Hubris
Page 51
Still, Maguire had no regrets about having helped to start the war. Invading Iraq had been right, he believed. And he hadn’t given up. He believed Iraq would eventually “evolve into something manageable.” But he was at a loss to say how this would happen. He expected the situation to get worse—much worse—before it improved. “Baghdad will be on fire,” he remarked.
And he wondered who could rescue Iraq from the chaos. A few days earlier, Maguire said, he and his wife had been watching the news. A report had come on about a war council Bush had held that day with his top advisers at Camp David. At one point, Bush and his most senior aides—all wearing casual clothes—had left the wood-paneled meeting room and walked outside so Bush could take a few questions from the press pool. As the president stood beneath the tall trees of the presidential retreat and declared that it was “important that we succeed in Iraq,” he was flanked by Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Condoleezza Rice. Looking at this scene, Maguire’s wife turned toward her husband. “Do you see,” she asked, “any faces besides the same old faces that got us into this mess?”
Maguire was stumped. He didn’t have an answer.
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
AEI
American Enterprise Institute
BND
German Federal Intelligence Service
BW
biological weapons
CBRN
chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear (materials)
CPD
Counterproliferation Division of the Directorate of Operations (CIA)
CW
chemical weapons
DGSE
French General Directorate for External Security
DIA
Defense Intelligence Agency
DO
Directorate of Operations (CIA)
IAEA
International Atomic Energy Agency
INC
Iraqi National Congress
INR
State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research
IOG
Iraq Operations Group (CIA)
ISG
Iraq Survey Group
JTFI
Joint Task Force on Iraq (CIA)
MET
Mobile Exploitation Team, 75th Exploitation Task Force
MOIS
Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security
NESA
Near East and South Asian division (CIA)
NIE
National Intelligence Estimate
NOC
nonofficial cover
NSC
National Security Council
ORHA
Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance
PDB
President’s Daily Brief
ROCKSTARS
code name for Iraqi spies used by the CIA
SISMI
Italian Military Intelligence and Security Service
S/NF
Secret/No Foreign distribution
UAV
unmanned aerial vehicle
WHIG
White House Information Group
WINPAC
Center for Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation, and Arms Control (CIA)
XTF
75th Exploitation Task Force
NOTES
MUCH OF this book concerns the perils of anonymous sources. In the months before the invasion of Iraq, reporters, relying on unnamed sources, published and broadcast stories that inflated the threat posed by Iraq. After the invasion, senior Bush officials, hiding behind the cloak of anonymity granted by reporters who need access to high-level officials, leaked classified information to discredit a White House critic.
Yet anonymous sources are essential to any effort to pierce the spin and cover stories put forward by governments and other institutions. There is, unfortunately, no way a journalist can thoroughly describe the internal workings and decisions of the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, the intelligence community—or those of a federal criminal investigation—without relying on anonymous sources. Prior to the Iraq War, anonymous officials in the intelligence agencies did tell some reporters that the intelligence on Iraq’s WMD programs and Baghdad’s alleged links to al-Qaeda was not as strong as the Bush administration claimed. Those sources were correct. But the stories based on their leaks did not receive sufficient attention—not nearly as much as the articles, citing unidentified sources, that reported the dictator of Iraq was a WMD danger and in league with al-Qaeda.
In this book, we have tried to use anonymous sources judiciously. We always asked sources to go on the record. When we cite unidentified sources, we try to describe them with as much detail as they would permit.
The Bush administration has made it harder for journalists to find and use anonymous sources. It has vigorously chased after leakers and threatened to prosecute some for unauthorized disclosures that shed light on potential abuses, such as domestic wiretapping and secret CIA prisons. The administration’s actions have sent a chill through the ranks of the federal government. It is an unfortunate irony of the CIA leak case that Patrick Fitzgerald’s probe, which targeted wrongdoing by senior administration figures, may have contributed to that chill by inhibiting midlevel whistle-blowers.
