Condoleezza Rice - National Security Advisor - 9/11 Commission Testimony

now that's a live picture condalisa rice is in the room it's about 10 minutes away from her testimony but you can see the Press gathered up there at the front of the the podium the little red table is where condalisa rice will be SE seated it's going to begin in about 10 minutes at about 9:03 eastern time we'll bring it to you in its entirety we'll have open phones afterwards to get your reaction you can also listen to it on C-Span radio or c-span.org uh if you want to watch it online thanks for being with us tomorrow on the Washington Journal Jonah Goldberg of National Review and James kitfield of the National Journal who just got back from Iraq pH far right here s I pretty good the local citiz they Ste everybody has back okay I'll be back in a second I over right here they settle down okay nobody taking is that all right right there part 2 61 go down good morning chair of the national Commission on terrorist attacks upon the United States I hereby convene this hearing this is a continuation of the commission's previous hearings on the formulation and conduct of US counterterrorism policy the record of that hearing by the way including staff statements is available on our website www 911c commission. goov we will hear from only one witness this morning the distinguished Dr Rice Kisa rice assistant of the president for National Security Affairs Dr Rice we bid you a most cordial welcome commission before I call on Dr Rice I would like to turn to our vice chair for brief opening remarks good morning good morning Dr Rice we're very pleased to have you with us this morning uh Mr chairman I appreciate uh the opportunity to make a statement I will be very brief uh the purpose of our hearing this morning is uh very straightforward we want to get information and we want to get it out into the public record if we are going to fulfill our mandate a comprehensive and sweeping mandate then we will have to provide a full and complete accounting of the events of 9/11 and that means that we are going to ask some searching and difficult questions our purpose is not to embarrass it is not to put any witness on the spot our purpose is to understand and to inform questions do not represent opinions our views will follow later after reflection on answers we want to be thorough this morning and as you will see in a few minutes the Commissioners will show that they have mastered their briefs but we also want to be fair most of us on this commission have been in the policymaking world at some time in our careers policy makers face terrible dilemmas information is incomplete the inbox is huge resources are limited there are only so many hours in the day the choices are tough and none is tougher than deciding what is a priority and what is not we will want to explore with Dr Rice as we have with other Witnesses the choices that were made thank you Mr chairman thank you uh Dr Rice would you please rise and raise your right hand do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth I do thank you I understand Dr Rice that you have an opening statement your prepared statement of course will be entered into the record in full and we look forward to if it's a summary of this statement that's fine Dr Rice thank you very much Mr chairman I thank the commission for arranging this special session I thank you for helping us to find a way to meet the nation's need to learn all that we can about the September 11th attacks while preserving important constitutional principles the commission and those who appear before it have a vital charge we owe it to those that we lost and to their loved ones and to our country to learn all that we can about that tragic day and the events that led to it many of the families of the victims are here today and I want to thank them for their contributions to this commission's work the terrorist threat to our nation did not emerge on September 11th 2001 long before that day radical Freedom hating terrorists declared war on America and on the Civilized world the attack on the Marine Barracks in Lebanon in 1983 the hijacking of the ailla Laurel in 1985 the rise of al-Qaeda and the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 the attacks on American installations in Saudi Arabia in 1995 and 19 96 the East Africa bombings of 1998 the attack on the USS Cole in 2000 these and other atrocities were part of a sustained systematic campaign to spread Devastation and chaos and to murder innocent Americans the terrorists were at war with us but we were not yet at war with them for more than 20 years the terrorist threat gathered and America's response across several administrations of both parties was insufficient historically Democratic societies have been slow to react to Gathering threats tending instead to wait to confront threats until they are too dangerous to ignore or until it is too late despite the sinking of the Lucitania in 199 1915 and continued German harassment of American shipping the United States did not enter the first world war until two years later despite Nazi Germany's repeated violations of the Rai treaty and provocations throughout the mid 1930s the Western democracies did not take action until 1939 the US government did not act against the growing threat from Imperial Japan until it became all too evident at Pearl Harbor and tragically for all the language of War spoken before September 11th this country simply was not on war footing since then America has been at War and under President Bush's leadership we will remain at War until the terrorist threat to our nation is ended the the world has changed so much that it is hard to remember what our lives were like before that day but I do want to describe some of the actions that were taken by the administration prior to September 11th after President Bush was elected we were briefed by the Clinton Administration on many National Security issues during the transition the president-elect and I were briefed by George tenant on terrorism and on the al-Qaeda network members of Sandy Berger's NC staff briefed me along with other members of the National Security team on counterterrorism and Al-Qaeda this briefing lasted for about an hour and it reviewed the Clinton administration's counterterrorism approach and the various counterterrorism activities then underway Sandy and I personally discussed a variety of other topics including North Korea Iraq the Middle East and the Balkans because of these briefings and because we had watched the rise of al-Qaeda over many years we understood that the network posed a serious threat to the United States we wanted to sure that there was no respite in the fight against Al-Qaeda on an operational level therefore we decided immediately to continue to pursue the Clinton administration's covert action authorities and other efforts to fight the network President Bush retained George Tennant as director of Central Intelligence and Louis free remained the director of the FBI and I took the unusual step of retaining Dick Clark and the entire Clinton administration's counterterrorism team on the NSC staff I knew Dick Clark to be an expert in his field as well as an experienced crisis manager our goal was to ensure continuity of operations while we developed new policies at the beginning of the administration President Bush revived the practice of meeting with the director of Central Intelligence almost every day in the Oval Office meetings which I attended along with the vice president and the chief of staff at these meetings the president received upto-date intell Ence and asked questions of his most senior intelligence officials from January 20th through September 10th the president received at these daily meetings more than 40 briefing items on Al-Qaeda and 13 of those were in response to questions he or his top advisor posted in addition to seeing DCI tenant almost every morning I generally spoke by telephone to coordinate policy at 7:15 with secretary secretaries Po and Rell on a variety of topics and I also met and spoke regularly with the DCI about Al-Qaeda and terrorism of course we did have other responsibilities President Bush had set a broad foreign policy agenda we were determined to confront the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction we were improving Americans America's relations with the world's great Powers we had to change an Iraq policy that was making no progress against a hostile regime which regularly shot at us planes enforcing un security Council resolutions and we had to deal with the occasional crisis for instance when the crew of a Navy plane was detained in China for 11 days we also moved to develop a new and comprehensive strategy to try and eliminate the al-Qaeda Network President Bush understood the threat and he understood its importance he made clear to us that he did not want to respond to Al-Qaeda one attack at a time he told me he was tired of swatting flies this new strategy was developed over the spring and summer of 2001 and was approved by the president senior National Security officials on September 4th it was the very first major national security policy directive of the Bush Administration not Russia not missile defense not Iraq but the elimination of al-Qaeda although this National Security Presidential Directive was originally a highly classified document we've arranged for portions of it to be Declassified to help the Commission in its work and I will describe some of it today the strategy set as a goal the elimination of the al-Qaeda Network and threat and ordered the leadership of relevant US Departments and agencies to make the elimination of al-Qaeda a high priority and to use all aspects of Our National Power intelligence Financial diplomatic and Military to meet that goal and it gave cabinet secretaries and department heads specific responsibilities for instance it directed the Secretary of State to work with other countries to end all sanctuaries given to Al-Qaeda it directed the secretaries of the treasury and state to work with foreign governments to seize or freeze assets and holdings of al-Qaeda and its benefactors it directed the Central Intelligence the director of Central Intelligence to prepare an aggressive program of covert activities to disrupt Al-Qaeda and provide assistance to anti-taliban groups operating in Afghanistan it tasked the director of om with ensuring that sufficient funds were available in budgets over the next 5 years to meet the goals laid out in the strategy and it directed the Secretary of Defense to and I quote ensure that contingency planning processes include plans against Al-Qaeda and Associated terrorist facilities in Afghanistan including leadership command control and Communications training and Logistics facilities and against Taliban Targets in Afghanistan including leadership command control air and air defense ground forces and Logistics and to eliminate weapons of mass destruction which Al-Qaeda and Associated terrorist groups May acquire or manufacture including those stored in underground bunkers this was a change from the prior strategy presidential decision directive 62 signed in 1998 which ordered the Secretary of Defense to provide transportation to bring individual terrorist to the US for trial to protect DOD forces overseas and to be prepared to respond to terrorist and weapons of mass destruction incidents more importantly we recognize that no counterterrorism strategy could succeed in isolation as you know from the Pakistan and Afghanistan strategy documents that we have made available to the commission our counterterrorism strategy was a part of a broader package of strategies that addressed the complexities of the region integrating our counterterrorism and Regional strategies was the most difficult and the most important aspect of the new strategy to get right Al-Qaeda was both a client of and a patron to the Taliban which in turn was supported by Pakistan those relationships provided Al-Qaeda with a powerful umbrella of protection and we had to sever that this was not easy not that we hadn't tried within a month of taking office President Bush sent a strong private message to president mhar urging him to use his influence with the Taliban to bring Bin Laden to Justice and to close down Alida training camps secretary Powell actively urged the pakistanis including mhar himself to abandon support for the Taliban I remember well meeting with the Pakistani foreign minister and I think I referred to this meeting in my private meeting with you uh in my office on June of 2001 and I delivered what I considered to be a very tough message he met that message with a roote answer and with an expressionist response America's Al-Qaeda policy wasn't working because our Afghanistan policy wasn't working and our Afghanistan policy wasn't working because our Pakistan policy wasn't working we recognized that America's counterterrorism policy had to be connected to our regional strategies and to our overall foreign policy to address these problems I had to make sure that that key Regional experts were involved not just counterterrorism experts I brought in zme kisad an expert on Afghanistan Who as a senior Diplomat in the 1980s had worked closely with the Afghan mujahadin helping them to turn back the Soviet invasion I also ensured the participation of the NC experts on South Asia as well as the Secretary of State and his Regional Specialists together we developed a new strategic approach to Afghanistan instead of the intense focus on the Northern Alliance we emphasized the importance of the South the social and political Heartland of the country our new approach to Pakistan combined the use of carrots and sticks to persuade Pakistan to drop its support for the Taliban and we began to change our approach to India to preserve stability on the continent while we were developing this new strategy to deal with Al-Qaeda we also made decisions on a number of specific anti- Al-Qaeda initiatives that had been proposed by Dick Clark to me in an early memorandum after uh we had taken office many of these ideas had been deferred by the last Administration and some had been on the table since 1998 we increased counterterrorism assistance to usbekistan we bolstered the treasury's Department's activities to track and seize terrorist assets we increased funding for counterterrorism activities across several agencies and we moved to arm Predator unmanned surveillance vehicles for action against Al-Qaeda with when threat rep reporting increased during the Spring and Summer of 2001 we moved the US government at all levels to a high state of alert and activity let me clear up any confusion about the relationship between the development of our new strategy and the actions that we took to respond to the threats of the summer policy development and crisis management require different approaches throughout this period we did both simultaneously for the essential crisis management task we depended on the counterterrorism security group chaired by Dick Clark to be the inter agency nerve center the CSG consisted of senior counterterrorism experts from the CIA the FBI the Department of Justice the defense department including the Joint Chiefs of Staff the state department and the Secret Service the CSG had met regularly for many years and its members had worked through numerous periods of heightened threat activity as threat information increased the CSG met more frequently sometimes daily to review and analyze the threat reporting and to coordinate actions in response CSG me Members also had ready access to their cabinet secretaries and could raise any concerns that they had at the highest levels the threat reporting that we received in the spring and summer of 2001 was not specific as to time nor place nor manner of attack almost all of the reports focused on Al-Qaeda activities outside the United States especially in the Middle East and in North Africa in fact the information that was specific enough to be actionable referred to terrorist operations overseas most often though the threat reporting was frustr frustratingly vague let me read you some of the actual chatter that was picked up in that spring and summer unbelievable news coming in weeks said one big event there will be a very very very very big uproar there will be attacks in the near future troubling yes but they don't tell us when they don't tell us where they don't tell us who and they don't tell us how in this context I want to address in some detail one of the briefing items that we did receive since its content has been fre quently mischaracterized on August 6th 2001 the president's intelligence briefing included a response to questions that he had earlier raised about any Al-Qaeda intentions to strike our homeland The Briefing team reviewed past intelligence reporting mostly dating from the 1990s regarding possible Al-Qaeda plans to attack inside the United States it referred to uncorroborated reporting that from 1998 that a terrorist might attempt to hijack a US aircraft in an attempt to Blackmail the government into releasing us hell terrorist who had participated in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing this briefing item was not prompted by any specific threat information and it did not raise the possibility that terrorists might use airplanes as missiles despite the fact that the vast majority of threat information we received was focused overseas I was concerned about possible threats inside the United States and on July 5th Chief of Staff Andy card and I met with Dick Clark and I asked dick to make sure that domestic agencies were aware of the heightened threat period and were taking appropriate steps to respond even though we did not have specific threats to the Homeland later that same day Clark convened a special meeting of his CSG as well as representatives from the FAA the ins customs and the Coast Guard at that meeting these agencies were asked to take a additional measures to increase security and surveillance throughout the period of heightened threat information we worked hard on multiple fronts to detect protect against and disrupt any terrorist plans or operations that might lead to an attack for instance the Department of Defense issued at least five urgent warnings to US military forces that Al-Qaeda might be planning a near-term attack and placed our military forces in certain regions on heightened alert the state department issued at least four urgent security advisers and public worldwide cautions on terrorist threats enhanced security measures at certain embassies and warned the Taliban that they would be held responsible for any Al-Qaeda attack on us interests the FBI issued at least three Nationwide warnings to federal state and law enforcement agencies and specifically stated that although the vast majority of the information indicated overseas targets attacks against the Homeland could not be ruled out the FBI tasked all 56 of its us field offices to increase surveillance of known suspect terrorist and to reach out to known informants who might have information on terrorist activities the FAA issued at least five civil aviation security information circulars to all US Airlines and airport security Personnel including specific warnings about the possibility of hijacking the CIA worked around the clock to disrupt threats worldwide agency officials launched the wide ranging disruption effort against Al-Qaeda in more than 20 countries and during this period the vice president the director director tenant and members of my staff called senior foreign officials requesting that they increase their intelligence assistance and report to us any relevant thread information this is a brief sample of our intense activity in the high threat period of the summer of 2001 yet as your hearings have shown there was no Silver Bullet that could have prevented the 9/11 attack in hindsight if anything might have helped stop 9/11 it would have been better information