500 Days: Secrets and Lies in the Terror Wars

by Kurt Eichenwald

  “Okay,” Massoud said. “Let’s film.”

  One of the men asked something—no one would remember what—and Khalili started interpreting.

  Then, an explosion. A bomb hidden inside the video camera detonated; Touzani set off explosives that were strapped around his waist, blowing him to bits. Amid the chaos, Massoud’s guards started shooting, killing the other man.

  Massoud, critically injured by the attack, was rushed to a helicopter, which flew to a hospital in Tajikistan. But it was too late. When the chopper landed, he was dead.

  The most important challenger to al-Qaeda and the Taliban, the man most likely to help the Americans hunt down bin Laden, had been taken out of the equation.

  Boston, Massachusetts

  September 11, 2001

  By 7:00 A.M., only a smattering of passengers had arrived for United Airlines flight 175 at Boston Logan International Airport. Gail Jawahir, a United customer service representative for thirteen years, had been at work for two hours and was surprised that the flow of passengers was so sluggish.

  Two well-dressed Arabic men approached the ticket counter, and Jawahir greeted them. They were Hamza and Ahmed al-Ghamdi, men assigned by al-Qaeda to join in a murderous hijacking plot. They had just checked out of the Days Hotel after performing their ritual cleansing, including dousing themselves with cologne, in anticipation of their own deaths. The fragrance was still heavy, almost overwhelming. They had arrived at the airport by a Bay State Taxi, angering the driver with just a fifteen-cent tip. From there, they had entered into Terminal C and walked directly to Jawahir’s station.

  “I wish purchase ticket,” Ahmed said.

  Already, Jawahir knew this was going to be difficult—the man’s English was terrible.

  “Checking in or buying a ticket?” she asked.

  “Purchase ticket.”

  Jawahir noticed that the man was holding a United Airlines envelope with an itinerary. He had an e-ticket.

  “Sir, you don’t need to buy a ticket. You already have a ticket. You can head right over to the check-in area.”

  The two walked off to another line. They were sent back, apparently still confused.

  “I need buy ticket,” Ahmed again said to Jawahir.

  She decided to guide the two men through the check-in process and asked for their itinerary. They were booked for United 175. She saw they were both named al-Ghamdi and were seated next to each other in row nine.

  Jawahir requested their identification; Ahmed handed her a Florida driver’s license, while Hamza gave her one from Virginia. She asked the usual security questions—Did you pack your own baggage? Has it been out of your sight?—but had to keep repeating them until the men could answer.

  Each checked a bag and had a carry-on. Jawahir printed out their boarding passes.

  “Would it be okay if I put both of these in one envelope?” she asked. The men seemed uncertain what she meant, but agreed anyway.

  Jawahir circled the gate number to make sure that they could figure out where to go. Then she slid the boarding passes into the envelope and handed it to them.

  “Now, you need to go through security,” she said, pointing them in the proper direction.

  The two men took the envelope without a word. They walked calmly through security, then headed toward Gate 19 to board the awaiting plane.

  • • •

  The attacks were over in less than three hours. But it was the eighteen months after 9/11 that set America on the course that it pursued for more than a decade.

  Decisions that only weeks before the hijackings would have been inconceivable tore through the White House in a desperate race to armor the United States against unseen enemies. Each perceived threat—al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Iraq, biological attacks, and other weapons of mass destruction—fueled revisions in the long-held philosophies of America’s leaders.

  Secret relationships were established with foes like Syria and Libya; past disputes with any nation, any organization, and any individual were set aside in search of supporters for the new American cause. Suspected terrorists were delivered into the hands of foreign torturers, allies were threatened with devastation, wars were fought by unprecedented means. Detention, intelligence collection, the treatment of citizens—each piece of the national security puzzle was reexamined and revised, at times setting American against American in a furious debate about what was right, what was pragmatic, what was counterproductive, and what was wrong.

  The struggle during that period of just over five hundred days played out on a global stage, from the White House to the Kremlin, from the grandeur of the British Parliament to the dusty caves of Afghanistan. Decisions emanating from every level of the American government rippled around the world, transforming the nature not only of allies and enemies, but of the United States itself.

  This, then, is more than a recounting of events in an age of terror. Rather, it is the narrative of a wrenching transformation of international allies and enemies in a period of unprecedented tumult. It is a tale of triumph and fiasco, of choices born from necessity, fear, and misplaced conviction. In the end, it is a portrait of an America struggling to find its way, torn between the needs for security and the hopes for an uncertain future.

  BOOK ONE

  A WAR OF UNKNOWN WARRIORS

  1

  Crowds poured out of the White House and raced down the driveway toward Lafayette Park. The exodus had erupted at 9:22, nineteen minutes after a hijacked plane smashed into the World Trade Center, the second to hit the towers that morning. No evacuation had been ordered; rather, staff members, fearful that a third plane might crash into the executive mansion, had spontaneously dropped what they were doing and rushed for the exits.

