the principals' discussions by November suggested that there was not much
White House interest in conducting further military operations against
Afghanistan in the administration's last weeks. He thought that, instead, Presi-
dent Clinton, Berger, and Secretary Albright were concentrating on a last-
minute push for a peace agreement between the Palestinians and the Israelis.
itary response occurred at the time. Clarke recently recalled that an angry
Sheehan asked rhetorically of Defense officials:"Does al Qaeda have to attack
the Pentagon to get their attention?"
attack before taking action against al Qaeda. He did not recall Berger or anyone
else telling him that they were waiting for the magic words from the CIA and the
FBI. Nor did he remember having any discussions with Berger or the President
about retaliation.Tenet told us he believed that it was up to him to present the
case.Then it was up to the principals to decide if the case was good enough to
justify using force. He believed he laid out what was knowable relatively early in
the investigation, and that this evidence never really changed until after 9/11.
differed from a legal standard. Because the attack was the subject of a crim-
inal investigation, they told us, the term preliminary was used to avoid lock-
ing the government in with statements that might later be obtained by
defense lawyers in a future court case. At the time, Clarke was aware of the
problem of distinguishing between an intelligence case and a law enforce-
ment case. Asking U.S. law enforcement officials to concur with an
intelligence-based case before their investigation had been concluded "could
give rise to charges that the administration had acted before final culpability
had been determined."
concept or a prolonged air campaign in Afghanistan. Defense officials, such as
Under Secretary Walter Slocombe and Vice Admiral Fry, told us the military
response options were still limited. Bin Ladin continued to be elusive.They felt,
just as they had for the past two years, that hitting inexpensive and rudimen-
tary training camps with costly missiles would not do much good and might
even help al Qaeda if the strikes failed to kill Bin Ladin.
Counterterrorist Center put down its best ideas for the future, assuming it was
free of any prior policy or financial constraints.The paper was therefore infor-