President Bush had wondered immediately after the attack whether Saddam
Hussein's regime might have had a hand in it. Iraq had been an enemy of the
United States for 11 years, and was the only place in the world where the United
States was engaged in ongoing combat operations. As a former pilot, the
President was struck by the apparent sophistication of the operation and some of
the piloting, especially Hanjour's high-speed dive into the Pentagon. He told us
he recalled Iraqi support for Palestinian suicide terrorists as well.
Speculating about other possible states that could be involved, the President
told us he also thought about Iran.59
Clarke has written that on the evening of September 12, President Bush told
him and some of his staff to explore possible Iraqi links to 9/11.
"See if Saddam did this," Clarke recalls the President telling them.
"See if he's linked in any way."60 While he believed the
details of Clarke's account to be incorrect, President Bush acknowledged that he
might well have spoken to Clarke at some point, asking him about Iraq.61
Responding to a presidential tasking, Clarke's office sent a memo to Rice on
September 18, titled "Survey of Intelligence Information on Any Iraq
Involvement in the September 11 Attacks." Rice's chief staffer on
Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, concurred in its conclusion that only some
anecdotal evidence linked Iraq to al Qaeda. The memo found no "compelling
case" that Iraq had either planned or perpetrated the attacks. It passed
along a few foreign intelligence reports, including the Czech report alleging an
April 2001 Prague meeting between Atta and an Iraqi intelligence officer
(discussed in chapter 7) and a Polish report that personnel at the headquarters
of Iraqi intelligence in Baghdad were told before September 11 to go on the
streets to gauge crowd reaction to an unspecified event. Arguing that the case
for links between Iraq and al Qaeda was weak, the memo pointed out that Bin
Ladin resented the secularism of Saddam Hussein's regime. Finally, the memo
said, there was no confirmed reporting on Saddam cooperating with Bin Ladin on
unconventional weapons.62
On the afternoon of 9/11, according to contemporaneous notes, Secretary
Rumsfeld instructed General Myers to obtain quickly as much
information as possible. The notes indicate that he also told Myers that he was
not simply interested in striking empty training sites. He thought the U.S.
response should consider a wide range of options and possibilities. The
secretary said his instinct was to hit Saddam Hussein at the same
time-not only Bin Ladin. Secretary Rumsfeld later explained that at the
time, he had been considering either one of them, or perhaps someone else, as
the responsible party.63
According to Rice, the issue of what, if anything, to do about Iraq was
really engaged at Camp David. Briefing papers on Iraq, along with many others,
were in briefing materials for the participants. Rice told us the administration
was concerned that Iraq would take advantage of the 9/11 attacks. She recalled
that in the first Camp David session chaired by the President, Rumsfeld
asked what the administration should do about Iraq. Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz
made the case for striking Iraq during "this round" of the war on
terrorism.64
A Defense Department paper for the Camp David briefing book on the strategic
concept for the war on terrorism specified three priority targets for initial
action: al Qaeda, the Taliban, and Iraq. It argued that of the three, al Qaeda
and Iraq posed a strategic threat to the United States. Iraq's long-standing
involvement in terrorism was cited, along with its interest in weapons of mass
destruction.65
Secretary Powell recalled that Wolfowitz-not Rumsfeld-argued that Iraq was
ultimately the source of the terrorist problem and should therefore be attacked.66
Powell said that Wolfowitz was not able to justify his belief that Iraq was
behind 9/11. "Paul was always of the view that Iraq was a problem that had
to be dealt with," Powell told us. "And he saw this as one way of
using this event as a way to deal with the Iraq problem." Powell said that
President Bush did not give Wolfowitz's argument "much weight."67
Though continuing to worry about Iraq in the following week, Powell said,
President Bush saw Afghanistan as the priority.68
President Bush told Bob Woodward that the decision not to invade Iraq
was made at the morning session on September 15. Iraq was not even on the table
during the September 15 afternoon session, which dealt solely with Afghanistan.69
Rice said that when President Bush called her on Sunday, September 16, he said
the focus would be on Afghanistan, although he still wanted plans for Iraq
should the country take some action or the administration eventually determine
that it had been involved in the 9/11 attacks.70
At the September 17 NSC meeting, there was some further discussion of
"phase two" of the war on terrorism.71 President Bush ordered the
Defense Department to be ready to deal with Iraq if Baghdad acted against U.S.
