Thanks to the FBI, which captured 28,000 phone calls, 8,000 emails and hundreds of faxes, all of my efforts to warn Congress away from this War are fully substantiated.231
Yes, I was one more voice in a humongous crowd. I’m fiercely proud of all of us.
And yes, my anti-war perspective was probably a minority viewpoint inside the CIA. Nevertheless, my actions prove that thinking opponents of the War shrieked from the rooftops to pull Congress back from disaster. Our numbers might have been small, but we were extremely well organized and resourceful in communicating our message. We were anything but sheep-like or ambivalent towards the impending catastrophe. We saw the mistakes in political assumptions, and we urgently tried to introduce more accurate information to policymakers. That’s exactly what all of us should have done.
Our leaders refused to listen to us—though they are supposed to act as the people’s representatives, and take instructions from the electorate.
And yes, I faced a backlash from the pro-war camp. By example, I relied entirely on the internet and fax lines to distribute my anti-war messages to Congress and the United Nations in New York. My blast fax transmitted non-stop, 24 hours a day, for weeks on end, while I slept or headed off to work. Mysteriously, my phone lines would go down, cutting off my faxes. I would march to a pay phone in the freezing cold, only to be told that some unidentified technical glitch had interrupted my service, and a technician would have to be scheduled. It never happened before, and there was no explanation for why it happened now— except for my activism. A phone technician would come out, and trouble-shoot repairs. Low and behold, 10 days later the phone would cut off again. It happened repeatedly.
That didn’t stop me. I would get everything ready. When the phone would come up, I would rush to get my papers out before the lines shut down again.
So yes, it’s true that pro-war and anti-war factions fought each other. But that’s part of the intelligence game. It takes a lot more than that to discourage any of us.
Any good Asset is supposed to know how to run a blockade. That’s the role we play. By this time, I had done the Lockerbie negotiations with Libya, and preliminary talks with Iraq’s Ambassador and senior diplomats to resume the weapons inspections. Any of that would be much more difficult than a tricky phone line.
And yes, I believe Neo-conservatives tried to sabotage my anti-war communications. Absolutely they played with my message distribution.
Hey, I can take it. They would play rough and throw up obstacles. I would rebuff them. That’s how it’s done. That’s the game of Intelligence. That’s what makes Assets different.
It’s not really a complaint. It is important, however, for Americans and the global community to understand what actions I took before the War, because my actions prove that complaints about pre-war intelligence were false flags to distract angry voters. Washington scapegoated the Intelligence Community overall, because Congressional leaders lacked the integrity and courage of good leadership to take responsibility for their own decisions. At the end of the day, they’re the ones who did this. A good number of us desperately tried to stop them.
On the other hand, let’s give credit where it’s due: Everybody on earth opposed this War. Way to go, people!
As the months rolled on, the Anti-War community mounted an increasingly frenetic lobbying effort to stop the War.
Tens of millions of activists took to the streets around the globe.
Entire populations raised their voices to beseech America’s leaders not to do this terrible and stupid thing. A majority of Republican and Democrat voters favored giving U.N. weapons inspectors the opportunity to finish their jobs.
Come January 19, 2003, anti-war forces in America trebled our numbers. The Washington Post acknowledged “more than 500,000 people” braved the frigid cold that January day, marching 40 deep in crowds that stretched two miles through the streets of Washington to protest a U.S. invasion of Iraq.232
The Anti-War movement struck ever more forcefully in February. On the weekend of February 14-16, 2003, Anti-War demonstrators rallied in 60 countries and 700 cities on every continent, including the McMurdo Air Base in Antarctica. Over 12 million people participated world-wide, by conservative estimates. It was the largest coordinated demonstrations in the history of man-kind.233
The most staggering crowds turned out in Italy and Spain, where right-wing governments backed the US- British invasion, despite polls showing 70% of their peoples opposed the War.
