Fred Fielding Interviews William Cohen

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 and preparing this and and your very fome prepared testimony as well as your your remarks this morning I um I'd also like to express my personal high regard for you and for all the years of public service that you've given to this nation thank you um we of course have have have a mission to fulfill and one of the things that we obviously have to to figure out is what happened on 911 but equally important to our mission is to figure out uh the other factors that may have contributed to the situation we found at 9911 and obviously again one of those is is the development of our counter intell counterterrorism uh strategy and of course we're we're going to pick your brain and and again today as far as the aspects of the military uh fed into that um and my colleagues have a lot of questions so I'll try to watch that little ball as much as as anybody but um under Presidential Directive 62 the military of course uh and the defense department didn't have the leading role in counterterrorism efforts during your tenure and yet ironically uh we've heard a lot of testimony and a lot of commentary that the military was being criticized for being reluctant to use its to use its forces and to conduct actually conduct military operations against al- Qaeda and Ben Laden as a matter of fact uh uh in Richard Clark's now very famous book he he says uh the White House wanted action the senior military did not and made it almost impossible for the president to overcome their objections um and and I know that you've you've seen other commentary like that that the primary limitation that's often cited uh uh is 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 and our understanding of that is what was stated earlier that uh at a specific time you couldn't anticipate where the where the uh location of Bin Laden or his key followers might be so that uh it could be sufficiently determined that it was uh worthwhile to launch military reaction to it um after August 20th of 98 there were at least three opportunities of which we've been privy to use Force against Bin Laden um and however in each case it was determined that there wasn't actionable intelligence uh I guess the first question I'd like to say is whose call is that I mean how how does that decision become a a a factor and a determinative factor and and in addition to that if I could uh given that you had setbacks in using Force what was your assessment of the existing capabilities at that time of the CIA the which capabil the existing capabilities um to obtain what would be required as actionable intelligence and and to the extent that uh you found them def efficient uh what steps did you take to supplement and and to put into action things that the defense department could do to to beef up that that capability uh on the second part uh Mr feling U I think that Senator Kerry and others would tell you that over the years one of the identifiable deficiencies within our intelligence um collection capability is the absence of good hum uh that we have over the years tended to oscillate between focusing on technical capabilities with our satellite Gathering Technologies as opposed to developing human intelligence with the fall of the U the collapse of the Soviet Union of course that becomes a much more uh challenging objective to get good human intelligence in areas that are governed by um uh tribal leaders where an individual perhaps can detect who is a remote cousin uh the minute they show up within 200 years yards uh so penetrating societies such as that become even more problematic in terms of developing good human intelligence and then you called upon to try and develop assets on the ground well then the question is who uh do you trust and how can you trust them and based on what evidence in the past that they have been credible all of that goes into an analysis by the the CIA working with other intelligence agencies secretary Powell talked about INR we have Dia the defense intelligence agency but essentially we turn to the DCI uh to say do we have good intelligence we review the pdb has been discussed earlier today we uh sit down at the cabinet level meetings with the president uh 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 uh looked at in that regard now you mentioned August of 98 uh frankly it was following the bombing of the embassies in East Africa that uh 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 uh to Bin Laden and then getting the information there 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 of a process where by what do we have uh do we have to be certain the answer is no do you have to be pretty sure uh I think that the answer is yes if you're going to be killing a lot of people uh we're prepared to engage in collateral damage if the Target that we're after uh is certainly important uh but all those factors are into a decision but having quote actionable intelligence mean reliable uh and the basis of that reliability single Source information usually I think uh George tenant would tell you not good enough uh maybe if they've got a single source that is truly reliable they've had them 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 uh to locate certain targets but who makes that final decision who makes president the United States president of the United States makes the final decision we make recommendations uh we as the National Security team would uh sit down uh examine it and then come to a consensus if we could if we could frankly uh we would go to the president with our individual recommendations but most of the time we were able to reach a consensus and then the president weighs what has been recommended to him to act or not to act and then makes the decision now just following up again on my on my earlier line of questioning though did you do anything or were there any steps available that you thought were worth taking to augment the cia's capabilities for collecting intelligence uh we worked with the the CIA there were uh some uh 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 uh but trying to um find him was certainly a a joint Enterprise uh in terms of technical capability did we have people on the ground in Afghanistan the answer was we did not for the for the most part was that just not really a viable realistic opport option yeah again looking at Afghanistan