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• MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD

Event: Ambassador William Milam

Type of Event: Second Interview (First interview with Ambassador Milam was
December 29, 2003)
Date: May 10,2004
Special Access Issues: Treat as Cs.liiEisBti81
Prepared by: Scott Allan
------Reviewed by: Len Hawley
Team Number: Three (Counterterrorism Policy)
Location: 2100 K St.
Participants: 9-11 Commission: Scott Allan and Len Hawley

Interviewee Background

Ambassador Milam spent a majority of the last ten years of his career as an ambassador.
From 1990-1993, he served as Ambassador to Bangladesh. He returned to Washington in
1993 and served as a Special Negotiator for the State Department's ("State") Bureau of
Oceans, Environment, and Science for two years. In 1995, he was appointed
Ambassador to Liberia and from September 1998 - July 2001, he served as Ambassador
to Pakistan. Since 2001, Ambassador Milam has been a Senior Fellow at the Wilson
• Center. (U)

Winter/Spring 2001

In January 200 I Ambassador Milam sent a cable titled Optionsfor Dealing with the
Afghan Terrorism Problem to Main State describing the state of U.S.-Tali ban relations.
Milam said that sending such an assessment to Washington for a new administration was
normal. He observed that the current strategy, which he labeled "incrementalism" was
not likely to persuade the Taliban to end the Al Qaeda presence in Afghanistan. The
policy had, he told us, "reached the end of its rope." Therefore, he described a number of
other options in the memo for the incoming administration to consider. (U)

Milam said that he never thought that sanctions would pressure the Taliban. He believed
that the Taliban did not care about sanctions but that they did care about international
recognition. "We needed to raise the stakes on both sides [of the policy equation]" the
ambassador told us. During the spring of 2001, Milam said he favored a policy stressing
"bigger sticks and bigger carrots." New incentives could include u.S. recognition and
economic assistance while more forceful sticks could include assisting the Northern
Alliance with material and money. For much of his tenure, Milam argued against aiding
the Northern Alliance, but as time went on he said he began changing his mind on the
option. (C)

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• Meeting with the Taliban

Milam continued to meet with the Taliban up until he left Pakistan in July 2001. He does
not think the volume of meetings increased or decreased si~nificantly from the fall of
2000 through his departure.)
9/11 Classified Information

Milam said that the discussions from October 2000 through July 2001 were no more
fruitful than previous meetings with the Taliban. Milam said that by 2001, he was
convinced that the Taliban would not render Bin Ladin. Milam stressed that "Mullah
Omar was calling the shots [on Bin Ladin's presence in Afghanistan]" and that Taliban
envoys such as Wakil Mutawakil and Mullah Jalil had no authority to tum Bin Ladin
over. In fact, Milam said he often went "beyond his instructions" by dangling recognition
in trade for Bin Ladin but that even this carrot went nowhere. (U)

The ambassador said he could not recall making outright military threats to the Taliban.
Milam thought that would have gone beyond his instructions. He said he definitely did
not specifically mention outright military strikes in his July 2001 demarches.
Nonetheless, he said he was not surprised if State's counterterrorism chief, Michael
Sheehan, made specific mention of military strikes in the 1999 timeframe. (U)

• The Bush Transition

Milam said Secretary Powell's State Department was slow in filling senior spots. The
ambassador said that they "had trouble getting their ducks in order." Milam also said he
had difficulty getting seventh floor attention and never received any follow ..up inquiries
to his January 200 I assessment cable. (U)

In May 2001 Milam met with Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. Milam
believed that Armitage was concerned with South Asia and their meeting focused
primarily on the effectiveness of U.S. sanctions on Pakistan. As time went on, Milam
believed that the new administration was trying to improve the U.S.-Pakistani
relationship, but Milam said he "couldn't get a pulse" on where the Bush administration
stood on the Afghanistan issue. (U)

Recommendations

Milam said that the USG needs to spend more attention on reconstruction efforts for
Afghanistan and Iraq. He even suggested that a high level office focusing on the issue
needed to be established. (U)

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The ambassador fears that our public image in the Islamic world will be negative until
Washington settles the Iraq crisis and adopts better policies in connection with the
Middle East peace process. (U)

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• When working with countries in the Islamic world, we "need to stick with them."
Washington must show these countries that we are willing to commit to them. (U)

For Afghanistan, Milam stressed that we have to have better coordination in the field. He
thinks multilateral cooperation must be pooled more effectively. The U.S. can lead in
Afghanistan but will need to call heavily on others. (U)

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