t3 b11 eop produced documents vol iii fdr- 1-16-02 bart gellman-washington post interview of hadley...

8/14/2019 T3 B11 EOP Produced Documents Vol III Fdr- 1-16-02 Bart Gellman-Washington Post Interview of Hadley 011

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with al Qaeda; that in his view, we hadn't had one and the threatwas sufficient enough to warrant it.And he gave us in the transition kind of a, sort of the

outlines of what needed to be addressed in that kind ofcomprehensive strategy, so that --

Q Do you have a date on this?SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: The transition isn't verylong, so it's sometime in December to January; but I don't have adate. But it's probably -- it's probably early January in 2001.And then when we get in, on the 25th, I asked the folks _ho

were here functioning to propose a major presidential policyreviews or initiatives, so we could begin to generate the list ofthings we needed to look at. And Dick came back the same daywith a memo saying, we need to look at al Qaeda. And it was,one, we need a comprehensive strategy about al Qaeda; but, also,al Qaeda affects our pelicy about Pakistan, Afghanistan andCentral Asia and North Africa and the Gulf States, so we need tolook at it_in a broader framework. That was his message.

We needed to look narrowly at the issue of furtherassistance to the opposition in the Taliban, which was mostly theNorthern Alliance during that period; Massoud and the NorthernAlliance forces were very much on the defensive. The questionwas, should we be doing something more to keep them alive untilwe figured out what our overall strategy would be.

And, secondly, should we be doing more to assist the Uzbeksas they dealt with^the IMU threat, which was closely linked to alQaeda. And, therefore, enlist Uzbeks in dealing with al Qaeda,as well.And those were the narrow issues that he posed.Q Do you know or estimate how long the memo is?SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: How long the memo is?Q Yes.SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: It's three pages, with some

attachments. And his strategy paper is dated December 2000.Q It doesn't have a day on it?SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: It does not. It may; it

may. The reference I have -- I don't have a copy of it here inthis book -- the reference to it says December 2000.So he chairs a working group and, basically, what we said tohim was go develop it and identify the issues we have to address.

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And he begins in the January to March time frame doing so. Andin March, he begins work on a draft NSPD, which is a decisiondocument, it's called a National Security Presidential Directive-- signed by the President, that would lay out what the newstrategy ought to be, or the more -- the comprehensive strategyon al Qaeda should be.We had a meeting, a deputies committee meeting on April30th. I told your colleague, Bob Woodward, about this and I toldhim it was April 23rd. It's actually April 30th, I went back andlooked at that, at the date.And we had our first meeting to talk about these issues.

And we addressed, as you might expect, what's our overallapproach to al Qaeda. We talked about what we could do toincrease our aid to the Uzbeks. We talked about what we could doto increase assistance to the Northern Alliance. We talked aboutgoing after, more aggressively, al Qaeda's fundraisings. And atthat point, the Treasury Department was standing up something-called the Foreign Asset Tracking Center, which you may knowabout, which was going to help run down the funding.

And we also talked about the need for a public diplomacystrategy to go along with this. And, finally, the need fordeveloping a strategy for dealing withr the Taliban and dealingwith Pakistan.Q Public diplomacy, chiefly in the Arab world?SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Yes, largely in the Arabworld - - what was VOA doing, what was their programming like?Should we supplement in some way what VOA was doing? We then commissioned a series of papers to sort of get allthis -- one of the problems is, early on in an administration_--and we found it, clearly, on this issue -- you didn't have anypolitical level people around who could do this work. So westarted some of this work - - Dick Clarke was very active. But wedidn't have political level people in State and, particularly,Defense. So it's hard to do a sort of rethinking strategy thatreflects the politi cal view of a new administration, when youdon't have political appointees to deal with.And the nice thing was in the, sort of the May-June timeframe, political appointees start showing up to these meetings.

