t5 b70 dick clarke- bin laden flights fdr- entire contents- 2 withdrawal notices- draft excerpt-...

8/14/2019 T5 B70 Dick Clarke- Bin Laden Flights Fdr- Entire Contents- 2 Withdrawal Notices- Draft Excerpt- Transcript and Pre

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WITHDRAWAL NOTICE

RG: 148 Exposition, Anniversary, and Mem orial Com missionsSERIES: 9/11 Commission Team 5, FRC B ox 31

NND PROJECT NUM BER: 51095 FOIA CASE NUM BER: 30383WITHDRAWAL DATE: 11/19/2008

BOX: 00009 FOLDER : 0043 TAB: 1 DOC ID: 31206407COPIES: 1 PAGES: 10

The item identified below has been withdrawn from this file:FOLDER TITL E: Dick Clarke, bin Laden flightsDOCUMENT DATE: 06/18/2004 DOCU MEN T TYPE: FaxFROM: CampagnaTO: EldridgeSUBJECT: Portion of Clarke's interview, pages 8-15

This document has been withdrawn for the following reason(s):9/11 Classified Information

WITHDRAWAL NOTICE


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JUL.13.2004 3:01PM N O . 5 4 1 P .I

Thomas H. KeaaCHAW

Lee H.HamiltonVICE CHAIR

Richard Ben-VecistcM ax defendFttd F.FieldingJamie S. OoielickSkde GortonJohn T x * h i n f t f lTimothy J. Koeme*James R. ThompsonPhilip D. ZelikowEXHCOTIVB OIS.ECTOR

To:

FA X COVER SHEET

35*8-/

Number of pages (including cover sheet):

T E L (202) 331-4060P A X (202) 296-5545


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.. 13. 2004=^ 3 = 01PM -- ~ NO.541 P. 2

SUBJECT TO CLASSIFICATION REVIEWEvaluating legislative proposals to bail out the airline ind ustry and cap Its liability.

The very process of reviewing these issues underscored the absence of an effective governmentorganization dedicated to assessing vulnerabilities and handling problems of protection andpreparedness. Though a number of agencies had some part of the task, none had security as itsprimary mission.By September 14 , Vice President Cheney had decided to recommend, at least as a first step, anew W hite House entity to coordinate all the relevant agencies rather than tackle the challenge ofcombining them in a new department This ne w W hite House entity would be a homelandsecurity advisor and Homeland Security Council paralleling the National Security Councilsystem. Vice President C heney reviewed the proposal with President Bush and other advisers.President Bush announced the new post and its first occupant Pennsylvania governor To mRidge n his address to a jobt session of Congress on September 20.17Beginning on September 1 1, Immigration and Naturalization Service agents working incooperation with the FBI began arresting individuals for immigration violations whom theyencountered w hile following up leads in the FBI's investigation of the 9/1 1 attacks. Eventually,768 aliens were arrested as "special interest" d etainees, Som e (such as Zacarias Moussaoui) wereactually in INS custody before 9/11; most were arrested after. Attorney General John A shcrofttold us that he saw his job in directing this effort as "risk minimization," both to find out whohad committed the attacks and to prevent a subsequent attack. Ashcroft ordered all specialinterest immigration hearings closed to the public, family mem bers, and press, directed*government attorneys to seek denial of bond u ntil such tim e as they were "cleared" of terroristconnections by the FBI and other agencies, and ordered the identity of the detainees kept secret.INS attorneys charged with prosecuting the immigration violations had trouble ge ttinginformation about the detainees and any terrorist connections; in the chaos after the attacks, itwas very difficult to reach busy law enforcement officials. Th e clearance process approved bythe Justice D epartment was time-consuming, lasting an average of about 80 days.We have assessed this effort to detain aliens of "special interest." Th e detainees were lawfullyheld on imm igration charges. R ecords indicate that 53 1 were deported, 162 we re released onbond, 24 received some kind of imm igration benefits, 12 had their proceedings terminated, andJOft of whom e M! * !JJr" J g?J!!J * * > t v > l g r"B*^-PJffifJLljf Marshals Service. _____The Inspector GenejgLglihgjusricepepartment found serious abuse of the rights of some of the9/11 detainees.JxWThave no t beenablrto ascertain, despite questionrtglhg-Justiee-IJepartmenfrpfecisely ho w many of the 9/1 1 detainees the FBI believed had connections toterrorism. The A ttorney General testified m at these tactics led to the arrest and detention of Ali alM a m , an alleged al Qaeda facilitator who arrived in the United States on September 10, 2001 ;the list does not contain al Ma rri's name.20 A senior al Qaeda d etainee has stated that U.S.government efforts after the 9/1 1 attacks to m onitor the Am erican homeland, including review ofMuslims5 immigration files and deportation of nonpermanent residents, forced al Qaeda tooperate less freely. 2I

i

The go vernmen t's ability to collect intelligence inside the United States, and the sharing of suchinformation between the intelligence and law enforcement com munities, was not a priority

