Paragraph: (Sept11-reports/oanc-chapter-6-26.txt)
Sent 1: The new administration had already begun exploring possible diplomatic options, retracing many of the paths traveled by its predecessors.U.S.
Sent 2: envoys again pressed the Taliban to turn Bin Laden "over to a country where he could face justice" and repeated, yet again, the warning that the Taliban would be held responsible for any al Qaeda attacks on U.S. interests.
Sent 3: The Taliban's representatives repeated their old arguments.
Sent 4: Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage told us that while U.S. diplomats were becoming more active on Afghanistan through the spring and summer of 2001, "it would be wrong for anyone to characterize this as a dramatic shift from the previous administration."
Sent 5: In deputies meetings at the end of June, Tenet was tasked to assess the prospects forTaliban cooperation with the United States on al Qaeda.
Sent 6: The NSC staff was tasked to flesh out options for dealing with the Taliban.
Sent 7: Revisiting these issues tried the patience of some of the officials who felt they had already been down these roads and who found the NSC's procedures slow."
Sent 8: We weren't going fast enough,"Armitage told us.
Sent 9: Clarke kept arguing that moves against the Taliban and al Qaeda should not have to wait months for a larger review of U.S. policy in South Asia."
Sent 10: For the government," Hadley said to us,"we moved it along as fast as we could move it along."
Sent 11: As all hope in moving the Taliban faded, debate revived about giving covert assistance to the regime's opponents.
Sent 12: Clarke and the CIA's Cofer Black renewed the push to aid the Northern Alliance.
Sent 13: Clarke suggested starting with modest aid, just enough to keep the Northern Alliance in the fight and tie down al Qaeda terrorists, without aiming to overthrow the Taliban.
Sent 14: Rice, Hadley, and the NSC staff member for Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, told us they opposed giving aid to the Northern Alliance alone.
Sent 15: They argued that the program needed to have a big part for Pashtun opponents of theTaliban.
Sent 16: They also thought the program should be conducted on a larger scale than had been suggested.
Sent 17: Clarke concurred with the idea of a larger program, but he warned that delay risked the Northern Alliance's final defeat at the hands of the Taliban.
Sent 18: During the spring, the CIA, at the NSC's request, had developed draft legal authorities-a presidential finding-to undertake a large-scale program of covert assistance to the Taliban's foes.