We will specifically focus on the efforts to counter the danger posed by
the Al Qaida organization and its allies. These findings may help frame some of the
issues for this hearing and inform the development of the Commission's judgments and
recommendations.
This report reflects the results of our work so far. We remain ready to revise our
understanding of these topics as our work continues. This Staff statement represents
the collective effort of a number of members of our Staff. Scott Allan, Michael Hurley,
Warren Bass, Dan Byman, Thomas Dowling and Len Hawley did much of the
investigative work reflected in this statement.
We are grateful to the U.S. Department of State for its excellent cooperation in providing
the Commission with needed documents and in helping to arrange needed interviews
both in the United States and in nine foreign countries.
We are also grateful to the foreign governments who have extended their cooperation
in making many of their officials available to us as well.
The Executive Office of the President and the Central Intelligence Agency have made
a wealth of material available to us that sheds light on the conduct of American
diplomacy in this period.
I'd now like to introduce Michael Hurley of our Staff, noting that Michael is employed
by an agency of the United States government and did three tours in Afghanistan after
9/11. He will now present an abbreviated version of the Staff statement, omitting some
of the historical background.
The United States of America has long regarded such acts as criminal. For more than a
generation, international terrorism has also been regarded as a threat to the nation's
security.
In the 1970s and 1980s, terrorists frequently attacked American targets, often as an
outgrowth of international conflicts like the Arab-Israeli dispute. The groups involved
were frequently linked to sovereign states.
After the destruction of Pan-American flight 103 by Libyan agents in 1988, the wave
of international terrorism that targeted Americans seemed to subside.
The 1993 attempt to blow up the World Trade Center called attention to a new kind
of terrorist danger.
A National Intelligence Estimate issued in July, 1995, concluded that the most likely
threat would come from emerging transient terrorist groupings that were more fluid
and multinational than the older organizations and state-sponsored surrogates.
This new terrorist phenomenon was made up, according to the NIE, of loose
affiliations of Islamic extremists violently angry at the United States. Lacking strong
organization, they could still get weapons, money, and support from an assortment of
governments, factions, and individual benefactors.
Growing international support networks were enhancing their ability to
operate in any region of the world.
Since the terrorists were understood as loosely affiliated sets of individuals, the basic
approach for dealing with them was that of law enforcement. But President William J. Clinton
emphasized his concern about the problem as a national security issue in a Presidential
Decision Directive (PDD 39, June, 1995) that stated the U.S. policy on
counterterrorism. This directive superseded the directive signed by President Ronald W. Reagan
in 1986.
President Clinton's directive declared that the United States, "saw terrorism as a
potential threat to national security, as well as a criminal act, and will apply all
appropriate means to combat it. In doing so, the U.S. shall pursue vigorously efforts
to deter and preempt, apprehend and prosecute, or assist other governments to
prosecute individuals who perpetrate or plan to perpetrate such attacks."
The role of diplomacy was to gain the cooperation of other governments in bringing
terrorists to justice. PDD 39 stated, "When terrorists wanted for violation of U.S. law
are at large overseas, their return for prosecution shall be a matter of the highest
priority and shall be a continuing central issue in bilateral relations with any state that
harbors or assists them. If extradition procedures were unavailable or put aside, the
United States could seek the local country's assistance in a rendition, secretly putting
the fugitive in a plane back to America or some third country for trial."
In 1996, he was based in Sudan. Under the influence of the radical Islamist Hassan Al-Turabi,
Sudan had become a safe haven for violent Islamist extremists.
By 1995, the U.S. government had connected Osama bin Laden to terrorists as an important
terrorist financier.
Since 1979, the U.S. Secretary of State has had the authority to name state sponsors of
terrorism, subjecting such countries to significant economic sanctions. Sudan was so
designated in 1993.
In February, 1996, for security reasons, U.S. diplomats left Khartoum. International
pressure further increased as the Sudanese regime failed to hand over three individuals involved
in a 1995 attempt to assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The United
Nations Security Council imposed sanctions on the regime.
Diplomacy had an effect. In exchanges beginning in February, 1996, Sudanese
officials began approaching U.S. officials, asking what they could do to ease the
pressure.
During the Winter and Spring of 1996, Sudan's Defense Minister visited Washington, D.C.,
and had a series of meetings with representatives of the U.S. government.
To test Sudan's willingness to cooperate on terrorism, the United States presented
eight demands to their Sudanese contact.
