fo b1 commission meeting 5-21-03 fdr- tab 4- entire contents- workplan team 3- partially redacted...

8/14/2019 FO B1 Commission Meeting 5-21-03 Fdr- Tab 4- Entire Contents- Workplan Team 3- Partially Redacted Interview C

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NATIONAL COMMISSION ON TERRORIST ATTACK SUPON THE UNITED STATES

TEAM #3 WORKPLAN

INTERNATIONAL COUNTERTERRORISM POLICY

Team Members: Alexis AlbionScott AllanWarren BassDaniel BymanBonnie JenkinsCharles Hill

Project OverviewItem 1 Key QuestionsProposed Division of Labor

Summ ary of Joint Inquiry Staff Work on PolicyItem 2 Suggested Readings and BriefingsItem 3 Document RequestsItem 4 Interview Candidates

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FO R OFFICIAL USE ONLYCOMMISSION SENSITIVETeam #3Project Overview: International Counterterrorism Policy

The policy team seeks to understand and assess the development of U.S. counterterrorismpolicy before September 11,2001, the policy changes in the immediate aftermath of theattacks, and the nature of the policy today. These tasks will require reviewing overallpolicy priorities, identifying and evaluating the different instruments used to fightterrorism, and determining how well senior policy makers understood the threat from al-Qa 'ida. Another integral part of the policy team's effort is examining U.S. relationshipswith key foreign partners an d adversaries with regard to counterterrorism. Whenappropriate, the team will distinguish between U .S. counterterrorism policy in generaland U.S. efforts to fight al-Qa'ida in particular.The nature of terrorism during the Cold War shaped U.S. counterterrorism policy whenal-Qa'ida began to emerge. These earlier terrorists, in the words of RAND's BrianJenkins, wan ted "a lot of people watching and a lot of people listening and not a lot ofpeople dead." Their goals were usually tied to M arxist or ethno-nationalist agendas. Themost lethal terrorists during this era were those backed by states, not those operatingindependently. In general, terrorism during this earlier period was viewed as animportant but not overriding policy concern.As al-Qa'ida and affiliated Islamist groups emerged and grew in the 1990s, the focusslowly shifted. The 1993 attack on the World Trade Center marked a turning point. Forthe first time, Islamist radicals sou ght mass casualties on U .S. soil. In contrast to theterrorists of the 1970s and 1980s, who had balked at destroying entire buildings, the newradicals wanted a lot of people watching and a lot of people dead.Several government counterterrorism officials recognized the danger that al-Qa'idaposed, but U.S. policy changed unev enly at best. The 1998 bombings of the U .S.Embassies in K enya and Tanzania elevated the importance of terrorism in general and al-Qa'ida in particular, but policy still lagged behind the imm ensity of the threat. It took theSeptember 11 attacks to dramatically change U.S. counterterrorism policy. Even tod ay,counterterrorism policy is evolving, w ith important policy decisions being made almostdaily.Th e policy team expects to follow a normal investigative regimen of document requestsand review, briefings by key individuals both inside and outside government, andextensive interviews with those in a position to discuss the formulation an dimplem entation of U.S. governmen t policy in the counterterrorism arena. In addition, theteam will draw on the work of the Congressional September 11 Joint Inquiry asappropriate.



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Item 1: Key Questions

The policy team w ill seek to determine why the United States did not successfully stopal-Qa'ida before September 11 and assess the effectiveness of U.S. counterterrorismpolicy today. In the process, the team will tell the story of how counterterrorism policyevolved as the al-Qa'ida threat grew d uring both the Clinton and Bush adm inistrations,examining such key events as the 1993 World Trade Center attack, the 1998 Embassybomb ings, and the 2000 attack on the U.S.S. Cole.In particular, the team plans to answ er the following questions:

Strategy. What was U.S. counterterrorism policy, and how did it evolve,particularly after 1998? Were there gaps in the strategy, and if so, how did policymakers address them? What factors hindered policy makers? Instruments. What counterterrorism instrum ents did policy makers consider, use,or neglectand why? How effective were instruments such as diplomacy,criminal prosecutions, renditions, fundraising restraints, disruptions, military

operations, covert action, and public diplomacy? What were the limits of variousinstruments? How supportive were key countries such as Saudi Arabia andPakistan? Safe Havens. Did the United States properly confront terrorist sanctuaries, suchas Sudan and Afghan istan? W ere "permissive environments" in Europe and

elsewhere addressed? Immediate Aftermath. How did counterterrorism policy change in the aftermathof the September 11 attacks? Why were several hard -hitting steps only takenafter the attacks occurred? Current and Future Policy. Does the United States have the right policies to fight. al-Qa'ida and other terrorist groups today? Wh at additional changes should bemade, and who should make them?

