14.

Before 9/11 - and After

LOUIS J. FREEH
The Wall Street Journal

Al Qaeda was at war with the U.S. even before Sept. 11, 2001. In August 1998, it attacked our
embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. In December 1999, one of al Qaeda's soldiers, Ahmed
Ressam, entered the U.S. to bomb Los Angeles airport. In October 2000, al Qaeda attacked the
USS Cole in the port of Aden.

The question before the 9/11 Commission is why our political leadership declared war back on al
Qaeda only after Sept. 11, 2001. Osama bin Laden had been indicted years before for blowing up
American soldiers and embassies and was known as a clear and present danger to the U.S. So
what would have happened had the U.S. declared war on al Qaeda before Sept. 11 ? Endless and
ultimately useless speculation about "various threads and pieces of information," which are
certainly "relevant and significant," at least in retrospect, will not take us very far in answering this
central question.

* * *

On Jan. 26, 2001, at 8:45 a.m., I had my first meeting with President Bush and Vice President
Cheney. They had been in office four days. We discussed terrorism, and in particular al Qaeda,
the African embassy bombings, the Cole attack and the June 1996 Khobar bombing in Saudi
Arabia. When I advised the president that Hezbollah and Iran were responsible for Khobar, he
directed me to follow-up with Condoleezza Rice. I did so at 2:30 p.m. that day and she told me to
pursue our investigation with the attorney general and to bring whatever charges possible. Within
weeks, a new prosecutor was put in charge of the case and on June 21 an indictment was
returned against 13 Hezbollah men who had been directed to bomb Khobar by senior officials of
the Iranian government. I know that the families of the 19 murdered airmen were deeply grateful
to President Bush and Ms. Rice for their prompt response and focus on terrorism.

I believe that any president and Congress faced with the reality of Sept. 11 would have acted
swiftly and overwhelmingly as did President Bush and the 107th Congress. They are to be
commended. However, those who came before President Bush can only be faulted if they had
had the political means and the will of the nation to declare a war back then, but failed to do so.
The fact that terrorism and the war being waged by al Qaeda was not even an issue in the 2000
presidential campaign strongly suggests that the political will to declare and fight this war didn't
exist before Sept. 11.

All of this is not to say that the intelligence and law enforcement communities couldn't have done
more to protect the nation from a Sept. 11. As FBI director I share in that responsibility. And I
don't know of any FBI agents who would not have given their lives -- two did -- to prevent Sept.
I1 from happening. The Joint Intelligence Committee and now the 9/11 Commission are properly
seeking to understand how Sept. 11 was able to happen. But the grand failure to comprehend the
contrast between the pre-9/11 fight against terrorism with the total war being waged since Sept.
11 blinds us to an immensely significant historical and political dialectic.

The 1993 attack on the World Trade Center by foreign-trained terrorists focused the FBI on
homeland security and prevention as its counterterrorism priority. Excellent investigation and
skillful prosecution effectively identified the terrorists involved. Those who were quickly captured
were tried and convicted. Ramzi Yousef, a terrorist mastermind, fled to Pakistan along with Khalid
Shaikh Mohammed, now believed to be one of the architects of Sept. 11. The FBI's 1993 criminal
investigation identified and stopped another plan by Sheik Rahman to blow up New York City
tunnels, bridges and buildings (dubbed "Terrstop"). Important lesson learned: Good investigation
is also good prevention. Two years later, FBI agents surprised Yousef at a guest house in
Pakistan and brought him back to Foley Square, where he was convicted for two terrorist attacks.
Besides the 1993 WTC murders, he was also convicted for his plot to blow up 11 U.S. airliners.

PRESS CLIPS FOR FEBRUARY 13, 2004 23

washingtonpost.com: Commission Seeks Author of Brief Page 1 of 3

washingtonpost.com

THE RIGHT
Commission Seeks Author of Brief INFORMATION.
Interview With CIA Analyst Requested IN REAL TIME
i& A
WARFIGMTER'S
By Walter Pincus MOST POWERFUL
Washington Post Staff Writer WEAPON.
Tuesday, April 13, 2004; Page A03

The commission investigating the Sept. 11,2001, attacks, rebuffed once

previously, asked again yesterday to interview the CIA analyst who wrote the
Aug. 6, 2001, intelligence briefing given to President Bush on al Qaeda's
threat to the United States, according to administration sources.