Several potential sources declined to speak to us, citing the administration’s crackdown. Often they demurred with a familiar-sounding explanation: “I’d like to, but these days…” If senior White House officials can get away with leaking classified information to undermine a policy foe but lower-ranking officials are scared into silence and cannot share with reporters important truths the government will not admit, the public is not served.
FOR this book, we conducted more than two hundred interviews with scores of participants in the chronicled events. Most of the quotes in the book are drawn from these interviews. The sources for quotes that did not come from our interviews—and were not public statements—are noted below. Public statements by George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Scott McClellan, and other administration officials can generally be found on the Web sites of the White House, the Pentagon, and the State Department.
INTRODUCTION
The account of George W. Bush on the White House lawn and his response to Helen Thomas’s questions is based on interviews with Adam Levine. The authors obtained a copy of the “prebrief” memo for Bush’s interview with Frank Sesno; this copy includes Bush’s handwritten notes. (Ari Fleischer did not respond to interview requests.) For Dick Cheney’s trips to CIA headquarters, interviews with John Maguire, Michael Sulick, and confidential interviews with other CIA sources. For Cheney and the Niger charge, see Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Senate, 2004), pp. 38–39 (hereinafter SSCI Report). The reference to I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby receiving copies of NSC memos and his office reviewing raw NSA intercepts is based on confidential interviews with White House officials. For Libby’s information requests to the CIA, “Government’s Response to Court Orders of February 23 and 27, 2006,” United States of America v. I. Lewis Libby, United States District Court for the District of Columbia, CR. NO 05-394 (RBW), March 2, 2006, pp. 15–16.
The description of the Anabasis project is based on interviews with Maguire, Tyler Drumheller, and Bob Graham, chairman of the Senate intelligence committee at the time, as well as confidential interviews with a White House official. See also Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004), pp. 68–74. Woodward describes portions of this project—without disclosing its name—elsewhere in the book. For Barry Goldwater’s “I am pissed off” letter, Congressional Record, November 5, 1991, p. S15923. For Cofer Black’s speech, interviews with Drumheller and a confidential counterterrorism official who heard Black’s remarks. The description of Valerie Wilson’s work at the CIA, her stint at the CPD’s Joint Task Fo
rce on Iraq, and the operations of the JTFI is based on confidential interviews with CIA sources. For Bush’s comments to Sesno, an unedited transcript of the interview obtained by the authors.
CHAPTER 1: A WARNING AT THE WHITE HOUSE
The account of the Cabinet Room meeting is based on interviews with Tom Daschle, Dick Gephardt, Dick Armey, and Trent Lott. Terry Holt described his telephone call from Dan Bartlett and his conversation with Armey after the White House meeting in an interview with the authors. See also Plan of Attack, pp. 169–172. (Woodward’s account does not include Armey’s previously unreported warning to Bush.) The letter Bush handed out can be found at http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/09/04/bush.letter/index.htm. The John Yoo Justice Department memo can be found on the Justice Department’s Web site at www.usdoj.gov/olc/warpowers925.htm. A copy of the Karl Rove PowerPoint presentation was obtained by the authors. Thomas Wilson’s March 2002 testimony can be found at www.fas.org/irp/congress/2002_hr/031902wilson.pdf. Wilson’s comment—“I didn’t really think they had a nuclear program”—is from an interview with the authors.
The Downing Street memos are available here: www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q= node/840. Zinni’s speech can be found at www.npr.org/programs/morning/zinni.htm. For Lott’s comments on Bush and his phone call with Cheney, see Trent Lott, Herding Cats: A Life in Politics (New York: Regan Books, 2005), pp. 235–236. For Cheney’s briefing on Capitol Hill, confidential interviews with participants. For the account of the Senate intelligence committee hearing, interviews with Graham and Carl Levin, and see Bob Graham with Jeff Nussbaum, Intelligence Matters (New York: Random House, 2004), pp. 179–180.
