At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA

by George Tenet;Bill Harlow

  Whoever leaked the Aardwolves could have been motivated by the notion that CIA’s assessments were important and deserved public airing, but he or she could have been equally motivated by the sentiment, shared widely in some parts of the government, that these guys from CIA “don’t quite get it and aren’t with the program.” Leaks, after all, are the improvised explosive devices of inside-the-Beltway warfare.

  I remember hearing, after some of the first Aardwolves seeped out, that NSC officials were calling our senior officer in Iraq a “defeatist.” That shoot-the-messenger theme came up time and again. He was, of course, being nothing more than a realist, and we did everything we could to see that he got heard on the home front. In addition to disseminating his written report, I brought the senior officer to the Oval Office, when he was back in Washington in November 2003, to give the president his frank assessment of the situation on the ground. Yet as late as April 2004, when it was plain to see that the situation had unraveled, Jerry Bremer was still complaining that one of our senior officer’s reports was “over-the-top pessimistic.” The newest report, Bremer wrote, “begins to smell like classic CYA.”

  Our senior officer in Baghdad wasn’t a lone voice in the wilderness. Bob Grenier sent me a report on Iraq on November 3, 2003, saying that “Security conditions in the center of the country are going from bad to worse.” And that attacks on Coalition forces, if allowed to proceed unchecked, threatened the “de facto political dismemberment of the country.” In another report to me, Grenier wrote, “It is important to stress that the Sunni Arab insurgency is primarily a political problem, rather than a military one…. We cannot find and kill all those who oppose us, particularly if their members’ numbers can grow over time.”

  Braced and deeply concerned by the consistent, troubling messages I was getting from my team, I felt an obligation to make sure that policy makers got the clear, unvarnished truth as we saw it. We held a series of senior-level briefings in my conference room, where the recipients were removed from their phones, aides, and BlackBerrys. The first was for Condi Rice, Steve Hadley, and several of their key deputies on the NSC staff. We spent about three hours in briefings and discussion. Hadley, in particular, seemed to get our message—that unless we could reassure significant elements of the Sunni Arab community and bring them into a political process, the insurgency would continue to grow and ultimately split the country. He asked us to prepare an integrated plan for how all elements of U.S. power could be harnessed to arrest this slide. I asked Bob Grenier to prepare it, and he set about with several others to put it together.

  An important message delivered was about the magnitude of the challenge we would face in Iraq. The analyst giving the briefing had covered jihads for over a decade. She noted that Iraq would represent roughly the nineteenth in a long series of jihads since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Many Iraqi factional leaders were primed for the greatest jihad yet, against Americans in the Arab heartland. She noted that al-Qa’ida had always been nothing more than an exploiter of jihads, and this one would come exactly at a time when the organization was on the ropes and would allow al-Qa’ida to keep itself alive and to make a comeback.

  Apparently the word spread, because we quickly received a request from the vice president for a similar briefing. He, his chief of staff, Scooter Libby, and several of their close aides spent several hours with us, listening carefully and asking thoughtful questions.

  The Sunni Arab insurgency that we began to clearly identify in the summer and fall of 2003 was primarily in our view a political problem rather than a military one. While military operations were important, they could be effective only as part of an Iraqi-driven political process, coupled with an economic program that recognized the obvious. Iraq’s governates were racked with unemployment, making large numbers of unemployed young men susceptible to recruitment by insurgents. We worked with the military to reach out to Iraqi tribal leaders, moderate clerics, businessmen, and professionals, seeking to provide them with the financial basis to expand their influence and gain a constructive political following. From our perspective there were three critical enablers in reaching out to the Sunni community without which the chances of success would be remote—a shift in de-Ba’athification, a restoration of at least part of the army, and economic assistance to quickly put money in the hands of Iraqis.

