The Staff statement represents the collective effort of a number of different members of our Staff. Bonnie Jenkins, Michael Hurley, Alexis Albion, Ernest May and Steve Dunn did much of the investigative work reflected in this statement.

The Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency have cooperated fully in making available both the documents and interviews that we have needed for our work on this topic.

As regards the role of the military in counterterrorism strategy, I will simply note that, in George H.W. Bush's Presidency and the early years of the Clinton administration, the U.S. Department of Defense was a secondary player in counterterrorism efforts, which focused on the apprehension and rendition of wanted suspects, and move directly to the narrative account of Operation Infinite Reach.

More difficult was the question of whether to strike Al-Qa'ida targets in Sudan. Two possible targets were identified in Sudan, including a pharmaceutical plant at which the President was told by his aides, they believed VX nerve gas was manufactured with Osama bin Laden's financial support. Indeed, even before the embassy bombings, NSC Counterterrorism Staff had been warning about this plant.

Yet, on August 11, the NSC Staff Senior Director for Intelligence advised National Security Advisor Samuel R. Berger that the bottom line was that we will need much better intelligence on this facility before we seriously consider any options.

By the early morning hours of August 20, when the President made his decision, his policy advisors concluded that enough evidence had been gathered to justify the strike.

Director Central Intelligence George J. Tenet and National Security Advisor Berger told us that. Based on what they know today, they still believe they made the right recommendation and that the President made the right decision. We have encountered no dissenters among his top advisers.

This strike was launched on August 20. The missiles hit their intended targets, but neither Osama bin Laden nor any other terrorist leaders were killed. The decision to destroy the plant in Sudan became controversial. Some at the time argued that the decisions were influenced by domestic political considerations, given the controversies raging at that time.

The Staff has found no evidence that domestic political considerations entered into the discussion or the decision-making process. All evidence we have found points to national security considerations as the sole basis for President Clinton's decision.

The impact of the criticism lingered, however, as policy-makers looked to proposals for new strikes. The controversy over the Sudan attack in particular shadowed future discussions about the quality of intelligence that would be needed about other targets -- Operation Infinite Resolve and Plan Delenda.

Senior officials agree that a principal objective of Operation Infinite Reach was to kill Osama bin Laden and that this objective obviously had not been attained.

The initial strikes went beyond targeting bin Laden to damage other camps thought to be supporting his organizations. These strikes were not envisioned as the end of the story.

On August 20, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Henry H. Shelton, issued a planning order for the preparation of follow-on strikes. This plan was later code-named Operation Infinite Resolve.

The day after the strikes, the President and his principle advisors apparently began considering follow-on military planning. A few days later, the NSC Staff's National Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Richard Clarke, informed other senior officials that President Clinton was inclined to launch further strikes sooner rather than later. On August 27, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Walter B. Slocombe advised Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen that the available targets were not promising. There was, he said, also an issue of strategy, the need to think of the effort as a longterm campaign. The experience of last week, he wrote, "Has only confirmed the importance of defining a clearly articulated rationale for military action" that was effective as well as justified.

Clarke recognized that individual targets might not have much value, but he wrote to Berger, "We will never again be able to target a leadership conference of terrorists, and that should not be the standard."

Principals repeatedly considered Clarke's proposed strategy. But none of them agreed with it.

Secretary of Defense Cohen told us that the camps were primitive, easily constructed facilities with rope ladders. The question was whether it was worth using very expensive missiles to take out what General Shelton called jungle-gym training camps. That would not have been seen as very effective.

National Security Advisor Berger and others told us that more strikes, if they failed to kill bin Laden, could actually be counterproductive, increasing bin Laden's stature.

These issues need to be viewed, they said, in a wider context. The United States launched air attacks against Iraq at the end of 1998 and against Serbia in 1999, all to widespread criticism around the world. About a later proposal for strikes on targets in Afghanistan, Deputy National Security Advisor James Steinberg noted that it offered "little benefit, lots of blowback against bomb-happy United States"

In September of 1998, while the follow-on strikes were still being debated among a small group of top advisors, the counterterrorism officials in the Office of the Secretary of Defense were also considering a strategy. Unaware of Clarke's plan, they developed an elaborate proposal for a "more aggressive counterterrorism posture."