At least 2 million Italians gathered for a massive protest in Rome. The historic center “between the Roman Coliseum and Piazza San Giovanni was packed for hours in a slow-moving carnival of banners, dancing and music.”234
In Germany, 500,000 protested in Berlin, while 100,000 marched in Brussels, the largest demonstration ever in the home of the European Parliament and NATO.235
In New York City, over 500,000 protesters packed the streets for 20 blocks as part of a rally at the United Nations Headquarters. Hit by freezing cold winds, New Yorkers refused to go home, despite New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s decision to ban the planned march. The people persevered.236
Spain outshone us all. Millions of anti-war protesters filled streets throughout the country: 1.5 million in Barcelona; 2 million in Madrid; 500,000 in Valencia; 250,000 in Seville; 100,000 in Los Palmas and 100,000 in Cadiz.237 The European media declared that one of every eight (8) Spaniards protested that day against Prime Minister Jose Aznar’s stubborn support for War. A year later, Aznar would be thrown out of office by angry Spanish voters.
That weekend marked a momentous celebration of non-violence and diplomacy throughout the world.
The tragedy is that such a fantastic and extraordinary groundswell of global democracy did not sway America’s leaders to honor the will of the people.
After all, the decision to go to war was undertaken in all of our names—against all of our wishes. And We, the People of the World, continue to pay the price for the horrible mistake on March 19, 2003— a day that should live in infamy forever— a day that global democracy was defeated by a small shadow group of tyrants in Washington DC.
I was just one voice among millions, amidst a whole planet united for peace and justice. Who would guess that out of all those demonstrators, one in particular— Little Me— would pose such a grave threat to White House officials, who would become desperate to invent a series of false justifications for this debacle, after their gross mistake was recognized and attacked.
Bottom line: the leaders who pushed our world into War with Iraq could not handle the responsibility of their decision-making.
They were cowards.
One of them happened to be my second cousin, Andrew Card, Chief of Staff to President George W. Bush. When the War started to go wrong— which was almost immediately—Andy and his Neo-Conservative friends looked for a scapegoat.
They decided to pick on the Assets.
In short, they decided to pick on me.
Andy Card
Andy Card. There’s a lot of speculation and gossip about who he is to me, most of it not very flattering or polite. Inquiring minds want to know, right?
Well, Andy Card is my second cousin on my father’s side from Holbrook Massachusetts.
He was the Chief of Staff to President George W. Bush, Jr. and former Deputy Chief of Staff and Secretary of Transportation to President George H. Bush, Sr,238 otherwise known as “King George the First.”
In short, Andy’s a professional hit man for the Republican Party.
While I was growing up in Anchorage, Alaska, my mother owned a string of 10 weekly newspapers and four country music radio stations. Political lines get awfully blurry on the tundra. Alaska’s a small town almost three times the size of Texas. Everybody takes care of everybody else. They cut fire wood for their neighbors. They go hunting and fly-in fishing together. And when I was growing up, they all voted for Senator Ted Stevens, because he defended the gun laws and sent money home to Alaska’s villages.
People in Alaska love their guns. And they love their federal dollars. They’re pretty sure both are manna from God, and they give thanks accordingly. Which (sort of) explains Sarah Palin.
I first met Andy Card when I was a freshman at Smith College, one of the Seven Sister women’s colleges in Northampton, Massachusetts. Traveling home to Alaska for holidays was impossible. So for Thanksgiving and Spring Break, I would visit my 80 + year old Aunt Mimi, Miss Mildred Platt of Holbrook, Massachusetts. Think of Jessica Tandy, and you’ve nailed her. Aunt Mimi was the picture of Yankee independence, sharp as a tack and our family historian. She wanted to teach me everything possible about our family genealogy. She was a gem, a gracious lady who welcomed her “cousin from Alaska” into her home.
On visits to Aunt Mimi’s grand old house in Holbrook I met my East-Coast cousins, including Andy Card, his brother, Bradford and their sister, Sarah. Andy was much older than all of us. Sarah had graduated from Wheaton College. But Brad was a college freshman like me at St. Anselm’s College in Manchester, New Hampshire. For a couple of years, Brad road tripped to Northampton for weekend visits to Smith. He’d bring his friends to campus parties. He was outgoing and handsome, and I enjoyed our visits very much.
