Schroen and "Mike" were impressed by the tribals' reaction. Schroen
cabled that the tribals were not in it for the money but as an investment in the
future of Afghanistan. "Mike" agreed that the tribals' reluctance to
kill was not a "showstopper." "From our view," he wrote,
"that seems in character and fair enough."127
Policymakers in the Clinton administration, including the President and his
national security advisor, told us that the President's intent regarding covert
action against Bin Ladin was clear: he wanted him dead. This intent was never
well communicated or understood within the CIA. Tenet told the Commission that
except in one specific case (discussed later), the CIA was authorized to kill
Bin Ladin only in the context of a capture operation. CIA senior managers,
operators, and lawyers confirmed this understanding. "We always talked
about how much easier it would have been to kill him," a former chief of
the Bin Ladin unit said.128
In February 1999, another draft Memorandum of Notification went to President
Clinton. It asked him to allow the CIA to give exactly the same guidance to the
Northern Alliance as had just been given to the tribals: they could kill Bin
Ladin if a successful capture operation was not feasible. On this occasion,
however, President Clinton crossed out key language he had approved in December
and inserted more ambiguous language. No one we interviewed could shed light on
why the President did this. President Clinton told the Commission that he had no
recollection of why he rewrote the language.129
Later in 1999, when legal authority was needed for enlisting still other
collaborators and for covering a wider set of contingencies, the lawyers
returned to the language used in August 1998, which authorized force only in the
context of a capture operation. Given the closely held character of the document
approved in December 1998, and the subsequent return to the earlier language, it
is possible to understand how the former White House officials and the CIA
officials might disagree as to whether the CIA was ever authorized by the
President to kill Bin Ladin.130
The dispute turned out to be somewhat academic, as the limits of available
legal authority were not tested. Clarke commented to Berger that "despite
'expanded' authority for CIA's sources to engage in direct action, they have
shown no inclination to do so." He added that it was his impression that
the CIA thought the tribals unlikely to act against Bin Ladin and hence relying
on them was "unrealistic."131 Events seemed to bear him
out, since the tribals did not stage an attack on Bin Ladin or his associates
during 1999.
The tribals remained active collectors of intelligence, however, providing
good but not predictive information about Bin Ladin's whereabouts. The CIA also
tried to improve its intelligence reporting on Bin Ladin by what Tenet's
assistant director for collection, the indefatigable Charles Allen, called an
"all-out, all-agency, seven-days-a-week" effort.132 The
effort might have had an effect. On January 12, 1999, Clarke wrote Berger that
the CIA's confidence in the tribals' reporting had increased. It was now higher
than it had been on December 20.133
In February 1999, Allen proposed flying a U-2 mission over Afghanistan to
build a baseline of intelligence outside the areas where the tribals had
coverage. Clarke was nervous about such a mission because he continued to fear
that Bin Ladin might leave for someplace less accessible. He wrote Deputy
National Security Advisor Donald Kerrick that one reliable source reported Bin
Ladin's having met with Iraqi officials, who "may have offered him
asylum." Other intelligence sources said that some Taliban leaders, though
not Mullah Omar, had urged Bin Ladin to go to Iraq. If Bin Ladin actually moved
to Iraq, wrote Clarke, his network would be at Saddam Hussein's service, and it
would be "virtually impossible" to find him. Better to get Bin Ladin
in Afghanistan, Clarke declared.134 Berger suggested sending one U-2
flight, but Clarke opposed even this. It would require Pakistani approval, he
wrote; and "Pak[istan's] intel[ligence service] is in bed with" Bin
Ladin and would warn him that the United States was getting ready for a bombing
campaign: "Armed with that knowledge, old wily Usama will likely boogie to
Baghdad."135 Though told also by Bruce Riedel of the NSC staff
that Saddam Hussein wanted Bin Ladin in Baghdad, Berger conditionally authorized
a single U-2 flight. Allen meanwhile had found other ways of getting the
information he wanted. So the U-2 flight never occurred.136
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