Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror (50 page)

As I was walking offstage I didn’t turn as I heard a female voice shout, “You’re a liar, Hayden. You have blood on your hands.” I didn’t turn because I judged her to be unpersuadable. No sense trying. She had her world. The rest of us had ours.

Or I, at least, had mine.

 • • • 

I
HAVE SPENT
my adult life working in American intelligence. It has been quite an honor. Generally well resourced. A global mission. No want of issues.

And it was a hell of a ride: from the DMZ in Korea to Masada in Israel; from war-ravaged Sarajevo to hyperelegant Geneva; from Baghdad under siege to Sofia under communism; from ancient Addis Ababa to modern London; from isolated Guantánamo to teeming Bamako.

I got to meet the likes of a criminal Ratko Mladić (Bosnian Serb commander), an imperturbable Li Chan Bok (North Korean negotiator), a tough Alvaro Uribe (president of Colombia), a heroic Abdullah II (king of Jordan), a subtly urbane Mohammed bin Zayed (crown prince of Abu Dhabi), a frenetic Nicolas Sarkozy (president of France), a distasteful Saif al-Islam (son of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi), and a whole lot more.

Mostly, though, what stands out is the mission—defending a republic as worthy as ours is—and the people, those noble individuals who mentored me as a junior officer, those I befriended, those I may have helped along the way, and all those who still toil in the shadows and keep the secrets.

Washington’s spy ring on Long Island was called the Culper Ring after the alias of its chief agent. It was formed after a previous attempt at espionage on Long Island and in New York City had tragically failed with the execution of twenty-one-year-old Nathan Hale. There is a statue of Hale in a quiet, shaded spot on the CIA campus between the Original Headquarters Building and the Bubble, the agency’s auditorium.

Every CIA director gets to design a personal coin that he can give to top performers. The front side is standard, the agency shield, but the back side is up to each director. As a history major, I toyed with the idea of putting an imprint of Hale’s statue there. My deputy, Steve Kappes, immediately objected. “You realize he was killed on his first mission, right? And never got any useful information for Washington?”

As usual, Steve was right. I dropped the idea, but held close the thought that success in this business was not guaranteed and failure brought with it a great price. Hale was executed, after all, and the British held New York for the rest of the war.

My daily routine as CIA director began at 5:30 a.m. with a three-mile run along the Potomac, a quick shower, and a thirty-minute drive to Langley in the back of an armored SUV with my PDB briefer. We went over what would be shown to the president at eight o’clock, and then a whole lot of reporting not yet ready for prime time, plus a stack of operational cables from CIA stations and bases. The whole drill took a little more than an hour on average, half in the car, half after we got to the office. Reading that book every day made it hard to maintain a positive view of human nature. It was clear that there was evil afoot in the world.

Facing that evil, sharing a responsibility to prevent or at least deflect it, I sometimes contemplated what the twenty-first-century equivalent of Hale’s failure might be.

That conjured up some very dark thoughts, some very dark thoughts indeed.

One of the joys of this project was reestablishing contact with dozens of old friends who freely gave of their time to chat, to reminisce, and to correct both my memory and my prose.

My methodology was pretty straightforward: take advantage of a long domestic or international flight to hammer out (from memory) the summary of a chapter and then identify the people and documents I would need to make sure I got it right, got it complete, and (I would hope) got it interesting.

Over the course of eighteen months I conducted over seventy interviews. I am deeply grateful for all the cooperation, but for fear of leaving someone out and, frankly, to spare my former colleagues the danger of unwarranted editorial abuse or legal harassment by a small fraction of the people they have worked so hard to protect, I have chosen not to mention specific names.

Special thanks, though, to groups like the NSA professionals who set up the Stellarwind program and operated it so professionally and came to my interview with stacks of documents detailing the program’s effectiveness. The same for those involved in the CIA detention program, equally anxious for the chance to tell their side of the story. Not surprisingly, the legal staffs at both agencies were also enthused by the opportunity to set the legal record straight. Everyone I spoke to was willing to be judged on what he or she had
actually
done and wanted
that
record out there.

I had wonderful staff support while at CIA, NSA, and ODNI, and I relied heavily on the extensive contemporaneous notes of my executive assistants, chiefs of staff, and others. Kudos to all of them, too, for helping me decipher their handwriting and for the rich verbal detail they willingly provided on nearly forgotten episodes.

Real practitioners of the craft of intelligence rarely get a chance to step outside of themselves and talk about and grade their own work. CIA station chiefs and NSA SIGINT collectors and analysts from both agencies did exactly that during my discussions with them. They were candid about what worked and what didn’t, where they were right and where they were wrong. I have tried to reflect their honesty in the narrative.

Of course, not every officer was willing to talk to me. Two folks, both
very
prominent in the counterterrorism effort, politely declined. I consider them both good friends, but true to their own code, they just don’t talk to
anyone
, not even a friendly former director writing a book. Ya gotta respect that.

