Combating Terrorism: 'It Starts Today'

As for Saddam Hussein, his father's nemesis, the president ended a debate that had gone on for six days. "I believe Iraq was involved, but I'm not going to strike them now," he said, adding, "I don't have the evidence at this point."

Bush said he wanted them to keep working on developing plans for military action in Iraq but indicated there would be plenty of time to do that. Everything else, though, had to be done soon.

"Start now," the president said in summary. "It's very important to move fast. This is a new way."

Shelton said it should take four days to a week to set up the airlifting of troops and supplies so they could be moved near the Afghan border. It would take longer to get the Special Forces troops in place -- so long that Rumsfeld grew frustrated at the timetable that was being outlined.

"This is chess, not checkers," Rumsfeld said. "We must be thinking beyond the first move." Now that they knew the first steps, he asked, what would be the second, third, fourth and fifth steps?

In fact, Rumsfeld thought it was more like three-dimensional chess. It reminded him of the old 25-cent game at the gas station, the one that involved a set of multiple joints and multiple handles that had to be manipulated just so to win the prize.

The people who thought they could approach this war or behave in a normal, intuitive way were going to make a mistake, he believed. What's after the 10-day bombing campaign, he wondered. What can happen that could change their minds? What were the worst things that could happen? What were the best things? Sometimes an operation could move too fast, so they had to be ready to react if things went better than they thought.

The morning after his daylong session with the war cabinet on options, Bush met at Camp David with Vice President Cheney.

"We had an extended discussion about what had transpired at the NSC meeting the day before, and where we were headed next," Cheney said in an interview. He declined to discuss the specifics of his conversation with the president.

Asked in an interview in December whom he had spoken with on Sunday about his decisions, Bush did not mention the vice president. When told that others had said he met with Cheney, Bush said, "I might have. I'll bet I did. . . . I talk to him all the time." But he offered no recollection of what had been discussed.

At 3:20 p.m. Bush arrived back at the White House and met briefly with reporters. In an off-the-cuff remark, he called the war on terrorism a "crusade" -- a characterization that was immediately criticized because of its negative connotations in the Islamic world.

About 4:30 p.m., Bush asked Rice, counselor Karen P. Hughes, press secretary Ari Fleischer and communications director Dan Bartlett to join him in his office on the second floor of the residence, known as the Treaty Room.