6:30 p.m. September 11, 2001: Deputies Committee Holds a Teleconference to Discuss the US Response to the Attacks

The Deputies Committee of the National Security Council holds a secure video teleconference in which its members discuss how the US should respond to today’s terrorist attacks. [Myers and McConnell, 2009, pp. 160-161] The Deputies Committee is the senior sub-Cabinet interagency forum for consideration of policy issues that affect the national security interests of the United States. It is convened and chaired by the deputy national security adviser. [White House, 1/28/2017 ] The secure video teleconference is intended to prepare for a meeting of the National Security Council that will be held in the White House Situation Room tomorrow. Its participants include General Richard Myers, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at the Pentagon; Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, at the White House; Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, at the State Department; and several representatives of the intelligence community, speaking from their offices. [Myers and McConnell, 2009, pp. 160]
Committee Confirms that Decontamination Units Have Been Deployed – Earlier today, Myers ordered that special decontamination units be positioned outside Washington, DC, and New York (see (Before 12:00 p.m.) September 11, 2001). [George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies, 8/3/2012] Now, during the teleconference, it is “verified that counter-NBC [nuclear, biological, or chemical] decontamination units had been called out and deployed, standing by in case al-Qaeda decided to follow up with [weapons of mass destruction] attacks on our cities,” Myers will later recall.
Potential Targets Are Considered – Then, since President Bush has given the order to find and destroy those responsible for today’s attacks, the teleconference participants discuss potential targets to strike when the US retaliates. “We did not want a repeat of August 1998 after the al-Qaeda bombing of our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania” (see 10:35-10:39 a.m., August 7, 1998), Myers will comment. [Myers and McConnell, 2009, pp. 160] On that occasion, America responded to the bombings by firing cruise missiles at suspected terrorist camps in Afghanistan and a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan that US intelligence had identified as a chemical weapons facility (see August 20, 1998). [Washington Post, 8/21/1998; Newsweek, 8/30/1998] This response “had done little significant damage and obviously nothing to deter the terrorists,” Myers will note. The response to today’s attacks, therefore, “had to be more proportionate and, most important, more effective.”
Deputy Defense Secretary Calls Attacks ‘an Act of War’ – Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz offers his opinion on today’s attacks. “This is an act of war,” he says. Talking slowly and emphasizing each word, he adds, “And… we… are… at… war.” CIA Deputy Director John McLaughlin then talks about how America should respond. “After today, we need to see clearly who is with us and who is not with us,” he says. What he means, Myers will explain, is that “Afghanistan, al-Qaeda’s home base, would not be an easy target,” since the “landlocked country had vast deserts and high, trackless mountains bisected by steep gorges.” The committee’s discussion “swirled around potential allies and enemies in the region, and how the attacks on our soil had changed the calculus of these relationships,” Myers will describe. Wolfowitz then opines, “We should be thinking whether we should declare war and then against whom?” Armitage asks, “Well, what should our declaratory policy be?”
Draft Presidential Directive Is Discussed – The Deputies Committee then discusses the draft National Security Presidential Directive on combating terrorism that was presented on September 4 (see September 4, 2001). [Myers and McConnell, 2009, pp. 160-161] The committee worked on this throughout the summer. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 326] The “principal objective” of the draft directive, according to Myers, is “to eliminate the al-Qaeda network, using all elements of our national power to do so—diplomatic, military, economic, intelligence, information, and law enforcement.” The teleconference participants agree that “these concepts would have to be focused more sharply against both al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan.” [Myers and McConnell, 2009, pp. 161]
Aide Will Note How Quickly the Committee Made Sense of the Attacks – Larry Di Rita, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s special assistant, who is with Wolfowitz at the alternate military command center outside Washington (see (11:00 a.m.) September 11, 2001), will be struck by how quickly the Deputies Committee members have determined who is behind today’s attacks and what the US needs to do in response. “When I look at the notes of the video teleconference, it is remarkable to me how much they started to piece together in so short a period of time what it was and what the likely responses needed to be,” he will say. The attitude of committee members, he will note, is “not so much, ‘We’ve got to go to war in Afghanistan,’” but instead, “This is very likely al-Qaeda.” He will find it “quite impressive, the degree to which these decision makers/policy makers had a sense of it.” He will also be struck by the resolve of the teleconference participants. “Everybody was operating with a clear sense that we had to respond in a very dramatic way, that this was not something that could be handled any other way,” he will comment. [Historical Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense, 6/27/2002 ]