SUBJECT TO CLASSIFICATION RE VIEW 3Chapter 10. Version 071004


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--ISO. 541 P.4

SUBJECT TO CLASSIFICATION REVIEW

The FBI concluded that there was no one on any of these flights whom the FBI w anted tointerview in connection w ith 9/11, or whom the FBI later concluded was connected to theattacks. Our ow n independent review of the Saudi nationals involved confirms that no one withknown links to terrorism departed on these flights.32END TEXT BOX10.2 Planning for WarBy late in the eve ning of S eptem ber 11, the President had addressed the nation on the terribleevents of the day. Vice President Cheney described the President's mood as somber. The longday was not yet over.33 When the larger meeting that included his domestic department headsbroke up, President Bush chaired a smaller meeting of top advisers, a group he w ould later callhis "war council."34 This group usu ally included V ice President Cheney, Secretary of StatePowell, Secretary of Defense Donald Rum sfeld, General Hugh S helton, Vice Chairman of theJoin Chiefs (later to become C hairman) G eneral Myers, D C I Tenet, Attorney General Ashcroft,and FBI Director Robert Mueller. From the W hite House s t a f f , National Security AdvisorCondoleezza Rice and Chief of Staff Card were p art of the core g roup, o f t e n joined by theirdeputies, Stephen Hadley and Joshua Bolten.In this restricted NSC meeting, the President said it was a time for self-defense. The U nitedStates w ould punish not just the perpetrators of the attacks, b ut also those wh o harbored mem.Secretary P owell said the U nited States had to make it clear to Pakistan, Afghanistan, and theArab states that the time to act was now. H e said w e would need to build a coalition. ThePresident noted that the attacks provided a great op portunity to engage Russia and China.Secretary Rumsfeld urged the President and die principals to think broadly about wh o mighthave harbored the attackers, including Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Sudan, and Iran. H e w onderedaloud how much evidence the United States would need in order to deal with these countries,pointing out that major strikes could take up to 60 days to assemble.35President Bush chaired tw o m ore meetings of the N ational Security Council on September 12. Inthe first meeting, he stressed that th e United States was at war with a new and different kind ofenemy. T he President tasked principals to go beyond their pre-9/11 work an d develop a strategyto eliminate terrorists and punish those wh o Support them. As they w orked on defining the goalsand objectives of the upcoming campaign, they considered a paper that went beyond al Qaeda topropose th e "elimination of terrorism as a throat to our way of life," an aim that w ould includepursuing oth er international terrorist organizations in the Middle East ,3 '3 ?Rice chaired a Principals Com mittee m eeting on September 13 in the Situation Room to refineho w the fight against al Qaeda w ould be conducted. The principals agreed mat the overallmessage should be that anyone sup porting al Qaeda w ould be at risk of harm . Th e United Stateswould need to integrate diplomacy, financial measures, intelligence, and military actions into anoverarching strategy. Th e p rincipals also focused on Pakistan and wh at it could do to turn dieTaliban against al Qaeda. They concluded that if Pakistan decided not to help the United States,it too would be at risk.38

SUBJECT TO CLASSIFICATION REVIEWChapter 10, Version 071004


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1 of 10 DOCUMENTSCopyright 2003 FDCH e-Media, Inc.

