Exerpts Of John Ashcroft's Testimony Before 9-11 Commission

COMMISSIONER JAMES R. THOMPSON: Acting Director Pickard testified this afternoon that he briefed you twice on al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden, and when he sought to do so again you told him you didn't need to hear from him again. Can you comment on that please?

ASHCROFT: First of all, Acting Director Pickard and I had more than two meetings. We had regular meetings.

Secondly, I did never speak to him saying that I did not want to hear about terrorism. I care greatly about the safety and security of the American people and was very interested in terrorism and specifically interrogated him about threats to the American people and domestic threats in particular.

One of the first items which came to my attention -- which I mentioned in my opening remarks -- was the question of whether we wanted to capture or find and kill bin Laden.

I carried that immediately to the national security adviser and expressed myself in that matter.

Together with the vice president of the United States, we got a briefing at FBI headquarters regarding terrorism. And I asked the question, "Why can't we arrest these people because I believe an aggressive arrest and prosecution model is the way to disrupt terrorism?" These are things about which I care deeply.

When the Senate Appropriations Committee met on May 9, in the summer of 2001, I told the committee that my Number One priority was the attack against terror; that we would protect Americans from terror. I wrote later to them a confirming letter saying that we had no higher priority.

These are the kinds of things that I did in order to communicate very clearly my interest in making sure that we would be prepared against terror.

In addition when we went for the largest increase in counterterrorism budgeting before 9-11 in the last five years, that signaled a priority in that respect. And when we, for the next year, had a 13 percent higher counterterrorism budget than was provided in the last year of the Clinton administration, it was also a signal that counterterrorism was a matter of great concern to us and that we would treat it seriously.

THOMPSON: After you took office did you ever hear or participate in any discussions in the Bush administration about responding to the attack on the Cole, which took place late in the Clinton administration, since it was now apparent at some time in 2001 that not only was al-Qaida responsible for the attack on the Cole, but that Osama bin Laden directed it? Was there ever any such consideration given in the Bush administration to responding to the attack on the Cole with a military strike?

ASHCROFT: Well, I was briefed by the CIA on a number of occasions, as well as by the FBI. And I did ask about the Cole.

As you know, our FBI personnel were on the scene within almost hours after the event, and they developed a preliminary understanding that the individuals conducting the attack were associated with al-Qaida.

But the ability to come to a conclusion, to build the nexus back from those actually involved in the attack to those who were command- and-control figures in al-Qaida, was not established until -- and I'm not sure of the date -- I think it must have been late in the summer or early in the fall of 2001.

So my briefings through the summer during the elevated threat period and the like, and my briefings that were earlier in the year, for instance at the FBI, communicated this believed nexus in terms of the operational involvement of individuals associated with al-Qaida. But they did not have a clear, considered provable understanding of whether the command and control of senior al-Qaida officials was really involved.

THOMPSON: We've responded with greatly increased security precautions to the hijackings that took place on Sept. 11. But who in the government, who in the Bush administration, is worrying about the next war and other means that al-Qaida may use to attack us -- or other groups, Hezbollah, Hamas, other groups -- on our soil, on other portions of our infrastructure besides aircraft and airports? Our food supply. Our water supply. Our oil pipelines. Our railroads. Our chemical factories. Who's worrying about that, and how are they worrying about that? And what assurance do the American people have that somebody is indeed worrying about the next war?

ASHCROFT: Well, frankly, there are a number of us who are worrying about the next war, and we understand that al-Qaida is very likely to change its method of operation and its style to avoid detection. And it's something when we have to understand the nature of this enemy that we face. It's an enemy that is not stupid. This is not some garden variety criminal who is robbing a 7-Eleven. They plan well. They undertake actions that last for years. They seek to inflict mass casualties.

We understand that they might seek to use a different style of individual, individuals who would come from different countries, that it's clear that we know that they have interest in poisons, that they have interest in toxicity, in evil chemistry and evil biology, as well as the interest which they have had in explosives.

We've seen a wide variety of explosives used around the world in the proliferation of terrorism that has followed 9-11. It's not been used here, and we're grateful that we've been successful in keeping it from happening here.

But this administration has tasked every quadrant of the administration to be alert.

In agriculture, I know very much the concerns of Secretary (Ann) Veneman. I know in transportation, the concerns of Secretary (Norman) Mineta. And I know in energy the kinds of concerns that have been expressed by Secretary (Spencer) Abraham, and the list could go on completely.

I guess I would say that we need to continue to do everything possible. When you look around the world and we see that even in cultures that are very attuned and very focused on disrupting terrorism that they are not always successful, and so we have to be at the highest level of readiness and anticipation.

