A review of both men’s dossiers revealed that they shared indicators of WMD concern. Bayazid, a Syrian, was trained as a physicist, and al-Duri, an Iraqi, was an agronomist. Both men enjoyed direct ties to Bin Ladin and helped manage his business interests in Sudan. Both men had developed business connections to Sudanese WMD-related entities, and both had established businesses that could have served as dual-use front companies for developing nuclear and biological weapons. After Bayazid’s name surfaced in connection with al-Qa’ida’s attempt to purchase uranium in Sudan, FBI sent agents to Sudan to interview the two men. The agents reported back that, although their suspicions were great, they were unable to develop sufficient grounds for a case against either man that would justify an extradition request.
At one of our five o’clock meetings in mid-2002, a frustrated Rolf Mowatt-Larssen suggested that if we couldn’t arrest the two men then perhaps we could get them to “flip”—to change sides, in intelligence and law enforcement jargon. I sent Rolf off to Africa with orders to approach the two American-trained scientists with the mandate to try to save lives rather than take them.
It was an unusual assignment and one that we thought best undertaken with the cooperation of the local intelligence service. Rolf found the locals willing to listen to our proposal—he requested their assistance to talk to both men separately, in a neutral location. There would be no compulsion, no threats, only persuasion. Rolf explained the stakes for all of us, if the road to any future nuclear or biological attack against the United States were paved through this country. The local intelligence officer stroked his beard, smiled, and said, “I understand American threats very well. And so I know this is not a threat. It is a standard to which you would hold any country…cooperation on such a question is sensible to preserve civilization as we both know it…for this reason, I will agree to your request.”
The encounters were revealing. There would be no reconciliation, no common ground or shared sense of decency and humanity with the two al-Qa’ida associates. On the contrary, they articulated the hatred, the need for revenge, that they shared. Rolf appealed to both men to agree to disagree on our differences, and to focus on a narrow area of common interest, a shared sense of moral purpose to do whatever was in our means to prevent the escalation of a war that, if left unchecked, would result in the indiscriminate deaths of thousands of innocent women and children. After a long, brooding silence, one man replied in soft, sure tones, “No…I think it is legitimate to kill millions of you because of how many of us you have killed.” Rolf looked deeply into his cold, dark eyes—Rolf now understood Abu Ghaith’s math.
The concern about al-Qa’ida’s interest in WMD was more than academic. We had long worried about the security of nuclear material from the former Soviet Union. Whenever we asked the Russians for assurances that nothing of theirs had gone missing, we would receive a perfunctory response that everything was “under control.” President Putin had been more candid not long after 9/11, when President Bush showed his own briefing on UTN and asked Putin point blank if Russia could account for all of its material. Choosing his words carefully, the Russian president said he was confident he could account for everything—under his watch. He was unwilling to vouch for the period before that, during Yeltsin’s regime. It was a deliberately ambiguous response but, nonetheless, one that suggested we needed to pay especially close attention to smuggling incidents in the early years following the breakup of the USSR.
From the end of 2002 to the spring of 2003, we received a stream of reliable reporting that the senior al-Qa’ida leadership in Saudi Arabia was negotiating for the purchase of three Russian nuclear devices. Saudi al-Qa’ida chief Abu Bakr relayed the offer directly to the al-Qa’ida leadership in Iran, where Sayf al-Adl and Abdel al-Aziz al-Masri (described as al-Qa’ida’s “nuclear chief” by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed) were reportedly being held under a loose form of house arrest by the Iranian regime. The al-Qa’ida leadership had obviously learned much from their ventures into the nuclear market in the early 1990s. Sayf al-Adl told Abu Bakr that no price was too high to pay if they could get their hands on such weapons. However, he cautioned Abu Bakr that al-Qa’ida had been stung by scams in the past and that Pakistani specialists should be brought to Saudi Arabia to inspect the merchandise prior to purchase.
As soon as I got wind of al-Qa’ida negotiations to purchase nuclear components in Saudi Arabia, I contacted the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar, and gave him all the details we had.
