|
Edited on Mon Sep-11-06 08:36 AM by leveymg
the highly classified ongoing CIA operation that tracked al-Qaeda operatives known to be inside the U.S. This was part of the planned revamping of Clinton's counter-terrorism program, and ongoing operations were put on hold or cut off entirely while Rice and Hadley worked with Tenet on the Administration's new al-Qaeda strategy. The cancellation of Catchers Mitt was revealed in a single article in Newsweek on March 21, 2004 which was never followed-up on. A press release highlighting Catchers Mitt was scrubbed from the publication's website. That report was, fortunately, noted on April 2nd by American Progress: http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=43926 A mirror is still hosted at Wayback: http://web.archive.org/web/20040401142034/http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/040321/nysu007a_1.htmlNEWSWEEK: In the Months Before 9/11, Justice Department Curtailed Highly Classified Program to Monitor Al Qaeda Suspects in the U.S.
Sunday March 21, 10:51 am ET
'They Came in There With Their Agenda and was not on it,' Says Former Counterterrorism Chief Clarke of Bush Administration
NEW YORK, March 21 /PRNewswire/ -- Newsweek has learned that in the months before 9/11, the U.S. Justice Department curtailed a highly classified program called "Catcher's Mitt" to monitor Al Qaeda suspects in the United States, after a federal judge severely chastised the FBI for improperly seeking permission to wiretap terrorists. During the Bush administration's first few months in office, Attorney General John Ashcroft downgraded terrorism as a priority, choosing to place more emphasis on drug trafficking and gun violence, report Investigative Correspondent Michael Isikoff and Assistant Managing Editor Evan Thomas in the March 29 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, March 22).
(Photo: http://web.archive.org/web/20040401142034/http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20040321/NYSU003 )
Richard Clarke, former counterterrorism chief of the national-security staff, tells Newsweek that at an April 2001 top-level meeting to discuss terrorism, his effort to focus on Al Qaeda was rebuffed by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. According to Clarke, Wolfowitz said, "Who cares about a little terrorist in Afghanistan?" The real threat, Wolfowitz insisted, was state-sponsored terrorism orchestrated by Saddam Hussein.
In the meeting, says Clarke, Wolfowitz cited the writings of Laurie Mylroie, a controversial academic who had written a book advancing an elaborate conspiracy theory that Saddam was behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Clarke says he tried to refute Wolfowitz. "We've investigated that five ways to Friday, and nobody believes that," Clarke recalls saying. "It was Al Qaeda. It wasn't Saddam." A spokesman for Wolfowitz describes Clarke's account as a "fabrication." Wolfowitz always regarded Al Qaeda as "a major threat," says this official.
Clarke tells Newsweek that the day after 9/11, President Bush wanted the FBI and CIA to hunt for any evidence that pointed to Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein. Clarke recalls that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was also looking for a justification to bomb Iraq. Soon after the 9/11 attacks, Rumsfeld was arguing at a cabinet meeting that Afghanistan, home of Osama bin Laden's terrorist camps, did not offer "enough good targets." "We should do Iraq," Rumsfeld urged. **** According to the testimony of Dan Marcus, the General Counsel to the 9/11 Commission, Richard Clarke who was still in charge of the CSG, the counter-terrorism working group, wasn't told about changes that occurred in early August 2001 to the program to monitor al-Qaeda cells inside the U.S.: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20349-2004Mar24.htmlMARCUS: I will try to wind up quickly, because we're running late.
Clarke asked on several occasions for early principals meetings on these issues, and was frustrated that no early meeting was scheduled.
No principals committee meetings on Al Qaida were held until September 4th, 2001. Rice and Hadley said this was because the deputies committee needed to work through many issues relating to the new policy on Al Qaida.
The principals committee did meet frequently before September 11th on other subjects, Rice told us, including Russia, the Persian Gulf and the Middle East peace process.
Rice and Hadley told us that, although the Clinton administration had worked very hard on the Al Qaida program, its policies on Al Qaida, quote, "had run out of gas," and they therefore set about developing a new presidential directive and a new, comprehensive policy on terrorism.
As spring turned to summer, Clarke was impatient for decisions on aid to the Northern Alliance and on the Predator program, issues managed by Hadley and the deputies committee.
Clarke and other perceived the process as slow, and Clarke argued that the policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan did not need to be settled before moving ahead against Al Qaida.
Hadley emphasized to us the time needed to get new officials confirmed and in place. He told us that they moved the process along as fast as they could and the deputies committee met seven times from April until September 10th on issues related to Al Qaida, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Rice recalled that in May 2001, as threats of possible terrorist attacks came up again and again in the director's morning discussions with the president, the president expressed impatience with, quote, "swatting flies," and pushed his advisers to do more.
