"Clarke asked on several occasions for early Principals Committee
meetings on these issues [outlined in his January 25, 2001 memo]
and was frustrated that no early meeting was scheduled. He wanted
principals to accept that al Qaeda was a "first order threat" and not a
routine problem being exaggerated by "chicken little" alarmists. No
Principals Committee meetings on al Qaeda were held until
September 4, 2001. Rice and Hadley said this was because the
Deputies Committee needed to work through the many issues
related to new policy on al Qaeda. The Principals Committee did
meet frequently before 9/11 on other subjects, Rice told us, including
Russia, the Persian Gulf, and the Middle East peace process."
(9-11 Commission, Staff Statement Number 8, "National Policy
Coordination," pp 9-10).
Given Warnings, Bush Administration Neglected
Terrorist Threat
Clinton Administration officials warned the Bush
Administration about terrorist threat. Reporting for the
Washington Post, Barton Gellman has written that "beginning on
August 7, 1998, the day that al Qaeda destroyed the U.S. embassies
in Nairobi and Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, Clinton directed a
campaign of increasing scope and lethality against bin Laden's
network that carried through his final days in office." (12/19/01)
When President Bush took office in January 2001, Clinton
Administration officials briefed the incoming Bush Administration on
its efforts to eliminate al Qaeda. The 9-11 Commission's March 24,
2004 Staff Report notes that, on January 26, 2001, Richard Clarke
provided the National Security Council leadership with two plans for
increasing counterterrorism efforts, a 1998 comprehensive plan and
a 2000 strategy paper. Neither of these plans were adopted, and
the Bush Administration did not develop its own counterterrorism
strategy before the attacks of September 11.
The Bush Administration neglected warnings by outgoing Clinton staff during its
transition into office. In his testimony before the independent commission
investigating the September 11 terrorist attacks, Secretary of State Colin Powell
admitted that the Bush Administration had been briefed by outgoing Clinton
Administration officials: "the outgoing Administration provided me and others in the
incoming Administration with transition papers as well as briefings that reinforced our
awareness of the worldwide threat from terrorism." (3/23/04). Daniel Benjamin, author
of The Age of Sacred Terror, reported that Brian Sheridan, an assistant secretary of
Defense under President Clinton, stated "I offered to brief anyone, any time on any
topic [related to terrorism]. Never took it up." (Los Angeles Times, 3/30/04) Mr.
Benjamin also noted that Don Kerrick, a three-star general who served as President
Clinton's deputy National Security Advisor and continued through the first four months
of the Bush Administration, issued a memo to the new National Security Council
leadership about al Qaeda, saying, "We are going to be struck again." He never heard
back: "I don't think it was above the waterline. They were gambling nothing would
happen."
Warnings about al Qaeda began to pour in. The Bush Administration was repeatedly
warned by both the U.S. and foreign intelligence agencies that al Qaeda was planning
an attack. In his testimony before the independent 9-11 commission, Richard Clarke
asserted that both he and Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) George Tenet "tried
very hard to create a sense of urgency by seeing to it that intelligence reports on the Al
Qaida threat were frequently given to the president and other high-level officials."
Clarke further stated that "President Bush was regularly told by the director of Central
Intelligence that there was an urgent threat...He was told this dozens of times in the
morning briefings that George Tenet gave him." The White House has confirmed that,
on August 6, 2001, President Bush's Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB) specifically
focused on al Qaeda's intent to attack the United States, and specifically warned that
airplane hijackings could be involved. According to press reports, the PDB included a
fresh report from British intelligence warning that al Qaeda was planning multiple
hijackings.
The National Security Council focused on Iraq, not terrorism. The Associated
Press reported that "President Bush's national security leadership met formally nearly
100 times in the months prior to the Sept. 11 attacks yet terrorism was the topic during
only two of those sessions, officials say...Bush's principals committee was focused on
missile defense, Iraq, China, international economic policy, global warming and the U.S.
stance toward Russia, a subject of particular interest to National Security Adviser
Condoleezza Rice, a Russian expert who has now worked for both Bush presidents."
(6/29/02) One of the two meetings occurred just a week before the attacks.
The Washington Post recently confirmed this neglect of terrorism when it reported, in an
article entitled, "Top Focus Before 9/11 Wasn't On Terrorism," that Dr. Rice had
planned to give a major speech outlining President Bush's national security priorities.
The speech "was designed to promote missile defense as the cornerstone of a new
national security strategy, and contained no mention of al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden or
Islamic extremist groups." (4/1/04)
Despite Warnings, Bush Administration Not Focused on
Counterterrorism Strategy
The Bush Administration moved counterrorism "to the back burner." President
Bush himself admitted that, when it came to the threat of terrorism, before
September 11, 2001, "I didn't feel a sense of urgency." (Bush at War, Bob Woodward,
2002). Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith told the independent
September 11 commission that Secretary Rumsfeld "asked him to focus his attention on
working with the Russians on agreements to dissolve the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM)
Treaty and preparing a new nuclear arms control pact," not on terrorism.
(9-11 Commission Staff, Statement No. 6). The 9-11 commission staff statement also
notes that lower-level officials in the Department of Defense's Special Operations and
Low Intensity Conflict (SOLIC) operation "told us that they thought the new team was
focused on other issues and was not especially interested in their counterterrorism
agenda."
