on the terrible events of the day.Vice President Cheney described the Presi-
dent's mood as somber.
chaired a smaller meeting of top advisers, a group he would later call his "war
council."
Chairman of the Joint 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.
petrators of the attacks, but also those who harbored them. 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 the
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 coun-
tries, pointing out that major strikes could take up to 60 days to assemble.
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
the passengers before they were allowed to depart.
nected to the 9/11 attacks and have since found no evidence to change
that conclusion. Our own independent review of the Saudi nationals
involved confirms that no one with known links to terrorism departed
on these flights.