He (Clinton) said, “When I failed, I left a comprehensive anti-terror strategy…” for the incoming administration.
During her interview with the New York Post (a sister medium with Fox News owned by Rupert Murdoch), Condi Rice said his statement was false. “We were not left a comprehensive strategy to fight al Qaeda,” she said, and advised people to consult the 9/11 Commission Report to see what actually occurred. She added that during the nine months before 9/11, the Bush administration did as much as the Clinton administration in combating terrorism.
...
“In late 2000, the CIA and the NSC staff began thinking about the counterterrorism policy agenda they would present to the new administration. The Counterterrorist Center put down its best ideas for the future, assuming it was free of any prior policy or financial constraints. The paper was informally referred to as the ‘Blue Sky’ memo; it was sent to Clarke [Richard Clarke, National Counterterrorism Coordinator, NSC, 1997-2001] on December 29. It proposed
"● A major effort to support the Northern Alliance through intelligence sharing and increased funding so that it could stave off the Taliban army and tie down al Qaeda fighters. This effort was not intended to remove the Taliban from power, a goal that was judged impractical and too expensive for the CIA alone to attain.
"● Increased support to the Uzbeks to strengthen their ability to fight terrorism and assist the United States in doing so.
"● Assistance to anti-Taliban groups and proxies who might be encouraged to passively resist the Taliban" (pp. 196-197).
The report states further:
"As the Clinton administration drew to a close, Clarke and his staff developed a policy paper of their own, the first such comprehensive effort [emphasis ours] since the Delenda plan of 1998. The resulting paper, entitled “Strategy for Eliminating the Threat from the Jihadist Networks of al Qida: Status and Prospects,” reviewed the threat and record to date, incorporated the CIA’s new ideas from the Blue Sky memo, and posed several near-term policy options.
"Clarke and his staff proposed a goal to “roll back” al Qaeda over a period of three to five years. Over time, the policy should try to weaken and eliminate the network’s infrastructure in order to reduce it to a “rump group” like other formerly feared but now largely defunct terrorist organizations of the 1980s…
"The paper backed covert aid to the Northern Alliance, covert aid to Uzbekistan, and renewed Predator flights in March 2001. A sentence called for military action to destroy al Qaeda command-and-control targets and infrastructure and Taliban military and command assets. The paper also expressed concern about the presence of al Qaeda operatives in the United States." (197)
As for transmitting the information and plans to the incoming Bush administration, the 9/11 Commission Report gives this account:
"In December, Bush met with Clintion for a two-hour, one-on-one discussion of national security and foreign policy challenges. Clinton recalled saying to Bush, “I think you will find that by far your biggest threat is Bin Laden and the al Qaeda.”…Bush recalled that Clinton had emphasized other issues such as North Korea and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
"In early January, Clarke briefed Rice on terrorism." (199)
Then the report takes up when the new administration took over:
"Within the first few days after Bush’s inauguration, Clarke approached Rice in an effort to get her—and the new president—to give terrorism very high priority and to act on the agenda that he had pushed during the last few months of the previous administration. After Rice requested that all senior staff identify desirable major policy reviews or initiatives, Clarke submitted an elaborate memorandum on January 25, 2001. He attached to it his 1998 Delenda Plan and the December 2000 strategy paper. “We urgently need…a Principals level review on the al Qida network," Clarke wrote." (201)
