Condi Rice Warned By George Tenet

When last we looked two years ago, Bob Woodward had George Tenet signaling "Touchdown" and telling the President that the case in favor of Saddam's WMDs was a "slam-dunk".

However, it may be that Tenet decided he needed to be more cooperative for the next book - in the new edition, Tenet is eerily prescient in the summer of 2001:

Two Months Before 9/11, an Urgent Warning to Rice

On July 10, 2001, two months before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, then-CIA Director George J. Tenet met with his counterterrorism chief, J. Cofer Black, at CIA headquarters to review the latest on Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda terrorist organization. Black laid out the case, consisting of communications intercepts and other top-secret intelligence showing the increasing likelihood that al-Qaeda would soon attack the United States. It was a mass of fragments and dots that nonetheless made a compelling case, so compelling to Tenet that he decided he and Black should go to the White House immediately.

Tenet called Condoleezza Rice, then national security adviser, from the car and said he needed to see her right away. There was no practical way she could refuse such a request from the CIA director.

For months, Tenet had been pressing Rice to set a clear counterterrorism policy, including specific presidential orders called "findings" that would give the CIA stronger authority to conduct covert action against bin Laden. Perhaps a dramatic appearance -- Black called it an "out of cycle" session, beyond Tenet's regular weekly meeting with Rice -- would get her attention.

...He did not know when, where or how, but Tenet felt there was too much noise in the intelligence systems. Two weeks earlier, he had told Richard A. Clarke, the National Security Council's counterterrorism director: "It's my sixth sense, but I feel it coming. This is going to be the big one."

...Tenet hoped his abrupt request for an immediate meeting would shake Rice. He and Black, a veteran covert operator, had two main points when they met with her. First, al-Qaeda was going to attack American interests, possibly in the United States itself. Black emphasized that this amounted to a strategic warning, meaning the problem was so serious that it required an overall plan and strategy. Second, this was a major foreign policy problem that needed to be addressed immediately. They needed to take action that moment -- covert, military, whatever -- to thwart bin Laden.

...

Tenet and Black felt they were not getting through to Rice. She was polite, but they felt the brush-off. President Bush had said he didn't want to swat at flies.

As they all knew, a coherent plan for covert action against bin Laden was in the pipeline, but it would take some time. In recent closed-door meetings the entire National Security Council apparatus had been considering action against bin Laden, including using a new secret weapon: the Predator unmanned aerial vehicle, or drone, that could fire Hellfire missiles to kill him or his lieutenants. It looked like a possible solution, but there was a raging debate between the CIA and the Pentagon about who would pay for it and who would have authority to shoot.

Besides, Rice seemed focused on other administration priorities, especially the ballistic missile defense system that Bush had campaigned on. She was in a different place.

Tenet left the meeting feeling frustrated.

And I am leaving this article (which continues) feeling frustrated.

Look, it may have been that Ms. Rice "was in a different place".  But in her place, a Principal's Meeting occurred on Sept 4 to hash out the grand strategy for tackling Al Qaeda - that meeting may have already been scheduled as of July 10 (given vacation patterns, I doubt their was an August Principal's Meeting).

So, either Tenet's request for a new strategic approach was redundant, or his request accelerated the eventual Principal's Meeting to the next available date.

Either way, there is a huge gap between what Tenet wants in the third paragraph - "specific presidential orders called "findings" that would give the CIA stronger authority to conduct covert action against bin Laden" - and what was discussed in the meeting, which was apparently the need for "an overall plan and strategy".

Ms. Rice might very reasonably have reminded Tenet that (a) the strategic plan was in the works, as they both knew: (b) that as DCI Tenet was free to submit a specific, urgent request for a "finding" supporting a covert deed; and (c) as the guy who briefed President Bush each morning, Tenet was free to make his case directly to the President.

Frankly, this July 10 meeting sounds like it was brilliant only in hindsight.

That said, I still think Ms. Rice is a plausible villain for the failings of the summer of 2001.  From her perspective, she had to know that Tenet, a Clinton holdover clinging to his old job, was not going to buck Ms. Rice, one of the President's must trusted aides.

Ms. Rice also put too much reliance on the notion that the FBI was handling the domestic front - in the summer of 2001 both FBI Director Louis Freeh and John O'Neill, head of Counter-Terror in NY, had resigned.  The FBI had seventy terror-related field investigations spread across fifty-five field offices and nobody was home.

My suggestions for bashing Ms. Rice were outlined in April 2004.

