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in a destroyer and 17 dead sailors, the Pentagon might have wanted to respond.
Instead, they have often talked about the fact that there is `nothing worth hit-
ting in Afghanistan' and said `the cruise missiles cost more than the jungle gyms
and mud huts' at terrorist camps." Clarke could not understand "why we con-
tinue to allow the existence of large scale al Qida bases where we know people are being
trained to kill Americans."
248
Turning to the CIA, Clarke warned that its bureaucracy, which was "mas-
terful at passive aggressive behavior," would resist funding the new national
security presidential directive, leaving it a "hollow shell of words without
deeds."The CIA would insist its other priorities were more important. Invok-
ing President Bush's own language, Clarke wrote,"You are left with a modest effort
to swat flies, to try to prevent specific al Qida attacks by using [intelligence] to
detect them and friendly governments' police and intelligence officers to stop
them. You are left waiting for the big attack, with lots of casualties, after which some
major US retaliation will be in order[.]"
249
Rice told us she took Clarke's memo as a warning not to get dragged down
by bureaucratic inertia.
250
While his arguments have force, we also take
Clarke's jeremiad as something more. After nine years on the NSC staff and
more than three years as the president's national coordinator, he had often failed
to persuade these agencies to adopt his views, or to persuade his superiors to
set an agenda of the sort he wanted or that the whole government could sup-
port.
Meanwhile, another counterterrorism veteran, Cofer Black, was preparing
his boss for the principals meeting. He advised Tenet that the draft presidential
directive envisioned an ambitious covert action program, but that the author-
ities for it had not yet been approved and the funding still had not been found.
If the CIA was reluctant to use the Predator, Black did not mention it. He
wanted "a timely decision from the Principals," adding that the window for
missions within 2001 was a short one. The principals would have to decide
whether Rice,Tenet, Rumsfeld, or someone else would give the order to fire.
251
At the September 4 meeting, the principals approved the draft presidential
directive with little discussion.
252
Rice told us that she had, at some point, told
President Bush that she and his other advisers thought it would take three years
or so for their al Qaeda strategy to work.
253
They then discussed the armed
Predator.
Hadley portrayed the Predator as a useful tool, although perhaps not for
immediate use. Rice, who had been advised by her staff that the armed Preda-
tor was not ready for deployment, commented about the potential for using
the armed Predator in the spring of 2002.
254
The State Department supported the armed Predator, although Secretary
Powell was not convinced that Bin Ladin was as easy to target as had been sug-
gested. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill was skittish, cautioning about the impli-
cations of trying to kill an individual.
255
FROM THREAT TO THREAT
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