Doc. 11302 Report 87. The United States administration’s briefings had their desired effect of lifting the conditional clause in the North Atlantic Council’s original statement. On 2 October 2001, the NATO allies declared their unanimous assessment that the 11 September 2001 attacks had been directed against the United States from abroad and that Article 5 was therefore activated.39 88. Collective measures in the context of a military intervention in Afghanistan were widely anticipated – indeed, as one study noted, “many NATO members hoped that invoking Article 5 would lead the United States to conduct any military response against al-Qaeda under the NATO flag, or at least co-ordinate its actions with the integrated military structure and political institutions”.40 89. However, the expected mobilisation of NATO forces for a multilateral action in Afghanistan never materialised. In fact, NATO support in the conventional military sense was neither an automatic consequence in the invocation of Article 541nor, as our sources have confirmed, what the United States Government was looking for.42It is precisely upon this unexpected dynamic that my finding regarding the development of CIA clandestine operations under the NATO framework hinges. 90. There was a critical, almost paradoxical policy choice in the United States Government’s stance towards the NATO alliance in early October 2001. The invocation of Article 5 could have been developed43as a basis upon which to conduct a military campaign of a conventional nature, deploying army, navy and air force troops in a joint NATO operation. Instead it became a platform from which the United States obtained the essential permissions and protections it required to launch CIA covert action in the “war on terror”. 3.1.3. NATO authorisations for United States operations in the “war on terror” 91. The key date in terms of the NATO framework is 4 October 2001, when the NATO allies met in a session of the North Atlantic Council to consider a set of concrete proposals from the United States. In a press statement after the session,44NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson announced that the allies had “agreed today – at the request of the United States – to take eight measures, individually and collectively, to expand the options available in the campaign against terrorism.”45The eight specific measures agreed to46were as follows: – enhance intelligence-sharing and co-operation, both bilaterally and in the appropriate NATO bodies, relating to the threats posed by terrorism and the actions to be taken against it; 39. See NATO press release of 2 October 2001, “Statement by NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson”. 40. See Bensahel, “Counterterror Coalitions”, supra note 37, at p. 7. 41. Article 5 refers to “such action as [each party] deems necessary” and does not limit this action to the use of military force. It should be noted that France and Germany emphasised the fact that the obligation to assist under Article 5 did not automatically incur a duty to take part in United States-led military action. In this regard, see Tom Lansford, All for One: Terrorism, NATO and the United States, Ashgate, United Kingdom, 2003, at p. 88; and Martin Reichard, “The EU-NATO Relationship: A Legal and Political Perspective”, 2006, at p. 190. 42. See also Philip Gordon, “NATO After 11 September 2001”, in Survival, Vol. 43, No. 4, Winter 2001-2002, at p. 92. A senior United States official stated: “I think it’s safe to say that we won’t be asking SACEUR [the NATO Supreme Allied Commander for Europe] to put together a battle plan for Afghanistan.” Further, see Nicholas Fiorenza, “Alliance Solidarity”, Armed Forces Journal International, December 2001, at p. 22. A military official asked rhetorically: “If you were the United States, would you want 18 other nations watering down your military planning?” Both cited in Bensahel, “Counterterror Coalitions”, supra note 37, at pp. 7 and 16. 43. For a perspective on how the invocation of Article 5 did not unfold entirely as NATO had expected, see, for example, Buckley, “Invoking Article 5”, supra note 38: “In the intervening years, I have heard frequent criticism of the decision to invoke Article 5. I have, for example, heard people say that we were unwise to commit ourselves to a course of action which was not fully implemented and which turned out to be unwanted by the United States … I share the frustration of those who believe that the United States could have done more to engage the alliance in its efforts against the Taliban and al-Qaeda.” 44. See NATO, “Statement to the Press by NATO Secretary General, Lord Robertson, on the North Atlantic Council Decision on Implementation of Article 5 of the Washington Treaty following the 11 September 2001 attacks against the United States”, Brussels, 4 October 2001, available at: http://www.nato.int/docu/speech/2001/s011004b.htm (hereinafter referred to as “Statement to the Press by NATO Secretary General, Lord Robertson, 4 October 2001”). 45. Ibid. Note the similarity in the language of “options” used to describe the intergovernmental NATO authorisation and likewise (ref. Tyler Drumheller, On the Brink, supra note 16) the United States domestic covert action authority in the presidential finding of 17 September 2001: “broadened our options for dealing with terrorist targets.” 46. Some of the descriptions of the measures have been shortened or paraphrased here in order to present them more simply. For the original language in which they were presented to the public, see the statement to the press by NATO Secretary General, Lord Robertson, 4 October 2001, supra note 44. 19