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It was an impression that pleased the men and women who would have guided the foreign
policy, the defense strategy, and the intelligence gathering in a George W. Bush administration,
the might-have-been insiders who had gathered at Richard Perle’s home back on Inauguration
Day. To them, it was ludicrous to think that an independent band of terrorists could
have possibly launched so devastating an attack on the most powerful, advanced nation
on earth. The sheer scope of the 9/11 operation—obtaining passports and visas, learning
to fly large commercial airliners, expending large sums of money for travel, training,
lodging—all pointed to the impossibility of such an attack without the support of
a nation-state with a ruler gripped by strong anti-American malevolence and the ruthlessness
to assist in the murder of thousands of innocents.

And they were sure they knew exactly which nation-state and which leader it was: Iraq’s
Saddam Hussein.

President Gore and his team had a very different perspective. To them, the notion
that Iraq had been part of the 9/11 attacks, or that it should be a target for a strong
message on terror, was nothing more than a fantasy. But it was a fantasy embraced
not just by his political adversaries but by many in his own party who believed that
Saddam was a direct menace to national security.

In a taunting speech on the Senate floor, Senator John McCain asked, “Who was it who
said, ‘We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq’s weapons-of-mass-destruction
program’? Right—President Bill Clinton. Who was it who warned, ‘The risks that the
leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons against
us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face’? Right—former secretary
of state Madeleine Albright. And who was it who had written to Clinton back in 1999,
‘We urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution
and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes
on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq’s refusal
to end its weapons-of-mass-destruction programs’? My good friends, it was the distinguished
gentleman from Michigan, Carl Levin, and the distinguished gentleman from Massachusetts,
John Kerry.”

But Gore, in his years as vice president, had come to believe something else: Along
with most of Clinton’s national security team, he had come to regard Ahmed Chalabi
as a flimflam artist, a fabulist, whose vision of an Iraqi people rising up to overthrow
their leader at the first sign of revolt was not only ludicrous but dangerous, requiring
a massive, all-out commitment of American military force. (“I’ve seen this movie before,”
Clinton’s national security advisor, Sandy Berger, said. “It’s called
The Bay of Pigs
.”)

Whatever the merits of President Gore’s position, the political reality of the post-9/11
world made it almost impossible to defend. His major initiative, revealed in a speech
before Congress in early November that called for a ten-year push for energy independence
and a multi-billion-dollar investment in alternative energy, simply lacked the political
muscle to have any staying power. Instead, all through the first months of 2002, the
case for decisive action against Iraq was front and center all across the political
landscape.

A hearing by the Senate Intelligence Committee featured an empty witness chair with
a large TV monitor atop a table. A face covered in shadow was identified as a “high-level
defector from Saddam Hussein’s inner circle” who spoke of a training site in Iraq’s
Salman Park where would-be terrorists practiced hijackings on a Boeing 707. Later
that day, intelligence photographs showed refrigerated trucks that—according to a
onetime major in Saddam’s Mukhabarat—were biological weapons laboratories, made mobile
to evade weapons inspectors. The hearing would have attracted attention under any
circumstances, but front-page stories by Jim Hoagland in the Washington Post and Judith
Miller in the New York Times, previewing the testimony of the defectors, guaranteed
massive coverage on broadcast and cable television.

For the Gore White House, as one insider later said, “it was like being in a maze
where there was no way out. We could offer CIA and Defense Department experts to argue
that Saddam was not a threat—but how do you prove a negative? There were all those
Democrats—President Clinton and President Gore included—who were saying over and over
how big a danger Saddam was. And beyond all of that,” the insider said with a sigh,
“there was September 11. It was just impossible not to see Iraq through that prism.”

And what of the CIA’s doubt that Saddam had such capability?

“For heaven’s sake,” argued former defense secretary Dick Cheney to a receptive House
Armed Services Committee, “tell me the last time the CIA’s intelligence was right
about
anything
of consequence. They failed to see the vulnerability of the Shah of Iran; they failed
to see the collapse of the Soviet Union; they failed to see Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait;
and God knows they failed to see the worst attack on our country in our history. I
don’t think we can wait,” George W. Bush’s former running mate said, “until the smoking
gun becomes a mushroom cloud.”