  From a limousine driving on West Executive Avenue alongside the White House fence, Norm Mineta, the secretary of transportation, uneasily watched the crush of fleeing workers. He had been summoned to the White House just after the second airliner had hit, and now saw evidence of the panic rippling through the nation’s capital. Mineta turned to a security agent beside him.

  “Is there something wrong with this picture?” he asked. “We’re driving in and everybody else is running away.”

  After being cleared through the northwest gate, the limousine eased past the swelling mob and pulled to the portico at the West Wing entrance. The secretary emerged from the car and walked through the lobby, where another member of the administration greeted him. He should go to the Situation Room, the official said. Dick Clarke, until recently the longtime counterterrorism czar in the White House, was there and would brief him. Mineta headed to the basement and strode into the intelligence management center.

  Clarke sat at the head of a conference table, opposite a series of screens showing the video hookup connecting administration officials from around the city. Mineta approached, and Clarke turned toward him.

  “Norm, let me give you a rundown of what we know,” he said. He spelled out the details of the attacks, said they were the work of terrorists with probable al-Qaeda connections, and expressed the fear that more hijacked planes might be in the air. The president apparently was safe; he was in Sarasota, where he had been scheduled to attend a few events highlighting his education plans.

  The briefing lasted five minutes. Then, just past 9:30, it was time for Mineta to move again. Senior administration officials had already established an open line with the FAA Operations Center, and Mineta needed to take over the call.

  “You’ve got to go to the PEOC,” Clarke said.

  “What’s the PEOC?” Mineta responded.

  “The Presidential Emergency Operations Center.” The secure bunker where other senior officials were waiting.

  “I don’t know where that is or what it is,” Mineta said sheepishly.

  A Secret Service agent standing against the wall spoke up. “I’ll take you.”

  • • •

  On the third floor of the Pentagon, senior Defense Department officials raced past a
staircase toward a military guard behind bulletproof glass. They turned left into a small alcove, reaching a heavy door that was supposed to unlock with hand-scan identification. As usual, the technology wasn’t working, so a soldier inside, recognizing the group on camera, buzzed them in. They piled into the Executive Support Center, better known inside the Pentagon as “Cables.”

  The group ran down a hall to a large conference room. Steve Cambone, the undersecretary for defense policy and the senior-most person in the room, sat at the head of the table. The idea of evacuating the Pentagon was batted about, then rejected.

  As information flowed in, the events of the day took on a surreal air. Torie Clarke, the Pentagon’s head of public affairs, picked up a pen and reached over to her right where Jim Haynes, the general counsel, was sitting. She scribbled some words on Haynes’s notepad.

  Tell me this is a dream.

  • • •

  Two floors belowground at the White House, Dick Cheney—flanked by his security detail and Scooter Libby, his chief of staff—rushed down a long tunnel toward the PEOC. In his hand, the vice president carried a copy of the Economist that he had grabbed off a table upstairs. He paused in a section of the tunnel that had been sealed on both ends, providing a measure of safety. Surrounding him were a television, a bench, and a secure phone.

  Cheney watched a news report on CNN showing smoke and flames at the World Trade Center. He already knew from the Secret Service that at least one more plane was heading toward the White House.

  Washington’s going to be hit.

  After a pause, Cheney turned to an aide. “Get the president on the line.”

  • • •

  Zacarias Moussaoui abruptly stopped exercising.

  He was walking with other prisoners on an upper section of the Sherburne County Jail, listening to a small radio that he kept with him at all times. He knew what was coming and couldn’t wait to hear news broadcasts about the destruction.

  Then, the bulletin. There was a fire in the World Trade Center, the reporter intoned. Nothing about a hijacking or a plane, but perhaps, Moussaoui thought, the day of reckoning had finally arrived.

  Word spread among the prisoners that something big had happened in New York. Moussaoui and a number of others headed downstairs to a recreation area, where the television was turned to ABC News.

  On the screen, Moussaoui saw flames at the Twin Towers, the buildings enveloped in smoke against a blue sky. And he knew. The attacks on the Americans, so foolish and blind, had begun.

  He closed his eyes and spoke under his breath. “Allahu Akbar.”

  God is great.

  • • •

  Stephen Hadley, the deputy national security advisor, stepped into the Situation Room carrying a pile of papers. As the senior official in the room, he walked toward the principal’s chair, where Clarke sat.

  “Okay, let’s get this going,” he said.

  Clarke hunkered down, ignoring Hadley. His body language was clear—he wasn’t giving up the seat at the head of the table. Minutes before, Rice had named him the lead crisis manager, and he had no intention of relinquishing that assignment. Hadley hesitated, then walked to the other side of the table. Tension filled the air; staffers were unsure who was in charge.

  Hadley turned to Tim Flanigan, the deputy White House counsel who was standing nearby. “Tim, get hold of Justice. We need everything they’ve got.”

  Nodding, Flanigan reached for a phone and called the Justice Department’s command center. At that point, Ashcroft was on a plane heading back to Washington. Larry Thompson, the deputy attorney general and a good friend of Flanigan’s, was holding the fort.

  A retired FBI agent who helped run the command center answered.

  “This is Tim Flanigan. I need to speak to the deputy AG right away.”

