Bush At War Part 6

Card said consideration should be given to simultaneous actions in other parts of the world such as Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Yemen or Somalia. "If you had 15 SEAL teams. .h.i.tting 10 different targets on the same day, all at once, around the world that would send a message that we're reaching out globally."

Card also proposed they "build up troops big-time" in the Persian Gulf. It would show they were there to stay and would put them in a ready position to strike Iraq later on. But he said he did not think the case had been made that Iraq should be a princ.i.p.al, initial target.

Tenet interjected that he was concerned about what he called "the failure blame game," knowing there would be all kinds of finger-pointing and investigations like the endless rehas.h.i.+ng of Pearl Harbor, trying to find a culprit, someone who had dropped the ball. "People are working their b.u.t.ts off," he said. His people were, as were others. "They've saved thousands of lives." It was essential to give them support. Then Tenet did something unusual. He looked at the president and said, "The men and women who are doing the job need to know you, Mr. President, believe in them."

Bush made it clear he did.

The vice president went last. We need to do everything we can to stop the next attack. Go after anyone in the U.S. who might be a terrorist. Are we being aggressive enough? We need a group now that's going to look at lessons learned from where we've been. And in going after bin Laden we need to consider the broader context. A week ago, before September 11, we were worried about the strength of our" whole position in the Middle East - where we stood with the Saudis, the Turks and others in the region. Now they all want to be part of our efforts, and that's an opportunity. We need to reach out for that opportunity.

Building a coalition to take advantage of the opportunities, he said, suggests that this may be a bad time to take on Saddam Hussein. We would lose momentum. "If we go after Saddam Hussein, we lose our rightful place as good guy."

Cheney thus joined Powell, Tenet and Card in opposing action on Iraq. Rumsfeld had not committed. To anyone keeping a tally, it was 4 to 0 with Rumsfeld abstaining.

Still, the vice president expressed deep concern about Saddam and said he was not going to rule out going after Iraq at some point.

Cheney said the CIA must push every b.u.t.ton it could. "One disappointment are the NGOs, bin Laden's one real a.s.set" - the charitable groups and nongovernmental organizations that helped finance al Qaeda. He recommended strengthening the Northern Alliance and hitting the Taliban - but not necessarily in a ma.s.sive way at first. We need to knock out their air defenses and their airpower at the start, he said. We need to be ready to put men on the ground. There are some places only Special Operations Forces will get them, he added. And we need to ask: Do we have the right mix of forces?

Finally, Cheney returned to the question of homeland defense. They must do everything possible to defend, prevent or disrupt the next attack on America. The issue was very worrisome. He had reviewed the work of five government commissions that had recently studied terrorism. The president had a.s.signed him the task of coming up with a homeland security plan back in May. It's not just borders and airline security, but biological and other threats that they had to think about.

At the end of the meeting, Bush went around the table and thanked everyone. It was not clear where things stood.

"I'm going to go think about it, and I'll let you know what I've decided," he said.

POWELL AND RUMSFELD left Camp David, but most of the others and their spouses stayed over for dinner. Rice led the group in a sing-along of American standards including "Old Man River," "n.o.body Knows the Trouble I've Seen" and "America the Beautiful." The president spent some time at a table nearby, joining others trying to a.s.semble an elaborate wooden jigsaw puzzle.

HIS HOME in the Was.h.i.+ngton suburbs the next morning, Tenet took out a pen, some paper and began writing in longhand. He was pumped up, and wanted to send a message to his own team of advisers. He wrote at the top: "We're At War."

It was an all-fronts war on al Qaeda, he wrote. "There can be no bureaucratic impediments to success. All the rules have changed. There must be an absolute and full sharing of information, ideas and capabilities. We do not have time to hold meetings or fix problems - fix them quickly and smartly. Each person must a.s.sume an unprecedented degree of personal responsibility." Any problems with other agencies, the military or law enforcement must be "solved now.

"We must all be pa.s.sionate and driven - but not breathless. We must stay cool.

"Together we will win this war and make our president and the American people proud. We will win this war on behalf of our fallen and injured brothers and sisters in New York and Was.h.i.+ngton and their families."

He sent it over the secure fax in his home to headquarters to be typed and distributed. The memo was a call to action but it was also an acknowledgment that his agency had some problems, a tendency to deal with problems by holding meetings.