So I want to be clear: Andy Card and I have known each other since the 1980s, though age separated us, and most of my time was spent with his younger brother.
What’s more, Andy’s a good political player. Come election time, what with my mother’s growing media empire in the wilds of Alaska—and her ties to the good and honorable Senator Stevens—it just made sense that Andy Card would make a special nod to our family in Alaska.
Perceptions to the contrary would be grossly inaccurate.
After I warned about the 1993 World Trade Center attack, and started working as an Asset, I had to distance myself from Andy, who had national political aspirations after all.
Our need for distance ended overnight when President-elect George Bush, Jr. named Andy to serve as White House Chief of Staff. At that point, my background was fully revealed, all cards on the table, when I approached him in December, 2000 about our back channel talks to resume the weapons inspections in Iraq.
I expected Andy to be surprised. But I was at the top of my game. I had accomplished many good things involving Libya and Iraq, with special regards to anti-terrorism, through a decade of perseverance and creative strategizing.
I expected a man like Andy Card to be proud of my actions. A man who brags to his friends about his outstanding devotion to my field of work should be fiercely proud that one of his own family has been on the cutting edge of it for a decade.
When you do the work I have done, you don’t apologize for communicating with the Chief of Staff to the President of the United States of America.
At the end of the conversation, you expect him to say thank you.
Think about it. I was a primary source of raw intelligence on Iraq and Middle Eastern anti-terrorism overall. I enjoyed high level access to officials in Baghdad and Libya. It was extremely valuable for the White House Chief of Staff to have first-hand access to major new developments inside Iraq. Given my status as an Asset—and his— it was entirely appropriate for him to receive these debriefings. That was part of his job.
No doubt that’s why Andy Card never suggested I should break off communications with Iraq— or that I should stop providing him with my insider’s analysis of breaking developments in Baghdad.
All of which makes our end so galling.
CHAPTER 13:
THE LAST DAYS
To suffer woes, which hope thinks infinite;
To forgive wrongs darker than death or night;
To defy power, which seems omnipotent;
To hope til hope creates from its own Wreck the Thing it Contemplates;
Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent
–Percy Shelley
Diplomatic activity moved at whirlwind speeds inside the Iraqi Embassy once weapons inspections got underway. Always courteous diplomats clipped with brisk efficiency, hurrying to meetings, making the most of every opportunity to assure anxious observers of Baghdad’s compliance with the most rigorous standards for disarmament verification the world had ever seen.
Most nations at the U.N. would have flunked the performance standards demanded of Iraq. They could never have passed their own tests. Ironically, Iraq’s performance excelled at the target so much that the United States and Britain were forced to raise the bar ever higher. But in all ways, the U.S. was outdone. Iraq’s diplomats craved an end to the misery of U.N. sanctions for their people. They saw the finish line, and they were determined to earn that suspension with fast-paced responses to any U.N. inquiry for data or performance reviews. They were tireless in chasing that goal.
Iraq had been cosmopolitan and secular before sanctions, which meant that diplomats were highly acclimated towards the West— very different from Kuwait or Saudi Arabia or Iran, which despised all social progress. For all of those years, Iraqi diplomats always made a point of declaring their desire to renew old friendships with the West. Now they had a chance to prove it. They would not miss this opportunity.
Nor did France, Russia or other Security Council members like Syria, which championed a non-military solution to the conflict, let Iraqi diplomats off easily. Quite the opposite, those countries sought to prove the worthiness of peace by demanding that Iraq jump through hoops of fire, as well. They were determined to show that conditions for peace would not be lax or ineffectual, as Washington and London argued.