The one that concerned bin Laden was a request for intelligence
information about bin Laden's contacts in Sudan.
These contacts with Sudan, which went on for years, have become a source of
controversy.
Former Sudanese officials claim that Sudan offered to expel bin Laden to the United
States. officials in the administration of U.S. President William J. Clinton deny ever receiving such an offer. We have not
found any reliable evidence to support the Sudanese claim.
Sudan did offer to expel bin Laden to Saudi Arabia and asked the Saudis to pardon
him. U.S. officials became aware of these secret discussions certainly by March,
1996.
The evidence suggests that the Saudi government wanted bin Laden expelled from
Sudan, but would not agree to pardon him. The Saudis did not want bin Laden back
in their country at all.
U.S. officials also wanted bin Laden expelled from Sudan. They knew the Sudanese
were considering it. The U.S. government did not ask Sudan to render him into U.S.
custody.
According to Samuel Berger, who was then President Clinton's Deputy National Security Advisor, the
Interagency Counterterrorism Security Group (CSG), chaired by Richard Clarke, had a
hypothetical discussion about bringing bin Laden to the United States. In that
discussion, a U.S. Justice Department representative reportedly said there was no basis for
bringing him to the United States, since there was no way to hold him here, absent an
indictment.
Berger adds that, in 1996, he was not aware of any intelligence that said bin Laden
was responsible for any act against an American citizen. No rendition plan targeting
bin Laden, who was still perceived as a terrorist financier, was requested by or
presented to senior policy-makers during 1996.
Yet, both Berger and Clarke also said the lack of an indictment made no difference.
Instead, they said the idea was not worth pursuing, since there was no chance that
Sudan would ever turn bin Laden over to a hostile country.
"If Sudan had been serious," Clarke said, "the United States would have worked
something out."
However, the U.S. government did approach other countries hostile to Sudan and bin
Laden about whether they would take bin Laden. One was apparently interested. No
handover took place.
Under pressure to leave, bin Laden worked with the Sudanese government to
procure a safe passage and possibly funding for his departure.
In May, 1996, bin Laden and his associates leased an Ariana Airlines jet and traveled
to Afghanistan, stopping to refuel in the United Arab Emirates. Approximately two
days after his departure, the Sudanese informed the U.S. government that bin Laden
had left. It is unclear whether any U.S. officials considered whether or how to
intercept bin Laden.
The fourth example, which I'll paraphrase from the staff statement, is Khobar Towers.
In June, 1996, an enormous truck bomb was detonated in the Khobar
Towers residential complex for U.S. Air Force personnel in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.
The Khobar bombing began as a law enforcement case, but Khobar bombing also
was an intelligence case.
As we state in the middle of page five, the Khobar case highlights a central policy
problem in counterterrorism -- the relationship between evidence and action.
U.S.Secretary of State, Madeline Albright, emphasized to us, for example, that even if
some individual Iranian officials were involved, this was not the same as proving that
the Iranian government as a whole should be held responsible for the bombing.
National Security Advisor Berger held a similar view. He stressed the need for a
definitive intelligence judgment. "The evidence might be challenged by foreign
governments. The evidence might form a basis for going to war. Therefore," he
explained, "the DCI and the director of the FBI must make a definitive judgment
based on the professional opinions of their experts."
In the Khobar case, as in some others, the time lag between terrorist act and any
definitive attribution grew to months, then years, as the evidence was compiled.
I'll now discuss the Afghanistan problem, beginning with the fourth paragraph on page
six.
After suffering some disruption from his relocation to Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden
and his colleagues rebuilt.
In August, 1996, he issued a public declaration of jihad against American troops in
Saudi Arabia. In February, 1998, this was expanded into a public call for any Muslim
to kill any American, military or civilian, anywhere in the world.
By early 1997, intelligence and law enforcement officials in the U.S. government had
finally received reliable information disclosing the existence of Al Qaida as a
worldwide terrorist organization. That information elaborated a command-and-control
structure headed by bin Laden and various lieutenants, described a network of
training camps to process recruits, discussed efforts to acquire weapons of mass
destruction, and placed Al Qaida at the center among other groups affiliated with
them in its Islamic army.
This information also dramatically modified the inchoate picture of Islamist terrorism
presented in the 1995 National Intelligence Estimate. But the new picture was not
widely known. It took still more time before officials outside the circle of terrorism
specialists in the U.S. government and officials in foreign governments fully comprehended that the enemy was much
larger than an individual criminal, more than just one man, OBL, and his associates.
