The Assassins

by Oliver North

“General Grisham,” said the President, “you have some good news? We need some. What is it?”

  The Marine, seated behind the Defense Secretary, leaned forward and said, “Mr. President, since coming in here this morning I've been informed that we have found at least one surviving member of the Saudi royal family—and he's here in the U.S.”

  There was an almost audible sigh of relief around the table. The President, brightening for the first time since the meeting began, said, “Who is it, George, and how did you find out?”

  The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs held up what looked like an everyday PDA and said, “It came across this, my D-DACT—something new that our troops are using. It's used to transmit data—totally secure—on the battlefield. It has built-in GPS—and we have 'em down to the squad level in the Army and Marines. As Secretary Powers and I were coming over here, I remembered that the Saudi ambassador, Prince Bushir, had a son who attended the Naval Academy. I asked the CNO to check and see if he was still enrolled. He is. He's a Second Class Midshipman—a junior—and he's in an engineering class right now.”

  “That's great news!” said the President, smiling for the first time. “Is he in line of succession to the crown? Seems like I read in one of Perry's briefing books that there are five or six thousand ‘princes’ in the royal family.”

  “Well, sir,” explained Grisham, “technically there is no established line of succession. It's not really determined by primogeniture from one king to his son. All that's required is that the person on the throne be a blood relative of the original King Saud. Prince Bushir is his great-grandson, so his son at the Naval Academy is certainly eligible.”

  “Good. Now what do we do with him? He may be the new king of Saudi Arabia.”

  “I've sent a message to the superintendent's office and ordered the Marine security detachment to guard him until we can get a helicopter there to pick him up and bring him to the Pentagon so we can better protect him while we figure out what's happened to his family,” Grisham replied.

  “You did all that with that little thing?” asked the President.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well done, General,” said the President, rising. And then, as the others stood, he added, “I think we need to make sure that we keep this last bit of news to ourselves. If there really has been an effort at a coup we may have found a legitimate heir to the crown. We don't need to let the perpetrators know he's alive.”

  As he exited the door, with his National Security Advisor following close behind, the President turned to him and said quietly, “Jeb, ask Secretary Powers and General Grisham to join me in the Oval Office in five minutes, please.” With that, the Chief Executive turned and headed up the stairs, taking them two at a time.

  The Oval Office

  ________________________________________

  The White House, Washington, DC

  Monday, 15 October 2007

  0910 Hours Local

  As the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs joined the President in the Oval Office, the slightly curved door opposite the fireplace opened, and Bruce Allen, the White House Chief of Staff, entered carrying a file. All four remained standing in front of the famous “Queen Victoria desk.”

  “Dan, just a quick heads-up, because in fifty minutes I have to get ready to swim with the sharks in the press room and I need a few minutes to prepare,” said the Commander in Chief. “Since you're going to follow me for the ‘backgrounder’ Q and A, you need to be aware that Senator Waggoner is brewing up a kettle of trouble up on Capitol Hill.”

  “What's the old phony up to now?” the SecDef muttered.

  The President glanced at his watch and continued. “He's called twice since last night—he's threatening to introduce his Assassination Bill again—the same one that he wanted right after 9/11.”

  “Well, the situation is no different today than it was then,” replied Powers, alert to the President's schedule. “As I explained to the closed session of the Armed Services Committee back in 2001, Executive Order 12333 and the others prohibiting U.S. government agents or officers from engaging in assassination give us the moral high ground in dealing with a world full of thugs. If Congress vacates those orders and Waggoner's ‘Assassination Bill’ becomes law, we lose whatever moral high ground we still have. Some radical Islamic cleric will immediately issue a fatwa calling on every Muslim to kill you—and any other U.S. government official or employee they can find. It was a terrible idea then, and it still is.”

  “Well, now he says he's got the solution for that problem,” said the Chief of Staff.

  “Which problem, the moral issue or the fact that we all become targets once you sign an ‘Assassination Bill’ into law?” Powers asked.