“I guess it’s kind of a perfect storm,” pollster Stan Greenberg told the Oval Office
gathering. You’ve got a battered country wanting revenge, a villain right out of central
casting, a body of evidence that he’s been up to no good. I’m surprised Gallup says
only
60 percent of the public thinks Iraq was ‘directly or indirectly involved’ with 9/11.”

Well,” President Gore sighed, “we better start working on one
hell
of a press conference.”

“Let me be blunt,” the president said as he looked out over the two hundred reporters
gathered in the East Room. “If there were any sign—
any
sign—that Iraq was part of what happened on September 11, or if there were any sign
at all that Iraq was in the process of acquiring or developing weapons of mass destruction,
I would use every tool at our disposal to stop them.

“But I have to tell you,” he added, pointing to National Security Advisor Fuerth,
CIA director Tenet, and counterterrorism chief Clarke, who were standing behind him
at the podium, “these men have been on the front lines of the fight against terrorism
for a decade. They have, at my direction, looked for any sign that Iraq may have been
involved with the attacks on our country or, indeed, involved with any Al Qaeda operations.
And there is simply no evidence
at all
that Iraq was involved in any way with those attacks. Going to war with Iraq because
of September 11 would be like FDR hitting the Philippines after Pearl Harbor. And
there’s one more point to keep in mind. Less than two miles from here, just off Constitution
Avenue, is a wall with 58,272 names on it. Each of those names is a reminder of the
cost of ordering our young men into harm’s way. I can think of no greater dereliction
of duty than for me—for any president—to give such an order based on false assumptions,
or faulty evidence, or misjudgments about a potential adversary.”

The reaction was brutal. On Fox News, Charles Krauthammer noted, “I was not aware
that the Philippines had used chemical weapons against its own people, invaded a sovereign
nation, and tried to murder an ex-president of the United States.”

On
Nightline,
Senator John McCain, the front-runner for the 2004 Republican nomination in every
national poll—was equally acerbic. “I used to accuse President Clinton of running
a ‘feckless, photo-opportunity’ foreign policy,” he said. “But compared with Al Gore,
Bill Clinton looks like Teddy Roosevelt.”

And that was the perfect storm in which the Gore administration found itself all through
the next months. On a weekly if not daily basis, fresh news reports offered damning—if
unverifiable—testimony from defectors from the Iraqi military of ambitious weapons
programs and terrorism training. TV news programs competed with one another to bring
these reports to life. And these stories of Iraqi perfidy often played in synchronization
with more and more revelations about just how porous America’s defenses against terrorism
had been—none more dramatic than the May 12, 2002, Senate Foreign Relations Committee
hearings presided over by now-chairman Jesse Helms.

For years, Helms, the most conservative of all senators, had been the bane of administrations
of both parties. From his vantage point, the State Department was home to striped-suit
weaklings prone to yielding to America’s enemies and abandoning America’s friends;
the United Nations was a nest of vipers; and the CIA was filled with careerists, unable
or unwilling to properly measure the dangers to United States national security in
a dangerous world.

Now, with his worst fears realized, Helms launched his own hearings, at which he confronted
Gore’s national security advisor, Leon Fuerth.

After a few moments of cursory questioning, Senator Helms gestured for an aide to
hand Fuerth a paper, then asked him with exaggerated courtesy, “What is it you’ve
just been handed, sir?”

“It’s the ‘PDB,’ Presidential Daily Brief, for August 17, 2001,” Fuerth replied.

“And what would that be?”

“Just what it says,” Fuerth replied with a touch of acrimony. “It’s a summation of
the intelligence gathered overnight by various intelligence agencies and delivered
to the president every morning.”

“And what is the title of that August 17 PDB?” Helms asked.

“‘Al Qaeda Determined to Avenge Bin Laden’s Death by Striking U.S.,’ ” Fuerth replied.

There was an audible gasp in the committee room.

