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9/11 Enquiry - William Cohen's Testimony

Mr. Secretary, we are very pleased that you've consented to be with us today. And we'd like you, if you could, to raise your hand so we can place you under oath.

Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

COHEN: Thank you very much.

Your prepared statement will be entered into the record in full. And so we'd ask you to summarize your remarks as you'd like.

COHEN: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

And I'd like I'd like to express my gratitude to the commission for the important work that you are undertaking. I've had the opportunity, I think, to meet with either the members and/or staff on three prior occasions. And I am happy to be here today to contribute whatever I can to the important analysis that you are undertaking.

September 11th was a life-transforming event I think for all of us. It was a barbaric attack, killing some 3,000 Americans by turning airliners into cruise missiles.

I think all of us have a solemn responsibility to the victims of September 11th, to the victims' families, many of whom may be here today and certainly are watching, and also to the brave men and women in our military who continue to carry the battle and suffer the wounds in this war against terrorism.

During the time I served as a member of the United States Senate and the Armed Services Committee, I saw the bombing of our embassy in Beirut, the bombing of our Marine barracks in Beirut, the bombing of Pan Am 103, the hijacking of TWA-847, the bombing of the West Berlin discotheque, the bombing of OPM-SANG and of Khobar Towers, among the many acts that were directed against the United States.

As a result, during that time, I became convinced that our military was not organized to act swiftly enough in the age of what Toffler described as that of future shock.

I helped to write the Goldwater-Nichols Act, establishing the power and the leadership of the joint chiefs of staff as a result of being concerned about what's taken place. That came, by the way, over the objection of the Pentagon during that time.

In 1986, I authored the legislation to establish a Special Operation Command, once again, I would point out, over the objections of the Pentagon, because I felt it was important to enable us to be able to respond to the emerging threats.

I wrote and I spoke about the subject on numerous occasions convinced that the threat was growing, was becoming more organized, less sporadic, and when coupled with access of weapons of mass destruction, likely to pose an existential threat to the world.

I carried these convictions to the Pentagon when President Clinton asked me to serve as the secretary of defense. I found that he not only shared my views, but he was prepared to support efforts to counter these threats with dollars, with deeds, as well as with his presidential words.

In my experience, the threat of international terrorism remained a top priority for all members of his national security team throughout the years I served at the Pentagon.

They included enhancing force protection; support for covert and special operations activity; designating and organizing a National Guard to serve as the first responders in the wake of attacks against our cities; organizing a joint task force for civil support to assist the cities and states against terrorist attacks that might take place; helping to train 100 major cities in consequence management against terrorist attacks; engaging in personal diplomacy and public appearances to alert the American people to the threat posed by anthrax, ricin, VX and radiological materials, the danger of them falling into the hands of terrorist groups.

These initiatives were undertaken as the department was engaged in waging war in Kosovo; we attacked Saddam Hussein in Operation Desert Fox; as we destroyed a suspected WMD site in Sudan; as we coped with the dangers of cyber attacks against our critical infrastructure, including the unknown consequences of a critical massive cyber failure that was then known as Y2K. I believe that we devoted some $3 billion to $4 billion in defense spending at that time to cope with that for fear that the terrorists would try to exploit that millennium turnover.

We launched an attack upon Al Qaida's training camp in Afghanistan as has been discussed earlier today. We continued efforts to capture or kill Osama bin Laden after discovering his role in the bombing of the embassies in Africa and then later with the USS Cole.

And we developed new intelligence-gathering capabilities that could be directed against Osama bin Laden and others as, again, you have discussed here earlier this morning.

In addition, the department also worked closely with the CIA, the FBI and other agencies, and as a result, I believe we were able to thwart a number of terrorist activities directed here against Americans and abroad.

I know the commission is anxious to explore more specifically what happened or did not happen at the Defense Department.

But I'd like to try and paint in the few moments I have at least a broader perspective as well.

I think all of us who have held the public trust have to be accountable for what we did or did not do during our careers in the public service and holding the public trust.

(APPLAUSE)

But I want to put it into perspective as a former member of the Senate and a former member of the House of Representatives as well, because I think as the commission may find fault, indeed that's all -- in all probability, that might be the goal of the commission. I don't think so.

But I hope you'll find the fault lines as well in our society as a whole. And if you just permit me four or five minutes to outline some of the challenges I think that all of us face, certainly while I was in the Senate, also at the Department of Defense, I'd point out that on many occasions the administration was able to secure the cooperation of Congress in the pursuit of its goals.

There were a number of other occasions in which we did not.

And the belief that we were somehow indulging in a cynical hyperbole I think resulted in a number of legislative reactions.

There were tens of millions of dollars cut out of the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, in the so-called Nunn-Lugar program, which I believe was one of the most important programs we could have passed, and that was to help reduce the accumulation of weapons of mass destruction, nuclear materials and others in the possession of the former Soviet Union.

Tens of millions of dollars were cut from that program, I think posing a greater risk to us. We had to spend a significant amount of time trying to lobby to restore funds in that regard.

Congress blocked the cooperation with countries whose support was critical to the counterterrorism efforts, such as banning military cooperation with Indonesia, by way of example, the world's largest Muslim country that is a key battleground in the campaign against Islamic extremists and banning any meaningful cooperation with Pakistan, the front line state in the global war on terrorism.

There were reasons for this, but nonetheless, that was the reality.

We had a program called IMET which was designed to put our military into contact with the militaries of other countries to help educate them in the way that a civilized country and democracy is able to subordinate the military civilian rule and to pursue democratic values. Well, the program was terminated based on activities that took place in that country and elsewhere.

We had congressional committees who rejected requests for legislative authority to the department to provide certain support to domestic activity or agencies to prevent or respond to terrorist actions in the United States.

It was with this in mind that I tried to combat this complacency and cynicism that I helped to create -- not to create, but I filled the membership of a commission that was led by former Senators Rudman and Hart, including the vice chairman of this commission and former Speaker Gingrich, along with senior retired military commanders and others.

