T5 B70 Dick Clarke- Bin Laden Flights Fdr- Entire Contents- 2 Withdrawal Notices- Draft Excerpt- Transcript And Press Report (1st Pgs For Ref) 666

WITHDRAWAL NOTICE RG: 148 Exposition, Anniversary, and Memorial Commissions SERIES: 9/11 Commission Team 5, FRC Box 31 NND PROJECT NUMBER:

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The item identified below has been withdrawn from this file: FOLDER TITLE: Dick Clarke, bin Laden flights DOCUMENT DATE: 06/18/2004

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Portion of Clarke's interview, pages 8-15

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Thomas H. Keaa CHAW

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SUBJECT TO CLASSIFICATION REVIEW Evaluating legislative proposals to bail out the airline industry and cap Its liability. The very process of reviewing these issues underscored the absence of an effective government organization dedicated to assessing vulnerabilities and handling problems of protection and preparedness. Though a number of agencies had some part of the task, none had security as its primary mission. By September 14, Vice President Cheney had decided to recommend, at least as a first step, a new White House entity to coordinate all the relevant agencies rather than tackle the challenge of combining them in a new department This new White House entity would be a homeland security advisor and Homeland Security Council—paralleling the National Security Council system. Vice President Cheney reviewed the proposal with President Bush and other advisers. President Bush announced the new post and its first occupant—Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge—in his address to a jobt session of Congress on September 20.17 Beginning on September 1 1, Immigration and Naturalization Service agents working in cooperation with the FBI began arresting individuals for immigration violations whom they encountered while following up leads in the FBI's investigation of the 9/1 1 attacks. Eventually, 768 aliens were arrested as "special interest" detainees, Some (such as Zacarias Moussaoui) were actually in INS custody before 9/11; most were arrested after. Attorney General John Ashcroft told us that he saw his job in directing this effort as "risk minimization," both to find out who had committed the attacks and to prevent a subsequent attack. Ashcroft ordered all special interest immigration hearings closed to the public, family members, and press, directed* government attorneys to seek denial of bond until such time as they were "cleared" of terrorist connections by the FBI and other agencies, and ordered the identity of the detainees kept secret. INS attorneys charged with prosecuting the immigration violations had trouble getting information about the detainees and any terrorist connections; in the chaos after the attacks, it was very difficult to reach busy law enforcement officials. The clearance process approved by the Justice Department was time-consuming, lasting an average of about 80 days. We have assessed this effort to detain aliens of "special interest." The detainees were lawfully held on immigration charges. Records indicate that 53 1 were deported, 162 were released on bond, 24 received some kind of immigration benefits, 12 had their proceedings terminated, and JOft of whom «^e M!^*^!JJr"™^J^g?J!!J **> tv>lg r"B*^-PJffifJLljf Marshals Service. _____ The Inspector GenejgLglihgjusricepepartment found serious abuse of the rights of some of the 9/11 detainees.JxWThave not beenablrto ascertain, despite questionrtglhg-JustieeIJepartmenfrpfecisely how many of the 9/1 1 detainees the FBI believed had connections to terrorism. The Attorney General testified mat these tactics led to the arrest and detention of Ali al Mam, an alleged al Qaeda facilitator who arrived in the United States on September 10, 2001 ; the list does not contain al Marri's name.20 A senior al Qaeda detainee has stated that U.S. government efforts after the 9/1 1 attacks to monitor the American homeland, including review of Muslims5 immigration files and deportation of nonpermanent residents, forced al Qaeda to operate less freely. 2I i The government's ability to collect intelligence inside the United States, and the sharing of such information between the intelligence and law enforcement communities, was not a priority SUBJECT TO CLASSIFICATION REVIEW Chapter 10. Version 071004

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SUBJECT TO CLASSIFICATION REVIEW before 9/11. Guidelines on this subject issued in August 2001 by Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson essentially recapitulated prior guidance. However, the attacks of 9/1 1 changed everything, Less than one week after September 1 1, en early version of what was to become the Patriot Act (officially, the USA PATRIOT Act)22 began to take shape. A central provision of the proposal was the removal of "the wall" on information sharing between the intelligence and law enforcement communities (discussed in chapter 3), Ashcroft told us he was determined to take every conceivable action, within the limits of the Constitution, to identify potential terrorists and deter additional attacks.25 The administration developed a proposal that eventually passed both houses of Congress by large majorities and was signed into law on October 26.24 TEXT BOX