For example, Congress, in 1996, passed a law that authorized the Secretary of State to
designate foreign terrorist organizations that threaten the national security of the
United States, a designation that triggers economic, immigration, and criminal
consequences.
Al-Qa'ida was not designated by the Secretary of State until the Fall of
1999.
While Afghanistan became a sanctuary for Al-Qa'ida, the U.S. State Department's interest
in Afghanistan remained limited. Initially, after Taliban's rise, some U.S. diplomats in the State Department
were -- as one official said to us -- willing to give the Taliban a chance because it
might be able to bring stability to Afghanistan.
A secondary consideration was that stability would allow an oil pipeline to be built
through the country; a project to be managed by the Union Oil Company of
California (UNOCA)L.
During 1997, working-level State Department officials asked for permission to visit and investigate
militant camps in Afghanistan. The Taliban stalled, then refused.
In November, 1997, Secretary of State Albright described Taliban human rights violations and
treatment of women as "despicable."
A Taliban delegation visited Washington in December. U.S. officials pressed them on
the treatment of women, negotiating an end to the civil war, and narcotics trafficking.
Bin Laden was barely mentioned.
Bill Richardson, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, led a delegation to South Asia and Afghanistan in
April, 1998. No U.S. official of this rank had been to Kabul in decades. Ambassador
Richardson used the opening to support U.N. negotiations on the civil war.
In light of bin Laden's new public fatwa against Americans in February, Ambassador
Richardson asked the Taliban to turn bin Laden over to the United States. They
answered that they did not control bin Laden, and that, in any case, he was not a
threat to the United States.
The Taliban won few friends. Only three countries recognized it as the government of
Afghanistan: Pakistan -- Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
THE SAUDI EFFORT & ITS AFTERMATH:
As we say on the middle of page eight, Saudi Arabia was a problematic ally in combating Islamic extremism. Yet the ruling
Saudi monarchy also knew bin Laden was an enemy.
Bin Laden had not set foot in Saudi Arabia since 1991, when he escaped a form of
house arrest and made his way to Sudan. Bin Laden had fiercely denounced the rulers
of Saudi Arabia publicly in his August, 1996 fatwa, but the Saudis were content to
leave him in Afghanistan, so long as they were assured he was not making any trouble
for them there.
Events soon drew Saudi attention back to bin Laden. In the Spring of 1998, the Saudi
government successfully disrupted a major bin Laden-organized effort to launch
attacks on U.S. forces in the Kingdom, using a variety of man-portable missiles.
Scores of individuals were arrested.
The Saudi government did not publicize what had happened, but U.S.
officials learned of it. Seizing this opportunity, the U.S. Director of Central Intelligence, George J. Tenet, urged the Saudis to help
deal with bin Laden.
President Clinton, in May, designated Tenet as his representative to work with the
Saudis on terrorism. DCI Director Tenet visited Riyadh a few days later, then returned to
Saudi Arabia in June.
Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah Ibn Abdul Aziz Al-Saud agreed to make an all-out secret effort to persuade the
Taliban to expel bin Laden for eventual delivery to the United States or another
country. Riyadh's emissary would be the Saudi Intelligence Chief, Prince Turki bin
Faisal. Director Tenet said it was imperative now to get an indictment against bin
Laden.
A sealed indictment against bin Laden was issued by a New York grand jury a few
days later. That indictment was the product of a lengthy investigation.
Director Tenet also recommended that action be taken on other U.S. options, such
as a covert action plan.
Vice President Al Gore thanked the Saudis for their efforts.
Prince Turki followed up in meetings during the Summer with Mullah Omar and other
Taliban leaders. Employing a mixture of possible bribes and threats, he received a
commitment that bin Laden would be handed over.
After the embassy bombings in August, Vice President Gore called Riyadh again to
underscore the urgency of bringing the Saudi ultimatum to a final conclusion.
In September, 1998, Prince Turki, joined by Pakistan's Intelligence Chief, had a
climactic meeting with Mullah Omar in Kandahar. Omar reneged on his promise to
expel bin Laden. When Turki angrily confronted him, Omar lost his temper and
denounced the Saudi government. The Saudis and Pakistanis walked out. The Saudi
government then cut off any further official assistance to the Taliban regime, recalled
its diplomats from Kandahar, and expelled Taliban representatives from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
The Saudis suspended relations without a final break.