In releasing the commission's first report long before September 11, Vice Chairman Hamilton stated the fundamental issue. He said, What comes across to me in this report more than any other single fact is that the commission believes that Americans are going to be less secure than they believe themselves to be, and so I think what we're trying to say in this report is we've lived in a very secure time, we're very fortunate for that, but we're going to be confronted with a lot of challenges to our national security that Americans do not believe we're going to be subject to, and that's really what comes out of this report for me more than any other single thing.

Well, I'll tell you, his remarks really resonated with me, because I recall at my very first press conference as secretary of defense back in 1997, I was asked, Mr. Secretary, what is your greatest concern as you look toward the future?

We still live in a very dangerous, disorderly world. And in many cases, we face dangers that are comparable to those we've faced from the past, namely the proliferation of missile technology, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the spread of terrorism.

I believe that we have been complacent as a society. I think that we have failed to fully comprehend the gathering storm. Even now, after September 11th, I think it's far from clear that our society truly understands the gravity of a threat that we face or is yet willing to do what I believe is going to be necessary to counter it.

Even after September 11th, after the anthrax and the ricin attacks in the United States, I remain concerned that the controversy over not finding Iraq's weapons of mass destruction will lead to the erroneous assumption that all this talk about the dangers of WMD is just another exercise in the cynical exploitation of fear.

After all, it's commonly noted -- it was noted here again this morning -- there were no attacks since September 11th. I think this is a dangerous delusion. The enemy is not only coming, he has been here. He will continue to try to examine our weaknesses and exploit the crevices in our security and destroy our way of living as well as our lives.

Mr. Chairman, I'll conclude here. I think you can deduce from my written statement, I believe that the Clinton administration, far more than any previous administration prior to September 11th, understood the threat that terrorism poses to our country. I think it took far greater and more comprehensive action to counter it than previous administration did by virtue of the growing threat.

But in spite of all of this, the United States was hit in a devastating way. Even today, with the global war on terrorism being waged, I believe we need to do far more to prevent the spread of virulent Islamic extremism and to prevent terrorism from reaching our shores.

I don't pretend to hold the keys to the kingdom of wisdom and what needs to be done in the future. But I think, as I said before, we all must stand accountable for our actions.

It's my hope that the commission, again, will focus on the fault lines that run through our democratic system as we struggle to cope with the challenges of unprecedented proportions. I've outlined just a couple of items which I think should considered for the future. I think we have to develop an in-depth public discussion among our citizens, as well as among elected officials, regarding the compromises on privacy that we're willing to accept in order to remain free and safe. The current debate over access to personal data for aviation security purposes, I don't think is encouraging.

We have to elevate the public discussion on these matters and do our best to remove from them electoral manipulation at least until we truly understand the issues and choices.

I don't think it's going to be an easy balance to strike, but I think it has to be done.

I think we have to consider establishing a domestic intelligence organization distinct from law enforcement and subject to appropriate control and regulation and oversight. I think we have to secure and eliminate, on an accelerated basis, fissile nuclear materials and chemical and biological weapon agents that pose a risk of diversion. This is going to require a much more cooperative relationship with Russia than we currently have.

And I think we have to re-energize America's engagement in the Middle East. I believe that the road to peace in the Middle East runs through Baghdad. And success in Baghdad may very well run through Jerusalem. The unabated violence can only serve, in my judgment, to remain a breeding ground for even more savagery and nihilism in the future. And this effort should not await the counting of ballots in November.

And finally, I think we need to persuade the free people of the world that the war on terror cannot be waged by America alone. As recent events demonstrate, religious extremists and fanatics don't recognize geographic boundaries. There are no rear lines. There are no pockets of tranquility. There are no safe harbors for innocent civilians.

Every one of us is one the front lines today. A virus or bomb, born in a distant laboratory or a factory, is but a plane ride away from any place on this planet. So it's time for sober reflection and the charting of a responsible course of action.

And to the extent I can contribute to this, Mr. Chairman, I'm prepared to answer your questions.

KEAN: Mr. Secretary, thank you very much for a very articulate statement. Commissioner Fielding, are you going to begin the questioning? And then followed by Commissioner Kerrey.

FIELDING: Mr. Secretary, thank you very much for appearing here today, but also thank you for the many hours you've spent with the commission and the staff in preparing this, and your very full, prepared testimony as well as your remarks this morning. I'd like to also express my personal high regard for you and for all the years of public service that you've given to this nation. Thank you.

We, of course, have a mission to fulfill.

And obviously, again, one of those is the development of our counterterrorism strategy. And of course we're going to pick your brain and again today, as far as the aspects of the military fed into that. And my colleagues have a lot of questions, so I'll try to watch that little ball as much as anybody.

But under Presidential Directive 62, the military of course and the Defense Department didn't have the leading role in the counterterrorism efforts during your tenure. And yet, ironically, we've heard a lot of testimony and a lot of commentary that the military was being criticized for being reluctant to use its forces and to actually conduct military operations against Al Qaida and bin Laden.

As a matter of fact, Richard Clarke's now very famous book, he says, The White House wanted action. The senior military did not, and made it almost impossible for the president to overcome their objections.

And I know that you've seen other commentary like that, that the primary limitation that's often cited is that for each decision for using military force, there was this lack of actionable intelligence. And we've heard about it today. And we've heard about it a lot.

And our understanding of that is what was stated earlier, that at a specific time, you couldn't anticipate where the location of bin Laden or his key followers might be, so that it could be sufficiently determined that it was worthwhile to launch military reaction to it.

After August 20th of '98, there were at least three opportunities to which we have been privy to use force against bin Laden. However, in each case, it was determined that there wasn't actionable intelligence.

I guess the first question I'd like to say is whose call is that? How does that decision become a factor and a determinative factor?

And in addition to that, if I could, given that you had setbacks in using force, what was your assessment of the existing capabilities at that time of the CIA...

COHEN: The which capabilities?