The paper urged the Defense Department to "champion a national effort to take up the gauntlet that international terrorists have thrown at our feet." Although the terrorist threat had grown, the authors warn that "We have not fundamentally altered our philosophy or our approach." If there were new horrific attacks, they wrote, that then "We will have no choice, nor, unfortunately, will we have a plan"

They outlined an eight-part strategy to be more proactive and aggressive. The Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict, Alan Holmes, brought the paper to Undersecretary Slocombe's chief deputy, Jan Lodel. The paper did not go further. Its lead author recalls being told by Holmes that Lodel thought it was too aggressive. Holmes cannot recall what was said, and Lodel cannot remember the episode or the paper at all.

The President and his advisors remained ready to use military action against the terrorist threat. But the urgent interest in launching follow-on strikes had apparently passed by October.

Military planning continued. Though plans were not executed, the military continued to assess and update target lists regularly in case the military was asked to strike. Plans largely centered on cruise missile and manned aircraft strike options and were updated and refined continuously through March, 2001.

Several senior Clinton administration officials, including National Security Advisor Berger and the NSC Staff's Clarke, told us that President Clinton was interested in additional military options, including the possible use of ground forces. As part of Operation Infinite Resolve, the military produced those options.

The relationship between the White House and the Pentagon was complex.

As Lieutenant General Gregory Newbold, Director of Operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff put it: "The military was often frustrated by civilian policy-makers whose requests for military options were too simplistic. For their part, White House officials were often frustrated by what they saw as military unwillingness to tackle the counterterrorism problem."

General Shelton said that "Given sufficient actionable intelligence, the military can do the operation."

But he explained that a tactical operation, if it did not go well, could turn out to be an international embarrassment for the United States.

Shelton and many other military officers and civilian Department of Defense officials we interviewed recalled episodes such as the failed hostage rescue in Iran in 1980 and the Black Hawk Down events in Somalia in 1993.

General Shelton made clear, however, that upon direction from policymakers, the military would proceed with an operation and carry out the order.

Let's go to the concerns expressed by the Commander in Chief of the U.S. Central Command, CENTCOM, General Anthony Zinni. Before 9/11, any military action in Afghanistan would be carried out by CENTCOM. The Special Operations Command did not have the lead. It provided forces that could be used in a CENTCOM-led operation.

Cary Greg White, the key field commander, stated:

"General Zinni told us he did not believe that some of the options his command was ordered to develop would be effective, particularly missile strikes.

"General Zinni thought a better approach would have been a broad strategy to build up local counterterrorism capabilities in neighboring countries, using military assistance to help countries like Uzbekistan. This strategy, he told us, was impeded by a lack of funds and limited interest in countries like Uzbekistan that had dictatorial governments."

Military officers explained to us that sending Special Operations Forces into Afghanistan would have been complicated and risky.

With nearby basing options limited, an alternative was to fly from ships in the Arabian sea, or from land bases in the Persian Gulf, as was later done after 9/11. Such operations would then have to be supported from long distances, over-flying the airspace of nations that might not be supportive or aware of the U.S. efforts.

Finally, military leaders again raised the problem of actionable intelligence, warning that they did not have information about where bin Laden would be by the time forces would be able to strike him. If they were in the region for a long period, perhaps clandestinely, the military might attempt to gather intelligence and wait for an opportunity.

One special operations commander said his view of actionable intelligence was that, if you give us the action, we'll give you the intelligence. But this course would be risky, both in light of the difficulties already mentioned, and the danger that U.S. operations might fail disastrously, as in the 1980 Iran rescue failure.

So, cruise missiles became the default option. Cruise missiles became the default option because it was the only option left on the table after the rejection of others.

The Tomahawk's long range, lethality, and extreme accuracy made it the missile of choice. However, as a means to attack Al-Qa'ida and OBL-linked targets pre-9-11, cruise missiles were problematic. Tomahawk cruise missiles had to be launched after the vessels carrying them moved into position. Once these vessels were in position, there was still an interval as decision makers authorized the strike, the missiles were prepared for firing, and they flew to their targets.

Officials worried that bin Laden might move during these hours, from the place of his last sighting, even if that information had been current. Moreover, General Zinni told 9-11 Commission Staff that he had been deeply concerned that cruise missile strikes inside Afghanistan would kill numerous civilians.

