HE PRESIDENT WAS on a war footing when he walked into Camp David's Laurel Lodge early Sat.u.r.day morning, September 15, but first he was going to have to listen and make sure he was decisive without being rash.

"One way you're not impulsive," he explained later, "is to make sure you listen to an experienced group of national security advisers." He saw his advisers as a useful check on his own inclinations. "If I have any genius or smarts, it's the ability to recognize talent, ask them to serve and work with them as a team." By conservative count, the team together had close to 100 years of full-time experience dealing with national security. The president had not even a year.

"When they give advice," he said, "I trust their judgment. Now sometimes the advice isn't always the same, in which case my job - the job is to grind through these problems, and grind through scenarios, and hopefully reach a consensus of six or seven smart people, which makes my job easy."

He was about to find out that, indeed, the advice might not only be different, but that it could come dressed in language that was not always straightforward. He also was going to see that grinding through was not always easy.

He had been up about four hours, when at 9:19 A.M., he invited reporters into the conference room to tell them how little he would have to say in public. "This is an administration that will not talk about how we gather intelligence, how we know what we're going to do, nor what our plans are."

The war cabinet filed into the wood-paneled conference room and took their seats around the large table that accommodates about two dozen people. Tenet had brought his deputy, John E. McLaughlin, and counterterrorism chief, Cofer Black. Rumsfeld had brought his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz. Powell had understood it was supposed to be princ.i.p.als only so he did not have Armitage with him. All were dressed informally, many wearing jackets because of the chilly temperature. Bush, in a blue shirt and green bomber jacket, sat front and center, flanked on his right by Cheney and his left by Powell. Rumsfeld sat next to Powell.

They began with a prayer, and routine updates from Powell and Treasury Secretary O'Neill.

Tenet spoke next. The CIA director had come to Camp David carrying a briefcase stuffed with TOP SECRET doc.u.ments and plans, more than four years of work on bin Laden, al Qaeda and worldwide terrorism. He distributed a briefing packet with the attention-grabbing t.i.tle "Going to War." In the upper-left-hand corner was a picture of bin Laden inside a red circle with a slash superimposed over his face, the CIA's adaptation of the universal symbol of prohibition.

Tenet flipped open to the first page, "Initial Hook: Destroying al Qaeda, Closing the Safe Haven" - Afghanistan, bin Laden's operating base and home. CIA paramilitary teams would be deployed with the Northern Alliance. They could eventually link up with U.S. military Special Forces units, bringing firepower and technology to the opposition fighters in Afghanistan to create a northern front.

The plan called for a full-scale covert attack on the financial underpinnings of the terrorist network, including clandestine computer surveillance and electronic eavesdropping to locate the a.s.sets of al Qaeda and other terrorist groups that were hidden and laundered among various charitable fronts and so-called nongovernmental organizations, NGOs.

Another component was t.i.tled "CIA, FBI Focus on the Large Afghan Community in the U.S." The CIA and FBI would coordinate to track down and smoke out bin Laden supporters - a clear, glaring weakness before the attacks.

Tenet referred to propaganda efforts, mentioning that they had some mullahs on the payroll.

At the heart of the proposal was a recommendation that the president give what Tenet labeled "exceptional authorities" to the CIA to destroy al Qaeda in Afghanistan and the rest of the world. He wanted a broad intelligence order permitting the CIA to conduct covert operations without having to come back for formal approval for each specific operation. The current process involved too much time, lawyering, reviews and debate. The CIA needed new, robust authority to operate without restraint. Tenet also wanted encouragement from the president to take risks.

Another key component, he said, was to "use exceptional authorities to detain al Qaeda operatives worldwide." That meant the CIA could use foreign intelligence services or other paid a.s.sets. Tenet and his senior deputies would be authorized to approve "s.n.a.t.c.h" operations abroad, truly exceptional power.

Tenet had brought a draft of a presidential intelligence order, called a finding, that would give the CIA power to use the full range of covert instruments, including deadly force. For more than two decades, the CIA had simply modified previous presidential findings to obtain its formal authority for counterterrorism. His new proposal, technically called a Memorandum of Notification, was presented as a modification to the worldwide counterterrorism intelligence finding signed by President Reagan in 1986. As if symbolically erasing the recent past, it superseded five such memoranda signed by President Clinton.

