The Black Banners_ 9_11 and the War Against Al-Qaeda - Ali H. Soufan [114]
“Well, either way, there will be a new administration soon, and we’ll find out,” I replied.
President Clinton told the 9/11 Commission that before he could launch further attacks on al-Qaeda, he needed the CIA and the FBI to “be willing to stand up in public and say, we believe that he [Bin Ladin] did this.” One of Clinton’s top aides, Sandy Berger, said that the intelligence agencies had reached “no conclusion by the time we left office that it was al-Qaeda.” That just wasn’t true, and I was surprised to read it. Not long after the attack, we had concluded that al-Qaeda was responsible—which was why the FBI’s Washington field office was pulled out and the New York office placed in charge.
I had worked for a Republican senator in Pennsylvania after college and identified with the seemingly strong national security approach of the party, so later in November, when President George W. Bush won the election, I (and many in the bureau) felt happy, especially because as a candidate Bush took a hard line on the Cole, telling CNN: “I hope that we can gather enough intelligence to figure out who did the act and take the necessary action. There must be a consequence.” After President Bush’s election, I hoped that things would change. I expected more support for the Cole investigation and in our battle against al-Qaeda. We waited and waited. No change came.
Much later, in June 2001, when we had to move our investigation to Sanaa because of the threats from al-Qaeda against our lives, we had a meeting with a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, along with his chief of staff. After our official meeting ended and the senator walked out, the chief of staff closed the door, trapping us in the room.“Just a moment,” he said. Thinking we were about to get some deep insight, we waited. “I’m sympathetic to everything you’re saying,” he said, “but you have to be patient. Unfortunately, people in the White House can’t have al-Qaeda linked to the Cole attack.” His tone was apologetic and sympathetic, as if he were trying to help us understand what was coming.
We looked at him in shock. “What do you mean not linked?” I said. “Al-Qaeda is already linked. Everyone with access to intelligence briefings in the U.S. government knows that.”
“Look,” he said nervously, “you need to understand what’s really going on.” He paused. “To tell you the truth, we completely don’t agree with the White House on this one, but from their perspective they don’t want bin Laden involved in the USS Cole. The president is weak right now. The country is not united behind him and is still split over his election victory over Al Gore. He’s not going to risk capital going after al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and splitting the country more. But if the Cole bombing is publicly declared to be an al-Qaeda attack, he’s going to look weak on national security if he doesn’t act. So the White House doesn’t want al-Qaeda blamed for the Cole.”
“That may be,” I replied to the chief of staff, “but we report the facts. And the fact is that al-Qaeda is behind the attack on the USS Cole. What the White House does with that information is above our level.”
Bob McFadden and I brushed past him and walked out, as did the others. We were getting daily death threats from al-Qaeda while investigating the death of seventeen U.S. sailors, and for political reasons it seemed that no one in Washington gave a damn.
According to the 9/11 Commission, some members of President Bush’s team opposed responding to the USS Cole attack. The commission reported that defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld “thought that too much time had passed and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, thought the Cole attack was ‘stale.’” Maybe to them, but not to us, not to the victims and their families, and certainly not to bin Laden and al-Qaeda.
Toward the end of November