The Pakistanis did not suspend relations with the Taliban.
The Saudi and Pakistani governments both judged that Iran was already on the verge of going to war against
the Taliban. The Saudis and Pakistanis feared that a further break might encourage
Iran to attack. They also wanted to leave open room for rebuilding ties if more
moderate voices among the Taliban gained control.
Crown Prince Abdullah visited Washington later in September. In meetings with
President Clinton and Vice President Gore, the Crown Prince briefed them on these developments. The United
States had information that corroborated his account. Officials thanked the Prince for
his efforts, wondering what else could be done.
The United States acted too. In every available channel, U.S. officials, led
by the State Department's aggressive Counterterrorism Coordinator, Michael Sheehan, warned the
Taliban of dire consequences if bin Laden was not expelled. Moreover, if there was
any further attack, he and others warned, the Taliban would be held directly
accountable, including the possibility of a military assault by the United States.
These diplomatic efforts may have had an impact. The U.S. government received
substantial intelligence of internal arguments over whether bin Laden could stay in
Afghanistan. The reported doubts extended from the Taliban to their Pakistani
supporters, and even to bin Laden himself. For a time, bin Laden was reportedly
considering relocating, and may have authorized discussion of this possibility with
representatives of other governments.
In any event, bin Laden stayed in Afghanistan.
This period may have been the high-water mark for diplomatic pressure on the
Taliban. The outside pressure continued. But the Taliban appeared to adjust and learn to
live with it, employing a familiar mix of stalling tactics again and again. Urged on by
the United States, the Saudis continued a more limited mix of the same tactics they
had already employed. Prince Turki returned to Kandahar in June, 1999, to no effect.
From 1999 through early 2001, the United States also pressed the United Arab
Emirates, one of the Taliban's only travel and financial outlets to the outside world, to
break off its ties and enforce sanctions, especially those relating to flights to and from
Afghanistan. Unfortunately, these efforts to persuade the UAE achieved little before
9/11.
As time passed, the United States also obtained information that the Taliban was
trying to extort cash from Saudi Arabia and the UAE with various threats, and that
these blackmail efforts may have paid off.
After months of heated internal debate about whether this step would burn remaining
bridges to the Taliban, President Clinton issued an executive order in July, 1999,
effectively declaring that the regime was a state sponsor of terrorism. U.N. economic
and travel sanctions were added in October, 1999, in U.N. Security Council
Resolution 1267.
None of this had any visible effect on Mullah Omar, an illiterate leader who was
unconcerned about commerce with the outside world. Omar had no diplomatic
contact with the West, since he refused to meet with non-Muslims.
The United States also learned that, at the end of 1999, the Taliban Council of
Ministers had unanimously reaffirmed that they would stick by bin Laden. Relations
with bin Laden and the Taliban leadership were sometimes tense, but the foundation
was solid. Omar executed some subordinates who clashed with his pro-bin Laden
line.
By the end of 2000, the United States, working with Russia, won U.N. support for
still broader sanctions in U.N. Security Council Resolution 1333, including an
embargo on arm sales to the Taliban.
Again, these had no visible affect. This may have been because the
sanctions did not stop the flow of Pakistani military assistance to the Taliban.
In April, 2001, State Department officials in the administration of President George W. Bush concluded that
the Pakistani government was just not concerned about complying with sanctions
against the Taliban.
Reflecting on the lack of progress with the Taliban, Secretary of State Albright told us that,
"We had to do something. In the end," she said, "it didn't work. But we did, in fact,
try to use all the tools we had."
Other diplomatic efforts with the Saudi government centered on letting U.S. agents
interrogate prisoners in Saudi custody in cases like Khobar. Several officials have
complained to us that the United States could not get direct access to an important Al-Qa'ida
financial official, Madoni Al Tayid, who had been detained by the Saudi
government in 1997.
American officials raised the issue, and the Saudis provided some information.
In September, 1998, Vice President Gore thanked the Saudis for the responsiveness
on this matter, though he renewed the request for direct U.S. access. The United
States never obtained this access.
The United States also pressed Saudi Arabia and the UAE for more cooperation in
controlling money flows to terrorists or organizations linked to them.
After months of arguments in Washington over the proper role of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, an initial
U.S. delegation on terrorist finance visited these countries, in July, 1999, to start working with their
counterparts in the Saudi and U.A.E. governments.
