NSA publishes al-qaeda document

National Security Archive Update, February 10, 2005

BUSH ADMINISTRATION'S FIRST MEMO ON AL-QAEDA DECLASSIFIED

January 25, 2001 Richard Clarke Memo:
"We urgently need ... a Principals level review on the al Qida
network."

Document Central to Clarke-Rice Dispute on Bush Terrorism Policy
Pre-9/11

For more information contact:
Barbara Elias - 202/994-7045

http://www.nsarchive.org

Washington D.C., February 10, 2005 - The National Security Archive
today posted the widely-debated, but previously unavailable, January 25,
2001, memo from counterterrorism coordinator Richard Clarke to national
security advisor Condoleezza Rice - the first terrorism strategy paper
of the Bush administration. The document was central to debates in the
9/11 hearings over the Bush administration's policies and actions on
terrorism before September 11, 2001. Clarke's memo requests an immediate
meeting of the National Security Council's Principals Committee to
discuss broad strategies for combating al-Qaeda by giving counterterrorism
aid to the Northern Alliance and Uzbekistan, expanding the
counterterrorism budget and responding to the U.S.S. Cole attack. Despite Clarke's
request, there was no Principals Committee meeting on al-Qaeda until
September 4, 2001.

The January 25, 2001, memo, recently released to the National Security
Archive by the National Security Council, bears a declassification
stamp of April 7, 2004, one day prior to Rice's testimony before the 9/11
Commission on April 8, 2004. Responding to claims that she ignored the
al-Qaeda threat before September 11, Rice stated in a March 22, 2004
Washington Post op-ed, "No al-Qaeda plan was turned over to the new
administration."

Two days after Rice's March 22 op-ed, Clarke told the 9/11 Commission,
"there's a lot of debate about whether it's a plan or a strategy or a
series of options -- but all of the things we recommended back in
January were those things on the table in September. They were done. They
were done after September 11th. They were all done. I didn't really
understand why they couldn't have been done in February."

Also attached to the original Clarke memo are two Clinton-era documents
relating to al-Qaeda. The first, "Tab A December 2000 Paper: Strategy
for Eliminating the Threat from the Jihadist Networks of al-Qida: Status
and Prospects," was released to the National Security Archive along
with the Clarke memo. "Tab B, September 1998 Paper: Pol-Mil Plan for
al-Qida," also known as the Delenda Plan, was attached to the original memo,
but was not released to the Archive and remains under request with the
National Security Council.

http://www.nsarchive.org