Note: The policy team will work closely with other teams in its research. For exam ple, itwill support the terrorist-financing team when assessing efforts to disrupt radicals'fundraising and assist the intelligence team in determining whether policy makersreceived sufficient information on al-Qa'ida's unusual nature to properly structure U.S.counterterrorism efforts.

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Item 1 continued: Proposed Division of Labor

Person

Alexis A lbionScott AllanWarren BassBonnie JenkinsDaniel Byman

Charles Hill*Kevin Scheid or otherperson w ith budgetexperience

Agency**

CIAState, DoJWhite House/NSC, OM BDoD

*

Issue Lead (all teammembers will play a role inat least two issues)InstrumentsSafe HavensStrategyInstrumentsActing team leader; willwork with all teammembers on their specifictasks.Assist with counterterrorismbudget issues

*Senior advisor. It may be best to use him to review the research plan and work as itprogresses rather than assign a particular task. Bym an may be used in a similarmanner after a new team leader is chosen.**The agency designee is largely administrative. He or she w ill act as the prim aryinterlocutor for document and interview requests and liaise with other teams workingon that agency. All team members may interview at or work with documents fromkey agencies.

All team mem bers will work on the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks, theassessment of current policy, and recommendations for the future.All team members will work on at least one issue in addition to the one for which theyare responsible.



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Team #3Item 1 continued: Congressional Joint Inquiry Activity in the Policy Area

The Congressional 9-11 Inquiry's work on policy issues focused on the intelligence-policy nexus, rather than on the soundness of the overall counterterrorism policy. TheInquiry discussed intelligence priorities, the dissemination of information, and the qualityof analysis with policy makers in some depth. The focus of its work was on the lateClinton-early Bush administrations, with the Inquiry having more success learning aboutthe Clinton period.Policies toward foreign partners received, at best, incomplete attention. For example, theInquiry looked at how the policymakers' desire for a strong bilateral relationship withCountry X affected intelligence gathering on CountryX or on neighboring countries.However, this was only done with a few countries, and even there it was not donesystematically. Moreover, the Inquiry deliberately did not try to judge whether otherequities in a bilateral relationship were more or less important than counterterrorism.The Inquiry did more extensive work on the use of military force and covert action. Onthe former, however, it was hampered by a lack of interviews and access to many keyindividuals and documents outside the strict purview of intelligence.The Inquirydid not try to judge overall counterterrorism policy in any comprehensiveway. Parts of the Inquiry's work looked at issues such as warning the public, workingwith state and local officials, and emphasizing law enforcement over the disruption ofterrorist groups. Many of these issues, however, involved the work of non-IntelligenceCommunity agencies (e.g. the Department of Justice, the INS), which received lessattention than they deserved. In addition, the Inquirydid not do basic policy analysissuch as trying to evaluate the available instruments, the limits on those instruments, andpolitical support in Congress.



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FO R OFFICIAL USE ONLYCOMMISSION SENSITIVETeam #3Item 2: Suggested Readings and Briefings

1. Paul Pillar, Terrorism and U.S. Foreign Policy (Brookings, 2001), pp . 73-129. Thesepages provide an excellent overview of the strengths and weaknesses of theinstruments that the United States has used to fight terrorism.2. Michael Elliott, "Could 9/11 Have Been Prevented?" Time, August 4,2002. Thisarticle provides a fairly detailed history of efforts to fight al-Qa'ida in the Clinton an dBush administrations. Many of the quotes suggest that former Clinton administrationofficials were sources for the article.3. Daniel Byman, "Scoring the War on Terrorism," TheNational Interest, Summer

2003. This piece examines how well the war on terrorism has gone since September11.4. Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, The Age of Sacred Terror (Random House,2002), pp. 219-349. These pages review (and defend) the Clinton administration's

counterterrorismpolicy and examine (and attack) the Bush administration's policybefore September 11. This is the most detailed look at U.S. counterterrorism policyto emerge so far, though it remains incomplete.