The CIA chief came to a page headed "Heavily Subsidize Arab Liaison Services." He explained that with the additional hundreds of millions of dollars for new covert action, the CIA would "buy" key intelligence services, providing training, new equipment, money for their agent networks, whatever they might need. Several intelligence services were listed: Egypt, Jordan, Algeria. Acting as surrogates for the United States, these services could triple or quadruple the CIA's resources, an extended mercenary force of intelligence operatives. Like much in the world of covert activity, such arrangements carried risks. It would put the United States in league with questionable intelligence services, some of them with dreadful human rights records. Some had reputations for ruthlessness and using torture to obtain confessions. Tenet acknowledged that these were not people you were likely to be sitting next to in church on Sunday. Look, I don't control these guys all the time, he said. Bush said he understood the risks.

Tenet added that the United States already had a "large a.s.set base" in the region, given the work the CIA had been doing in countries near Afghanistan. The agency had been operating unmanned aerial vehicles - the so-called Predator drones - on surveillance missions out of Uzbekistan for more than a year to provide real-time video of Afghanistan. The Predator could be equipped with remotely controlled h.e.l.lfire missiles and used for lethal missions too, to take out bin Laden or his top lieutenants for example. The United States should seek to work closely with Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Pakistan, Tenet said, to stop the travel of al Qaeda leaders and "close all border crossings" to them. He called for initiating intelligence contact with some rogue states such as Libya and Syria that he said might be helpful in trying to destroy al Qaeda. For the CIA to obtain helpful information against the terrorists, they might have to get their hands dirty.

Tenet turned to operations within Afghanistan. He described a role for the opposition tribes in the southern part of Afghanistan, groups hostile to the Northern Alliance but crucial to a campaign against al Qaeda and the Taliban. The CIA had begun working with about a dozen tribal leaders in the south the previous year. Some would try to play both sides, he said, but once the war began, they could be enticed by money, food, ammunition and supplies to join the U.S. led campaign.

Tenet then expanded on his earlier briefing to the president about how they could effectively employ the Northern Alliance, which the CIA believed was potentially a powerful force but which was desperate for money, weapons and intelligence.

The CIA director turned then to another TOP SECRET doc.u.ment, the "Worldwide Attack Matrix," which described covert operations in 80 countries either underway or that he was now recommending. Actions ranged from routine propaganda to lethal covert action in preparation for military attacks. Included were efforts to disrupt terrorist plots or attacks in countries in Asia, the Middle East and Africa. In some countries, CIA teams would break into facilities to obtain information. What he was proposing represented a striking departure for U.S. policy. It would give the CIA the broadest and most lethal authority in its history. He referred to this as the "outside piece," beyond Afghanistan. He walked the group rapidly through the 80 countries - here's where we are, here's what we could do, here's what we want to do. It was stunning in its sweep - a secret global war on terror.

Because the CIA had been working aggressively against terrorism for years, Tenet said, the agency had done extensive target development and network a.n.a.lysis. What it needed was money, flexibility and broad authority - so that it could move quickly, instantly, if it discovered targets.

Rumsfeld was enthusiastic about the broad concept, but he still wanted the order to be more carefully written and restrictive.

The president made no effort to disguise what he thought of Tenet's proposals, virtually shouting "Great job!"

"OKAY, MUELLER," BUSH said, turning to the FBI director, "give me a brief. Where are we on what's happening?"

Robert Mueller was a former federal prosecutor who had spent years working on the 1988 terrorist bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, and he knew that the worst thing that can happen to an FBI director is to have a major domestic terrorist incident on his watch. Perhaps the second is being called on by the president when unprepared. The brand-new director had been surprised by the invitation to attend the war-planning session. He had expected to be called on much later, if at all.

Not used to the company, intimidated by the presence of the nation's top leadership, Mueller gave a routine summary of the investigation into the hijackings. He realized he was almost babbling and quickly yielded the floor.

Attorney General Ashcroft provided an update on his efforts to develop a legislative package to expand the powers of law enforcement to fight terrorism. He warned that it was important to disrupt the terrorists now but added, "We need to remember these are patient people," reminding them that eight years pa.s.sed between the two attacks on the World Trade Center. The administration needed a new long-term strategy, "because that's the kind of strategy they have in place."

The final presentation of the morning was by General Shelton, who had also brought a big briefcase to Camp David. Bush had ordered the Pentagon to come to the meeting with plenty of options, and Shelton was prepared to talk about military action against both Afghanistan and, if pressed, Iraq.

