25 March 2004
Bush Administration Considered Al-Qaeda Threat Important, Urgent
NSC Advisor Rice talks with broadcast, print journalists March 24
The Bush administration, in the months before the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, considered the threat from al-Qaeda "both important and urgent," says National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice.
During an interview with journalists March 24, Rice was asked to comment on a statement former counterterrorism official Richard Clarke had made that day to the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States --- also known as the 9/11 Commission. Clarke was cited as having told the commission that the new Bush administration considered the terrorist threat important, but not urgent.
"[W]hat we did suggests that we thought it both important and urgent," Rice said. "We kept in place an experienced team of counterterrorism experts from the Clinton administration, whose responsibility it was to keep the Clinton administration strategy going. We did everything during that period of time that we could."
Elaborating on the point later in an interview with Tom Brokaw of NBC News, Rice said President Bush "met every morning with his director of central intelligence and some 46 of his daily briefings were about issues related to al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. So we were very active in the fight against al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, and preparing a strategy to become even more active."
The 9/11 Commission's ostensible purpose is to ascertain whether the terrorist attacks of 2001 could have been prevented. Rice said, "[T]he events of September 11th, while tragic, probably could not have been prevented by the kinds of steps that were being discussed today [at the 9/11 commission hearings]. That's the hard fact." As for the current terrorism threat, she said, "We are safer now, but not yet safe."
To the print journalists, Rice said, "Now, the American people don't need to worry, because after September 11th, the president decided we were at war. He decided that what happened to us on September 11th was an act of war, and that meant all-out war on them. ... We've killed or captured two-thirds of the al-Qaeda leadership. We've got a worldwide coalition fighting this terrorism. We've liberated 50 million people. We have a good ally in Afghanistan. We're building a good ally in Iraq. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are fighting in the war on terrorism like they never have before. I think that the American people understand that."
Following are excerpts from Rice's interview with print media journalists:
(begin excerpt)
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
INTERVIEW OF THE NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR
BY A ROUNDTABLE OF WIRE AND PRINT JOURNALISTS
Dr. Rice's Office
March 24, 2004
... Q: One thing that [former Clinton and Bush counterterrorism official Richard] Clarke is saying today is that you considered terrorism an important issue, but not an urgent issue. Is that true?
DR. RICE: I don't know what it means. ... I will say that what we did suggests that we thought it both important and urgent. We kept in place an experienced team of counterterrorism experts from the Clinton administration, whose responsibility it was to keep the Clinton administration strategy going. We did everything during that period of time that we could. The intelligence agencies had the authorities that had been there in the Clinton administration. Nothing unraveled those authorities so they were still acting on those authorities.
[Director of Central Intelligence] George [Tenet] was still out disrupting and trying to break up cells in various parts of the world. The President wrote to [Pakistani President Pervez] Musharraf on February 16th[, 2001]. [Secretary of State] Colin [Powell] and I had met with the Pakistanis. We'd met with the Uzbeks to -- we had approved additional counterterrorism support for the Uzbeks. We were doing everything that we could.
Now, was it the only priority? Of course not. There were other things that had to be done, as well, including the crisis with China around the EP-3 shoot-down; trying to build a relationship with Russia, China.
Good thing we built the relationship, by the way with Russia, because when the war comes, we are able to get into Central Asia without friction with the Russians. So that turned out to be an important thing.
But at the same time that we were pursuing what the Clinton administration had been doing, we were developing a more robust strategy to try and eliminate al Qaeda. And by Dick[Clarke]'s calculation, as well as that of George Tenet, this was still going to be multi-year. You couldn't do it overnight. I was impressed with some of the [9/11 Commission] testimony by several people who said, it would have been difficult to just invade Afghanistan. I happen to agree with that view.
But we were developing a more robust strategy. That was a strategy that drew on some of the ideas that Dick Clarke had given us in that January 25th memo. He said in the August 2002 interview that they were, in fact, ideas that had been around since 1998. That was my understanding, as well.
And we pursued those ideas toward a more robust strategy. So I don't know what else you do to demonstrate that you think it's urgent and important. The president was being briefed by George Tenet at least 40-some -- 40-plus of his briefings dealt, in one way or another [with] al Qaeda, or the al Qaeda threat.