about threats inside the United States something made very difficult by structural and legal impediments that prevented the collection and sharing of information by our law enforcement and intelligence agencies so the attacks came a band of vicious terrorists tried to decapitate our government destroy our financial system and break the spirit of America and as an officer of government on duty that day I will never forget the sorrow and the anger that I felt nor will I forget the courage and resilience of the American people nor the leadership of the president that day now we have an opportunity and an obligation to move forward together bold and comprehensive changes are somewhat sometimes only possible in the wake of catastrophic events events which create a new consensus that allows us to transcend old ways of thinking and acting and just as World War II led to a fundamental reorganization of Our National Defense structure and the creation of the National Security Council so has September 11th made possible sweeping changes in the ways we protect our homeland President Bush is leading the country during this time of Crisis and change he has unified and streamlined our efforts to secure the American Homeland by creating the Department of Homeland Security established a new center to integrate and analyze threat information terrorist threat information directed the transformation of the FBI into an agency dedicated to fighting Terror broken down the bureaucratic walls and legal barriers that prevent the sharing of Vital Information between our domestic law enforcement and foreign intelligence agencies and working with Congress given officials New tools such as the Patriot Act to find and stop terrorists and he's done this in a way that is consistent with protecting America's cherished civil liberties and with preserving our character as a free and open Society but the president recognizes that our work is far from complete more structural reform will likely be necessary our intelligence gathering and Analysis have improved dramatically in the last two years but they must be stronger still the president and all of us in his administration welcome new ideas and fresh thinking we are eager to do whatever it is that will help to protect the American people and we look forward to receiving this commission's recommendations we are at War and our security as a nation depends on winning that war we must and we will do everything we can to harden terrorist targets within the United States dedicated law enforcement and Security Professionals continue to risk their lives every day to make us all safer and we owe them a debt of gratitude and let's remember that those charged with protecting us from Attack have to be right 100% of the time to inflict Devastation on a massive scale the terrorists only have to succeed once and we know that they are trying every day that is why we must address the source of the problem we must stay on the offensive to find and defeat the terrorists wherever they live Hide and plot around the world if we learned anything from September 11th it is that we cannot wait while dangers gather after the September 11th attacks our nation faced hard choices we could fight a narrow war against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban or we could fight a broad war against the global Menace we could seek a narrow Victory or we could work for a lasting peace and a better world President Bush has chosen the Bolder course he recognizes that the war on terror is a broad War under his leadership the United States and our allies are disrupting terrorist operations cutting off their funding and hunting down terrorists one by one their world is getting smaller the terrorists have lost a home base and training camps in Afghanistan the governments of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia now pursue them with energy and force we are confronting the Nexus between Terror and weapons of mass destruction we are working to stop the spread of deadly weapons and to prevent them from getting into the hands of terrorists seizing dangerous materials in transit where necessary because we acted in Iraq Saddam Hussein will never again use weapons of mass destruction against his people or his neighbors and we have convinced Libya to give up all of its we weapons of mass destruction related programs and materials and as we attack the threat at its source we are also addressing its roots thanks to the bravery and skill of our men and women in uniform we've removed from Power two of the world's most brutal regimes sources of violence and fear and instability in the world's most dangerous region today along with many allies we are helping the people of Iraq and Afghanistan to build free societies and we are working with the people of the Middle East to spread the blessings of liberty and democracy as alternatives to instability and hatred and Terror this work is hard and it is dangerous yet it is worthy of our effort and sacrifice the defeat of Terror and the success of freedom in those Nations will serve the interest of our nation and Inspire hope and encourage reform throughout the greater Middle East in the aftermath of September the 11th those were the right choices for America to make the only choices that can ensure the safety of our nation for decades to come thank you very much and now I'm happy to take your questions thank you very much Dr Rice appreciate your statement your attendance and your service uh I have a couple of questions uh as we understand it when when you first came into office uh you've just been through a very difficult campaign in that campaign neither the president nor his opponent at best of my knowledge ever mentioned Al-Qaeda uh there had been almost no congressional action or hearings about Al-Qaeda uh very very little bit in the newspapers and yet you walk in and um Dick Clark is talking about alaa should be our number one priority Sandy berer tells you you'll be spending more time on that than anything else what did you think and what did you tell the president um as you hit that kind of I suppose new information for you well in in fact Mr chairman it was it was not new information I think we all knew about the 1998 bombings uh we knew that there was speculation that uh the 2000 Cole attack was Al-Qaeda there had been I think documentaries about Osama Bin Laden I myself had written for an introduction to a volume uh on uh on bioterrorism done at Stanford that I I thought that uh we wanted not to wake up one day and find that Osama Bin Laden had succeeded on our soil it was on uh the radar screen of any person who studied or worked in the International Security field but there's no doubt that uh I think the briefing by Dick Clark the earlier briefing during the transition uh by director tenant and of course uh what we talked with about Sandy Berger uh it gave you a heighten sense of uh the problem and a sense that this was something that the United States had to deal with um I have to say that of course there were other priorities and indeed in the briefings with the Clinton Administration they emphasized other priorities North Korea the Middle East uh the Balkans uh one doesn't have the luxury of uh dealing only with one issue if you are the United States of America there are there are many urgent and important issues but uh we all had a strong sense that uh this was uh a very crucial issue the question was what do you then do about it and the decision that we made was to first of all have no drop off in what the Clinton Administration was doing because clearly they had done a lot of work to deal with this very important priority and so we kept the counterterrorism team on board we knew that George tenant was there we had the comfort of knowing that Louis was there and then we set out um I talked to Dick Clark almost immediately after his uh or I should say shortly after his uh his memo to me saying that Al-Qaeda was was a major threat we set out to to try and craft a better strategy but we were quite cognizant of uh this this group um of the fact that something had to be done I do think early on in these discussions we we asked a lot of questions about uh whether Osama Bin Laden himself ought to be so much the target of the of Interest or whether what was that going to do to the organization if in fact uh he was uh put out of commission and I remember very well the director saying to uh to President Bush well it would help but it would not stop attacks by Al-Qaeda nor destroy the network I've got a question now I'd like to ask you was given me by a number of members of the families um did you ever see or here uh from the FBI from the CIA from any other intelligence agency any memos or discussions or anything else between the time you elected got into office and 911 that talked about using planes as bombs let me address this this question because it has been on the table um I think that a concern about what I might have known or we might have known was provoked by uh some statements that I made in a press conference um I was in a press conference to try and describe the August 6th memo which I've talked about here in the um the my opening remarks and which I talked about with you in the private session and um I said at one point that this was a historical memo that it was um was there was it was not based on new threat information and um I said no one could have imagined them taking a plane slamming it into the the Pentagon into I'm paraphrasing now into the the World Trade Center uh using planes as a missiles um as I said to you in the private session I probably should have said I could have not have imagine because within two days people started to come to me and say oh but there were uh these reports in 1998 and 1999 uh the intelligence community did look at information about this uh to the best of my knowledge uh Mr chairman the uh this kind of analysis about the use of airplanes As Weapons actually was never briefed to us uh I cannot tell you that there might not have been a report here or a report there that reached somebody in our midst part of the problem is um and I think Sandy Berger made this point that when he was asked the same question that you have thousands of pieces of information car bombs and this method and that method and you have to depend to a certain degree on the intelligence agencies to sort to tell you what is actually um is actually relevant what is actually um based on sound sources what is speculative and uh I can only assume uh or believe that uh that perhaps the intelligence agencies thought that the sourcing was speculative all that I can tell you is that it was not in the August 6th memo using planes as a weapon and I do not remember um any reports to us uh kind of strategic warning that planes might be used as a weapon in fact there were some reports done in '98 and99 I think I was I was certainly not aware of them at the time that I spoke you didn't see any memos to you or any documents to you no I did not uh some Americans have wondered uh whether you or the president worried too much about Iraq in the days after the 9911 attack and perhaps not enough about the fight ahead against Al-Qaeda we know that at the camp David meeting on the weekend of September 15th and 16th the president rejected uh the idea of immediate action against Iraq others have uh told that the president decided Afghanistan had to come first we also know that even after those Camp David meetings the administration was still readying plans for possible action against Iraq so can you help us understand uh where in those early days after 9/11 the administration placed Iraq in the strategy for responding to the attack certainly let me start with uh the period in which you're trying to figure out who did this to you and I think given our exceedingly hostile relationship with Iraq at the time this is after all a place tried to assassinate an American president was still shooting at our planes in the nfly zone uh it was a reasonable question to ask whether indeed Iraq might have been behind this uh I remember later on in a conversation with uh prime minister Blair President Bush also said that he wondered could it have been Iran because the attack was so sophisticated was this really just a network that had done this um when we got to Camp David and and let me just be very clear in the days between uh September 11th and getting to Camp David I was with the president a lot I know what was on his mind what was on his mind was follow on attacks trying to reassure the American people uh he virtually badgered poor Larry Lindsay about when could we get Wall Street uh back up and running because he didn't want them to have succeeded against our financial uh system we were concerned about air security and he worked very hard on trying to get particularly Reagan reopened so there was a lot on our minds but by the time that we got to Camp David and began to plan uh for what we would do in response what was rolled out on the table was Afghanistan a map of Afghanistan and I will tell you that was a daunting enough task to figure out how to avoid uh some of the pitfalls that great Powers had uh had in Afghanistan most recently the Soviet Union and of course the British before that uh there was a discussion of Iraq um I think it was raised by Don Rumsfeld it was uh pressed a bit by Paul wolitz given that this was a global war on terror should we look uh not just at Afghanistan but should we look at uh doing something against Iraq there was a discussion of that the president um listen to all of his advisers I can tell you that uh when he went around the table and asked his advisers what the what he should do not a single one of his principal advisers advised doing anything against Iraq it was all to to Afghanistan and when I got back to the White House with the president he laid out for me uh what he wanted to do and one of the points after a long list of things about Afghanistan a long list of things about protecting the Homeland the president said uh that he wanted contingency plans against Iraq should Iraq act act against our interests there was the kind of concern that they might try and take advantage of us in that period they were still we were still flying no zones and there was also he said in case we find that they were behind 9911 we should have contingency plans but uh this was not um along the lines of what later was discussed about Iraq uh which was how to uh to deal with u Iraq on a grand scale this was really about and we we went to planning Afghanistan you can look at what we did uh from that time on this was about Afghanistan so when uh Mr Clark writes that uh the president pushed him to find a link between Iraq and the attack is that right or was the president trying to was trying to twist the facts uh for an Iraqi war or was he just puzzled about what was behind this attack I I I don't remember the uh discussion that Dick Clark relates um initially he said that the president was wandering The Situation Room this is in the book I gather uh uh looking for something to do and they had a conversation later on he said that he was pulled aside so I I don't know the um the context of the of the discussion I don't personally remember it but it's not surprising that the president would say uh what about Iraq given our hostile relationship with Iraq and um I'm quite certain that the president uh never pushed anybody to twist the facts you Congressman hton thank you Mr chairman uh Dr Rice you've given us a very strong statement uh with regard to the actions taken by the administration in this pre- 911 period and we appreciate that very much for the record uh I want to call to your attention some comments and some events on the other side of that question and give you an opportunity to uh respond uh you know very well that the commission is focusing on this whole question of what priority did the Clinton Administration and the Bush Administration give to um terrorism the president told Bob Woodward that he did not feel that sense of urgency I think that's a quote from his book or roughly a quote from Woodward's book the deputy director for Central Intelligence Mr mcclaflin uh told us that he was concerned about the pace of policymaking in the summer of 2001 uh given the urgency of the threat uh the deputy secretary of state Mr Armitage was here and expressed his concerns about the speed of the process and uh if I recall his comment it is we weren't going fast enough I think that's a direct quote uh there was no response to the coal attack in the Clinton Administration and none in the Bush Administration uh your public statements uh focused largely on China and Russia and missile defense you did make comments on terrorism but they were connected the link between terrorism and the Rogue regimes like North Korea and uh Iran and Iraq and by our count here there were some 100 meetings by the National Security principles before the first meeting was held on terrorism uh September 4th and general Shelton who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs said that ter ISM had been pushed farther uh to the back burner now this is what we're trying to assess we have your statements we have these other statements and uh I know as I indicated in my opening comments how difficult the role of the policy maker is and how many things press upon you but I did want to give you a opportunity to comment on some of these other matters thank you very much uh M chairman I let let me begin with the Woodward quote because I that has gotten a lot of press and I actually think that the quote put in context gives a very different picture the question that the president was asked by uh Mr Woodward was did you want to have bin Laden killed before September 11th that was the question the president said well I I hadn't seen a plan to do that I knew that we needed to I think the appropriate word is bring it to bring him to Justice and of course this is something of a trick question in that notion of self-defense which is appropriate for I think you can see here a president struggling with whether he ought to be talking about pre- 911 attempts to kill Bin Len and so that is the context for this quote and and quite frankly I I remember the director sitting here and saying he didn't want to talk about Authorities on uh on assassination I think you can understand the discomfort of the president the president goes on when Bob Woodward says well I don't mean it as a trick question I'm just trying to get your state of mind the President says let me put it this way uh I was not there was a significant difference in my attitude after September 11th I was not on point but I knew he was a menace and I knew he was a problem I knew he was responsible we F we felt he was responsible for bombings that had killed Americans and I was prepared to look at a plan that would be a thoughtful plan that would bring him to Justice and would have given the order to do just that I have no hesitancy about going after him but I didn't feel that sense of urgency and my blood was not nearly as boiling who blood was nearly as boiling prior to September 11th and I think the context helps here it is also the case that the president um had been told by the director of Central Intelligence that it was not going to be a silver bullet to kill Bin Laden that you had to do much more and in fact I think that some of us felt that the uh Focus so much focus on what you did with bin Lon not what you did with the network what not what you did with the uh Regional circumstances might in fact have been misplaced so I think the president is responding to a specific set of questions all that I can tell you is that what the president wanted was a plan to eliminate Al-Qaeda so he could stop swatting at flies he knew that we had in place the same crisis management mechanism indeed the same Personnel that the Clinton administration which clearly thought it a very high priority uh had in place and so um I I think that he saw the priority as