43* by Jeff Greenfield Read Free Book Online Page A

costs each department would bear.
    “And Dick,” Gore had said to Clarke, “I want a report on this every week from you.”
    Now it was happening again, but on a matter of far greater significance. As President
     Gore began to speak, it was clear to everyone in the Situation Room that the president,
     National Security Advisor Fuerth, his deputy, Susan Rice, and Clarke had worked out
     not just the policy but the details of how the Predator was to be deployed against
     Osama bin Laden.
    The principals listened with varying degrees of satisfaction, concern, and anger as
     Gore began to speak.
    “You all heard Dick at that transition meeting tell us that bin Laden and Al Qaeda
     would be the biggest threat to our security in the years ahead. Have I got that right?”
    Clarke nodded. “By far the biggest threat.”
    “And I remember all those times we thought we had him in our sights, but between the
     time we needed to get those cruise missiles targeted, and the flight time between
     launch and hit, there was no way to be sure bin Laden would be where we thought he
     was.”
    “Yes,” Clarke said with some asperity, “and the lack of certainty that we had in fact
     found him, and the fear of collateral damage—we took incredible crap from the Pakistanis when we
     hit a bunch of their intelligence people in Afghanistan—”
    “Which,” Sam Nunn interjected, “raises the question of what they were doing in an
     Al Qaeda encampment in the first place … ”
    “Well,” the president continued, “I’ve spent a good part of the last week looking
     at some fascinating visuals.” He reached down, opened a leather packet, and began
     setting out photos on the table like a Las Vegas card dealer.
    “Like this one,” Gore said. “It’s Osama bin Laden at Tarnak Farms. You can almost
     check out his bicuspids.
    “And this one, from that Hellfire test on—when did we test the Hellfire-equipped Predator?”
    “February sixteenth,” Clarke said.
    “Now,” Gore went on, “I gather there’s been some turf fighting going on between CIA
     and the Air Force: who’s going to pay, who will take responsibility if something goes
     wrong, some talk about arming the Predators ‘over my dead body.’ So here’s the policy:
     CIA and Air Force will split the cost; if necessary, we’ll find some money in a supplemental
     fund. Lord knows the surplus is big enough. And I will take responsibility.”
    “With respect, Mr. President,” Secretary of State Holbrooke interrupted. “We have
     no idea how many civilians—women, children—may be around bin Laden at any time. And
     we’re still getting grief from the Chinese for hitting their embassy in Belgrade back
     in ’99.”
    “Yes, Dick, I remember. I also remember what Deputy CIA Director James Pavitt said
     at that transition briefing: ‘Bin Laden is one of the gravest threats to the country.’ ”
    “He also said taking him out wouldn’t stop the threat,” Tenet said.
    “Yes, that’s right,” Clarke interjected, “but he also said it would have an impact.
     Osama loves to say that people ‘back a strong horse over the weak horse.’ He points
     to everything from Vietnam to Reagan pulling troops out of Beirut in ’83 to leaving
     Somalia after Black Hawk Down in ’93 to the fact that we did nothing after the Cole bombing last year, proving to him that the West is weak. I think a Hellfire missile
     down his throat would be a powerful educational tool.”
    “Well,” Gore said, “as George Bush once said, ‘I aspire to be the education president.’
     So … ”
    Three weeks later, in the Nevada desert, a missile fired from a Predator hit and leveled
     a brick structure; few of those involved knew that it was a duplicate of bin Laden’s
     home in Kandahar. Just two weeks later, on April 15, a Predator located bin Laden
     and a group of Al Qaeda operatives at the same Tarnak Farms complex where another
     Predator had located him seven months earlier.