For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
April 8, 2004
Dr. Condoleezza Rice's Opening Remarks to Commission on Terrorist Attacks
As Prepared for Delivery
NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR DR. CONDOLEEZZA RICE
OPENING REMARKS
THE NATIONAL COMMISSION ON TERRORIST ATTACKS
UPON THE UNITED STATES
Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC
April 8, 2004
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 September 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 September
11th, 2001. Long before that day, radical, freedom-hating terrorists
declared war on America and on the civilized world. The attack on the
Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983, the hijacking of the Achille Lauro
in 1985, the rise of al-Qaida and the bombing of the World Trade Center
in 1993, the attacks on American installations in Saudi Arabia in 1995
and 1996, the East Africa embassy bombings of 1998, the attack on the
USS Cole in 2000, these and other atrocities were part of a sustained,
systematic campaign to spread devastation and chaos and to murder
innocent Americans.
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. Historically, democratic societies have been slow to
react to gathering threats, tending instead to wait to confront threats
until they are too dangerous to ignore or until it is too late.
Despite the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915 and continued German
harassment of American shipping, the United States did not enter the
First World War until two years later. Despite Nazi Germany's repeated
violations of the Versailles Treaty and its string of provocations
throughout the mid-1930s, the Western democracies did not take action
until 1939. The U.S. Government did not act against the growing threat
from Imperial Japan until the threat became all too evident at Pearl
Harbor. And, tragically, for all the language of war spoken before
September 11th, this country simply was not on a war footing.
Since then, America has been at war. And under President Bush's
leadership, we will remain at war until the terrorist threat to our
Nation is ended. The world has changed so much that it is hard to
remember what our lives were like before that day. But I do want to
describe the actions this Administration was taking to fight terrorism
before September 11th, 2001.
After President Bush was elected, we were briefed by the Clinton
Administration on many national security issues during the transition.
The President-elect and I were briefed by George Tenet on terrorism and
on the al-Qaida network. Members of Sandy Berger's NSC staff briefed
me, along with other members of the new national security team, on
counterterrorism and al-Qaida. This briefing lasted about one hour,
and it reviewed the Clinton Administration's counterterrorism approach
and the various counterterrorism activities then underway. Sandy and I
personally discussed a variety of other topics, including North Korea,
Iraq, the Middle East, and the Balkans.
Because of these briefings and because we had watched the rise of
al-Qaida over the years, we understood that the network posed a serious
threat to the United States. We wanted to ensure there was no respite
in the fight against al-Qaida. On an operational level, we decided
immediately to continue pursuing the Clinton Administration's covert
action authorities and other efforts to fight the network. President
Bush retained George Tenet as Director of Central Intelligence, and
Louis Freeh remained the Director of the FBI. I took the unusual step
of retaining Dick Clarke and the entire Clinton Administration's
counterterrorism team on the NSC staff. I knew Dick to be an expert in
his field, as well as an experienced crisis manager. Our goal was to
ensure continuity of operations while we developed new and more
aggressive policies.
At the beginning of the Administration, President Bush revived the
practice of meeting with the Director of Central Intelligence almost
every day in the Oval Office -? meetings which I attended, along with
the Vice President and the Chief of Staff. At these meetings, the
President received up-to-date intelligence and asked questions of his
most senior intelligence officials. From January 20 through September
10, the President received at these daily meetings more than 40
briefing items on al-Qaida, and 13 of these were in response to
questions he or his top advisers had posed. In addition to seeing DCI
Tenet almost every morning, I generally spoke by telephone every
morning at 7:15 with Secretaries Powell and Rumsfeld. I also met and
spoke regularly with the DCI about al-Qaida and terrorism.
Of course, we also had other responsibilities. President Bush had
set a broad foreign policy agenda. We were determined to confront the
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. We were improving
America's relations with the world's great powers. We had to change an
Iraq policy that was making no progress against a hostile regime which
regularly shot at U.S. planes enforcing U.N. Security Council
Resolutions. And we had to deal with the occasional crisis, for
instance, when the crew of a Navy plane was detained in China for 11
days.
We also moved to develop a new and comprehensive strategy to
eliminate the al-Qaida terrorist network. President Bush understood
the threat, and he understood its importance. He made clear to us that
he did not want to respond to al-Qaida one attack at a time. He told
me he was "tired of swatting flies."
This new strategy was developed over the Spring and Summer of 2001,
and was approved by the President's senior national security officials
on September 4. It was the very first major national security policy
directive of the Bush Administration -? not Russia, not missile
defense, not Iraq, but the elimination of al-Qaida.
Although this National Security Presidential Directive was
originally a highly classified document, we arranged for portions to be
declassified to help the Commission in its work, and I will describe
some of those today. The strategy set as its goal the elimination of
the al-Qaida network. It ordered the leadership of relevant U.S.
departments and agencies to make the elimination of al-Qaida a high
priority and to use all aspects of our national power -? intelligence,
financial, diplomatic, and military ?- to meet this goal. And it gave
Cabinet Secretaries and department heads specific responsibilities.
