I also heard a lot of questions about drones. The use of remotely piloted aircraft was fast becoming one of the most effective and controversial elements of the Obama Administration’s strategy against al Qaeda and like-minded terrorists in hard-to-reach areas. President Obama would eventually declassify many of the details of the program and explain his policies to the world, but in 2009 all I could say was “No comment” whenever the subject came up. Yet it was widely known that dozens of senior terrorists had been taken off the battlefield, and we later learned that bin Laden himself worried about the heavy losses that drones were inflicting.
Within the administration we intensely debated the legal, ethical, and strategic implications of drone strikes and worked hard to establish clear guidelines, oversight, and accountability. Congress provided a domestic legal basis for counterterrorism operations when it authorized the use of military force against al Qaeda after 9/11, and we had an international legal basis under the laws of war and self-defense. The administration began briefing all strikes occurring outside of Iraq and Afghanistan to the appropriate committees of Congress. The preference remained to detain, interrogate, and prosecute terrorists when those options were available. But when there was not the ability to capture individual terrorists who posed a real threat to the American people, drones provided an important alternative.
I agreed with the President when he said that “this new technology raises profound questions—about who is targeted, and why; about civilian casualties, and the risk of creating new enemies; about the legality of such strikes under U.S. and international law; about accountability and morality.” I spent time talking about the complexities of these issues with Harold Koh, the State Department Legal Advisor, a former Dean of Yale Law School, and a renowned expert on international law. Harold argued that, as with any new weapon, we needed to put in place transparent processes and standards governing their use, in accordance with domestic and international law and the interests of U.S. national security. That America is a nation of laws is one of our great strengths, and the Supreme Court has been clear that the fight against terrorism cannot occur in a “legal black hole.”
Every individual decision to carry out a strike was subjected to a rigorous legal and policy review. There were times when I supported a particular strike because I believed it was important to the national security of the United States and met the criteria the President set out. There were other times when I dissented; my good friend Leon Panetta, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and I had a shouting match over one proposed strike. But in every case I thought it was crucial that these strikes be part of a larger smart power counterterrorism strategy that included diplomacy, law enforcement, sanctions, and other tools.
The administration did everything it could to achieve near certainty that civilians would not be killed or injured. Despite those efforts, reports of civilian casualties from drone strikes—often, but not always, untrue—fueled anger and anti-American sentiments. Because the program remained classified, I could not confirm or deny the accuracy of these reports. Nor was I free to express America’s sympathies for the loss of any innocent life, or explain that our course of action was the one least likely to harm civilians, especially when compared to more conventional military action, such as missiles or bombers—or the costs of leaving terrorists in place.
Another common question in Pakistan was how, after backing Musharraf for so long, America expected to be taken seriously about wanting to promote development and democracy. One TV journalist called our behavior “rolling out the red carpet for a dictator.” He and I went back and forth a bit about George Bush, Musharraf, and who was responsible for what. Finally I said, “Look, we can either argue about the past—which is always fun to do, but can’t be changed—or we can decide we’re going to shape a different future. Now, I vote that we shape a different future.” I’m not sure I convinced him, but by the end of the session the steam seemed to have come out of the group’s anger, at least a bit.
After I wrapped up with the journalists, it was time for meetings and dinner with President Zardari. That’s when, in a quiet moment before we went into the formal dining room in the Presidential Palace, he produced the fourteen-year-old photo of me and Chelsea with Benazir and their children.
The next day I flew to Lahore, an ancient city full of fantastic Mogul architecture. Thousands of police lined the road as we sped into town. I saw some welcome banners hanging along the streets, but we also passed crowds of young men who held signs with messages like “Hillory go back” and “Drone attack is terror.”
At a meeting with university students, I fielded more questions: Why does America always support India instead of Pakistan? What can America do to help with energy shortages and poor education in Pakistan, and why, again, does the aid package come with so many strings attached? Why are Pakistani exchange students in America stereotyped as terrorists? How can we trust America when you’ve let us down so many times before? I tried to provide full and respectful answers. “It is difficult to go forward if we’re always looking in the rearview mirror,” I pointed out. The mood in the room was sullen and aggrieved, with little of the positive energy I had encountered in other university visits around the world.
Then a young woman stood up. She was a medical student and a member of Seeds of Peace, an organization I have long supported that is dedicated to bringing young people together across cultural divides and conflicts. She generously thanked me for serving as an inspiration to young women around the world. Then she pivoted to a sharp-edged question about the use of drones. She noted the collateral damage inflicted on Pakistani civilians and asked why, if these strikes were so important, the United States couldn’t just share the necessary technology and intelligence with the Pakistani military and let them handle it. I was a little taken aback by the shift in tone. But looking at her, I thought back to my own days as a student who was quick to question authority figures. Young people often fearlessly say what the rest of us are thinking but are too cautious to speak out loud. If I had been born in Pakistan, who knows, perhaps I would be standing where she was now.