As regards the matter of no actionable intelligence, the paramount limitations cited by senior officials on every proposed use of military force was the lack of actionable intelligence.

National Security Advisor Berger said that there was never a circumstance where the policy-makers thought they had good intelligence, but declined to launch a missile at OBL-linked targets for fear of possible collateral damage. He told us the deciding factor was whether there was actionable intelligence.

If the shot missed bin Laden, the United States would look weak and bin Laden would look strong.

There were frequent reports about bin Laden's whereabouts and activities. The daily reports regularly described where he was, what he was doing and where he might be going. But usually, by the time these descriptions were landing on the desks of DCI Tenet or National Security Advisor Berger, bin Laden had already moved.

Nevertheless, on occasion, intelligence was deemed credible enough to warrant planning for possible strikes to kill Osama bin Laden.

Kandahar, December, 1998:

The first instance was in December, 1998, in Kandahar, Afghanistan. There was intelligence that bin Laden was staying at a particular location. Strikes were readied against this and plausible alternative locations. The principal advisors to the President agreed not to recommend a strike.

Returning from one of their meetings, DCI Tenet told staff that the military, supported by everyone else in the room, had not wanted to launch a strike because no one had seen Osama bin Laden in a couple of hours.

DCI Tenet told us that there were concerns about the veracity of the source and about the risk of collateral damage to a nearby mosque.

A few weeks later, Richard Clarke described the calculus as one that had weighed 50 percent confidence in the intelligence against collateral damage estimated at perhaps 300 casualties.

After this episode, Pentagon planners intensified efforts to find a more precise alternative to cruise missiles, such as using precision-strike aircraft. This option would greatly reduce the collateral damage. Yet not only would it have to operate at long ranges from home bases and overcome significant logistical obstacles, but the aircraft might also be shot down by the Taliban. At the time, Clarke complained that General Zinni was opposed to the forward deployment of these aircraft. General Zinni does not recall blocking such an option. The aircraft apparently were not deployed for this purpose.

The Desert Camp, February, 1999:

During the Winter of 1998 and 1999, intelligence reported that bin Laden frequently visited a camp in the desert adjacent to a larger hunting camp in Helmand Province of Afghanistan used by visitors from a Gulf state . Public sources have stated that these visitors were from the United Arab Emirates.

At the beginning of February, bin Laden was reportedly located there and apparently remained for more than a week. Since this was not in an urban area, the risk of collateral damage was minimal. Intelligence provided a detailed description of the camps. National technical intelligence confirmed the description of the larger camp and showed the nearby presence of an official aircraft of the UAE.

The CIA received reports that bin Laden regularly went from his adjacent camp to the larger camp, where he visited with emirates.

The location of this larger camp was confirmed by February 9, but the location of bin Laden's quarters could not be pinned down so precisely. Preparations were made for a possible strike, at least against the larger camp, perhaps to target bin Laden during one of his visits. No strike was launched.

According to CIA officials, policy-makers were concerned about the danger that a strike might kill an emirate prince or other senior officials who might be with bin Laden or close by.

Richard Clarke told us the strike was called off because the intelligence was dubious and it seemed to him as if the CIA was presenting an option to attack America's best counterterrorism ally in the Gulf.

Documentary evidence at the time shows that, on February 10, Clarke detailed to Deputy National Security Advisor Donald Kerrick the intelligence placing Osama bin Laden in the camp, informed him that the Department of Defense might be in the position to fire the next morning, and added General Shelton was looking at other options that might ready the following week.

Clarke had just returned from a visit to the UAE working on counterterrorism cooperation and following up on a May, 1998, UAE agreement to buy F-16 aircraft from the United States.

On February 10, Clarke reported that a top UAE official had vehemently denied that high-level UAE officials were in Afghanistan. Evidence subsequently confirmed that high-level UAE officials had been hunting there.

By February 12, bin Laden had apparently moved on and the immediate strike plans became moot. In March, the entire camp complex was hurriedly disassembled. We are still examining several aspects of this episode.

Kandahar, May, 1999:

In this case, sources reported on the whereabouts of bin Laden over the course of five nights. The reporting was very detailed. At the time, CIA working level officials were told that strikes were not ordered because the military was concerned about the precision of the sources's reporting and the risk of collateral damage.