Comments

[Cecil Turner]

Either way, there is a huge gap between what Tenet wants [. . . and . . .] the need for "an overall plan and strategy".

No kidding. And why am I not surprised the much-touted Tenet/Clarke/Black proposal involved another missile-lobbing exercise?

[David Cohen]

There are two different things going on here that constantly get confused. The first is getting bin Laden. The second is stopping 9/11. By the summer of 01, Atta and gang are in place in the US and can only be stopped by heads-up domestic police work. Just killing bin Laden does nothing to stop 9/11. In fact, if we had killed bin Laden in July or August and 9/11 had gone off anyway, all we would be hearing from the left would be that 9/11 was revenge for killing OBL and thus Bush's fault.

[Semanticleo]

Rice is well schooled in the labrynths of bureaucracy. In any corporation, survivors have learned to pick up signals which reveal the popular mindset of upper management. The use of acronyms and the nuance of raised eyebrows are all tools of the purveyors of actual company policy (unwritten) no matter
how dissonant they sound in light of written
public policy.

Rice has no excuses. But don't let Bush off
the hook. She is the consummate politician
and knows how to curry favor with those who
control her career. She responded as she felt Bush would have responded.

[maryrose]

Coulda, shoulda, woulda.. I am no longer interested in affixing blame. The dems problem besides trying to cover their rear-ends is that they can't problem solve and come up with what needs to be done to win the WOT. I don't give a flying fig about OBL. He is either dead or marginalized in a cave somewhere. We need to talk about securing Baghdad and getting the country stabilized. Everything else is the blame game which has much in common with the Plame game. Nobody wins and many are falsely accused and the media decides the agenda.

[Jane]

What I am constantly struck by is the sheer unparalleled incompetance of the Washington bureaucracy, only surpassed by its mendacity.

Great panel on Fox News discussion the facts Clinton alleged in his meltdown last sunday including Lawrence Wright (The looming tower). Michael Sheuer, and Clinton Shill Daniel Benjamin.

[SunnyDay]

Rice has no excuses. But don't let Bush off
the hook. She is the consummate politician
and knows how to curry favor with those who
control her career. She responded as she felt Bush would have responded.

Ahhh they have us now. We must surrender. ;)

[Doug]

Two weeks earlier, he [Tenet] had told Richard A. Clarke, the National Security Council's counterterrorism director: "It's my sixth sense, but I feel it coming. This is going to be the big one."

From the 9/11 Commission report:

"In late August, the Moussaoui arrest was briefed to the DCI and other top CIA officials under the heading “Islamic Extremist Learns to Fly.” Because the system was not tuned to comprehend the potential significance of this information,the news had no effect on warning."

Tenet's sixth sense that was working so well in July must have taken a vacation in August. I will always feel that this one piece of information should have set off alarms at the CIA. It might not have prevented 9/11 but it should have triggered an investigation at flight schools in the US.

[Ric Locke]

...a Clinton holdover clinging to his old job, was not going to buck Ms. Rice...

Buuuwahahaha!

When Bush took office he left a number of Clinton appointees in place, partly out of inertia, partly because he didn't have people immediately available, partly out of a feeling that there was no reason to dispossess people who were doing a good job.

I challenge anyone to name one of those holdovers who was not at minimum obstructive, more normally engaged in active sabotage of Bush Administration goals, strategies, and tactics. It's one of the reasons people like me tend to sneer when Democrats start complaining that Bush doesn't "reach out" or "compromise".

Regards,
Ric

[lonetown]

Sure. Blame the black chick.

Seriously, all this hind sight induced testosterone is unbecoming a Medal of Freedom winner.

I smell a strong whiff of CYA cologne.

[topsecretk9]

Pakistan president: Bin Laden not dead

NEW YORK, Oct. 1 (UPI) -- Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden is hiding in the tiny, sparsely populated, heavily mountainous eastern Afghan province of Kunar, Pakistan's president says.
"It's not a hunch," President Pervez Musharraf told The Sunday Times of London.
Bin Laden is known to be hiding in the strongly tribal province, embedded in the Hindu Kush mountain range, Musharraf said.
He said bin Laden might be receiving help from Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the country's prime minister twice in the 1990s, who has been in hiding since siding with bin Laden shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks against the United States.
Musharraf spoke with the newspaper in New York after a contentious White House dinner meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, hosted by President Bush.

[Neo]

If Tenet had "intercepted messages among al-Qaeda operatives" on or before July 10, 2001, why is there no mention of an "imminent threat" on August 6, 2001 ?

Clearly either Tenet was holding back (hardly) or Woodward did grasp something, perhaps reality.