You know, early on, the only poli tical appointees in the roomwere Scooter Libby and me, and that was it.So in May and June we kind of get this thing rolling. InMay, Treasury stands up that Foreign Asset Tracking Center.Q I actually didn't think that was settled. I mean, Iknow that they were beginning to contemplate it, but itwasn't --

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SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: This says it was stood upin May, but, you know, I've just got this note that passed fromRoger Cressey. I assume he's right about that, but I don't know.It's a second-hand source here.We had taken some decisions in April 23rd --Q Thirtieth?SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: April 30th. We wereimplementing them in May and June. And then in June, we had areview of the accompanying strategy on Pakistan on June 29th, onPakistan and with respect to the Taliban on June 29th. And then

on July 16th we have a second situation where -- meeting where wesort of bring our Taliban strategy and our al Qaeda strategytogether.And at that point, we have sort of brought the piecestogether and we've got a draft NSPD on al Qaeda, which we think

is pretty good. And we submit that to the principals. And theprincipals have a meeting on it on August 13th. Sorry, thematerials are distributed to the principals on August 13th, andthere is_a meeting on the subject on September 4th.And September 4th, the principals basically approve the NSPDon al Qaeda.Q Basically or -- I mean, it's not done?SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: It's got to be signed bythe President. So they approve it~to be sent forward to thePresident on September 4th. And then we get September llth.Q So there's no further work to be done, they don't askfor amendments or --SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: No, ready to go, in thecan.Now, that document is then -- September llth comes. Andduring the month of September, basically we -- in some sense, welaunched the global war on terrorism. And the al Qaeda NSPDneeds to be put in the context of a global attack againstterrorism. And what we basically do then is revise the whole

package in the following way.We put a front end on it, which is a document, it's an NSPD,which doesn't finally get signed until October 25, but we're already well into implementing.Q What's the number?

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SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I'm not going to give thenumber. Because if I give you the number, you know how manythere are and all that stuff. That's one thing we don't giveout; I talked to Condi about that.

It's somewhat unpretentiously titled "Defeating theTerrorist Threat to the United States." And the front of it is abrief document of a couple pages that talks about the goal, theobjectives and the strategy of the global war on terrorism.

And then, attached as Annex A, is the document foreliminating the terrorist threat posed by al Qaeda. And thetheory was, as you go after other terrorist organizations ofglobal reach, you will add other strategy annexes. But thisfirst one was going to be al Qaeda. And that document is, wordfor word, the document -- or almost virtually word for word thedocument that was approved by the principals on September 4th.

Q So it's not intensified or accelerated or new elementsof it taken at that time?SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: It's really not, becausethe strategy -- and I'm going to sort of take a quick eyeball

here and make sure what I told you is just right -- because thestrategies actually, we decided, pretty good and prettyappropriate.Let me do just one thing here.Q But I mean, how big is this document?SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I'll get that.Let me water that back. I can see that there are -- it's alittle longer; the paragraphs are basically the same; the

headings are the same. But the paragraphs are a little longer,so it does get expanded somewhat. But the basic elements are thesame.And what's happened is that -- and why it's really ready togo -- is the fact that it's substantially the same, probably 85to 90 percent the same, same headings, same focus. It hasembedded in it a series of tasks to the intelligence community todevelop better intelligence sources and to begin to develop tiesto potential opposition in Afghanistan.Q Inside?SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Inside Afghanistan. AndGeorge and his people have been developing that plan in parallel.So that is why, you know, when the NSPD is finally approved bythe principals in early September, George has pretty much got hisplan done. So that's why at the much-celebrated meeting at CampDavid, George can -- when the President turns to George and says,

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what's your plan for dealing with al Qaeda as an intelligence andcovert action challenge, George can basically put it down on thetable, because he's developed it already.Q Is this an emphasis on push to an opposition insideAfghanistan?SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I can talk about that injust a minute.The other piece I want to say is that there was also anappendix to that NSPD, a tasking to do some military planning,which was not on the same time table as George's, because theassumption implicitly was you'll do the --"George's piece gofirst, and then if you needed, the military piece will come onafter.So, again, at the meeting at Camp David, surprise, surprise,the military presents some options, but doesn't have a full plan.