"A new request from the commission has just come in, and it is being
considered," said a senior intelligence official, who requested anonymity
because such negotiations are supposed to be conducted privately.

The commission wants to interview the author of the article in the now-
famous President's Daily Brief to determine her purpose in assembling the
document and how much information she sought in doing so.

Commission Chairman Thomas H. Kean (R), a former New Jersey governor,

said yesterday the Bush administration in the past refused to allow the panel to
interview CIA analysts responsible for assembling the briefs, which are
among the government's most sensitive and closely held intelligence
documents.

"I don't know if we'll ever get that," Kean said. In the past, he added, the
White House has argued that those who supply information to the president
should not be subjected to external inquiries.

The senior intelligence official said the commission made its previous request
before last Saturday, when the 11/2-page memo was declassified and released
publicly.

The analyst, who works in the Directorate of Intelligence on terrorism matters, was questioned more
than a year ago by the joint House-Senate committee that studied intelligence failures before the terrorist
attacks. But the interview did not cover the memo, which was not given to the congressional panel.

The origins and purpose of the briefing document have become the subject of more intense scrutiny
since national security adviser Condoleezza Rice described it last Thursday as "not a warning" but "an
historical memo prepared by the agency because the president was asking questions."

Commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste, a Democrat, said Sunday on CNN's "Late Edition" that he thought
"the author of this memo was alerting the president to the possibility that the strike that we were all
anticipating in the summer of 2001 might well occur within the United States." Ben-Veniste said he
recognized that the document did not give a time or place for an attack, and was "not a silver bullet," but
that it should have prompted a government response.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A6590-2004Aprl 2?language=printer 4/13/2004

Mike Hurley
From: Warren Bass
Sent: Friday, April 02, 2004 1:21 PM
To: Team 3
Subject: WP analysis: Clinton-Bush continuity

Copyright 2004 The Washington Post

The Washington Post

March 27,2004 Saturday

Final Edition

SECTION: A Section; A01

LENGTH: 1278 words

HEADLINE: Bush, Clinton Varied Little on Terrorism

BYLINE: Dana Milbank and Dan Eggen, Washington Post Staff Writers

BODY:

For all the sniping over efforts by the Bush and Clinton administrations to
thwart terrorism, information from this week's hearings into the Sept. 11, 2001,
attacks suggests that the two administrations pursued roughly the same policies
before the terrorist strikes occurred.

Witness testimony and the findings of the commission investigating the

attacks indicate that even the new policy to combat Osama bin Laden and his
Taliban hosts, developed just before Sept. 11, was in most respects similar to
the old strategy pursued first by Clinton and then by Bush.

The commission's determination that the two policies were roughly the same
calls into question claims made by Bush officials that they were developing a
superior terrorism policy. The findings also put into perspective the criticism
of President Bush's approach to terrorism by Richard A. Clarke, the former White
House counterterrorism chief: For all his harsh complaints about Bush
administration's lack of urgency in regard to terrorism, he had no serious
quarrel with the actual policy Bush was pursuing before the 2001 attacks.

Clarke did not respond to efforts to reach him for comment yesterday.

Bush officials have claimed that their al Qaeda strategy took eight months to
develop because it was significantly more aggressive and sweeping than the
tactics employed by the previous administration. "Our strategy marshaled all
elements of national power to take down the network, not just respond to
individual attacks with law enforcement measures," national security adviser
Condoleezza Rice wrote in an op-ed article published in The Post earlier this
i
-President William Jefferson Clinton's Speech-National Academy of Sciences Page 1 of 4

REMARKS BY PRESIDENT CLINTON

ON KEEPING AMERICA SECURE FOR THE 21ST CENTURY
January 22,1999
National Academy of Sciences
Washington, D.C.

