Clinton, Bush, and the hunt for bin Laden
The worries over the public-relations implications continued. The Air Force even made sure that the officers and enlisted men who would take part in the project were given temporary CIA-detailee status, so that they were considered CIA operatives, not Air Force operatives, according to the former military official.
"The big concern was what happens the day after, if we do this," says the official.
Through the summer of 2001, the CIA and the Office of the Secretary of Defense went through all the various "what ifs," according to administration officials.
"The NSC was tearing its hair out," says Cressey. "We were saying, 'Is this a priority or isn't this a priority?'" Tenet's deputy John McLaughlin informed Rice's deputy Stephen Hadley, who is now Bush's national security adviser, that the CIA and Air Force had failed to come up with an agreement on funding issues. Hadley made repeated attempts to try to forge an agreement, says Cressey, but failed.
"I give Steve a lot of points," Cressey says, "for trying to solve this issue."
However, knowledgeable sources say that lack of forceful intervention by the NSC resulted in a stalemate. The to-ing and fro-ing continued.
On Aug. 15, 2001, Air Force officials were still grumbling about the CIA's "nickel and diming" of the operation and were concerned that the final tests, scheduled for August 24 at China Lake, would have to be postponed. But military sources say the CIA came through with the money by August 20, and the tests were conducted. On August 28, the first group of CIA operatives left for Uzbekistan, even as the paperwork detailing the operation began to be distributed to the principals. At a final technical meeting held at the CIA the next day, the operational staff laid out a schedule for the armed Predators to be deployed.
According to the former military official knowledgeable about the program, the schedule was as follows: Sept. 2, 2001, the CIA operatives were to arrive in Tashkent with the hangars for the Predator, to be set up two days later. On the 10th, the communications infrastructure would be installed. A second group of operatives were to have arrived by then.
On Sept. 11, 2001, the Predators were to have been readied for transporting. The first Predator was to have left by September 12, arriving on the 18th. The second would be shipped out the 14th or 15th, along with the Hellfires, to arrive on September 19. The Predators would be readied in Uzbekistan between the 19th and the 25th. The first cross-border flight was scheduled for Sept. 25, 2001. There was a lot of discussion about how the Uzbek officials would respond to the arrival of the Predators and how to inform them about the nature of the operation.
Finally, on Sept. 4, 2001, the principals committee meeting that Clark had sought for months took place.
By then, one of the planes had already been packed – minus the Hellfires – into a CIA transport plane. The CIA's Allen warned that the committee had to decide quickly whether to fly the Predators, because with the arrival of fall and bad weather, the fly window was quickly diminishing.
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