He had three general options for Afghanistan.

Option One was a strike with cruise missiles, a plan the military could execute quickly if speed was the president's overriding priority. The missiles could be launched by Navy ships or Air Force planes from hundreds of miles away. The targets included al Qaeda's training camps.

The problem, he noted, as they all knew, was that the camps were empty. Clearly, Shelton, Bush and Rumsfeld were not enamored of this idea, nor were the others. It might as well have been labeled the Clinton Option. There was palpable disgust at the mere mention of cruise missiles only.

The second option combined cruise missiles with manned bomber attacks. Shelton said Bush could initially choose a strike lasting three or four days or something longer, maybe up to 10 days. The targets included al Qaeda training camps and some Taliban targets. This too had limits.

Shelton described the third and most robust option as cruise missiles, bombers and what the planners had taken to calling "boots on the ground." This option included all the elements of the second option along with elite commando units of U.S. Special Forces, and possibly the Army and Marines, being deployed inside Afghanistan. But he said it would take a minimum of 10 to 12 days just to get initial forces on the ground because bases and overflight rights would be needed in the region for search and rescue teams to bring out any downed pilots.

Veterans of the Gulf War, certainly Powell and Cheney, were struck by how the military situation in Afghanistan was shaping up as far different from Desert Storm. On Sat.u.r.day, August 4, 1990, in the same lodge at Camp David, General Norman Schwarzkopf, then the commander in chief of the Central Command, had presented a detailed, off-the-shelf proposal for military action. It was called Operations Plan 90-1002, and it was the basic military plan that would be executed over the next seven months to oust the Iraqi army from Kuwait.

Now there was no off-the-shelf military plan. One would have to be devised fast and from scratch, once the president had decided the shape of the war, the initial focus of the campaign and the relationship between the CIA and the Pentagon.

At one point, someone said this was not likely to be like the Balkans, where ethnic hatreds had occupied the Clinton administration for nearly eight years. "We're going to wish this was the Balkans," Rice said, the problems of Afghanistan and the surrounding region were so complicated. She looked at a map and just thought "Afghanistan." It evoked every negative image: far away, mountainous, landlocked, hard.

Bush said that the ideal result from this campaign would be to kick terrorists out of some places like Afghanistan and through that action persuade other countries that had supported terrorism in the past, such as Iran, to change their behavior.

Powell a.s.serted that everyone in the international coalition was ready to go after al Qaeda, but that extending the war to other terrorist groups or countries could cause some of them to drop out.

The president said he didn't want other countries dictating terms or conditions for the war on terrorism. "At some point," he said, "we may be the only ones left. That's okay with me. We are America."

Powell didn't reply. Going it alone was precisely what he wanted to avoid if possible. He thought that the president's formulation was not realistic. Without partners, the United States could not launch an effective war even in Afghanistan, certainly not worldwide. He believed the president made such statements knowing they might not withstand a second a.n.a.lysis. Tough talk might be necessary, but it shouldn't be confused with policy.

Cheney, in contrast, took Bush at his word. He was convinced that the president was serious when he said the United States would go it alone if necessary.

Rumsfeld raised another problem. Although everyone agreed that destroying al Qaeda was the first priority, any singling out of bin Laden, particularly by the president, would elevate him the way Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had been during the Gulf War. He said that the worst thing they could do in such a situation was to misstate their objective. It would not be effective to succeed in removing or killing bin Laden or Taliban leader Mohammad Omar without solving the basic problem of terrorism. Vilification of bin Laden could rob the United States of its ability to frame this as a larger war. In other words, the "No bin Laden" sign that graced every page of the CIA briefing pack was off-message and shouldn't be repeated in public.

Another puzzle was the Taliban. The United States was clearly going to apply pressure in the hope that it would break with al Qaeda and give up bin Laden. They didn't think this was likely but they agreed they had to make the effort. going to apply pressure in the hope that it would break with al Qaeda and give up bin Laden. They didn't think this was likely but they agreed they had to make the effort.

Afghanistan's history nagged at the president's advisers. Its geography was forbidding and its record of rebuffing outside forces was real. Despite the options that had been presented earlier that morning, several advisers seemed worried. Bush asked them: What are the worst cases out there? What are the real downside risks?

