In My Time - Dick Cheney [185]
I hosted the periodic congressional briefings myself, usually in my West Wing office. Mike Hayden would take the lead in providing detailed information about how the program was functioning and what types of intelligence we were gaining from it.
In the spring of 2004, after Attorney General John Ashcroft had approved the program as lawful approximately twenty times, new lawyers at the Justice Department raised concerns about one aspect of it, and James Comey, who had become deputy attorney general in December 2003, did not want to proceed. In light of this, on March 9, 2004, I met with the professionals who were carrying out the program from the NSA together with the lawyers from the Justice Department who had developed concerns, hoping we could find a way to continue to collect the terrorism intelligence we needed. General Hayden briefed on the details of the program, making its value clear and emphasizing how careful the NSA was about limits and safeguards. But in the end, the lawyers from the Justice Department remained locked in place.
Because it was crucial that the program continue, I held an expanded congressional briefing on March 10, 2004, to discuss whether we needed to seek additional legislative authorities. Seated around the long wooden conference table in the Situation Room were Speaker of the House Denny Hastert, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, Chairman of the House Select Committee on Intelligence Porter Goss and ranking member Jane Harman, and Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Pat Roberts and ranking member Jay Rockefeller. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay was not present, but was briefed later.
After Mike Hayden finished briefing on the program, I put two very clear and specific questions to the group. “First,” I said, “we would like to know whether you believe the program should be continued.” It was unanimous: Every member agreed that it should continue. “Second,” I asked, “should we come to the Congress for an amendment to the FISA statute so that we have additional congressional authority to do what is necessary?” Again, the view around the table was unanimous. The members did not want us to seek additional legislation for the program. They feared, as did we, that going to the whole Congress would compromise its secrecy.
Later that same day, the president called the attorney general, who was in George Washington University Hospital in Washington, D.C., and explained that the program was going to lapse without Department of Justice approval. The attorney general said that he would sign the documents, and the president asked Andy Card and Al Gonzales to take the package to him. Card and Gonzales, with Addington holding the highly classified documents, drove to the hospital, and Card and Gonzales went into the room, where they found Deputy Attorney General Comey already present. It became immediately clear that Ashcroft had changed his mind. He said he would not sign the documents. He also indicated that, because of his health issues, he had delegated all the responsibilities of his office to Deputy Attorney General Comey. Card and Gonzales departed with the unsigned documents in hand.
Soon afterward, the lawyers began to threaten resignation, as did FBI Director Bob Mueller, whom Comey had convinced there was a problem. I had little patience with what I saw happening. The program had been in place more than two years and the attorney general had approved it some twenty times. Most important, we were at war and the program’s single purpose was to get intelligence necessary for the defense of the nation. There was a tragic reminder of the threat Islamist terrorism represented the next morning, March 11, 2004, when ten bombs exploded on trains in Madrid, Spain,