  “Hold one,” the agent said.

  • • •

  Deep inside the J. Edgar Hoover Building, charcoal-suited legions of lawyers, agents, and supervisors buzzed about the FBI Strategic Information Operations Center, a windowless high-security information room. Bob Mueller, who had assumed the job of Bureau director just one week earlier, was monitoring information about the Trade Center attacks that was being collected by the burgeoning ranks of New York agents.

  Thompson burst into the room, having just arrived from the command center at the Justice Department. A phone rang, and someone shouted out that the Situation Room wanted to talk to him. He picked up the receiver.

  “Larry Thompson.”

  • • •

  Flanigan could tell that his call had been forwarded from the Justice Department to the FBI. Just as well—the Bureau’s command center was more state-of-the-art.

  “Larry, it’s Tim. I’m sorry to jog your elbow on this, but I need to know as much as we can about what’s going on. There’s a real thirst for information over here.”

  “Just a minute. I’ll check.”

  • • •

  Thompson put the call on hold and turned to Mueller.

  “The White House wants an update on what we’ve got,” he said.

  Everything was in motion, Mueller said. Criminal investigators were already at the attack site.

  Thompson thanked him, and pressed the hold button.

  • • •

  Flanigan stared at a television in the Situation Room, watching the horror unfolding at the Trade Center, when he heard Thompson click back on the line.

  “The FBI is at the scene and is treating it as a crime scene,” he said.

  A pause. Flanigan glanced again at the television.

  A crime scene? That’s absurd. This wasn’t some bank robbery. What he saw on the screen was a war zone.

  “We have no information about possible perpetrators,” Thompson continued. “And no info about casualties at this point.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  Flanigan hung up and turned to Hadley.

  “The FBI’s on the scene, and they’re treating it . . .”

  He stopped speaking, unwilling to finish the sentence. The idea that the Bureau considered this a criminal case was beyond ludicrous.

  “The FBI’s there,” he said. “And we’ll be getting reports from the scene.”

  • • •

  About half a mile away at FAA headquarters, Dave Canoles was working like a desperate juggler, struggling to keep up with each new development. Information was scattered and confused. Thousands of planes were still airborne, every one a potential weapon of mass destruction. There were murmurs at some air traffic centers about evacuating. Canoles, a senior manager supervising six hundred of those centers nationwide, was connected to them by conference call and told the workers to stay at their posts. If ever there was a time when the country needed them at work, he said, it was today.

  An official at a radarscope was tracking the jet headed toward Washington. Canoles instructed a member of his staff to go into another office and look out the window in search of the airliner.

  The tracking on the radarscope continued. “Six miles from the White House,” a calm voice said.

  • • •

  Inside the PEOC, Mineta was holding a phone to each ear, connected to his office and the FAA Operations Center, where he spoke with Monte Belger, the agency’s second in command.

  Word came in confirming rumors that another aircraft was headed toward Washington. No one knew what flight it was. Mineta needed more information.

  “Monte, what do you have on radar on this plane coming in?” he asked.

  “Well, the transponder’s been turned off,” Belger replied. “So we don’t know who it is and we don’t know the altitude and speed.”

  “Where is it?”

  Beyond Great Falls, Virginia, Belger said. Then the plane disappeared from the screen.

  “Uh-oh,” Belger said. “I lost the bogey.”

  “Well, where is it?”

  “Somewhere between Rosslyn and National Airport.”

  • • •

&nb
sp; The Pentagon loomed through the cockpit window of American Airlines flight 77. Traveling at 780 feet per second, the plane was so low to the ground that it severed light posts on an adjacent road as it barreled forward.

  • • •

  In a yellow building nestled on a hill west of the Pentagon, Michael Cifrino, general counsel of the Missile Defense Agency, was working in his fifth-floor office. His window in the Navy Annex faced the Potomac, but the view was obstructed by the Pentagon’s western façade, about a mile away.

  At 9:37, he heard a roar and glanced outside.

  The scene lasted about a second. A large jet, a 757, thundered past; Cifrino watched the back of the plane as it exploded into the west wall of the Pentagon.

  • • •

  Flight 77 slammed through at the first floor, inside Wedge One, leaving a trail of destruction as it raced at a forty-two-degree angle toward the fifth corridor. A huge fireball exploded upward more than two hundred feet above the Pentagon as the front of the fuselage crumpled and disintegrated. The plane essentially reversed itself, the tail end crushing the remaining body and plowing the greatest distance into the building.

  • • •

  In the vaulted SVTS on the second floor of the Pentagon, Defense Department officials were continuing the teleconference with other senior members of the administration.

  A sound jolted the room. It was muffled, strange. To feel it in a room so full of metal, so insulated, they knew it had to be something big.

  Steve Cambone was the first to speak.

  “Wow,” he said. “That was loud.”

  • • •

  The skies are filled with guided missiles.

  Ben Sliney—the FAA’s national operations manager at the command center in Herndon, Virginia—had anguished for more than half an hour about the possibility that other planes had been hijacked. Now, with the attack on the Pentagon, his fears were confirmed.