‘There Was No Silver Bullet’

Opening comments

Excerpts from the appearance Thursday of national security advisor Condoleezza Rice before the commission investigating the attacks of Sept. 11.

I thank the commission for arranging this special session. Thank you for helping to find a way to meet the nation’s need to learn all we can about the Sept. 11th attacks, while preserving important constitutional principles.

This commission, and those who appear before it, have a vital charge. We owe it to those we lost, and to their loved ones, and to our country, to learn all we can about that tragic day, and the events that led to it. Many families of the victims are here today, and I thank them for their contributions to the commission’s work.

The terrorist threat to our nation did not emerge on Sept. 11, 2001. Long before that day, radical, freedom-hating terrorists declared war on America and on the civilized world. ... The terrorists were at war with us, but we were not yet at war with them. For more than 20 years, the terrorist threat gathered, and America’s response across several administrations of both parties was insufficient.

... When threat reporting increased during the spring and summer of 2001, we moved the U.S. government at all levels to a high state of alert and activity. Let me clear up any confusion about the relationship between the development of our new strategy and the many actions we took to respond to threats that summer. Policy development and crisis management require different approaches. Throughout this period, we did both simultaneously.

For the essential crisis management task, we depended on the Counterterrorism Security Group chaired by Dick Clarke to be the interagency nerve center. The CSG consisted of senior counterterrorism experts from CIA, the FBI, the Department of Justice, the Defense Department (including the Joint Chiefs), the State Department and the Secret Service. The CSG had met regularly for many years, and its members had worked through numerous periods of heightened threat activity. ... The threat reporting that we received in the spring and summer of 2001 was not specific as to time, nor place, nor manner of attack. Almost all of the reports focused on Al Qaeda activities outside the United States, especially in the Middle East and North Africa. In fact, the information that was specific enough to be actionable referred to terrorist operations overseas. More often, it was frustratingly vague. Let me read you some of the actual chatter that we picked up that spring and summer:

“Unbelievable news in coming weeks.” “Big event.... There will be a very, very, very, very big uproar.” “There will be attacks in the near future.”

Troubling, yes. But they don’t tell us when; they don’t tell us where; they don’t tell us who; and they don’t tell us how.

In this context, I want to address in some detail one of the briefing items we received, since its content has frequently been mischaracterized. On Aug. 6, 2001, the president’s intelligence briefing included a response to questions he had earlier raised about any Al Qaeda intentions to strike our homeland. The briefing item reviewed past intelligence reporting, mostly dating from the 1990s, regarding possible Al Qaeda plans to attack inside the United States. It referred to uncorroborated reporting from 1998 that terrorists might attempt to hijack a U.S. aircraft in an attempt to blackmail the government into releasing U.S.-held terrorists who had participated in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. This briefing item was not prompted by any specific threat information. And it did not raise the possibility that terrorists might use airplanes as missiles.

... Throughout this period of heightened threat information, we worked hard ... to detect, protect against and disrupt any terrorist plans or operations that might lead to an attack. For instance:

The Department of Defense issued at least five urgent warnings to U.S. military forces that Al Qaeda might be planning a near-term attack, and placed our military forces in certain regions on heightened alert.

The State Department issued at least four urgent security advisories and public worldwide cautions on terrorist threats, enhanced security measures at certain embassies, and warned the Taliban that they would be held responsible for any Al Qaeda attack on U.S. interests.

... This is a brief sample of our intense activity over the summer of 2001.

Yet, as your hearings have shown, there was no silver bullet that could have prevented the 9/11 attacks. In hindsight, if anything might have helped stop 9/11, it would have been better information about threats inside the United States, something made difficult by structural and legal impediments that prevented the collection and sharing of information by our law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

So the attacks came. A band of vicious terrorists tried to decapitate our government, destroy our financial system and break the spirit of America. As an officer of government on duty that day, I will never forget the sorrow and the anger I felt. Nor will I forget the courage and resilience shown by the American people and the leadership of the president that day.

Now we have an opportunity and an obligation to move forward together.

Testimony

Excerpts from questions asked by members of the panel and Rice’s responses:

THOMAS H. KEAN, co-chairman of the panel: I’ve got a question now I’d like to ask you. It was given to me by a number of members of the families.

Did you ever see or hear from the FBI, from the CIA, from any other intelligence agency, any memos or discussions or anything else between the time you got into office and 9/11 that talked about using planes as bombs?

RICE: Let me address this question because it has been on the table.

I think that concern about what I might have known or we might have known was provoked by some statements that I made in a press conference. I was in a press conference to try and describe the Aug. 6 memo, which I’ve talked about here in my opening remarks and which I talked about with you in the private session.

And I said, at one point, that this was a historical memo, that it was -- it was not based on new threat information. And I said no one could have imagined them taking a plane, slamming it into the Pentagon -- I’m paraphrasing now -- into the World Trade Center, using planes as a missile.

