In My Time (56 page)

It started with the CIA, which had contacts in Afghanistan stretching back to the 1980s and knew some of the players well. CIA officers brought our special operators together with the Northern Alliance and other opposition forces, and soon a group of our special forces was traveling on horseback with General Abdul Rashid Dostum and his men and calling in air support to destroy Taliban positions around
Mazar-e-Sharif. As the Taliban fled, American special forces joined in the cavalry charges pursuing them. They called in B-52 strikes to open a crucial pass, and after Mazar-e-Sharif fell on November 9, 2001, they rode with the victorious Northern Alliance into the center of the city. Our special forces gave the first victory of the first war of the twenty-first century a lasting symbol: the man on horseback armed with the ability to call in a five-hundred-pound laser-guided bomb.

After Mazar-e-Sharif, things happened fast. On November 11, 2001, the town of Herat fell to the Northern Alliance. Kabul followed on November 13, and Jalalabad on November 14. The last Taliban stronghold, Kandahar, fell on December 7.

In December the United Nations sponsored a conference in Bonn, Germany, to select an interim leader for liberated Afghanistan. Delegates to the conference chose Hamid Karzai, a Pashtun, who had fought against the Taliban in the south. Karzai, who had grown up in Afghanistan and served briefly in the pre-Taliban Afghan government, had reentered Afghanistan on a motorcycle from Pakistan as the bombing campaign began. With support from our forces, Karzai led the Pashtun troops who took Kandahar. He was inaugurated on December 22, 2001, as chairman of the new Interim Afghan Authority.

In a little over three months, working with the Northern Alliance and allies in the south, we had overthrown the Taliban and liberated 25 million people. We had begun to deny al Qaeda bases from which to plot and train for attacks against us. There were difficult days ahead, but at the end of 2001, we had accomplished much. And we had managed to do all we had done with the number of American troops in Afghanistan
never exceeding four thousand
.

As we had begun the planning for our military operations in Afghanistan, many worried that we were taking on too formidable a task. As the Soviets could testify, Afghanistan was known as the graveyard of empires for good reason. Any power that would prevail there had to take into account not only the rugged, inhospitable terrain, but the fact that the Afghans were among the toughest, most ruthless fighters in the world. When we launched our efforts, however, it was with forces far
superior to those the Soviets had deployed in the 1980s, and we enjoyed a tremendous technological advantage. We also had on our side the kind of creative thinking that freedom encourages. Using the CIA and our special operations forces to marry our technology with Afghan fighters brought about the Taliban’s downfall in a remarkably short time. And perhaps the most important distinction was that we were there to liberate, not to occupy; to free, not to oppress the Afghan people.

But, of course, that wasn’t the end of it, and as we find ourselves ten years later with nearly one hundred thousand American troops still fighting in Afghanistan, it’s important to recognize that in the war in which we are currently engaged, sure and swift victories are likely to be rare. To the extent that Desert Storm led us to expect quick triumphs, it taught us the wrong lesson.

Now we are taking on an enemy scattered throughout many parts of the world and committed to launching mass casualty attacks from any base it can find. The key test in this war is not how long it takes us to complete any particular military operation. The crucial test is whether our policies, including our military operations, are effective at defending the nation from further attack. Critical to that effort is recognizing that our ultimate objective must be ensuring that the Afghan security forces are sufficiently trained and equipped to defend their own people and territory. Our mission will not be complete until the Afghan government and armed forces can, on their own, prevent their nation from once again becoming a safe haven for terrorists.

In my view, the most important lesson to be learned from the Soviet experience in Afghanistan in the 1980s is what happened after the Soviets left. The United States turned its attentions elsewhere, and Afghanistan descended into civil war. The resultant instability and eventual takeover of the country by the Taliban meant that Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda terrorists were able to find a safe haven there. Throughout the late 1990s, thousands of terrorists were trained in al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, and it became the base for the attacks of 9/11. When I hear policymakers talk about walking away from Afghanistan, I want to remind them of what the consequences can be.

__________

ONE OF THE FIRST efforts we undertook after 9/11 to strengthen the country’s defenses was securing passage of the Patriot Act, which the president signed into law on October 2001. The law, passed by overwhelming, bipartisan majorities in Congress, enabled law enforcement, intelligence officers, and national security personnel to share information about potential terrorist threats. It tore down the wall that had previously prevented this kind of cooperation. It also allowed law enforcement officers to apply tools long used to investigate organized crime to the fight against terrorists.