For instance:
* It directed the Secretary of State to work with other
countries to end all sanctuaries given to al-Qaida.
* It directed the Secretaries of the Treasury and State to work
with foreign governments to seize or freeze assets and holdings of
al-Qaida and its benefactors.
* It directed the Director of Central Intelligence to prepare
an aggressive program of covert activities to disrupt al-Qaida and
provide assistance to anti-Taliban groups operating against al-Qaida in
Afghanistan.
* It tasked the Director of OMB with ensuring that sufficient
funds were available in the budgets over the next five years to meet
the goals laid out in the strategy.
* And it directed the Secretary of Defense to -? and I quote ?-
"ensure that the contingency planning process include plans: against
al-Qaida and associated terrorist facilities in Afghanistan, including
leadership, command-control-communications, training, and logistics
facilities; against Taliban targets in Afghanistan, including
leadership, command-control, air and air defense, ground forces, and
logistics; to eliminate weapons of mass destruction which al-Qaida and
associated terrorist groups may acquire or manufacture, including those
stored in underground bunkers." This was a change from the prior
strategy -- Presidential Decision Directive 62, signed in 1998 -? which
ordered the Secretary of Defense to provide transportation to bring
individual terrorists to the U.S. for trial, to protect DOD forces
overseas, and to be prepared to respond to terrorist and weapons of
mass destruction incidents.
More importantly, we recognized that no counterterrorism strategy
could succeed in isolation. As you know from the Pakistan and
Afghanistan strategy documents that we made available to the
Commission, our counterterrorism strategy was part of a broader package
of strategies that addressed the complexities of the region.
Integrating our counterterrorism and regional strategies was the
most difficult and the most important aspect of the new strategy to get
right. Al-Qaida was both client of and patron to the Taliban, which in
turn was supported by Pakistan. Those relationships provided al-Qaida
with a powerful umbrella of protection, and we had to sever them. This
was not easy.
Not that we hadn't tried. Within a month of taking office,
President Bush sent a strong, private message to President Musharraf
urging him to use his influence with the Taliban to bring Bin Laden to
justice and to close down al-Qaida training camps. Secretary Powell
actively urged the Pakistanis, including Musharraf himself, to abandon
support for the Taliban. I met with Pakistan's Foreign Minister in my
office in June of 2001. I delivered a very tough message, which was
met with a rote, expressionless response.
America's al-Qaida policy wasn't working because our Afghanistan
policy wasn't working. And our Afghanistan policy wasn't working
because our Pakistan policy wasn't working. We recognized that
America's counterterrorism policy had to be connected to our regional
strategies and to our overall foreign policy.
To address these problems, I made sure to involve key regional
experts. I brought in Zalmay Khalilzad, an expert on Afghanistan who,
as a senior diplomat in the 1980s, had worked closely with the Afghan
Mujahedeen, helping them to turn back the Soviet invasion. I also
ensured the participation of the NSC experts on South Asia, as well as
the Secretary of State and his regional specialists. Together, we
developed a new strategic approach to Afghanistan. Instead of the
intense focus on the Northern Alliance, we emphasized the importance of
the south -? the social and political heartland of the country. Our
new approach to Pakistan combined the use of carrots and sticks to
persuade Pakistan to drop its support for the Taliban. And we began to
change our approach to India, to preserve stability on the
subcontinent.
While we were developing this new strategy to deal with al-Qaida,
we also made decisions on a number of specific anti-al-Qaida
initiatives that had been proposed by Dick Clarke. Many of these ideas
had been deferred by the last Administration, and some had been on the
table since 1998. We increased counterterror assistance to Uzbekistan;
we bolstered the Treasury Department's activities to track and seize
terrorist assets; we increased funding for counterterrorism activities
across several agencies; and we moved quickly to arm Predator unmanned
surveillance vehicles for action against al-Qaida.
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. As threat information increased, the CSG met more
frequently, sometimes daily, to review and analyze the threat reporting
and to coordinate actions in response. CSG members also had ready
access to their Cabinet Secretaries and could raise any concerns they
had at the highest levels.
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-Qaida 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 August 6, 2001, the President's intelligence
briefing included a response to questions he had earlier raised about
any al-Qaida intentions to strike our homeland. The briefing item
reviewed past intelligence reporting, mostly dating from the 1990s,
regarding possible al-Qaida 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.
Despite the fact that the vast majority of the threat information
we received was focused overseas, I was also concerned about possible
threats inside the United States. On July 5, Chief of Staff Andy Card
and I met with Dick Clarke, and I asked Dick to make sure that domestic
agencies were aware of the heightened threat period and were taking
appropriate steps to respond, even though we did not have specific
threats to the homeland. Later that same day, Clarke convened a special
meeting of his CSG, as well as representatives from the FAA, the INS,
Customs, and the Coast Guard. At that meeting, these agencies were
asked to take additional measures to increase security and
surveillance.