And that's right, ^because our concept was basically phased. Andthe concept was basically to support opposition and to encourageopposition to the Taliban within the country.But it got phased-in in the following way. The Afghanstrategy paper that went with all of this, the sort of Talibanstrategy paper, initially started out as two options: you can goto the Taliban and say, turn over the al Qaeda, sever your ties,expel all the terrorists, close the training camps and we'reprepared to deal with you -- even though he didn't like thatregime much.The alternative option was to begin now to work with

opposition groups to try to turn them against the Taliban andoverturn the regime or, at least if not overturn the regime, atleast begin to pressure the Taliban regime so that they wouldturn over the al Qaeda, recognizing that you would run the riskor would finally have the opportunity to topple the regime.Those were presented to the deputies as two options, andwhat we did is we fused them because they were effectively timed.You could go to the Taliban now, tell them to turn over the alQaeda and get out of the terrorist support business. But at thesame time, you could begin extending your ties to these varioustribal groups so that should the Taliban not go along, you wouldhave already built an infrastructure of ties to tribal groups

that would allow you to encourage them to move against theTaliban, which would either put pressure on the Taliban to getthem to go along or, ultimately, overturn them.In a funny sort of way, if you look at the President'sstatement to the joint session of Congress, he adopts thatstrategy but in a very telescope way, in light of the events ofSeptember llth. He gives the Taliban an ultimatum. He givesthem a period of time to respond. They don't. And so early in

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October, we go into phase two and start moving and encouragingthe opposition to Taliban.The difference, of course, is that because of Septemberllth, there is a military option that comes in right on top ofwhat George is doing._ And in the period from September llthuntil early October, you develop what is a new feature of it,

which is this integration between what George's people are doingon the ground and what the special operations forces are able todo.Q All right. So now I'm stopping at the llth, and so thestuff you're talking about is good as it reflects the state ofplay before. ~SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Right.Q So, clearly, the large military campaign to oust theTaliban is not contemplated on September 4th?SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: It is -- we've asked themto do some planning for it because we think we may need it. Butthe notion really is approach the Taliban, tell them they need toget out of the terrorist business. At the same time, through thecovert side, be developing your infrastructure of contacts' thatwould allow you to support opposition of the Taliban_ and putpressure on the Taliban to sever their ties with al Qaeda. Andif that doesn't work, have available to you military options thatwould allow you to take on the Taliban directly. That wasbasically the plan as of September -- the plan that gets briefedthat is in the NSPD and gets briefed to the principals on _September 4.Q There's a trade-off, analytically, between supportingthe internal opposition and supporting the Northern Alliance,Pashtuns don't like.SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: They're the same in ourview. In our view, you could -- the opposition was where youfound it. And that, indeed, it was important if you weren'tgoing to polarize the country, to be having ties and encouragingrevolt both in the Northern Alliance and in the southern Pashtuntribes. And the strategy from the very beginning involved yourdoing both.Q But there is a trade-off in effectiveness, is the ideathat if you're seen to be providing material and other support tothe Northern Alliance, you're going to piss off the Pashtuns.SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: That's why you do both fromthe get-go, and we did do both from the get-go. And the problemwas that the Northern Alliance, of course, took to thebattlefield a lot quicker than did the southern tribes, because

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they were more oppressed by the Taliban regime than were thesouthern tribes.But from the very beginning, we wanted to not make a trade-off, not make a choice. And we, from the very beginning,articulated a vision for a post-Taliban Afghanistan in which alltribes would be able to participate and which would have a

central authority, but would have a high degree of autonomy sothat the tribes would be able to largely run their own affairs.Because that, in our judgment, was the characteristic of thegovernment during those periods of Afghanistan's history when itwas more or less stable.

Q As you see it on September 4th, what links and supportare you offering the opposition, meaning the range from money,nonlethal, lethal, intelligence, material support?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: The plan includes all ofthose.Q Sequenced or just all at once, whatever they canaccept?SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: It sort of depends. One ofthe things you do to George is you say, this is what we want.Now you go to develop a-plan to do it. And the NSPD isn't the

plan,"the NSPD is the authorization.Q Is there a corresponding, sort of, you know, name for aplan on George's side? * -SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: You need to talk to George,_

what he called it.Q B u t h e won't. - -SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I don't know.MR. ANTON: He did come out to say hello, however. 'Q But you're saying, I mean, in what George produced, allof the above is part of the plan -- lethal and nonlethal aide,and material and money, intelligence?SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Correct. Yes.Q And that's directed to commence -- say, had thePresident signed off on it, it would have been directed tocommence immediately?SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: It had a diplomatic -- asyou can tell, because I described to you how he did it, the planhad diplomatic intelligence, financial, military, lawenforcement, all aspects to it. It was basically to start

