Charles Nailen/The Hoya Former National Security Adviser Anthony Lake, pictured with his dog, Luke, analyzes U.S. security and foreign policy post-Sept. 11. See page 7.

On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, Anthony Lake was working at the office building of a small company on M Street. He was sitting at his desk when a colleague walked by the door and said, “A plane hit the World Trade Center.”

“We turned on the television, sat and watched the second attack,” Lake recounts, his voice measured and half-dazed. “I had that terrible cold feeling in your stomach as you witness something like that.”

Although Lake’s reaction at that moment mirrored that of millions across the country, he spent the hours after the terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon quite differently from most other people. Now a professor in Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service, Lake previously served as an aide to Henry Kissinger, as head of the State Department’s policy planning operation under former president Jimmy Carter and as national security adviser to former president Bill Clinton (SFS ’68) from 1993 to 1997. In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, Lake was on the phone and periodically on camera with NBC to discuss the situation and its implications.

He says his memory of those hours is hazy, but he recalls saying that the attacks looked like the work of Al-Qaeda and that there would probably be more. He also noted that the fight against terrorism would be a “very long-term effort.”

Looking back a year later, Lake’s remarks seem particularly prescient. But that may not be surprising for a man who all but predicted a Sept. 11-type catastrophe a year before it happened. Published in 2000, Lake’s book, 6 Nightmares, details six terrifying scenarios that could jeopardize American security, from highly sophisticated cyber crime to biological or chemical terrorism. He highlighted America’s vulnerabilities in stark terms and outlined ways the nation could better protect itself to prevent such nightmares from becoming realities.

Despite all the warnings from Lake and others, however, the nature of the attacks on Sept. 11 caught almost everyone by complete surprise. In the subsequent scramble to ascertain what went wrong, some people started questioning if there was more the Clinton administration could have done to prevent what happened that day.

Lake is unhesitant. “Well, of course,” he says. “Any time anything goes wrong, by definition there was more you could have done to prevent it. I wrote the book not because I felt that the Clinton administration wasn’t doing enough, but that our society as a whole wasn’t doing enough on these issues.” Still, he says he believes that both Clinton and President George W. Bush made strides in fighting terrorism before the September attacks and that the “blame game” between various levels of government and between the two administrations has been “unfortunate.”

But predicting the next method terrorists may use to attack still seems as problematic as ever. “There are so many different ways in which the terrorists could attack,” Lake says. From conventional bombs to so-called “dirty bombs” to biological or nuclear weapons, America’s high number of potential targets make it “almost impossible to predict,” Lake says. “Since you can’t defend every target, it becomes all the more important that we take the war to them abroad, through covert action, even through military action if necessary on the one hand – through anti- poverty programs and effective diplomacy on the other.” He also stresses the importance of working with the governments of the nearly five dozen countries in which Al-Qaeda maintains terrorist cells. “The governments are more effective at it than we are,” he says. “And that’s why multilateral diplomacy is so important.”

This does not mean that the U.S. should never go at it alone, he says. “We had a phrase in the Clinton administration that we used fairly often: together when we can, alone when we must.” But Lake worries that acting unilaterally in too many instances could create a backlash that would threaten American allies’ support of the war on terrorism, especially in Europe, where America’s relations with its allies are “the worst they’ve ever been, in my memory,” he says.

Similarly, Lake would not favor a war against Iraq without international support. “I think we should use the threat of an invasion to get a serious inspection regime in there through the [United Nations] Security Council,” he says. The administration also has several questions to address, he adds, including how great a threat Iraq poses in terms of weapons of mass destruction, how to put together an international coalition and how to rebuild the Iraqi government after the removal of Saddam Hussein. “So far, I don’t believe that there is a basis for concluding that an invasion in the immediate future would be wise,” he says.

As a former government intelligence insider, Lake is cautious in his assessment of other Bush administration initiatives. “I hesitate to criticize because I remember how hard it is to do these things right and how easy it is to criticize from the outside,” he says. He applauds the administration for its handling of the war in Afghanistan and for building an international coalition to get the job done.

“At the same time, there are a number of areas in which I disagree,” he said. “One is on the follow-through in Afghanistan . I think we should have been much more aggressive from the start in trying to provide more security outside Kabul, in putting together a much larger peacekeeping force . in doing everything we could to undercut the power of the warlords to try to create a strong central government.”

Another issue that troubles Lake is that of civil liberty. He cites the imprisonment of Taliban fighters in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, without due process of law and the detention of hundreds of people in secrecy on immigration charges.

“The problem in all of these cases is not only that it can put American citizens and our military at risk of similar treatment abroad,” Lake said. “It is also that the precedents referred to here of similar violations of civil liberties – during the Civil War, during World War II – were all bounded in time. They came during wars that you could see would have a finite end. The war on terror is going to go on, I believe, for a generation . and therefore we have to pay particular attention, for these measures could become permanent.”

Lake said he hopes that through training, the next generation will be equipped to engage in debate about the war on terrorism on a level that he maintains is missing in current dialogue.

“In technical terms, we have the courses here that can give you a factual background in the issues surrounding the war on terrorism,” he said concerning Georgetown University. “The second question, though, is: Are we engendering here the kind of debate, even passionate debate that we need about these issues? That was the case right after Sept.11. I hope it will be the case a year after Sept. 11, because these issues are at least as important now as they were a year ago.”

Lake is “so enjoying the personal quality of [his] life” with his current teaching job, but he looks back on his past days as national security adviser with a mixture of emotions. “Well, there are bad memories,” he begins, describing the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, the constant bloodshed in Bosnia before the Dayton Peace Accords, the pain of informing the president that his friend and critical partner for Middle East peace, Yitzhak Rabin, had been assassinated. But there are happier moments as well, he says, such as accompanying the president on a trip to Northern Ireland after helping to arrange a cease-fire and hammering out the Dayton Peace Accords.

“And – this sounds hokey – but I mean it,” he says, his voice lowering earnestly. “The ride to the White House every morning with gratitude to have such an extraordinary opportunity to work on issues that I care about.”

If that is the case, does he ever miss being national security adviser?

Lake laughs and denies it. Then he takes it back. “I do, during crises,” he says. “But otherwise, no.” He grins. “The question really isn’t whether I would want [Bush National Security Adviser] Condoleezza Rice’s job right now. There may be times when she might be wondering how nice it might be to be teaching at Georgetown.”