Known and Unknown - Donald Rumsfeld [194]
Responding to news reporting that the Taliban had aided the 9/11 plotters, Taliban leaders issued a cynical statement. “Mullah Omar condemns this act,” it said. “Mullah Omar says Osama is not responsible. We have brought peace to this country and we want peace in all countries.”17 Every sentence was untrue.
On the morning of Saturday, September 15, President Bush assembled his National Security Council at Camp David. The famous presidential retreat was no longer the cluster of rustic log cabins I had known in the early 1970s; Camp David had become a more modern facility, with many of the comforts of the White House, and for me, at least, had lost some of its appeal.
Autumn had arrived in western Maryland, and even as we gathered inside the wood-paneled conference room of Camp David’s Laurel Lodge, most of us wore fleece jackets against the chill. The discussions that day began with a briefing from Tenet. He laid out an interesting first cut of a plan that proposed sending small CIA teams to Afghanistan to begin gathering on-site intelligence on al-Qaida and Taliban targets.
General Shelton followed with a presentation on what his staff suggested might be accomplished militarily. Six foot five and built like a tree trunk, Shelton had an unmistakable presence in the halls of the Pentagon. He had been an Army special operations officer who had spent most of his adult life in uniform. He was disappointed that his four-year term as chairman was coming to a close at the end of the month, just as America was entering a conflict in which special operations forces would play a larger role than ever before.
The shock of 9/11 had not provoked much originality or imagination from the Chairman or his staff. It was true that in the ninety-six hours since the attack, Shelton had not had time for substantive discussions with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Tommy Franks, the head of Central Command (CENTCOM), or the senior civilian leadership, much less with the CIA, whose support and intelligence would be critical. I alerted Bush that what Shelton would be presenting was not a satisfactory recommendation of the Defense Department but simply some of his preliminary ideas to begin the discussions.
The first option Shelton presented was a cruise missile strike, similar to what the prior administration had executed in response to earlier terrorist attacks during the 1990s. It was obviously inadequate. President Bush made clear he was in no mood for more of the same ineffective half-measures. He told Shelton we needed to “unleash holy hell.” “We’re not just going to pound sand,” he added.
Shelton’s second option was a somewhat more muscular version of the first: cruise missile strikes accompanied by American aircraft bombing Afghan targets for several days. To Bush this represented pounding sand a little harder.
A third option was a combination of cruise missile strikes and stealth bomber runs plus what Shelton called “boots on the ground.” It was not clear precisely what the missions would be for those troops. There were not many good targets for conventional American ground forces to engage. And, in any case, it would take considerable time to deploy a large force to that remote, landlocked country.
The President said he wanted American military forces on the ground in some fashion as soon as an effective response could be prepared and mounted. Shelton responded that a buildup of conventional ground troops could take months. I was concerned that during those months of preparation al-Qaida could scatter, and that the American people would be at risk of another attack. I decided we would spend the next several days working around-the-clock to develop a more appropriate plan.
Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz helped conceptualize the global war on terrorism as being broader than just Afghanistan. At that Camp David discussion Wolfowitz raised