Like most people when first exposed to this threat, Bandar was incredulous. He questioned both the capability of al-Qa’ida to obtain a device and their willingness to use one within the kingdom. “Look,” I said, “we don’t know if they intend to detonate a device inside your country or just use Saudi Arabia as a transit point. But in either case, you have big trouble.” I explained that Saudi and U.S. intelligence had recent information from clerics favorable to al-Qa’ida debating the wisdom of attacking the Saudi royal family. They were discussing in vague terms the morality under the Quran of using new weapons that did not discriminate among their victims. “Even if they don’t go after the Saudi leadership,” I impressed upon Bandar, “a nuke going off in the middle of your major oil distribution facility would devastate your economy and ours. Al-Qa’ida would like nothing better.” Visibly shaken by the implications of the gathering threat, Bandar agreed and persuaded his government to track down and arrest al-Qa’ida within the kingdom. It was another turning point in Saudi resolve to deal with the extremist threat as a problem affecting their own survival.
From the spring through the summer of 2003, with unprecedented CIA assistance, the Saudis staged a remarkable series of preemptive actions that thwarted a number of terrorist attacks in the kingdom, and which gutted the al-Qa’ida leadership in Saudi Arabia in the process. Although al-Qa’ida had maintained its predilection for mounting conventional attacks, for the first time we uncovered clear indications of their interest in using cyanide weapons in future attacks. Cyanide had been found in a terrorist safe house.
Across the straits in Bahrain, we learned that terrorists with strong Saudi extremist connections had been planning to conduct a cyanide gas attack on the New York City subway system. The extremists had created a clever homemade dispersal device called the “mobtaker”—Arabic roughly translated as “invention”—a lethal device that could be constructed entirely from readily available material. Although the Bahrain cell operated independently of al-Qa’ida, they followed the unwritten protocol between extremists by requesting permission from al-Qa’ida central leadership to conduct the attack. Chillingly, word came back from Ayman al-Zawahiri himself in early 2003 to cancel the operation and recall the operatives, who were already staged in New York—because “we have something better in mind.”
There was endless speculation at the highest levels as to the proper interpretation of al-Zawahiri’s cryptic comment. We still do not know what he meant. However, we do know that the “mobtaker” cyanide device was not sufficiently inspiring to serve al-Qa’ida’s ambitions. For that, the group consulted with several radical Saudi clerics in an effort to obtain Quranic justification—a “fatwa”—that would legitimize the use of weapons of mass destruction. Even Safar al-Hawali, a radical cleric who had written an open letter to President Bush after 9/11, reportedly balked at lending his name to such a fatwa. The terrorists found their cleric, however, in Shaykh Nasir bin Hamid al-Fahd, who helpfully gave al-Qa’ida just what they needed. In a document published in May 2003 called “A Treatise on the Legal Status of Using Weapons of Mass Destruction Against Infidels,” al-Fahd argued that a large number of civilian deaths, numbering in the millions, would be justifiable if they came as part of an attack aimed at defeating an enemy.
Following the al-Qa’ida attacks in Riyadh in May 2003, the Saudis captured several top al-Qa’ida leaders responsible for planning the assaults. Arrested along with them was Shaykh Nasir bin Hamid al-Fahd. In custody, he confirmed
that al-Qa’ida had been negotiating for the purchase of Russian devices, but he claimed ignorance regarding the nature of these devices and whether al-Qa’ida had in fact obtained them. After about six months in custody, al-Fahd appeared on Saudi television rescinding his fatwa and expressing regret for the error of his religious interpretation.
Having done all that was possible to neutralize any threats in Saudi Arabia, we turned our attention to the al-Qa’ida leadership in Iran. We pursued learning more about al-Qa’ida’s interest in WMD through every means available to us. Many al-Qa’ida operatives had something to say about the organization’s interest in WMD. Many would also quickly recant much of what they told us. Despite the considerable uncertainties, we were concerned about what we were able to corroborate from other information available to us. One senior al-Qa’ida operative told us that Mohammed Abdel al-Aziz al-Masri, who had been detained in Iran, managed al-Qa’ida’s nuclear program and had conducted experiments with explosives to test the effects of producing a nuclear yield. We passed this information to the Iranians in the hope that they would recognize our common interest in preventing any attack against U.S. interests.