W e believe the Commissioners would benefit from briefings about general U.S.counterterrorism policy, U.S. policy toward al-Qa'ida before September 11, and thestatus of U.S. policy today. Ambassador Michael Sheehan, the former Special Coordinator forCounterterrorism, would help Commissioners understand counterterrorism policyin context before September 11. Dr. Paul Pillar, currently the National Intelligence Officer for the Near East andSouth Asia, is perhaps the government's leading analyst of terrorism and couldprovide an overview of the strengths and weaknesses of different counterterrorisminstruments. Dr. Daniel Byman, who headed the "lookback" team on the 9-11 Inquiry, could

offer a staff briefing on several aspects of the Congressional Joint Inquiryinvestigation, particularly covert action, foreign liaison, the use of military force,and overall U.S. counterterrorism strategy as it related to intelligence. Thesebriefings would follow the Joint Inquiry's more narrow focus and would no treflect many of the broader issues the Commission will examine.All three suggested briefers would probably prefer to brief in a classified or, at least,private venue in order to provide the maximum detail.

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FO R OFFICIAL USE ONLYCOMMISSION SENSITIVETeam #3

Item 3:Document RequestsMuch, if not all, of the material we will be asking for will be classified. Since we will berequesting policy documents, the focus will be the Executive/NSC/OMB, and probablythe Departments of State and Justice as well. This list will grow and become morespecific as the investigation proceeds. For almost all categories of documents, we willfocus ou r requests on the period after January 1998.The documents we will be requesting include:

Presidential Decision Directives andNational Security Presidential Directivesrelated to counterterrorism policy; Records of discussions of counterterrorism policy, particularly among "SmallGroup" and "Counterterrorism Security Group" members; NSC taskings and requests to agencies related to counterterrorism policy; Records of the Transnational Threats Directorate at the National Security Council.This would include briefing memos, meeting notes, and perhaps selected e-mailsrelated to key events; State Department records, from both Foggy Bottom and the field, related tocounterterrorism policy. The initial focus will be on documents from the SpecialCoordinator for Counterterrorism's Office, the deliberations of senior StateDepartment officials, and selected documents related to policy toward key statesin the war on terrorism; Tasking directed to the intelligence community related to counterterrorism,including tasking related to renditions and other covert action, as well asintelligence collection and analysis; The Defense Department, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and key commands'(CENTCOM, SOCOM) documents related to counterterrorism, particularly withregard to instructions to prepare military options and instructions to use force; Military and intelligence agency briefings andmemoranda related to militarystrikes and covert action against al-Qa'ida; and Selected budget documents reflecting resources applied to counterterrorism.

Many of the most interesting documents for the purposes of our effort will bepredecisional. Such documents will provide insights into which options were chosen,which were rejected, and which were off the table. Because of the sensitivity of thesedocuments, it may prove difficult to acquire them, which m ay in turn necessitate high-level interventions.To gain a deeper understanding of counterterrorism, we also intend to focus on theactivities of several U.S. missions, such as Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Germany, todeterm ine how they handled counterterrorism in practice. In addition to examiningdirectives from Washington, we also plan to look at cables and instructions to and fromkey counterterrorism officials at these posts. W e will also interview key country teamm embers as appropriate.

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Item 4: Interview CandidatesAs a first cut, the team would divide people to be interviewed into several categories:those with responsibilities for U.S. foreign policy who can place counterterrorism incontext; those with counterterrorism responsibilities; those with valuable relatedresponsibilities; personnel at key posts; and outside experts. NSC staff will proveparticularly important, as they often directed and coordinated overall U.S. efforts againstterrorism in both the Clinton and Bush administrations.The first list, in particular, includes the most prominent names in the U.S. government.That may seem ambitious, but priorities and focus do begin at the topand often endthere. In several cases (e.g., at OMB), it may be more appropriate to talk to a deputy orsomeone who focused more on counterterrorism.Given the prominence of several of the people on this list, we favor interviewing theworking-level individuals (particularly those involved in counterterrorism) andoutside experts first whenever possible. Only when we know as much of the story aspossible will we interview the most senior individuals.People Responsible for Overall Policy