KEAN: The existing capabilities -- to obtain what would be required as actionable intelligence? And to the extent that you found them deficient, what steps did you take to supplement and to put into action things that the Defense Department could do to beef up that capability?

COHEN: On the second part, Mr. Fielding, I think that Senator Kerry and others would tell you that over the years, one of the identifiable deficiencies within our intelligence collection capability is the absence of good HUMINT, that we have over the years tended to oscillate between focusing upon technical capabilities with our satellite-gathering technologies as opposed to developing human intelligence.

So penetrating societies such as that becomes even more problematic in terms of developing good human intelligence.

And then you're called upon to try and develop assets on the ground. Well, then the question is, Who do you trust, and how can you trust them, based on what evidence in the past that they have been credible?

All of that goes into an analysis by the CIA working with other intelligence agencies. Secretary Powell talked about I R; we have DIA, Defense Intelligence Agency.

But essentially we turn to the DCI to say, Do we have good intelligence? We review the PDD, as has been discussed earlier today. We sit down at the Cabinet-level meetings with the president and/or with the National Security Adviser and his team and say, Is this good enough intelligence to warrant taking action? And each case has to be looked at in that regard.

Now, you mentioned August of '98. Frankly, it was following the bombing of the embassies in East Africa that the antenna were really up. We were collecting at a level that I saw -- it was unprecedented in terms of the amount of information coming in pointing to bin Laden and then getting the information that would be a gathering of terrorists in Afghanistan.

After reviewing all that information, the determination was made: this was a target certainly that we should attack -- that plus the so- called pharmaceutical plant in Sudan.

But it was that kind after process whereby -- what do we have?

Do we have to be certain? The answer is no.

Do you have to be pretty sure? I think that the answer is yes if you're going to be killing a lot of people.

We're prepared to engage in collateral damage if the target that we're after is certainly important.

But all those factors are into a decision.

But having, quote, actionable intelligence means reliable and the basis of that reliability.

Single-source information, usually I think George Tenet will tell you not good enough.

Maybe if they've got a single source that is truly reliable -- they've had him in the past -- that might be, under the circumstances.

But it all depends upon the quality of the people you've got on the ground, coupled with whatever you can put up in the air to locate certain targets.

FIELDING: But who makes that final decision? Who makes that call?

COHEN: The president of the United States makes the final decision. We make recommendations.

We as the national security team would sit down, examine it and then come to a consensus if we could. If we couldn't, frankly, we would go to the president with our individual recommendations. But most of the time, we were able to reach a consensus.

FIELDING: Just following up, again, on my earlier line of questioning. Did you do anything or were there any steps available that you thought you were worth taking to augment the CIA's capabilities for collecting intelligence?

COHEN: We worked with the CIA. There were some joint efforts as such to reinforce the CIA. We had a cooperative program in terms of the unmanned aerial vehicles, the UAVs. There was some controversy over that as well, I might add.

But trying to find him was certainly a joint enterprise in terms of technical capability. Did we have people on the ground in Afghanistan? The answer was we did not, for the most part.

FIELDING: Was that just not really a viable, realistic option?

COHEN: Well, again, in looking at Afghanistan, looking at the history of that country, look at the power and the power and the relationship with the tribes in the region.

The notion that we could put, quote, Special Forces in that region that would go undetected or uncompromised, I think was pretty remote. Was it possible? You could say it was possible. Was it advisable? We didn't think so at the time. And I think in reflection, we still don't think that was a viable option.

FIELDING: I'd like to ask your opinion, because we have to evaluate the various -- the three incidents. And we've heard a lot of testimony and lot of writings that that particular second event that I made reference to -- I think it was in February of '99, the hunting camp with the UAE hunting camp -- that that was the lost opportunity.

COHEN: As I recall, there were at least three instances in which the initial intelligence take, as they called it, that we think we have him, and what we would then do is, quote, spin up the military at that point, namely, our ability to target that particular area with the thought of taking that individual or group of people out.

There were three instances. Each time the munitions and the people were spun up, they were called off because the word came back: We're not sure -- we're not quite sure.

In one instance, there was an identification that somehow we had bin Laden in our sights. Turned out it was a sheik from UAE. There was another consideration of shooting down an aircraft that might be carrying bin Laden, should he try to escape. That also proved to be reversed by the intelligence community saying we don't think we have him.

So there were three occasions following the attack on the camps in Sudan. But in each and every one of those occasions, it came back on a second look saying we don't think we've got enough here to recommend to the president that we should take military action. And that came from the intelligence community, through the national security adviser, and we all sat and made a collective judgment: OK, under the circumstances, we don't fire.

And recalling that negative reaction, does that criticism affect the planning and use of military force in defending the United States in this context?

COHEN: I'm glad you asked that question, Mr. Fielding, because it's something that I've wanted to talk about for some time. In terms of the kind of poisonous atmosphere that existed then that continues to exist today, you're going to discuss Mr. Clarke's book with him tomorrow but all of the accusations, questioning motives, and calculations during that time, when the attack was launched in Afghanistan and Sudan, there was a movie out called Wag the Dog.

There were critics of the Clinton administration that attacked the president saying this was an effort on his part to divert attention from his personal difficulties. I'd like to say, for the record, under no circumstances did President Clinton ever call upon the military and use that military in order to serve a political purpose.

When I took the office, I had a very clear understanding with the president. He was very clear with me. Under no circumstances would I ever be called upon to exercise any kind of partisan relationship, would participate in no politics and would never allow the military to be used for a political purpose.

President Clinton was true to his word. He never called upon us to do that. It was strictly on the merits.

Now, that accusation surfaced again, and it was something of concern to me. I'll take just a few moments to express it.

In that fall, I should say that winter, in December of 1998, we decided to attack Saddam Hussein. It was called Operation Desert Fox. It was a four-day operation in which we launched a number of attacks upon his weapons of mass destruction sites, his missile production facilities and killing a number of Republican Guards and others.

