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First, I must say, I know of no intelligence during the roughly six plus months leading up to September 11th that indicated terrorists intended to hijack commercial airliners and fly them into the Pentagon or the World Trade Towers. If we had had such information, we could have acted on it -- as we did during the spike in intelligence chatter during the summer of 2001, when we had information that led us to move ships out of harbors in the Gulf region.
Further, I believe that the actions taken since September 11th in the global war on terror, and the international coalition assembled to fight that war, would have been impossible to achieve before the September 11th attacks. Think about it: after September 11th, the President made the decision not simply to launch cruise missile strikes as the U.S. had previously tried.
Rather, he decided to deal decisively with the terrorist network responsible for the attack -- and to hold not only the perpetrators to account, but also the regime that had harbored, aided, and supported them as they trained, planned, and executed their attacks.
The President rallied the world, and formed what is today a 90-nation coalition to wage the global war on terrorist networks. He sent U.S. and Coalition forces air, sea, and ground to attack Afghanistan, overthrow the Taliban regime, and destroy that al-Qaeda stronghold.
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Hardly a day goes by when the media doesnt carry a story that reveals classified information. This aids our enemies in significant ways. The harm done to the U.S. by spies and traitors the likes of Ames, Hansen, and Pollard is substantial.
The result has been that important features of our intelligence capabilities have been compromised. As part of our complicated world, adversaries of the U.S. have chosen terrorism as the preferred instrument to force free nations to submit to their agendas by inflicting death on their innocent citizens.
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Ironically, in the course of the conversation, I stressed how important it was for our country to be adequately prepared for the unexpected. Someone handed me a note that a plane had hit one of the World Trade Center Towers. Later, I was in my office with a CIA briefer when I was told a second plane had hit the other tower.
Shortly thereafter, at 9:38 AM, the Pentagon shook with an explosion of a then unknown origin. I went outside to determine what had happened. I was not there long, apparently, because I am told I was back in the Pentagon, with a crisis action team, by shortly before or after 10:00 AM.
Upon my return from the crash site and before going to the Executive Support Center (ESC), I had one or more calls in my office, one of which I believe was with the President. I left the ESC and went to the National Military Command Center where General Dick Myers, then Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had just returned from Capitol Hill.
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And I tried to put myself into the shoes of the pilots we were asking to be prepared to intercept civilian airliners, over American soil, filled with our neighbors, friends, and relatives -- and possibly having to shoot down those planes -- with row after row of their fellow Americans. It was clear they needed rules of engagement telling them what they should and should not do. They needed clarity. And there were no rules of engagement on the books for this first-time situation where civilian aircraft were seized and were being used as missiles.
Indeed, it may well be the first time in history that U.S. armed forces in peacetime, have been ordered to fire on fellow Americans going about their lawful business.
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First, I know of no actionable intelligence since January 20, 2001 that would have allowed the U.S. to attack and capture or kill Usama bin Laden. In the 2 years since September 11th, all the nations of the Coalition have focused a great deal of time, energy and resources on the task of finding him and capturing or killing him. Thus far none of us has succeeded. But we will.
It took ten months to capture Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Coalition forces had passed by the hole he was hiding in many times during those ten months. They were able to find him only after someone with specific knowledge told us where he was.
What that suggests is that it is exceedingly difficult to find a single individual who is determined to not be found. Second, even if bin Laden had been captured or killed in the weeks before 9/11, no one I know believes it would have prevented 9/11. Killing bin Laden would not have removed the al-Qaedas sanctuary in Afghanistan. Moreover, the sleeper cells that flew the aircraft into the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon were already in the U.S. some months before the attacks.
Indeed, if the stars had aligned, actionable intelligence had appeared, which it did not, and if it had somehow been possible to successfully attack him, it would have been a good thing, to be sure, but, regrettably, 9/11 would likely still have happened.
And, ironically, much of the world in all likelihood would have blamed September 11th on the U.S. as an al-Qaeda retaliation for the U.S. provocation of capturing or killing Usama bin Laden. Some have asked whether there were there plans to go after al-Qaeda in Afghanistan before 9/11 and, if so, why werent they implemented?
http://www.defendamerica.mil/articles/mar2004/a032304f1.html
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