Henry H. Shelton, who served President Bush as former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staffuntil October 1, 2001, confirms Clarke's account. General Shelton reports that the
Bush Administration moved counterterrorism efforts "farther to the back burner," and
that "the squeaky wheel was Dick Clarke, but he wasn't at the top of their priority list, so
the lights went out for a few months." He characterized Secretary Rumsfeld's attitude
toward the threat of terrorism as being "this terrorism thing was out there, but it didn't
happen today, so maybe it belonged lower on the list." (The Age of Sacred Terror,
Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, 2003)
Remarkably, the Bush Administration believed too much emphasis was placed
on neutralizing Osama bin Laden. When the State Department released its annual
report "Patterns of Global Terrorism" on April 30, 2001, CNN reported that "unlike last
year, there's no extensive mention of alleged terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden. A
senior State Department official tells CNN the U.S. government made a mistake in
focusing so much energy on bin Laden and `personalizing terrorism.'" (CNN's Inside
Politics, 4/30/01).
Vice President Cheney's task force on terrorism never met. On May 8, 2001,
President Bush announced that Vice President Cheney would "oversee the
development of a coordinated national effort so that we may do the very best possible
job of protecting our people from catastrophic harm." (Statement by the President) The
task force was to focus specifically, in Vice President Cheney's words, on the threat of
"domestic terrorism...a terrorist organization overseas or even another state using
weapons of mass destruction against the U.S., a hand-carried nuclear weapon or
biological or chemical agents." (CNN, 5/8/01) Moreover, President Bush announced
that he would "periodically chair a meeting of the National Security Council to review
these efforts." (Statement by the President, 5/8/01) The Washington Post reports that,
in the four months between the President's announcement and the September 11
attacks, "neither Cheney's review nor Bush's took place." (1/20/02). According to the
9-11 Commission, the Cheney Task Force "was just getting underway when the 9/11
attack occurred." (9-11 Commission, Staff Statement Number 8, "National Policy
Coordination," p. 9).
The Bush Administration counterterrorism strategy - not materially different from
the Clinton Policy - was not signed by the President before the 9/11 attacks.
Bush Administration officials have claimed that they worked to prepare an aggressive
new counterterrorism strategy for the President during his first year in office. However,
they admit that the strategy was completed only two days before September 11, and
that President Bush never actually saw this strategy until after September 11. Members
of the 9-11 Commission have also concluded that the new Bush policy was not
materially different than the Clinton plan that was first briefed by Richard Clarke eight
months earlier. Instead of aggressively and immediately instituting a counterterrorism
strategy in response to the urging of Clinton Administration officials and the Bush
Administration's own National Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Richard Clarke,
President Bush, in Clarke's words, "ignored terrorism for months, when maybe we could
have done something to stop 9/11." (60 Minutes, 3/21/04)
Bush Administration Cuts Funding for Counterterrorism
The Bush Administration de-emphasized counterterrorism in Fiscal Year 2003
budget. In the weeks before the September 11 attacks, Administration officials in
different government agencies were developing budget requests for the Fiscal Year
2003 budget, which was to be submitted to Congress in February 2002. The New York
Times reported that, in developing his budget request, Attorney General John Ashcroft
"called for spending increases in 68 programs, none of which directly involved
counterterrorism." (2/28/02) In fact, "Mr. Ashcroft did not endorse F.B.I. requests for
$58 million for 149 new counterterrorism field agents, 200 intelligence analysts and 54
additional translators." Finally, according to The New York Times, the Attorney General
"proposed cuts in 14 programs. One proposed $65 million cut was for a program that
gives state and local counterterrorism grants for equipment, including radios and
decontamination suits and training to localities for counterterrorism preparedness."
The Defense Department terminated surveillance of Osama bin Laden. Secretary
of Defense Donald Rumsfeld - who had, according to the 9-11 Commission, urged his
senior policy advisers to focus on issues other than terrorism - scaled back
counterterrorism efforts initiated by the previous Administration. Upon assuming
command of the Department of Defense (DoD), Rumsfeld terminated flights of the
unmanned Predator drone that had been tracking bin Laden. The drone had spotted
bin Laden as many as three times in late 2000, but it was not launched once in the first
eight months of the Bush Administration. The Washington Post has reported that, in
terms of DoD counterterrorism funding, "there were also somewhat higher gaps [in
2001], however, between what military commanders said they needed to combat
terrorists and what they got. When the Senate Armed Services Committee tried to fill
those gaps with $600 million diverted from ballistic missile defense, Defense Secretary
Donald H. Rumsfeld said he would recommend a veto. That threat came Sept. 9."
(1/20/02) Finally, shortly after Secretary Rumsfeld took the reigns at the DoD, he shut
down a disinformation program intended to create dissent within the Taliban. (Daniel
Benjamin, Los Angeles Times, 3/30/04)
Even after 9/11 attacks, the Bush Administration cut proposed counterterrorism
funds. The Bush Administration has justified its failure to prevent the September 11
attacks by saying that no one could have predicted the attacks. However, even after
the attacks took place, the Administration cut the FBI's counterterrorism funding request
by nearly two-thirds during debate over a supplemental appropriations package.
Though the FBI requested an additional $1.5 billion to enhance its counterterrorism
efforts and create 2,024 new positions, the Bush Administration requested only
$538 million from Congress. And more recently, as The New York Times reported
earlier this month, President Bush tried to eliminate a $12 million request by the Internal
Revenue Service (IRS), which said it needed the small injection of new money "to
increase by 50% the number of criminal financial investigators" necessary to do its part
in the fight against terrorism. (3/31/04)
