each targeted terrorist group. The old draft directive on al Qaeda became, in
effect, the first annex.
The United States would strive to eliminate all terrorist networks, dry up their
financial support, and prevent them from acquiring weapons of mass destruction. The
goal was the "elimination of terrorism as a threat to our way of life."
"PHASE TWO" AND THE QUESTION OF IRAQ
President Bush had wondered immediately after the attack whether Saddam Hussein's
regime might have had a hand in it. Iraq had been an enemy of the United States for
11 years, and was the only place in the world where the United States was engaged in
ongoing combat operations. As a former pilot, the President was struck by the
apparent sophistication of the operation and some of the piloting, especially
Hanjour's high-speed dive into the Pentagon. He told us he recalled Iraqi support
for Palestinian suicide terrorists as well. Speculating about other possible states
that could be involved, the President told us he also thought about Iran.
Clarke has written that on the evening of September 12, President Bush told him and
some of his staff to explore possible Iraqi links to 9/11. "See if Saddam did this,"
Clarke recalls the President telling them." See if he's linked in any way." While he believed the details of Clarke's account to be
incorrect, President Bush acknowledged that he might well have spoken to Clarke at
some point, asking him about Iraq.
Responding to a presidential tasking, Clarke's office sent a memo to Rice on
September 18, titled "Survey of Intelligence Information on Any Iraq Involvement in
the September 11 Attacks." Rice's chief staffer on Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad,
concurred in its conclusion that only some anecdotal evidence linked Iraq to al
Qaeda. The memo found no "compelling case" that Iraq had either planned or
perpetrated the attacks. It passed along a few foreign intelligence reports,
including the Czech report alleging an April 2001 Prague meeting between Atta and an
Iraqi intelligence officer (discussed in chapter 7) and a Polish report that
personnel at the headquarters of Iraqi intelligence in Baghdad were told before
September 11 to go on the streets to gauge crowd reaction to an unspecified event.
Arguing that the case for links between Iraq and al Qaeda was weak, the memo pointed
out that Bin Ladin resented the secularism of Saddam Hussein's regime. Finally, the
memo said, there was no confirmed reporting on Saddam cooperating with Bin Ladin on
unconventional weapons.
On the afternoon of 9/11, according to contemporaneous notes, Secretary Rumsfeld
instructed General Myers to obtain quickly as much information as possible. The
notes indicate that he also told Myers that he was not simply interested in striking
empty training sites. He thought the U.S. response should consider a wide range of
options and possibilities. The secretary said his instinct was to hit Saddam Hussein
at the same time-not only Bin Ladin. Secretary Rumsfeld later explained that at the
time, he had been considering either one of them, or perhaps someone else, as the
responsible party.
According to Rice, the issue of what, if anything, to do about Iraq was really
engaged at Camp David. Briefing papers on Iraq, along with many others, were in
briefing materials for the participants. Rice told us the administration was
concerned that Iraq would take advantage of the 9/11 attacks. She recalled that in
the first Camp David session chaired by the President, Rumsfeld asked what the
administration should do about Iraq. Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz made the case for
striking Iraq during "this round" of the war on terrorism.
A Defense Department paper for the Camp David briefing book on the strategic concept
for the war on terrorism specified three priority targets for initial action: al
Qaeda, theTaliban, and Iraq. It argued that of the three, al Qaeda and Iraq posed a
strategic threat to the United States. Iraq's long-standing involvement in terrorism
was cited, along with its interest in weapons of mass destruction.
Secretary Powell recalled that Wolfowitz-not Rumsfeld-argued that Iraq was ultimately
the source of the terrorist problem and should therefore be attacked.
Powell said that Wolfowitz was not able to justify his belief that Iraq was behind
9/11. "Paul was always of the view that Iraq was a problem that had to be dealt
with," Powell told us." And he saw this as one way of using this event as a way to
deal with the Iraq problem." Powell said that President Bush did not give
Wolfowitz's argument "much weight." Though continuing to
worry about Iraq in the following week, Powell said, President Bush saw Afghanistan
as the priority.
President Bush told Bob Woodward that the decision not to invade Iraq was made at the
morning session on September 15. Iraq was not even on the table during the September
15 afternoon session, which dealt solely with Afghanistan.
Rice said that when President Bush called her on Sunday, September 16, he said the
focus would be on Afghanistan, although he still wanted plans for Iraq should the
country take some action or the administration eventually determine that it had been
involved in the 9/11 attacks.
At the September 17 NSC meeting, there was some further discussion of "phase two" of
the war on terrorism.
President Bush ordered the Defense Department to be ready to deal with Iraq if
Baghdad acted against U.S. interests, with plans to include possibly occupying Iraqi
oil fields.
Within the Pentagon, Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz continued to press the case for
dealing with Iraq. Writing to Rumsfeld on September 17 in a memo headlined
"Preventing More Events,"he argued that if there was even a 10 percent chance that
Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 attack, maximum priority should be placed on
eliminating that threat. Wolfowitz contended that the odds were "far more" than 1 in
10, citing Saddam's praise for the attack, his long record of involvement in
terrorism, and theories that Ramzi Yousef was an Iraqi agent and Iraq was behind the
1993 attack on the World Trade Center. 73 The next day, Wolfowitz renewed the
argument, writing to Rumsfeld about the interest of Yousef 's co-conspirator in the
1995 Manila air plot in crashing an explosives-laden plane into CIA headquarters,
and about information from a foreign government regarding Iraqis' involvement in the
attempted hijacking of a Gulf Air flight. Given this background, he wondered why so
little thought had been devoted to the danger of suicide pilots, seeing a "failure
of imagination" and a mind-set that dismissed possibilities.