  “Well, as you might imagine, matters of right and wrong aren't very high on Senator Waggoner's list of priorities,” Allen replied. “He's been after the President's hide ever since the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act passed in 2004 in spite of him. Now Waggoner says that the reason we couldn't prevent the Saudi attack on Sunday is because we still don't have decent human intelligence and we're not ‘proactive’ in preventing these attacks.”

  “Well, that's not new,” answered the SecDef. “But usually the carping comes from the other party. This isn't the time to reopen the debate on whether we need a Director of National Intelligence or not. I don't need to tell anyone in this room that I didn't like the idea—but that's not the issue here—no matter what Waggoner thinks.”

  “I agree, Dan,” interjected the President. “And you've been a good soldier on that whole DNI thing. But Senator Waggoner told Bruce just before our meeting this morning that he has the votes to override my veto for a bill authorizing assassination, and he wants the Congress called into secret session for a vote on the bill.”

  There was a moment of stunned silence as Powers stared, first at the President and then at the Chief of Staff. He then said, as much to himself as anyone: “The whole Congress in secret session? Has that ever been done before?”

  “Not since 1781—when it was the Continental Congress,” Allen responded. “But back then it was because they were afraid that if the British learned about where they were meeting they'd be attacked. But Waggoner's right about being able to do it—Article I, Section 5 of our Constitution clearly envisions the ability to convene joint sessions in secret.”

  “But it would leak immediately,” Powers protested. “There are 535 of 'em up there, and it doesn't matter how many votes Waggoner has for this crazy idea of his; there will be dozens of people in the House and Senate who'll be opposed. Those who vote ‘no’ will let it leak that they tried to prevent the measure. It won't be a secret for ten minutes after that vote! Why is Waggoner doing this? Does he really think this is going to improve his prospects for president next year?”

  “I don't know what his plans are for 2008,” said the President, once again checking his watch. “But I wanted you to be aware, since you'redoing the ‘backgrounder’ Q and A after I issue our statement—just in case he's planted a question with the press corps.”

  “Yes, sir, I understand,” the SecDef responded. “If it does come up, what do you want me to say?”

  The President and his Chief of Staff looked at each other silently for a moment, and then Bruce Allen said, “If it comes up, just say that ‘the President reaffirmed E.O. 12333 at the beginning of his administration and all options remain open for bringing terrorists to justice.’”

  Office of Sen. James W. Waggoner

  ________________________________________

  Dirksen Senate Office Building

  Washington, DC

  Monday, 15 October 2007

  1020 Hours Local

  The President closed his televised message to the nation with his usual “…and may God continue to bless the United States of America.” Senator James Waggoner, Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, watching it on television in his office, grabbed his remote, pointed it
at the TV set, hit the red button, and the screen immediately went dark. He then pushed the “intercom” button on his phone and snarled, “Ralph, come in here!”

  Seconds later, Ralph Monroe, chief of staff to one of the most powerful men in the U.S. Senate, was standing in front of Waggoner's enormous desk.

  “Sit down, Ralph,” said the senator, leaning back in his leather chair, his shoeless feet resting on the top of the desk. “What did you think of what our beloved President had to say?”

  Monroe knew from the tone of Waggoner's voice that it was in his best interests to criticize the President. “Nothing but platitudes,” the younger man said, seating himself in a wooden armchair opposite the desk. “They clearly don't know who pulled this off and therefore don't know what to do about it.”

  “Exactly,” replied the man who liked to be referred to as his state's “senior senator.” “But did you also notice all the business of ‘calling on the civilized world to join us in reviewing options for securing the Saudi oil fields’—that means they have no idea whether the royal family is still in power. It's also likely that they have no idea when or if we'll ever get another drop of oil out of Saudi Arabia. That's why they released oil from the SPR and all this long-winded business of converting coal to kerosene.”

  “And diesel and gasoline,” Monroe added, but bit his tongue for giving the President more credit for the idea than he should have.