One was triggering chaos in Afghanistan that would spill over into Pakistan. Rice and Cheney in particular viewed this as a great danger. Afghanistan was already a mess, Cheney said. If Pakistan went, they would have unleashed a whole other set of demons. He was worried that Pakistan's choice to support the United States could lead its extremists to try to bring down Musharraf's government. That could give Islamic fundamentalists access to Pakistan's nuclear weapons.

Everyone understood that President Musharraf was the crucial barrier between stability and a worst-case scenario.

Have the Pakistanis fully thought through the risks of supporting us? Bush asked.

Powell said he believed they had. First, Musharraf had seen how serious the administration was. Second, he said, Musharraf realizes he has gradually been losing control of his country, and he may see this as an opportunity to stop the slide into extremism. Musharraf did not want Pakistan to turn into a rogue state, Powell believed. He sought a more secular, westernized country.

President Musharraf is taking a tremendous risk, the president said. We need to make it worth his while. We should help him with a number of things, including nuclear security. Put together a package of support for Pakistan, he directed.

Another risk they faced was getting bogged down in Afghanistan, the nemesis of the British in the 19th century and the Soviets in the 20th. Rice was wondering whether it might be the same for the United States in the 21st.

Her fears were shared by others, which led to a different discussion: Should they think about launching military action elsewhere as an insurance policy in case things in Afghanistan went bad? They would need successes early in any war to maintain domestic and international support. The United States's rapid victory in the 1991 Gulf War, and the immediacy of watching it unfold live on CNN, had redefined people's expectations about warfare, which the Clinton administration's occasional cruise missile attacks had done nothing to alter.

Rice asked whether they could envision a successful military campaign beyond Afghanistan, which put Iraq back on the table.

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz perked up. Mild in manner but hard-line in policy, Wolfowitz, 57, believed that the abrupt end to the Desert Storm ground campaign in 1991 which left Saddam in power had been a mistake.

Since taking office, Bush had been seeking ways to undermine Hussein, with Wolfowitz pushing efforts to aid opposition groups, and Powell seeking support for a new set of sanctions. The fear was that Saddam was still attempting to develop, obtain and eventually use weapons of ma.s.s destruction, and without United Nations inspectors in the country, there was no way to know the exact nature of the threat they faced. The terrorist attacks of September 11 gave the U.S. a new window to go after Hussein.

Wolfowitz seized the opportunity. Attacking Afghanistan would be uncertain. He worried about 100,000 American troops bogged down in mountain fighting in Afghanistan six months from then. In contrast, Iraq was a brittle, oppressive regime that might break easily. It was doable. He estimated that there was a 10 to 50 percent chance Saddam was involved in the September 11 terrorist attacks. The U.S. would have to go after Saddam at some time if the war on terrorism was to be taken seriously.

Andy Card thought Wolfowitz was just banging a drum, not providing additional information or new arguments.

During a break, Bush joined a side discussion that included Cheney, Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, and Wolfowitz. He told them that he had found some of Shelton's military options unimaginative.

Wolfowitz expanded on his arguments about how war against Iraq might be easier than against Afghanistan.

The president asked why he didn't present more of this at the meeting.

"It is not my place to contradict the chairman of the Joint Chiefs unless the secretary of defense says to," said Wolfowitz, knowing Shelton was opposed to an attack on Iraq.

When the group reconvened, Rumsfeld asked, Is this the time to attack Iraq? He noted that there would be a big buildup of forces in the region and he was still deeply worried about the availability of good targets in Afghanistan.

Powell objected. You're going to hear from your coalition partners, he told the president. They're all with you, every one, but they will go away if you hit Iraq. If you get something pinning September 11 on Iraq, great - let's put it out and kick them at the right time. But let's get Afghanistan now. If we do that, we will have increased our ability to go after Iraq - if we can prove Iraq had a role.

Bush had strong reservations about attacking Iraq, but he let the discussion continue. He was concerned about two things, he said later. "My theory is you've got to do something and do it well and that... if we could prove that we could be successful in [the Afghanistan] theater, then the rest of the task would be easier. If we tried to do too many things - two things, for example, or three things - militarily, then. . . the lack of focus would have been a huge risk."

Bush's other concern was one that he did not express to his war cabinet but that he would say later was part of his thinking. He knew that around the table were advisers - Powell, Cheney, Wolfowitz - who had been with his father during the Gulf War deliberations. "And one of the things I wasn't going to allow to happen is, that we weren't going to let their previous experience in this theater dictate a rational course for the new war." In other words, he didn't want them to use the war on terror as an excuse to settle an old score.

