Read Online Against All Enemies by Richard A. Clarke - Free Book Online

Search and Rescue Teams driving up the turnpike to Manhattan. A blood drive was under way. Emergencies were in effect in New York State, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. Then the President was up, out, and in the air, escorted by F-15s and racing for Andrews Air Force Base. His was the only passenger aircraft in the air over America. The skies were clear. Somehow FAA had landed over four thousand aircraft, diverting flights from Europe to tiny Canadian fields with few if any hotels. Canadian citizens were opening their homes to strangers, who were slowly piecing together what had happened to them, what had happened to America.
    After Bush left Omaha, World Trade Center tower Number 7 collapsed and with it the mayor’s command post and the Secret Service field office.
    In the Situation Room, the talk turned to next steps. “Okay,” I began, “we all know this was al Qaeda. FBI and CIA will develop the case and see if I’m right. We want the truth, but, in the meantime, let’s go with the assumption it’s al Qaeda. What’s next?” I asked the video conference.
    â€œLook,” Rich Armitage responded, “we told the Taliban in no uncertain terms that if this happened, it’s their ass. No difference between the Taliban and al Qaeda now. They both go down.” The Taliban was the radical Muslim group controlling Afghanistan.
    â€œAnd Pakistan?” I asked.
    â€œTell them to get out of the way. We have to eliminate the sanctuary.” Armitage was on a roll. If Pakistan did not cooperate, we would have a major problem with a nuclear-armed Islamic state.
    â€œWe’ll need presidential pressure on Yemen and Saudi Arabia too,” said John McLaughlin, Tenet’s deputy. “And a major covert action program for three to five years, support to the Northern Alliance.” It was too late, however, for Massoud, the leader of the Afghan Northern Alliance. He had been assassinated by al Qaeda twenty-four hours earlier.
    â€œThere are forty-two major Taliban bombing targets,” General Myers said, reviewing a briefing handed to him.
    Just before 7:00, the 747 known as Air Force One touched down at Andrews AFB and the President moved quickly to Marine One, which was parked close by. The helicopter, accompanied by two decoys, took a circuitous path over the city before diving onto the South Lawn of the White House. Above them, AWACS watched the skies and vectored F-15s and F-16s on Combat Air Patrol. They were tracking a smaller USAF aircraft with Secretary of State Colin Powell. Upon his landing at Andrews, a heavily armed convoy whisked him directly to the White House.
    At 8:30 the President addressed the nation from the Oval Office. Karen Hughes had built the consensus of the video conference into the message. “We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them.” Immediately following the address, the President met with us in the PEOC, a place he had never seen. Unlike in his three television appearances that day, Bush was confident, determined, forceful.
    â€œI want you all to understand that we are at war and we will stay at war until this is done. Nothing else matters. Everything is available for the pursuit of this war. Any barriers in your way, they’re gone. Any money you need, you have it. This is our only agenda.” The President asked me to focus on identifying what the next attack might be and preventing it.
    When, later in the discussion, Secretary Rumsfeld noted that international law allowed the use of force only to prevent future attacks and not for retribution, Bush nearly bit his head off. “No,” the President yelled in the narrow conference room, “I don’t care what the international lawyers say, we are going to kick some ass.”
    Bush had already learned that some of the hijackers were people that the CIA had known were al Qaeda and were in the United