Considering a Response
The Cole attack prompted renewed consideration of what could be done
about al Qaeda. According to Clarke, Berger upbraided DCI Tenet so sharply after
the Cole attack-repeatedly demanding to know why the United States had
to put up with such attacks-that Tenet walked out of a meeting of the
principals.134
The CIA got some additional covert action authorities, adding several other
individuals to the coverage of the July 1999 Memorandum of Notification that
allowed the United States to develop capture operations against al Qaeda leaders
in a variety of places and circumstances. Tenet developed additional options,
such as strengthening relationships with the Northern Alliance and the Uzbeks
and slowing recent al Qaeda-related activities in Lebanon.135
On the diplomatic track, Berger agreed on October 30, 2000, to let the State
Department make another approach to Taliban Deputy Foreign Minister Abdul Jalil
about expelling Bin Ladin. The national security advisor ordered that the U.S.
message "be stern and foreboding." This warning was similar to those
issued in 1998 and 1999. Meanwhile, the administration was working with Russia
on new UN sanctions against Mullah Omar's regime.136
President Clinton told us that before he could launch further attacks on al
Qaeda in Afghanistan, or deliver an ultimatum to the Taliban threatening strikes
if they did not immediately expel Bin Ladin, the CIA or the FBI had to be sure
enough that they would "be willing to stand up in public and say, we
believe that he [Bin Ladin] did this." He said he was very frustrated that
he could not get a definitive enough answer to do something about the Cole
attack.137 Similarly, Berger recalled that to go to war, a president
needs to be able to say that his senior intelligence and law enforcement
officers have concluded who is responsible. He recalled that the intelligence
agencies had strong suspicions, but had reached "no conclusion by the time
we left office that it was al Qaeda."138
Our only sources for what intelligence officials thought at the time are what
they said in informal briefings. Soon after the Cole attack and for the
remainder of the Clinton administration, analysts stopped distributing written
reports about who was responsible. The topic was obviously sensitive, and both
Ambassador Bodine in Yemen and CIA analysts in Washington presumed that the
government did not want reports circulating around the agencies that might
become public, impeding law enforcement actions or backing the President into a
corner.139
Instead the White House and other principals relied on informal updates as
more evidence came in. Though Clarke worried that the CIA might be equivocating
in assigning responsibility to al Qaeda, he wrote Berger on November 7 that the
analysts had described their case by saying that "it has web feet, flies,
and quacks." On November 10, CIA analysts briefed the Small Group of
principals on their preliminary findings that the attack was carried out by a
cell of Yemeni residents with some ties to the transnational mujahideen network.
According to the briefing, these residents likely had some support from al Qaeda.
But the information on outside sponsorship, support, and direction of the
operation was inconclusive. The next day, Berger and Clarke told President
Clinton that while the investigation was continuing, it was becoming
increasingly clear that al Qaeda had planned and directed the bombing.140
In mid-November, as the evidence of al Qaeda involvement mounted, Berger
asked General Shelton to reevaluate military plans to act quickly against Bin
Ladin. General Shelton tasked General Tommy Franks, the new commander of
CENTCOM,
to look again at the options. Shelton wanted to demonstrate that the military
was imaginative and knowledgeable enough to move on an array of options, and to
show the complexity of the operations. He briefed Berger on the "Infinite
Resolve" strike options developed since 1998, which the Joint Staff and
CENTCOM had refined during the summer into a list of 13 possibilities or
combinations. CENTCOM added a new "phased campaign" concept for
wider-ranging strikes, including attacks against the Taliban. For the first
time, these strikes envisioned an air campaign against Afghanistan of indefinite
duration. Military planners did not include contingency planning for an invasion
of Afghanistan. The concept was briefed to Deputy National Security Advisor
Donald Kerrick on December 20, and to other officials.141
On November 25, Berger and Clarke wrote President Clinton that although the
FBI and CIA investigations had not reached a formal conclusion, they believed
the investigations would soon conclude that the attack had been carried out by a
large cell whose senior members belonged to al Qaeda. Most of those involved had
trained in Bin Ladin-operated camps in Afghanistan, Berger continued. So far,
Bin Ladin had not been tied personally to the attack and nobody had heard him
directly order it, but two intelligence reports suggested that he was involved.
When discussing possible responses, though, Berger referred to the premise-al
Qaeda responsibility- as an "unproven assumption."142
In the same November 25 memo, Berger informed President Clinton about a
closely held idea: a last-chance ultimatum for the Taliban. Clarke was
developing the idea with specific demands: immediate extradition of Bin Ladin
and his lieutenants to a legitimate government for trial, observable closure of
all terrorist facilities in Afghanistan, and expulsion of all terrorists from
Afghanistan within 90 days. Noncompliance would mean U.S. "force directed
at the Taliban itself" and U.S. efforts to ensure that the Taliban would
never defeat the Northern Alliance. No such ultimatum was issued.143
Nearly a month later, on December 21, the CIA made another presentation to
the Small Group of principals on the investigative team's findings. The CIA's
briefing slides said that their "preliminary judgment" was that Bin
Ladin's al Qaeda group "supported the attack" on the Cole,
based on strong circumstantial evidence tying key perpetrators of the attack to
al Qaeda. The CIA listed the key suspects, including Nashiri. In addition, the
CIA detailed the timeline of the operation, from the mid-1999 preparations, to
the failed attack on the USS The Sullivans on January 3, 2000, through
a meeting held by the operatives the day before the attack.144