(f/k/a Federal Document Clearing House, Inc.)FDCH Political Transcripts

September 3, 2003 Wednesday

TYPE: COMMITTEE HEARINGLENGTH: 17998 wordsCOMMITTEE: SUBCOMMITTEE ON TERRORISM, TECHNOLOGY AND HOMELAND SECURITYSUBCOMMITTEE: SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEEHEADLINE: U.S. SENATOR JON KYL (R-AZ) HOLDS HEARING ON TERRORISM FIRST RESPONDERSSPEAKER:U.S. SENATOR JON KYL (R-AZ), CHAIRMANLOCATION: WASHINGTON, D.C.WITNESSES:U.S. REPRESENTATIVE CHRIS COX (R-CA)U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JIM TURNER (D-TX)WARREN RUDMAN, CHAIR, INDEPENDENT TASK FORCE ON EMERGENCY RESPONDERSRICHARD CLARKE, SENIOR ADVISER, INDEPENDENT TASK FORCE ON EMERGENCY RESPONDERSPAUL POSNER, MANAGING DIRECTOR OF STRATEGIC ISSUES, U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICEBODY:(CORRECTED COPY: CORRECTS FEINGOLD SPEAKER IDENTIFICATION)U.S. SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: SUBCOMMITTEE ON TECHNOLOGY,TERRORISM AND GOVERNMENT INFORMATION HOLDS A HEARING ONTERRORISM FIRST RESPONDERSSEPTEMBER 3, 2003SPEAKERS:U.S. SENATOR JON KYL (R-AZ)CHAIRMANU.S. SENATOR ORRTN G. HATCH (R-UT)U.S. SENATOR ARLEN SPECTER (R-PA)U.S. SENATOR MIKE DEWINE (R-OH)U.S. SENATOR JEFF SESSIONS (R-AL)U.S. SENATOR SAXBY CHAMBLISS (R-GA)U.S. SENATOR DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D-CA)RANKING MEMBER


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. Clarke claims responsibilityALEXANDER BOLTONThe HillRichard Clarke, who served as President Bush's chief of counterterrorism, has claimed soleresponsibility for appro ving flights of Saudi Arabian citizens, including members of Osama binLaden's family, from the United S tates immediately after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.In an interview with The Hill yesterday, Clarke said, "I take responsibility for it. I don't think it wasa m istake, and I'd do it again."Most of the 26 passengers aboard one flight, which departed from the United States on Sept. 20,2001, were relatives of Osama bin Laden, whom intelligence officials blamed for the attacksalmost immediately after they happened.Clarke's claim of responsibility is likely to put an end to a brewing political controvers y on Ca pitolHill over who approved the controversial flights of members of the Saudi elite at a time w hen theadministration wa s preparing to detain dozens of Muslim-Americans and people with Muslimbackgrounds as material witnesse s to the attacks.Several Democrats say that at a closed-door meeting May 6, they pressed members of thecommission investigating the attacks of Sept. 11 to find out who approved the flights.Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who attended the meeting, said she asked former Rep. LeeHamilton (D-lnd.) and former Secretary of the Navy John Lehman, a Republican, "Whoauthorized the flight[s] and w hy?""They said it's been a part of their inquiry and they haven't received satisfactory answers yet andthey were pushing," Boxer added.Another Democrat who attended the meeting confirmed Boxer's account and reported thatHamilton said: "We don't know who authorized it. We've asked that question 50 times."Referring to questions about who authorized the flights, former Rep. Tim Roemer (D-lnd.), one ofthe 10 members of the bipartisan Sept. 11 commission, said in an interview Monday: "In my mind,this isn't resolved right now. We need more clarity and information from the relevant politicalsources and FBI sources."But Clarke yesterday appeared to put an end to the mystery."It didn't get any higher than me," he said. "On 9-11, 9-12 and 9-13, many things didn't get anyhigher than me. I decided it in consultation with the FBI."Clarke's explanation fit with a new stance Hamilton has taken on the issue of the Saudi flights.Hamilton said in an interview Friday that when he told Democratic senators that the commissiondid not know who authorized the Saudi flights, he was not fully informed."They asked the question 'Who authorized the flight?' and I said I did not know and I'd try to findout," Hamilton said. "I learned subsequen tly from talking to the staff that we thought Clarkeauthorized the flight and it did not go higher.""I did not at any point say the Wh ite House was stalling," H amilton added. "They asked me whoauthorized it, and I said we didn't know."


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WITHDRAWAL NOTICERG: 148 Exp osition, Ann iversary, and Mem orial Comm issionsSERIES: 9111 Commission Team 5, FRC Box 31

NND PROJECT NUM BER: 51095 FOIA CASE NUM BER: 30383WITHDRAWAL DATE: 11/19/2008

BOX: 00009 FOLDER: 0043 TAB: 5 DOC ID: 31206411COPIES: 1 PAGES: 2

_ACCESS RESTRICTEDThe item identified below has been w ithdrawn from this file:

FOLDER TITLE: Dick Clarke, bin Laden flightsDOCUMENT DATE: DOCUM ENT TYPE: ReportFROM:TO :SUBJECT: "The Saudi Flight after 9/11"

This document has been w ithdrawn for the following reason(s):9/11 Classified Information

WITHDRAWAL NOTICE

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