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promptly, immediately, but it was not clear how fast it would allget done.Q What would it cost?SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: We had a line in it, and Iam not sure I can tell you what it was. As he signed it, it did

not have a number.Q And was there some other place where there's a number?You've seen the figure published of $200 million twice and also$125 to $200?SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Hold on a minute.Q Yes, please.SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Well, I don't have it inhere. You should call Dick Clarke and ask him that question.Q Will do. I thought the analysis of the NorthernAlliance was that since they're getting money and arms from Iranand Russia, that's not their principle constraint. Theirprinciple constraint is men and, perhaps, fighting intensity. Sowhy does giving them those things help them?SENIOR ADMINISTRATION'OFFICIAL: That's not true. When wegot into this, we found there was a real shortage of hardware andammunition in the Northern Alliance forces. And one of thechallenges in the opening weeks was to get that"to them, and wedid it in twodifferent ways. We got and moved in and deliveredto them large amounts of equipment" ourselves. But, quite

frankly, we also gave them money and let them buy it, a goodchunk of which came from Russia -- but not just from Russia.So they were outnumbered, sometimes dramaticallyoutnumbered. They were outgunned and short on equipment andammunition. That's how it started out.Q But , for example, when they lost Mazir e Sharif and theother provincial cities , I thought the analysis was because theywere outnumbered, not that they ran out of ammo or that they wereoutgunned.SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: All I can tell you -- I

can't tell you about the -- I can tell you in the opening daysafter September 11 and after October, when we started this, therewere shortages, and we heard loud and clear from these folks thatthey needed equipment.Q9/4? But is that the same analysis you have in the run-up to

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SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: The analysis we have isthat they're going to need all of those things. If you want toget into details about what was going to have to go and whichcommander, you'll have to talk to George. But the analysis wasthat they needed all of those things. And the other thing was,of course, we were going to have to encourage them to rise and togive what kind of operational support we could to them.Q Now,opposition? there you're speaking mainly of a Pashtun

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: No, I'm talking about theNorthern Alliance, as well as south. Remember, the NorthernAlliance had been largely defeated by this force. People forget,they had been pushed. The Northern Alliance was largely incontrol of that government nd was pushed from power by theTaliban, and had a small sliver of the north. And then bin Ladenshrewdly, before he started September llth, killed Massoud.

Q That's 9/9. What's your reaction here to that? ~SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: To what? _Q Massoud's death.SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: It's a blow. It's a blow.

On the other hand, it was also a polarized victory. So, youknow, it's both a blow and an opportunity.I need to check with Condi, just a minute.(Interruption to interview.)SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: The other thing I shouldsay -- having just looked at one of these documents -- is, again,in the run-up, the strategy with respect to al Qaeda is as Idescribed: approach them, tell them that they --Q You're on the Taliban?SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I'm talking about theTaliban.Q Right.SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Deliver the message thatthey need to solve the UBL-al Qaeda issue, that said they need toget rid of them -- close the camps, expel them; and the same timedevelop the ability to increase pressure on the Taliban. If theydon't -- and that involved the outreach to the opposition that wetalked about. And the thought there as either to split theTaliban away from al Qaeda or to exploit fissures within theTaliban, so that perhaps the leadership would split and somefaction would come forward that was prepared to turn over the al

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Qaeda. Or if that didn't work, then we might have to putpressure on the Taliban directly, and we had developed some, as Isay, military options to do that.Q More than supporting the opposition? Military options-- essentially, direct U.S. military to attack?SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Yes. We asked thismilitary to develop -- to begin -- this is, again, begindeveloping options to do that.Q What sort of scale are we talking about? Not,presumably, the scale of pro-September ll_th?SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Options to go against alQaeda_and their leadership command, control, communications andtraining facilities. And also to develop options for targetsagainst the Taliban, including leadership, command and control,ground forces and logistics. So at that point we're developing

