Chapter 16: Lessons and Debate

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506 Bin Laden cited that retreat: Bin Laden called Somalia “your most disgraceful case”:

"[W]hen tens of your soldiers were killed in minor battles and one American pilot was dragged in the streets of Mogadishu you left the area carry- ing disappointment, humiliation, defeat and your dead with you. Clinton appeared in front of the whole world threatening and promising revenge, but these threats were merely a preparation for withdrawal."

Usama bin Laden, “Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places,” Al Quds al Arabi, August 1996.

509 On October 16, 2003, Rumsfeld addressed a memo: Rumsfeld Memo to Wolfowitz, Myers, Pace, and Feith, “Global War on Terrorism,” October 16, 2003. The memo was leaked to USA Today, which published it in full. See Dave Moniz and Tom Squitieri, “Defense memo: A grim outlook,” USA Today, October 22, 2003, p. 1A.

509 a clear statement of the national strategy: In February 2003, the White House published a document called National Strategy for Combating Terrorism. It had a peculiar status within the government, not having emerged through any standard interagency process: It was produced the way the White House generated press releases, not strategy documents. I saw it for the first time when the National Security Council staff sent it to my office for comment, though there had been no discussion of it in either the Deputies Committee or the Principals Committee. As far as I know, it was published without the Principals ever having met to discuss it, let alone approve it. Rumsfeld never read it at all. The National Strategy never served the essential purpose of a strategy document, which is to guide the policies and actions of the various agencies. When my colleagues and I drafted the war on terrorism strategy to answer Rumsfeld’s October 2003 memo, we did not use the February 2003 document as the foundation. And when we eventually presented our strategy to President Bush and the National Security Council in May 2004 and January 2005, no one made any reference to the February 2003 document.

510 On May 25, 2004, Rumsfeld had me present the resulting strategy: See [Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy], “The Nature of the Conflict and a Long-Term USG Strategy for Addressing It,” May 25, 2004 3:55 p.m. [labeled “Draft Working Papers,” though this was the briefing presented to the President].

511 In that January 13, 2005, meeting: See [Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy], “New Initiatives in the Global War on Terrorism,” January 13, 2005 8:13 a.m. [labeled “Draft Working Papers,” though this was the briefing presented to the President].

513 impossible to ensure prevention: U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, “The Terrorist Threat to the US Homeland,” Office of the Director of National Security, National Intelligence Estimate, July 2007, p. 6.

520 A number of CIA and other intelligence officials opposed the President: See, e.g., Paul R. Pillar, “Intelligence, Policy, and the War in Iraq,” Foreign Affairs, March/April 2006; Michael Scheuer (“Anonymous”), Imperial Hubris (Dulles, Virginia: Potomac Books, 2004).   

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