And Rice and Tenet met at the end of May, along with their counterterrorism advisers, to discuss what Rice at the time called "taking the offensive against Al Qaida."
MARCUS: Within the NSC staff, Clarke was asked to put together a broad policy to eliminate Al Qaida to be codified in the presidential directive.
Clarke and his staff regarded the new approach as essentially similar to the proposal they had developed in December 2000 and put forward to the new administration in January 2001. Clarke's staff produced a draft presidential directive on Al Qaida, Hadley circulated it to his counterparts in early June as, quote, "an admittedly ambitious program." The draft had the goal of eliminating the Al Qaida network as a threat over a multiyear period. It had headings such as "No Sanctuaries" and "No Financial Support."
From April through July alarming threat reports were pouring in. Clarke and the CSG were consumed with coordinating defensive reactions. In late June Clarke wrote Rice that the threat reporting had reached a crescendo.
On July 2nd, the FBI issued a national threat advisory. Rice recalls asking Clarke on July 5th to bring additional law enforcement in domestic agencies into the CSG threat discussions, and that was done.
On July 27th, Clarke reported to Rice and Hadley that the spiked intelligence indicating a near-term attack appeared to have ceased, but he urged them to keep readiness high. Intelligence indicated that an attack had been postponed for a few months.
In early August the CIA prepared an article for the president's daily intelligence brief on whether or how terrorists might attack the United States. Neither the White House nor the CSG received specific credible information about any threat of attacks in the United States. Neither Clarke nor the CSG were informed, however, about the August 2001 investigations that produced the discovery of suspected Al Qaida operatives in the United States, nor did the group learn about the arrest or FBI investigation of Zacarias Moussaoui in Minnesota.
At the beginning of August, Rice and Hadley again reviewed the draft presidential directive on Al Qaida. Rice commented it was very good and principals needed to discuss it briefly before it was submitted to President Bush. This meeting was scheduled for September 4.
The policy streams converged at a meeting of the principals committee, the administration's first such meeting on Al Qaida, issues on September 4.
Before this meeting Clarke wrote to Rice summarizing many of his frustrations. He urged policy-makers to imagine a day after a terrorist attack with hundreds of Americans dead at home and abroad and ask themselves what they could have done earlier. He criticized the military for what he called its unwillingness to retaliate for the Cole or to strike Afghan camps. He accused senior CIA officials of trying to block the Predator program. He warned that unless adequate funding was found for the planned effort, the directive would be a hollow shell. He feared, apparently referring to Bush's earlier comment, that Washington might be left with a modest effort to swat flies relying on foreign governments while waiting for the big attack.
Rice chaired the meeting of principals. They apparently approved the draft directive. They agreed, as discussed earlier, that the armed Predator capability was needed, leaving open issues relating to command and control of the Predator. Director Tenet was pressed to reconsider his opposition to starting immediately with reconnaissance flights, and after the meeting Tenet agreed to proceed with such flights.
Various follow-up activities began in the following days, including discussions between Rice and Tenet, directives on September 10 from Hadley to Tenet to develop expanded covert action authorities, and that same day further deputies committee considerations of policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan.
And then came the attacks of September 11th.
KEAN: Thank you all very much. **** Now, here's the key fact to keep in mind about what the Bush Administration knew about the al-Qaeda threat before 9/11. One of the very first things that incoming President and the Bush transition team was told in January 2001 was the fact that U.S. intelligence was tracking al-Qaeda cells known to be inside the country. Washington Post reporter Gellman first revealed this on January 20, 2002, a fact that's been forgotten by the major media: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A8734-2002Jan19?language=printerIn his first week on the job, deputy national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley instructed NSC team leaders to propose subjects for high-level review. Much of the incoming staff was still finding its way around the 553 rooms and two miles of corridors in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, once the world's largest.
Clarke did not need a map, or a second invitation. He had a three-page proposal on Hadley's desk that day.
The Jan. 25 memorandum spoke starkly. Clarke and (Gen.) Cressey had just navigated through the most intensive period of counterterrorist activity in American history. The millennium year marked its start with al Qaeda plots – stopped by improbable good fortune – to mount synchronized strikes on airports in Boston and Los Angeles, and on American tourists in Jordan. It ended with a suicide attack that killed 17 sailors and crippled the USS Cole in Yemen three weeks before the presidential election.
More attacks had almost certainly been set in motion, Clarke and Cressey wrote. American intelligence believed there were al Qaeda "sleeper cells" in America – not a potential problem but "a major threat in being," according to people who read their proposal.________________________________ 2006. Mark G. Levey |
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
