On March 24, 2004, a member of the 9/11 Commission asked counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke: ” ‘Assuming that the recommendations [regarding terrorism] that you made on January 25th of 2001…assuming that that had all been adopted, say, on January 26, year 2001, is there the remotest chance that it would have prevented 9/11?’ Clarke’s response was, ‘No.’ [The commission concluded:] Even Clarke’s more robust recommendations for actions against al Qaeda–including arming the Predator [drone], supporting the Northern Alliance, and bombing some al Qaeda camps–shared the inherent limitations of other pre-9/11 policies; they were forecasted to roll back al Qaeda over the course of three to five years, not by September 11, 2001.”
– Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, Without Precedent, Page 167