I also thought it important to be sure the National Security Agency, or NSA, which is responsible for collecting intelligence about the communications of America’s adversaries, was doing everything possible to track the conversations of terrorists, so I asked George Tenet whether the NSA had all the authorities it needed. Tenet said he would check with General Mike Hayden, who was then director, and a short time later both of them came to see me in my office in the White House. Hayden explained that he had already made adjustments in the way NSA
was collecting intelligence
. Those adjustments were possible within NSA’s existing authorities, but additional authorities were needed in order to improve the coverage and effectiveness of the program.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 established a court through which NSA was required to seek approval for certain activities. Hayden explained that one of the challenges he faced was that the slow procedures of the court made it impossible to do what needed to be done with speed and agility. He described the kinds of additional activities he could undertake with expanded authorities, and I told him we’d do everything we could to see that he got them.

I reported on our conversation to the president. With his approval, I asked Dave Addington to work with General Hayden and the president’s counsel, Alberto Gonzales, to develop a legal process by which we could ensure the NSA got the authorizations Hayden needed. The president was clear that these new authorities had to be signed off on by the attorney general, the secretary of defense, and the director of the CIA before
he would grant them. He also said he wanted to keep the program on a short leash and instructed that it should be reauthorized regularly. We were well aware that there is an important balance between protecting privacy and gathering intelligence. The president wanted to make sure the program was used only when needed to defend the nation.

Although parts of the NSA program remain classified, it is now public that a key element involved intercepting targeted communications into and out of the United States where there was a reasonable basis to conclude that at least one party to the communication was associated with al Qaeda or
a related terrorist organization
. It is hard to imagine a more important kind of communication for us to intercept from the standpoint of our national security than one potentially involving terrorists speaking to someone already in the United States. General Hayden has observed, “Had this program been in effect prior to 9/11, it is my professional judgment that we would have detected some of the 9/11 al Qaeda operatives in the United States and we would have
identified them as such
.”

On October 4, 2001, the president, on the recommendation of the director of central intelligence and the secretary of defense, with the determination of the attorney general that it was lawful to do so, authorized the program for the first time. At the National Security Agency, General Hayden took an extra step. He called in the three most experienced lawyers at the NSA, and, as he has said publicly, they did more than acquiesce in the program. They supported it.

After the initial authorization, every thirty to forty-five days, with a fresh intelligence assessment from the CIA, the same officials made recommendations and gave legal clearance for the president to make a decision whether to continue the program. The program was so sensitive and closely held that Dave Addington carried the authorizing document in a locked classified documents pouch by hand to each of the officials involved.

If the president did not authorize the program every forty-five days, it would stop. It was a tricky task each month getting time on each of the principals’ schedules and then getting the document to the president
for signature. Once the stars did not align, and the president left for a trip to Asia before the package was ready for him to sign. Al Gonzales and Dave Addington flew to California to get the president’s signature, so the program would not stop while he was away.

Wanting to ensure that we were proceeding absolutely within the letter and intent of the law, we also took great care to brief the Congress on the program. Given the extreme fragility and sensitivity of the intelligence sources and methods involved, we briefed only the chairman and ranking member of the House and Senate intelligence committees, a practice that has been followed by both Republican and Democratic administrations when dealing with intelligence programs of this sensitivity. This program was too important and too highly classified for briefings to the whole committees, which, given the rotations of members into those slots, would have resulted in dozens being briefed. The president had to personally approve anyone outside the NSA before they could be read into the program.

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, killing 191 people and wounding more than 1,500.

Faced with threats of resignation, the president decided to alter the NSA program, even though he and his advisors were confident of his constitutional authority to continue the program unchanged.

A few months later we learned that a
New York Times
reporter, James Risen, was preparing to publish a story about the NSA program. Such a story would alert our enemies about the program, making it more difficult for us to continue to collect the intelligence we needed. By explaining that the newspaper would be putting an important national security program at risk, Condi Rice and Mike Hayden convinced Risen and the
Times
to hold the story. But the next year, in December 2005, the paper threatened again to run it. This time Risen had a book about to be published that contained elements of the story, and the
New York Times
wanted to feature it first. We were concerned enough about the damage publication could do to the program that the president had a face-to-face meeting with the publisher and editor of the
Times
to ask them not to go with the story. He explained that making details of the program public would harm our ability to track terrorists’ phone calls and might well make it more difficult for us to prevent future attacks. On December 16, 2005, the
Times
published the story anyway, a decision the president called “shameful.” I agreed. Moreover, it seemed to me that the
New York Times
had violated Section 798 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code, which prohibits publishing classified information about America’s communications intelligence.