Eleanore
Moderator Posts: 112
From: Okinawa, Japan
Registered: Apr 2009
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posted January 26, 2005 12:07 AM
  
"10.3 “PHASE TWO”AND THE QUESTION OF IRAQ
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
334 THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT
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 pri-
WARTIME 335
ority 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
336 THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT
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
President Bush argued that the new war went beyond Bin Ladin.“Our war
on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there,” he said.“It will not
end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped, and
defeated.”The President had a message for the Pentagon: “The hour is coming
when America will act, and you will make us proud.” He also had a message
for those outside the United States. “This is civilization’s fight,” he said.
“We ask every nation to join us.”84
President Bush approved military plans to attack Afghanistan in meetings
with Central Command’s General Franks and other advisers on September 21
and October 2. Originally titled “Infinite Justice,” the operation’s code word
was changed—to avoid the sensibilities of Muslims who associate the power of
infinite justice with God alone—to the operational name still used for operations
in Afghanistan:“Enduring Freedom.”85
The plan had four phases.
• In Phase One, the United States and its allies would move forces into
the region and arrange to operate from or over neighboring countries
such as Uzbekistan and Pakistan.This occurred in the weeks following
9/11, aided by overwhelming international sympathy for the
United States.
• In Phase Two, air strikes and Special Operations attacks would hit key
al Qaeda and Taliban targets. In an innovative joint effort, CIA and
Special Operations forces would be deployed to work together with
each major Afghan faction opposed to the Taliban. The Phase Two
strikes and raids began on October 7.The basing arrangements contemplated
for Phase One were substantially secured—after arduous
effort—by the end of that month.
• In Phase Three, the United States would carry out “decisive operations”
using all elements of national power, including ground troops, to topple
the Taliban regime and eliminate al Qaeda’s sanctuary in
Afghanistan. Mazar-e-Sharif, in northern Afghanistan, fell to a coalition
assault by Afghan and U.S. forces on November 9.Four days later
the Taliban had fled from Kabul. By early December, all major cities
WARTIME 337
had fallen to the coalition. On December 22, Hamid Karzai, a Pashtun
leader from Kandahar, was installed as the chairman of
Afghanistan’s interim administration. Afghanistan had been liberated
from the rule of the Taliban.
In December 2001, Afghan forces, with limited U.S. support, engaged al
Qaeda elements in a cave complex called Tora Bora. In March 2002, the largest
engagement of the war was fought, in the mountainous Shah-i-Kot area south
of Gardez, against a large force of al Qaeda jihadists.The three-week battle was
substantially successful, and almost all remaining al Qaeda forces took refuge
in Pakistan’s equally mountainous and lightly governed frontier provinces. As
of July 2004, Bin Ladin and Zawahiri are still believed to be at large.
• In Phase Four, civilian and military operations turned to the indefinite
task of what the armed forces call “security and stability operations.”
Within about two months of the start of combat operations, several hundred
CIA operatives and Special Forces soldiers, backed by the striking power
of U.S. aircraft and a much larger infrastructure of intelligence and support
efforts, had combined with Afghan militias and a small number of other coalition
soldiers to destroy the Taliban regime and disrupt al Qaeda.They had killed
or captured about a quarter of the enemy’s known leaders. Mohammed Atef,
al Qaeda’s military commander and a principal figure in the 9/11 plot,had been
killed by a U.S. air strike.According to a senior CIA officer who helped devise
the overall strategy, the CIA provided intelligence, experience, cash, covert
action capabilities, and entrée to tribal allies. In turn, the U.S. military offered
combat expertise, firepower, logistics, and communications.86With these initial
victories won by the middle of 2002, the global conflict against Islamist terrorism
became a different kind of struggle.
338 THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT"------------------
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posted January 25, 2005 11:39 PM