And then we set out _ I talked to Dick Clarke almost immediately after his _ or, I should say, shortly after his memo to me saying that al-Qaida was a major threat, we set out to try and craft a better strategy.

And I should just make one other point, Mr. Hamilton, if you don't mind, which is that we also moved forward on some of the specific ideas that Dick Clarke had put forward prior to completing the strategy review. We increased assistance to Uzbekistan, for instance, which had been one of the recommendations. We moved along the armed Predator, the development of the armed Predator. We increased counterterrorism funding.

You acknowledged to us in your interview of February 7, 2004, that Richard Clarke told you that al-Qaida cells were in the United States.

Dick Clarke had told me, I think in a memorandum _ I remember it as being only a line or two _ that there were al-Qaida cells in the United States.

Dick Clarke was shaking the trees, director of central intelligence was shaking the trees, director of the FBI was shaking the trees.

If you look at this period, I think you see that everybody _ the director of the CIA _ Louis Freeh had left, but the key counterterrorism person was a part of Dick Clarke's group.

Dick Clarke was in contact with me quite frequently during this period of time. When the CSG would meet, he would come back usually through e-mail, sometimes personally, and say, here's what we've done. I would talk everyday, several times a day, with George Tenet about what the threat spike looked like.

The reason that I asked Andy Card to come with me to that meeting with Dick Clarke was that I wanted him to know _ wanted Dick Clarke to know _ that he had the weight not just of the national security advisor, but the weight of the chief of staff if he needed it. I didn't manage the domestic agencies. No national security advisor does.

In fact, after the fact, on September 15th, what Dick Clarke sent me _ and he was my crisis manager _ what he sent me was a memorandum, or an e-mail that said, After national unity begins to break down _ again, I'm paraphrasing _ people will ask, did we do all that we needed to do to arm the domestic agencies, to warn the domestic agencies and to respond to the possibility of domestic threat?

There was a good deal of talk about the inadequacy of military options to go after Al Qaida. Dick Clarke was quite clear in his view that the very things that had been tasked were inadequate to the task.