Condoleezza Rice: How the President knew it was time to act

Taken from a briefing delivered by America's National Security Adviser at the White House, in Washington DC

Wednesday 10 October 2001 00:00 BST
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Let me just start out by saying how things have unfolded over the last week or so, leading up to the action that we took in this new phase of the war against terrorism.

Really the strategy was set all the way back on that Monday after the Camp David meeting, which was the weekend after the attack. The strategy was set then. And it was on Tuesday of this last week that the President decided that it was about time to go. On Friday he had a final assessment with his military planners, and then on Saturday a final National Security Council meeting.

If you could talk about a moment, he knew that it was time to start this next phase of this war on terrorism when he turned to General Myers, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, looked him right in the eye and said: "Dick, is Tommy Franks [the commander-in-chief of the US Central Command] ready to go?" And General Myers said: "Yes, sir, he's ready to go." And he gave the go-ahead. And it was at that point then, of course, that military operations actually began.

I think the President followed what is really the best premise in this situation, which is, of course, lay out the opportunity for the Taliban to do what they needed to do, but be prepared if they don't. He gave the order to the military to begin planning all the way back after that first National Security Council meeting. But he also recognised that the military side of this needed to be in a larger context, and it was quite deliberate that other things happened first. For instance, the financial piece would happen first.

One thing that was very focused on was the humanitarian piece. And he spent a lot of time with both Secretary Powell and Secretary Rumsfeld and with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, saying "I want to make sure that the humanitarian piece is in place when we start military operations". He understood that in broad strategic terms, making very clear that this was not a war against the Afghan people and was extremely important to what we were trying to achieve.

We've recognised, and the President more than anyone has recognised from the beginning, that different countries have different circumstances. And we've been really getting remarkable co-operation from a lot of very courageous leaders in the region. The President has had a couple of phone calls with these leaders, and so he had a sense that they were committed – that they understood their own circumstances, but that they were prepared to step up.

In every call with leaders in the Middle East and in the Gulf, and for that matter in other Muslim countries, he has said: "I'm going to go out and make sure that this is understood not to be a war against Islam, but a war against terrorism, a war against the barbarians who did this, but not against Islam."

There is no secret that al-Qa'ida and terrorist networks like that are not just against the United States and Europe, but also they have designs on the overthrow of legitimate Muslim governments that do not follow their particular brand of – well, I can't call it religion... but who do not want to use religion in the same way that they want to use it for purposes of terror.

Bin Laden was only mentioned once in the joint session speech, because the President wanted to make clear that this isn't just one person, this is a network, it's the al-Qa'ida leadership, it's the fact that they have training bases in Afghanistan, it's the fact that they effectively have a safe harbor there.

This is not just a person, and I think that he wanted to make that very clear. This isn't just a person but, rather, a network and the various nodes that are out there. And while going after assets of those who harbor them is one phase of it, an equally important part of this is cleaning out these nodes through co-operation with intelligence and law enforcement bodies around the world.

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