interests, with plans to include possibly occupying Iraqi oil fields.72
Within the Pentagon, Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz continued to press the
case for dealing with Iraq. Writing to Rumsfeld on September 17 in a memo
headlined "Preventing More Events," he argued that if there was even a
10 percent chance that Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 attack, maximum
priority should be placed on eliminating that threat. Wolfowitz contended that
the odds were "far more" than 1 in 10, citing Saddam's praise for the
attack, his long record of involvement in terrorism, and theories that Ramzi
Yousef was an Iraqi agent and Iraq was behind the 1993 attack on the World Trade
Center.73 The next day, Wolfowitz renewed the argument, writing to
Rumsfeld about the interest of Yousef's co-conspirator in the 1995 Manila air
plot in crashing an explosives-laden plane into CIA headquarters, and about
information from a foreign government regarding Iraqis' involvement in the
attempted hijacking of a Gulf Air flight. Given this background, he wondered why
so little thought had been devoted to the danger of suicide pilots, seeing a
"failure of imagination" and a mind-set that dismissed possibilities.74
On September 19, Rumsfeld offered several thoughts for his commanders as they
worked on their contingency plans. Though he emphasized the worldwide nature of
the conflict, the references to specific enemies or regions named only the Taliban,
al Qaeda, and Afghanistan.75 Shelton told us the
administration reviewed all the Pentagon's war plans and challenged certain
assumptions underlying them, as any prudent organization or leader should do.76
General Tommy Franks, the commanding general of Central Command,
recalled receiving Rumsfeld's guidance that each regional commander should
assess what these plans meant for his area of responsibility. He knew he would
soon be striking the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan. But, he told us, he
now wondered how that action was connected to what might need to be done in
Somalia, Yemen, or Iraq.77
On September 20, President Bush met with British Prime Minister Tony Blair,
and the two leaders discussed the global conflict ahead. When Blair asked about
Iraq, the President replied that Iraq was not the immediate problem. Some
members of his administration, he commented, had expressed a different view, but
he was the one responsible for making the decisions.78
Franks told us that he was pushing independently to do more robust planning
on military responses in Iraq during the summer before 9/11-a request President
Bush denied, arguing that the time was not right. (CENTCOM also began dusting
off plans for a full invasion of Iraq during this period, Franks said.) The
CENTCOM commander told us he renewed his appeal for further military planning to
respond to Iraqi moves shortly after 9/11, both because he personally felt that
Iraq and al Qaeda might be engaged in some form of collusion and because he
worried that Saddam might take advantage of the attacks to move against his
internal enemies in the northern or southern parts of Iraq, where the United
States was flying regular missions to enforce Iraqi no-fly zones. Franks said
that President Bush again turned down the request.79
. . .
Having issued directives to guide his administration's preparations for war,
on Thursday, September 20, President Bush addressed the nation before a joint
session of Congress. "Tonight," he said, "we are a country
awakened to danger."80 The President blamed al Qaeda for 9/11
and the 1998 embassy bombings and, for the first time, declared that al
Qaeda was "responsible for bombing the USS Cole."81
He reiterated the ultimatum that had already been conveyed privately. "The
Taliban must act, and act immediately," he said. "They will hand over
the terrorists, or they will share in their fate."82 The President added
that America's quarrel was not with Islam: "The enemy of America is not our
many Muslim friends; it is not our many Arab friends. Our enemy is a radical
network of terrorists, and every government that supports them." Other
regimes faced hard choices, he pointed out: "Every nation, in every region,
now has a decision to make: Either you are with us, or you are with the
terrorists."83