THE PRESIDENT ARRIVED back at the White House at 3:20 P.M. from Camp David, made a brief statement to the press on the South Lawn and took five questions. He referred to "evil" or "evildoers" seven times and three times voiced amazement at the nature of the attacks.

"We haven't seen this kind of barbarism in a long period of time," Bush said. "No one could have conceivably imagined suicide bombers burrowing into our society and then emerging all in the same day to fly their aircraft - fly U.S. aircraft into buildings full of innocent people and show no remorse.

"This crusade, this war on terrorism is going to take a while," he added. The characterization of the war as a "crusade" would be recognized as a blunder because of its serious negative connotations in the Islamic world, where it is still a.s.sociated with invading medieval European Christian armies. Aides would later have to take back the comment and apologize.

BUSH WAS AWARE of the monumental communications problem he and the administration faced. September 11 was not only the deadliest attack on the American homeland, surpa.s.sing Pearl Harbor in body count, but the most photographed and filmed violent a.s.sault in history. Who could forget the crystal-clear video reruns of the gently banking United Airlines Flight 175 plowing into the 80th floor of the South Tower of the World Trade Center, depositing its lethal fireball and nearly emerging from the other side. Or the image of the smoking Twin Towers. Or the video of the collapsing towers, one then the other, and the cloud of debris and smoke suffocating Lower Manhattan. Or the pictures of the people jumping from the uppermost floors to their deaths to escape the unbearable heat inside. Or the despair on the faces of all Americans. It was almost as if the terrorists had a perfect sense of the American thirst for the theatrical and the dramatic. It seemed they realized that the country had a news media and value system that would push all these images back in every face time and time and time again. for the theatrical and the dramatic. It seemed they realized that the country had a news media and value system that would push all these images back in every face time and time and time again.

Bush sensed that he was not going to be able to offer an equivalent spectacular event in response. Much of his war and his response would be invisible, and a long time in coming.

He summoned Rice, Hughes, Bartlett and press secretary Ari Fleischer to join him in his office on the second floor of the residence, known as the Treaty Room.

Bush told Hughes, "You're in charge of how we communicate this war." How the White House explained its goals and thinking about the war effort would be critical to the overall success of the campaign. It would be central to retaining public confidence in his leaders.h.i.+p, to holding together the international coalition. The problem was that the communications team was not going to know the details, especially about the covert CIA operations, and the American response was going to be delayed.

"I knew full well that if we could rally the American people behind a long and difficult ch.o.r.e, that our job would be easier," Bush said later. "I am a product of the Vietnam era. I remember presidents trying to wage wars that were very unpopular, and the nation split." He pointed to a portrait of Abraham Lincoln that hung in the Oval Office. "He's on the wall because the job of the president is to unite the nation. That's the job of the president. And I felt like, that I had the job of making sure the American people understood. They understood the severity of the attack. But I wasn't sure if they understood how long it was going to take and what a difficult process this would be."

Bush told his advisers, We're going to be entering missions where U.S. military personnel will be at risk. We need to be careful. He wanted Defense and State and other agencies all operating from the same plan. Make sure the left hand knows what the right hand is doing.

For nearly an hour, they talked about what the president expected from his communications team. His advisers remember the conversation as mostly one-way. Bush stressed the unconventional aspects of the war - the role of law enforcement, of intelligence sharing, of disrupting the terrorists' financial network, the role of the CIA and the overriding imperative that much of the war be invisible. conversation as mostly one-way. Bush stressed the unconventional aspects of the war - the role of law enforcement, of intelligence sharing, of disrupting the terrorists' financial network, the role of the CIA and the overriding imperative that much of the war be invisible.

He asked his advisers to think about how to explain the mission, the risks and the time it might take to complete the tasks ahead. There would be parts of the campaign that they could not talk about, he said again, and they should think of ways to showcase all elements of the war they could -talk about, particularly the financial piece, the effort to squeeze the money out of the terrorists' networks.

We cannot tolerate leaks, the president said insistently. Lives will be at stake. Rumsfeld and the Pentagon would talk about operations; White House officials would not. We will not be able to confirm some actions or operations. Your jobs will not be easy.