U.S. officials reported to the White House that they thought the new initiatives to
work together had begun successfully.
Another delegation followed up with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states in January,
2000.
In Saudi Arabia, the team concentrated on tracing bin Laden's assets and access to
his family's money, exchanges that led to further fruitful work.
Progress on other topics was limited, however. The issue was not a consistent U.S.
priority. Moreover, the Saudis were reluctant or unable to provide much help.
Available intelligence was also so non-specific that it was difficult to confront the
Saudis with evidence or cues to action.
The Bush administration did not develop any diplomatic initiatives on Al-Qa'ida with
the Saudi government before the 9/11 attack. Vice President Richard Cheney
apparently called Crown Prince Abdullah on July 4, 2001, only to seek Saudi help
in preventing threatened attacks on American facilities in the Kingdom.
PRESSURING PAKISTAN:
Referring you to the bottom of page 11, Secretary of State Albright hoped to promote a
more robust approach to South Asia when
she took office, but the Clinton administration had a full agenda of concerns, including a
possible nuclear weapons program, illicit sales of missile technology, terrorism, an
arms race, the danger of war between Palistan and India, and a succession of weak democratic
governments in Pakistan.
The U.S. Ambassador to Islamabad, in most of the immediate pre-9/11 period,
William Milam, told us that U.S. policy had too many moving parts and could never
determine what items had the highest priority.
A principal envoy to South Asia for the Clinton administration, Deputy Secretary of State
Strobe Talbott, explained that the reasons for the emphasis on nuclear weapons were the
danger of nuclear war and the very real possibility that nuclear proliferation would increase the risk of
terrorists gaining access such technology.
In May, 1998, both Pakistan and India had tested nuclear weapons. These tests
marked a setback to nonproliferation policy, and reinforced U.S. sanctions on both
countries. But the tests also spurred more engagement in order to reduce the threat of
war.
Bin Laden and terrorist activity in Afghanistan were not significant issues in high-level
contacts with Pakistan, until after the embassy bombings of August, 1998.
After the U.S. missile strikes on Afghanistan, bin Laden's network and its
relationship with the Pakistani-supported Taliban did become a major issue in
high-level diplomacy. After the strikes, President Clinton called Pakistani Prime Minister
Nawaz Sharif, and he was sympathetic to America's losses. But the Pakistani side
thought the strikes were overkill; the wrong way to handle the problem.
The United States asked the Saudis to put pressure on Pakistan to help. A senior U.S.
State Department official concluded that Crown Prince Abdullah put a tremendous
amount of heat on Sharif during his October, 1998, visit to Pakistan.
Sharif was invited to Washington and met with President Clinton on December 2,
1998. Tension with India and nuclear weapons topped the agenda, but the leaders
also discussed bin Laden. Pakistani officials defended Mullah Omar, and thought the
Taliban would not object to a joint effort by others to get bin Laden.
In mid-December, President Clinton called Sharif, worried both about immediate
threats and the longer-term problem of bin Laden. The Pakistani leadership promised
to raise the issue directly with the Taliban in Afghanistan, but the United States
received word in early 1999 that the Pakistani army remained reluctant to confront
the Taliban, in part, because of concerns about the effect on Pakistani politics.
In early 1999, the State Department Counterterrorism Office proposed a
comprehensive diplomatic strategy for all the states involved in the Afghanistan
problem, including Pakistan.
It specified both carrots and sticks, including the threat of certifying
Pakistan as not cooperating on terrorism.
A version of this diplomatic strategy was eventually adopted by the State Department.
Its author, Ambassador Sheehan, told us that it had been watered down to the point
that nothing was then done with it.
By the Summer of 1999, the counterterrorism agenda had to compete with
cross-border fighting in Kashmir that threatened to explode into war. Nevertheless,
President Clinton contacted Sharif in June, urging him strongly to get the Taliban to
expel bin Laden.
Clinton suggested Pakistan use its control over oil supplies to the Taliban and its
access to imports through Karachi. The Pakistani leadership offered instead that
Pakistani intelligence services might try to capture bin Laden themselves.
President Clinton met with Prime Minister Sharif in Washington on July 4. The
prime subject was resolution of the crisis in Kashmir. The President also complained
to the Prime Minister about Pakistan's failure to take effective action with respect to
the Taliban and bin Laden.