Requests to interview serving intelligence officials were handled by NSA and CIA headquarters, as were my many requests for documents. Special thanks to all for the responsiveness. Frankly, I was surprised how much of a director’s daily routine is chronicled and archived and retrievable. These were largely the same folks who had to judge what I could and couldn’t say when it came to classification. They were firm when they had to be, but understanding and helpful where they could.

To make sure that I reflected policy debates accurately I also checked in with my executive branch colleagues, cabinet officers, and White House officials. All were generous and candid. My thanks.

I have also drawn on other writing I have done since leaving government, especially my more or less regular columns for CNN, the
Washington Times
, and
World Affairs Journal.
Being able to further develop thoughts first mentioned there added much to the current narrative.

That narrative ended up being a solo work, but I need to mention Vernon Loeb, former
Washington Post
reporter and metro desk editor, who first proposed we collaborate on this project. Before we were barely under way, Vernon opted out in favor of an editor’s desk in Houston, but it was his initiative that got me moving.

Finally, I really wanted all of this to be readable, so I tried out chapter drafts on my wife and our adult children. They were generous in sharing their thoughts on my prose, grammar, organization, and logic. They also were very encouraging, sometimes explicitly pointing out the responsibility to leave
my
story for the grandchildren.

The family’s inputs really helped the storytelling. If anything remains that is wrong, inelegant, redundant, or superfluous, the fault is fully
mine.

The page numbers in this index refer to the printed version of this book. The link provided will take you to the beginning of that print page. You may need to scroll forward from that location to find the corresponding reference on your e-reader.

Abbottabad,
204
–5,
329
n
,
338
,
340
,
341
,
373

Abdul Aziz bin Saud, King,
321

Abdullah I of Jordan,
322

Abdullah II of Jordan,
322
–24,
431

Abdullah of Saudi Arabia,
320
–21,
322

Abkhazia,
311
,
312

Abramson, Jill,
118

Abu Ghraib,
188
–89,
384
,
385
,
394

Addington, David,
70
,
71
,
72
–73,
81
,
85
,
87
,
366

Afghanistan,
30
,
31
,
39
,
45
,
53
,
65
,
66
,
104
,
136
,
148
,
195
,
206
–10,
223
,
242
,
292
,
293
,
295
,
305
,
329
,
334
–36,
347
–49,
357

Biden in,
208

Durand Line and,
209
,
349

Hayden in,
206
,
207
–10

Kabul,
30
,
31
,
204
,
206
,
207
–8,
316
,
349

Khost,
210
,
323
,
394

Korean missionaries in,
324

National Directorate of Security (NDS),
208
–9,
316

Pashtuns in,
208
,
209

Taliban in,
31
,
53
,
115
,
204
,
208
–10,
345

Ahmadinejad, Mahmoud,
306

Air America,
6

Air Bridge Denial Program,
281

air force,
128
,
150

Air Intelligence Agency (AIA),
9
,
127
,
128
–29

Al-Aqsa Mosque,
322

Alexander, Keith,
26
,
151
,
172
,
177
,
230
,
410

Allawi, Ayad,
201

Allen, Charlie,
155
–56,
404

Allen, Michael,
182
,
184

Allen, Woody,
249

Allenby Bridge,
324

Al Nahyan, Mohammed bin Zayed,
431

al-Qaeda (AQ),
12
,
28
,
30
,
31
,
44
–46,
49
,
52
–55,
66
–68,
72
,
74
,
78
,
89
,
96
,
103
,
106
,
109
,
110
,
119
,
136
,
149
,
153
,
173
,
199
,
204
–6,
208
,
215
,
219
,
220
,
223
–26,
228
,
239
,
241
,
280
,
300
,
312
–13,
320
,
322
,
327
,
329
,
334
–49,
352
,
361
,
369
,
374
,
410

e-mails of,
405

Geneva Conventions and,
235

Hadi al Iraqi in,
233

interrogations and,
187
–88,
189
–90,
381
,
384
–85,
393

in Iraq,
48
,
334

targeted killing strikes against,
334
–42,
357

al-Shabab,
221

Amash, Justin,
407
–8

American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU),
4
,
18
,
131
,
378
–79,
382

