When I mentioned that my staff had scheduled an afternoon office call with Richard Clarke, the counterterrorism specialist on the National Security Council, [Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff] Hugh [Shelton] frowned.

"Tom," he said. "Secretary Cohen prefers that the CINCs coordinate their contacts with senior civilian officials through his office. That's especially true with Dick Clarke."

I listened. Washington at the CINC level was new territory.

"Clarke's been over at the NSC so long that he thinks he owns counterterrorism - and knows more about the subject than anybody in government," Hugh added. "He likes to talk, drops a lot of names, and thinks highly of himself. But in many ways he's not very practical. Be careful in dealing with him."

I thanked Hugh for the heads-up.

Clarke's secretary had told my staff that he would see me in his "White House office." But the Pentagon driver took me to the Old Executive Office Building, a separate facility connected to the West Wing. A small point, I thought, as I climbed marble stairs to Clarke's office...

...Clarke spoke quickly and intensely, as if he possessed urgent information that was critical to my mission. With his wiry, close-cropped gray hair, probing dark eyes, and serious manner, he reminded me of an actor cast as a high government official dealing with a grave crisis.

The subject was al Qaeda and the Taliban. Clarke began a review of the available intelligence, which was recent but predictably imprecise. He described the success of the 1998 TLAM strikes into Afghanistan, but had nothing to say about the strike against the suspected chemical weapons plant in the Sudan. Interesting, I thought. There had been a flap about that strike, with a number of news stories suggesting that it had been based on faulty intelligence and that the Sudan facility had had nothing to do with chemical weapons. I wondered if Clarke thought it also had been a success...

...Clarke told me about his close personal ties with the royal family in Abu Dhabi. He described a direct connection between UAE and the Taliban, and told me that this conduit had proven very helpful to him in working the "bin Laden problem."

I listened without commenting.

I asked about intelligence reporting on al Qaeda. "Dick, for CENTCOM to build realistic operational plans, we need usable intelligence," I told him. "TLAMs will hit the exact coordinates that are programmed into their guidance systems. But reports about the cave where Osama bin Laden was thought to have slept last week don't produce a target. Eventually we may figure out a trend, but in order to strike him we need real-time information."

Clarke smiled knowingly and described "technologies" that he thought would help with the problem.

I understood at once he was referring to the Predator UAV, a reconnaissance drone that could loiter over hostile territory for hours transmitting high-quality real-time video, day or night. The CIA was working to arm the Predator with a Hellfire missile system. A potentially powerful tool, I thought, even as I reminded myself of an old military adage - "It is dangerous to confuse desire with capability." I wondered if Dick Clarke had ever heard that expression.

I was interested in destroying the al Qaeda threat. But my visit with Clarke had not moved me any closer to that objective. I left his office hoping that my emphasis on practical solutions to real problems would spur him to home in on some real targeting opportunities. But I suspected Dick was better at identifying a problem than at finding a workable solution.

On January 9, 2001, in the waning days of the Clinton administration, Dick Clarke called me from the NSC to discuss the government's pursuit of Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. He talked for a while without advancing any meaningful options. George Tenet had already briefed me on Agency activities in Afghanistan and Central Asia, but I listened to Clarke patiently, because he said that the incoming administration was going to retain him in his counterterrorism position in the NSC.

As we spoke on the STU-III, Clarke shared sensitive information regarding the Predator Plus program. He told me the operation was moving ahead well and might soon reap results. He also said out HUMINT performance was improving, but did not elaborate.

"Great," I said. "We're standing by for target coordinates."

I never received a single operational recommendation, or a single page of actionable intelligence, from Richard Clarke.