Later, the United States agreed to assist in training a Pakistani special forces team for
the bin Laden operation. Since the Pakistan Intelligence Service was so
deeply involved with the Taliban and possibly bin Laden, U.S. counterterrorism
officials had doubts about every aspect of this new joint plan. Yet, while few thought it
would do much good, fewer thought it would do any actual harm.
Officials were implementing it when Prime Minister Sharif was deposed by General
Pervez Musharraf in October, 1999. General Musharraf was scornful about the whole idea of the special forces unit
as well as about whether such a unit was desirable and whether it would be effective.
At first, the Clinton administration hoped that Musharraf's takeover might create an
opening for action on bin Laden. National Security Advisor Berger wondered about a
trade of getting bin Laden in exchange for softer treatment of a relatively benign
military regime. But the idea was never developed into a policy proposal.
Meanwhile, President Clinton and his advisors were anxious about a series of new
terrorist threats associated with the millennium and were getting information linking
these threats to Al-Qa'ida associates in Pakistan, particularly Abu Zubaida.
President Clinton sent a message asking for immediate help on Abu Zudaida and
another push on bin Laden, renewing the idea of using Pakistani forces to get him.
Musharraf told Ambassador Milam that he would do what he could, but he preferred
a diplomatic solution of the problem of Osama bin Laden. Though he thought terrorists should be brought to
justice, he did not find the military ideas appealing.
Clinton administration officials debated whether to continue the existing approach in dealing with the Musharraf
government or to confront the general with a blunter choice -- to either adopt a new policy
or Washington would draw the appropriate conclusions.
One such threat would be to cancel a possible presidential visit in March.
U.S. envoys were given instructions that were firm, but not as
confrontational as some U.S. officials had advocated.
Musharraf was preoccupied with his domestic agenda, but replied that he would do
what he could, perhaps meeting with the Taliban himself.
Despite serious security threats, President Clinton made a one-day stopover in
Islamabad on March 25, 2000, the first presidential visit since 1969.
The main subjects were India-Pakistan tensions and nuclear proliferation, but President
Clinton did raise the bin Laden problem. The Pakistani position was that their
government had to support the Taliban and that the only way forward was to engage
them and try to moderate their behavior. They asked for evidence that bin Laden had
really ordered the embassy bombings a year and a half earlier.
In a follow-up meeting the next day with Undersecretary of State Thomas Pickering,
President Musharraf argued that Pakistan had only limited influence over the Taliban.
Musharraf did meet with Mullah Omar and did urge him to get rid of bin Laden. In
early June, the Pakistani Interior Minister even joined with Pickering to deliver a joint
message to Taliban officials.
But the Taliban seemed immune to such pleas, especially from Pakistani civilians like
the Interior Minister. Pakistan did not threaten to cut off its help to the Taliban regime.
By September, the United States was again criticizing the Pakistani government for
supporting a Taliban military offensive to complete the conquest of Afghanistan.
CONSIDERING NEW POLICIES TOWARD AFGHANISTAN & PAKISTAN:
The civil war in Afghanistan posed the Taliban on one side, drawn from Afghanistan's largest ethnic
community, the Pashtuns, against the Northern Alliance.
Pashtuns opposing the Taliban, like the Karzai clan, were not organized into a political
and military force. The main foe of the Taliban was the Northern Alliance, led by
Ahmed Shah Masood, a hero of the Afghan Jihad against the former Soviet Union and a leader of ethnic Tajiks. The
Taliban were backed by Pakistan. The Northern Alliance received some support
from Iran, Russia, and India.
During 1999, the U.S. government began thinking harder about whether or how to
replace the Taliban regime. Thinking in Washington divided along two main paths.
The first path, led by the South Asia Bureau at the State Department, headed by
Assistant Secretary of State Karl Inderfurth and its counterpart on the National Security Council Staff, was
for a major diplomatic effort to end the civil war and install a national unity
government.
The second path, proposed by counterterrorism officials on the NSC Staff and in the
Central Intelligence Agency, was for the United States to take sides in the Afghan civil war and begin
funneling secret military aid to the Taliban's foe, the Northern Alliance.
These officials argued that the diplomatic approach had little chance of
success and would not do anything, at least in the short term, to stop Al-Qa'ida.
Critics of this idea replied that the Northern Alliance was tainted by associations with
narcotics traffickers, that its military capabilities were modest, and that an American
association with this group would link the United States to an unpopular faction which
Afghans blamed for much of the misrule and war earlier in the 1990s. The debate
continued inconclusively throughout the last year and a half of the Clinton
administration.
