THE WHITE HOUSE •• * A" f" /T*

v j'
Office of the Vice President

Internal Transcript December 14, 2001

INTERVIEW OF SCOOTER LIBBY

BY
JOHN DICKERSON AND JAY CARNEY, TIME MAGAZINE

Q One of the things we're really trying to do is get a

sense of where, especially in these rooms that only you and a
few others are in, where we can show the President intersecting
with the prosecution of the war, key decisions there.

We spent some time talking about the day of the 15th of

September, at Camp David. And what we have is, we have a sense
that the 15th is an important day, but we have no -- we're
trying to put together a sense of if he had to choose and make
decisions, the big decisions, what were they? What were the
options in front of him, as best we can tell without, of course,
giving up secrets. To give a sense of how this President makes
decisions in that arena.

MR. LIBBY: I think the llth and the 12th were the most
important days .

_Q Okay.

Q Why?

MR. LIBBY: Well, by the end of the llth, he had defined

and set a course for America in a dramatic way.
What are our rules here, by way? We're off the -- what are
we on?

Q What would you like to be on?

MR. LIBBY: My preference would be -- I mean, normally, I

would just talk to you, you'd come back to me and say, this is
what we want to use. So if you want to start --

MS. MATALIN: It's background.

 MR. LIBBY: Background. Administration official, is that
what that is?

MS. MATALIN: Senior administration official.

MR. LIBBY: It makes me sound too old. How about youthful

administration official. (Laughter.)

Q --it's like (inaudible) insulation. Administration

official can be, you know, anybody -- (laughter.)

MR. LIBBY: When you look back at the tone that the
President set in the first NSC meeting on this subject, which
was the afternoon of the llth, and then in his address to the
nation that night at 11:30 p.m. -- atv8:30 p.m., and in the
subsequent NSC meeting that occurred down in the PEOC, after the
Presidential address, you can find that he has set many of the
major decisions already into motion. He has already decided
that this is a war on terrorism, not a juridical effort against
a particular unknown party, but a war that's going to go beyond
this one party to broader sources of terrorism. He has already
broadened the concept beyond those who are the perpetrators and
their organization, to states supporting terrorism.

It's a very dramatic change, and a very dramatic goal that

he set. And that is set by 8:30 p.m. on the first day, and
actually was set during the course of the afternoon. You can
imagine other Presidents saying, well, we'd better find out
first who did it, what are the implications, is it a war we can
win, maybe we can do this through economic sanctions, maybe the
thing to do is to get the World Court involved, is this a war we
take on alone, or do we have to go consult the Europeans or Arab
allies.

He had, within that first day, set America on a course of

leadership that he was confident he would bring other countries
and the nation to follow. He had also set the decision on the
first day that nations are either with us or they're against us.
That countries would have to choose in the war on terrorism.

Q In making these decisions, obviously some of these

were made while he was still in the air coming back from
Nebraska, and before the first NSC meeting, but was it your
sense that he made those decisions without contemplating those
other options you were talking about, or contemplating and
rejecting them? In other words, did he simply say, this is a
war on terrorism, or did he or somebody else say, we can do

00022
 this, this and this, but we're not going to do that or
(inaudible)?

MR. LIBBY: He is a very thoughtful man, who had been

through a lot of discussion of foreign policy issues prior to
this time. So while I was not in the room with him as he made
these dramatic, historic decisions, there was no question in my
mind, from things I had seen, that he had already been through
these issues, themselves.

For example, it was clear in that first day that he was not
talking about a tit-for-tat type response. He understood that
an act of war had been perpetrated on the United States and that
our response would not be timid or brief, but a long campaign,
and one designed to be effective in the end, not one designed to
be for show.

Q Did he say, do you remember, I don't want to do

diplomacy, I don't want to do world court, I don't want to do
sanctions, I don't want to do --

MR. LIBBY: No, quite the opposite. Maybe I left you the
wrong impression. He had a strategy which was multi-faceted.
It was going to be, and he did say within those first 48 hours,
this is going to be diplomatic, it's going to be financial, it's
going to be military, it's going to use all instruments of
national power. In fact, I believe that phrase may even be in
that first address. If it's not, it's certainly in the State of
the Union address, and it's things that he said in the course of
that first two days.

Q Was anybody in operational at that -- I mean, he's

setting these broad stars by which to guide. Is anybody at this
point talking about it will take us X number of days to do this
militarily? Or does that come on that weekend?

MR. LIBBY: I think in the first couple of days, they're

setting broad agendas. I don't think anyone -- let me step back
-- half the people in the room had been involved in Desert
Shield/Desert Storm, and knew full well what it takes to put
force halfway around the world. So everyone knew there was a
time line involved. And everything short of simply sending off
a few bombers, or a few Cruise missiles, which was not the
approach he was intending.

Q That approach, which all the people we've talked to

\k about as one that was discarded -- we're having trouble

000225
figuring out whether it was ever real, ever on the table,
whether it was on the table and had no advocate -- the notion of
kind of, you know, some kind of quick action.

Q Traditional, we'll (inaudible.) We know it was on the

table, even if it didn't (inaudible) happen, because it was an
option. (Inaudible.) But was there a major discussion about
that, or was it just --

MR. LIBBY: I don't recall a major discussion of any option

that had no advocates. And what I recall of his leadership in
this period was that it was clear he wanted a serious national
response, using all means of power, not something that would
simply be a signal.

Q But had there been an advocate, surely that person

wouldn't have taken the President's inclination as a sign that
he should not speak up, and say -- (inaudible)?

MR. LIBBY: I don't think there's any advocate for that.

Q Because it's an option, it's not like (inaudible). I

mean, what about the --

MR. LIBBY: Well, you say it's an option, but everyone in

that room believed that we had failed to act decisively
following the attack on our troops in Somalia, and following the
attempted assassination of President Bush -- these are in 1993 -
- following the arrests of a cell of al Qaeda that was planning
hijackings in the '94-'95 time, following the attack on our
embassy in Riyadh in '95, following the attacks on Khobar in
'96, following the attacks on embassies in eastern -- in East
Africa in '98, following the attack on the Cole that's been
September of -- in the fall of 2000.

So I don't think there was anyone in the room who thought

it was sensible to pick up on that chain of success.

Q What about the other extreme, which was to have people

view the experience (inaudible), the long buildup (inaudible) --
as an alternative to using (inaudible) force and (inaudible)?

MR. LIBBY: In the first two days? I think there was a

discussion that it had to be a militarily effective response. I
don't think it got into precisely where that would be at that
point.

000226
 Q What about over the weekend, and the weekend at Camp
David, when we were led to believe those kinds of decisions were
both debated and then ultimately decided by the President? Our
understanding was that there were a variety of iterations
discussed, whether it was proxy force alone, with U.S. air
power, proxy force plus CIA, proxy force plus CIA and special
forces, and then something even beyond that, with a more sort of
Gulf War, traditional military buildup, that all of those
options were presented.

MR. LIBBY: I'll have to think about the time line. I

think those things -- I know those things were discussed after a
fashion, but I'm not sure it was before the 15th, which I guess
was the Saturday meeting.

Q Right.

MS. MATALIN: (Inaudible.)

MR. LIBBY: Yes, Karen is --

Q Can we try and -- (inaudible.)

END

000227