... To the best of my knowledge, Mr. Chairman, this kind of analysis about the use of airplanes as weapons actually was never briefed to us.

I cannot tell you that there might not have been a report here or a report there that reached somebody in our midst.

KEAN: So when [then-counterterrorism official Richard] Clarke writes that the president pushed him to find a link between Iraq and the attack, is that right? Was the president trying to twist the facts for an Iraqi war, or was he just puzzled about what was behind this attack?

RICE: I don’t remember the discussion that Dick Clarke relates. Initially, he said that the president was wandering the situation room -- this is in the book, I gather -- looking for something to do, and they had a conversation. Later on, he said that he was pulled aside. So I don’t know the context of the discussion. I don’t personally remember it.

But it’s not surprising that the president would say “What about Iraq?” given our hostile relationship with Iraq. And I’m quite certain that the president never pushed anybody to twist the facts.

RICHARD BEN-VENISTE: I want to ask you some questions about the Aug. 6, 2001, PDB [presidential daily brief]. We had been advised in writing by the CIA on March 19, 2004, that the Aug. 6 PDB was prepared and self-generated by a CIA employee. Following Director [George J.] Tenet’s testimony on March 26 before us, the CIA clarified its version of events, saying that questions by the president prompted them to prepare the Aug. 6 PDB.

Now you have said to us in our meeting together earlier in February that the president directed the CIA to prepare the Aug. 6 PDB.

The extraordinary high terrorist attack threat level in the summer of 2001 is well-documented. And Richard Clarke’s testimony about the possibility of an attack against the United States homeland was repeatedly discussed from May to August within the intelligence community, and that is well-documented.

You acknowledged to us in your interview of Feb. 7, 2004, that Richard Clarke told you that Al Qaeda cells were in the United States.

Did you tell the president, at any time prior to Aug. 6, of the existence of Al Qaeda cells in the United States?

RICE: First, let me just make certain ...

BEN-VENISTE: If you could just answer that question, because I only have a very limited ...

RICE: I understand, commissioner, but it’s important ...

BEN-VENISTE: Did you tell the president ...

RICE: ... that I also address ... It’s also important that, commissioner, that I address the other issues that you have raised. So I will do it quickly, but if you’ll just give me a moment.

BEN-VENISTE: Well, my only question to you is whether you ...

RICE: I understand, commissioner, but I will ...

BEN-VENISTE: ... told the president.

RICE: If you’ll just give me a moment, I will address fully the questions that you’ve asked.

First of all, yes, the Aug. 6 PDB was in response to questions of the president -- and that since he asked that this be done. It was not a particular threat report. And there was historical information in there about various aspects of Al Qaeda’s operations.

Dick Clarke had told me, I think in a memorandum -- I remember it as being only a line or two -- that there were Al Qaeda cells in the United States.

Now, the question is, what did we need to do about that?

And I also understood that that was what the FBI was doing, that the FBI was pursuing these Al Qaeda cells. I believe in the Aug. 6 memorandum it says that there were 70 full field investigations underway of these cells. And so there was no recommendation that we do something about this; the FBI was pursuing it.

I really don’t remember, commissioner, whether I discussed this with the president.

BEN-VENISTE: Thank you.

RICE: I remember very well that the president was aware that there were issues inside the United States. He talked to people about this. But I don’t remember the Al Qaeda cells as being something that we were told we needed to do something about.

BEN-VENISTE: Isn’t it a fact, Dr. Rice, that the Aug. 6 PDB warned against possible attacks in this country? And I ask you whether you recall the title of that PDB?

RICE: I believe the title was, “Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.”

Now, the ...

BEN-VENISTE: Thank you.

RICE: No, Mr. Ben-Veniste ...

BEN-VENISTE: I will get into the ...

RICE: I would like to finish my point here.

BEN-VENISTE: I didn’t know there was a point.

RICE: Given that -- you asked me whether or not it warned of attacks.

BEN-VENISTE: I asked you what the title was.

RICE: You said, did it not warn of attacks. It did not warn of attacks inside the United States. It was historical information based on old reporting. There was no new threat information. And it did not, in fact, warn of any coming attacks inside the United States.

BEN-VENISTE: Now, was the president, in words or substance, alarmed or in any way motivated to take any action, such as meeting with the director of the FBI, meeting with the attorney general, as a result of receiving the information contained in the PDB?

RICE: I want to repeat that when this document was presented, it was presented as, yes, there were some frightening things -- and by the way, I was not at Crawford [Texas], but the president and I were in contact and I might have even been, though I can’t remember, with him by video link during that time.

The president was told this is historical information. I’m told he was told this is historical information and there was nothing actionable in this. The president knew that the FBI was pursuing this issue. The president knew that the director of central intelligence was pursuing this issue. And there was no new threat information in this document to pursue.