continuing the current operations and then um getting a plan in place now as to the number of PCS I'm sorry there's there's some difference in our records here uh we show 33 principal committee meetings during this period of time uh not 100 um we show that three of those dealt with uh issues at least partially with with issues dealing with terrorism not related to Al-Qaeda um and so we can check the numbers but we have looked at our files and we show 33 uh not 100 um the um quotes by others about how the process was moving again it's important to realize that we had parallel tracks here we were continuing to do what the Clinton administration had been doing under all the same authorities um that were operating George Kant was continuing to try to up Al-Qaeda the um we were continuing the Diplomatic efforts but we did want to take the time to get in place a policy that was more strategic toward Al-Qaeda more robust it takes some time to think about how to reorient your policy toward Pakistan it takes some time to think about how to have a more effective policy toward Afghanistan it particularly takes some time when you don't get your people on board for uh for several months uh so I understand that there are those who have said they felt it wasn't moving along fast enough I talked to George tinan about this uh at least uh every uh couple of weeks sometimes more often how can we move forward on the Predator what do you want to do about the Northern Alliance so I think we were putting the energy into it and I should just make one other point Mr Hamilton if you don't mind which is that um we also moved forward on some of the specific ideas that Dick Clark had put forward prior to completing the strategy review we increased assistance to usbekistan for instance which had been one of the recommendations we moved along the uh armed Predator the development of the Armed Predator we increased counterterrorism funding uh but there were a couple of things that we did not want to do um I'm now convinced that um while nothing that in this strategy would have done anything about 911 if we had in fact moved on the things that uh were in the original memos that we got from our counterterrorism people we might have even gone off course because it was very Northern Alliance focused that was going to cause a huge problem with Pakistan it was not going to put us in the center of action in Afghanistan which is the South and so we simply had to take some time to get this right but I I think we need not confuse that with either what we did during this threat period where we were urgently working the operational issues every day uh or with uh the continuation of the Clinton policy well I thank you for a careful answer uh another question uh at the end of the day of course uh we were unable to uh protect our people and you suggest in your statement and I want you to elaborate on this if you want to that in hindsight it would have been better information about the threats would have been the sing the single most important thing for us to have done from your point of view prior to 911 would have been better intelligence better information about the threats is that right are there other things that you think uh stand out well Mr chairman I took an oath of office on the day that I took this job to to protect and defend and um like most government officials I took it very seriously and so as you might imagine I've asked myself a thousand times what more we could have done um I I know that had we thought that there was an attack coming in Washington or New York we would have moved heav in Earth to try and stop it and I know that there was no single thing that might have prevented that attack I in looking back I believe that um the absence of light so to speak on what was going on inside the country the inability to connect the dots um was really structural um we we couldn't be dependent on chance that something might come together and the legal impediments and the bureaucratic impediments but I want to emphasize the legal impediments to keep the FBI and the CIA from functioning really as one so that there was no seam between domestic and foreign intelligence was probably the greatest one um the the director of Central Intelligence and I think director free had an excellent relationship they were trying hard to bridge that seam I know that uh Louis free had developed um legal attaches abroad to try to help bridge that but when it came right down to it this country for reasons of history and culture and therefore law had an allergy to the notion of domestic intelligence and we were organized on that basis and it just made it very hard to have all of the Pieces come together we've made good changes since then I think that having a Homeland Security Department that uh can bring together the FAA and the ins and customs and all of the various agencies is a very important step I think that the creation of the uh terrorism threat uh information center which brings together all of the intelligence from various aspects is a very important step forward clearly the Patriot Act which has allowed the kind of sharing indeed demands the kind of sharing between um intelligence agencies including the FBI and the CIA is a very big step forward I think one thing that we will learn from you is uh whether the structural work is done final question would be uh one of your sentences kind of jumped out at me in your statement and that was on page nine where you said we must address the source of the problem uh I'm very concerned about that I was pleased to see it in your statement uh and I'm very worried about uh the threat of terrorism as I know you are over a very long period of time a generation or more uh there are a lot of uh very very fine two billion Muslims most of them we know are very fine people some don't like us they hate us they don't like what modernization does to their culture they don't like the fact that economic Pros dis erity has passed them by they don't like some of the policies of the United States government uh they don't like the way their own governments treat them and uh I'd like you to elaborate a little bit if you would on how we get at the source of the problem how do we get at this discontent this dislocation if you would across a big swath of the Islamic world I believe very strongly and the president believes very strongly that um this is really the generational challenge um the kinds of issues that you are addressing have to be addressed but they're not we're not going to see success on our watch uh we will see some small victories um on our watch uh one of the most difficult problems in the Middle East is that the United States has been Associated for a long time decades with a policy that looks the other way on the freedom deficit in the Middle East that looks the other way at the absence of individual liberties in the Middle East and I think that that has um tended to alienate us from the populations of the Middle East and when the president at White Hall in London said that uh that was no longer going to be the stance of the United States we were expecting more from our friends we were going to try and engage those in those countries who wanted to have a different kind of Middle East I believe that uh he was resonating with uh trends that are there in the Middle East there there are reformist Trends in places like Bahrain and and Jordan and uh recently there was a marvelous conference in Alexandria in Egypt where reform was actually on the agenda so it's going to be a slow process we know that uh the building of democracy is is tough it it doesn't come easily we have our own history um you know when our founding fathers said we the people they didn't mean me it's taken us a while to get to a multiethnic democracy that works but if America is avowedly values centered in its foreign policy we do better than when we uh when we do not uh stand up for those values so um I think that it's going to be very hard it's going to take time we one of the things that uh we've been very interested for instance in is issues of educational reform in some of these countries as you know the madrasas are are a big difficulty I've met myself personally to two or three times with the Pakistani uh wonderful woman who's the Pakistani education M Minister we can't do it for them they have to do it for themselves but we have to stand for those values and over the long run uh we will change I believe we will change the nature of the Middle East particularly if there are uh examples that this can work in the Middle East and this is why Iraq is so important the Iraqi people are struggling to find a way to create a multiethnic democracy that works and it's going to be hard and if we stay with them and when they succeed I think we will have made a big change they will have made a big change in the middle of the Arab world and we will be on our way to addressing the source thank you Dr R thank you Mr chairman thank you uh commissioner Ben Veni good morning Dr Rice good morning nice to see you again nice to see you I want to ask you some questions about the August 6 2001 pdb we had been advised in writing by uh the CIA on March 19 2004 that the August 6 pdb was prepared and self-generated by a CIA employee um following uh director tenet's testimony on March 26 before us the CIA clarified its version of events uh saying that questions by the president prompted them to prepare the August 6 pdb you have said to us uh in our meeting together earlier in February that the president directed the CIA to prepare the August 6 pdb the extraordinary High terrorist attack Threat Level in the summer of 2001 is well documented and Richard Clark's testimony about the possibility of an attack against the United States Homeland was repeatedly discussed from May to August within the intelligence community and that is well documented you acknowledged to us in your interview of February 7 2004 that Richard Clark told you that Al qaa cells were in the United States did you tell the president at any time prior to August 6 of the existence of alqaeda cells in the United States um first let me just make certain if you could just answer that question because I only have a very Li I understand commissioner but it's it's important that I also address it's also important uh commissioner that I address the uh the other issues that you have raised so I will do it quickly but if you'll just give me a moment my only question to you is whether you I understand commissioner if you'll just give me a moment I will address fully the questions that you've asked uh first of all uh yes the uh August 6th uh pdb was um in response to questions of the president and that sense he he asked that this be done it was not a particular threat uh report and there was historical information in there about U about various aspects of al-Qaeda operations uh Dick Clark had told me I think in a memorandum um I remember it as being only only a line or two uh that there were Al-Qaeda cells uh in the United States now the question is what did we need to do about that and um I also understood that that was what the FBI was doing that the FBI was pursuing these Al-Qaeda cells um I believe in the August 6th memorandum it says that there were 70 full Fiel field investigations underway of these cells and uh so there was no recommendation that we do something about uh this the FBI was pursuing it I really don't remember um commissioner whether I discussed this with the president um I remember very well that the president was aware uh that there were issues inside the United States he he talked to people about this but I don't remember the al-Qaeda cells as being something that we were told we needed to do something about isn't it a fact Dr Rice that the August 6 pdb warned against possible attacks in this country and I ask you whether you recall the title of that pdb I believe the title was Bin Laden determined to attack inside the United States uh now the uh the pdb no Mr benen you I will get into the I would like to to finish my point here I there that you asked me whether or not it warned of a tax I asked you what the title was you said did it not warn of attacks it did not warn of attacks inside the United States it was historical information based on uh old reporting there was no new threat information and it did not in fact warn of any coming attacks inside the United States now you knew by August 2001 of al-Qaeda involvement in the First World Trade Center bombing is that correct you knew that that in 1999 late 99 in the Millennium threat period that we had thwarted an Al-Qaeda attempt to blow up uh Los Angeles International Airport and thwarted uh cells operating in Brooklyn New York and Boston Massachusetts as of the August 6th briefing you learned that Al-Qaeda members have resided or tra traveled to the United States for years and maintained a support system in the United States and you learned that FBI information since the 1998 blind Shake warning of hijackings uh to free the blind Shake indicated a pattern of suspicious activity in the country up until August 6th consistent with preparation for hijackings isn't that so do you have other questions that you want me to answer in as a part of the sequence well did you not you have indicated here that this was some historical document and I am asking you whether it is not the case that you uh learned in the pdb memo of August 6th that the FBI was saying that prepar it had information suggesting that preparations not historically but ongoing along with these uh numerous full-field investigations against al Qaeda cells that preparations were being made consistent with hijackings within the United States what the August 6 pdb said and perhaps I should uh read it to you we would be happy to have it Declassified in full at this time it's title I believe I believe Mr Ben banisa that you've had access to this pdb we have not had it Declassified so that it can be shown publicly I believe I believe you've had access to this pdb exceptional access but let me address your question nor could we prior to today reveal the title of that P may I may I address the question sir U the fact is that this August 6 pdb was in response to the president's questions about whether or not something might happen or something might be planned by Al-Qaeda inside the United States he asked because all of the threat reporting or the threat reporting that was actionable was about the threats abroad not about the United States this particular pdb had a long section on what Bin Laden had wanted to do speculative much of it in 9798 that in fact liked the results of the 1993 bombing it had a number of uh discussions of it had a discussion of whether or not they might use hijacking to try and free uh a prisoner who was was being held in the United States Rasam uh it reported that the FBI uh had full-filled investigations underway and uh we checked on the issue of uh whether or not there was something going on with surveillance of buildings and we were told I believe that the uh issue was the courthouse in which uh this might take place commissioner this was not a warning this was a historic memo historical memo prepared by the agency because the president was asking questions about what we knew about the inside now well if you were willing to declassify that document then uh others can make up their minds about it let me ask you a general matter beyond the fact that uh this uh memorandum uh provided information not speculative but on based on in intelligence information that Bin Laden had threatened to attack the United States and specifically Washington DC there was nothing reassuring was there in that pdb certainly not there was nothing reassuring but I can also uh tell you that uh there was nothing in this memo that suggested that an attack was coming on New York or Washington DC there was nothing in this memo as to time place how or where this was not a threat report uh to the president or a threat report to me we agree that there were no specifics let me move on if I there were no specifics and in fact the country had already taken steps through the FAA to warn of potential hijackings the country had already taken steps through the FBI to task their 56 uh field offices to increase their activity the country had taken the steps that it could uh s given that there was no threat reporting about what might happen inside the we have explored that and we will continue to with respect to the muscularity and the specifics of those efforts um the president was in Crawford Texas at the the time he received the pdb you were not with him correct that's correct now was the president in words or substance alarmed in any way or motivated to take any action such as meeting with the director of the FBI meeting with uh the Attorney General as a result of receiving the information contained in the pdb I want to repeat that when this document was presented it was presented at as uh yes there were some frightening things and by the way I was not at Crawford but the president and I uh were in contact and I might have even been though I can't remember uh with him by video link during that time uh the president was told this is historical information I'm told he was told this is historical information and there was nothing actionable in this the president knew that the FBI was pursuing this issue the president knew that the dep director of Central Intelligence was pursuing this issue and uh there was no new threat information in this document to pursue do you final question because my time uh has almost expired do you believe that had the president taken action to issue a directive uh to the director of CIA uh to ensure that the FBI had pulsed the agency to make sure that any information which we know had been collected we know now had been collected was transmitted to the director um that the president um might have been able to receive information from CIA with respect to the fact that two Al Qaeda operatives who took part in the 911 uh catastrophe were in the United States um uh alhazmi and midar and that uh musawi who was not even made who who Dick Clark was never even made aware of who had been uh who had jihadist connections who the FBI had arrested and who had been in a flight school in Minnesota trying to learn the avionics of a commercial jetliner despite the fact that he had no training previously had no explanation for the funds in his bank account and no explanation for why he was in the United States uh would that have possibly in your view in hindsight made a difference in the ability to collect this information shake the trees as Richard Clark had said uh and possibly possibly interrupt the plotters my view uh commissioner Bist as I said to uh to Chairman Kaine is that uh first of all the director of Central Intelligence and the director of the FBI given the level of threat were doing what they thought they could do to deal with the threat that we faced there was no threat reporting of any substance about an attack coming in the United States and the director of the FBI and the director of the CIA had they received information I am quite certain given that the director of the CIA met frequently face Toof face with the president of the United States that he would have made that available to the president or to me I do not believe that it is um a good analysis to go back and assume that somehow maybe we would have gotten lucky by quote shaking the trees Dick Clark was shaking the trees I'm director of Central Intelligence was shaking the trees director of the FBI was shaking the trees we had a structural problem in the United States did the president meet with the director of the FBI we had a structural problem in the United States and that structural problem was that we did not share domestic and foreign intelligence in a way to make a product for policy makers for for good reasons for legal reasons for cultural reasons a product that depart that people could uh depend upon did the president meet with