500 Days (13 page)

Tenet had come to the meeting ready to lay out details of the CIA proposals. Long before, the agency had drawn up two blueprints—one called “Going to War,” which centered exclusively on fighting in Afghanistan; and the other, “Worldwide Attack Matrix,” which detailed covert operations against the entire global spectrum of groups and individuals affiliated with al-Qaeda. These were set to go and could be used as the foundation of a comprehensive battle against bin Laden’s organization, starting in Afghanistan.

“We’re prepared to launch an aggressive covert action program that will carry the fight to the enemy,” he said. To do that, CIA paramilitary teams would be sent into Afghanistan to work with the Northern Alliance and others battling the Taliban; that would pave the way for American military forces.

Tenet turned to Cofer Black. Using a PowerPoint presentation, Black described his group’s capabilities for covert action, the projected deployments of paramilitary forces, and the lethal potential of the armed Predator that, as expected, had just been approved for combat.

“Now, we will not just be taking on al-Qaeda in Afghanistan,” Black said. “We’ll be taking on the Taliban, too. They’re inseparable.”

“How quickly could we deploy the CIA teams?” Bush asked.

“In short order.”

“How quickly, then, could we defeat the Taliban and al-Qaeda?”

“A matter of weeks, once we are fully deployed on the ground countrywide.”

Tenet listened with unease to Black’s confident prediction. A matter of weeks? Tenet doubted that was possible. It would take time to find the enemy, and as Black had just acknowledged, these terrorists were tenacious and fearless fighters.

Bush harbored no such doubts. For the first time, he believed that he understood how America was going to win this war.

•  •  •  

Two black sedans motored up Pennsylvania Avenue, flashing winks of sunlight as they moved. The air was clear, the sky virtually cloudless—the same surreal beauty that had bathed the Northeast on the morning of the attacks two days earlier.

Inside the cars, a small phalanx of White House lawyers were heading to Capitol Hill for the first negotiations over the resolution granting Bush new powers to fight terrorists. Flanigan had sent his latest draft to Senate staff members the night before and was now ready to wrestle with them about it.

“What are they going to want to change?” Flanigan asked Yoo, who was sitting in the front seat.

“They’re certainly going to want to add more War Powers language to it,” Yoo replied.

That was something the lawyers had already agreed to fight. Since the War Powers Resolution was adopted in 1973, Congress had maintained that a president could commit American armed forces overseas only with its approval. Successive administrations had rejected that claim as an attempt to usurp the president’s constitutional authority to wage war. The proposed resolution put that issue front and center. But the challenges, the lawyers knew, wouldn’t end there.

“They’re definitely going to go after the ‘necessary and appropriate’ language,” Flanigan said.

Not so, Nancy Dorn, Cheney’s head of legislative affairs, said from the backseat. The country was too traumatized and emotions were too raw. No member of Congress would want to be castigated as the stumbling block to Bush’s initiative for shielding the homeland against terrorists.

“In the end,” she said, “they’re going to give the president what he wants.”

The sedans arrived at a checkpoint that had been set up to stop car bombers from getting near the Capitol. The lawyers spilled out and strolled the last fifty
yards to the building. A tiled staircase led to an ornate high-ceilinged conference room where filament bulbs cast a weak glow over portraits of some of Congress’s great history makers.

More than a dozen congressional aides were already gathered around the conference table when the White House officials arrived. There were handshakes and pleasantries all around; then everyone got to work.

The first item for discussion: War Powers language. The dance opened with a traditional step—the congressional staffers argued for inclusion of phrases from that decades-old resolution to ensure that Bush didn’t veer off into an open-ended commitment of military forces without consulting legislators.

Not applicable here, the administration lawyers responded. Beyond the fact that the executive branch maintained that the War Powers Resolution was an unconstitutional encroachment on presidential authority, this was not like any previous conflict. No one, at this point, could say where this campaign would lead; the White House would be hampered by requirements that might come into play each time there was new information identifying culprits in the attacks.

An aide to Senator Edward Kennedy was studying the draft, her face pinched with concern. “This grant of power to the president is scary,” she said.

“But,” Yoo replied, “it’s perfectly appropriate under the circumstances where we don’t know what the threat is.”

The Kennedy aide held up a copy of the 1991 Iraq resolution. “This one has some specificity,” she said. “We’ve got to have something in this new one to sort of cabin the president’s power. This grant is just too broad.”

Several of the staffers focused on the words
in the United States,
which followed the phrase granting the president the authority to use
all necessary and appropriate force.
Use of force inside the country? That was unprecedented. The congressional side dug in, and the four words were cut.

Round and round the dancers circled, with the Senate aides trying to lead the discussion into restrictions on Bush’s authority and the White House staffers pushing back.

After several hours, an aide to Senator Joe Biden, the Delaware Democrat, suggested adding a few words to modify an element of the resolution. The revision struck Flanigan as reasonable.

“Okay,” he said, weariness in his voice. “I think we can live with that.”

A jolt of excitement crackled among the staffers for the Democratic senators. Before anyone else could speak, Yoo grabbed Flanigan’s elbow.

“Let’s talk about this,” he said, almost lifting Flanigan from his seat. The two men walked outside the room. Yoo showed Flanigan how the proposed words changed meanings in the draft.

“This would really eviscerate the language of the resolution,” Yoo said.

Flanigan took a deep breath. His exhaustion, the strain of maintaining a mood of cordiality—something had blinded him. He had almost single-handedly made a fatal concession that would have constrained the president’s power to wage war on terrorists.

“Okay, John, I get it,” Flanigan said. “I lost focus.”

The two men walked back into the room.

“We can’t accept that language,” Flanigan said.

And the dance resumed.