BEN-VENISTE: Mr. Pickard testified that as of the afternoon of September 11, 2001, he received three things that he did not know before: Number one, he received the Phoenix memorandum; number two, he received information about the (Zacarias) Moussaoui arrest and the detailed background that I won't go into now about who Moussaoui was and what we knew about why he was in the United States; and he received information that the FBI was looking for (Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi), two of the individuals who it turned out participated in the 9/11 catastrophe.

Now, given that fact, and given the fact that as I understand it from our prior meeting, you also did not know any of that information prior to 9/11, is it not possible, sir, that were you to have pulsed the FBI and directed the FBI to push up any information that it might have had, that that information might have been made available to you, to Mr. Clarke, to others contemporaneous in August and prior to 9/11?

ASHCROFT: Well, I think it's pretty clear that I was pulsing the FBI. I asked them regularly in my briefings with them if there were any evidence regarding threats domestically and the kind of conduct by the FBI was the kind of thing that I would have expected them to be involved in as a result of that kind of request on my part.

BEN-VENISTE: The statement that we've heard time and again is the FBI didn't know what it didn't know, but it also didn't know what it did know. ...

ASHCROFT: In my opening remarks, I talked about the fact that I had demanded four separate independent reviews regarding the information systems at the FBI, so that I was aware of the challenges.

The first of those challenges was revealed to me when, on the day of my going to Justice Department as attorney general, Louis Freeh pulled me aside and said, "Oh, by the way, we've got a real problem with the penetration of the FBI, we believe the individual involved to be Robert Hanssen, and access to our information systems that compromises the national integrity was revealed." That was a signal to me that we had serious problems.

Later on, I came to an understanding when we were preparing to deal with the second largest terrorist attack in the United States, which was that undertaken by Timothy McVeigh which resulted in the death of about 170 people, that in his trial we had failed to comply with a court order and we had not delivered -- the FBI had not delivered about 3,000 documents, most of which were duplicates but were the subject of a court order. So I had to delay -- I'd had to delay the execution to make sure that we had an innocent system as well as a guilty defendant in the case.

Additionally, I became concerned about the integrity of our information technology system when it was revealed that about 300 laptop computers were unaccounted for, and for well over 200 of them, the inspector general of the FBI, whom I asked to investigate the matter, said it couldn't be determined whether they were lost or stolen and raised the specter of national security issues.

So I understood there were problems.

But I also understood that when we went to agents and when we asked them specific questions about issues related to national security that we should expect them to respond and could expect them to respond. The FBI is populated with well-meaning, hardworking individuals. And they, I think, need to be understood for that and to be credited with that.

BEN-VENISTE: It is correct, is it not -- because we have looked at the May 10th, 2001, guidance for preparing fiscal year 2003 budgets in which you indicate your priorities -- there are five goals, strategic goals laid out there? It does not appear that terrorism was one of them. Is that correct? ...

ASHCROFT: The date preceding, on May the 9th, I met with the Senate Appropriations Committee and was asked about my priorities. I said my number one priority was to protect the people of the United States against terrorism.

The Department of Justice, required by the Congress to have a strategic plan, followed that plan. The plan was developed in the year 2000 by my predecessor and had a set of strategic goals. They're listed here early in the book and they are similar to the goals -- they are, as a matter of fact, the goals which were used in large measure for the May 10th memorandum. And they cite some additional goals to terrorism. There's no question about that. ...

In the budgets proposed prior to September 11th, the total CT (counterterrorism) increases were 72 percent greater than the total increases for drugs and gun prosecutions combined. Now, those were the other issues that were listed as priorities of the department. What we had was a combined total of increases of $683.1 million for drugs and gun prosecutions. ...

Now I don't mean to discount those priorities. Thousands of people die on our streets as a result of gun crimes. And we are very grateful for our record there. But let the record be clear that when it comes to where the appropriation was, that we had a $1.175 billion increase for counterterrorism in those first two budgets, a $0.683 billion, or $683 million increase on drugs and guns.

ROEMER: You certainly think Osama bin Laden is somewhere overseas, correct?

ASHCROFT: I don't know where he is. ... I don't believe he's in the United States of America.

ROEMER: You don't believe he's in the United States, and you want to go get him. And you go to the national security adviser, to the president and you say, "Let's find a way to get him."

ASHCROFT: I said that if we could find and kill him, that should be the objective of our government.

ROEMER: So you're being aggressive. You're certainly trying to focus on the threat of bin Laden.

Let me ask you a question about al-Qaida. With the USS Cole, we lose 17 sailors. The Clinton administration gets a preliminary judgment in December of 2000 that says, "Well, we can't quite associate this with the command and control of Osama bin Laden, but these are definitely al-Qaida operatives."

