Document Central to Clarke-Rice Dispute on Bush Terrorism Policy Pre-9/11
The National Security Archive today posted the widely-debated, but previously unavailable,January
25, 2001, memo from counterterrorism coordinator Richard Clarke
to national security advisor Condoleezza Rice-
the first terrorism strategy paper of the Bush administration. The
document was central to debates in the 9/11 hearings over the Bush
administration's policies and actions on terrorism before September 11,
2001. Clarke's memo requests an immediate meeting of the National
Security Council's Principals Committee to discuss broad strategies for
combating al-Qaeda by giving counterterrorism aid to the Northern
Alliance and Uzbekistan, expanding the counterterrorism budget and
responding to the U.S.S. Cole attack. Despite Clarke's request, there
was no Principals Committee meeting on al-Qaeda until September 4,
2001. The January 25, 2001, memo, recently released to the National
Security Archive by the National Security Council, bears a
declassification stamp of April 7, 2004, one day prior to Rice's
testimony before the 9/11 Commission on April 8, 2004. Responding to
claims that she ignored the al-Qaeda threat before September 11, Rice
stated in a March 22, 2004 Washington Post op-ed, "No al Qaeda plan was
turned over to the new administration." Two days after Rice's March 22
op-ed, Clarke told the 9/11 Commission, "there's a lot of debate about
whether it's a plan or a strategy or a series of options -- but all of
the things we recommended back in January were those things on the
table in September. They were done. They were done after September
11th. They were all done. I didn't really understand why they couldn't
have been done in February." [more]
The previously secret documents
were at the heart of a fiercely partisan debate over Mr. Clarke's
contention, in a book and in public statements, that the Bush
administration had ignored his warnings of the imminent danger posed by
Mr. bin Laden and his terrorist organization. The shorter memorandum
was written in response to a request for "major presidential policy
reviews" worthy of a meeting of "principals," the president's top
foreign policy advisers. It began: "We urgently need such a Principals
level review on the al Qida network." The word "urgently" was
italicized and underscored; the "al Qida" spelling was used in both
documents. "We would make a major error if we underestimated the
challenge al Qida poses," the memorandum said. The principals' meeting
on Al Qaeda took place, but not until Sept. 4, 2001, a week before the
attacks on New York and the Pentagon. The longer document was titled
"Strategy for Eliminating the Threat From the Jihadist Networks of al
Qida: Status and Prospects." It included a detailed description of the
network, saying it was "well financed, has trained tens of thousands of
jihadists, and has a cell structure in over 40 nations. It also is
actively seeking to develop and acquire weapons of mass destruction." [more] and [more]
