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erately selecting a non­al Qaeda target like Iraq. Since U.S. attacks were expected in Afghanistan, an American attack
in South America or Southeast Asia might be a surprise to the terrorists.The memo may have been a draft never
sent to Rumsfeld, or may be a draft of points being suggested for Rumsfeld to deliver in a briefing to the Presi-
dent. DOD memo, Feith to Rumsfeld,"Briefing Draft," Sept. 20, 2001.
76. Hugh Shelton interview (Feb. 5, 2004).
77.Tommy Franks interview (Apr. 9, 2004).
78. NSC memo, memorandum of conversation from meeting of President Bush with Prime Minister Blair,
Sept. 20, 2001.
79.Tommy Franks interview (Apr. 9, 2004).
80.White House transcript, President Bush's Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People,
Sept. 20, 2001. British Prime Minister Tony Blair attended the session.
81. Ibid. Several NSC officials, including Clarke and Cressey, told us that the mention of the Cole in the speech
to Congress marked the first public U.S. declaration that al Qaeda had been behind the October 2000 attack. Clarke
said he added the language on this point to the speech. Richard Clarke interview (Feb. 3, 2004); Roger Cressey
interview (Dec. 15, 2003).
82.White House transcript, President Bush's Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People,
Sept. 20, 2001. President Bush told the Washington Post that he considered having Powell deliver the ultimatum to
the Taliban, but determined it would have more impact coming directly from the president. White House tran-
script, President Bush interview with Bob Woodward and Dan Balz, Dec. 20, 2001.
83.White House transcript, President Bush's Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People,
Sept. 20, 2001.
84. Ibid.
85. Tommy Franks interview (Apr. 9, 2004).Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers and
Major General Del Dailey, commander of Joint Special Operations Command, also attended the September 21
meeting.The meeting was in direct response to the President's September 17 instruction to Rumsfeld to develop
a military campaign plan for Afghanistan.The original "Infinite Justice" name was a continuation of a series of names
begun in August 1998 with Operation Infinite Reach, the air strikes against Bin Ladin's facilities in Afghanistan
and Sudan after the embassy bombings.The series also included Operation Infinite Resolve, a variety of proposed
follow-on strikes on al Qaeda targets in Afghanistan.
86. DOD Special Operations Command and Central Command briefings (Sept. 15­16, 2003;Apr. 8­9, 2004;
Apr. 28, 2004); Tommy Franks interview (Apr. 9, 2004). On death of Atef, see Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon,
Age of Sacred Terror, p. 349; Henry, "The CIA in Afghanistan, 2001­2002," Studies in Intelligence (classified version),
vol. 47, no. 2 (2003), pp. 1, 11. See Donald Rumsfeld testimony, Mar. 23, 2004 (nearly two-thirds of the known
leaders of al Qaeda had been killed or captured).
11 Foresight--and Hindsight
1. Roberta Wohlstetter, Pearl Harbor:Warning and Decision (Stanford Univ. Press, 1962), p. 387.
2. Intelligence Community analytic report, "The Foreign Terrorist Threat in the United States," NIE 95-13,
July 1995, pp. v, vii­viii, 10­11, 13, 18.
3. Intelligence Community analytic report,"The Foreign Terrorist Threat in the US: Revisiting Our 1995 Esti-
mate," ICB 97-8, Apr. 1997, p. 1.
4. For Bin Ladin being mentioned in only two other sentences, see ibid.
5.Titles are drawn from articles in the National Intelligence Daily and the Senior Executive Intelligence Brief.
6. John McLaughlin interview (Jan. 21, 2004).
7. Ibid.; Pattie Kindsvater interview (Sept. 12, 2003).
8.Tim Weiner,"U.S. Hard Put to Find Proof Bin Laden Directed Attacks," New York Times,Apr. 13, 1999, p.A1.
9. Paul R. Pillar, Terrorism and U.S. Foreign Policy (Brookings Institution Press, 2001), p. 23; see also ibid., pp. 5,
21­22.
10. For a concise statement of the role of the national estimate process, see Task force sponsored by the Coun-
cil on Foreign Relations, Making Intelligence Smarter:The Future of U.S. Intelligence (Council on Foreign Relations,
1996), pp. 34­35 (additional views of Richard Betts).
11.Waldo Heinrichs, Threshold of War: Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Entry into World War II (Oxford Univ.
Press, 1988), p. 215.
12.For the response being routine,see Gordon Prange,At Dawn We Slept:The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor (McGraw-
Hill, 1981), pp. 732­733. For a brief summary of these routines and the reasons why the intercepts were not properly
digested, see Graham Allison and Philip Zelikow, Essence of Decision, 2d ed. (Longman, 1999), p. 194, n. 72.
13. PDBs were not routinely briefed to congressional leaders, though this item could have been in some other
intelligence briefing. It was not circulated in the NID or SEIB. For the September 1998 report, see Intelligence
report,"Terrorism: Possible Attack on a U.S. City," Sept. 8, 1998.
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NOTES TO CHAPTERS 10-11
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