Our inability to determine the fate of the Russian devices presented great concern, not only for me but for the White House. I took Rolf to a meeting with the president and Condoleezza Rice in the early summer of 2003, at the height of the Saudi takedowns and the threat stream related to possible attack planning in the United States. The president was unusually pensive. He asked me how the Russians were doing in the war on terrorism. I told him their contribution was a disappointment—they were preoccupied with Chechnya and were not players in the global war against terrorism, certainly not as we had defined it. Clearly frustrated, the president asked Condi Rice what needed to be done to engage the Russians and get to the bottom of the current threat. She recommended that I call Defense Minister Ivanov, explain the president’s concerns, and obtain Ivanov’s assurances that our respective intelligence agencies would intensify their work to resolve the WMD threats.
Defense Minister Ivanov was receptive to our concerns and agreed immediately to receive CIA’s representatives in Moscow. I instructed Rolf to travel to Moscow and coordinate meetings with Russian intelligence. At the old KGB headquarters in Moscow, under a watchful portrait of former KGB chairman Andropov, Rolf pressed our Russian counterparts to work with us in ways that would have been unfathomable during the cold war. Heads nodded as all sides agreed that our two countries’ national security interests were closer than one might think. Having moved past the promising opening remarks, however, it soon became evident that even high-level pressure had not prepared them for the intimate forms of concrete cooperation required to deal with the WMD threat. In the final analysis, it was still a game of spy versus spy. Both sides had spilled too much blood for too many years to expect a breakthrough on such an issue. As expected, the Russians took copious notes and asked penetrating questions regarding the information we had come to share. But the conversation became awkward as we began asking questions. The Russians could not shed light on reports we had received of missing material from the former Soviet Union. They did not recognize the names of former Soviet scientists who had reportedly collaborated with al-Qa’ida. They refused to delve into any matters related to the security of their nuclear facilities and nuclear weapons, including reports sourced to Russian officials concerning possible thefts of Russian “suitcase nukes.”
As disappointed as Rolf was upon returning to Washington, he advised me that it would have been unreasonable to expect much more from the Russians on such sensitive internal security matters. If we were to improve the quality of our intelligence interaction we would need a fundamental shift in policy. At the time of my retirement, we were still trying to cross that bridge.
As luck would have it, not long after this meeting we obtained the proof we had hoped did not exist concerning the availability of fissile material for sale. In the summer of 2003, we learned that officials had arrested an individual crossing the border from Georgia to Armenia carrying a small amount of highly enriched uranium (HEU). Although the amount of material seized was far short of that required for a nuclear weapon, we could no longer ignore the fact that organized crime, smuggling networks, and corrupt officials inside nuclear facilities were working in concert to find a customer—any customer—willing to pay the going rate for such merchandise. Although this particular shipment was interdicted, I am not convinced we can rule out the possibility that a terrorist group might one day purchase enough fissile material to construct a viable nuclear device.
As much as we were worried about nuclear plots, we were also feverishly trying to get everything we could on Bin Ladin and his lieutenants’ attempts to obtain biological and chemical weapons. Their interest in crude poisons and toxins—cyanide, botulinum, ricin, and the like has been well established.
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a senior al-Qa’ida associate, made a name for himself by running a chemical and poisons laboratory and training facility in the northern Iraqi town of Khurmal from May 2002 through early 2003. Al-Zarqawi established his ruthless reputation early on by testing the lethality of cyanide he had developed in Khurmal on a hapless associate—the poison worked, and the unsuspecting extremist died an agonizing death. Al-Zarqawi had brought his lieutenants with him from his days when he ran a training camp for jihadists, in Herat, Afghanistan. He was able to forge ties between Algerians, Moroccans, Pakistanis, Libyans, and other Arab extremists located throughout Europe. Over several months of tireless link analysis we identified al-Zarqawi–connected terrorist cells in more than thirty countries.
This loose association of groups planned a string of poison plots across Europe that began to mature in December 2002. The coordinated disruption of this European-based network represented one of the great successes of the post-9/11 war on terrorism. A global coalition of more than two dozen countries shared intelligence information on a near real-time basis. Numerous operatives and couriers were captured. Plots were disrupted in the United Kingdom, France, Spain, and Italy, among others, and lives were saved. We were able to keep the president, vice president, and other senior administration officials constantly updated as to the threats and our unfolding responses.
