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about the larger camp and its residents and about Bin Ladin's daily schedule
and routines to support military contingency planning. According to report-
ing from the tribals, Bin Ladin regularly went from his adjacent camp to the
larger camp where he visited the Emiratis; the tribals expected him to be at the
hunting camp for such a visit at least until midmorning on February 11.
155
Clarke wrote to Berger's deputy on February 10 that the military was then
doing targeting work to hit the main camp with cruise missiles and should be
in position to strike the following morning.
156
Speaker of the House Dennis
Hastert appears to have been briefed on the situation.
157
No strike was launched. By February 12 Bin Ladin had apparently moved
on, and the immediate strike plans became moot.
158
According to CIA and
Defense officials, policymakers were concerned about the danger that a strike
would kill an Emirati prince or other senior officials who might be with Bin
Ladin or close by. Clarke told us the strike was called off after consultations with
Director Tenet because the intelligence was dubious, and it seemed to Clarke
as if the CIA was presenting an option to attack America's best counterterror-
ism ally in the Gulf.The lead CIA official in the field, Gary Schroen, felt that
the intelligence reporting in this case was very reliable; the Bin Ladin unit chief,
"Mike," agreed. Schroen believes today that this was a lost opportunity to kill
Bin Ladin before 9/11.
159
Even after Bin Ladin's departure from the area, CIA officers hoped he might
return, seeing the camp as a magnet that could draw him for as long as it was
still set up.The military maintained readiness for another strike opportunity.
160
On March 7, 1999, Clarke called a UAE official to express his concerns about
possible associations between Emirati officials and Bin Ladin. Clarke later wrote
in a memorandum of this conversation that the call had been approved at an
interagency meeting and cleared with the CIA.
161
When the former Bin Ladin
unit chief found out about Clarke's call, he questioned CIA officials, who
denied having given such a clearance.
162
Imagery confirmed that less than a
week after Clarke's phone call the camp was hurriedly dismantled, and the site
was deserted.
163
CIA officers, including Deputy Director for Operations
Pavitt, were irate."Mike" thought the dismantling of the camp erased a possi-
ble site for targeting Bin Ladin.
164
The United Arab Emirates was becoming both a valued counterterrorism
ally of the United States and a persistent counterterrorism problem. From 1999
through early 2001, the United States, and President Clinton personally, pressed
the UAE, one of the Taliban's only travel and financial outlets to the outside
world, to break off its ties and enforce sanctions, especially those relating to
flights to and from Afghanistan.
165
These efforts achieved little before 9/11.
In July 1999, UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Hamdan bin Zayid
threatened to break relations with the Taliban over Bin Ladin.
166
The Taliban
did not take him seriously, however. Bin Zayid later told an American diplo-
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