Paragraph: (Sept11-reports/oanc-chapter-6-23.txt)
Sent 1: In early March, the administration postponed action on proposals for increasing aid to the Northern Alliance and the Uzbeks.
Sent 2: Rice noted at the time that a more wide-ranging examination of policy toward Afghanistan was needed first.
Sent 3: She wanted the review very soon.
Sent 4: Rice and others recalled the President saying, "I'm tired of swatting at flies."
Sent 5: The President reportedly also said,"I'm tired of playing defense.
Sent 6: I want to play offense.
Sent 7: I want to take the fight to the terrorists."
Sent 8: President Bush explained to us that he had become impatient.
Sent 9: He apparently had heard proposals for rolling back al Qaeda but felt that catching terrorists one by one or even cell by cell was not an approach likely to succeed in the long run.
Sent 10: At the same time, he said, he understood that policy had to be developed slowly so that diplomacy and financial and military measures could mesh with one another.
Sent 11: Hadley convened an informal Deputies Committee meeting on March 7, when some of the deputies had not yet been confirmed.
Sent 12: For the first time, Clarke's various proposals-for aid to the Northern Alliance and the Uzbeks and for Predator missions-went before the group that, in the Bush NSC, would do most of the policy work.
Sent 13: Though they made no decisions on these specific proposals, Hadley apparently concluded that there should be a presidential national security policy directive (NSPD) on terrorism.
Sent 14: Clarke would later express irritation about the deputies' insistence that a strategy for coping with al Qaeda be framed within the context of a regional policy.
Sent 15: He doubted that the benefits would compensate for the time lost.
Sent 16: The administration had in fact proceeded with Principals Committee meetings on topics including Iraq and Sudan without prior contextual review, and Clarke favored moving ahead similarly with a narrow counterterrorism agenda.
Sent 17: But the President's senior advisers saw the al Qaeda problem as part of a puzzle that could not be assembled without filling in the pieces for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Sent 18: Rice deferred a Principals Committee meeting on al Qaeda until the deputies had developed a new policy for their consideration.