I got a call the day that that operation was launched. I received a call from Speaker Gingrich and soon-to-be or then-to-be Speaker Livingston asking me to come up to Capitol Hill. They said the House was in an uproar. There was a rage boiling in the House of Representatives. This clearly had to be politically inspired.

I was eager to go up to the Hill. I had not been in the House of Representatives for 20 years and I walked that evening into the well of the House of Representatives. There were almost 400 people there that night, maybe more too a closed session of Congress.

I was prepared at that time and today to say -- I put my entire public career on the line to say that the president always acted specifically upon the recommendation of those of us who held the positions of responsibility to take military action. And at no time did he ever try to use it or manipulate it to serve his personal ends. And I think it's important that that be clear, because that Wag the Dog cynicism that was so virulent there, I'm afraid is coming back again. I think we did everything we can to stop engaging in the kind of self-flagellation and criticism and challenging of motives of our respective presidents.

FIELDING: Thank you. That also is the conclusion of the staff in the staff report. But I'm glad you had a chance to elucidate on it. On August 20th...

KEAN: Last question.

FIELDING: OK. Thank you. On August 20th, we heard about General Shelton undertaking a planning order for preparation of a follow-on operations, and obviously there were never any follow-on operations that came to fruition. But what directions did you give the military for development of military plans against bin Laden after August 20th for our guidance?

COHEN: Our plans were to try to, quote, capture and/or kill -- or kill, I should say in this particular case -- capture or kill bin Laden. That was the directive that went out, the memorandum of notification. The president had signed several of those, refining them on each and every occasion. Taking that directive, we had our people in a position, should there be, quote, actionable intelligence -- again, the key word. And we can -- we should discuss that and debate that issue of what constitutes it.

Were there plans to use Special Forces to supplement the Northern Alliance that they were able to apprehend and hold on to bin Laden? The answer was yes.

There were packages that were developed with our Special Forces at Fort Bragg. There were a number of proposals quote, on the table or on a shelf, prepared to be utilized in the event that we were certain -- and not certain to 100 percent degree -- but reasonably certain that he was going to be at a given area.

I know a question has been raised, Well, why wouldn't you put a unit in there with the anticipation that they could help gather intelligence and track him down?

And I've tried to address this in my written statement. But consider the notion, we have 13,500 troops in Afghanistan right now, not to mention the Pakistanis, and we can't find bin Laden to date. So the notion that you're going to put a small unit, however good, on the ground, or a large unit, and put them into Afghanistan and track down bin Laden, I think is folly.

But if we had people on the ground, if we had the Northern Alliance, if they were reliable, did we have people prepared to go? The answer was yes.

General Shelton, I think, will tell you, it's very difficult to kill an individual with a missile. We all know that. You're talking about six hours from the time you, quote, spun-up, you've got the coordinates, GPS signals -- target that individual. You're six hours away.

To put troops on the ground was probably double that time. By the time you take a package and fly them from Fort Bragg or compose some elements that were already in the Gulf, you're talking more than six hours.

So the answer is, why don't have you forces on the ground in Afghanistan? And the point I'm simply trying to make is that the notion that you could put thousands or hundreds or even tens of people on the ground and hope to locate him under those circumstances, I think, is simply unrealistic.

FIELDING: Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

KEAN: Senator Kerrey?

KERREY: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Secretary, nice to see you again.

COHEN: Good to see you, Senator.

KERREY: First of all, let me say, as you were introducing yourself, I had not until I prepared for this hearing realized -- then you reinforced it -- that you were the father of the Special Operations Command. And it must have given you a considerable amount of pride to see how effective special operations units were in Afghanistan, Iraq and, according to the reports today in the Hindu Kush again, trying to run down bin Laden as we speak.

COHEN: Senator Kerrey, you may recall one of the complaints that used to come from the Pentagon and the executive branch is that Congress engages in too much micromanagement. I think that was the case. And also the reformation of the joint chiefs of staff of Goldwater-Nichols of macromanagement. But I thought it played a very important role.

(LAUGHTER)

But let me also say with great respect, I do think that in '98, that a special operations unit with an element of surprise could have had a tremendous impact at that particular point. It's a judgment call you've got to make. It's a much different situation than it is today. And I appreciate that very much.

Look, one of the problems I think that I have with this whole thing is that we were attacked on the 11th of September 2001 by the same people that attacked the Cole on the 12th of October 2000, by the same people who attempted to attack The Sullivans a few months earlier, by the same people who were responsible for multiple millennium attacks in 1999, by the same people who attacked our embassies on the 7th of August, 1998, and now, as we understand it, by the same people who have had previous attacks back to the 1990s, perhaps up to and including the World Trade Center bombing one.

So it's not just that we were attacked successfully by 19 men with less than a half a million dollars utterly. I mean they just defeated every single defensive mechanism we had up in place. It's that this is the same group that had attacked us on many other occasions in the past.

And that's why I keep coming to the question, of why would we have a presidential directive in place in 1998 that said that the Department of Defense and our military was going to be used principally for a response, if we were attacked in a local and state situation, and to support what the Department of Justice was doing.

I don't understand why the military wasn't given a priority and a primary role in the fight against not just terrorism, but the fight against Osama bin Laden. I mean, I presume you've seen the declaration of war that he released on the 23rd of February, 1998. That was very precise. Again, issued by somebody who had demonstrated not just a willingness to kill Americans, but the capacity to kill Americans.

And every single time I heard the administration come up before the Intelligence Committee that I was on, maybe just trying to keep doing what you had done for years before, it was, We're going to send the FBI to investigate this stuff. And I would say, My god, I don't understand this. They killed airmen in Khobar Towers. They attacked our facilities in East Africa. They attacked our sailors on the Cole.

I don't understand, and still today don't understand, why the military wasn't given a dominant role. And I wonder, if you're looking back on it today, do you think we underutilized the military during the 1990s in the war against in this case, radical Islamists, led by Osama bin Laden?

