No he couldn't. I'm sure when Ashcroft says "NOT" he means "NOT".
From an earlier thread ("Whitewashgate"):
Drafts of the sensitive NSC "Millennium After Action Review" on the Clinton administration's handling of al-Qaida terror threats during the December 1999 millennium celebration are reported to be among the documents still missing from classified materials Berger removed from a secure reading room.
Ashcroft said the review – which he was not shown prior to 9-11 – recommends, 17 months before the attacks, "disrupting the al-Qaida network and terrorist presence here using immigration violations, minor criminal infractions and tougher visa and border controls."
Ashcroft told the commission, "It is clear from the review that actions taken in the Millennium Period should not be the operating model for the U.S. government."
The March 2000 review, Ashcroft told the panel, warns the Clinton administration "of a substantial al-Qaida network and affiliated foreign terrorist presence within the U.S., capable of supporting additional terrorist attacks here."
Ashcroft said the "highly-classified" review "was not among the 30 items upon which my predecessor [Janet Reno] briefed me during the transition. It was not advocated as a disruption strategy to me during the [2001] summer threat period by the NSC staff which wrote the review more than a year earlier."
His exact words:
Despite the warnings and the clear vulnerabilities identified by the NSC in 2000, no new disruption strategy to attack the al Qaeda network within the United States was deployed. It was ignored in the Department's five-year counterterrorism strategy.
I did not see the highly-classified review before September 11. It was not among the 30 items upon which my predecessor briefed me during the transition. It was not advocated as a disruption strategy to me during the summer threat period by the NSC staff which wrote the review more than a year earlier.
I certainly cannot say why the blueprint for security was not followed in 2000. I do know from my personal experience that those who take the kind of tough measures called for in the plan will feel the heat. I've been there; I've done that. So the sense of urgency simply may not have overcome concern about the outcry and criticism which follows such tough tactics.
bttt