The CIA established limited ties to the Northern Alliance for intelligence purposes .
Lethal aid was not provided.
The Afghan and Pakistani dilemmas were handed over to the Bush administration as it
took office in 2001. The NSC Counterterrorism Staff, still led by Richard Clarke, pushed
urgently for a quick decision in favor of providing secret military assistance to the
Northern Alliance to stave off its defeat.
The initial proposed amounts of military assistance were quite small, with the hope of keeping the Northern
Alliance in the field, tying down Taliban and Al-Qa'ida fighters. National Security
Advisor Condoleezza Rice discussed the issue with DCI Tenet.
In early March, 2001, Clarke presented the issue of aid to the Northern Alliance to
Rice for action. Deputy National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley suggested dealing
with this as part of the overall review they were conducting of their strategy against Al-Qa'ida.
In the meantime, lawyers could work on developing the appropriate authorities.
Rice agreed, noting that the review would need to be done very soon, but that the
issue had to be connected to an examination of policy toward Afghanistan.
Rice, Hadley, and the NSC Staff member for Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, told us
that they opposed aid to the Northern Alliance alone, contending that the program
needed to include Pashtun opponents of the regime and be conducted on a larger
scale.
Clarke supported the larger program, but he warned the delay risked the Alliance's
defeat.
The issue was then made part of the reviews of U.S. policy toward Afghanistan and
Pakistan. The government developed formal policy papers that were discussed by
sub-Cabinet officials, the deputies, on April 30, June 27, June 29, July 16, and
September 10.
During the same time period, the Bush administration was developing a formal strategy on
Al-Qa'ida to be codified in a National Security Presidential Directive (NSPD).
The Al-Qa'ida elements of this directive had been completed by deputies in
July. On September 4, the principals apparently approved the submission of this
directive to the President.
The Afghanistan options debated in 2001 ranged from seeking a deal with the Taliban
to overthrowing the regime. By the end of the deputies meeting on September 10,
the officials had formally agreed upon a three-phase strategy.
It called first for dispatching an envoy to give the Taliban an opportunity to expel bin
Laden and his organization from Afghanistan, even as the U.S. government tried to
build greater capacity to pressure them.
If this failed, pressure would be applied on the Taliban both through diplomacy and
by encouraging anti-Taliban Afghans to attack Al-Qa'ida bases, part of a planned
covert action program, including significant additional funding and more support for
Pashtun opponents of the regime.
If the Taliban's policy failed to change after these two phases, the deputies agreed that
the United States would seek to overthrow the Taliban regime through more direct
action.
PHILIP ZELIKOW'S CONCLUSION
From the Spring of 1997 to September, 2001, the U.S. government tried
to persuade the Taliban to expel Osama bin Laden to a country where he could face justice
and stop being a sanctuary for his organization. The efforts employed included
inducements, warnings, and sanctions. All these efforts failed.
The U.S. government also pressed two successive Pakistani governments to demand
that the Taliban cease providing a sanctuary for bin Laden and his organization, and
failing that, to cut off their support for the Taliban.
Before 9/11, the United States could not find a mix of incentives or pressure that
would persuade Pakistan to reconsider its fundamental relationship with the Taliban .
From 1999 to early 2001, the United States pressed the UAE, one of the Taliban's
only travel and financial outlets to the outside world, to break off ties and enforce
sanctions, especially related to air travel to Afghanistan. These efforts achieved little
before 9/11.
The government of Saudi Arabia worked closely with top U.S. officials in major
initiatives to solve the bin Laden problem with diplomacy.
On the other hand, the Saudi and U.S. governments, before 9-11, did not achieve full
sharing of important intelligence information or develop an adequate joint effort to
track and disrupt the finances of the Al-Qa'ida organization.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
War & Peace in the Real World
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Terrorism & U.S. Homeland Security
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
U.S. National Security Strategy
The foregoing Staff statement was presented on March 23, 2004, during hearings of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks
upon the United States (9-11 Commission).
Dr. Philip Zelikow is Executive Director of the Staff of the 9-11 Commission. Michael Hurley directs Staff investigations pertaining
to the question of how the United States government used diplomacy as an instrument of national power to try to disrupt the
Al-Qa'ida terror network, and, in particular, what our national government did to persuade the Taliban regime in Afghanistan to
arrest and hand over Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants, or at least to expell him from Afghan territory.
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