I take your point about bin Laden being very precise. He was very precise in issuing a personal fatwa against me. I was put on the list. There was a price tag. There were several attempts, which I don't have to go into details about, going after me.

So I was very much aware that this was a war that had been declared against the United States, including members of the president's Cabinet personally, putting us at risk, as well as our military personnel.

The use of the military -- the only use I could have seen in terms of could we have done more against bin Laden, it was really talked about putting a massive force into Afghanistan over the objection -- you've heard this this morning, and it's something that I had to take into account: Could we in fact take a much more aggressive military operation against bin Laden without the support of Pakistan or any of the neighboring countries?

General Zinni's name has been surfaced on several occasions here. When you recommend people to advise you -- and I was the one who recommended that General Zinni be the commander of the CENTCOM -- you look at their background, you look at their war records, you look at how they've conducted themselves and you hopefully trust their judgment.

General Zinni made a number of recommendations, which I took to heart, because he was of the opinion that had we taken certain types military action, it would have been, quote, ineffective, counterproductive.

He was the same general who recommended that we not overreact when there was a military coup in Pakistan, saying, Wait a minute, I've worked with this general. I think we may be able to persuade him to be much more supportive than he has been than we think in the past.

As a result of that kind of relationship that General Zinni had with General Musharraf -- President Musharraf, later President Musharraf -- we were able to help thwart attacks during the millennium.

So you have to at some point put some judgment in the experts that you call upon to give you advice.

Could I have second guessed the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Shelton? Yes. Could I have second guessed General Zinni? Did I have reason to, based upon my experience with them? And the answer was no.

So, what could have been done? We had lethal authority. Sandy Berger said we weren't trying to send simply a summons to bin Laden in Afghanistan, we were trying to kill him -- him or anyone else who was there at the time. That was, you know, what they call a warning shot to the temple. We were trying to kill bin Laden -- and anyone there that went to that camp.

Did we have the kind of information that would have allowed to us get him later? We didn't see it. It was never recommended. I can't account for everything that you've heard, but there was never a recommendation that came to the national security team that said: We've got a good shot at getting him, let's take military action and do it.

The only other alternative would have been: Could we have persuaded Pakistan, Get out of the way, we're coming, we don't need your support, we're going to invade Afghanistan ?

I leave it to you, Senator Kerrey, and to others who have served in Congress. Do you think it's reasonable that under the circumstances that any president, including President Clinton, could have gone to Congress in October of 2000 and said, These people are trying to kill us, and now therefore we're going to invade Afghanistan and take them out. I don't think so. But other members can disagree. A judgment call. You sat on the other side of that decision.

KERREY: Well, that presumes that the president would come to Congress and request authorization for action there. But as you know, there have been many moments when the president doesn't request such authorization. He just does it.

COHEN: Can I make -- let me make one other point. One other point. You remember Kosovo.

KERREY: Yes.

COHEN: Here we had a campaign going on in Kosovo. I don't know how many times you came to the White House, but there were meetings after meetings with members of Congress coming down to the president saying, This is a bad idea, when are you going to get out? What's the exit strategy? How much is it going to cost us?

We had to sustain a 78-day bombing campaign -- frankly, without the support of Congress. And it was a successful campaign. And as a result of that, we saved a lot of lives.

But I give you that as an example to say the notion that somehow President Clinton or even President Bush -- absent 9/11 -- could have walked into the halls of Congress, say, Declare war against Al Qaida, I think is unrealistic.

KERREY: But, Mr. Secretary, I must say you're making my argument. I supported what the president did in Kosovo. I supported what he did in Bosnia. I was in the minority in both times. But that didn't stop him from doing it. The fact that it was difficult, the fact that it was hard, the fact even at times that it was unpopular -- he believed in it, and he rallied the American people to the cause.

KERREY: He didn't rally, he didn't do that with bin Laden.

COHEN: But he also rallied allies to the cause. You had the NATO countries involved in Bosnia and Kosovo. You have, after 9/11, you have him rallying the international community to help go into Afghanistan.

Prior to that time, I dare say there is not a single country that would have been supporting the president of the United States declaring war and invading Afghanistan prior to 9/11. You can disagree with that judgment. I don't think there was a single country, and I frankly think that Congress would have overwhelmingly rejected it.

KERREY: I would disagree. I respectfully disagree. First of all, again, as I said, there are many instances where the president doesn't even come to Congress. Operation Just Cause in Panama. He didn't come to Congress and say, Gee, is it OK to do that? Grenada -- the president didn't come to Congress and said, Is that OK to do it? In Bosnia and Kosovo, the very examples that you cite, the president didn't have the support of Congress, and he went ahead and did.

I think he did the right thing. But the fact that it's unpopular, that it's difficult, that our allies are not necessarily with it shouldn't deter a president who believes that what we have is a serial killer on our hands who had begun killing us at least as early as 1993, who had issued a very specific declaration of war calling Islamic men to join an Islamic army on the 23rd of February, 1998, and then demonstrated that he had the capacity in a very sophisticated way on the 7th of August to carry out that threat.

We had a round in our chamber and we didn't use it. That's how I see it. And I don't know if it had prevented 9/11. But I absolutely do not believe that just because a commander in chief sits there and said, Gee, this thing is unpopular therefore I can't do it, I don't think that's a good argument. I know Secretary Rumsfeld is going to use it here in a few minutes and I'm going to be just as harsh with him. I don't buy it.

COHEN: Well, Senator Kerrey, let's go back to the Persian Gulf war of '91. There you had Saddam Hussein invading Kuwait. There you had the president of the United States, President Bush 41, going to the international community, gathering support, and then deciding to come to the Congress to get congressional support. Close call. I think it passed the Senate by four votes under those extraordinary circumstances.

But I would submit to you the notion that you'd be able in the fall of 2000 to have rallied the Congress and the country to invade Afghanistan and to have had the support of Pakistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, all of the other people in the region, I don't think is realistic.