CHAPTER 2: THE NEW PRODUCT
The account of the White House’s use of the “smoking gun” phrase is based on a confidential interview with a White House official. The account of The New York Times’ aluminum tubes story is based on confidential interviews with Times reporters and editors. The story of Joe Turner and the aluminum tubes is drawn from interviews with David Albright, Houston Wood, Robert Kelley, and Greg Thielmann and confidential interviews with CIA officials and an intelligence analyst at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. See also SSCI Report, pp. 84–93; Barton Gellman and Walter Pincus, “Depiction of Threat Outgrew Supporting Evidence,” The Washington Post, August 10, 2003; Dafna Linzer and Barton Gellman, “CIA Skewed Iraq Report, Senate Says,” The Washington Post, July 11, 2004; and David Barstow, William Broad, and Jeff Gerth, “How White House Embraced Suspect Iraq Arms Intelligence,” The New York Times, October 3, 2004. (Turner did not respond to an interview request.) For the Durbin letter to George Tenet, SSCI Report, p. 12.
CHAPTER 3: A SPEECH AND A SPY AT THE UNITED NATIONS
The account of the TelePrompTer incident is based on confidential interviews with NSC staffers and Plan of Attack, pp. 183–184. The story of Bill Murray and Naji Sabri is drawn from interviews with Drumheller, Maguire, and a confidential source. For Maguire’s response to Bush’s UN speech and his inspection of the INC, Maguire interviews. The White House white paper, “A Decade of Deception and Defiance,” can be found at www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/09/20020912.htm. For Chalabi’s participation in the 1995 coup, Kenneth Pollack, The Threatening Storm: The United States and Iraq: the Crisis, the Strategy, and the Prospects After Saddam (New York: Random House, 2002), pp. 71–73. Robert Baer’s quote about the Chalabi coup appeared in Seymour Hersh, Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib (New York: HarperCollins, 2004), p. 164. For Maguire’s meeting with Chalabi, interviews with Maguire and another CIA officer. For the CIA’s suspicions about Aras Habib, interviews with Maguire and Baer. Zaab Sethna’s remarks come from an e-mail exchange with the authors. For the INC’s “information collection program,” see Mark Hosenball and Michael Hirsh, “Chalabi: A Questionable Use of U.S. Funding,” Newsweek, April 5, 2004, and Jonathan Landay, Warren Strobel, and John Walcott, “U.S. Still Paying Group That Provided False Iraqi Intelligence,” Knight Ridder, February 22, 2004.
For David Wurmser’s reference to Chalabi as a “mentor,” see David Wurmser, Tyranny’s Ally (Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute, 1999), p. xxi. For Habib’s role as head of the INC’s “information collection program,” see Knut Royce, “Named in Arrest Warrant,” Newsday, May 21, 2004, and Douglas McCollam, “The List,” Columbia Journalism Review, July–August 2004.
For R. James Woolsey’s role in the Khodada incident, interview with Woolsey. Francis Brooke’s “go get me a terrorist” quote can be found in Bryan Burrough, Evgenia Peretz, David Rose, and David Wise, “The Path to War,” Vanity Fair, May 2004. For information on the “INC-linked” defector who talked to Vanity Fair about Salman Pak, SSCI Report, p. 332. The al-Haideri episode is based on an e-mail exchange with Sethna and two accounts: Jonathan Landay and Tish Wells, “Iraqi Exile Group Fed False Information to News Media,” Knight Ridder, March 16, 2004, and James Bamford, “The Man Who Sold the War,” Rolling Stone, November 17, 2005.
The account of Howell Raines and Judy Miller at the Times is based on interviews with Stephen Engelberg, Craig Pyes, Richard Burt, and numerous Times reporters and editors. A copy of the Pyes e-mail was obtained by the authors. Engelberg described Miller’s near story on the al-Qaeda intercept. See also the Miller interview at www.navyseals.com/community/articles/article.cfm?id=9591. The account of the second Miller-Gordon piece on aluminum tubes is drawn from interviews with Albright and Times sources.