  Waggoner had done his ruminating from his desk chair but suddenly swung his feet to the floor, leaned over his desk, and asked, “What's the tally on who would support my ‘active measures’ proposal?”

  Ralph Monroe had spent his political life on Capitol Hill. He “had the book” on every member of Congress—both parties, both houses. Monroe had been on Waggoner's staff since the senator had arrived on the hill with his movie-star wife more than two decades ago. He knew that they were little more than a year away from a national election, and that Waggoner had to make a choice in the next few weeks as to whether he would run for reelection to the Senate or make a run for the White House. Either way, Ralph Monroe planned to be there when Waggoner was sworn in.

  With this in mind, he replied, “Everybody is scared that this attack is the start of a jihad. You have enough votes to override a veto in the Senate—and by this time tomorrow, we'll have enough in the House to do the same. Of course the White House is going to come down hard against it.”

  The senator was silent for more than a minute, musing about the possibilities and what taking on the White House might mean for his future. Waggoner was from the President's party, but his politics were more closely aligned with the opposition. If I can get votes from our party and show that I can also get votes from the other side of the aisle—while taking on a “lame duck” White House, that might make me a very attractive candidate for president, he thought.

  Waggoner finally responded, “Y'know, Ralph, I kinda like the idea of bucking this White House. The people who think of themselves as ‘Independents’ are tired of all this ultraconservative and Christian-right preaching they've been getting for the last seven years.”

  Monroe leaned back; he'd heard this speech before—and he enjoyed it when his boss got “fired up” at what he called the “holy rollers running the show at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.”

  “The American people want somebody who is willing to take action—and that's just what my bill will do, Ralph. We're going to start bringing people together behind a course of action that doesn't threaten American civil liberties. It only threatens those who would try to take away Americans' most basic right—the right to life! Ralph, write that down.”

  Monroe was already taking notes, realizing that Waggoner was crafting more than just another of his harangues against the so-called “Patriot Act”—this time he was outlining the basics of a campaign platform.

  “It's time that America stopped being the punching bag for all these crazy radicals.” Waggoner was getting wound up. He continued, “We've tried giving 'em liberty in Afghanistan and Iraq—and in return they killed our boys. We tried making nice to 'em in OPEC, and they messed with us by jacking up the price of oil. We pandered to the Israelis and even offered the Palestinians their own country—and all we get is grief and more dead Americans. You getting all this, Ralph?”

  Monroe nodded and kept scribbling as Waggoner continued, “Now, because the White House bent over backward to these mullahs and imams and ayatollahs, we're gonna be paying ten bucks for a gallon of gas. Well, the American people deserve better than what we've gotten in return for all this high-sounding moral crap. We need to take the fight right to the door of every terrorist. Anybody out there who has committed an act of terrorism—or is even planning on committing one—needs to go to bed at night not knowing if he'll get up in the morning. He needs to know we're out there hunting for him, and when we find him, we're going to kill him before he can kill another American.”

  The senator paused and before he could go on, Monroe stood up and said, “I can work with this. What do you want me to do with it?”

  “Clean that up and turn it into a press release,” said the senator. “But before you leave, do we have any friends inside the administration on this bill?”

  Monroe flipped open his notebook again and scanned down a page. “State and Defense will fight it because they'll do what the President tells 'em to. We might be able to count on help from DHS—Secretary Dornin is pretty frustrated that she isn't getting all the funding she wanted for the border problem. And I know we can count on a quiet ‘assist’ from the DNI—Perry Straw. He hates Powers and feels impotent. CIA should help, but the Deputy Director for Operations is a very strange guy, and he has people at the White House and the Pentagon who pay attention to him.”

  “I met him last time I was out there at Langley,” Waggoner interrupted. “Old guy—kind of a creepy fella—what's his name?”

  “Goode, William Goode,” Monroe answered. “They treat him like some kind of legend out there.”

  “How old is he?” the Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence asked.

  “I'll get his bio out of the file, but he's got to be in his seventies.”