SLADE GORTON: Before 9/11, did any advisor to you, or to your knowledge to this administration or to its predecessor, counsel the kind of all-out war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan that the United States actually conducted after 9/11?

RICE: No, sir. No one counseled an all-out war against Afghanistan of the kind that we did after 9/11.

There was a good deal of talk about the inadequacy of military options to go after Al Qaeda. Dick Clarke was quite clear in his view that the very things that had been tasked were inadequate to the task.

And so, people were looking for other kinds of military options. But no, an all-out invasion of Afghanistan, it was not recommended.

BOB KERREY: You’ve used the phrase a number of times, and I’m hoping with my question to disabuse you of using it in the future: You said the president was tired of swatting flies. Can you tell me one example where the president swatted a fly when it came to Al Qaeda prior to 9/11?

RICE: I think what the president was speaking to was ...

KERREY: No, no. What fly had he swatted?

RICE: Well, the disruptions abroad was what he was really focusing on ...

KERREY: No, no ...

RICE: ... when the CIA would go after Abu Zubaydah ...

KERREY: He hadn’t swatted ...

RICE: ... or go after this guy ...

KERREY: Dr. Rice, we didn’t ...

RICE: That was what was meant.

KERREY: We only swatted a fly once on the 20th of August 1998. We didn’t swat any flies afterwards. How the hell could he be tired?

RICE: We swatted at -- I think he felt that what the agency was doing was going after individual terrorists here and there, and that’s what he meant by swatting flies. It was simply a figure of speech.

KERREY: Well, I think it’s an unfortunate figure of speech because I think, especially after the attack on the Cole on the 12th of October 2000, it would not have been swatting a fly. It would not have been -- we did not need to wait to get a strategic plan.

Dick Clarke had in his memo on the 20th of January overt military operations. He turned that memo around in 24 hours, Dr. Clarke [sic]. There were a lot of plans in place in the Clinton administration -- military plans in the Clinton administration.

In fact, since we’re in the mood to declassify stuff, there was -- he included in his Jan. 25 memo two appendices -- Appendix A: Strategy for the elimination of the jihadist threat of Al Qaeda; Appendix B: Political military plan for Al Qaeda.

So I just -- why didn’t we respond to the Cole?

RICE: Well, we ...

KERREY: Why didn’t we swat that fly?

RICE: I believe that there’s a question of whether or not you respond in a tactical sense or whether you respond in a strategic sense; whether or not you decide that you’re going to respond to every attack with minimal use of military force and go after every -- on a kind of tit-for-tat basis.

By the way, in that memo, Dick Clarke talks about not doing this tit-for-tat, doing this on the time of our choosing.

JOHN F. LEHMAN: Dr. Rice, I’d like to ask you whether you agree with the testimony we had from Mr. Clarke that, when asked whether if all of his recommendations during the transition or during the period when his, quote, hair was on fire, had been followed immediately, would it have prevented 9/11, he said no. Do you agree with that?

RICE: I agree completely with that.

LEHMAN: ... Tell us what you really recommend we should address our attentions to to fix this as the highest priority. Not just moving boxes around, but what can you tell us in public here that we could do, since we are outside the legislature and outside the executive branch and can bring the focus of attention for change? Tell us what you recommend we do.

RICE: My greatest concern is that, as Sept. 11 recedes from memory, that we will begin to unlearn the lessons of what we’ve learned.

And I think this commission can be very important in helping us to focus on those lessons and then to make sure that the structures of government reflect those lessons, because those structures of government now are going to have to last us for a very long time.

JAMES R. THOMPSON: Please describe to us your relationship with Dick Clarke, because I think that bears on the context of this -- well, let’s just take the first question.

He said he gave you a plan. You said he didn’t give you a plan. It’s clear that what he did give you was a memo that had attached to it, not only the Delenda plan -- or whatever you want to describe Delenda as -- but a December 2000 strategy paper.

Was this something that you were supposed to act on, or was this a compilation of what had been pending at the time the Clinton administration had left office but had not been acted on, or was this something he tried to get acted on by the Clinton administration and they didn’t act on it?

RICE: What I understood it to be was a series of decisions, near-term decisions that were pending from the Clinton administration, things like whether to arm the Uzbeks -- I’m sorry -- whether to give further counterterrorism support to the Uzbeks, whether to arm the Northern Alliance -- a whole set of specific issues that needed decision. And we made those decisions prior to the strategy being developed.

But by no means did he ask me to act on a plan. He gave us a series of ideas. We acted on those.

And then he gave me some papers that had a number of ideas, more questions than answers about how we might get better cooperation, for instance, from Pakistan. We took those ideas. We gave him the opportunity to write a comprehensive strategy.