Throughout this period of heightened threat information, we worked
hard on multiple fronts 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-Qaida 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-Qaida attack on U.S.
interests.
* The FBI issued at least three nationwide warnings to Federal,
State, and local law enforcement agencies, and specifically stated
that, although the vast majority of the information indicated overseas
targets, attacks against the homeland could not be ruled out. The FBI
also tasked all 56 of its U.S. Field Offices to increase surveillance
of known or suspected terrorists and reach out to known informants who
might have information on terrorist activities.
* The FAA issued at least five Civil Aviation Security
Information Circulars to all U.S. airlines and airport security
personnel, including specific warnings about the possibility of
hijackings.
* The CIA worked round the clock to disrupt threats worldwide.
Agency officials launched a wide-ranging disruption effort against
al-Qaida in more than 20 countries.
* During this period, the Vice President, DCI Tenet, and the
NSC's Counterterrorism staff called senior foreign officials requesting
that they increase their intelligence assistance and report to us any
relevant threat information.
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. Bold and comprehensive changes are sometimes only possible
in the wake of catastrophic events -? events which create a new
consensus that allows us to transcend old ways of thinking and acting.
Just as World War II led to a fundamental reorganization of our
national defense structure and to the creation of the National Security
Council, so has September 11th made possible sweeping changes in the
ways we protect our homeland.
President Bush is leading the country during this time of crisis
and change. He has unified and streamlined our efforts to secure the
American Homeland by creating the Department of Homeland Security,
established a new center to integrate and analyze terrorist threat
information, directed the transformation of the FBI into an agency
dedicated to fighting terror, broken down the bureaucratic walls and
legal barriers that prevented the sharing of vital threat information
between our domestic law enforcement and our foreign intelligence
agencies, and, working with the Congress, given officials new tools,
such as the USA PATRIOT Act, to find and stop terrorists. And he has
done all of this in a way that is consistent with protecting America's
cherished civil liberties and with preserving our character as a free
and open society.
But the President also recognizes that our work is far from
complete. More structural reform will likely be necessary. Our
intelligence gathering and analysis have improved dramatically in the
last two years, but they must be stronger still. The President and all
of us in his Administration welcome new ideas and fresh thinking. We
are eager to do whatever is necessary to protect the American people.
And we look forward to receiving the recommendations of this
Commission.
We are at war and our security as a nation depends on winning that
war. We must and we will do everything we can to harden terrorist
targets within the United States. Dedicated law enforcement and
security professionals continue to risk their lives every day to make
us all safer, and we owe them a debt of gratitude. And, let's
remember, those charged with protecting us from attack have to succeed
100 percent of the time. To inflict devastation on a massive scale,
the terrorists only have to succeed once, and we know they are trying
every day.
That is why we must address the source of the problem. We must
stay on offense, to find and defeat the terrorists wherever they live,
hide, and plot around the world. If we learned anything on September
11th, 2001, it is that we cannot wait while dangers gather.
After the September 11th attacks, our Nation faced hard choices.
We could fight a narrow war against al-Qaida and the Taliban or we
could fight a broad war against a global menace. We could seek a
narrow victory or we could work for a lasting peace and a better
world. President Bush chose the bolder course.
He recognizes that the War on Terror is a broad war. Under his
leadership, the United States and our allies are disrupting terrorist
operations, cutting off their funding, and hunting down terrorists
one-by-one. Their world is getting smaller. The terrorists have lost
a home-base and training camps in Afghanistan. The Governments of
Pakistan and Saudi Arabia now pursue them with energy and force.
We are confronting the nexus between terror and weapons of mass
destruction. We are working to stop the spread of deadly weapons and
prevent then from getting into the hands of terrorists, seizing
dangerous materials in transit, where necessary. Because we acted in
Iraq, Saddam Hussein will never again use weapons of mass destruction
against his people or his neighbors. And we have convinced Libya to
give up all its WMD-related programs and materials.
And as we attack the threat at its sources, we are also addressing
its roots. Thanks to the bravery and skill of our men and women in
uniform, we removed from power two of the world's most brutal regimes
-- sources of violence, and fear, and instability in the region.
Today, along with many allies, we are helping the people of Iraq and
Afghanistan to build free societies. And we are working with the
people of the Middle East to spread the blessings of liberty and
democracy as the alternatives to instability, hatred, and terror. This
work is hard and dangerous, yet it is worthy of our effort and our
sacrifice. The defeat of terror and the success of freedom in those
nations will serve the interests of our Nation and inspire hope and
encourage reform throughout the greater Middle East.
In the aftermath of September 11th, those were the right choices
for America to make -- the only choices that can ensure the safety of
our Nation in the decades to come.
Thank you. Now I am happy to answer your questions.
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