the director of uh Commission FBI between August 6th and September 11th um I will have to get back to you on that I'm not certain commissioner feeling thank you thank you Mr chairman Dr Rice good morning good morning thank you for being here and thank you for all your service presently and in the past to your country um as you know our task is to assemble facts uh in order to inform ourselves and then ultimately do inform the American public of the causes of this horrible event and also to make recommendations to mitigate against the possibility that there'll ever be another terrorist Triumph on our homeland or against our people and as we do this with the aid of testimony of people like yourself of course there will be some discrepancies as there always will and and we will have to try as best we can to resolve those discrepancies and and obviously that's an important thing for us to do but as important as that ultimately may be it also is our responsibility to really come up with with with ways and valid ways to prevent another intelligence failure like we've suffered and I don't think anybody will kid ourselves that we didn't suffer one uh so so we must try to look at the systems and the policies that were in place and and to to evaluate them and to see uh getting a view of the landscape and I know it's difficult to do it through a a pre- 911 lens but but we must try to do that so that we can do better the next time and I'd like to follow up with a couple of areas in that sort of specificity and one is the one that you were just discussing with uh with commissioner Ben venisti we've all heard over the years the problem between the CIA the FBI coordination Etc and you made reference to to uh an introduction you've done to a book but you also in October 2000 while you were part of the campaign team for the candidate Bush you told a radio station WJR which is in Detroit uh and you're talking about the threat and how to deal with Al Qaeda and if I may quote you said uh you were discussing assab asaba Ben Laden the first is you really have to get in intelligence agencies better organized to deal with the terrorist threat to the United States itself one of the problems that we have is kind of a split responsibility of course between the CIA and foreign intelligence and the FBI and domestic intelligence there needs to be better cooperation because we don't want to wake up one day and find that Osama Bin Laden has been successful on our territory end of your quote well in fact sadly we did wake up and that did happen and obviously there is a systemic problem and and and what I really like you to address right now is what steps were taken by you and the administration to your knowledge in the first several months of the administration uh to to uh assess and address this problem well thank you we do have did have a structural problem and um structural problems take some time to address we did uh have a national security policy directive asking the CIA through the foreign intelligence board uh headed by Brent skof to review its intelligence uh activities the way that it gathered intelligence and uh that was a study that was to to be completed uh the vice president was um a little later um in I think in May tasked by the president to put together a group to look at all of the recommendations that had been made about uh domestic prepar edness and all of the as all of the um questions associated with that to take the Gilmore report and the Hart Rutman report and so forth and to try to make recommendations about what might have been done we were in office 233 days and uh the kinds of structural changes that have been needed by this country for some time did not get made in that period of time um I'm told that after the Millennium plot was discovered that there was an after Action Report done and that some steps were taken um to my recollection that was not briefed to US during the transition period or during the threat Spike but clearly what needed to be done was that we needed systems in place that would bring all of this together it is not enough to leave this to chance if you look at uh this period I think you see that everybody the director of the CIA the uh Lou free had left but the the key counterterrorism person was h a part of Dick Clark's group and was meeting with him and I'm sure shaking the trees and doing all of the things that you would want people to do we were being given reports all the time that they were doing everything they could but there was a systemic problem in getting that kind of shared intelligence the one of the first things that uh that Bob Mueller did post 911 was to to recognize that the issue of prevention meant that you had to break down some of the walls between criminal and uh counterterrorism between criminal and intelligence the way that we went about this was to have individual cases where you were trying to build a criminal case individual offices with responsibility for those cases much was not coming to the uh FBI in a way that it could then engage the policy makers so these were big structural reforms we did some things to try and get the CIA uh reforming we did some things to try and get a better sense of how to put all of this together but structural reform is hard and in 7 months uh we didn't have time to make the changes that were necessary we made them almost immediately after September 11 well would you consider the problem is solved today I would not consider the problem solved I I believe that we have made some very important structural changes the the creation of a Department of Homeland Security is an absolutely critical issue because the Department of Homeland Security brings together ins and the uh Customs department and the Border people and all of the people who were scattered customs and Treasury and Ins And Justice and and so forth brings them together in a way that a single Secret AR is looking after the Homeland every day he's looking at what infrastructure needs to be protected he's uh looking at what state and local governments need to do their work that is an extremely important innovation I hope that he will have the freedom to manage that organization in a way that will make it fully effective because there are a lot of issues for congress in in how that's managed we have created a threat terrorism information center the titik which does bring bring together all of the sources of information from all of the intelligence agencies the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security and the ins and and uh the CIA and the DIA so that there's one place where all of this is coming together and of course the Patriot Act which permits the kind of sharing that uh we need between the CIA and the FBI is also uh an important innovation but I would be the first to tell you I'm a student of institutional change I know that you get few chances to make uh really transformative institutional change and I think that when we've heard from this commission and from uh other others who are working on other pieces of the problem like for instance the uh issues of intelligence and weapons of mass destruction that this President will be open to uh new ideas um I I really don't believe that all of our work is done despite the tremendous progress that we've made thus far well I promise you that we're going to respond to that because that is really a problem that's bothering us is that uh it doesn't appear to us even with the changes up till now uh that it's that it's solved the institutional versus institutional issues which then maybe it has but but you know it's it's a grave concern to us I would also ask um I don't want to take the time today but I would ask that you provide our commission if you would with your analysis on the MI5 issue uh as you know it's it's something we're going to have to deal with and and we we're taking taking all information aboard that we may so we'd appreciate that if you could Supply that to us I I appreciate that um I I want to be very clear I think that we've made very important changes I think that they are helping us tremendously every day now in the Oval Office in the morning uh the FBI director and the CIA director sit with the president sharing information in ways that they would have been prohibited to share that information uh before so very important changes have taken place uh we need to see them mature we need to know uh how it's working but we we also have to be open to see what more needs to be done it may be solved at the top we got to make sure it's solved at the completely uh and kind of related to that uh we've heard testimony uh a great deal of it about the coordination that took place during the Millennium threat in 1999 uh where there were a series of principl meetings uh and a lot of activity as we're told uh which stopped and prevented incident it was a success it was an intelligent success uh and there had to be domestic coordination with foreign intelligence and everything but it but it it it seemed to work uh uh the time ended the threat ended and apparently the guard was let down a little too as as the threat diminished uh now we've also heard testimony about what we would call the summer threat the spike threat whatever it is of 2001 um a lot of chatter you shared some of it with us directly a lot of traffic uh during the and a lot of threats and during that period actually put it in context I guess the it was the first draft of the nspd was circulated to deputies but but right then when that was happening the threats were coming in and it's been described as a crescendo and hair on fire and all these different things but that time the CSG handled the uh the alert if you will and when we've heard testimony about uh Clark warning you uh and the snsc that state and CIA and the Pentagon had concerns and we're convinced there was going to be a major terrorist attack um and on July 5th I believe it was uh domestic agencies including the FBI and the FAA were briefed by the White House alerts were issued the next day the CIA told the Cs G participants U and I think they said they believe their upcoming attack would be as spectacular uh something quantitatively different from anything that had been done to date so everybody was worried about everybody was concentrating on it and and uh then later the crescendo ended and and again it Abad but of course that time the end of the story wasn't pleasant now during this period of time what in I'd like to you to just resp respond to several points what involvement did you have in this alert uh and and uh how did it come about that that the CSG was handling this thing as opposed to the principles because candidly has been suggested that the difference between the 1999 handling and this one was that you didn't have the principles dealing with it therefore it wasn't given the priority therefore the people weren't forced to do what they uh would otherwise have done Etc you you you've heard the same things I've heard but but and would it have made a real difference in enhancing the exchange of intelligence for instance if it had been principles I would like your comments both on your involvement and your comment to that question of course uh let me start by talking about what we were doing in the structure we used i' I've mentioned that the csgs was the counterterrorism group was the nerve center if you will and that's been true through all crises I think it was in fact a nerve center as well during the Millennium uh that they were the counterterrorism experts they were able to get together they got together frequently they came up with uh taskings that needed to be done I would say that if you look at the list of taskings that they came up with it reflected the fact that the threat information was from abroad it was that the agencies um like the Department of State needed to make um clear to Americans traveling abroad that there was a danger that embassies needed to be on alert that our Force protection needed to be strong for our military forces the uh Central Intelligence Agency was asked to do some things it was very foreign policy or foreign uh threat based as well and of course the warning to the FBI to go out and uh test their their field agents um the CSG was made up of not Junior people but the top level of counterterrorism experts now they were in contact with their principles Dick Clark was in contact with me quite frequently during this period of time when the CSG would meet he would come back uh usually through emails sometimes personally and say Here's what we've done um I would talk uh every day several times a day uh with George tenant about what the threat strike Spike looked like in fact George tenant was meeting with the president during this period of time so the president was hearing directly about what was doing being done about the threats to the only really specific threats we had to Genoa to the Persian Gulf uh there was one to Israel so the president was hearing what was being done um the CSG was the nerve center but um I ALS I just don't believe that bringing the principles over to the White House every day and having their counterterrorism people have to come with them and be pulled away from what they were doing to disrupt was a good way to go about this it wasn't an efficient way to go about it it I talked to PO I talked to Rumsfeld about what was happening with with uh the um threats and with the alerts I talked to George um I asked that the Attorney General be briefed because even though there were no domestic threats I didn't want him to uh to be without that briefing um it's also the case that I think if you actually look back at the Millennium period um it's questionable to me whether the argument that has been made that somehow shaking the trees is what broke up the Millennium period is is actually uh accurate and uh I was not there clearly but I will tell you this the I will say this that the um Millennium of course was a period of high Threat by its very nature we all knew that the Millennium was a period of high threat and um after September 11th Dick Clark sent us the um after action report that had been done after the Millennium plot and their assessment was that Rasam had been caught by chance well rasan being the person who was entering the United States over the Canadian border with bomb making materials uh in store um I think it actually wasn't by chance which was the Washington's view of it it was because a um very alert Customs agent named Diana Dean and her colleagues sniffed something about Rasam they saw that something was wrong they tried to apprehend him he tried to run they then apprehended him found that there was bomb making material and a map of Los Angeles now at that point you have pretty clear indication that you've got a problem inside the United States I don't think it was shaking the trees that produced the Breakthrough in the Millennium plot it was that you got a uh di Dick Clark would say a lucky break I would say you got an alert Customs agent who got it right and the interesting thing is that uh I've checked with uh customs and uh according to their records they weren't on alert at that point so I just don't buy the argument that uh we weren't shaking the trees enough and that something was going to fall out that gave us somehow that little piece of information that would have led to connecting all of those dots in any case you cannot be dependent on the chance that something might come together that's why the structural reforms are important and the president of the United States had us at Battle Stations during this period of time he expected his secretary of state to be locking down uh embassies he expected his secretary of defense to be providing uh Force protection he expected his FBI director to be tasking his agents and getting people out there he expected his director of Central Intelligence to be out and doing what uh needed to be done in terms of disruption and he expected his National Security adviser to be uh looking to see that uh or talking to people to see that that was done but um I think we've created a kind of false impression um or a not quite correct impression of how one does this in a threat period I might just add that during the China period the 11 days of the China crisis I also didn't have a principal's meeting thank you Dr Rice thank you Mr chair thank you commissioner feeling commissioner gelik Dr Rice thank you for being here today uh I'd like to pick up where uh Fred fielding and you left off which is this issue of the extent to which raising the level to the cabinet level and bringing people together makes a difference and let me just uh give you some facts as I see them and let you uh comment on them first of all while it may be that Dick Clark was informing you many of the other people at the CSG level and the people who were brought to the table from the domestic agencies were not telling their principles secretary manetta the Secretary of Transportation had no idea of the threat the administrator of the FAA resp responsible for security on our Airlines had no idea yes the Attorney General was briefed but there is no evidence of any activity by him about this you indicate in your statement that the FBI tasked its field offices to find out what was going on out there we have no record of that the Washington field office International terrorism people say they never heard about the threat they never heard about the warnings they were not asked to come to the table and shake those indes sac's special agents in charge around the country Miami in particular no knowledge of this and so I really come back to you and let me ask add one other thing have you actually looked at the nlets the messages that the FBI put out yes to me and you're free to comment on them they are feckless they don't tell anybody anything they don't bring anyone to battle stations and I personally believe having heard Colleen Row's uh testimony about her frustrations in the mauwi incident that if someone had really gone out to the agents who were working these issues on the ground and said we are at Battle Stations we need to know what's happening out there come to us she would have broken through barriers to have that happen because she was knocking on doors and they weren't opening so I I just I I I I ask you this question as a student of government myself because I um I don't believe it's functionally equivalent to have people three four some five levels down in an agency working in issue even if they're The Specialist um and a and you get a greater degree of intensity when it comes from the top and I I just I would like to give you the opportunity to comment on this because it bothers me of course first of all it was coming from the top because the president was meeting with his director of Central Intelligence and uh one of the changes that this President made was to meet face Toof face with his director of Central Intelligence almost every day I can assure you you knowing government that that was well understood at the Central Intelligence Agency that now their director and the uh DCI had Direct access uh to the president yes the president re met with uh the director of the FBI I'll have to see when and how many times but of course he did and with the attorney general and with others but in a threat period And I don't think it's a proper characterization of the CSG to say that it was four or five levels down these were these were people who had been together in uh numerous crises before and it was their responsibility to uh develop plans for how to respond to a threat now I would be speculating but if you like I'll go ahead and and speculate to say that one of the problems here was there really was nothing that looked like it was going to happen inside the United States the threat reporting was the specific threat reporting was about external threats about the Persian Gulf about Israel about uh perhaps the Genoa U events it is just not the case that the August 6th memorandum did anything but put together