10:30A.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Jamie, Dr. Lederberg, I'd like to thank you for your
service in this and so many other ways. I would like to thank Sandy Berger for many things,
including indulging my nagging on this subject for the better part of six years now. I was so
relieved that Dr. Lederberg not very long ago ~ well, last year ~ brought a distinguished panel
bioterrorism threat, because I then had experts to cite on my concern and nobody thought I was just
reading too many novels late at night.

Madame Attorney General, Secretary Shalala, Secretary Richardson, Director Witt, Deputy
Secretary Hamre, Commandant of the Coast Guard and our other military leaders who are here, Mr.
Clarke, ladies and gentlemen. I'm delighted to be here to discuss this subject. With some
trepidation, Sandy Berger noted that Dr. Lederberg won a Nobel Prize at 33, and I was governor
you can infer from that that I was not very good at chemistry and biology.

But any democracy is imbued with the responsibility of ordinary citizens who do not have
extraordinary expertise to meet the challenges of each new age. And that is what we are all trying
to do. Our country has always met the challenges of those who would do us harm. At the heart of
our national defense I have always believed is our attempt to live by our values ~ democracy,
freedom, equal opportunity. We are working hard to fulfill these values at home. And we are
working with nations around the world to advance them, to build a new era of interdependence
where nations work together — not simply for peace and security, but also for better schools and
health care, broader prosperity, a cleaner environment and a greater involvement by citizens
everywhere in shaping their own future.

In the struggle to defend our people and values and to advance them wherever possible, we
confront threats both old and new ~ open borders and revolutions in technology have spread the
message and the gifts of freedom but have also given new opportunities to freedom's enemies.
Scientific advances have opened the possibility of longer, better lives. They have also given the
enemies of freedom new opportunities.

Last August, at Andrews Air Force Base, I grieved with the families of the brave Americans who
lost their lives at our embassy in Kenya. They were in Africa to promote the values America shares
with friends of freedom everywhere -- and for that they were murdered by terrorists. So, too, were
men and women in Oklahoma City, at the World Trade Center, Khobar Towers, on Pan Am 103.

http://www.cybercrime.gov/nas9901 .htm 4/5/2004

 79 of 100 DOCUMENTS

Copyright 1996 Federal Document Clearing House, Inc.

FDCH Political Transcripts

July 29, 1996, Monday

TYPE: NEWS BRIEFING

LENGTH: 1216 words

HEADLINE: WEB WIRE-MEETS WITH VICE PRESIDENT, FBI DIRECTOR FREEH AND CONGRESSIONAL
LEADERS TO DISCUSS ANTI-TERRORISM MEASURES

SPEAKER:

WILLIAM J. CLINTON,
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
AL GORE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
LOUIS FREEH, FBI DIRECTOR
U.S. SENATOR TRENT LOTT (R-MS),
SENATE MAJORITY LEADER
U.S. SENATOR THOMAS DASCHLE (D-SD),
SENATE MAJORITY LEADER
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE NEWT GINGRICH (R-GA),
SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE RICHARD GEPHARDT (D-MO),
HOUSE MINORITY LEADER,

LOCATION: WASHINGTON, D.C.

BODY:
CLINTON: We have followed a three-part strategy consistently. First of all, we have worked with our friends
around the world to try to increase international cooperation against terrorists and to isolate the states that support
terrorism.
Just today in Paris, the G-7 conference on terrorism is opening. And I believe after this meeting the attorney general
is going to Paris to represent the United States there. We have intensified our antiterrorism efforts here at home. I want
to thank the Congressional leadership and members of Congress from both parties that strongly supported the
antiterrorism bill and other efforts that we have made to strengthen our hand here at home. And we've have had some
results preventing terrorism action, catching people who commit terrorist acts and we intend to do more.
The third thing we have done is to increase airport security. We will be looking at what else we can do through the
commission that I have asked the vice president to head to intensify airport security in the weeks and months ahead.

Again let me say if you look around this room, the Speaker, Senator Lott, Senator Daschle, Mr. Gephardt, Senators
Hatch and Biden, Congressman Hyde and Congressman Conyers, the secretary of state, the attorney general, the