Flights of Saudi Nationals Leaving the United States Three questions have arisen with respect to the departure of Saudi nationals from the United States in the immediate aftermath of September 1 1 : (1) Did any flights of Saudi nationals take place before national airspace reopened on September 13, 2001? (2) Was there any political intervention to facilitate the departure of Saudi nationals? (3) Did the FBI screen Saudi nationals thoroughly before their departure? First, we found no evidence that any flights of Saudi nationals, domestic or international, took place before die reopening of national airspace on the morning of September 13, 2001.2S To the contrary, every flight we have identified occurred after national airspace reopened.26 * Second, we found no evidence of political intervention. We found no evidence that anyone at the White House above the level of Richard Clarke participated in a decision on the departure of Saudi nationals. The issue came up in one of the many video teleconferences of the interagency group Clarke chaired, and Clarke said he approved of how the FBI was dealing with the matter when it came up for interagency discussion at his level. Clarke told us, "I asked the FBI, Dale Watson. . .to handle that, to check to see if that was all right with them, to see if they wanted access to any of these people, and to get back to me. And if they had no objections, it would be fine with me." Clarke added, "I have no recollection of clearing it with anybody at the White House."27 Although White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card remembered someone telling him about the Saudi request shortly after September 1 1 , ho said he had not talked to the Saudis and did not ask anyone to do anything about it The President and Vice President told us they were not aware of the issue at all until it surfaced much later in the media. None of the officials we interviewed recalled any intervention or direction on this matter from any political appointee.28 Third, we believe that the FBI conducted a satisfactory screening of Saudi nationals who left the United States on charter flights.29 The Saudi government was advised of and agreed to the FBI's requirements before the flights departed.30 The Federal Aviation Administration representative working in the FBI operations center made sure that the FBI was aware of the! flights of Saudi _'_ nationals and was able to screen the passengers before they were allowed to depart?r

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The FBI concluded that there was no one on any of these flights whom the FBI wanted to interview in connection with 9/11, or whom the FBI later concluded was connected to the attacks. Our own independent review of the Saudi nationals involved confirms that no one with known links to terrorism departed on these flights.32 END TEXT BOX 10.2

Planning for War

By late in the evening of September 11, the President had addressed the nation on the terrible events of the day. Vice President Cheney described the President's mood as somber. The long day was not yet over.33 When the larger meeting that included his domestic department heads broke up, President Bush chaired a smaller meeting of top advisers, a group he would later call his "war council."34 This group usually included Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State Powell, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, General Hugh Shelton, Vice Chairman of the Join Chiefs (later to become Chairman) General Myers, DCI Tenet, Attorney General Ashcroft, and FBI Director Robert Mueller. From the White House staff, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice and Chief of Staff Card were part of the core group, often joined by their deputies, Stephen Hadley and Joshua Bolten. In this restricted NSC meeting, the President said it was a time for self-defense. The United States would punish not just the perpetrators of the attacks, but also those who harbored mem. Secretary Powell said the United States had to make it clear to Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the Arab states that the time to act was now. He said we would need to build a coalition. The President noted that the attacks provided a great opportunity to engage Russia and China. Secretary Rumsfeld urged the President and die principals to think broadly about who might have harbored the attackers, including Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Sudan, and Iran. He wondered aloud how much evidence the United States would need in order to deal with these countries, pointing out that major strikes could take up to 60 days to assemble.35 President Bush chaired two more meetings of the National Security Council on September 12. In the first meeting, he stressed that the United States was at war with a new and different kind of enemy. The President tasked principals to go beyond their pre-9/11 work and develop a strategy to eliminate terrorists and punish those who Support them. As they worked on defining the goals and objectives of the upcoming campaign, they considered a paper that went beyond al Qaeda to propose the "elimination of terrorism as a throat to our way of life," an aim that would include pursuing other international terrorist organizations in the Middle East,3'3? Rice chaired a Principals Committee meeting on September 13 in the Situation Room to refine how the fight against al Qaeda would be conducted. The principals agreed mat the overall message should be that anyone supporting al Qaeda would be at risk of harm. The United States would need to integrate diplomacy, financial measures, intelligence, and military actions into an overarching strategy. The principals also focused on Pakistan and what it could do to turn die Taliban against al Qaeda. They concluded that if Pakistan decided not to help the United States, it too would be at risk.38 SUBJECT TO CLASSIFICATION REVIEW Chapter 10, Version 071004