what the CIA decided that they wanted to put together about historical knowledge about what was going on and a few things about what the FBI might be doing and so the light was shining abroad and if you look at what was doing we were I was in constant contact to make sure that those things were getting done with the relevant agencies with state with defense and so forth now I I just I I just we just have a different view of this yes I I understand that but I I think it's one thing to talk to George Tennant but he can't tell domestic agencies what what to do let me let me finish uh and uh it is clear that you were worried about the domestic problem because after all your testimony is you asked Dick Clark to summon the domestic agencies now you say um that and I think quite rightly that the big problem was systemic that the FBI could not function as it should and it didn't have the right methods of communicating with the CIA and vice versa at the outset of the administration a commission that was chartered by Bill Clinton and new Gingrich two very different people covering pretty much the political Spectrum uh uh put together a terrific uh uh panel to study the issue of terrorism and report to the new Administration as it began and you took that briefing I know that commission said we are going to get hit in the domestic United States and we are going to get hit big that's number one and number two we have big systemic problems the FBI doesn't work the way it should and it doesn't communicate with the intelligence communities now you have said to us that your policy review was meant to be be comprehensive you took your time because you wanted to get at the hard issues and have a hard-hitting comprehensive policy and yet there is nothing in it about the vast domestic landscape that we were all warned needed so much attention can you give me the answer to the question why I would ask the following we were there for 233 days uh there had been recognition for a number of years before after the 93 bombing and certainly after the Millennium that there were challenges if I could say it that way inside the United States and that there were challenges concerning our domestic agencies and the challenges concerning the FBI and the CIA we were in office 233 days it's it's absolutely the case that we did not begin structural reform of the FBI now the vice president was asked by the president and that was tasked in May to put all of this together and to see if he could put together uh from all of the recommendations a program for uh protection of the Homeland against wmd what else needed to be done and in fact he had hired um Admiral Steve Abbot to do that work and it was on that basis that we were able to put together the Homeland Security Council uh which Tom Ridge came to H to a head very very quickly but I think the question is why over all of these years did we not address the structural problems that were there with the FBI with the CIA the Homeland departments being scattered among many different departments and why given all of the opportunities that we'd had to do it had we not done it and I I think that the UN forunate and I really do think it's extremely tragic fact is that sometimes until there is a catastrophic event that forces people to think differently that forces people to overcome old customs and old culture and old fears about domestic intelligence in the relationship that you don't get that kind of change and I want to say just one more thing if you don't mind about the issue of um highlevel attention um the reason that I asked Andy card to come with me to that meeting with Dick Clark was that I wanted him to know wanted Dick Clark to know that he had the weight not just of the National Security adviser but the weight of the chief of staff if he needed it I didn't manage the domestic agencies no National Security adviser does and not once during this period of time did my very experienced crisis manager say to me you know I don't think this is getting done in the agencies I'd really like you to call them together or make a phone call in fact after the fact on September 15th what Dick Clark sent me and he was my crisis manager what he sent me was a memorandum that or an email that said after National Unity begins to break down again I'm paraphrasing uh people will ask did we do all that we needed to do to arm the domestic agencies to warn the domestic agencies and to respond to the possibility of a domestic threat that I think was View at the time and I have to tell you I think given the circumstances and given the context and given the structures that we had we did well I I have lots of other questions on this issue but I am trying to get out my what will probably be my third and last uh uh question to you so if we could move uh through this uh reasonably reasonably quickly um I was struck by your characterization of the nspd the policy that you arrived at at the end of the administration having the goal of the elimination of Al Qaeda because as I look at it and as I I thank you for declassifying this this morning although I I would have liked to have known it a little earlier but I think people will find this interesting reading it doesn't call for the elimination of al-Qaeda and it may be a semantic difference but I don't think so it calls for the elimination of the Al Qaeda threat and that's a very big difference because to me the elimination of Al qaa means you're going to go into Afghanistan and you're going to get them and as I read it and as I've heard your public statements uh recently there was not uh I take it a decision taken in this document to put US troops on the ground in Afghanistan to get Al Qaeda is that correct uh that is correct now you have pointed out that in these in this document there is a tasking to the defense department for contingency planning uh as part of this exercise contingency planning and you've listed the ex the um the goals of the contingency plans and you have suggested that this takes the policy with regard to terrorism for our country to a new level a more aggressive level were you briefed on operation infinite resolve that uh was put in put in place in 98 and updated in the year 2000 because as I read infinite resolve and as our staff reads infinite resolve it was a plan that had been tasked by the Clinton Administration to the defense department to develop precisely analogous plans and it was extent at the time and so um I ask you um and there were many many places where you indicate there are differences between the Clinton program and yours this one jumps out at me was there a material difference between your view of the military assignment and the Clinton administration's extand plan and if so what was it yes I think that there were significant differences uh first of all um secretary rumel I think has testified that he was briefed on infinite resolve it would have been highly unusual for me to be briefed on Military plans where we not in fact planning to to use them for employment and so I'm not surprised except that you were you were tasking pardon me for interrupting you were tasking the military to do something as part of this s and a half month process so I'm it it it would strike me as likely that you would have wanted to know what the what the predicate was we were tasking the Secretary of Defense who in fact had been uh briefed on infinite resolve to develop within the context of a broader strategy military plans that were now linked to certain political purposes I worked in the Pentagon I worked for the Joint Chiefs of Staff there are plans and plans and plans and the problem is that unless those plans are engaged by the civilian leadership on behalf of the president unless those plans have an adequate uh political basis and political purpose in mind those plans simply sit and they in fact rarely get used now the whole tortured history of trying to use military power in support of counterterrorism objectives has been uh I think very um admirably and adequately discussed by your staff in the military paper and what is quite clear from that paper is that from the time of Presidential Directive 62 which keeps the defense department focused on Force protection and rendition of terrorists and so forth uh all the way up through the period when we take office this issue of military of military plans and how to uh use military power with counterterrorism objectives just doesn't get doesn't get uh addressed what we were doing was to put together a policy that brought all of the elements together it tasked the Secretary of Defense within the context of a plan that really focused not just on Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden but also on what we might be able to do against the Taliban and that gave the kind of regional context that might make it possible to use military force more robustly to work plans in that context I think without that context you're just going to have military plant that never get used I read Sandy burger or saw Sandy Berger's testimony he talked about the fact that whenever they started to look at the use of military plans the issue of whether you would get Regional cooperation always arose that was precisely what I was saying when I said that we had to get the regional context right I am not going to tell you that we were looking to invade Afghanistan during that seven months we were not but we were looking in the context of a plan that gave you a better Regional context that looked to eliminate the al-Qaeda threat or Al-Qaeda that look to eliminate uh Taliban support support for them how to use military power within that context there's last followup yeah in order to keep uh keep us to our schedule I I'll just make this comment and we'll I think profitably follow up with you in a in a private in a private session um pd62 which was uh the Presidential Directive in the Clinton Administration was not the only way in which the defense department was tasked I mean infinite result solve went well beyond what you describe PDD 62 as doing that's uh number one and number two however good it might have been to change the context in which the military planning was ongoing um neither I nor I think our staff can find any functional difference between the two sets of plans and I'll leave it to my colleagues well thank you very much but I I I continue to believe that unless you can tell the military in the context what it is they're going after and for what purpose you're going to have military plans that every time you're asked uh you asked for the briefing turn out to be unusable I'm sure that this debate will continue yes Senator gon before 911 did any advisor to you or to your knowledge to this Administration or to its predecessor Council the kind of allout war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan that the United States actually conducted after 911 no sir no one um celled an allout War um against Afghanistan um of the kind that we did after 911 um there was a good deal of talk about the inadequacy of uh military options to go after Al-Qaeda uh Dick Clark was quite clear in his view that uh the various things that had been uh tasked work were inadequate to the task and so uh we were people were looking for other kinds of military options but no and all out invasion of Afghanistan it was not recommended was it possible to conduct that kind of war in Afghanistan without the cooperation of Pakistan it was absolutely not possible and this goes also to the point that I was making to commissioner gelic you can have lots of plans but unless since the United States sits protected by oceans or no longer protected the United States sits across itions unless you find a way to get Regional cooperation from Pakistan from the Central Asian countries you're going to be left with essentially standoff options meaning bombers and cruise missiles because uh you're not going to have the full range of military options now your uh written an oral statement spoke of a frustrating and unproductive meeting with the president of Pakistan in June let me go beyond that how much progress had the United States made toward the kind of necessary cooperation from Pakistan by say the 10th of September 2001 the United States had um a a comprehensive plan uh that the deputies had approved that would have been coming to the principal shortly and I think approved easily because the deputies are of course uh very senior people who have the confidence of their principles um that was going to try to uh unravel this overlapping set of of uh sanctions that were on Pakistan some because of the way mhar had come to power some of because because of uh nuclear issues we were looking to do that rich Armitage um tells me that when he approached the pakistanis after September 11th he did pressage that we would try and uh do this also with a positive side but the plans were not in place changing Pakistan's strategic Direction was going to take some time would the program uh recommended on September 4th had would the program recommended on September 4th have prevented 911 had it been adopted in say February or March of 2001 commissioner it would not have prevented uh September 11th if it had been approved the day after we came to office now in retrospect and given the knowledge that you had you and the administration simply believed that you had more time to meet this challenge of al-Qaeda than was in fact the case is that not true it is true that uh we understood that to meet this challenge you were it was going to take time it was a mult year program to try and meet the challenge of al-Qaeda that doesn't mean that when you get immediate threat reporting that you don't do everything that you can to disrupt at that particular point in time but in terms of the strategy of trying to uh improve the prospects of Pakistan withdrawing uh support from Taliban with presenting the Taliban with possible defeat because you were dealing not just with the Northern Alliance but with the southern tribes uh that we believed was going to take time just turned out in retrospect you didn't have the time to do it we we didn't although I will say that the document that was then approved by the president after September 11th what happened was that the nspd was then forwarded to the president in a post September 11th context and many of the same aspects of it were used uh to guide the policy that we actually did take against Afghanistan and the truth of the matter is that as the president said on September 20th this is going to take time we're still trying to unravel uh alqa we're still trying to deal with uh worldwide terrorist threat so it's obvious that even with all of the force of the country after September 11th this is a long-term project one subject that certainly any Administration in your place that would not like to bring up but I want to bring up in any event is the fact is that we've now gone 2 and A2 years and we have not had another incident in the United States even remotely comparable to 911 in your view but there have been many such horrific incidents in other parts of the world from Al-Qaeda or alaa lookalikes in your view have the measures been that have been taken here in the United States um actually reduced the amount of terrorism or simply displaced it and and caused it toh move elsewhere I believe that we have really hurt the al-Qaeda network uh we have not destroyed it and uh it is clear that it was much more entrenched and had relationships with many more organizations than I think uh people generally recognized I don't think it's been displaced but um they realize that they are in an allout war and so you're you're starting to see uh them try to fight back and I think that's one reason that you're getting the terrorist attacks that you you are but I don't think it's been displaced I I think it's just coming to the maybe you don't understand what I mean by displacement do you not think uh that Al-Qaeda and these terrorist entities are now engaged in terrorism where they think it's easier than it would be in the United States that's what I mean about this I see I'm sorry I didn't understand the question uh I think that it is possible that they are uh that they recognize the heightened security profile that we have post September 11th and I believe that we have made it harder for them to attack here I will tell you that I get up every day concerned because I don't think we've made it impossible for them we're safer but we're not safe and uh as I said they have to be right once we have to be right 100% of the time but I do think that some of the security measures that we have taken uh some of the systemic and uh and systematic security measures that we have taken have made it a lot harder for them I think in one sense there are three ways in which one can deal with a threat like this and I would like your views on how well you think we've done in each of them and maybe even their relative importance so one is hardening targets you know the kind of disruptions we have every time we try to travel on an airplane the second is prevention and a lot has been spoken here about that whether we're better able to find out what their plans are and frustrate those plans and the third is one that you talked about in your in your opening statement preemption you know going at the cause how do you balance in a free Society those three generic methods of going after terrorism I sincerely hope that um one of the outcomes of this commission is that we will talk about balance between those because uh we want to prevent the next terrorist attack we don't want to do it at the expense of who we are as an open society and I I think that in terms of of hardening we've we've done a lot if you look at the airport security now it's considerably uh very much different than it was Prior and there's a Transportation Security Agency that's charged with that uh Tom Ridge and his uh people have an actual unit that sits around and worries about critical infrastructure protection works with local and state governments to make sure that CR critical infrastructure is protected I think we're making a lot of progress in hardening in terms of uh but we're never going to be hard able to harden enough to to prevent every attack uh we have in terms of prevention um increased the worldwide attention to this problem um when when Louis free put together the the leat system the um legis the uh legal attache system abroad um it was and I'm sure that uh you um commissioner gerell as a former deputy attorney general will remember that um it became a very important tool also post 911 to be able to work with um the law enforcement agencies abroad now married up with do with foreign intelligence in a way that helps us to be able to uh disrupt abroad in ways that I think we were not capable of disrupting before many of our Democratic partners are having some of the same debates that we are about how to have prevention without um issues of civil liberties being exposed we think that the Patriot Act gets just about gets the right uh balance and that it's extremely important to prevention because it makes law enforcement uh usually in law enforcement you wait until a crime is committed and then you act we cannot afford in terrorism to wait until a crime is admit committed and finally in terms of preemption um I have to say that the one thing I've been struck by in these hearings is uh when I was listening to uh the former secretaries and the current secretaries uh the other day is the persistent argument the persistent question of whether we should have acted against Afghanistan sooner given that the threats were gathering given that we knew Al-Qaeda had launched attacks against us why did we wait until you had a catastrophic attack to use um strategic military power not tit fortat not a little tactical military strike but strategic military power against this country and the president has said many times that after September 11th we have learned not to let threats gather and yet we continue to have a