The CIA memo noted that there was "no single 'silver bullet' available
to deal with the growing problems in Afghanistan." A multifaceted strategy
would be needed to produce change.153
No action was taken on these ideas in the few remaining weeks of the Clinton
administration. Berger did not recall seeing or being briefed on the Blue Sky
memo. Nor was the memo discussed during the transition with incoming top Bush
administration officials. Tenet and his deputy told us they pressed these ideas
as options after the new team took office.154
As the Clinton administration drew to a close, Clarke and his staff developed
a policy paper of their own, the first such comprehensive effort since the
Delenda plan of 1998.The resulting paper, entitled "Strategy for
Eliminating the Threat from the Jihadist Networks of al Qida: Status and
Prospects," reviewed the threat and the record to date, incorporated the
CIA's new ideas from the Blue Sky memo, and posed several near-term policy
options.
Clarke and his staff proposed a goal to "roll back" al Qaeda over a
period of three to five years. Over time, the policy should try to weaken and
eliminate the network's infrastructure in order to reduce it to a "rump
group" like other formerly feared but now largely defunct terrorist
organizations of the 1980s. "Continued anti-al Qida operations at the
current level will prevent some attacks," Clarke's office wrote, "but
will not seriously attrit their ability to plan and conduct attacks." The
paper backed covert aid to the Northern Alliance, covert aid to Uzbekistan, and
renewed Predator flights in March 2001. A sentence called for military action to
destroy al Qaeda command-and-control targets and infrastructure and Taliban
military and command assets. The paper also expressed concern about the presence
of al Qaeda operatives in the United States.155