Later, Bush recalled being very certain and clear about what they needed to say at the time: "We're in for a difficult struggle; it is a new kind of war; we're facing an enemy we never faced before; it is a two-front war initially - Afghanistan and at home.

"I also had the responsibility to show resolve. I had to show the American people the resolve of a commander in chief that was going to do whatever it took to win. No yielding. No equivocation. No, you know, lawyering this thing to death, that we're after 'em. And that was not only for domestic, for the people at home to see. It was also vitally important for the rest of the world to watch." He was particularly concerned about how world leaders would interpret his actions. "These guys were watching my every move. And it's very important for them to come in this Oval Office, which they do, on a regular basis, and me look them in the eye and say, 'You're either with us or you're against us.' "

Twice Bush was interrupted for calls with foreign leaders, including one with Mexican President Vicente Fox, whose ranch he had visited shortly after taking office. As the two ranchers spoke, Bush slipped into the vernacular of the Old West. "Wanted dead or alive. That's how I feel," Bush said.

Bush excused his communications team and asked Rice to stay behind.

"I know what I want to do and I'm going to do it tomorrow at the NSC," he told her. He dictated a list of actions he would order the next morning.

Rice returned to her office to draw up a one-page summary of 11 items, a war plan on a single sheet of paper.

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, at 9:35 A.M., Bush and the NSC reconvened in the Cabinet Room. Overlooking the Rose Garden, the room looks like the library of a venerable law firm. It is dominated by a large, st.u.r.dy oval mahogany conference table which was a gift from President Nixon in 1970.

It was not clear to the others what the crucible of Camp David had yielded. This morning, Bush opened. "The purpose of this meeting is to a.s.sign tasks for the first wave of the war against terrorism," he said. "It starts today."

He was approving every one of Tenet's requests for expanding the role of the agency, rejecting most of Rumsfeld's efforts to scale back. CIA subordinates would have authority to act covertly.

"I want to sign a finding today," the president said. "I want the CIA to be first on the ground.

"The attorney general, the CIA and the FBI will a.s.sist in protecting America from further attacks." The new policy would stress preemption of future attacks, instead of investigation, gathering evidence and prosecution. He directed Ashcroft to request new legal authority from Congress for the FBI to track, wiretap and stop terrorists - a project already under way.

He told Rumsfeld, "We need plans for protection of U.S. forces and installations abroad.

The secretary of state should issue an ultimatum against the Taliban today," he addressed Powell, almost barking orders. He wanted something "warning them to turn over bin Laden and his al Qaeda or they will suffer the consequences.

"If they don't comply, we'll attack them," Bush said. "Our goal is not to destroy the Taliban, but that may be the effect.

"We'll attack with missiles, bombers and boots on the ground," he said, choosing the most extensive of Shelton's options. "Let's. .h.i.t them hard. We want to signal this is a change from the past. We want to cause other countries like Syria and Iran to change their views. We want to hit as soon as possible."

The Pentagon should develop and present a detailed plan, he said, but it was clear some basic questions about the operation - raised six days before by Rumsfeld - had not been resolved. Bush repeated them: What targets, how soon? What allied forces do we want? When? How? What's in the first wave? What's later?

Putting men on the ground before bombing in Afghanistan would be a good idea. "We are going to rain holy h.e.l.l on them. You've got to put lives at risk. We've got to have people on the ground."

Powell had been slightly taken aback that Bush wanted to give the Taliban an immediate ultimatum. It was nighttime in South Asia. Since the United States did not have diplomatic relations with the Taliban, any private message would have to be issued through the government of Pakistan.

There were complications. Powell had to write the ultimatum. Everyone had to understand the consequences. He was concerned about what might happen in Pakistan. They would have to b.u.t.ton up their emba.s.sies and talk to the allies. "I'd like an hour to think it through, whether we should delay until tomorrow morning," the secretary said.

Bush agreed, but he wanted the language to be tough. "I want to have them quaking in their boots."

Bush said he wanted a plan to stabilize Pakistan and protect it against the consequences of supporting the U.S.

As for Saddam Hussein, the president ended the debate. "I believe Iraq was involved, but I'm not going to strike them now. I don't have the evidence at this point."

