In December 2000, counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke developed a document titled “Strategy for Eliminating the Threat from the Jihadist Networks of al Qida: Status and Prospects“: “[T]he paper warned that Al Qaeda had a network of terrorist groups in the United States and forty other countries and was ‘actively seeking to develop and acquire weapons of mass destruction.’ Still, Clarke estimated that the United States could ‘roll back’ Al Qaeda as a serious threat to the United States in three to five years if enough resources were committed. To that end, he suggested ways to step up the fight: destroying terrorist camps in Afghanistan where Al Qaeda trained as well as giving ‘massive support’ to the Northern Alliance, the Afghan fighters who opposed the repressive Taliban government that ruled Afghanistan and gave Al Qaeda safe haven. Clarke also proposed using the Predator–an armed, unmanned aircraft–against terrorists in Afghanistan that coming spring. Domestically, he proposed expanding the antiterrorism task forces that operated in major U.S. cities and accelerating the FBI’s translations of wiretapped conversations of terrorist suspects in the United States.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]
– Elisabeth Bumiller, Condoleezza Rice: An American Life, Page 142