Fuerth argued, accurately, that the briefing did not say when or where or how Al Qaeda
planned to execute such a strike. It made no mention of hijacking and weaponizing
commercial airliners. Indeed, it contained no specific threat warning at all. But
viewed backwards through the prism of what had in fact happened, the PDB took on the
character of a clear, specific warning. And the fact that New York and Washington
had been hit was, in retrospect, “proof” that the Gore administration had been massively
derelict, as had the Clinton administration before it. (More than one commentator
wondered pointedly whether Clinton had been “distracted” by his efforts to survive
the Monica Lewinsky scandal rather than focusing fully on the terrorist threat.)

All of which made the pressure to do
something,
to hit
someone,
even more intense. From congressional Democrats returning to Washington from visits
from their home states came notes of concern:
My constituents want action, Mr. President—they’re asking when we’re going to act
like the world’s only superpower.

As President Gore was searching for ways to push back against the clamor for a confrontation
with Iraq, he remembered that it was time for his weekly lunch with Vice President
Lieberman. With an unconscious shake of the head, the president pulled out the “Eyes
Only” memo the vice president had sent him. Just then, an old adage popped into his
head:
I can protect myself from my enemies … but God save me from my friends.

Two hours later, he knew exactly why.

Vice President Lieberman’s “campaign” had begun even as the smoke from the Capitol
and the Pentagon was staining the skies above Washington. It was 8 a.m. on the morning
of September 12. Gathered in the White House Situation Room—the same venue where President
Gore had ordered the Predator strike on Osama bin Laden—were the president, the vice
president, Secretary of State Holbrooke, Defense Secretary Nunn, and CIA Director
Tenet. Richard Clarke had just concluded a terse, grim briefing. The events of the
previous day had been without doubt an Al Qaeda operation, and the question was how
the United States would respond. The steps ranged from a military operation in Afghanistan
to remove the Taliban to a worldwide pursuit of Al Qaeda’s financial resources to
a relentless pressure campaign on Pakistan to stop cosseting the Al Qaeda and Taliban
presence inside its borders. As he concluded, Vice President Lieberman interjected.

“Dick, I just want to put this on the table: How hard are we looking at Iraq’s role
here? Is it really plausible that a ragtag terrorist group like Al Qaeda could have
pulled this off? Moving all those people into the country, the visas, the training?
We know the kinds of weapons Saddam may have stockpiled. We know he tried to kill
President Bush. I just want to make sure we’re taking a hard look at whether Saddam
is involved in any way. If he is,” Lieberman concluded, “I think that would justify
a decisive, decisive response.”

“With respect, Mr. Vice President,” Clarke said, “we—I mean, CIA, NSA, DOD, my shop—we’ve
looked several times for state sponsorship. You know the kind of pressure we’ve been
getting on this from the Hill, but we’ve not found any real linkage to Iraq. Iran,
a little. Saudi Arabia, Pakistan Yemen, some. But Iraq … ”

“I know, I know,” Lieberman said. “But this may be our chance to remove a clear and
present danger—not to mention a genocidal mass murderer—once and for all. So I hope
you’ll look very carefully at this.”

With that, the focus shifted back to Afghanistan and to the staggering list of vulnerable
targets within America’s borders—nuclear power plants, petrochemical factories, bridges
and tunnels from New York to San Francisco. It was only later that the people in the
Situation Room realized that they had witnessed the opening salvo of a political civil
war.

Joe Lieberman came of age in the 1950s, but it was the early 1960s that shaped his
worldview: a time when liberal Democrats were as passionate about a “muscular” foreign
policy as they were about civil rights, civil liberties, and the organized labor movement.
When he entered the Senate in 1988, he quickly distinguished himself from most of
his fellow Democrats by embracing a foreign policy outlook shaped not by the anti-interventionist
lessons of Vietnam but by the post–World War II outlook of Henry “Scoop” Jackson,
the senator from Washington State who was staunchly liberal on domestic policy but
a devoted hawk on foreign and defense matters. Lieberman was a relentless critic of
his party’s anti-interventionist wing, which after Vietnam had become the dominant
foreign policy voice of the party.