debate about whether or not you have to go against attack against threats before they fully materialize on your soil well miss rice I one final comment uh I asked both the Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense that question about whether or not they didn't think we had more time than we were actually granted the luxury of of having they both ducked the question totally you at least partly answered it thank you very much thank you thank you Senator Senator Kerry thank you very much Mr chairman U and thank you Dr Rice let me say at the beginning I'm I'm I'm very impressed indeed I goes far say moved by your story the story of your life and what you've accomplished it's quite extraordinary and I I I should want to say at the outset that U um not withstanding the perhaps the tone of some of my questions I'm not sure had I been in your position or Sandy Berger's position or President Bush or President Clinton's position that I would have done things differently I simply don't know but the line of questioning will suggest that I'm I'm trying to ascertain why things weren't done differently and let me ask a question that that that well I actually let me let me say I I can't pass this up I know it'll take into my 10-minute time but um as somebody who supported the war in Iraq I'm not going to get the National Security adviser 30 feet away from me very often over the next 90 days and um I'm I've got to tell you I believe a number of things I I believe first of all that we underestimate that this war on terrorism is really a war against radical Islam terrorism is a tactic it's not a war itself secondly let me say that that I don't think we understand what the Muslim how the Muslim World Views it and I'm I'm terribly worried that the military tactics in in in Iraq are going to do a number of things and they're all bad uh one is a no please don't please do not do that do not applaud u u um I think we're going to end up with Civil War if we if we continue down the military operation strategy that's that we have in place I say that sincerely as someone that supported the war in the first place I mean say secondly that that I I I I I don't know how it could be otherwise uh given uh the way that we're able to see these military operations even the restrictions that are imposed upon the press that this doesn't provide an opportunity for Al-Qaeda to have increasing success at recruiting people to attack the United States it it it it worries me and I wanted to make that declaration you need comment on it but I as I said I'm not going to have an opportunity to talk to you this closely and I wanted to tell you that I think the military operations are are dangerously off track and it's it's largely a US Army 125 about 145,000 largely a Christian Army and a Muslim Nation so I I take that on board for what it's worth let me ask you first of all a question that that been a concern for me from the first day I came on the commission and that is the the relationship of our executive director to to you uh let me just ask you directly and you can just give me keep it relatively short but I wanted to get it on the record since he was an expert on terrorism did you ask Philip Zelo any questions about terrorism during transition since he was a second person carded in the National Security office and had considerable expertise I Philip and I had numerous conversations about uh the issues uh that we were facing Philip was in fact um as you know had worked in the campaign and help and helped with the transition plan so yes yes you did talk to him about terrorism we talked Philip and I over a period of you know we had worked closely together as academic during the transition did you instruct him to do anything on terrorism oh to do anything on terror uh to help us think about the structure of the terrorism um the the Dick Clark's operations yes it you you you've used the phrase a number of times and I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm hoping with my question to disabuse you of using it in the future um you you said the president was tired of swatting flies can you tell me one example was where the president swatted a fly when it came to Al-Qaeda prior to 911 I think what the president was speaking to was what what what fly had he swatted well the disruptions abroad was what he was really focusing on when the CIA would go after go after this guy and Dr Rice we didn't we only squatted a fly once on the 20th of August 1998 we didn't SWAT any flies afterwards how the hell could he be tired we we swatt it at he I think he felt that what the agency was doing was uh going after individual terrorists here and there and that's what he meant by swatting FL it was simply a figure of speech well I think it's an unfortunate figure speech because I think uh especially after the attack on the Cole of the 12th of August October 2000 it would not have been a swatting of fly it would not have been we did not wait to get a Strate need to wait to get a strategic plan Dick Clark had in his memo on the 25th of January over at military operations uh as a part he he turned that memo around in 24 hours Dr Clark there were a lot of plans in place in the Clinton Administration military plans in the Clinton Administration uh in fact just since we're in the mood to declassify stuff that was he he in included in his January 25th memo two appendixes appendix a strategy for the elimination of the jihadist threat of al-Qaeda appendix B political military plan for Al-Qaeda uh so it you know I just I'm why didn't we respond to the coal well we why didn't we SWAT that fly I believe um that there's a question of whether or not you respond in a tactical sense or whether you respond in a strategic sense whether or not you decide that you're going to respond to every attack with minimal use of military force and uh go after every and on a kind of tit fortat basis by the way in that memo Dick Clark talks about not doing this tit fortat doing this on a time of our choosing I'm aware um Mr Carrie of a speech that you gave at that time that said that perhaps the best thing that we could do to respond to the coal and to the memories was to to do something about uh the threat of Saddam Hussein that's a strategic View and we took we took we took a strategic view we didn't take a tactical view I mean it was really quite frankly I was blown away when I read the speech because it's a brilliant speech it talks about really an asymmetric pres you read it the last few days oh no I read it quite a bit before that it it's an asymmetric approach now you can decide that every time Al-Qaeda does something you're saying that you didn't you didn't have a military response against the Cole because of my speech I'm saying I'm saying that had I not given that speech you would have attacked him no I'm just saying that I think it was a brilliant way to think about it it was a way of thinking about it strategically not tactically but if I may answer the question that you've asked me the issue of whether to respond uh how to respond to the coal I think Don rumel has also talked about this uh yes the coal had happened uh we received I think on January 25th the same uh assessment or roughly the same assessment of who was responsible for the cold that Sandy Berger talked to you about it was preliminary it was not clear but that was not the reason that we felt that uh we did not want to quote respond to the cold we knew that uh the options that had been employed by the Clinton administration had been standoff options the president had uh meaning missile strikes or uh perhaps bombers would have been possible longrange bombers although getting in place the apparatus to use long range bombers is even a matter of whether you have uh basing um in the region we knew that uh Osama Bin Laden had been in something that was provided to me bragging that uh he was going to uh withstand any response and then he was going to emerge and come out stronger but you're figuring this out you got to give a very long answer I've got we simp we simply we simply believed that the best approach was to put in place a plan that was going to eliminate this threat not respond to a to look I me say I I I I think you would come in there if you said look we screwed up we made a lot of mistakes I you OB don't want to use the MW in here U and and and I would say fine it's game set and match I understand that I mean it it but this strategic and tactical I just sounds believe to this day that it was would have been a good thing to respond to the Cole given the kinds of options that we were going to have and with all due respect to Dick Clark if you're speaking about the Dinda uh plan my understanding is was a never adopted and that Dick Clark himself has said that the military portion of this uh was not uh taken up by the Clinton Administration let me move into another area so we were not presented I just want to be very clear on this because it's been a source of of controversy we were not presented with a plan that's not true we were we were not presented we were not presented we were presented with I've heard you say that Dr Clark I if if that 25 January 2001 memo was Declassified January that January 25 memo that January 25 memo I don't has a series of actionable items having to do with bistan nor may I may I finish answering your question though because this is an important point I know it's important everything that's going on here is important since we have a point of disagreement I'd like to have a chance to address it no no no actually there's going to we have many points of disagreement Dr Clark we'll have a chance to we'll have a chance to do in close session you can't please don't filibuster me it's not fair it is not fair I I have I have been polite I been courteous it is not fair to me I understand that we have a disagreement commer commissioner I'm here to answer questions and you've asked me a question and I'd like to have an opportunity to answer it the fact is that what we were presented on on January the 25th was a set of ideas okay and a paper most of which was about what the Clinton administration had done and something called the Dinda plan which had been considered in 1998 and never adopted we decided to take a different track we decided to put together a strategic uh approach to this that would get the regional Powers the problem wasn't that uh you didn't have a good counterterrorism person the problem was you didn't have a approach against Al-Qaeda because you didn't have an approach against Afghanistan and you didn't have an approach against Afghanistan because you didn't have an approach against Pakistan and until we could get that right for thank you for answering my question you're welcome let me ask you another question here's the problem that that that I have is I again it's hindsight I appreciate that but here's the problem that a lot of people are having with this July 5th meeting you you you you and Andy card meet with Dick Clark in the morning you say you have a meeting he M meets in the afternoon it's July 5th uh as Christian breitweiser who who's a part of the families group testified to the Joint Committee she brings very painful testimony I must say but here's what agent Kenneth Williams said five days later he said and he said that uh that the FBI should investigate whether Al-Qaeda operatives were training at US flight schools he posited that ama bin lad followers might be trying to infiltrate civil aviation system as Pilots uh as security guards other personal he recommended a national program to track suspicious flight schools now look one of the first things that I learned uh when I came into this town was the FBI and the CIA don't talk um I mean I don't I don't need a catastrophic event to know that the C FBI don't do a very good job of communicating the problem we've got with this both and the mswi facts which were revealed on the 15th of August all it had to do is be put on Intel link all it had to do is is go out on Intel link and the game's over uh it it ends it this this conspiracy would have been rolled up and so I I I I I commissioner with all due respect I I I don't agree that we know that we had somehow a silver bullet here that was going to work what we do know is that we did have a systemic problem a structural problem between the FBI and the CIA it was a long time in coming to into uh being it was there because there were legal impediments as well as bureaucratic impediments those needed to be overcome obviously the structure of the FBI that did not get information from the field offices up to FBI Central in a way that FBI Central could react to the whole range of information before it was a problem everybody the structuring of the FBI the restructuring of the FBI uh was not going to be done in the 233 days in which we were in office everybody does National Security and this town knows the FBI and the CIA don't talk so if you have a meeting on the 5th of July where you're you're trying to make certain that your domestic agencies are preparing a defense against a possible attack you knew Al-Qaeda Sals were in the United States uh you've got a follow up and my question is what what was your followup what's the paper trail that shows that you and Andy card followed up from this meeting made certain that the FBI and the CIA I followed up with with Dick Clark who had in his group and with him the chief counterterrorism person for the FBI you have to remember that Louis free was by this time gone and so the chief counterterrorism person was the second uh Louis freet left in in late June and so the chief counterterrorism person uh for the FBI was working these issues was working with Dick Clark I talked to Dick Clark about this all the time but let's be very clear the threat information that we were dealing with and you when you have something that says something very big may happen you have no time you have no place you have no how the ability to somehow respond to that threat is just not there now clar Dr Clark Dr Clark and in spirit of further declassification with all I I don't think I look like Dick Clark Dr Rice excuse me uh in the spirit actually won't be a question I just in the spirit of further declassification this is what the August 6 memo said to the president that the FBI indicates patterns of suspicious activity in the United States consistence with preparations for hijacking that's what that's the language of the memo that was briefed to the president on the 6th of of August and that was checked out and steps were taken through FAA circulars to warn of hijackings but when you cannot tell people where a hijacking might occur under what circumstances I can tell you that I think the best antidote to what happened in that regard would have been many years before to think about what you could do for instance to harden cockpits that would have made a difference we weren't going to harden cockpits in the three months that uh we had a threat Spike the really difficult thing for all of us and I'm sure for those who came before us as well as for those of us who are here is that the struct the structural and systematic changes that needed to be made not on J jly 5th or not on June 25th or not on January 1st those structures and those changes needed to be made a long time ago so that the country was in fact hardened against the kind of threat that we faced on September 11th the problem was that for a country that had not been attacked on its to on its territory in a major way in almost 200 years there were a lot of structural impediments to those kind of attacks those changes should have been made over a long period of time I fully agree with you that in hindsight now looking back there are many things structurally that were out of kilter and one reason that we're here is to look at what was out of kilter structurally to look at what needed to be done to look at what we already have done and to see what more we need to do but I think it is with it is really quite unfair to suggest that uh something that was a threat spike in June or July gave you the kind of opportunity to make the changes in air security that could have been that that needed to be made senat secretary Layman thank you Dr Rice I'd like to ask you whether you a agree with the testimony we had from uh Mr Clark uh that when asked whether if all of his recommendations during uh the transition or during the period when his quote hair was on fire had been followed immediately would it have prevented 911 he said no do you agree with that I agree completely with that in a way one of the one of the criticisms that has been made are one of the perhaps excuses for uh an inefficient handoff of power at the change and and the transition is indeed something we're going to be looking into in depth was that because of the circumstances of the election it was the shortest Handover in memory but in many ways really it was the longest Handover certainly In My Memory because while the cabinet changed uh virtually all of the national and domestic security agencies and executive uh action agencies remain the same combination of uh political appointees from the previous administration and career appointees CIA FBI JCS the CTC the counterterrorism center the DIA the NS uh NSA uh the uh director of operations in CIA the director of intelligence so you really up almost until with the exception of U of the ins head leaving and they being acting and Louis free leaving in June you essentially had the same government uh now that raises two questions in my mind uh one a whole series of questions what what were you told by this short transition from Mr Burger and Associates and the long transition leading up to 911 by those uh officials about these key a number of key issues and I'd like to ask them uh quickly in turn uh and the other is struck by the continuity of of the policies rather than the differences and uh both of these sets of questions are really directed towards what I think is the real purpose of this commission while it's certainly a lot more fun to be doing the who struck John and pointing fingers of as which policy was more urgent or uh more important so forth the real business of this commission is to learn the lessons and to find the ways to fix those dysfunctions and that's why we have unanimity and true nonpartisanship on this commission so that's what's behind the rhetoric that's behind the questioning that we have first during the short or long transition uh were you told before the summer that there were functioning uh Alca cells in the United States in the memorandum that Dick Clark sent me on January 25th he mentions sleeper cells there is no mention or recommendation of anything that needs to be done about them and uh the FBI was pursuing them and uh usually when things come to me it's because I'm supposed to do something about it and there was no indication that the FBI was not adequately p uh pursuing the sleeper cells were you told that there were uh numerous young Arab males in Flight Training had taken Flight Training were in Flight Training I was not and I I'm not sure that that was known at the center were you told that the US Marshall program uh had uh been changed to uh drop any US Marshals on domestic flights I was not told that were you told that the red team in FAA the red teams for 10 years had reported their hard data that the US airport security system never got higher than 20% effective and was usually down around 10% for 10 straight years to the best of my recollection I was not told that uh were uh were you you uh aware that ins had been uh lobbing for years to get the airlines to Dro uh the transit without Visa loophole that enabled terrorists and illegals to uh simply buy a ticket through the transit without Visa waiver and uh uh pay the airlines extra money and come in I learned about that after September 11th uh were you aware that the ins had quietly internally haved its internal security enforcement budget I I was not made aware of that I I'm I don't remember being