On September 19, Rumsfeld offered several thoughts for his commanders as they worked
on their contingency plans. Though he emphasized the worldwide nature of the
conflict, the references to specific enemies or regions named only the Taliban, al
Qaeda, and Afghanistan.
Shelton told us the administration reviewed all the Pentagon's war plans and
challenged certain assumptions underlying them, as any prudent organization or
leader should do.
General Tommy Franks, the commanding general of Central Command, recalled receiving
Rumsfeld's guidance that each regional commander should assess what these plans
meant for his area of responsibility. He knew he would soon be striking the Taliban
and al Qaeda in Afghanistan. But, he told us, he now wondered how that action was
connected to what might need to be done in Somalia, Yemen, or Iraq.
On September 20, President Bush met with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and the
two leaders discussed the global conflict ahead. When Blair asked about Iraq, the
President replied that Iraq was not the immediate problem. Some members of his
administration, he commented, had expressed a different view, but he was the one
responsible for making the decisions.
Franks told us that he was pushing independently to do more robust planning on
military responses in Iraq during the summer before 9/11-a request President Bush
denied, arguing that the time was not right. (CENTCOM also began dusting off plans
for a full invasion of Iraq during this period, Franks said.) The CENTCOM commander
told us he renewed his appeal for further military planning to respond to Iraqi
moves shortly after 9/11, both because he personally felt that Iraq and al Qaeda
might be engaged in some form of collusion and because he worried that Saddam might
take advantage of the attacks to move against his internal enemies in the northern
or southern parts of Iraq, where the United States was flying regular missions to
enforce Iraqi no-fly zones. Franks said that President Bush again turned down the
request.
Having issued directives to guide his administration's preparations for war, on
Thursday, September 20, President Bush addressed the nation before a joint session
of Congress." Tonight," he said, "we are a country awakened to danger." The President blamed al Qaeda for 9/11 and the 1998
embassy bombings and, for the first time, declared that al Qaeda was "responsible
for bombing the USS Cole." He reiterated the ultimatum
that had already been conveyed privately." The Taliban must act, and act
immediately," he said." They will hand over the terrorists, or they will share in
their fate." The President added that America's quarrel
was not with Islam: "The enemy of America is not our many Muslim friends; it is not
our many Arab friends. Our enemy is a radical network of terrorists, and every
government that supports them." Other regimes faced hard choices, he pointed out:
"Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make: Either you are with us,
or you are with the terrorists."
President Bush argued that the new war went beyond Bin Ladin." Our war on terror
begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there," he said." It will not end until
every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped, and defeated." The
President had a message for the Pentagon:"The hour is coming when America will act,
and you will make us proud." He also had a message for those outside the United
States." This is civilization's fight," he said. "We ask every nation to join
us."
President Bush approved military plans to attack Afghanistan in meetings with Central
Command's General Franks and other advisers on September 21 and October 2.
Originally titled "Infinite Justice," the operation's code word was changed-to avoid
the sensibilities of Muslims who associate the power of infinite justice with God
alone-to the operational name still used for operations in Afghanistan:"Enduring
Freedom."
The plan had four phases.
In Phase One, the United States and its allies would move forces into the
region and arrange to operate from or over neighboring countries such as
Uzbekistan and Pakistan. This occurred in the weeks following 9/11, aided by
overwhelming international sympathy for the United States.
In Phase Two, air strikes and Special Operations attacks would hit key al
Qaeda and Taliban targets. In an innovative joint effort, CIA and Special
Operations forces would be deployed to work together with each major Afghan
faction opposed to the Taliban. The Phase Two strikes and raids began on October
7. The basing arrangements contemplated for Phase One were substantially
secured-after arduous effort-by the end of that month.
In Phase Three, the United States would carry out "decisive operations" using
all elements of national power, including ground troops, to topple the Taliban
regime and eliminate al Qaeda's sanctuary in Afghanistan. Mazar-e-Sharif, in
northern Afghanistan, fell to a coalition assault by Afghan and U.S. forces on
November 9. Four days later the Taliban had fled from Kabul. By early December,
all major cities had fallen to the coalition. On December 22, Hamid Karzai, a
Pashtun leader from Kandahar, was installed as the chairman of Afghanistan's
interim administration. Afghanistan had been liberated from the rule of the
Taliban.
In December 2001, Afghan forces, with limited U.S. support, engaged al Qaeda elements
in a cave complex called Tora Bora. In March 2002, the largest engagement of the war
was fought, in the mountainous Shah-i-Kot area south of Gardez, against a large
force of al Qaeda jihadists. The three-week battle was substantially successful, and
almost all remaining al Qaeda forces took refuge in Pakistan's equally mountainous
and lightly governed frontier provinces. As of July 2004, Bin Ladin and Zawahiri are
still believed to be at large.
In Phase Four, civilian and military operations turned to the indefinite task
of what the armed forces call "security and stability operations."
Within about two months of the start of combat operations, several hundred CIA
operatives and Special Forces soldiers, backed by the striking power of U.S.
aircraft and a much larger infrastructure of intelligence and support efforts, had
combined with Afghan militias and a small number of other coalition soldiers to
destroy theTaliban regime and disrupt al Qaeda. They had killed or captured about a
quarter of the enemy's known leaders. Mohammed Atef, al Qaeda's military commander
and a principal figure in the 9/11 plot, had been killed by a U.S. air strike.
According to a senior CIA officer who helped devise the overall strategy, the CIA
provided intelligence, experience, cash, covert action capabilities, and entr�e to
tribal allies. In turn, the U.S. military offered combat expertise, firepower,
logistics, and communications.
With these initial victories won by the middle of 2002, the global conflict against
Islamist terrorism became a different kind of struggle.