Replying to a frustrated colleague in the field, the OBL unit chief wrote:

"Having a chance to get OBL three times in 36 hours and forgoing the chance each time has made me a bit angry. The DCI finds himself alone at the table with the other principals basically saying, 'We'll go along with your decision, Mr. Director,' and implicitly saying, "The agency will hang alone if the attack doesn't get bin Laden.'"

. These are working level perspectives. According to DCI Tenet, the same circumstances prevented a strike in each of the cases described above. The intelligence was based on a single uncorroborated source and there was a risk of collateral damage.

In the first and third cases, the cruise missile option was rejected outright and, in the case of the second, never came to a clear decision point.

According to National Security Advisor Berger, "the cases were really DCI Tenet's call." In his view, in none of the cases did policy-makers have the reliable intelligence that was needed.

There was a fourth episode involving a location in Ghazni, Afghanistan, in July, 1999. We are still investigating the circumstances.

There were no occasions after July, 1999, when cruise missiles were actively readied for a possible strike against bin Laden. The challenge of providing actionable intelligence could not be overcome before 9-11.

Then came the attack on the USS Cole.

On October 12, 2000, suicide bombers in an explosives-laden skiff rammed into a Navy destroyer, the USS Cole, in the port of Aden, Yemen, killing 17 U.S. sailors and almost sinking the vessel.

After the attack on the USS Cole, National Security Advisor Berger asked General Shelton for military plans to act quickly against bin Laden. General Shelton tasked General Tommy Franks, the new commander of CENTCOM, to look again at the options.

According to Director of Operations Newgold, General Shelton wanted to demonstrate that the military was imaginative and knowledgeable enough to move on an array of options and to show the complexity of the operations.

General Shelton briefed Berger on 13 options that had been developed within the standing Infinite Resolve plan. CENTCOM also developed a, "Phase campaign concept" for wider ranging strikes including against the Taliban and without a fixed end point.

The new concept did not include contingency plans for an invasion of Afghanistan. The concept was briefed to Deputy National Security Advisor Donald L. Kerrick and other officials in December, 2000.

Neither the Clinton administration nor the Bush administration launched a military response for the USS Cole attack. Berger and other senior policy-makers said that, while most counterterrorism officials quickly pointed the finger at Al-Qa'ida, they never received the sort of definitive judgment from the CIA or the FBI that Al-Qa'ida was responsible -- the definitive judgement they would need before launching military operations.

Documents show that, in late 2000, the President's advisors received a cautious presentation of the evidence, showing that individuals linked to Al Qaida had carried out or supported the attack, but that the evidence could not establish that bin Laden himself had ordered the attack.

The Department of Defense prepared plans to strike Al-Qa'ida camps and Taliban targets with cruise missiles, in case policy-makers decided to respond.

The same day, Richard Clarke advised National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice that the government "should take advantage of the policy that we will respond at a time, place and manner of our own choosing and not be forced into knee-jerk responses."

Deputy National Security Advisor Steven Hadley told us that tit for that, military options were so inadequate that they might have emboldened Al-Qa'ida. He said the Bush administration's response to the USS Cole attack would be a new, more aggressive strategy against Al-Qa'ida.

Pentagon officials, including Vice Admiral Scott Fry and Undersecretary Slocombe, told us they cautioned that the military response options were limited. Bin Laden continued to be elusive. They were still skeptical that hitting inexpensive and rudimentary training camps with costly missiles would do much good.

The new team at the Pentagon did not push for a response for the USS Cole attack, according to Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, his deputy. Wolfowitz told us that, by the time the new administration was in place, the Cole incident was stale.

The 1998 cruise missile strike showed Osama bin Laden and Al-Qa'ida that they had nothing to fear from a U.S. response, Wolfowitz said.

For his part, Rumsfeld also thought too much time had passed. He worked on the force protection recommendations developed in the aftermath of the USS Cole attack, not response options.

Secretary of Defense William Cohen said he briefed Secretary of Defense-Designate Donald H. Rumsfeld on about 50 items during the transition, including Osama bin Laden and programs related to domestic preparedness against terrorist attacks using weapons of mass destruction.

Rumsfeld told us he did not recall what was said about bin Laden at that briefing.

On February 8, 2001, General Shelton briefed Secretary Rumsfeld on the Operation Infinite Resolve plan, including the range of options and CENTCOM's new phased campaign plan. These plans were periodically updated during the ensuing months.