You -- I believe your administration gets a briefing in January, same type of briefing. This is al-Qaida. Why don't you take this on the offensive, like you do Osama bin Laden, and say, "We are going to go get al-Qaida. They can't do this to our military, to our sailors, to our people?"

ASHCROFT: Well, commissioner, I didn't get the briefing in January. As you may remember, I was one of the late individuals confirmed.

ROEMER: When do you understand this, then? You're certainly in March meeting with (National security adviser Condoleezza) Rice to do something about this. Why don't you do something about al-Qaida?

ASHCROFT: Very frankly, we didn't get confirmation that the -- as I explained earlier -- that the command and control of al-Qaida might be involved in this matter until substantially later.

ROEMER: Can you remember when?

ASHCROFT: I believe it was either late in the summer or the fall of 2001 when the final determination was made. And that was a time, after which, I believe we brought criminal charges, although obviously those are not resolved. ... There is -- and it is a totally different world -- executive responsibilities in regard to presidential orders, and directives are different than...

ROEMER: But why not go after al-Qaida? Why not militarily go after al-Qaida, rather than a law enforcement type of activity?

ASHCROFT: Well, first of all, let us make it clear that it's not either or. The mere fact that we would go after al-Qaida doesn't mean that we wouldn't also pursue and have the option of criminal remedies as well. The Justice Department has done that and continued to do that even against individuals who might be involved in al-Qaida or in more warlike settings.

If you're asking me why the administration didn't make a judgment, I believe that the administration, while it understood that there were ties to al-Qaida by those who were involved in the Cole bombing, the kind of information that would support a different judgment was not existent until substantially later.

ROEMER: But again, you're asking for a final conclusion, rather than a preliminary judgment that says al-Qaida is responsible. Al-Qaida did this. Al-Qaida killed our sailors. Why have to wait six to eight months down the line to say this is a particular individual, Osama bin Laden?

ASHCROFT: I don't understand your question, sir. I believe that the...

ROEMER: This is not just a terrorism fight against Osama bin Laden. It's al-Qaida. It's jihadists. It's the conveyor belts producing people that want to kill us in Afghanistan. So my question is, why not go after broadly that group of people rather than one single individual?

ASHCROFT: Well, I believe that's eventually what we did. But, obviously, it's not a decision we made, and we didn't have the kind of information or predicate upon which to make that decision earlier. Whether or not we should have absent that predicate is a policy judgment that certainly wasn't mine to make.

GORELICK: On August 7th, 2001, a SEIB (senior executive intelligence brief) that reflected much of -- although it was not identical to -- much of the content of the August 6th presidential daily brief came out. And I would like to ask you if you remember seeing a document headed, Terrorism: Bin Laden Determined To Strike In The United States, in the SEIB.

ASHCROFT: I do not remember seeing that. I was in -- I believe I was in Chicago speaking at the American Bar Association meeting, I believe, at the time. So I do not have a recollection of seeing that.

GORELICK: Did your staff regularly brief you on the intelligence when you returned?

ASHCROFT: I was briefed, and items of interest were noted for me from time to time by my staff.

GORELICK: Would something like this, which is a memorandum that is going out to your colleagues, hundreds of your colleagues in the government, saying that bin Laden is determined to strike in the United States, been an item of significance that you would think would have been briefed to you?

ASHCROFT: These items had been briefed to me. They had been briefed to me by the FBI, they have been briefed to me by the CIA. The administration asked me to get briefings when appropriate in regard to these measures.

I remember Ms. Rice, for example, early in July, during the threat period and the heightened and elevated threat, asking me if I would receive a briefing from the CIA because she thought it important.

It's that kind of briefing that I received early.

The CIA, we have reconstructed it from the slides they used, talked a lot about the threat overseas. And we, obviously, were aware of the historical information that Osama bin Laden had issued statements years before, much of which is in the SEIB and was in the August 6th PDB, which I have now read.

But we inquired of the CIA and the FBI: Are there domestic threats that require -- is there any evidence of domestic threat? And they both said no. I might add that for the CIA, I inquired of them: Are there things we can do additionally by way of FISA to assist you in making sure that we have all the information necessary to be aware of those threats. And they assured me that if they needed additional help, they would ask for it.

GORELICK: So you were aware in early August -- by at least early August of '01 that in addition to the fatwas and the statements of intention by bin Laden, that there was evidence that he intended to strike in the United States? Is that correct?

ASHCROFT: Well, I don't know if in addition to the fatwas and his statement of intention. We were aware that he had stated his intention, of the historical items mentioned in the SEIB and I believe also mentioned in the PDB. We were aware that those kinds of historical references had been made. And it was with that in mind, in conjunction with our understanding of what he had done in terms of the bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, that we understood him to be a very serious individual and we should take him seriously.