Bush said he wanted them to keep working on plans for military action in Iraq but indicated there would be plenty of time to do that. Everything else, though, had to be done soon.

"Start now," the president said. "It's very important to move fast. This is a new way."

Shelton said it should take four days to a week to set up the airlifting of troops and supplies so they could be moved near the Afghan border. It would take longer to get the Special Forces troops in place.

"This is chess, not checkers," Rumsfeld said. "We must be thinking beyond the first move." He thought it was more like three-dimensional chess. It reminded him of the old 25-cent game at the gas station, the one that involved a set of multiple joints and handles that had to be manipulated to win the prize.

What's after the 10-day bombing campaign? What can happen that could change their minds? What were the worst things that could happen? What were the best things? Sometimes an operation could move too fast, so they had to be ready to react if things went better than they thought.

These were good questions, but Rumsfeld's tendency to intellectualize masked a practical frustration. As his top aides knew, he was worried that the military, particularly General Franks, was not, as one aide put it succinctly, "looking aggressively enough at aggressive options."

THE PRESIDENT NEXT went to the Pentagon for a. detailed briefing on special operations. He had been scheduled to visit Fort Bragg in North Carolina, home of the Special Forces and Delta, the elite hostage rescue unit, but the trip had been scrubbed because of worries that his presence could signal the direction his plans were taking.

A two-star general had been sent from that command to brief Bush, Rice and Frank Miller, the senior NSC staffer for defense. Miller, who had worked for Cheney in the Pentagon on nuclear war plans, knew that special operations officers were a breed apart. He went ahead to review the cla.s.sified slide presentation.

One slide about potential operations in Afghanistan was labeled: "Thinking Outside the Box - Poisoning Food Supply."

Miller almost gagged. He showed it to Rice. The United States doesn't know how to do this, he reminded her, and we're not allowed. It would be a chemical or biological attack, clearly banned by treaties the United States had signed.

Rice took the slide to Rumsfeld. "This slide is not going to be shown to the president of the United States," she said. A poison attack was exactly what they feared from bin Laden. How was it conceivable that someone could imagine adopting bin Laden's tactics and presenting the idea to the president?

"You're right," Rumsfeld said. Pentagon officials said later that their internal review had caught the offending slide and it never would have been shown. But the briefing was only minutes away when Miller saw it.

Afterward, the president addressed some of the 35,000 reservists who were being called up, and answered questions from reporters.

"Do you want bin Laden dead?"

"There's an old poster out West, as I recall, that said, 'Wanted Dead or Alive,' " Bush replied.

He was to sign a doc.u.ment that day authorizing covert and overt action designed to capture or kill bin Laden. He said later that he used the language to let the public know where he was heading.

"A lot of times you get out here and you know something is going to happen or you're thinking about something," he recalled. "And you get asked a question and it just, it pops out. I'm not very guarded in that sense sometimes.... It was a little bit of bravado, but it was also an understanding that in self-defense of America, that I had made that decision in self-defense of America that 'Dead or Alive,' that it's legal." but it was also an understanding that in self-defense of America, that I had made that decision in self-defense of America that 'Dead or Alive,' that it's legal."

When Laura Bush saw the news accounts, she was not happy at all. "Tone it down, darling," she told him.

But, she said, he didn't tone it down. "Every once in a while, I had to say it again."

LATER IN THE afternoon at the White House, the president was presented with two doc.u.ments to sign. One was a Memorandum of Notification modifying the finding that President Ronald Reagan had signed on May 12, 1986.

The memorandum authorized all the steps proposed by Tenet at Camp David. The CIA was now empowered to disrupt the al Qaeda network and other global terrorist networks on a worldwide scale, using lethal covert action to keep the role of the United States hidden.

The finding also authorized the CIA to operate freely and fully in Afghanistan with its own paramilitary teams, case officers and the newly armed Predator drone.

The second doc.u.ment, two and a half pages long, consisted of the orders and action steps to the war cabinet and agencies that Bush had presented earlier that morning. The orders called for financial pressure, diplomatic action, military planning and covert action. It was cla.s.sified TOP SECRET/PEARL. The codeword PEARL had been selected at random as the name of the special access compartment for the early phases of the war, and only those on a restricted list were supposed to see the doc.u.ments.