Over 800 inspections uncovered only a few rusted relics of old armaments. Meanwhile, Iraqis tolerated the most intrusive searches of factories, employees’ cars, purses and briefcases, and home visits to scientists. Every time the U.S. and Britain ramped up their propaganda machine, U.N. inspectors would come up empty-handed. The most aggressive weapons hunt in history risked shaming the United Nations, which had inflicted horrific suffering on the Iraqi people, in its self righteous pursuit of weapons owned by every nation on earth—except Iraq.
By this time U.N. sanctions had killed 1.7 million Iraqis, including one million children.239 That’s no exaggeration, unfortunately. The World Health Organization and UNICEF calculated that 500,000 Iraqi children died from sanctions by the end of 1996.240 It was now 2003, and death had continued its relentless march through the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates. UNICEF estimated that 5,000 children under the age of 5 died every month from sanctions.241 Iraqi health officials put that figure closer to 8,000 dead children and 3,000 adults—a total of 11,000 deaths every month.242 On either end, the death toll was hideous.
Now it appeared the children of Iraq had died for nothing.
Remarkably, the lack of weapons uncovered during the inspections did nothing to dampen dire predictions about what Iraq might still be hiding.
Journalists tracked the progress of weapons inspections amidst wild and inventive leaks from White House officials about secret weapons caches. Media “experts” fed the hype with speculation as to where Iraq might be hiding those pesky weapons that U.N. inspectors could not seem to find. But around the world, in neighborhoods and restaurants, in universities, corporate offices and family rooms, rational citizens everywhere prayed for weapons inspections to succeed. The whole world held its breath watching for signs that Iraq would crack under duress.
Inside the Embassy, a different scene played out. Iraqi diplomats smiled with hope, serenity etched on their faces. Their acceptance of the demands on their country posed no burden for them. For the first time in thirteen years under sanctions, they could see a better future ahead, one of reconciliation, prosperity and welfare for their people. And so they worked tirelessly through days and nights to acquire documentation and prepare for meetings with various Embassy staffs in New York. They did not sleep so they could coordinate with Baghdad, which was already approaching night-time when the day was half done in New York.
Perched on a sofa, drinking sweet Iraqi tea and watchin
g the action in the embassy lobby, I remember saying a prayer for those diplomats—for all of us really. And yes, I asked God to stay with them. Perhaps that makes you uncomfortable, but if there was ever a time for prayer, it was in those last days. Iraq was not the problem, however. If the world could have looked down from a corner of the ceiling, there would have been no doubt of the sincerity of their actions.
That change was not accidental. We had done so much advance work to prepare for this day. All of us had made a huge up-front investment to guarantee this success. With Saad Abdul Rahmon and Salih Mahmoud and Dr. Saeed Hasan, and Abdul Rahmon Mudhian, we had planned exhaustively how Iraqi officials would respond differently to every problem situation that tripped up previous inspections.
Objectives had been carefully defined and communicated for 18 months in our talks. Previous problems got picked apart in painstaking detail. How would past failures get handled differently this time? What advance instructions would be necessary for building supervisors, so they could cooperate effectively? Who at the lower levels would require special hand-holding, if approached? We worked methodically and intensively to make this a different experience.
Watching the inspections unfold, I could see that our dialogue had achieved strong results.
I felt deeply satisfied. I believed the world was starting to become persuaded. Most important of all, the brutality of U.N. sanctions might end for the Iraqi people.
On December 21, 2002 I lunched with my senior diplomatic contact at the Malaysian Embassy, Mr. Rani Ismail Hadi Ali.243 Rani Ali was an expert on U.N. sanctions policy who staffed Ambassador Hasmy Agam on the Security Council. On behalf of Ambassador Agam and Malaysia’s foreign ministry, Rani Ali provided vital and necessary technical guidance, regarding U.N. criteria for disarmament verification.244
To my greatest chagrin, Rani Ali was homeward bound to Kuala Lumpur, having finished his diplomatic tour at the United Nations.
EXTREME PREJUDICE: The Terrifying Story of the Patriot Act and the Cover Ups of 9/11 and Iraq Page 25