KERREY: Well, I would just say for the record: Better have tried and failed than not to try at all. And I think in this particular case, again, what you've got, the thing that's most troubling about 9/11 is that it was carried out by the same group of people that had killed Americans the previous October, that had tried to kill Americans on the (inaudible) just before that in the Summer of 2000. It's a series of events stretching back for a decade. That's the problem.

COHEN: And we would...

KERREY: With a declaration of war by he guy who's leading the organization.

COHEN: And we were trying to kill those members whenever we could find them.

But you're not talking about people sitting in a city waiting to be attacked. It's like mercury on a mirror. You're talking about individuals who can hide. I mean let's look at what's taking place today. I point out again, you've got thousands of people on the ground in Afghanistan with the support of Pakistan, and we still are unable to track him down and to kill him.

KERREY: But if you look at the performance of the Special Operations units in Northern Afghanistan and the war against Afghanistan, and they leveraged thousands of GIs effort, they were enormously effective.

COHEN: I agree.

KERREY: Likewise in Iraq and likewise again right now in Afghanistan.

COHEN: I agree. I think we owe them a tremendous amount of gratitude for all of the sacrifice they make and the training they have. That's the reason we are the finest in the world, because of that training.

KERREY: What was the military objective on 20 August, 1998?

COHEN: The military objective was to kill as many people in those camps as we could, to take out the pharmaceutical plant because we had reason to believe -- actionable intelligence.

KERREY: But there were more men south of Kandahar than there was up by the coast. Why did we attack that particular camp?

COHEN: Because intelligence was that we believed that bin Laden and his associates were going to be there. We went after as many as we could and as high as we could. We didn't know whether he'd be there for sure. We hoped he would be there. He slipped away apparently.

KERREY: Did you consider putting a special ops -- a relatively small special ops team just to get eyes on the prize -- just to be able to be sort of forward air controllers, rather than having to rely on satellites or tribals to tell you where bin Laden was?

COHEN: I think that the judgment was that it was a more discrete operation likely to be less compromised than if we tried to put people on the ground at that time. Again, you can question that judgment, but that was a recommendation coming that had the best chance of success of getting him.

KERREY: We're going to hear from Secretary Rumsfeld in a little bit and I want to ask you one last question in that regard. During the transition, you briefed the secretary on 50 items and also briefed him on Al Qaida. And perhaps he's going to recall, but in a previous interview, he didn't remember much about the briefing on Al Qaida.

Can you offer any reasons why?

COHEN: I listed -- since I had limited time with Secretary Rumsfeld, I knew that he had -- was quite familiar with the office. And what I tried to do is to give him the whole panoply in a very short period of time knowing that there were going to be specific briefings by the chairman of the joint chiefs and others, the joint staff, the national security adviser and, also, the CIA.

The very first subject had to do with a major threat to the United States involving Al Qaida or bin Laden's associates, but an extremist group launching an attack domestically.

I don't think I want to talk about it any more than that, but that was a number one item. Everything else on the item were issues that I thought he should at least be aware of, but number one was my concern.

And frankly I came to Capitol Hill. I met I think with just a total of perhaps eight to 10 people to talk about the threat that existed and what needed to be done what needed to be done to help counter it. I don't think I want to talk about it more.

KERREY: I made the same conclusion, Mr. Secretary. But as I said at the beginning, Goldwater-Nichols, Special Operations Command, the men and women of the Air Force, Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard that won the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, that was your troops and you ought to feel very proud of it.

COHEN: Thank you very much, Senator.

KEAN: Governor Thompson.

THOMPSON: Mr. Secretary, let me see if I could get this straight. We've been talking for the last half hour on the issue of a response to the USS Cole.

If I understand the testimony of a lot of people, the Clinton administration didn't believe it had proof sufficient of Al Qaida's responsibility before they left office, and perhaps the Bush administration felt it wasn't on their watch and they had other fish to fry.

And passing that, you seemed to suggest in your answer to an earlier question that the only option for a military reprisal for the bombing of the Cole was an invasion of Afghanistan. And I think most people would agree -- and certainly prior testimony has cited -- that that was just not an appropriate response. We had no place to forward base from. We had no coalition. It was much different than Kosovo where we had overflight rights and we had allies.

But am I wrong in believing that just as appropriate a response would have been action against the Taliban, not necessarily just against Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaida followers.

We knew where Mullah Omar lived, presumably. What about a missile strike on Taliban facilities, not just their training camps, but on their civil seats of government? There would have been collateral damage, yes, but I think you said you were willing to accept collateral damage. And the 13 sailors we lost in the Cole were not collateral damage, they were direct damage.

Was any consideration given to reprisals against the institutions and facilities, civil government of the Taliban, for the Cole?

COHEN: There were a number of proposals. And I can't recall specifically, but I think Mr. Clarke may be talking about those tomorrow. But there were a number of recommendations to go in and flatten a number of areas.

COHEN: During that time, we did not have specific information this was bin Laden. Frankly, that was my suspicion. It could have been other Islamic extremists that were operating out of Yemen. We found out in retrospect there had been a previous attack that was unsuccessful against The Sullivan. But that was my suspicion.

We were trying to get bin Laden in any event. Whether it was before the Cole or after the Cole, we were still looking for ways in which we might attack bin Laden.

So some recommendations to actually just flatten a number of areas. It was the considered judgment at the time that that would not have either gotten bin Laden or have resulted in a positive reaction by either Pakistan -- that we were courting at that point to try and persuade them join us in this effort -- or any of the others in the region.

So, it was determined, again, that it would have not been effective, and it might have been counterproductive. That was a judgment call at the time.

As the secretary of defense, I have to make recommendations to the president. I have to do so certainly filled with passion in terms of what had happened to the Cole. I went to those funerals and services and I met with all the families, and so it was pretty important to me that I had to also take into account what would have been the impact of launching an attack against the Taliban at that point, when we didn't have the support of Pakistan, who was officially still supporting the Taliban.

Would that have been counterproductive and less effective? Our judgment was that it would not have been effective, and we didn't do it.