  Our military units enjoyed considerable success with the modest reconstruction funds at their disposal. Yet the funds made available were insufficient and could not be sustained in a meaningful manner to allow us to get traction. The majority of the billions of dollars at U.S. disposal in Iraq were tied up in major long-term projects targeted at structural reform and long-term economic development, which, while valuable on paper, were divorced from the needs on the ground. And as a result, we ended up ceding much of the political space to the insurgents.

  The continued sense of isolation in the Sunni heartland, the complete dissolution of the Iraqi army, rigid de-Ba’athification, and the lack of economic opportunity or political direction provided fuel for the insurgency. In fairness, we cannot say whether some combination of these enablers would have made our efforts with the Sunnis more successful, but none of them was implemented.

  CIA was not alone in sending out a dire message. On November 10, 2003, Colin Powell weighed in from the State Department with an assessment every bit as dark as the ones we were providing. “Given mounting popular discontent with occupation,” he wrote, “we cannot sustain the current CPA arrangement long enough to allow completion of the complicated process of drafting a Constitution and holding full-fledged elections…. A credible political process leading to an early transition of power is critical to subduing the growing insurgency that coalition forces face.”

  That same day, a new Aardwolf came in warning that growing numbers of Iraqis were becoming convinced that the U.S.-led Coalition could be driven from the country and were joining the insurgency. The combination of this Aardwolf and Colin’s message sparked the White House to act: the next day, November 11, the president called a quick meeting in the White House Situation Room to hear from CIA what was now becoming a very polished brief. It was Veteran’s Day, a federal holiday, and I had to track down some of our top Iraq analysts, who were enjoying a rare day off, and drag them in for the meeting.

  Despite the short notice, the president had assembled quite a crowd. As I recall, he was joined by the vice president, the secretaries of state and defense, Condi Rice, Steve Hadley, Rich Armitage, Paul Wolfowitz, and, in a surprise to us, Jerry Bremer, who was back in town. I brought with me John McLaughlin; one of our most senior operations officers, Rob Richer; Grenier; and three of our analysts. The president said he wanted to find out what the current situation was in Iraq. Don Rumsfeld quickly deferred to CIA. Rich H., one of our lead Iraqi military analysts, started to give a briefing—influenced in large part by the Aardwolf that had come in just the day before. Early in the briefing he mentioned the ongoing “insurgency” in Iraq.

  Rumsfeld immediately interrupted and pointedly asked, “Why do you call it an insurgency?”

  “Sir,” Rich said, “the Department of Defense’s definition of insurgency is…” and then he proceeded to list the three necessary conditions that DOD required before the term “insurgency” could be used. All three conditions had obviously been met in Iraq.

  The message out of the Oval Office that day was, “No one in this administration will make any reference to an insurgency.” Apparently, that message did not filter down, because a few days later, much to the dismay of some at NSC, Gen. John Abizaid, by then head of the U.S. Central Command, described the current uprising—quite accurately—as an insurgency.

  At the same briefing, another CIA analyst described how Iraq was the latest in a long series of jihads for Islamic fundamentalists. “Iraq,” she said, “came along at exactly the right time for al-Qa’ida.” It allowed them to tap into deep wells of support and to inspire a permanent jihadist movement and lure Iraqis i
nto the fight. They were being aided and abetted by experienced facilitators whom we had encountered previously—in Afghanistan, in Bosnia, in Chechnya, and elsewhere.

  We ended the presidential briefing with a plea, again, for measures that would address the Sunnis’ concerns, and set the conditions that would enable our people on the ground to organize an indigenous opposition to those who were attacking U.S. troops and Iraqi security personnel. We hadn’t counted on having Jerry Bremer in the room to hear such a direct attack on the policies he had implemented, but as soon as we finished, the president abruptly turned his gaze on Jerry: “What do you say, Bremer?”

  With an air of resignation, Bremer recounted how he, too, had attempted to identify responsible and capable Sunni Arab leaders. There were none, he said. The Iraqi army, moreover, had dissolved itself, and would not be coming back. And as for de-Ba’athification, as strongly as the Sunnis might feel about it, the Shia leaders with whom he dealt were every bit as passionate, and would never accept a rollback. The message: there’s nothing to be done but to continue on the current line of march.

