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he was tired of swatting at flies. Clarke said Bush’s directive came to him in March. Bush did write to President Musharraf in February 2001, emphasizing that bin Laden was a threat to the United States that “must be addressed.” Though he urged Musharraf to use his influence with the Taliban over bin Laden, the approach proved unproductive. So were further Bush administration contacts with the Pakistanis later in the year (Rice/Clarke: CR, 510n185; Musharraf: CR, 207).

8 memo/“not some narrow”/“multiple”: Clarke to Rice & attachments, 1/25/01, www2.gwu.edu. The memorandum and the December 2000 “Strategy” document have been released, with some redactions. The September 1998 “Political-Military Plan DELENDA” [a reference to the vow to destroy Carthage, in the days of ancient Rome] has not been released (Clarke to Rice, 1/25/01, & Tab A, released to National Security Archive, www2.gwu.edu, CR, 120, Richard Clarke, 197–).

9 Cole linked al Qaeda: FBI IG;

10 “No al Qaeda plan”: WP, 3/22/04;

11 no recommendations: Testimony of Condoleezza Rice, 4/8/04, CO;

12 “Having served”: int. Eleanor Hill;

13 no longer member/instead report: CR, 200, 509n169, Clarke, 230;

14 no retaliation for Cole: CR, 201–;

15 “tit-for-tat”: Testimony of Condoleezza Rice, 4/8/04, CO & see Ben-Veniste, 304–;

16 “ancient history”: MFR 04018415, 12/16/03, CF;

17 deputies not meet/April: CR, 203, Richard Clarke, 231;

18 Wolfowitz/tetchy: Richard Clarke, 231;

19 “We are going”: Benjamin & Simon, 336.

20 “to be paying”: “Big Media Networks Ignore Gorelick Role, Highlight Bremer Rebuke of Bush Team,” 4/30/04, citing Bremer int. for CBS News, 2/26/01, www.freerepublic.com, LAT, 4/30/04. Three years later, by which time he had become U.S. administrator in occupied Iraq, Bremer would attempt to backtrack and say his 2001 comment had been “unfair” to Bush, that his speech had reflected frustration that none of the National Commission’s recommendations had been implemented by either the Clinton or the new Bush administration. (AP, 5/2/04);

21 “The highest”: DCI’s Worldwide Threat Briefing, 2/7/01, www.cia.gov; Le Monde scoop: “11 Septembre 2001: Les Français en savaient long,” Le Monde, 4/16/07.

22 passed on to CIA: The DGSE document, one of more than three hundred pages leaked, is dated January 5, 2001, and numbered 00007/CT. Its heading reads: “Note de Synthèse—Projet de Détournement d’Avion par des Islamistes Radicaux,” and it draws on information passed on by the intelligence service of Uzbekistan. The overall dossier leaked is entitled “Oussama bin Laden” and dated 9/13/01. The authors have seen the entire dossier. The celebrated French fortnightly, Le Canard Enchaîné, reporting on the material as early as October 2001, stated that “most” of the reports on bin Laden had been shared with the CIA and the FBI. Le Monde, in its major story of April 19, 2007, reported as a fact that the January 5 report was passed to the CIA. Le Monde quoted former senior DGSE official Pierre-Antoine Lorenzi as saying that such information would have been passed to the Agency as a matter of routine. Alain Chouet, former head of the Security Intelligence department, took the same view when interviewed by the authors (attachment, James to Zelikow, 4/14/04, “Motley Submission,” B10, T2, CF).

23 FAA 50 summaries/no action: Staff Report, “The Four Flights and Civil Aviation Security,” CO, Farmer, 96–, New York Observer, 6/20/04;

24 met Tenet almost daily: Tenet, 137;

25 40 PDBs: CR, 254.

26 Atta January trip: Staff Statement 16, CO. Atta flew to and back from Europe via Madrid, leaving on January 4 and returning on January 10. There is evidence suggesting he was in Berlin during that period, and the Commission Report states that his purpose in going was to see Binalshibh in Germany. It has been suggested that Madrid was more than a stopover en route to Germany, that at one point in the round-trip from the States Atta paused to meet a contact in Spain. An al Qaeda cell was active in Spain at the time. An allegation that Atta made another trip to Europe in April, during