looking at the history of that country look at the the power and the um uh yes the power and the uh the relationship of 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 uh you could say was possible was it advisable we didn't think so at the time and I think uh in reflection we still don't think that was a viable option okay uh 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 a 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 H that that was the Lost opportunity well you know there were as I recall there were at least three instances in which the initial uh intelligence take as they called it that we think we have him and what we would then do is quote spin up uh the the military at that point namely uh our ability to Target that particular area with the thought of taking that individual or group of people out uh there were three instances each time the um the U Munitions and the people were spun up uh that they were called off because the word came back um we're not sure uh this is so we're not quite sure one instance uh there was a an identifi identification that somehow we had Bin Laden in our sights turned out it was a shake from UAE another there was another consideration of shooting down an aircraft uh that might be carrying a Bin Laden should he try to escape that also proved to be reversed by the intelligence Community saying we're not we don't think we have him so there were three occasions following the attack on the the camps in Sudan but in each and every one of those C occasions it came back on a second look saying we don't think we've got enough here for to recommend to the president that we should take military action and that came from the intelligence community Through uh the National Security adviser and we all sat and made a collective judgment okay under the circumstances we don't fire now if you could assist us when we if I can take you back to the U the August 20th attack and response attack um after that happened there was criticism about the the Pharmaceutical Plant right and there was also criticism uh in general about trigger happy and this sort of thing and recalling that negative reaction uh does that criticism affect the planning and use of military force in defending the United States in in this context I'm glad you asked that question Mr F because it's something that I want 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 uh Mr Clark's book with him tomorrow but all of the accusations questioning motives uh and calculations uh during that time when the attack was uh 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 uh and use that military in order to serve a political purpose when I took uh 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 um 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 uh in um that that fall I I should say that winter in December of 1998 we decided to attack Saddam Hussein it was called Operation Desert Fox it was a 4-day operation in which we launched a number of attacks upon his weapons of mass destruction sites his missile production facilities uh and killing a number of Republican guards and others uh I got a call the day that that operation was launched I received a call from speaker grid uh 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 uh 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 uh Into The Well of the House of Representatives there were almost 400 people there that night maybe more to a closed session of of Congress and I spoke for three hours uh assuring every single member that the reason we attacked Saddam Hussein was because of his non-compliance with the security Council resolution that at no time did the president of the United States ever seek to use that military strike in order to avoid or divert attention from the impeachment process uh I was prepared at that time and today to say uh I put my entire public career uh on the 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 um use it or manipulate it to serve his um personal ends and I and I I think it's important that that be clear because that Wag the Dog uh cynicism that was so varent there I'm afraid it's coming back again and I think we got to do everything we can to stop engaging uh in the kind of uh self- flagellation and criticism and challenging of motives uh of our respective presidents thank you the uh that also is the conclusion of the staff and the staff report but I'm glad you have a chance to to elucidate on it um on August 20th last question okay thank you on August 20th we we heard about General Shelton uh undertaking uh a planning order for preparation of of a uh the followon operations and obviously there were never any followon operations that came to fruition U but what directions did you give the military for development of of military plans against Bin Laden after August 20th for our guidance our plans were uh to try to quote capture and or kill or kill I should say in this particular case capture or kill Ben 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 uh directive we um 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 what constitutes it but whenever there was quote actional intelligence we were prepared to take um action to destroy Bin Laden or or the targets were there plans uh to use special forces to supplement the Northern Alliance that they were able to apprehend and hold on to Ben lad the answer was yes there were packages that were developed U uh with our special forces um at Fort Bragg there were a number of proposals quote on the table on the Shelf prepared to to be utilized in the event that we were certain and not certain to 100% degree but reasonably certain that he was going to be at a given area I know a question's been raised well why wouldn't you put a unit in there U 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 u i I think is it's Folly uh 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 um 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 6 hours from the time quotes spun up you got the coordinates GPS signals Target that individual you 6 hours away to put troops on the ground uh was probably double that that time by the time you take a package and fly them from Fort Brag or compose some elements that were already in the Gulf you're talking more than 6 hours so the answer is why don't you have 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 thank you Mr secretary thank you Mr chairman