In the middle of the third page the president scribbled in his distinctive longhand, "George W. Bush."

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, President Bush and Vice President Cheney marked the seventh day since the terrorist attacks with a moment of silence on the White House lawn, then met with the National Security Council. Tenet told the group that the agency was sending its first paramilitary team to Afghanistan to work with the Northern Alliance. It would take eight days before the team landed in Afghanistan but Tenet said, "We are launching our plan."

Rumsfeld reported that military planning was proceeding. Keeping options open is important but not the primary focus, Bush told him. "The top priority is shaking bin Laden's tree."

After the NSC meeting, the president met with Hughes and the speechwriting team about the address he was to deliver to a joint session of Congress. He wasn't satisfied with a first draft. He wanted to conclude with a personal pledge to the American people, an ending along the lines of: This is my mission, my purpose, this is the nation's purpose. "This is what my presidency is about."

He told his team he wanted to convey that the war on terrorism would consume him throughout his presidency, and that he was making a personal commitment to the American people to see it through, however long.

The speech had become the rhetorical vehicle to describe, at least in veiled language, the scope of a total war on terrorism.

Rice brought in the State Department's draft of the ultimatum to the Taliban. When Bush read it, he began to think it made more sense to include the ultimatum in his speech, rather than have it issued by State. An ultimatum would carry more weight if it came directly from the president and it would produce a headline.

That night at about 9:30 P.M., Bush called his chief speech-writer, Michael Gerson. Gerson had just pulled into his driveway in suburban Virginia. It was unusual for the president to call this late in the evening, but for a half hour they went through the draft. Bush proposed two dozen changes.

ARMITAGE AND GOFER Black flew to Moscow to seek help from top Russian diplomatic and intelligence officials.

"We're in a war," Black told the Russians. "We're coming. Regardless of what you do, we're coming anyway." He knew Afghanistan was their sphere of influence and they would be queasy. "At the very least, we want you to look away." He did not want the Russians trying to gum up CIA operations. "From my humble position, I think this is a historical opportunity. Let's get out of the last century into the new one."

The Russians indicated they would help and certainly not obstruct. One noted that Afghanistan was ambush heaven, where the guerrilla fighters had demolished the Russian army. "With regret," the Russian said, "I have to say you're really going to get the h.e.l.l kicked out of you."

"We're going to kill them," Black said. "We're going to put their heads on sticks. We're going to rock their world."

The Russians soon sent a team to the CIA to provide extensive on-the-ground intelligence, especially about topography and caves in Afghanistan.

THE NSC MET Wednesday morning, September 19, in the White House Situation Room. Bush asked for a.s.surances that U.S. officials had clearly insisted that the Taliban regime release two young American female aid workers who were being held hostage.

He also urged Powell and Rumsfeld to emphasize in their briefings that the international coalition would change with the requirements of the war effort, that different countries would be asked for different contributions, that this would not be a single, grand, unchanging coalition.

"We won't demand from our coalition partners what they can't give, but states can't say they are anti-terror here and pro-terror at home," Powell replied.

He said they needed to build a case that al Qaeda was behind the attacks.

"Not a legal case," countered Rumsfeld. "It's not event-related." The issue was not specific acts of terrorism. They knew al Qaeda believed in terrorism. Bin Laden and the others had said so publicly and repeatedly. Indictments and federal criminal charges had been filed against them in the past. "Some countries are fearful - they have different perspectives. The press will say the coalition is coming apart if the evidence doesn't support our case."

"Is Iran in the coalition?" asked Steve Hadley.

"It's not a single coalition," said Rumsfeld.

"Silence may sometimes be more threatening," Tenet said. Saying nothing might worry the Iranians more than anything.

THAT MORNING, HUGHES asked Card and Rice if they thought the president had decided that the speech draft was in good enough shape. She thought it still needed a lot of work. Rice agreed, and said she would send two of her senior staff members to work with Hughes.

Despite his impa.s.sioned statements throughout the week, the president felt his speechwriters had not incorporated the directness and simplicity he was looking for in the conclusion.

"Is anybody listening?" he asked.

About 11:30 A.M., Gerson called Hughes to say he was bringing a revised draft over to her office. They went over it line by line before deciding they were ready to show it. About 1:15 P.M., they walked into the Oval Office.