made aware of that now were you aware that it was the US government established policy not to question or oppose the sanctuary policies of New York Los Angeles Houston Chicago San Diego for political reasons which policy uh in those cities prohibited the local police from cooperating at all uh with Federal immigration authorities I do not believe I was aware of that uh were you aware uh to shift a little bit to Saudi uh Saudi Arabia were you aware of the program that was well well established that allowed Saudi citizens to get visas without interviews I learned of that after 911 uh were you aware of the activities of the Saudi Ministry of religious Affairs here in the United States at during that trend uh I believe that only after September 11th did the the full extent of what was going on with the ministry of religious Affairs became evident were you aware of the extensive activities of the Saudi government in supporting over 300 uh radical teaching schools and mosques around the country including right here in the United States um I believe we've learned a great deal more about this and addressed it with the Saudi government uh since 911 were you aware at the time of the uh the fact that Saudi Arabia had and were you told that they had in their custody the uh CFO and the closest uh Confidant uh of of al- Qaeda of Osama bin Laden and refused uh direct access to the United States um I don't remember uh anything of that kind were you aware that they would not cooperate and give us access to the perpetrators of the uh of the Cobar Towers attack um I was very involved in issues concerning Cobar towers and um our relations with several governments concerning Cobar Towers thank you uh were you were you aware and it disturbs me a bit and again let me shift to the the continuity uh issues here were you aware that the uh the it was the policy of the justice department and and I'd like you to comment as to whether these continuities are still uh in place uh for instance before I go to Justice were you aware that it was the policy and I believe Remains the policy today uh to F Airlines if they have more than two young Arab males uh in secondary questioning because that's discriminatory no I I have to say that the kind of inside uh arrangements for the FAA are not not really in my well these are not so inside were you aware that the FAA uh up till 911 thought it was perfectly permissible to uh allow 4-in knife blades uh abort I was not aware of okay uh back to Justice I was Disturbed to hear you say on the continuity line that the President Bush's first reaction to uh to 9911 and uh the question of Al qaeda's involvement was we must bring him to Justice because we have had dozens and dozens of interviewees and Witnesses say that a fundamental problem of the dysfunction between CIA and Justice was the at the criminal uh the attitude that law enforcement was what terrorism was all about not prevention and foreign policy I think um that there was at the time a very strictly enforced uh wall in the Justice Department between law enforcement and intelligence and that uh repeatedly there are many uh statements from presidents and uh uh Attorneys General and so forth that that say that the first priority is bring these people to Justice protect the evidence seal the evidence and so forth are do you believe that uh that this has changed I certainly believe that that has changed um commissioner Layman let let me just go back for one second though on the long list of questions that you you asked um I think another structural problem for the United States that we is that we really didn't have anybody trying to put together all of the kinds of issues that you raised about what we were doing with ins what we were doing with borders what we were doing with visas what we were doing with uh airport security and that's the reason that first the Homeland Security Council and then uh Tom ridg is initial job and then the Homeland Security Department is so important because you can then look at the whole spectrum of protecting our borders from all kinds of threats and say what kinds of policies make sense and what kinds of policies don't and they now actually have somebody who looks at critical infrastructure protection looks at airport security understands in Greater detail than I think the National Security adviser could ever understand all of the practices of what is going on in Transportation Security that's why it is important that we made the change that we did um as to some of the questions concerning uh the Saudis I think that we have had really very good cooperation with Saudi Arabia um since 911 and since the May 12th attacks on Riad even greater cooperation because Saudi Arabia is I I think fully enlisted in the war on terrorism and we we need to to understand that there were certain things that we didn't even understand were going on inside the United States it's not perhaps surprising that the Saudis didn't understand some of the things that were going on in their country as to your last question though I think that that's actually where we've had the biggest change the president doesn't think of this as law enforcement he thinks of this as war and for all of the uh rhetoric of War prior to 9/11 people who said we're at war with the jihadist network people who said we are at uh that they've declared war on us and we're at war with them we weren't at War we weren't on war footing we weren't behaving in that way we were still very focused on rendition of terrorists on law enforcement um and yes from time to time we uh did military plans or use the cruise missile strike here or there but we did not have a sustained systematic effort to destroy Al-Qaeda to deal with those who harbored Al-Qaeda one of the the points that the president made in his very first speech On That September on September the night of September 11th was that it's not just the terrorists it's those who Harbor them too and he put States on notice that they were going to be responsible if they sponsored terrorists or if they acquiesced in terrorists being there and uh when he said I want to bring him to Justice again I think there was a little bit of nervousness about talking about exactly what that means but I don't think there's anyone in America who doesn't understand that this President believes that we're at War it's a war we have to win and that it is a war that cannot be fought on the defensive it's a war that has to be fought on the offense thank you are you sure that the last last question secret last question what as a last question tell us what you really Rec commend we should address our attentions to to fix this as the highest priority uh not just moving boxes around but what what can you tell us in public here that we could do since we are outside the legislature and outside the executive branch and and can bring the focus of attention for change tell us what you recommend we do my my greatest concern is that as September 11th recedes from memory that uh we we will uh begin to unlearn the lessons of what we've learned and I think this commission can be very important in helping us to focus on those lessons and then to make sure that the structures of government reflect those lessons because those structures of government now are going to have to last us for a very long time I think we've done the president under president's leadership we've done extremely important structural change uh We've reorganized the government in a greater way than has been done since the 194 7 National Security Act created the Department of Defense the CIA and the National Security Council I think that we need to we we have a major reorganization of the FBI where Bob Mueller is trying very hard not just to move boxes but to change incentives to change culture those are all very hard things to do I think there have been very important changes made between the CIA and the FBI yes everybody knew that they had uh trouble sharing but in fact we had legal restrictions to their sharing and George tenant and Louis free and others have worked very hard at that but until the Patriot Act we couldn't do what we needed to do and now I hear people who question the need for the Patriot Act question whether or not the Patriot Act is infringing on our civil liberties I think that you can address this hard question of the balance that we as an open Society need to achieve between the protection of our country and the need to remain the open Society the welcoming society that uh that we are and I think you're in a better position to address that than anyone and I do want you to know that when you have addressed it uh the president is not going to just be interested in the recommendations I think he's going to be interested in knowing um how we can press forward uh in ways that will will make us safer um the other thing that I hope you will will do is to to take a look back again at the question that keep keeps arising I think uh Senator Gorton was going after this question I've heard um um Senator Carrie talk about it which is um know the country like democracies do waited and waited and waited as this threat gathered and we didn't respond by saying we're at war with them now we're going to use all means of our uh of Our National Assets to to go against them there are other threats that gather against us and what we should have learned from September 11th is that you have to be bold and you have to be decisive and you have to be on the offensive because we're never going to be able to completely defend thank you very much Congressman Roma thank you Mr chairman welcome Dr Rice and uh I just want to say to you that you've made it through uh two and a half hours so far with only Governor Thompson to go and if you'd like a break of five minutes I'd be happy to yield you some of Governor Thompson's [Laughter] Time Dr Rice you have said in your statement which I find very interesting the terrorists were at war with us but we were not at war with them across several administrations of both parties the response was insufficient and tragically for all the langu anguage of War spoken before September 11th this country simply was not on a war footing you're the National Security advisor to the president of the United States the buck may stop with the president the buck certainly goes directly through you as the principal adviser to the president on these issues and it it really seems to me that there were failures and mistakes structural problems all kinds of issues here leading up to September 11th that could have and should have been done better doesn't that beg that there should have been more accountability that there should have been a resignation or two that there should have been you or the president saying to the rest of the administration somehow somewhere that this was not done well enough Mr ROM by definition we didn't have enough information we didn't have enough protection because the attack happened by definition and I think we've all asked ourselves what more could have been done I will tell you if we had known that an attack was coming against the United States an attack was coming against New York and Washington we would have moved Heaven and Earth to stop it but you heard the character of the threat reporting we were getting something very very big is going to happen how do you act on something very very big is going to happen Beyond uh trying to put uh people on alert most of the threat reporting was abroad um I I took an oath as I've said to to protect and uh I take it very seriously I know that those who attacked us that day and attacked us by the way because of who we are no other reason but for who we are that they are the responsible parties for the war that they launched against us but but the attack that they made and that our responsibility that our responsibility you have said several times that your responsibility being in office for 230 days was to defend and protect the United States you had an opportunity I think with um Mr Clark who had served a number of presidents going back to the Reagan Administration uh who you decided to keep on in office uh who was a pile driver a bulldozzer so to speak but this person who you in the Woodward interview he's the very first name out of your mouth when you suspect that terrorists have attacked us on September the 11th you say I think immediately it was a terrorist attack get Dick Clark the terrorist guy even before you mentioned tenant and rumsfeld's names get Dick Clark why don't you get Dick Clark to brief the president before 911 here is one of the consumate experts that never has the opportunity to brief the president of the United States on one of the most lethal Dynamic and agile threats to the United States of America why don't you use this asset why doesn't the president ask to meet with Dick Clark well the president was meeting with his director of Central Intelligence and Dick Clark is a very very fine counterterrorism expert and that's why I kept him on and what I wanted di Clark to do was to manage the crisis for us and help us develop a new strategy and I can guarantee you when we had that new strategy in place uh the president who was asking for it and wondering what was happening to it was going to be in a position to engage it fully the fact is that what Dick Clark recommended to us as he has said would not have prevented 911 I actually would would say that not only would have not prevented 911 but if we had done everything on that list we would have actually been off in the wrong direction about the importance that we needed to attach to a new policy for Afghanistan and a new policy for Pakistan because even though uh dick is a very fine counterterrorism expert he was not a specialist on Afghanistan that's why I brought somebody in who really understood Afghanistan he was not a specialist on Pakistan that's why I brought somebody in to deal with Pakistan he had some very good ideas we acted on them Dick Clark let me just step back for a second and say we had a very Rel very concise here all that he needed to do was to say I need time to brief the president on something I think he did say that Dr Rice in a private interview to us he said he asked to brief president I have to say I have to say Mr Roman to my recollection never asked me to brief the president on counterterrorism he did brief the president later on cyber security in in July but he to my recollection never asked and my senior directors have an open door to come and say I think the president needs to do this I think the president needs to do that he needs to make this phone call he needs to hear this briefing uh it's not not hard to get done but I let me ask a question you you just said that the the the Intelligence coming in indicated a big big big threat something was going to happen very soon and be potentially catastrophic I don't understand given the big threat why the big principles don't get together the principles meet 33 times in 7 months on Iraq on the Middle East on missile defense China on Russia not once do the principles ever sit down you in your job description as a national security adviser the Secretary of State the Secretary of Defense the president of the United States and meet solely on terrorism to discuss in the spring and the summer when these threats are coming in when you've known since the transition that Al-Qaeda cells are in the United States when as the pdb said on August 6 Bin Laden determined to attack the United States why don't the principles at that point say let's all talk about this let's get the biggest people together in our government and discuss what this threat is and try to get our bureaucracies responding to it once again on the August 6th memorandum to the president this was not threat reporting about what was about to happen this was an analytic piece that stood back and answered questions from the president but as to the principal meetings it's it has six or seven things in it Dr Rice including uh the the Ram uh case when he attacked the United States in the Millennium yes these are his as the FBI saying that they think that their conditions no it does not have the FBI saying that they think that there are conditions it has the FBI saying that they' observed some susp ious activity that was checked out with the FBI that is equal to what might be for an attack Mr R Mr rer would you Dr R that we should make that pdb a public document so we can have this R threat reporting threat reporting is we believe that something is going to happen here on at this time under these circumstances this was not threat reporting well actionable intelligence Dr Rice is when you have the place time and date the threat reporting saying the United States is going to be attack should trigger the principles getting together to say we're going m r let's be very clear the the pdb does not say the United States is going to be attacked it says Bin Laden would like to attack the United States I don't think you frankly had to to have that report to know that Bin Laden would like to attack the United States so why aren't you doing something about that earlier than August 6 the threat reporting the threat reporting to which we could respond was in June and July about threats abroad what we tried to do for just because people said you cannot rule out an attack on the United States was to have the domestic agencies and the FBI together to uh to just pulse them and let them be on alert but there was nothing that suggested there was going to be a threat I agree with that so Dr Rice let's say then the FBI is the key here you say that the FBI was tasked with trying to find out what the domestic threat was we have done thousands of interviews here at the 911 Commission we've gone through literally millions of pieces of paper to date we have found nobody nobody at the FBI who knows anything about a tasking of field offices we have talked to uh the director at the time of the FBI during this threat period uh Mr peard he says he did not tell the field offices to do this and we have talked to the special agents in charge they don't have any recollection of receiving a notice of threat nothing went down the chain to the FBI field offices on spiking of information a knowledge of al-Qaeda in the country and still the FBI doesn't do anything isn't that some of the responsibility of the National Security adviser responsibility for the FBI to do what it was asked was the FBI's responsibility now I you don't think there's any responsibility I believe that the responsibility the again the crisis management here was done by the CSG they tasked these things if there was any reason to believe that I needed to do something or that Andy cart needed to do something I would have been been expect it to be asked to do it we were not asked to do it in fact as I've mention you don't you ask somebody to do it you're not asking somebody to why wouldn't you initiate that Mr Mr RoR I was responding to the threat Spike and to where the information was the information was about what was ha might happen in the Persian Gulf what might happen in Israel what might happen in North Africa we responded to that and we responded vigorously now the structure of the FBI you will get into next week you you've been helpful to us on that on your recom last question Congressman last question Dr uh talking about responses Mr Clark writes you a memo on September the 4th where he lays out his frustration that the military is not doing enough that the CIA is not pushing this hard enough in their agency and he says we should not wait till the day that hundreds of Americans lay dead in the streets due to a terrorist attack and we think there could have been something more we could do 7 days prior to September the 11th he writes this to you what's your reaction to that at the time and what's your response to that at the time just one final point I didn't quite complete I I of course did understand that the Attorney General needed to know what was going on and I asked that he take the briefing