Brian Sheridan, the outgoing Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity conflict, SOLIC, the key counterterrorism policy office in the Department of Defense, never briefed Rumsfeld. Lower level SOLIC officials in the Office of the Secretary of Defense told us that they thought the new team was focused on other issues and was not especially interested in their counterterrorism agenda.

Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith told the 9-11 Commission that, when he arrived at the Pentagon in July, 2001, Rumsfeld asked him to focus his attention on working with the Russians on agreements to dissolve the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and preparing a new nuclear arms control pact.

Traditionally, the primary Department of Defense official responsible for counterterrorism policy had been the Assistant Secretary of Defense for SOLIC. The outgoing Assistant Secretary left on January 20th, 2001, and had not been replaced when the Pentagon was hit on September 11.

Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld said the transformation was the focus on the administration. He said he was interested in terrorism, arranging to meet regularly with Director of Central Intelligence Tenet. But his time was consumed with getting new officials in place, preparing the quadrennial defense review, the defense planning guidance, and reviewing existing contingency plans. He did not recall any particular counterterrorism issue that engaged his attention before 9-11, other than the development of the Predator unmanned aircraft system for possible use against bin Laden. He said that Department of Defense before 9-11 was not organized or trained adequately to deal with asymmetric threats. The Bush administration's NSC Staff was drafting a new counterterrorism strategy in the Spring and Summer of 2001. National Security Adviser Rice and Deputy National Security Adviser Hadley told us that they wanted more muscular options.

In June, 2001, Hadley circulated a draft presidential directive on policy toward Al-Qa'ida. The draft came to include a section that called for development of a new set of contingency military plans against both Al-Qa'ida and the Taliban regime.

Hadley told us that he contacted Deputy Secretary of Defense Wolfowitz to advise him that the Pentagon would soon need to start preparing fresh plans in response to this forthcoming presidential directive.

The directive was approved at the Deputies' level in July and apparently approved by top officials on September 4 for submission to the President. With the directive still awaiting the President's signature, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld did not order the preparation of any new military plans against either Al-Qa'ida or the Taliban before 9/11.

Rumsfeld told us that, immediately after 9/11, he did not see a contingency plan he wanted to implement.

Deputy National Security Advisor Hadley and Deputy Secretary of Defense Wolfowitz also told us the military plans presented to the Bush administration immediately after 9/11 were unsatisfactory.

Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz warned that it would have been impossible to get Congress to support sending 10,000 U.S. troops into Afghanistan to do what the Soviet Union failed to do in the 1980s.

Vice Admiral Scott Fry, the former Operations Director for the Joint Chiefs of Staff noted: "A two or four-division plan would require a footprint troop level and force that was larger than the political leadership was willing to accept."

Special Operations Forces always saw counterterrorism as part of their mission and trained for counterterrorist operations.

"The opportunities were missed because of an unwillingness to take risks and a lack of vision and understanding of the benefits when preparing the battlespace ahead of time," said Lieutenant General William Boykin, the current Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence and a former founding member of Delta Force.

Before 9-11, the U.S. Special Operations Command was a "supporting command, not a supported command." That meant it supported General Zinni and CENTCOM and did not independently prepare plans itself. General Pete Schoomaker, the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army and former Commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command, said that, if the Special Operations Command had been a supported command before 9-11, he would have had the Al-Qa'ida mission rather than deferring to CENTCOM's lead. Schoomaker said he spoke to Secretary of Defense Cohen and General Shelton about this proposal. It was not adopted.

In response to the request of policymakers, the military prepared a wide array of options for striking bin Laden and his organization from May, 1998, onward. When they briefed policy-makers, the military presented both the pros and cons of those strike options and briefed policy-makers on the risks associated with them.

Following the August 20, 1998, missile strikes, both senior military officials and policy-makers placed great emphasis on actionable intelligence as the key factor in recommending or deciding to launch military action against bin Laden and his organization. Policy-makers and military officials expressed frustration with the lack of actionable intelligence. Some officials inside the Pentagon, including those in the Special Forces and the Counterterrorism Policy Office expressed frustration with the lack of military action.

The Bush administration began to develop new policies toward Al-Qa'ida in 2001, but there is no evidence of new work on military capabilities or plans against the terrorist enemy before September 11. And both civilian and military officials of the Defense Department state flatly that neither Congress nor the American public would have supported large-scale military operations in Afghanistan before the shock of 9-11.

