Condoleezza Rice in State of Denial, by Bob Woodward

On War & Peace: Warned by CIA in July 2001 of major al-Qaeda attack soon

For months, Tenet had been pressing Rice to give the CIA stronger authority to conduct covert action against bin Laden. On June 30, a top-secret intelligence brief contained an article headlined “Bin Laden Threats Are Real.” Tenet hoped his abrupt request for an immediate meeting would shake Rice.

Tenet left the meeting feeling frustrated. Though Rice had given them a fair hearing, no immediate action meant great risk. The July 10 meeting went unmentioned in the various investigations into the Sept. 11 attacks, but it stood out in the mind of Tenet as the starkest warning on bin Laden and al-Qaeda. Tenet’s deputy later said, “The only thing we didn’t do was pull the trigger to the gun we were holding to her head.”

On War & Peace: Wrote pre-9/11 plan to go after bin Laden; but not approved

Indeed, Tenet and Black had demanded action that day, but it was not clear what immediate action really would have meant. The strategic warning Tenet and Black gave lacked details: When? Where? How?

Besides, the planning for covert action to go after bin Laden in his sanctuary in Afghanistan actually did go forward at a pretty fast clip--quite fast for a national security bureaucracy, although the plan was not approved before the 9/11 attacks. In fact, Rice had a National Security Presidential Directive to launch a new covert war against bin Laden set to go to Bush on 9/10/2001. It was NSPD-9, meaning 8 other foreign policy matters had been formally debated, agreed on and signed by the president as administration policy before the plan to go after bin Laden.