1. President George W. Bush2. Former President William J. Clinton3. Vice President Richard Cheney4. Former Vice President Al Gore5. Condoleezza Rice, National Security Advisor6. Samuel Berger, former National Security Advisor7. Colin Powell, Secretary of State8. Madeleine Albright, former Secretary of State9. Attorney General John Ashcroft10. Former Attorney General Janet Reno11. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld12. Former Secretary of Defense William Cohen13. FBI Director Robert Mueller IJJ14. Former FBI Director Louis Freeh15. Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet16. Richard Armitage, Deputy Secretary of State17. Strobe Talbott, former Deputy Secretary of State18.Sean O'Keefe, former Deputy Director, Office of Management and Budget19.Josh Gotbaum, former Executive Director, Office of Management and Budget20. Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense21. Douglas Feith, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy22. Steven Cambone, Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy23. Steve Hadley, Deputy National Security Advisor24. James Steinberg, former Deputy National Security Advisor25. Lt. General Donald Kerrick, former Deputy National Security Advisor

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Counterterrorism Specialists an d Other Senior Working Level Officials with DutiesRelated to Counterterrorism1. Richard Clarke, former National Coordinator for Counterterrorism2. Ambassador C ofer Black, Special C oordinator for Coun terterrorism (S/CT) andformer CTC Director3. Ambassador Francis Taylor, former S/CT4. Am bassador Michael Sheehan, former S/CT5. Evelyn Lieberman, former Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy & PublicAffairs6. Am bassador Tom Pickering, senior State Departmen t official in severaladministrations7. Ambassador Chris Ross8. General (ret.) Wayne Downing, former Coordinator for Counterterrorism9. General John Gordon, Coordinator for Counterterrorism10. Robert C. D oheny , Assistant Secretary of Defense for S pecial Operations/Low

Intensity Conflict (mission: overall supervision of SOLIC)11. Brian Sheridan, form er Assistant Secretary of Defense for SOLIC (around 1999)12. H. Allen Holmes, former Assistant Secretary of Defense for SOLIC13. General Tomm y Franks, CINCCEN T since Ju ne 200014. General (ret.) Anthony Zinni, former CINCCENT15. Mary Jo W hite, former U.S. A ttorney for Southern District of New York16. Ambassador Karl Inderfurth, former A sst. Secretary of State, S outh Asia17. Ambassador Mark Parris, form er Asst. Secretary of State, Near East18. Ambassador W illiam B urns, Asst. Secretary of State, Near East19. Ambassador M artin Indyk, Asst. Secretary of State, Near East20. Bruce Riedel, former Senior NSC Director for the Middle East21. Stephen Jennings, former Asst Section Chief, Intl Terrorism Unit at FBI22. Thomas Knowles, former member of Intl Relations Branch at FBI23 . Michael Rolince, form er Section Chief at International Terrorism Unit at FBI24. Barry Savin, Coun terterrorism Section C hief in DoJ's Criminal D ivision25. James Rey nolds, former Chief of Terrorism and Violent Crimes section at DoJ

Key Country Team Members from Germ any, Saudi Arabia, an d Pakistan(1998-2001)1. Ambassador3. Deputy Chief of Mission4. Legal Attache (FBI)5. Other U.S. officials as appropriate6. Foreign Amb assador to the United States

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Select Additional NSC Staff1. Susan Rice, former Director2. Randy Beers, former Director3. Lee Wolosky, former Director (CFR international affairs fellow)4. William Wechsler, former Director5. Fred Rosa, former Director (from Coast Guard)6. Mary McCarthy, former Director7. Daniel Benjamin, former Director8. Steven Simon, former Senior Director9. Roger Cressey, former Director10. Michael Fenzel, former Director11. Gayle Smith, former Senior Director (Africa)12. Jeffrey Jones, Senior Director13. William McRaven, Director14. Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, Director (from DOE)15. Joseph (Jody) Myers, Director16. Gregory Passic, Director17. Nicholas Rasmussen, Director


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