At another point during the morning, Wolfowitz interrupted his boss, Rumsfeld, and expanded on a point he had made earlier about Iraq. He may have taken the president's remark during the break as encouragement.

There was an awkward silence. Rumsfeld seemed to ignore the interruption but his eyes narrowed. Some thought he might be annoyed; others thought he was just listening.

Bush flashed a pointed look in Card's direction. During another break in the meeting, the chief of staff took Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz aside.

"The president will expect one person to speak for the Department of Defense," Card told them.

Sometime before lunch, Bush sent a message to the group that he had heard enough debate over Iraq. "There wasn't a lot of talk about Iraq in the second [afternoon] round," he later recalled. "The second round of discussion was focused only on Afghanistan, let me put it to you that way."

LUNCH WAS SERVED at 12:45, and Bush told his advisers that they should take some time to exercise or rest. Then, I want everybody back here at four o'clock, and I want to hear what you think we ought to do.

Rice was concerned about the lack of focus during the last part of the morning. The NSC meetings usually were more structured, with the princ.i.p.als reporting on their departments or agencies, and then together they would work through the problems - "noodle it around," she once said - and come up with options. The morning meeting had started well, but then had become repet.i.tious, unusually freewheeling. She didn't know where the morning discussion had left them. How are we going to get a plan out of this? she wondered. Have we got anything here? She knew the president wanted to come away from the meeting with a plan of action.

Rice convened the princ.i.p.als - Powell, Rumsfeld, Tenet, Card - without the president. She expressed her concerns. We need to bring more discipline to the discussion in the afternoon, she said, urging them to be specific.

Powell went back to his cabin, where his wife, Alma, was reading a book. As he saw it, the big questions were still on the table: what to do, when to do it, and do you go after this one thing - al Qaeda and Afghanistan - that they knew was out there, or do you expand the war at this time? He sat down in a chair and closed his eyes for half an hour.

Tenet and McLaughlin went out on a golf cart for a ride. McLaughlin wondered how the president was going to take the discussion, which had sprayed all over, and bring it together.

Rice went back to her cabin, returned some phone calls and went off to exercise. About 3:45 P.M., she ran into the president outside his cabin. He had worked out on the elliptical machine and lifted weights. Now he told his national security adviser that he had a plan for the afternoon. "I'm going to go around the table and I'm going to ask people what they think," the president said. "What do you think about that?"

"That's fine," she replied. "Do you want me just to listen?"

"I want you to listen," Bush said. She could offer her thoughts after they had heard everyone out.

I WANT TO hear recommendations from the princ.i.p.als - Powell, Rumsfeld, Tenet, Card, and the vice president - said the president when the group reconvened in Laurel Lodge at 4 P.M.

Okay, who will start? He looked at Powell.

Powell had expected more general discussion but plunged ahead. "In the first instance, it's about al Qaeda and UBL," he said, using the common government shorthand for bin Laden, based on the spelling "Usama." Make them the target, their camps and their infrastructure. "Beyond that, there are other networks, but not the FARC," the left-wing guerrilla group in Colombia. They needed a sustained air campaign in places where bin Laden was known to hide, he said, and they should issue a warning to the Taliban 48 hours before the campaign starts that they will be held responsible. If not, they would start to pay a price. the spelling "Usama." Make them the target, their camps and their infrastructure. "Beyond that, there are other networks, but not the FARC," the left-wing guerrilla group in Colombia. They needed a sustained air campaign in places where bin Laden was known to hide, he said, and they should issue a warning to the Taliban 48 hours before the campaign starts that they will be held responsible. If not, they would start to pay a price.

"Don't go after the leadership in their capital," Powell continued, "go after the things that keep them in power like their air force. Start with the bottom of the loop first, rather than the top down."

He had several other ideas. "Stay away from CNN," he suggested. Instantaneous battlefield coverage could create unnecessary pressure. He also said it would be desirable to leave somebody in the Taliban to negotiate with, and it might be possible to work with the Saudis to try to get to the Taliban, since the Saudis were the only other major government besides Pakistan that formally recognized the Taliban as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan.

"All the states that supported terror, you can do at a time of your choosing," Powell said, repeating Bush's phrase from the cathedral speech the day before. "They are not going anywhere." Don't go with the Iraq option right away, or we'll lose the coalition. we've been signing up. "They'll view it as bait-and-switch - it's not what they signed up to do."