[Otto]

From lots of info out there it has been apparent for a long time that Rice was too lightweight for this job. It's odd that she gets a pass that is not extended to Cheney, Rumsfeld etc. so suggestions that Rice is being blamed because she is black suggests the writer opened his mouth before engaging his brain. She is going to find it hard to shake this one. Tenet and Black were not the only ones present, Clarke was there also and there were probably others. The white house is not denying the meeting took place but trying to muddy the water so there is probably at least some truth in their claims and if it ever gets to the stage that Tenet or Black give interviews as they probably will at some stage, her goose is probably cooked when this is added to ''Bin Laden determined to attack in the US'' only four weeks later. The Bush story was always going to unravel at some time as have the denials that this war was not long planned. There was just too much evidence out there. Now we have Waxman turning up emails from Abramoff of all people telling about conversations with Rove in March 2002! about the planned war a year before it started. The country has made up its mind about this matter really, and as more stuff comes out about the nine months before 9/11 they are going to make up their mind about how Bush handled it. Bang goes the legacy.

[Max]

Hi Tom. Ever feel like you were returning serves from six different people at one time?

yr friend,
maxspeak

[Tollhouse]

I will always feel that this one piece of information should have set off alarms at the CIA. It might not have prevented 9/11 but it should have triggered an investigation at flight schools in the US.

Ah, see here is where we get back to Gorelick and foreign intelligence in relation to the US justice system.

There could not have been such an investigation.

[Neo]

This morning on Fox with Chirs Wallace, Michael Scheuer said flatly that Berger, Clarke and Clinton were lying.

He said Clarke has specifically said the they [the CIA] were forbidden to kill bin Laden. The CIA had never gotten a finding that allow them to assassinate bin Laden.

And after all, if there had been a finding that allow the CIA to kill bin Laden, why would they have to wait for the FBI or CIA to certify to the President that the USS Cole, the last attack under Clinton, had been done by bin Laden. The only way this could have been true is if Clinton authorized it in Dec 2000.

The other interesting point was that there was an apparent understanding by the heads of the CIA and FBI that a certification really wasn't wanted by the White House.

He went on to say that there were no opportunities to get bin Laden during the 8 months prior to 9/11, Bush's watch.

The best part though was when Michael Scheuer said that virtually no members of his bin Laden Task Force were interviewed by the 9/11 Commission and that a large volume of documents that should have been reviewed by the 9/11 Commission were ignored by the Commission.

It seems whilest the Left side of the blogsphere is running about over a Tenet-Rice meeting missed by the 9/11 Commission, they was an even bigger oversight by the Commission.

[Dell]

Al is going to launch a major bio terror in the North America and it will probably be genetic; if they do not die their babies will be deformed.

"It's my sixth sense, but I feel it coming. This is going to be the big one."
They needed to take action that moment -- covert, military, whatever -- to thwart bin Laden.

Bio Shield is not working.

[PeterUK]

"In any corporation, survivors have learned to pick up signals which reveal the popular mindset of upper management. "

It may not have lodged in the labrynthine cavities of your mind Septic,but Ms Rice is Upper-Management

[Dozut]

Rice is also a WMD expert and got her degree in it, which everyone in CIA operations officers had to study too. She leaked the Universities that taught the courses so Bush hired the Presidents of those Universities. CIa leaked the program during the hunt for WMD during the war.

The FSB guy hwho figured all this out was assissinated in a 'contract' killing as a business man.

Rice is a flaw for the entire system; everybody had to put up with Rice. Plame was pretty mean.

[Dozut]

Rice is also a WMD expert and got her degree in it, which everyone in CIA operations officers had to study too. She leaked the Universities that taught the courses so Bush hired the Presidents of those Universities. CIa leaked the program during the hunt for WMD during the war.

The FSB guy who figured all this out was assissinated in a 'contract' killing as a business man.

Rice is a flaw for the entire system; everybody had to put up with Rice. Plame was pretty mean.

[Jane]

Gee, that didn't make any more sense the second time to me.

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

'From lots of info out there it has been apparent for a long time that Rice was too lightweight for this job.'

That's not what Richard Clarke thought about her:

---------quote--------
Will Dr. Rice 'crack the whip'?

JIM LEHRER: Now based on your knowledge of Dr. Rice, now that she has a stick, what can we expect?

RICHARD CLARKE: I think you can expect much more integration of Treasury, State Department, CIA, Justice Department, assets -- not just DOD going it alone. I think you can expect a lot closer oversight, detailed, everyday oversight, milestones, goal posts, people being relieved if things don't happen. Condi Rice is a very nice person, but she's also a very tough manager.