•  •  •  

At 9:00
A.M.
on September 14, Andy Card stood at the front of Room 450 in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, his eyes roving over the contingent of somber White House aides who had been summoned to discuss how to stay alive.

“I want to thank you all for coming here,” he began. “Obviously, we’re all facing unprecedented and difficult challenges. You have the opportunity but also the burden of serving your country in a time of real crisis and emergency.”

Card paused. “I know this is not what any of you signed up for when you joined the White House staff,” he said, his voice steely. “And nobody here will blame you—not me, not the president—if under these circumstances and conditions you do want to leave. If that’s the case, tell someone and you can leave, with no recrimination or dishonor or bad feeling.”

The reassurance was no mere formality—real fear gripped those who were listening. Word had circulated about one official who was so frightened at the thought of an attack on the White House that she repeatedly threw up in her trash can. But, like most of her colleagues, she would dismiss Card’s offer and continue working in the executive mansion.

Card assured everyone that there was no reason to be concerned about Bush. “The president is doing enormously well,” he said. “I’ve been amazed at how calm and centered and decisive he has been. He has been a pillar of strength, and you all would be very, very proud of him.”

In a moment, Card said, he would be turning the meeting over to the Secret Service and Bush’s doctor, Colonel Richard Tubb, who would discuss ways for the members of the White House staff to protect themselves from terrorists. But
first, he wanted everyone to understand that their access to Bush would become severely limited.

The president’s circle of advisors had to shrink dramatically, Card said, to a handful of players who would stay in near-constant contact with him.

“So if you
want
to see the president in the coming weeks and months, you will not see the president,” Card said. “But if you
need
to see the president, you will see the president.”

Next, a Secret Service official briefed the staff on precautions they should take each day—varying their routes to and from work, keeping an eye open for any cars that might be following them, and going to different restaurants for lunch.

Out in the audience, Bradford Berenson, an associate counsel for the White House, knew he would be spurning the advice.

That’s ridiculous,
he thought. Like most of the others in the room, his name was listed in the phone book. If terrorists wanted him dead, all they had to do was wait outside his house and shoot him as he walked to his car.

The safety lesson over, Dr. Tubb gave a brief tutorial on biological and chemical arms. Years before, a Japanese group had demonstrated it was possible for terrorists to kill using sarin gas, one of the most toxic chemicals available.

Biological weapons that used disease and natural poisons to incapacitate and kill had the potential to be even more deadly; viruses and bacteria could spread before anyone knew an attack had occurred. Infectious agents such as smallpox had been used in the past.

But these days, Tubb said, the most likely pathogen for a biological weapon was a parasite that has a natural life cycle in hoofed animals and could cause an infectious disease—anthrax.

•  •  •  

About that same time, legislators milled about the Senate floor discussing the pending vote on the White House resolution to grant Bush new powers for fighting terrorists.

Some senators were expressing nervousness about the open-ended authority that the vague wording appeared to give to the president. But a leading member of each party—Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat; and Don Nickles, a Republican from Nevada—were making the rounds to tamp down those fears, assuring their colleagues that Congress could always revisit the issue if members came to believe the president was going too far. For now, they argued, it was
imperative for them to set aside their differences and speak in one voice by approving the resolution unanimously.

Just minutes before the morning session began, the White House contacted Senator Tom Daschle, the South Dakota Democrat and majority leader. There were some words that should be added to the resolution, the administration official said—after “appropriate force,” the phrase “in the United States and” should appear. That same language had been removed in the earlier negotiations with Senate staffers.

Daschle was appalled. The White House was seeking a revision of unprecedented import and asking for it so late in the game that senators would have no chance to even think about the implications. He was not going to negotiate whether the president would be allowed to take military action inside the country, potentially against American citizens.

“I don’t see any reason for the Congress to accede to such an extraordinary request for additional authority,” Daschle said. That was that.

By 10:16, the clamor in the chamber had barely abated when Senator Evan Bayh, the Indiana Democrat serving as the presiding officer, banged a gavel, calling the Senate into session. He gazed out at those colleagues who were still in earnest discussion.

“The senators will take their conversations to the cloakroom and clear the aisles,” he said.

Among the senators stepping out of the chamber was Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania Republican. Even though his own party occupied the White House, Specter could not shake his discomfort about the resolution’s phrasing. The senator spoke to an aide—get someone from the White House on the phone who knows about the language in the authorization, he said.

Minutes later, a phone in the cloakroom rang for Specter. Tim Flanigan was on the line.

“Senator, I understand you have some concerns.”

“Well now, Tim, this language is very broad—very broad—and you know that this gives the president a lot of authority. We shouldn’t be doing this and we should be limiting this.”

Perhaps, Specter suggested, the administration should seek a declaration of war instead. “I’ve spoken with Joe Biden, and he agrees that this language is very broad.”

There wasn’t much for Flanigan to say. The White House had the votes to get
the resolution passed. Would Specter and Biden really want to publicly oppose the president’s request for the power he needed to fight terrorists? There wasn’t a chance that everyone would run back on the field so that Specter could call the play over again.

“Senator,” Flanigan said, “this is the language that was negotiated with staff.”

“Well, I know you’ve negotiated it, but we ought to rethink this.”

For a minute Specter parsed specific wording in the resolution. What was the meaning of “necessary and appropriate”? What
kind
of force was the resolution authorizing? The language didn’t make that clear. What standards would be used in declaring which countries or organizations aided in the 9/11 attacks?

Flanigan gave a few perfunctory answers, but there really wasn’t much to discuss. “Senator, this is what the president feels he needs to do,” he said, his voice quiet. “This is how he will be able to respond to the attacks on the United States.”

Specter sighed. “I just think you ought to think about this,” he said. “I know you’ll talk to the president about this.”