If we weren't going after Iraq before September 11, why would we be going after them now when the current outrage is not directed at Iraq, Powell asked. n.o.body could look at Iraq and say it was responsible for September 11. It was important not to lose focus. "Keep the Iraq options open if you get the linkages," he said. "Maybe Syria, Iran" - the chief state sponsors of terrorism in the 1980s - "but doubt you'll get the linkages."

Though the U.S. military claims to be designed and equipped to fight two full-scale conflicts simultaneously, Powell thought the Defense Department was overestimating its ability to do two things at the same time from the same command, with the same commander and staff. Military attacks on both Afghanistan and Iraq would be under the jurisdiction of CENTCOM.

He didn't articulate that point, but he figured it was his ace in the hole. No military plan had been presented for Iraq. No one, neither Rumsfeld nor Wolfowitz, had told the president precisely what should be done in Iraq and how it might be done. n.o.body had taken it to the next step and said, This is what we're talking about. The absence of a plan was a gaping hole.

A public case had to be made that bin Laden was the guilty one, Powell said. That was important. Evidence mattered.

Rumsfeld was next. We must not undercut our ability to act over the long term, he said, which meant they should keep thinking about what to do about terrorism in general. Patience was important. Rooting out bin Laden would take very different intelligence than they had. The doctrine of "hit, talk, hit," in which the United States would strike, pause to see the reaction, and then hit again, sounded much like Vietnam.

"The military options look like five or ten years ago," he said, a direct swipe at the uniformed military planners. Rumsfeld said there was a need for unconventional approaches, especially the Special Forces operations, in gathering intelligence on the ground. "Get a group functioning fast. Lift out of conventional mind-set."

Responding to Powell's comment that the coalition would dissolve if Iraq were attacked, Rumsfeld said that any "argument that the coalition wouldn't tolerate Iraq argues for a different coalition." But significantly, he did not make a recommendation on Iraq.

"We have to do a better job at target selection," he said. "This will be a sustained campaign. We need an operational cell that doesn't exist at present."

He offered some thoughts on controlling information. "Need tighter control over public affairs. Treat it like a political campaign with daily talking points. Sustaining requires a broad base of domestic support. Broad, not narrow. This is a marathon, not a sprint. It will be years and not months." In a war that was going to be remote, lengthy and relatively secret they would need message discipline.

"The people who do this don't lose," Rumsfeld said, "don't have high-value targets. They have networks and fanaticism." It was a somewhat obvious but important point that got to the heart of the problems they were facing - lack of good targets, lack of inside intelligence sources, the worthlessness of a deterrence strategy.

"We need to stress homeland defense," the president said. "One, we need an early blueprint for response." He a.s.signed that task to Cheney. "Have to coordinate public affairs," he agreed. "Have to update our communications." For months Bush had been complaining about c.r.a.ppy communications systems, which had deteriorated in recent years from lack of investment. On the morning of September 11, the phones didn't work well.

Tenet summarized. "Seems to be a three-part strategy," he said. First would be the demands on the Taliban and others. Second would be "strike and strangle." Third would be "surround and sustain."

He added a depressing thought. "Our situation is more like that of the Israelis," he said. The United States could be entering a period of routine domestic terror attacks. The problem isn't going to go away. "We need a strategy at home that disrupts."

"Start Taliban military options." Tenet agreed with Powell that initially they should pursue military targets rather than their leadership. "Meet at least the al Qaeda target. Take out the majority of Taliban military structure."

He mentioned his own plans for a global approach but supported the position that the initial military focus should be exclusively on Afghanistan.

Card was next. He did not have much foreign policy experience, so he began by speaking generally. "What is the definition of success?" he asked. He said it would first be proving that this was not just an effort to pound sand - as the president had repeatedly made clear. "People are either with us or against us. If the line isn't clear and there aren't clear consequences, people migrate to the wrong side of the line." Echoing Powell and Rumsfeld, he said, "Don't define it as UBL. Al Qaeda can be the enemy." made clear. "People are either with us or against us. If the line isn't clear and there aren't clear consequences, people migrate to the wrong side of the line." Echoing Powell and Rumsfeld, he said, "Don't define it as UBL. Al Qaeda can be the enemy."

"An enemy," Bush said, interrupting his chief of staff, reminding them all it was war way beyond al Qaeda.