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WHITE HOUSE

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Office of the Vice President

Internal Transcript

December 14, 2001

INTERVIEW OF SCOOTER LIBBY BY JOHN DICKERSON AND JAY CARNEY, TIME MAGAZINE

Q One of the things we're really trying to do is get a sense of where, especially in these rooms that only you and a few others are in, where we can show the President intersecting with the prosecution of the war, key decisions there. We spent some time talking about the day of the 15th of September, at Camp David. And what we have is, we have a sense that the 15th is an important day, but we have no -- we're trying to put together a sense of if he had to choose and make decisions, the big decisions, what were they? What were the options in front of him, as best we can tell without, of course, giving up secrets. To give a sense of how this President makes decisions in that arena. MR. LIBBY: I think the llth and the 12th were the most important days . _Q Q

Okay. Why?

MR. LIBBY: Well, by the end of the llth, he had defined and set a course for America in a dramatic way. What are our rules here, by way? We're off the -- what are we on? Q

What would you like to be on?

MR. LIBBY: My preference would be -- I mean, normally, I would just talk to you, you'd come back to me and say, this is what we want to use. So if you want to start -MS. MATALIN:

It's background.

MR. LIBBY: what that is? MS. MATALIN:

Background.

Administration official, is that

Senior administration official.

MR. LIBBY: It makes me sound too old. administration official. (Laughter.)

How about youthful

Q --it's like (inaudible) insulation. Administration official can be, you know, anybody -- (laughter.) MR. LIBBY: When you look back at the tone that the President set in the first NSC meeting on this subject, which was the afternoon of the llth, and then in his address to the nation that night at 11:30 p.m. -- atv8:30 p.m., and in the subsequent NSC meeting that occurred down in the PEOC, after the Presidential address, you can find that he has set many of the major decisions already into motion. He has already decided that this is a war on terrorism, not a juridical effort against a particular unknown party, but a war that's going to go beyond this one party to broader sources of terrorism. He has already broadened the concept beyond those who are the perpetrators and their organization, to states supporting terrorism. It's a very dramatic change, and a very dramatic goal that he set. And that is set by 8:30 p.m. on the first day, and actually was set during the course of the afternoon. You can imagine other Presidents saying, well, we'd better find out first who did it, what are the implications, is it a war we can win, maybe we can do this through economic sanctions, maybe the thing to do is to get the World Court involved, is this a war we take on alone, or do we have to go consult the Europeans or Arab allies. He had, within that first day, set America on a course of leadership that he was confident he would bring other countries and the nation to follow. He had also set the decision on the first day that nations are either with us or they're against us. That countries would have to choose in the war on terrorism. Q In making these decisions, obviously some of these were made while he was still in the air coming back from Nebraska, and before the first NSC meeting, but was it your sense that he made those decisions without contemplating those other options you were talking about, or contemplating and rejecting them? In other words, did he simply say, this is a war on terrorism, or did he or somebody else say, we can do

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this, this and this, but we're not going to do that or (inaudible)? MR. LIBBY: He is a very thoughtful man, who had been through a lot of discussion of foreign policy issues prior to this time. So while I was not in the room with him as he made these dramatic, historic decisions, there was no question in my mind, from things I had seen, that he had already been through these issues, themselves. For example, it was clear in that first day that he was not talking about a tit-for-tat type response. He understood that an act of war had been perpetrated on the United States and that our response would not be timid or brief, but a long campaign, and one designed to be effective in the end, not one designed to be for show. Q Did he say, do you remember, I don't want to do diplomacy, I don't want to do world court, I don't want to do sanctions, I don't want to do -MR. LIBBY: No, quite the opposite. Maybe I left you the wrong impression. He had a strategy which was multi-faceted. It was going to be, and he did say within those first 48 hours, this is going to be diplomatic, it's going to be financial, it's going to be military, it's going to use all instruments of national power. In fact, I believe that phrase may even be in that first address. If it's not, it's certainly in the State of the Union address, and it's things that he said in the course of that first two days. Q Was anybody in operational at that -- I mean, he's setting these broad stars by which to guide. Is anybody at this point talking about it will take us X number of days to do this militarily? Or does that come on that weekend? MR. LIBBY: I think in the first couple of days, they're setting broad agendas. I don't think anyone -- let me step back -- half the people in the room had been involved in Desert Shield/Desert Storm, and knew full well what it takes to put force halfway around the world. So everyone knew there was a time line involved. And everything short of simply sending off a few bombers, or a few Cruise missiles, which was not the approach he was intending. Q That approach, which all the people we've talked to \k about as one that was discarded -- we're having trouble

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figuring out whether it was ever real, ever on the table, whether it was on the table and had no advocate -- the notion of kind of, you know, some kind of quick action. Q Traditional, we'll (inaudible.) We know it was on the table, even if it didn't (inaudible) happen, because it was an option. (Inaudible.) But was there a major discussion about that, or was it just -MR. LIBBY: I don't recall a major discussion of any option that had no advocates. And what I recall of his leadership in this period was that it was clear he wanted a serious national response, using all means of power, not something that would simply be a signal. Q But had there been an advocate, surely that person wouldn't have taken the President's inclination as a sign that he should not speak up, and say -- (inaudible)? MR. LIBBY:

I don't think there's any advocate for that.

Q Because it's an option, it's not like (inaudible). mean, what about the --

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MR. LIBBY: Well, you say it's an option, but everyone in that room believed that we had failed to act decisively following the attack on our troops in Somalia, and following the attempted assassination of President Bush -- these are in 1993 - following the arrests of a cell of al Qaeda that was planning hijackings in the '94-'95 time, following the attack on our embassy in Riyadh in '95, following the attacks on Khobar in '96, following the attacks on embassies in eastern -- in East Africa in '98, following the attack on the Cole that's been September of -- in the fall of 2000. So I don't think there was anyone in the room who thought it was sensible to pick up on that chain of success. Q What about the other extreme, which was to have people view the experience (inaudible), the long buildup (inaudible) -as an alternative to using (inaudible) force and (inaudible)? MR. LIBBY: In the first two days? I think there was a discussion that it had to be a militarily effective response. don't think it got into precisely where that would be at that point.

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Q What about over the weekend, and the weekend at Camp David, when we were led to believe those kinds of decisions were both debated and then ultimately decided by the President? Our understanding was that there were a variety of iterations discussed, whether it was proxy force alone, with U.S. air power, proxy force plus CIA, proxy force plus CIA and special forces, and then something even beyond that, with a more sort of Gulf War, traditional military buildup, that all of those options were presented. MR. LIBBY: I'll have to think about the time line. I think those things -- I know those things were discussed after a fashion, but I'm not sure it was before the 15th, which I guess was the Saturday meeting. Q

Right.

MS. MATALIN: MR. LIBBY: Q

(Inaudible.) Yes, Karen is --

Can we try and -- (inaudible.) END

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