  By mid-November 2003, it was clear in the minds of many that something was going to have to change in Iraq. Condi Rice asked Ambassador Robert Blackwill of the NSC staff to go to Baghdad just before Thanksgiving. Blackwill asked Grenier to accompany him. On the way out, Grenier asked him, “What is your mandate?” Blackwill said that Rice had charged him with trying to bring about some changes and that he was going to have a “Socratic dialogue” with Bremer. Nobody wanted to give Bremer specific marching orders. According to Blackwill, Rice felt she could not order changes, but she wanted Blackwill to lead Bremer in the direction they thought they needed to go. A major component of that was to be an integrated program of Sunni outreach, including something on de-Ba’athification and a more effective reconstruction of the Iraqi army. In the process, Blackwill met with all the senior British and American officials in CPA, with a number of the provincial coordinators, and with senior U.S. military officials in the field.

  On the way back, Blackwill and Grenier agreed that CPA was essentially hopeless; as currently constituted, it would be neither willing nor capable of doing what was necessary. Blackwill summed up his feelings to Grenier: “The only hope we have is you, CIA, and the deployed military. So it is over to you guys, to figure this thing out and do what you can.” According to Grenier, Blackwill came back and wrote a trip report for Rice that was quite stark.

  Equally futile, or so it seemed, were our efforts to form a credible and durable Iraqi governing body. In Afghanistan, we had started from the ground up, allowing the various political groups to legitimize themselves, then building toward a central, representational government. In Iraq, the process couldn’t have been more different. We never had a conference comparable to the Afghan Loya Jirga that produced a leader, Hamid Karzai, around whom the country could coalesce. Rather, we essentially determined that we would legitimize the Iraqis. We had won the war; we had the guns, the tanks, the soldiers, and the air power. We were in charge, and by God, we knew what was best. Alas, what too many people in the U.S. government were convinced would be best was an Iraqi government headed up by Ahmed Chalabi.

  At another meeting in May 2003, one of our officers said he thought it was unwise for the United States to try to anoint Chalabi or anyone as the new Iraqi leader. Condi Rice asked why. “Iraq has no water, no electricity; employment is in the pits,” our officer said. “Anyone we try to install will be seen as responsible for all that and will fail.” Steve Hadley reached over and patted the officer on the knee. “I once thought that, too,” he said, “but I’ve come to know differently. It just doesn’t work that way.”

  Sometimes Chalabi’s name would be strangely absent from the discussion, although he was obviously on everyone’s mind. We would sit around these White House meetings expressing the hope that a strong, unifying Iraqi leader would emerge, and while you could tell that one name was on the minds of many in the room, no one would utter it. You had the impression that some Office of the Vice President and DOD reps were writing Chalabi’s name over and over again in their notes, like schoolgirls with their first crush. At other times, so persistent was the cheerleading for Chalabi, and so consistent was our own opposition to imposing him on Iraq, that I finally had to tell our people to lay off the subject. “They all know what we think about him,” I can remember saying at one senior-level staff meeting. “He’s now in Iraq. He’s either going to succeed or not, but Iraqis are going to have to make the decision for themselves.”

  My view was that Chalabi was not going to fare very well, and I ended up being right. In the parliamentary elections, once they were finally held, his party got practically no votes, no seats. By then, though, we had gotten pretty much accustomed to political controversy in Iraq.

  The Coalition struggled to get the new Iraqi government functioning, and CIA tried to help. In prewar discussions about postwar authorities, we sought permission to assist in identifying nascent Iraqi political figures who could create a new democratic government. Playing a role the Agency had played in many other countries over the years, we asked for authorities to work with Iraqi tribes, to get them to engage in the political process. This time, though, there was a reluctance to allow us to play that role. The reasons are not entirely clear to me, but some elements of the administration were obviously concerned that long-standing animus between the Agency and the INC would stand in the way of the political advancement of Chalabi.