options. So youean see the strategy. There's a diplomaticfront end.If that doesn't work, we've laid the groundwork to have tiesto the opposition from that unrest and uprising within theopposition to press the Taliban. If the Taliban decides to giveup al Qaeda, great. If the Taliban fissures and we get al Qaedathat way, fine. If not, we've got military planning underway sowe would at that point have the option to use military forceagainst them directly. So it's viewed as kind of a sequence asof September 4th. And, of course, what September llth does istelescope all of that together. But my only point was the basicplanning and the basic strategy had been developed.Q So the direction to the military to create theseoptions, both against al Qaeda and against Taliban comes on --well, the decision to make the direction is 9/4, and it's readyfor the President's signature?SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Correct.Q But the options have not yet been developed?SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Correct. That's exactlyright.Q Okay. I understand more about the pressure on theTaliban than I do about al Qaeda right now. What new is there onal Qaeda? That is to say, the last administration, as I wroteabout, was going after, you know, a handful of top leadership,hoping to get enough intelligence for a strike. What are youdoing differently in terms of your direction to the military?SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: In terms of direction ofthe military?

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Q Yes. When you direct the military to develop optionsagainst al Qaeda, you're hoping for stuff that goes, perhaps,beyond attacks on bin Laden and his lieutenants.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I read it to you. I'llread it to you again. It's --

Q The leadership command, control, communications andtraining.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Well, I mean, leadership,command and control, training and logistics facilities. That'swhat we talk about at that point. And I guess I^would say -- andagainst the Taliban. It's all of those things, including theground forces^.

Q As you sequence it, though, why isn't the al Qaeda partimmediate, since they're plainly -- the United States, thesequencing for the Taliban makes sense, because you're trying toexert a decision. But there's- no decision for al Qaeda as to --

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: But it's pretty clear atthat point that you're not going to get -- you've got -- theTaliban is a protective shield for al Qaeda. And the genius ofwhat the President said shortly after September llth is that thisis about the terrorists and those that give them safe haven. Andthe premise was, you either had to get the Taliban to give up alQaeda, or you were going to have to go after both the Taliban andal Qaeda, together. That's the premise.

But that as long as al Qaeda is in Afghanistan under theprotection of the Taliban, you don't have an al Qaeda-onlyoption, effectively. You're going to have to treat it as asystem and either break them apart, or go after them together.Because the relationship is too close and too symbiotic. And tothink that you could deal with al Qaeda without dealing with theTaliban didn't make any sense.

Q Now, the declared U.S. diplomatic position onAfghanistan, right up until this time --SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: And the other thing is,

excuse me --Q Please.SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Are you really prepared to

show some seriousness of going after this, or you're not -- andone of the things -- again, I know it's outside September llth,but -- the planning that we are calling for is, as you can see,as I describe it, you can't do all those things just with cruisemissiles. If you're going to do the things I describe and whatthe military was chosen -- was directed to plan for, you're going

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to have to use air forces and you're going to have to use groundforces. And that's what they were told to do.The belief was that's the only way you can both do the joband also on parallel, it also shows that you're serious about thejob, if you're prepared to-make that kind of commitment againstterrorism.I think the two things that the President does afterSeptember llth that are implicit in this strategy before, it'snot just about al Qaeda, it's about the Taliban, because it's notjust about terrorists, it's also about those that give them aid,comfort and protection. _And then, the second is, you've got to be serious about it,you can't say no casualties and stand off weapons only, you'vegot to go in and put boots on the ground and American young menand women at risk, in order both to get the job done and also toshow that you're serious about it. And that's really what the

P-r-esident -- those are the two things that I think characterizethe approach of the administration.Q Manifest ly, they characterize it after September llth.What can I do to, sort of, document that they characterize the _approach before September llth?

- SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I "can't do any better thanwhat I've told you, which was the strategy, which is to sayyou've got to deal with bot h Taliban and al Qaeda. And havingread to you the tasking that the military was given, you can onlydo that with all of your military forces. You can't just do itwith the cruise missiles.Q What I hear --SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I mean, I can't do anybetter than for you, sorry.Q What I hear is that they've developed optio ns like thatbefore. The question is, what's your posture on the use of them-- again, in early September?SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: You know, I guess, youknow, we won't really know, because the strategy doesn't unfold.I m ean, you don't -- as I said, it's a phased strategy that welay out. And in some sense, whether you have to use the militaryoption is going to depend in some sense whether the first part ofyour strategy fails or succeeds.The other thing I would say is that the covert piece, whatGeorge has asked, planned and then prepared to do, is also muchmore robust and involves put ting people in country and puttingthem at risk.