THOMPSON: Do you think it's appropriate to assert, as some people have, that one of the first acts of a brand new national administration, in this case the Bush administration, would have been to go to war over the Cole?

COHEN: No. I think the first act of the administration is to assess all of the information it can, to make an informed judgment, to take actions, not only one action, but to see what are the consequences of that action.

I don't think any administration should take a precipitous action. They should look at the facts and then make a determination: What are the consequences of this, what is the follow-up? If we take action to attack the Taliban, how much will it take? How many forces?

All of these factors have to be taken into account, and I think you never take step one without asking yourself: What's step five and six? Where are we? So, no, I don't fault the administration for not doing that immediately.

THOMPSON: Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

KEAN: Commissioner Gorelick.

GORELICK: Mr. Secretary, thank you for your testimony today. It is quite impressive, as always, very thoughtful and broad-gauged. I have been troubled about something that perhaps you can help on.

GORELICK: You were in these meetings where the various possibilities of getting Osama bin Laden were discussed. We now have huge and selective leaks coming from various levels of the CIA who are saying, "We really had him. We had great intelligence. We could have gotten him, and the policymakers overruled us."

At the same time you have Sandy Berger, and I think yourself, and others, saying, "No, the director of CIA told us the intelligence was not good enough and he was not recommending going forward."

That leaves us in a very peculiar position. Either the people below George Tenet didn't know what was happening above his level, or at his level, or he was telling them one thing and telling you another, or maybe there is some third possibility.

But this is an important issue for us to understand: Did we have it? Did we not have it? Was it good? Was it not good? And how could there be this dispute on something so fundamental?

And I would just like your view on this.

COHEN: There are 23,000 people who work at the Pentagon. Secretary Lehman probably knows from his own experience how disconcerting that can be in terms of trying to maintain control and to maintain the flow information coming up through the department of the Navy or the department of defense.

There were 3,000 people on the Office of Secretary of Defense staff that we tried to reduce by a third. That was one of my goals in taking the office itself, but 2,000 people in the Office of Secretary of Defense.

I can assure you, there are people inside the Pentagon who say, "If only they had listened to me." "If only this memo had gotten to the boss, we would have taken the following action."

I think all policymakers have to come to the following conclusion: You are judged by the people that you appoint.

You pick the best people you can, you rely upon their judgment. If you find that you have to question their credibility or their judgment, you get rid of them.

But the notion that somehow there is somebody down in the bowels that has a different view, or has submitted a different analysis that if only had you gotten to the right people would have made a difference, I think you have to take that into account.

But if the director of central intelligence says, "We don't have it," then you have to rely upon that. If he says, "We do have it," you rely upon that as well and say, "OK, under these circumstances, we take the following action."

COHEN: If the chairman of the joint chiefs comes to me and says, "I recommend the following," you have to rely upon that unless you doubt his actions. I'll give you an example. The chairman of the joint chiefs, I selected him for that position because he was the commander of Special Operations Command.

For that specific reason, I wanted to have more emphasis placed upon Special Forces than we had placed in the past. I saw what he did. And I put this in my written testimony. I saw what he did in Bosnia and Kosovo. We had some operation called the PIFWICs. These were persons who had been indicted for war crimes. And they were so- called snatch operations.

I saw some of the plans that were put into effect to grab certain people. I saw Chairman Shelton saying, "Don't do it that way. Here's a better way. Here's how you're really going to make this thing successful."

So I came to see how he operated and to rely upon his judgment. And if I had any doubts that he was giving me the straight information, which I never had, then I would have been derelict in my duty in not calling him on it.

So I think you have to take into account one of the challenges that this commission faces, all of us face: How do we have better vertical integration?

You've had information about what took place in some of the field offices and the FBI, information that didn't get put up the line, didn't get shared horizontally.

How do we construct a system that allows for better vertical information of intelligence and then horizontal cross-fertilization or sharing that information?

Tough job. You've got different cultures. You've got different sources and methods and standards. But it has to be done.

Now, it will never deal with the issue that you're raising now. If someone at whatever level, second, third, fourth level down says "I have a better idea," or, "I have information," it's just not getting to the right people. You will always have that problem. But you have to rely upon the judgment of the people that you appoint.

GORELICK: But you are convinced that the director of central intelligence in these instances said to you and your fellow policymakers, "We don't have it."

COHEN: On every occasion, he said that exactly. He would come in initially because he was getting some raw information, saying "I think we're going to have it," that we do have it. And then he would go back and he would refine it and after, again, we were prepared to take action to say, "We don't think so."

To his credit, I mean this is not a fault of George Tenet. This is to his credit, saying, "Let's be as sure as we can. If we're going to kill people, innocent people, as well as carrying out this operation, let's be as sure as we can that we've got the right target, the right information, and minimize if we can, killing innocent people." That's his job, and I think he did it well.

GORELICK: Thank you.

KEAN: Senator Gorton?

GORTON: Mr. Secretary, help me, with your experience and wisdom, with this very troubling two-word phrase...

COHEN: Actionable intelligence.

GORTON: ... "actionable intelligence."

It seems to me that actionable intelligence, with respect to going after Osama bin Laden after 1988, must have been based on the proposition that almost the sole goal is getting, capturing or killing Osama bin Laden, and that what a lack of actionable intelligence meant was either, one, you didn't have a 90 percent chance of finding him where whatever intelligence you had said he would be; or, two, if you could, you were going to kill 300 or 400 other people while you were doing it, that the collateral damage would be too great to run the risk.

But actionable intelligence on August 20th, after the embassy bombings, it seems to me must have been softer than that, and actionable intelligence must have been, "Well, we know there is a camp there and we're pretty sure there are going to be some bad guys there. And besides blowing up those two things, it was so bad we've got to do something."

Tell me if that's correct.

But most of all, tell me what, in general terms for the future, actionable intelligence means. How much of it is the goal? How much of it is your certainty that you can attain that goal? And how much of it is just related to the fact that under some circumstances you're going to have to do something even though you aren't certain that you'll be a success?

