The al Qaeda terrorist network posed a threat to the United States for almost a decade before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Throughout that period -- during the eight years of the Clinton administration and the first eight months of the Bush administration prior to Sept. 11 -- the U.S. government worked hard to counter the al Qaeda threat.

During the transition, President-elect Bush’s national security team was briefed on the Clinton administration’s efforts to deal with al Qaeda. The seriousness of the threat was well understood by the president and his national security principals. In response to my request for a presidential initiative, the counterterrorism team, which we had held over from the Clinton administration, suggested several ideas, some of which had been around since 1998 but had not been adopted. No al Qaeda plan was turned over to the new administration.

We adopted several of these ideas. We committed more funding to counterterrorism and intelligence efforts. We increased efforts to go after al Qaeda’s finances. We increased American support for anti-terror activities in Uzbekistan. We pushed hard to arm the Predator unmanned aerial vehicle so we could target terrorists with greater precision. But the Predator was designed to conduct surveillance, not carry weapons. Arming it presented many technical challenges and required extensive testing. Military and intelligence officials agreed that the armed Predator was simply not ready for deployment before the fall of 2001. In any case, the Predator was not a silver bullet that could have destroyed al Qaeda or stopped Sept. 11.

We also considered a modest spring 2001 increase in funding for the Northern Alliance. At that time, the Northern Alliance was clearly not going to sweep across Afghanistan and dispose of al Qaeda. It had been battered by defeat and held less than 10 percent of the country. Only the addition of American air power, with U.S. special forces and intelligence officers on the ground, allowed the Northern Alliance its historic military advances in late 2001. We folded this idea into our broader strategy of arming tribes throughout Afghanistan to defeat the Taliban.

Let us be clear. Even their most ardent advocates did not contend that these ideas, even taken together, would have destroyed al Qaeda. We judged that the collection of ideas presented to us were insufficient for the strategy President Bush sought. The president wanted more than a laundry list of ideas simply to contain al Qaeda or "roll back" the threat. Once in office, we quickly began crafting a comprehensive new strategy to "eliminate" the al Qaeda network. The president wanted more than occasional, retaliatory cruise missile strikes. He told me he was "tired of swatting flies."

Through the spring and summer of 2001, the national security team developed a strategy to eliminate al Qaeda -- which was expected to take years. Our strategy marshaled all elements of national power to take down the network, not just respond to individual attacks with law enforcement measures. Our plan called for military options to attack al Qaeda and Taliban leadership, ground forces and other targets -- taking the fight to the enemy where he lived. It focused on the crucial link between al Qaeda and the Taliban. We would attempt to compel the Taliban to stop giving al Qaeda sanctuary -- and if it refused, we would have sufficient military options to remove the Taliban regime. The strategy focused on the key role of Pakistan in this effort and the need to get Pakistan to drop its support of the Taliban. This became the first major foreign-policy strategy document of the Bush administration -- not Iraq, not the ABM Treaty, but eliminating al Qaeda.

Before Sept. 11, we closely monitored threats to our nation. President Bush revived the practice of meeting with the director of the CIA every day -- meetings that I attended. And I personally met with George Tenet regularly and frequently reviewed aspects of the counterterror effort. Through the summer increasing intelligence "chatter" focused almost exclusively on potential attacks overseas. Nonetheless, we asked for any indication of domestic threats and directed our counterterrorism team to coordinate with domestic agencies to adopt protective measures. The FBI and the Federal Aviation Administration alerted airlines, airports and local authorities, warning of potential attacks on Americans.

Despite what some have suggested, we received no intelligence that terrorists were preparing to attack the homeland using airplanes as missiles, though some analysts speculated that terrorists might hijack airplanes to try to free U.S.-held terrorists. The FAA even issued a warning to airlines and aviation security personnel that "the potential for a terrorist operation, such as an airline hijacking to free terrorists incarcerated in the United States, remains a concern."

We now know that the real threat had been in the United States since at least 1999. The plot to attack New York and Washington had been hatching for nearly two years. According to the FBI, by June 2001 16 of the 19 hijackers were already here. Even if we had known exactly where Osama bin Laden was, and the armed Predator had been available to strike him, the Sept. 11 hijackers almost certainly would have carried out their plan. So, too, if the Northern Alliance had somehow managed to topple the Taliban, the Sept. 11 hijackers were here in America -- not in Afghanistan.