  As relayed to me, CPA meetings with Iraqi leaders tended to have an imperious and condescending tone, more in the manner of lectures than discussions. As the security situation continued to spin out of control, potential future leaders among the Iraqis were reluctant to come forward.

  Efforts to rebuild an Iraqi army and security force were going badly, but CPA officials kept trying to put a smiley face on that, too, as if wishing would make things so. At one point, when Armitage’s boss, Colin Powell, came out to the region to receive briefings, our CIA senior rep pulled him aside and said that the information being presented about new Iraqi army equipment sets and deployable units was being exaggerated. “I can see that, son,” Colin told him. “Believe me, I know a brigade when I see one.”

  CIA also tried to help out on the political front—and met opposition at almost every turn. We set up a program with some of the Sunni chieftains, exchanging humanitarian assistance for their cooperation, but Bremer refused to support it. “You are dancing with CIA’s old pals,” he told one person, referring to the tribal chieftans. On another occasion CIA set up a meeting in the Green Zone with a number of Sunni leaders to try to get them to buy into a new government. One of my officers later told me Bremer walked into the conference room where they were meeting, delivered a twenty-minute diatribe, and walked out again. The Sunnis were furious. We lost contact with half of them in the aftermath.

  On yet another occasion, our senior officer on the ground arranged a meeting with fifty-seven former Iraqi generals. The intention was for them to open a dialogue with Lt. Gen. Rick Sanchez, commander of U.S. Army troops in Iraq. The meeting was supposed to be a possible first step toward an interim government, even if none of the ex-generals could serve in it. At the last minute, Bremer told Sanchez not to go. “We will not engage with the enemy,” he said.

  In May 2004, the CPA was trying to persuade Dr. Iyad Allawi, a prominent Iraqi neurosurgeon and head of the Iraqi National Accord, to agree to take on the position of defense minister in the new provisional government. A Shia, Allawi had once been a Ba’ath Party member but had broken ranks with Saddam. In 1978, while living in London, he and his wife were attacked in their home by one of Saddam’s assassins wielding an axe. Allawi was left for dead. In the mid-1990s, he had been active in the abortive efforts to overthrow Saddam.

  I’d met Allawi a number of times before, in Washington and London. We didn’t know each other well, but as DCI, I was a beneficiary of all the trust and goodwill that the CIA had built
up over the years with him and the INA. For that reason, I was asked to go see Allawi and urge him to accept the offer to become defense minister.

  We met in a hotel room in Amman, Jordan, just the two of us. My marching orders were to talk tough with him, to make him understand that he had to do this, but I knew Allawi better than that. I knew what he had suffered and what he had placed at risk, and I knew that I wasn’t going to be able tell him what to do or how to do it. That’s not the way to approach a meeting like this anyway. Instead, I went intent on letting him talk and listening as he voiced his frustrations; and that’s what he did.

  Allawi, it turned out, had little regard for the CPA. He had been approached to be defense minister, he said, but no one would tell him just what that meant. The bottom line was that he was very uncertain whether he wanted to participate in anything like this, because he understood there was a high probability that the provisional government simply wouldn’t work.

  I waited until he was through venting before chiming in. “Iyad,” I said, “I can’t tell you that you must take this job, but I need to tell you that you must carefully consider it. If good men like you will not put themselves forward for important positions, there is no hope for Iraq.”

  “George,” he responded, “I can’t get anyone at CPA to tell me what the duties of this defense minister would be—what his authorities would be, what his limitations are. How can I accept a job that no one will describe?”

  I promised that I would ask someone to provide him with details. When the meeting was over, I picked up the phone and called Steve Hadley back in Washington. “Steve,” I said, “this is a proud man. No one has given him a clue about what is expected of him. You have to get people to reach out to him and explain the process—don’t just try to tell him what to do. Consult with him. Ask him how we can get to where we need to go. Uncle Sam ordering guys like this around ain’t going to work.”