JIM LEHRER: You think we will ... she will be more public, more visible -- and obviously more of a target as a result?

DaalderIVO DAALDER: No, not necessarily. This is a job you in fact want to do behind closed doors. You want to be able to set those benchmarks out there and tell Don Rumsfeld and Colin Powell you have to meet these within the next three months or otherwise there is a price to pay. She doesn't have to go outside to make that work. But she was to be able to crack the whip as somebody said in the Washington Post and make sure when Don Rumsfeld is told he has to do this in three months he does it.

JIM LEHRER: She can crack the whip you think?

RICHARD CLARKE: I've seen her do it --

JIM LEHRER: You've seen her do it.

RICHARD CLARKE: -- and it's best done in private.

JIM LEHRER: I got you. Ivo Daalder, Richard Clark, thank you both very much.
---------endquote--------

[PeterUK]

"She leaked the Universities that taught the courses so Bush hired the Presidents of those Universities."

Hate to tell you this,but Universities advertise their courses,it is an odd system,but that,apparently,is how they get students.

[narciso]

Dozut, she was a Russian area expert, counseled by Dr. Korbel, Albright's father she wrote her dissertation on the Czech Army; as a Director with Chevron, while
at Stanford, she must have dealt with
Central Asian issues (Kazakhstan, this is
why Ali G. Borat act is not only not funny
but potentially dangerous, Azerbaijan, re
Armitage, Powell, Baker et al)As to the
nature for the July alert, some queries are in order; the Phoenix memo, can't be the source, since that never made it to wider
circulation; thanks to Marion 'Spike'
Bowman, The CTC didn't make Al Midhar and
Al Hazmi's presence known till the following
month; Moussaoui hadn't been caught yet, Al Quahtani, hadn't flown to Orlando yet, The
"Path to 9/11" implies that Massoud may have
been the major source, a point alluded to
in Lawrence Wright's tome, among other sources; Volz, the lone Company man in Hamburg, didn't know what he was dealing with; he and the BND thought Zammar, was the main prize. They did pass the name of an intercept to 'Marwan' from Yemen, but that wasn't distinctive, As has been pointed out before; the August PDB is actually much less specific than the
December 1998 one; later there would be
the "Big Wedding" warning from the Jordan.
Mukharabat, but that would also lie in the
future. So where did this information really come from? and why is is being brought up now.

[mark c.]

It would be an interesting study to determine the political efficacy of arguing every issue until common ground is lost. who wins? the incumbent or the challenger?

[topsecretk9]

Hey Narc and Duz...

what's the bottomline and what is the "movie"?

[Terrye]

Are these people, Tenet and Clarke and all the rest of them ever going to shut up? year after year...book after book.

I think everyone is to blame.

[section9]

More ass-covering from the gang that couldn't shoot straight at the CIA. I'm sorry, but Tenet had a face-to-face with GW any time he wanted.

Right, blame it on Condi.

Folks, this is Woodward trying to burnish his credentials with the Dhimmis because he wants to gain entree into a potential Hillary Administration in 2009. That's all this is about. Oh, that and this books publication was brought forward because the Dhimmis have been looking at their internals and haven't been happy. So, they brought forward this book by several weeks.

The Foley (R-Cornholio) thing was icing on the cake for them. However, there's a decent chance that Negron can hold the district for Red Team.

But please, stop with this crap about Rice that Woodward made up out of whole cloth. Rice's denials have been blanket enough to be convincing for me. Besides, I wouldn't trust CIA's word against a Republican President these days as far as I could throw it.

[Florence Schmieg]

section 9, absolutely right!! This book was mea culpa from Woodward to the dems in case they get back power. He must have access, that is his claim to fame. His first Bush book proclaimed Bush a hero. His second one was thought by those who did not read it to be bad for Bush but actually was good for him, showing him strong, resolved, etc. So this was his last chance to join the 15,000 other Bush bashing books and regain his friends, especially after he blew their fantasy of an indictment of Rove, Cheney, et al in the Plame affair by "outing" Dick Armitage. All of this is pointless actually. People's minds will not be changed by this book. We have been arguing these things for three years. If you haven't formed an opinion yet you are one of the people who cannot name the 3 branches of government but can name the 3 stooges. Doubt that they are midterm voters.

[Tom Maguire]

Hi Tom. Ever feel like you were returning serves from six different people at one time?

In three languages...

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