Shortly after the invasion of Iraq, al-Zarqawi’s camp in Khurmal was bombed by the U.S. military. We obtained reliable human intelligence reporting and forensic samples confirming that poisons and toxins had been produced at the camp. As for al-Zarqawi’s fate, information from a source indicated that he may have escaped to Baghdad, where he planned to lead an insurgency against U.S. forces. (Zarqawi went on to play a leading role in the insurgency until his death in mid-2006.)
Another key al-Qa’ida connection to biological weapons was Yazid Sufaat, the Jemaah Islamiya associate who hosted the first operational meeting of the 9/11 hijackers at his apartment in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in January 2000. In fact, Sufaat had provided commercial cover for Zacarias Moussaoui’s trip to the United States. Sufaat was also the self-described “CEO” of al-Qa’ida’s anthrax program. U.S. educated and with a Malaysian military background, Sufaat had impeccable extremist credentials. In 2000 he had been introduced to Ayman al-Zawahiri personally, by Hambali, as the man who was capable of leading al-Qa’ida’s biological weapons program.
Al-Qa’ida spared no effort in its attempt to obtain biological weapons. In 1999 al-Zawahiri had recruited another scientist, Pakistani national Rauf Ahmad, to set up a small lab in Khandahar, Afghanistan, to house the biological weapons effort. In December 2001 a sharp WMD analyst at CIA found the initial lead on which we would pull and, ultimately, unravel the al-Qa’ida anthrax networks. We were able to identify Rauf Ahmad from letters he had written to Ayman al-Zawahiri. Later, we uncovered Sufaat’s central role in the program. We located Rauf Ahmad’s lab in Afghanistan. We identified the building in Khandahar where Sufaat claimed he isolated anthrax. We mounted operations that resulted in the arrests and detentions of anthrax operatives in
several countries.
The most startling revelation from this intelligence success story was that the anthrax program had been developed in parallel to 9/11 planning. As best as we could determine, al-Zawahiri’s project had been wrapped up in the summer of 2001, when the alQa’ida deputy, along with Hambali, were briefed over a week by Sufaat on the progress he had made to isolate anthrax. The entire operation had been managed at the top of al-Qa’ida with strict compartmentalization. Having completed this phase of his work, Sufaat fled Afghanistan in December 2001 and was captured by authorities trying to sneak back into Malaysia. Rauf Ahmad was detained by Pakistani authorities in December 2001. Our hope was that these and our many other actions had neutralized the anthrax threat, at least temporarily.
But of all al-Qa’ida’s efforts to obtain other forms of WMD, the main threat is the nuclear one. I am convinced that this is where UBL and his operatives desperately want to go. They understand that bombings by cars, trucks, trains, and planes will get them some headlines, to be sure. But if they manage to set off a mushroom cloud, they will make history. Such an event would place al-Qa’ida on a par with the superpowers and make good Bin Ladin’s threat to destroy our economy and bring death into every American household. Even in the darkest days of the cold war, we could count on the fact that the Soviets, just like us, wanted to live. Not so with terrorists. Al-Qa’ida boasts that while we fear death, they embrace it.
We have learned that it is not beyond the realm of possibility for a terrorist group to obtain a nuclear weapon. I have often wondered why this is such a hard reality for so many people to accept. In a scene in a book called American Prometheus, by Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin, in 1946 the father of the U.S. atomic bomb, J. Robert Oppenheimer, describes the specter of nuclear terrorism. Asked in a closed Senate hearing room “whether three or four men couldn’t smuggle units of an atomic bomb into New York and blow up the whole city,” Oppenheimer responded, “Of course it could be done, and people could destroy New York.” The surprised senators then asked, “What instrument would you use to detect an atomic bomb hidden somewhere in the city?” Oppenheimer replied, “A screwdriver [to open each and every crate or suitcase].” Oppenheimer instinctively understood what we learned the hard way: that nuclear terrorism was then, and remains now, a terrifying possibility, and extraordinarily hard to stop.
At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA Page 30