During the threat period it got really urgent. That's when I was on the phone with Colin [Powell] and [Secretary of Defense] Don [Rumsfeld], and Don was moving the Fifth Fleet out of port, and when Colin was buttoning down embassies abroad. And when we actually did have Dick Clarke come in and -- [White House Chief of Staff] Andy Card and I did ... on July 5th convene the domestic agencies to say, even though all the threat reporting is about some threat abroad -- because it was the Persian Gulf, the G8, possibly something in Israel -- bring the domestic agencies together, let's make sure that they're "buttoning down." The FAA [Federal Aviation Administration] issues alerts. The FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation] issues warnings. So it's pretty urgent and important.
... DR. RICE: Now, the American people don't need to worry because after September 11th, the president decided we were at war. He decided that what happened to us on September 11th was an act of war, and that meant all-out war on them. And therefore, we are using our military forces in a full-scale way. And one of the debates that's really underlying a lot this is: Is this a narrow war on terrorism that just relates to bin Laden and Afghanistan? Or is this a broad war on terrorism in which you have to deal with bin Laden and Afghanistan, which we're doing. We've got nearly 12,000 troops in Afghanistan, doing the work in Afghanistan. We've got allies in the Afghan army. We've got allies with Pakistan. So Afghanistan is being pursued aggressively. And we're pursuing al Qaeda aggressively -- two-thirds of their known leadership has gone down.
But the president believes that it's broader than that, that you have to go after state sponsors; that you have to deal with weapons of mass destruction states; that you can't let a source of instability like Iraq remain in the Middle East as a kind of brewing threat; and that ultimately, you need a forward strategy for freedom in the Middle East itself, because until you change the politics of the Middle East, people are going to keep flying airplanes into things. And so that's really, in part, what this debate is about. Is it just law enforcement, Afghanistan and bin Laden? Or is it broader than that? And so in this president's mind, the kinds of questions that people were talking about prior to 9/11 essentially no longer exist.
... DR. RICE: I think ... the American people do not believe that the president of the United States is pursuing a folly in the war on terrorism. He's pursuing a coherent, aggressive strategy that takes the fight to the terrorists. It's the first such strategy in American history against terrorism, after a long period of time in which the terrorists -- really going back to '80s -- thought they'd gained the upper hand, in which they'd thought their victory was inevitable. We've killed or captured two-thirds of the al-Qaeda leadership. We've got a worldwide coalition fighting this terrorism. We've liberated 50 million people. We have a good ally in Afghanistan. We're building a good ally in Iraq. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are fighting in the war on terrorism like they never have before. I think that the American people understand that.
... Dr. Rice: Oh, yes, I just -- there's one other thing here, which is that, after the attacks, this is on September 15th. As I mentioned to you, Andy Card and I on July 5th during the high-spike period [i.e., a period of increased volume of terrorist communications] asked Dick [Clarke] to come in and asked him to convene the domestic agencies -- not because there was any threat reporting about the United States -- there wasn't, but just in case, just convene them. And here's the note that Dick wrote to me on September 15th: "When the era of national unity begins to crack in the near future, it is possible that some will start asking questions like, did the White House do a good job of making sure that intelligence about terrorist threats got to the FAA and other domestic law enforcement authorities, as the attached paper, which was sent to you in July, and the e-mail, also July, note, in late June the Interagency Counterterrorism Security Group [CSG], which I chair, warned of an upcoming, spectacular al-Qaeda attack that would be qualitatively different. We convened on 5 July a special meeting of domestic federal law enforcement agencies, because we could not rule out the possibility that the attack would be in the U.S." In fact, that was the meeting that we asked him to convene.
"At the special meeting on July 5 were the FBI, Secret Service, FAA, Customs, Coast Guard, and Immigration. We told them that we thought a spectacular al-Qaeda terrorist attack was coming in the near future." That had been had been George Tenet's language. "We asked that they take special measures to increase security and surveillance. Thus, the White House did ensure that domestic law enforcement including the FAA knew that the CSG believed that a major al-Qaeda attack was coming, and it could be in the U.S., and did ask that special measures be taken."
That was, of course, his job -- but that was his assessment on September 15th[, 2001].
(end excerpt)
(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
This page printed from: http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2004&m=March&x=20040325153648adynned0.3039972&t=livefeeds/wf-latest.html
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