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So I guess I can't answer that question, because I can't gothrough what would have happened if we hadn't had September llth.I can tell you the strategy we had, the sequencing we had in mindand what we were prepared to do, and the planning we did toprepare to do it. I can't show you that we did, because wedidn't have the events, and I guess I can't prove to you that wewould have done it, other than everybody agreed that this waswhat we need to be prepared to do.

So you know, I can't prove -- I can't prove it to you,because we didn't actually do it until September llth. So Idon't know what to tell you.Q Where does all this stand on the administration's, sortof, list of top national security priorities in the period I'mtalking about?SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Well, it's prettyinteresting that a lot of people -- I'll give you this -- I'll

give you a little flavor for that. Let me help you a little bit.This is the policy thinking that goes along with this. Thepolicy thinking that goes along with it is that it's our policyto eliminate the threat to the United States and to friendlygovernments posed by al Qaeda. _Actually, this is a good-po int. This is in the -- let meget -- this is in the document. This will help you, actually.I'm sorry, I'm beginning to get a little frustrated that I can'tanswer you, but I think this will help you. This is in thedocument that goes to the principals.Q The 8/13 document? ~SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Yes. It goes to theprincipals in the package on 8/13, is what it says. It is-the --basically, I'm not going to give you the quotes, I'm going togive you -- I don't want to have this document quoted.Q No quote fragment.SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Okay.Q I mean, that's your question.SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I'm going to tell you whatit says. I'm going to tell you what it said, but I've got tohave you agree that you're not going to quote the document.Okay?Q Okay. I agree.SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Will you do that?Q I agree.

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SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: It says, the policy of theUnited States to eliminate the threat to the United States and tofriendly governments posed by the al Qaeda terrorist network.And then it also says, that to eliminate the threat, you have toend all sanctuaries given to al Qaeda, specifically the currentsanctuary in Afghanistan. So I would say, that is both -- you goafter the terrorists and you go after those that aid and givesuccor to them.

And it also says the Taliban bears responsibility for theattacks carried out by al Qaeda.Q Is that message delivered to the Taliban? The one timeI know of is the 29th of June by Milo.SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: And we've delivered that:message in June and July. And we do it, in part, because as youknow, the threat reporting goes up in June and July. And we sendthat message and we say we are both then responsible for anythingthat happens in that time frame.Q Milo met with the Taliban, Ambassador to Islamabad, onthe 29th of June and said that -- I'm told -- I don't know of anyother time it was conveyed to them.SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: That's when it wasconveyed, I think.Q Not in July -- I mean, you said July, and I"1 m wonderingif there's another -SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: In June-July -- I've gotit.Q Is one time, it's not more than once?SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I don't know that. That'sour standard guidance. I know it is conveyed in that time frame.

We may have used other channels. If you want, the guy who wouldknow is Armitage.Q I don't think I can get to him.SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: The other thing I want to

say is --Q The reason I ask, it's a fairly low-level. It had beendone as high as the level of Pickering the last time, and I'mwondering whether it got to a higher level pre-9/11?SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I don't know. Let's see if

we can find out. You can talk to Dick Clarke about that. Thereyou go.

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Q We haven't talked about the Cole. I'm told that inthis time frame, late spring, the USS Cole -- in this time frameof late spring, early summer, there finally is a determinationthat George can stand behind that al Qaeda did it; it seemsobvious it was suspected for a long time. But that's -- I mean,I don't know more precise than that. But that's when you know.What can you tell me about that, and what the reaction was?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Let me - - when we -- I'vegot to go in just a minute. I'm not ready for this otherinterview, by the way. I haven't read all the stuff. So we mayhave to delay it a little bit.That is one of the factors that animates and motivates thepreparation of the strategy that^we're talking about here. It'sone of the things that's cited in these kinds of documents thatsays, what is the nature of the threat and one of the things thatcited is the fact that they are behind the attacks and theyresulted in the deaths of 29 Americans -- __Q Is that 8/13 document?SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: It's in that document. Soit's one of the -- I guess on the priority, you know, everybodysaying these guys are going to be unilateralists, they're goingto~go against Iraq. It is interesting that the plan that cameforward and is ready to go, was al Qaeda is.Q Karen said I should really ask you about the Genoaassassination threat and what the President said about swatting _ _flies, ancT so on. _SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I don't know about that,specifically. You ought to go to Dick Clarke. What I will tellyou is, in the June and July time period when we're getting a lotof threat reporting, and Condi's talking to -- and one of thethings you do when you get this threat reporting, particularlyfor things overseas, is you button-down the embassies, youbutton-down military facil ities. And we did all of that.But the President seeing all that, on two occasions, says toCondi, we'll plan defense. I'm tired about playing defense. Iwant to play offense. I want to take the battle to these guys.Q I'd love to be able to say when.SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: We'll have to get that fromCondi. Can we ask Condi? And I think~the swatting flies one,which I've heard secondhand, is of the same sort. But we'll needto get that from Condi, as well.Q How serious was the Genoa threat? What did they knowabout it?