COHEN: Senator Gorton, let me give you a real case involving actionable intelligence, the so-called pharmaceutical plant in Sudan. I want to use that as an example because there we were given information that bin Laden, following the bombings of the embassies in East Africa, was seeking to get his hands on chemical and biological weapons to kill as many people as he could.

We were real concerned about that. I was very concerned about that.

COHEN: Intelligence started to come in about this particular plant. They had been gathering information on it, and I think I point this out in my written testimony, but, frankly, I apologize for not getting it to you much sooner. I was still working on it as of yesterday, last night.

But to give you an example, this particular facility, according to the intelligence we had at that time, had been constructed under extraordinary security circumstances, even with some surface-to-air missile capability or defense capabilities.

That the plant itself had been constructed under the security measures, that the plant had been funded, in part, by the so-called military industrial corporation, that bin Laden had been living there, that he had in fact money that he had put into this military industrial corporation, that the owner of the plant had traveled to Baghdad to meet with the father of the VX program, and that the CIA had found traces of EMTA nearby the facility itself.

According to all the intelligence, there was no other known use for EMTA at that time other than as a precursor to VX.

Under those circumstances, I said, that's actionable enough for me -- that that plant could in fact be producing not baby aspirin or some other pharmaceutical for the benefit of the people, but it was enough for me to say we should take it out -- and I recommended that.

Now, I was criticized for that, saying, you didn't have enough. And I put myself in the position of coming before you and having someone like you say to me, "Let me get this straight, Mr. Secretary, we've just had a chemical weapons attack upon our cities or our troops and we've lost several hundred or several thousand. And this is the information which you had at your fingertips. You had a plant that was built under the following circumstances, had you manager that went to Baghdad, you had Osama bin Laden who had funded at least the corporation, and you had traces of EMTA and did you what? You did nothing? Is that a responsible activity on the part of the Secretary of Defense?"

And the answer is pretty clear.

So I was satisfied, even though that still is pointed as a mistake, that it was the right thing to do then. I would do it again, based on that kind of intelligence.

So that was an example of actionable intelligence. When it comes to other circumstances, you have to weigh it, each and every case.

You say, do you take action just for the sake of taking it, saying do something? I think we have a greater responsibility. Before I decide or make a recommendation to the president of the United States to launch a missile that's going to kill a lot of people, I want to make sure as much as I can it's not out of passion, but out of as much reasoned analysis as I can make to say, "This is a target that poses a threat to us, Mr. President."

COHEN: "And yes, there are risks that you're going to kill some innocent people, but we have an obligation to take it out."

It's individual analysis. I can't give you specifics on it. I gave you an example of where I thought it was the right thing.

GORTON: Thoughtful answer. It preempted any further questions.

(LAUGHTER)

KEAN: Secretary Lehman.

LEHMAN: Mr. Secretary, I'd like to follow up on Senator Kerrey's line of inquiry.

COHEN: Good Navy man does that.

LEHMAN: I always follow the black shoes.

The question I have is, in the testimony of a number of the witnesses we've had, and of course, in Mr. Clarke's book, your Pentagon comes in for a lot of criticism for basically -- along two lines, the most important of which is that whenever there was an opportunity and a request for options, when the president requested options and so forth, the only thing the Joint Chiefs could come up with, the Pentagon could come up with, was either lob a few cruise missiles or the Normandy invasion.

And I recall the debates over the creation of the Special Operations Command in which I was initially skeptical and became a strong advocate as you laid out the case very well for that legislation, which was to provide a president with something in between, a much more discriminating set of options, between the kind of things that came out of the chiefs all those decades, which is either launch an alpha strike from the carriers, send in the 101 Airborne, or carpet bomb with B-52s.

And yet, it seems that every time that a request was made for some set of options -- at least this is the testimony we have -- the alternative was always given, "Well, we can't invade Afghanistan, Congress will never do it, so the only thing we have is to fire a few cruise missiles." And clearly, as Senator Kerrey was suggesting, there are lots of potential discrete options in between, like putting specialized Special Operations forces on the ground.

LEHMAN: Now this is before. Yes, it takes 13,000 today and they can't find him. But before the war in Afghanistan, there was a lot -- he was much more accessible.

So there were options. But somehow the Special Operations Command -- either did not because it was, as our staff pointed out, a supporting rather than a supported command or because not much has changed after all these years with the new operations command -- did not come up with discrete options. Why was that? And is Mr. Clarke's criticism a valid one?

COHEN: Well, first, I would take issue with the fact that the Joint Chiefs of Staff can only go from B-1 bombers or cruise missiles or the Normandy invasion.

If you look at what took place in both Bosnia and Kosovo, Special Forces played a key role over there in terms of some of these operations. So JSOACC was always on tap to do whatever was reasonable to do.

I would have to place my judgment call in terms of: Do I believe that the chairman of the joint chiefs, former commander of Special Forces Command, is in a better position to make a judgment about the feasibility of this and perhaps, Mr. Clarke?

I had to make that kind of a call.

Was Richard Clarke in a better position to say this has a greater chance of success or General Shelton?

I indicated that I relied upon the senior military adviser to me, the president for the national security team. I have no reason to in any way ever doubt that he was very straight with me and was not trying to rig the system so you only had one of two options. But, rather, I think he always felt we are prepared to take action to put Special Forces on the ground if there is a reasonable opportunity to achieve the mission.

To do anything less than that, to put those young people at risk with the enormity of the task of that country, that size, with that many caves with, by the way, the support of the Taliban, and not the support of Pakistan, I'd have to question whether or not that was reasonable to do so. I did. And I supported the chairman saying, this doesn't make a good deal of sense in terms of putting those young men's lives at risk when the potential for success is very limited, if not de minimus.

LEHMAN: You'll be pleased to know that he's even harsher on the CIA's capability in these kinds of...

COHEN: Everybody can be critical. You can cr

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