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TYPE: COMMITTEE HEARING LENGTH: 17998 words COMMITTEE: SUBCOMMITTEE ON TERRORISM, TECHNOLOGY AND HOMELAND SECURITY SUBCOMMITTEE: SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE HEADLINE: U.S. SENATOR JON KYL (R-AZ) HOLDS HEARING ON TERRORISM FIRST RESPONDERS SPEAKER: U.S. SENATOR JON KYL (R-AZ), CHAIRMAN LOCATION: WASHINGTON, D.C. WITNESSES: U.S. REPRESENTATIVE CHRIS COX (R-CA) U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JIM TURNER (D-TX) WARREN RUDMAN, CHAIR, INDEPENDENT TASK FORCE ON EMERGENCY RESPONDERS RICHARD CLARKE, SENIOR ADVISER, INDEPENDENT TASK FORCE ON EMERGENCY RESPONDERS PAUL POSNER, MANAGING DIRECTOR OF STRATEGIC ISSUES, U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE BODY: (CORRECTED COPY: CORRECTS FEINGOLD SPEAKER IDENTIFICATION) U.S. SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: SUBCOMMITTEE ON TECHNOLOGY, TERRORISM AND GOVERNMENT INFORMATION HOLDS A HEARING ON TERRORISM FIRST RESPONDERS SEPTEMBER 3, 2003 SPEAKERS: U.S. SENATOR JON KYL (R-AZ) CHAIRMAN U.S. SENATOR ORRTN G. HATCH (R-UT) U.S. SENATOR ARLEN SPECTER (R-PA) U.S. SENATOR MIKE DEWINE (R-OH) U.S. SENATOR JEFF SESSIONS (R-AL) U.S. SENATOR SAXBY CHAMBLISS (R-GA) U.S. SENATOR DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D-CA) RANKING MEMBER

. Clarke claims responsibility ALEXANDER BOLTON The Hill Richard Clarke, who served as President Bush's chief of counterterrorism, has claimed sole responsibility for approving flights of Saudi Arabian citizens, including members of Osama bin Laden's family, from the United States immediately after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. In an interview with The Hill yesterday, Clarke said, "I take responsibility for it. I don't think it was a mistake, and I'd do it again." Most of the 26 passengers aboard one flight, which departed from the United States on Sept. 20, 2001, were relatives of Osama bin Laden, whom intelligence officials blamed for the attacks almost immediately after they happened. Clarke's claim of responsibility is likely to put an end to a brewing political controversy on Capitol Hill over who approved the controversial flights of members of the Saudi elite at a time when the administration was preparing to detain dozens of Muslim-Americans and people with Muslim backgrounds as material witnesses to the attacks. Several Democrats say that at a closed-door meeting May 6, they pressed members of the commission investigating the attacks of Sept. 11 to find out who approved the flights. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who attended the meeting, said she asked former Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-lnd.) and former Secretary of the Navy John Lehman, a Republican, "Who authorized the flight[s] and why?" "They said it's been a part of their inquiry and they haven't received satisfactory answers yet and they were pushing," Boxer added. Another Democrat who attended the meeting confirmed Boxer's account and reported that Hamilton said: "We don't know who authorized it. We've asked that question 50 times." Referring to questions about who authorized the flights, former Rep. Tim Roemer (D-lnd.), one of the 10 members of the bipartisan Sept. 11 commission, said in an interview Monday: "In my mind, this isn't resolved right now. We need more clarity and information from the relevant political sources and FBI sources." But Clarke yesterday appeared to put an end to the mystery. "It didn't get any higher than me," he said. "On 9-11, 9-12 and 9-13, many things didn't get any higher than me. I decided it in consultation with the FBI." Clarke's explanation fit with a new stance Hamilton has taken on the issue of the Saudi flights. Hamilton said in an interview Friday that when he told Democratic senators that the commission did not know who authorized the Saudi flights, he was not fully informed. "They asked the question 'Who authorized the flight?' and I said I did not know and I'd try to find out," Hamilton said. "I learned subsequently from talking to the staff that we thought Clarke authorized the flight and it did not go higher." "I did not at any point say the White House was stalling," Hamilton added. "They asked me who authorized it, and I said we didn't know."

WITHDRAWAL NOTICE RG: 148 Exposition, Anniversary, and Memorial Commissions SERIES: 9111 Commission Team 5, FRC Box 31 NND PROJECT NUMBER:

51095

FOIA CASE NUMBER: 30383

WITHDRAWAL DATE: 11/19/2008

BOX: 00009

TAB: 5

FOLDER: 0043

COPIES: 1 PAGES:

DOC ID: 31206411

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_ACCESS RESTRICTED The item identified below has been withdrawn from this file: FOLDER TITLE: Dick Clarke, bin Laden flights DOCUMENT DATE:

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"The Saudi Flight after 9/11"

This document has been withdrawn for the following reason(s): 9/11 Classified Information

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