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NSC
03000832
Interview
of
Dr. Condoleezza
Rice
by Bob
Woodward
(on
deep
background)
October
24,
2001
(70
mins.)
(368)
•
Rice:
"WejTgdJr^the
late,
summer
[of
IQQl^-beetvA^orking
on
countertermrism
and
working
on
al
Qaeda,
and working on trying to get serious about going
after
al
Qaeda. And so, theprincipals
and the
President
had a
base
of
knowledge about this organization that probablythree months earlier
we
wouldn't have had, because we'd been through this drill
of how
were
we
going to deal
with
al Qaeda. It was a
major
threat. We knew that they had done theembassy bombings, suspected they
had
done
the
Cole.
We'd been through
a
summer wherethere
was a lot of
noise
in the
system."
•
Rice comments that Tenet
had
been very concerned about chatter,
and it
looked like
an
attackwould occur abroad. "And,
in
fact, what
we did was to
button
up
abroad pretty effectively."Eg. mentions
the
Genoa
G8,
where
a lot of
security precautions
had
been taken;
a
couple
of
warnings
about
the
President's security,
one
very serious. "And
so we had
done
a lot
abroad.
One of the
things that struck
me is
that
the
protocols
for
what
you do
abroad
are
pretty
clear..."
•
Rice:
"So the
only point
I'm
making
is
that
everybody
was
kind
of on the
same page about
al
Qaeda, having come
out of
this review that
had
been
done."
(369)
•
Woodward asks Rice
if
there
was an
action plan pending
from
this
review—Rice
responds
that
there was. "There was an action plan that probably would have been dated September
10
th
."
States that
it was a
directive that would have gone
to the
President
if not for
9-11.
"So
people were working
the
problem,
and so
there
was a
common basic knowledge about
al
Qaeda."
(373)•
Rice says Bush
was
thinking
of a
military response
to 9-11
from
the
start:
"..
.the
President,
I
think, never even
considered
that
he
wouldn't
at
some point
use
military force."
No
consideration of negotiation with the Taliban.
(378)
•
Rice
(on
recognition early
on
that this
was a
worldwide problem):
"..
.because
we had a
database about al Qaeda, everybody knew it was worldwide. I think it wasn't until theintelligence briefing
the
next morning
[9-15]
by
George that
we
actually knew
it was 60
countries. I mean, that was news to people. But that it was
widespread—I
mean, we'd been
dealing
with it in the Philippines because of the kidnappings of those people. So we knewthatthis organization was worldwide."
(379)
•
Rice
re.
Discussion
at
9-15
War
cabinet meeting, Camp David: "The
financial
piece
was
underway
[—Rice
says she thinks this had already been gotten underway at one of the earlier
meetings].
The
diplomatic
piece
was
underway.
And
everybody
was
starting
to
think what
Page 1 of 2Created
by A.
Albion
June
26,
2003
 
kindofmilitary options wouldwehave.Butthat
necessitated
areally thorough lookat theregion.
And I
remember
that
we had a big map out in
front
of us, and
everyone looking
at
Afghanistan
and thinking, Afghanistan, it's
just—Afghanistan,
great. Because not a place
that
brings
up a lot of
confidence
in
people."And then starting
to put the
pieces
in place—what did
this mean
for the
Central Asians?
What
would
it
mean
for the
Russians?
The
kind
of
instability
in the
region.
And
then
a lot of
focus
on
Pakistan, that
you
couldn't
do any of
this without Pakistan,
and
that this
was
goingto be extremely
difficult
for Musharraf and for Pakistan." Notes that it was out of thismeeting that
focus
began
to be put on how to
strengthen
the US
relationship
w/
Musharraf
&Pakistan—that
demands on Pakistan had to be put gently:
"..
.because
this is a region that ifPakistan
goes
bad,
you
have unleashed
a
whole other
set of
demons."
Re. Taliban: discussants concluded that, though unlikely, it was worth trying to think of a
way
to
turn
the
Taliban
on
al
Qaeda.
(380)
Rice:
"..
.by
the end of that Camp David meeting, I think there was consensus that you hadphasestothisandwe're goingtoconcentrateon alQaedaand the
Taliban/.. .There
wasalsoagreement that
you
wanted
to
have other phases.
Not
necessarily
Iraq,
but
other
phases;
that
this
wasn't going to be a war on al Qaeda and the Taliban, this was a war on
terrorism."
(383)
Rice, re. Iraq:
"..
.1 don't
want
to leave you with the impression.. .that Iraq
fell
off
the applecart.Imean,thePresidenthassaid
many,
many time, Iraqis aproblem.It was aproblem
before
September
11
th
,
it's a problem
after
September 11
th
. We
want
to see whether or not, in
fact,
there is a connection." Responding to question about whether the evidence is there yet,
"..
.1thinkyoudon't havetolink IraqtoSeptember11
th
to sayIraqis athreattoAmerican
interests and
security.
If we
were doing
any
kind
of
normal investigations, like
the
Cole,
for
instance, we wouldn't yet be drawing conclusions about who was
involved.
It took—what—
a
yearto do theCole.Ittook almosttwoyearsto do theembassy bombings.Sothisis on a
fast
track.
But
trying
to
draw connections
a
month
and a
half
after
just isn't possible. That
work
is still going on."
Created
by A.
AlbionJune
26,
2003
Page
2
of
2
 
NSC
03000834
Interview
of
National
Security
Advisor,
Condoleeza
Rice
by
Scott Pelley,
CBS
August
2,
2002
(25mins.)
(401-2)
• Rice: "It wasn't
very long [after
the WTC was
hit] before
I
thought
al Qaeda,
because
we had
gone
through
a
fairly extensive review
of
policy toward
al
Qaeda.
I
think George Tenet had,
in
February..
.talked
about
the
threat
of al
Qaeda
to the
United States.
And the
fact
that
it wasbigand
spectacular said
to me
this
is
probably
al
Qaeda."
(407)
Rice:
"We had
done
a lot of
work
on
terrorism,
on how
these people were supportingthemselves.
We
knew that Afghanistan
was the
center
of
their operations,
and we
knew that
they
were being harbored
in a
number
of
places.
And so the
line that appears
in the
President's
statement
from
the
Oval that night
[9-11],
that says
not
just
the
terrorists,
but
those
who
harbor them, came
out of
what
had
been
a
pretty intensive discussion, over severalmonths, about
how to
really deal with international terrorism."
(408)
Rice: "The President
had
heard
of al
Qaeda. We'd been tracking them
and
looking
at
them.Several times he'd said,
when
presented with evidence that
al
Qaeda might strike here, mightstrike
there—mostly
overseas,
by the
way; almost
all of the
information
was
that
al
Qaeda
was
preparing
to
strike American interests overseas,
as
they
had
done
before./ But as he
heard
that
information,
the
President said,
you
know,
I'm
tired
of
swatting
at
flies.
I
need
a
strategy
to
eliminate these guys. That
he had
done
in the
spring.
So he
knew
al
Qaeda,
and we all
knew what
we
were going
to
have
to do.
Created
by A.
Albion
June
26,
2003Page
1 of 1
of 00

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