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SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: You know, Condi's going toneed to do that, because she was there and I wasn't.Q The very last thing, because I know you're out. I

reported that the last administration forward-based in boxes thesubmarines and the AC 130, in case they got a lead on where binLaden was.

I also -- what I didn't report, but I now know is they tookthose off line before they left. And I hear that they were notput back on line before 9/11 and I wonder about that.If I could add, the Predator's ready, the armed Predator isshown to work by June, but doesn't get deployed. So that's whatI'm trying^to capture here. Strike asset, that's forward-based.SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I don't know the answer tothat. And let's see if we can find out. But you know, part of

it is, it's one of the- fallacies and -- again,~ one of the thingsthat I think characterizes this approach that's different, youhave a long discussion about inthis period of time --Q Deputies?SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Deputies -- if you get UBL,is that enough. And the answer is, it hurts the organization,because he's very visible and charismatic and all the rest; butit doesn't kill the organization. And if you think about what wenow learned about this network for 60 to 80 countries, fairly

very distributed, we became convinced that_this wasn't about UBL,this was about al Qaeda, and that's why we had to go after thenetwork as a whole, and that's why we had to go after theTaliban, because it wasn't just getting them to turn over UBL.

See, that was the approach the prior administration took, ifI understand it -- there was a lot of pressure -- turn over UBLand we'll call it quits. In our view, that wasn't going to doit. They needed to take down the infrastructure of terrorism inAfghanistan, get rid of the whole network.And so one of the things I think that would influence uswas, they never got the kind of intelligence that would allow youwith high confidence to use those prepositioned assets. So therewas a real question about effectiveness. And, secondly, there

was also a view that that really wasn't going to be enough. Thatwasn't going to eliminate the threat.Now, the specifics of that, with the -- offer, we'll have tosee if we can find out something for you about that.Q And can they give me stuff on -- we didn't get time totalk about -- the change in policy toward Pakistan, which wa scontemplated in this thing?

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SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: There is, in parallel withthis, a strategy for Pakistan which has also a companion strategyfor India, which says that we are going to have to make -- andI'll have to get more of the details -- but basically it says,we've got to support this effort. We're going to need to havethem understand that if we go after the Taliban it is a threat tothem, that we recognize their interest in having a stableAfghanistan on their border, and we're going to try and besolicitous of that interest.

And that in order to pull this off and have Pakistan'scooperation, we've got to restart U.S. relations with Pakistan,and that means both we're going to have to get rid of some of thesanctions -- which we started to do in this time frame -- and wealso need to reestablish and give them various kinds ofassistance and support.

So there is a Pakistan strategy that gets developed in thistime frame and is reviewed on June 29, that's part of all this;and then there is, of course, an India strategy that goes withPakistan, because you can't -- we've also already started thisopening to India and a new strategic relationship with India.And so the theory is that we need to bring along these inparallel and make it clear that no longer is it a zero^-sum game,that better relations with India means poor relations withPakistan and vice-versa; but, in fact, we could progress therelationship with both countries and that would give us leverageon issues like Kashmir, for example, and their nuclear weapons.

So what_we're doing in this time frame is we're developingan al Qaeda strategy in Afghanistan, or a Taliban strategy, aPakistan strategy and an India strategy, trying to get them all -

Q But it wasn't right yet for conveying to Pakistan, likewhen --

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: We started it, but it wasnot right. It was not right. And it had not gone to principalsat that point. I think that's fair to say.

Q Thank you so much.END

3:15 P.M. EST

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