Dr. Philip Zelikow is Executive Director of Staff of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States (9-11 Commission). Dr. Zelikow presented the foregoing Staff statement to the 9-11 Commission during hearings held on March 23, 2004.

Return to Top of Page

Go to the WEBSITE INDEX

Return to Beginning of
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA,
Public Issues & Political Controversies

Return to Beginning of
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA,
Volume VI, 2004

Return to Beginning of
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA,
Subject Matter Highlights, Page Two

Return to Beginning of
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA,
Subject Matter Highlights, Page One

Return to POLITICAL EDUCATION Homepage

CONTACT & ACCESS INFORMATION

LINKS TO PARTICULAR ISSUES & SUBJECT MATTER CATEGORIES
TREATED IN THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, U.S.A.:

Africa: Black Africa * Africa: North Africa * American Government 1
American Government 2 * American Government 3 * American Government 4
American Government 5 * American Politics * Anglosphere * Arabs
Arms Control & WMD * Aztlan Separatists * Big Government
Black Africa * Bureaucracy * Canada * China * Civil Liberties * Communism
Congress, U.S. * Conservative Groups * Conservative vs. Liberal
Constitutional Law * Counterterrorism * Criminal Justice * Disloyalty * Economy
Education * Elections, U.S. * Eminent Domain * Energy & Environment
English-Speaking World * Ethnicity & Race * Europe * Europe: Jews
Family Values * Far East * Fiscal Policy, U.S. * Foreign Aid, U.S. * France
Hispanic Separatism * Hispanic Treason * Human Health * Immigration
Infrastructure, U.S. * Intelligence, U.S. * Iran * Iraq * Islamic North Africa
Islamic Threat * Islamism * Israeli vs. Arabs * Jews & Anti-Semitism
Jihad & Jihadism * Jihad Manifesto I * Jihad Manifesto II * Judges, U.S. Federal
Judicial Appointments * Judiciary, American * Latin America * Latino Separatism
Latino Treason * Lebanon * Leftists/Liberals * Legal Issues
Local Government, U.S. * Marriage & Family * Media Political Bias
Middle East: Arabs * Middle East: Iran * Middle East: Iraq * Middle East: Israel
Middle East: Lebanon * Middle East: Syria * Middle East: Tunisia
Middle East: Turkey * Militant Islam * Military Defense * Military Justice
Military Weaponry * Modern Welfare State * Morality & Decency
National Identity * National Security * Natural Resources * News Media Bias
North Africa * Patriot Act, USA * Patriotism * Political Culture * Political Ideologies
Political Parties * Political Philosophy * Politics, American * Presidency, U.S.
Private Property * Property Rights * Public Assistance * Radical Islam
Religion & America * Rogue States & WMD * Russia * Science & Ethics
Sedition & Treason * Senate, U.S. * Social Welfare Policy * South Africa
State Government, U.S. * Subsaharan Africa * Subversion * Syria * Terrorism 1
Terrorism 2 * Treason & Sedition * Tunisia * Turkey * Ukraine
UnAmerican Activity * UN & Its Agencies * USA Patriot Act * U.S. Foreign Aid
U.S. Infrastructure * U.S. Intelligence * U.S. Senate * War & Peace
Welfare Policy * WMD & Arms Control

This is not a commercial website. The sole purpose of the website is to share with interested persons information regarding civics, civic and social education, political science, government, politics, law, constitutional law and history, public policy, and political philosophy and history, as well as current and recent political developments, public issues, and political controversies.

THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor

Conservative & Free-Market Analysis of Government, Politics & Public Policy, Covering Political, Legal, Constitutional, Economic, Cultural, Military, International, Strategic, & Geopolitical Issues

---

POLITICAL EDUCATION, CONSERVATIVE ANALYSIS
POLITICS, SOCIETY, & THE SOVEREIGN STATE
Website of Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr.

Government, Politics, Public Policy, Legal Issues, Constitutional Law, Government & the Economy, Cultural Values, Foreign Affairs, International Relations, Military Defense & National Security, Geopolitics, Terrorism & Homeland Security, American National Interests, Political Systems & Processes, Political Institutions, Political Ideologies, & Political Philosophy