President Bush has acted swiftly to unify and streamline our efforts to secure the American homeland. He has transformed the FBI into an agency dedicated to catching terrorists and preventing future attacks. The president and Congress, through the USA Patriot Act, have broken down the legal and bureaucratic walls that prior to Sept. 11 hampered intelligence and law enforcement agencies from collecting and sharing vital threat information. Those who now argue for rolling back the Patriot Act’s changes invite us to forget the important lesson we learned on Sept. 11.

In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, the president, like all Americans, wanted to know who was responsible. It would have been irresponsible not to ask a question about all possible links, including to Iraq -- a nation that had supported terrorism and had tried to kill a former president. Once advised that there was no evidence that Iraq was responsible for Sept. 11, the president told his National Security Council on Sept. 17 that Iraq was not on the agenda and that the initial U.S. response to Sept. 11 would be to target al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Because of President Bush’s vision and leadership, our nation is safer. We have won battles in the war on terror, but the war is far from over. However long it takes, this great nation will prevail.

The writer is the national security adviser

• Two days ago, Iraqi Civil Defense service located two individuals east of Balad that were killed when the IED they were attempting to emplace detonated prematurely.
  
• In Baghdad, Operation Iron Promise continues. As of last evening, 1st Armored Division troops had captured 99 enemy personnel, 154 weapons, 75 artillery and rocket rounds, and significant quantities of IED materials since Iron Promise kicked off.
  
• Two days ago, an Iraqi vehicle attempted to run a cordon in support of the investigation into a rock -- into the rocket attack at the al-Hayat Hotel. A car approached the cordon at a high rate of speed, and despite other cars turning around and soldiers using voice and visual hand signals to turn around, the car continued to move forward. The driver accelerated through the cordon and rammed one of the Humvees head on, at approximately 50 kilometers per hour, pushing the vehicle 10 to 15 feet back from the impact. Fearing a VBIED, the soldiers engaged the vehicle with small arms and killed the driver.
  
• In the western zone of operations, a coalition helicopter was downed due to enemy small arms fire near al-Amiriya. Both pilots were recovered without injury. Forces secured the craft site and complete recovery efforts.
  
• In the central-south zone of operations, a coalition patrol detained three civilian individuals attempting to move Air Force ordinance from an ASP west of As-Sawara. The detainees were turned over to coalition officials at Camp Charlie for further investigation.
  
• On 13 March, the 1st Bomb Disposal Company from the 50th ICDC Brigade began basic training in Ad-Diwaniyah. Fifty soldiers will be trained to clear ASPs in the region.
  
• As you know, on 14 January 2004, a criminal investigation was initiated to examine allegations of detainee abuse at the Baghdad confinement facility at Abu Ghraib. Shortly thereafter, the commanding general of Combined Joint Task Force Seven requested a separate administrative investigation into systemic issues such as command policies and internal procedures related to detention operations. That administrative investigation is complete, however, the findings and recommendations have not been approved. As a result of the criminal investigation, six military personnel have been charged with criminal offenses to include conspiracy, dereliction of duty, cruelty and maltreatment, assault, and indecent acts with another.
  
• On the issue of the al-Arabiya journalists that were allegedly killed in the vicinity of the al-Hayat hotel, we have been informed of that. We have conducted -- we have initiated and are conducting a separate investigation. I will tell you there are numerous discrepancies between what was reported by the Washington Post and the facts on the ground. For example, it is alleged -- and it is a fact that in the autopsy of the two personnel that were killed, and the driver of the vehicle, that there were five bullets that were involved in that. We have done a round count of all the bullets that were shot at the car in the -- that we thought was a VBIED, not the al-Arabiya car, but the car that crashed through the cordon. We can currently account for all but two of those rounds, so there is a significant discrepancy between those rounds and the rounds that are alleged to have been fired at the al-Iraqia -- excuse me, the al-Arabiya journalists.
  
  Second, the types of wounds that were suffered by the deceased are inconsistent with a moving car fired from a distance. That was very accurate shooting, and at this point it would not lend one to believe that that was -- that there was -- they had the capability of that kind of marksmanship at night. We have asked all al-Arabiya to provide the driver and the vehicle, the KIA that was supposedly being driven by the man that made the statement, so that we can take that information, conduct forensic tests on it as well, and we’re hoping to get to the bottom of this.
  