American Enterprise Institute,
299

Ames, Aldrich,
278

Amman,
322
–23

Amriki, Azzam al-,
338

Angleton, James Jesus,
277
–78

Annan, Kofi,
421

An Nasiriyah,
58

Antietam,
49
–50

Arafat, Yasser,
9
,
328

Arak,
308

Army Field Manual,
188
,
191
,
236
–37,
366
n,
367
,
368
,
381

Arnold, Benedict,
427

Articles of Confederation,
430

Art of Intelligence, The
(Crumpton),
122

Ashcroft, John,
81
,
84
,
87
,
88

Ashkenazi, Gabi,
317
–18

Assad, Bashar al-,
257
,
259
–61,
263
–68

Assad, Bassel al-,
259
–60

Assad, Hafez al-,
259
–60,
268

Assad family,
260

Associated Press,
240

At the Center of the Storm
(Tenet),
122

Atta, Mohamed,
110

Aurakzai, Ali Jan,
345
,
346

Australia, xi,
33
,
37
–38,
164
,
182

Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF),
70
,
89
,
106
,
343

Bad Aibling Station (BAS),
417
–18

Badr Corps,
292

Baghdad,
196
,
197
,
198
,
207
,
212
,
213
,
215

Baghdad Aero Club,
202

Baker, James,
212

Baker, Peter,
369

Baker, Stewart,
413

Balkans,
127

Baltimore Sun,
26
,
147
,
230

Baluchistan,
304

Bamford, Jim,
131
,
420

Bandar bin Sultan, Prince,
321

Barham Salih,
199
–200

Barr, Bob,
19

Basij Resistance Force,
291
,
306

Bayh, Evan,
185

Bay of Pigs,
119

Beamer, Todd,
29

Bearden, Milt,
92

Belgrade,
317

Benghazi attack,
425

Bennett, Bob,
123

Bhutto, Benazir,
347
,
349

Biden, Joe,
182
,
208

Bigelow, Kathryn,
397

Bill of Rights,
430

bin Laden, Osama,
2
,
19
,
49
,
53
,
54
,
116
,
149
,
186
,
206
,
225
,
234
,
320
,
329
,
329
n,
337
,
339
–40,
348
,
373

correspondence of,
338
–40,
341

killing of,
204
–5,
341
,
373
–74,
397
,
398

Binney, Bill,
22
,
24
,
26

Birkenau,
318

Black, Bill,
15
–16,
23
,
138
,
140

black sites,
168
,
190
,
193
,
195
,
223
–24,
229
,
233
,
241
,
279
,
367
,
369
,
385

Blair, Denny,
168
,
173
–75,
363
,
383
,
386

Blair, Tony,
372

Bletchley Park,
33
,
421

Blinken, Tony,
356

Blitzer, Wolf,
401

Bloomberg, Michael,
325
,
327

Boal, Mark,
397

Bogotá,
324
–25

Bolten, Josh,
171

Bolton, John,
299

Boren, David,
365
,
366

Bosnia,
317
,
378

Boston Marathon bombing,
343

Bradbury, Steve,
228

Brennan, John,
151
,
168
,
174
–76,
358
–60,
383
,
387

Brenner, Joel,
77
,
86
–87

Britain,
30
,
33
–36,
164
,
207
,
221
–22,
333
n

GCHQ in,
see
GCHQ

Broder, David,
115

Brookings Institution,
402

Brzezinski, Zbigniew,
292

Bubble (CIA auditorium),
185
,
286
,
287
,
431

Bulgaria,
314
–15

Burgess, Ron,
162

Burnie, Glen,
36

Burns, Ken,
200

Bush, George H. W.,
157
–58,
371
,
372
,
393

Bush, George W.,
24
,
120
,
133
,
140
,
157
–58,
161
,
168
,
172
,
176
–78,
188
,
236
,
269
,
319
,
323
,
336
–37,
347
,
357
–59,
366
n,
369
,
371
–76,
395
–96,
402
,
410
,
413

briefings of,
211
,
288
–89,
329
n,
335
,
373
,
376

DNI and,
157

Hayden appointed CIA director by,
181
–82,
184
,
185
,
211
,
284

interrogations and,
193
–94,
379
,
386

Iran and,
290
–92,
294
,
300
,
309

9/11 Commission and,
154
,
157

Obama as different than,
396
,
410
,
413

Stellarwind and,
25
,
103
,
104
,
110
,
112
,
412

transition to Obama administration from,
354
–77,
379
–80

Bush, Jeb,
400
n

Butler, Bob,
129

Bybee, Jay,
183
,
366

Caine Mutiny, The,
175

Cairo,
319

Cambone, Steve,
158

Camp David,
374
–75

Canada,
33
,
164

Card, Andy,
85
,
87
,
88
,
101
,
104
,
371

Carnegie, Andrew,
246

Carter, Jimmy,
157

Cartwright, Jim,
142
–44,
149
–50

Casablanca,
320

Center Ice,
39

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA),
12
,
34
,
38
,
40
,
42
,
43
,
46
,
155
–59,
164
,
167
–68,
217
–42,
271
–89,
354
–77

applicants and new hires at,
273
–75,
276
–77

black sites of,
168
,
190
,
193
,
195
,
223
–24,
229
,
233
,
241
,
279
,
367
,
369
,
385

Bubble auditorium of,
185
,
286
,
287
,
431

coins designed by directors of,
432

contractors and,
287
–88

Counterintelligence Center of,
277
–78,
296

Counterterrorism Center of,
177
n,
238
,
300
,
361
,
389
,
390
,
394

covert actions by,
211
,
226
,
283
,
288
,
373
,
374
,
382

crisis in,
179
–80

criticisms of,
218

culture of,
285
–86

directorates in,
285
–86

family day of,
273

as global enterprise,
310
–30

Hayden appointed director of,
179
–87,
211
,
281
,
284

heritage community recruiting at,
276
–77

interrogations by,
see
interrogations

Jeanine Hayden’s work with,
273
–76

liaison relationships in,
313
–16,
324
,
325
,
328

mission statement of,
272

New York City Police Department and,
325
–27

Office of Medical Services,
275