and then ask that he be briefed because again there was nothing demonstrating or showing that something was coming in the United States if there had been something we would have make this document public Dr Rice would you support making the August 6 the pdb a the August 6th pdb has been available to you you are you're describing it you're describing it and the August 6 pdb was a response to questions asked by the president not a warning document why wouldn't it be made public then now as to I think you know the sensitivity of presidential decision uh memoranda and I think you you know the Great Lengths to which we have gone to make it possible for this commission to view documents that are not generally are not I don't know if they've ever been made available in quite this way now as to what Dick Clark said on September 4th that was not a premonition nor a warning what that me what that memorandum was was I was getting ready to go into the September 4th uh principal meeting to review the new nspd and to approve the new nspd what it was was a warning to me that the bureaucracies would try to undermine it dick goes into great and emotional detail about the long history of how deod has never been responsive how the CIA has never been responsive about how uh the Predator has gotten hung up because the CIA doesn't really want to fly it and he says if you don't fight F through this bureaucracy he says at one point they're going to all sign on to this nspd because they won't want to be uh assoc they won't want to say that they don't want to eliminate the threat of al-Qaeda he says but you really have in effect you have to go in there and push them because we'll all wonder about the day when thousands of Americans and so forth and so on so that's what this document is it's not a warning document it's not a uh thre all of us had this fear I think that uh the chairman mentioned that IID said this in an interview that we would hope not to get to that day but it would not be appropriate or correct to characterize what dick wrote to me on September 4th as a warning of an impending attack what he was doing was I think trying to Buck me up so that when I went into this principal's meeting I was sufficiently on guard against the kind of bureaucratic inertia that he had fought all of his life what is a warning if August 6 isn't and September 4th isn't well August 6th is most certainly uh a an historical document that says here's how you might think about Al-Qaeda a warning is when you have something that suggests that an attack is impending and we did not have on the United States um threat information that was uh in any way specific enough to uh to suggest that something was coming in the United States uh the September 4th memo as I've said to you was a warning to me not to get dragged down by the bureaucracy not a warning about uh September 11th thank you Dr Rice thank you thank you Congressman very very much uh our last questioner will be Governor Thompson thank you Mr chairman Dr Rice um first thank you for your service to this nation and this President I think it can fairly be described by all whether they agree with you or not on various issues as devoted to the interests of the president and the country and all americ Amer an I believe appreciate that thank you also for um finally making it here I know there was a struggle over constitutional principles I don't think your appearance today signals any retreat by the president from the notion that the Congress should not be allowed to hail presidential AIDS down to the capital and question them we are not the Congress we are not a congressional committee that's why you gave us the pdbs and so we appreciate your appearance and we appreciate the decision of the president to you to appear to not just answer our questions because you've done that for 5 hours in private but to answer the questions of Americans who are watching you today I'm going to go through my questions um some of which have been tossed out because my brothers and sisters asked them before me as quickly as I can because we have to depart and I I would appreciate it if you would go through your answers as quickly as you could but be fair to yourself I don't believe in beating dead hor hes but there's a bunch of lame ones running around here today let's see if we can't finally push him out the door please describe to us your relationship with Dick Clark because I think that bears on the context of this well let's just take the first question he said he gave you a plan you said he didn't give you a plan it's clear that what he did give you was a memo that had attached to it not only the denda plan or whatever you want to describe denda as but a December 2000 strategy paper was this something that you were supposed to act on or was this a a compilation of what had been pending at the time the Clinton administration had left office but had not been acted on or was this something he tried to get acted on by the Clinton Administration and they didn't act on it what was it how did he describe it to you what did you understand to be what I understood it to be was a series of um decisions near-term decisions that had were pending from the Clinton Administration things like uh whether to arm the USCS I'm sorry whether to to give further counter tear or support to the USCS whether to arm the Northern Alliance a whole set of uh of specific issues that needed decision and we made those decisions prior to the strategy being developed he also uh had attached the Dinda plan which is my understanding was developed in 1998 never adopted and in fact I had some ideas I said dick take the ideas that you've put in this think piece take the ideas that you've that were there in the Dinda plan put it together into a strategy not to roll back Al-Qaeda which had been the goal of the uh the Clinton uh of the of what Dick Clark wrote to us but rather to eliminate this uh this threat and he was to put that strategy together but uh by no did he ask me to act on a plan he gave us a series of of ideas we acted on those and then he gave me some papers that had a number of ideas more questions than answers about how we might get better cooperation for instance from Pakistan we took those ideas we gave him the opportunity to write a comprehensive strategy I'd like to follow up in one of commissioner romer's questions uh the principal meetings um with all due respect to the principles cabinet officers of the president of the United States Senate confirmed the notion that when principles gather the heavens open and the truth pours forth is to borrow the phrase of one of my fellow Commissioners a little bit of Hoy I think isn't it a fact that when principles Gather in principal's meeting they bring their staffs with them don't they line the walls don't they talk to each other doesn't the staff speak up a absolutely well actually when you have principals meetings they really uh sometimes are to tell for the principles to say what their staffs have said right uh have told them to say I I just have to say we may simply disagree on this I I with some of the Commissioners I do not believe that there was a lack of high level attention the president was paying attention to this how much higher level can you get the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense and the attorney general and the line officers are responsible for responding to the information that they were given and they were responding the problem is that the United States was effectively blind to what was about to happen into it and you cannot depend on the chance that some principal might find out something in order to prevent an attack that's why the structural changes that are being talked about here are so important what you say in uh your statement before us today on page two um reminds me that terrorism had a different face in the 20th century than it does today and I just want to be sure I understand the attitude of the Bush Administration because you reference the Latania the Nazis and all these state sponsored terrorist activities when we know today that the real threat is from either Rogue States Iran North Korea or from stateless terrorist organizations Al-Qaeda Hezbollah hmas does the Bush Administration get this difference we certainly understand fully that uh there are groups uh networks that are operating out there the only thing I would say is that uh they are much more effective when they can count on a state either to sponsor them or to uh protect them or to acques in uh their activities that's why the policy that we uh developed was so insistent on sanctuaries being taken away from them you do have to take away their territory when they can get states to cooperate with them or when they can get states to acques in their in their being on their territory um they're much more effective the coal why didn't the Bush Administration respond to the coal I think secretary rumel has perhaps said it best um we really thought that the coal um incident was uh was passed that you didn't want to respond um Tit for Tat as I've said there is strategic response and there's Tactical response and just responding to another attack in an insufficient way we thought would actually probably embolden the terrorists they'd been emboldened by everything else that had been done to them and that the the best course was to uh look ahead uh to a more aggressive strategy against them um I still believe to this day that the al-Qaeda were prepared for um a response to the coal and that um as some of the intelligence suggested bin Len was um intending to show that he yet survived another one and that it might have been counterproductive I've got to say that answer bothers me a little bit because of where it logically leads and that is and I don't like whatif questions but this is a what if question what if in March of 2001 under your administration alqaeda had blown up another US Destroyer what would you have done and what would that have been TI for tat I don't know what we would have done but I do think that uh we were were moving to a different concept that said that you had to hold at risk what they cared about not just try and punish them not just try to go after Bin Laden I would like to think that we might have come to a an effective response I think that in the context of War when you're at war with somebody it's not an issue of of every battle or every Skirmish it's an issue of can you do strategic damage to this organization and we were thinking much more along the lines of of strategic damage well I'm I'm going to sound like my brother Carrie which terrifies me somewhat but but blowing up our destroyers is an act of war against us is it not I mean how long would that have to go on before we would respond with an act of War we' had several acts of War uh committed against us and um I think the we believed that uh responding kind of tit fortat uh probably with inadequate military options because uh for all the plans that might have been looked at by the Pentagon or on the the uh shelf they were not connected to a political policy that was going to to change the circumstances of al-Qaeda uh in Taliban uh and the Taliban and therefore the relationship to Pakistan uh look it can be debated as to uh whether or not one should have responded to the coal I think that we really believed that an inadequate response was simply going to embolden them and I think you've heard that from secretary Rell as well and uh I believe we felt very strongly that way I'll tell you what I find remarkable uh one word that hasn't been mentioned once today yet we've talked about structural changes to the FBI and the CIA and cooperation and Congress the Congress has to change the structure of the FBI the Congress has to appropriate funds to fight terrorism where was the Congress well I think that the when I made the comment that uh the country was not on war footing that didn't just mean the executive branch was not on war fo footing uh the the fact is that many of the big changes that quite frankly again we were not going to be able to make in 233 days um some of those big changes do require uh congressional action the Congress cooperated after September 11th with the president to come up with the Patriot Act which does give to the FBI and the CIA and other intelligence agencies the kind of ability legal ability to share between them that was simply not there before you cannot depend on the chance that something might fall out of a tree you cannot depend on the chance that a very good uh Customs agent who's doing her job with her colleagues out in the state of Washington is going to catch somebody coming across the border of the United States with bomb making materials to be the uh the incident that'll lead you that leads you to be able to uh to respond adequately this is hard because again we have to be right 100% of the time they only have to be right once but the structural changes that we've made since 911 and the structural changes that we may have to continue to make give us a better chance uh and in that fight uh against the terrorist I read this week uh an interview in Newsweek with your predecessor Mr brazinski um he seemed to be saying that there is a danger that we can obsess about Al-Qaeda and lose sight of of equal dangers for example the the rise of a nuclear State Iran in the Middle East and their apparent connection to Hezbollah and Hamas which may uh forecast even more bitter fighting as we're now learning in Iraq or the ability of hez balah or Hamas to attack us on our soil within the United States in the same way al- Qaeda did are we keeping an eye on that we are keep keeping an eye and working actively um with the International Community on Iran and their nuclear Ambitions I think that one thing that the global war and terrorism has allowed us to do is to not just focus on Al-Qaeda because we have enlisted countries around the world saying that uh terrorism is Terrorism is terrorism in other words you can't fight Al-Qaeda and hug Hezbollah or hug Hamas that we've uh actually uh started to delegitimize terrorism in a way that it was not before we don't make a distinction between different kinds of terrorism and we're therefore United with the countries of the world to fight all kinds of terrorism terrorism is never an A A an appropriate or Justified response uh just because of political uh difficulties so yes we are keeping an eye on it but it speaks to the point that uh we an Administration the United States Administration cannot focus just on one thing what the war on terrorism has done is it's given us an organizing principle that allow s us to think about terrorism to think about weapons of mass destruction to think about the links between them and to form a united front uh across the world uh to to try and win this war last simple question if we come forward with sweeping recommendations for change in how our law enforcement and intelligence agencies operate to meet the new challenges of our time not the 20th century or the 19th century challenges we've faced in the past and if the president of the United States agrees with them can you assure us that he will fight with all the Vigor he has to get them enacted I can assure you that if the uh president agrees with the the recommendations and I think we'll want to take a hard look at the recommendations we're going to fight because the the real lesson of September 11th is that uh the country was not properly structured to deal with the threat that had been gathering for a long period of time I think we're better structured today than we ever have been we've made a lot of progress but we want to hear what further progress we can make and because this President considers His Highest calling to protect and defend the people of the United States of America he'll fight for any changes that he feels necessary thank you Dr Russ thank you thank you uh I might announce uh before thank Dr Rice that uh there's been a lot of discussion today about the pdb presidential Daily Briefing of August 6th uh this is not to do with Dr Rice but we have requested from the White House that that be Declassified because we feel it is important the American people get a chance to see it we are waiting an answer on our request and hope by next week's hearing that we might have it with uh Dr Rice thank you you have advanced our understanding of key events we thank you for all the time you given us uh we have a few remaining classified matters at some point we'd like to discuss with you in Clos session if we could and thank you for that for that uh we appreciate very much your service to the nation this concludes our hearing the commission will hold it next hearing on April 13th and 14th on law enforcement and the intelligence Community thank you very much I just want to sorry you your um everybody I don't know oh [Music] uh ladies and gentlemen uh Congressman Hamilton and Governor Kane have agreed to a very very brief press availability uh they have another meeting after this so I ask you to be brief uh please identify your name and your affiliation when called on and forgive us for leaving early but we have to in about 10 minutes so thank you um who would like to ask the first question newspapers what did you learn today I learned a lot Dr Rice was a very strong witness uh she obviously showed her closeness to the president uh the main theme of her testimony seemed to be a lack of structural coherence that the government for a number of years not this Administration freeze administrations was not structured to deal with the kind of threat that affected us on September 11th and that she seemed to suggest that not only although some progress has been made uh there is still a lot more to be done in that area sir excuse me I'm sorry we hav to it to the Press sorry very sorry name it identification Michael be NBC News I was very impressed to hear from a national security adviser under oath in public uh that's an extraordinary occasion and an historic one uh I agree with the governor that Dr Rice was a very strong witness very well prepared I don't think we asked her any questions that through her at all uh she was very articulate I especially appreciated the tone of her statement uh she was not in any way vindictive she was constructive it was factual and I think it certainly Advanced uh the understanding of the commission of The Facts of the period that we're interested in and uh it will be very useful to us uh in our deliberations please wait till the call down please Lind Scott from the newsour with Jim Lair how uh forceful will you push the White House to declassify this August 6 memo in particular well I think think all 10 Commissioners agree that the August 6th memo should be released uh this is not a new question in discussion with the White House we've been talking about it really for some weeks I believe so we'll push very hard uh we think it's nothing in there that will compromise the sources or methods of the United States intelligence uh because it has been so much of a focus of testimony and comment uh we think it should be released to the American people and we'll push uh the governor and I will push very hard a gentleman over here that'll be the last question last question would be go ahead Doug pastr with NBC News um are there still outstanding issues that you would like to address in private again with Dr Rice yeah as I said at the end of the hearing yes uh we've got some issues that many of them have to do with classified documents that we couldn't be uh that forward about today uh some of them may be follow-ups through today's uh today's hearing uh but she's been very gracious already in private uh she's given us a lot of time she said publicly today and she said privately in the past that she would be willing to give us as much time as we need so we expect to be able to follow up and be able to get the answers to the questions we need thank you ladies and gentlemen we go this way yeah just s place Bur where out there huh where out there plan