CHAPTER 4: ONE STRANGE THEORY
The account of Woolsey’s trip to London is based on interviews with Woolsey, Drumheller, and other senior government officials. Also see Jonathan Landay and Warren Strobel, “Former CIA Director Used Pentagon Ties to Introduce Iraqi Defector,” Knight Ridder, July 16, 2004. The transcript of the AEI press briefing on September 14, 2001, is available at www.aei.org/events/filter.all,eventID.366/transcript.asp. Mylroie’s role as a back-channel diplomat is based on interviews with Amatzia Baram and Daniel Pipes and an e-mail exchange with Judith Miller.
For Mylroie’s own account of her theories about Saddam Hussein, see Laurie Mylroie, Study of Revenge: Saddam Hussein’s Unfinished War Against America (Washington D.C.: AEI Press, 2000). For the CIA’s and FBI’s assessment of her ideas and for details related to their investigations, confidential interviews with officials in each agency. For Ramzi Yousef’s background, see Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 (New York: Penguin, 2004), pp. 247–251. An excerpt from Mylroie’s e-mail to Pipes was shared with the authors. The reference to Mylroie’s and Wolfowitz’s ties to the Telluride network is based on interviews with Francis Fukuyama and a representative of the Telluride Association in Ithaca, New York. See also James Mann, Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet (New York: Viking, 2004), pp. 23–24. (Wolfowitz’s office did not respond to interview requests for this book.) For Mylroie’s relationship with Chalabi and the INC, interviews with Baram and an INC official. For Mylroie’s appointment to a Pentagon advisory board, an interview and e-mail exchange with Pipes.
Richard Clarke’s account of the April 2001 deputies meeting comes from Richard Clarke, Against All Enemies (New York: Free Press, 2004), pp. 231–232. The Clean Break study can be found at www.iasps.org/strat1.htm. The Project for a New American Century letter to Clinton can be found at www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm. The group’s founding statement can be found at www.newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm. For Paul O’Neill’s account of Bush’s desire to topple Saddam, Ron Suskind, The Price of Loyalty (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004), p. 86. Clarke’s encounter with Bush in the Situation Room is based on Clarke’s book (pp. 32–33) and an interview with a confidential source. For Wolfowitz’s post-9/11 memos, see National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report (New York: W. W. Norton, 2004), pp. 335–336 (hereinafter 9/11 Commission Report). For Wolfowitz’s March 17, 2002, lunch with
British Ambassador Christopher Meyer, see Meyer’s March 18, 2002, memo (which is part of the Downing Street memos). The July 23, 2002, memo is also part of that collection.
CHAPTER 5: THE NIGER CAPER
The account of the drafting of Bush’s September 12, 2002, speech is based on interviews with John Gibson and the SSCI Report, p. 49. (Michael Gerson did not respond to requests for an interview.) The story of Rocco Martino and the Niger documents is drawn from interviews with FBI officials, Alain Chouet, and Drumheller, a three-part series in La Repubblica in October 2005 by Carlo Bonini and Giuseppe D’Avanzo, and an interview Martino granted Il Giornale that appeared on November 5, 2005. All quotes from Martino come from the Italian articles. See also Bob Drogin and Tom Hamburger, “Niger Uranium Rumors Wouldn’t Die,” Los Angeles Times, February 17, 2006; Jay Solomon and Gabriel Kahn, “The Italian Job,” The Wall Street Journal, February 22, 2006; and Michael Smith, “ ‘Forgers’ of Key Iraq War Contract Named,” The Sunday Times, April 9, 2006. For Antonio Nucera’s comment on helping La Signora, “L’ex 007 del SISMI, ‘Io, Martino e la fonte segreta,’ ” by Gian Marco Chiocci and Mario Sechi, Il Giornale, November 6, 2005.