  “He's too old for the job,” the senator retorted. Monroe started to smile—Waggoner was in his seventies as well—but he checked the urge. Waggoner said, “Tell 'em it's time to get rid of Goode and get some young blood in that job—preferably somebody off my SSCI staff—somebody that we can control.”

  “Yes, sir,” Monroe replied.

  “By the way, Ralph…have you read this report that the CIA sent to the committee last Friday?” Waggoner asked, changing the subject yet again. He picked up a thick dossier with a red-bordered cover sheet emblazoned with the words TOP SECRET at the top and bottom, along with the warning “For U.S. Eyes Only.”

  “Not yet,” Monroe answered.

  “Well, you need to before you put on the full-court press for this bill,” Waggoner responded. “It's an analytical response to the questions the committee put to the CIA Director when he appeared before the SSCI last month. It lays out who our targets ought to be—and what we should be doing about it. Here, read the Executive Summary,” the senator said, handing the sheaf of paper to his aide.

  Ralph Monroe did as he was told. Taking the document, he sat back down in the chair, flipped open the cover, and began to read:

  TOP SECRET

  NO FORN/WNTEL/EYES ONLY FOR SSCI MEMBERS

  DOCUMENT NO: 1007C135.3

  COPY # 2 OF 4 COPIES

  EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

  SUBJECT: NEAR TERM THREATS IN THE PERSIAN GULF REGION

  The effectiveness of USG policy in the “Global War on Terror” has created new, near-term vulnerabilities in the Persian Gulf and South West Asia. The successes of “Operation Enduring Freedom” in Afghanistan in 2001–02 and “Operation Iraqi Freedom” in 2003–2006 have exacerbated the desire of radical Islamic militants with access to weapons of mass destruction to bring about an immediate cha
nge in the direction of the region.

  The installation of democratically elected governments in Kabul and Baghdad and the universal acceptance of the Palestinian-Israeli “Treaty of Mutual Recognition and Assurance” are all taken as “signs” by the most radical Islamic leaders that they must act quickly to “preserve Islamic law” in what they regard to be “Islamic Lands.”

  Available U.S. and allied military forces may be inadequate to prevent the collapse of friendly regimes that have been targeted for “Islamification.” Given U.S. and European dependence on Persian Gulf oil, such an outcome would represent a profound strategic reversal that could take decades to alter.

  Radical Islamic leaders in the region are increasingly concerned that indigenous terror groups are NOT achieving sufficient momentum through insurgent actions such as those taking place in Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, or even in the West (including the 2004 attacks on Madrid). Though Western media generally portray these terrorist organizations as achieving significant and strategic results through suicide bombings, IEDs, and other such localized attacks, radical Islamic leaders know better. These events, though causing casualties to USG civilian and military personnel, are not of sufficient magnitude to cause a withdrawal of U.S. or Western presence from what radical adherents refer to as “Islamic Lands” and are unlikely to alter USG near-term or long-range objectives. The attendant media exposure given to these events creates a perception of success and makes recruiting additional “martyrs” easier for peripheral and affiliated groups such as Al Qaeda, Islamic Jihad, Ansar al Islam, Hezbollah, the Muslim Brotherhood, etc. But recent intercepts of telephonic and electronic traffic among the most radical Islamic clerics in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt, Yemen, and Pakistan indicate an awareness that such tactics are never going to alter USG policies, force a withdrawal from Afghanistan or Iraq, or bring about an end to what they call the “Zionist occupation,” i.e., Israel.

  In recent months it has become increasingly evident to radical Islamic leaders that localized terror movements are “helpful,” but what is most necessary is a coordinated effort to ignite anti-Western Islamic militants on both sides of the Shia-Sunni sectarian divide.To that end, Wahhabi Sunnis in Saudi Arabia and the Shia clerical leadership in Iran may be nearing an informal accord with the goal of driving Western commercial, military, and diplomatic personnel out of moderate Gulf states and establishing radical theocratic governments on both sides of the Persian Gulf.