  We are not at this point denying the story, however, we had the battalion commander on site at the time of the alleged incident and his S-3. Neither of those two gentlemen, nor any of the soldiers, remember any such vehicle, any such satellite truck.
  
  So, the number of discrepancies that we have between what we have been reading in the accounts and the facts that we have on the ground are leading us to push forward with an investigation quite quickly so that we can ascertain precisely what happened at that time.

• The first thing I’ll do is update you on the number of Iraqi security forces in the city of Baghdad. As you see there, the goal for the city of Baghdad is 19,000 police. That’s to achieve a ratio of one-to-300, which is generally the accepted standard for a modern city. We just crested 10,000. We’ve got about 2,000 in class right now that will come out over the period of the next four weeks or so. And as you see we’re not having any trouble -- I know that some of you have asked about how well or not so well we’re able to recruit, and the answer is that for about every slot we have, we get five or six recruits -- five or six candidates.
  
• he Iraqi Civil Defense Corps is completely recruited, and we’re in the training phase of that. They’re trained up through the platoon level. Within about the next month they’ll be trained fully at the company level.
  
• We mentor an Iraqi army battalion up in Taji. By July there will be two additional battalions up there, for a total of three.
  
• I guess the question there is if we stop attacking terrorism, would terrorism go away? And I would answer that question absolutely no. The terrorists have a view of the world that is far different from ours and far different from the men that are on my left and right. And so, as we’ve said in previous briefings, if the future of -- if you want the future of your region to be one where you remain in approximately the 7th century; where computers are banned, satellite television is banned, the role of women is completely denied; then I suppose when sovereignty is restored to Iraq you may cast your vote in that direction. But I happen to believe in my heart that the majority of the Iraqi people will vote quite the contrary to that.
  
• I do have a roll-up of Iron Promise. You know, I am always reluctant to put scorecards up, but let me give you some of the things that we have just in the past 48 hours gained through Iron Promise. Fifty battalion-level operations. We killed one and captured 88. The most significant capture was one individual who we absolutely know has a linkage between one of the international terrorist organizations and one of the extreme religious organizations that we know operates inside of Baghdad. And so that linkage is -- that’s the one that this mission is targeted against. We’ve found 109 rifles, 44 RPG launchers, 71 artillery rounds, 54 sticks of dynamite, 10 machine guns, and so on and so forth. I mean, the amount of ammunition and weapons captured is fairly consistent from mission to mission. The big change in this mission is the specificity with which we’re targeting, and we’re very satisfied with the results of the first 48 hours.

When the half-blind, almost wholly paralysed Sheikh Ahmed Yassin arrived in Gaza in October 1997 after his release from an Israeli jail in exchange for Mossad agents caught trying to assassinate a colleague in Jordan, one Arab commentator likened him to Nelson Mandela. That was a comparison that must have made Yasser Arafat inwardly seethe, even as he heaped outward homage on the returning hero, who has been killed in an Israeli air strike aged around 67. For if there were any Palestinian Mandela, any unique, historic leader of the Palestinian people, Arafat believed he was it.

In truth, neither Arafat nor Yassin had Mandela's special greatness. But of the two it was Yassin, the founder-leader of the militant Islamist organisation Hamas who came closer. This was not to be found in his beliefs - which, in their narrow, religious frame, were far removed from the South African's lofty humanism and compassion - but in the facts of his career, and the part which certain very personal qualities, of selflessness, simplicity, conviction, and a true sense of service, played in bringing it to fruition.

Yassin had personal glory largely thrust upon him. He was in his late 50s, and a very sick man, before he became a really potent force on the Middle East political stage. As a prisoner in enemy jails, he had little to do in a practical sense with the devastating suicide bombings, from which, more than anything else, he derived that force. Indeed, for most of his career, as a local leader of the international Muslim Brotherhood, he had shared its deep-rooted, strategically motivated opposition to direct, violent action against the Zionist foe, let alone of such an extreme and atrocious kind.

He was more devoted to the revival of Islam than to the salvation of Palestine, deeming that the second goal could only be pursued after the completion of the first. Indeed, there had actually been a time when, on account both of his quietism, the ideological challenge he posed to militant secular nationalism, and his opposition to the armed struggle espoused by the Palestine Liberation Organisation, that the Israelis looked benevolently on him and his works. The PLO nationalists had even branded him a collaborator.