“Well, I will not talk about that specifically,” I responded, mindful of the limits of what I could legally say at that point about drones, “but generally, let me say that there’s a war going on. And thankfully, there is a very professional and successful military effort that has been undertaken by the Pakistani military. And I’m hoping that the support that the United States provides and the courage of the Pakistani military will bring much of this to a conclusion. Now, there will, unfortunately, always be those who seek to inflict terror, but eventually they can be eliminated and they can be deterred if society just abruptly turns against them. So I think that the war that your government and your military is waging right now is a very important one for the future of Pakistan, and we are going to continue to assist the government and the military to be successful in that war.”
I doubt that satisfied her. It was true, but I couldn’t say what else was in my head: Yes, Pakistanis had borne a terrible price in this fight against extremism, civilians and soldiers alike. Those sacrifices should never be forgotten. And thankfully the Pakistani Army was finally moving into contested areas like the Swat Valley. But too many leaders of the Pakistani military and intelligence services were obsessed with India and either turning a blind eye to the Taliban insurgency and other terrorist groups or, worse, aiding and abetting them. Al Qaeda was operating from Pakistani soil with seeming impunity. So Pakistanis had some hard choices to make about what kind of country they wanted to live in and what they were willing to do to secure it.
I answered all the questions I could. Even if they didn’t like what I had to say, I wanted to be sure everyone understood that America was listening and responding to their concerns.
Next it was on to another sit-down with local journalists, and once again I was playing the role of punching bag. I heard all the same questions about America’s lack of respe
ct for Pakistani sovereignty, and I engaged as honestly and respectfully as I could. As the press described it, I “sounded less like a diplomat than a marriage counselor.” Trust and respect are two-way streets, I reminded my questioners. I was prepared to take an honest view of America’s record in the region and to take responsibility for the consequences of our actions. For example, the United States had been too quick to walk away from Afghanistan after the Soviets withdrew in 1989. Pakistanis also had to take responsibility and apply the same scrutiny to their own leaders that they applied to us. “I don’t believe in dancing around difficult issues, because I don’t think that benefits anybody,” I said.
After answering a question about why we were forcing Pakistan to fight America’s war without enough help, I looked around at these journalists, many of whom were so quick to blame the United States for all their troubles. “Let me ask you something,” I said. “Al Qaeda has had safe haven in Pakistan since 2002. I find it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are and couldn’t get them if they really wanted to. . . . The world has an interest in seeing the capture and killing of the people who are the masterminds of this terrorist syndicate, but so far as we know, they’re in Pakistan.”
For a moment the room was completely silent. I had just said what every American official believed to be true but never uttered out loud. Bin Laden and his key lieutenants, in all likelihood, were hiding in Pakistan. Somebody had to know where. That evening my statement was repeated endlessly on Pakistani television, and government officials in Islamabad hurried to deny that they knew anything at all. Back in Washington, Robert Gibbs, the White House Press Secretary, was asked, “Does the White House think it was appropriate for Secretary Clinton to be as blunt as she was towards Pakistan in the comments she made about Pakistan’s unwillingness to find terrorists within their borders?” Gibbs responded, “Completely appropriate.”
The next day, in yet another round with the Pakistani press, I made the point again: “Somebody, somewhere in Pakistan, must know where these people are.”
* * *
* * *
A few months after I returned from Pakistan, Leon Panetta invited me to visit him at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. I had known Leon and his wife, Sylvia, for decades. As Director of the Office of Management and Budget in the Clinton Administration, Leon played a big role in crafting and passing Bill’s successful economic plan. Then, as Chief of Staff, he helped steer the Clinton White House through the difficult period between the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994 and Bill’s reelection in 1996. A proud Italian American, Leon is a shrewd, blunt, and colorful Washington operator with fantastic instincts and judgment. I was delighted when President Obama asked him to return to government as CIA Director and later as Secretary of Defense. Now Leon was reaching out to strategize about our fight against al Qaeda. The administration’s military, diplomatic, and intelligence operations against the terrorist network were showing results, but he and I both thought we needed to do a better job of combating extremist propaganda and cutting off al Qaeda’s access to finances, recruits, and safe havens.
I drove out to Langley in early February 2010. The storied lobby in the headquarters, re-created in countless spy thrillers, contains a solemn memorial. Nearly one hundred small stars are carved into the marble, each one memorializing a CIA officer who died in the line of duty, including many whose identities remain classified. I thought back to my first visit to Langley, representing my husband at a memorial service in early 1993 for two CIA officers shot and killed at a traffic light just down the street. The murderer was a Pakistani immigrant named Mir Aimal Kansi, who fled the country but was later caught in Pakistan, extradited, convicted, and executed. I had been First Lady just a few weeks, and the service at Langley left a lasting impression on me of the quiet dedication of those who serve in the CIA.
Now, seventeen years later, the CIA was grieving again. On December 30, 2009, seven officers were killed in a suicide bombing at a base in eastern Afghanistan. Security and Intelligence officers at the compound were about to meet with a potentially high-value al Qaeda informant when he detonated concealed explosives. The attack was a terrible blow for the tight-knit Agency and for Leon himself, who met the flag-draped caskets of the fallen at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.
Leon published an op-ed in the Washington Post defending his people against unwarranted criticisms of “poor tradecraft” and explaining, “Our officers were engaged in an important mission in a dangerous part of the world. They brought to that mission their skills, expertise and willingness to take risks. That’s how we succeed at what we do. And sometimes in a war, that comes at a very high price.” Leon was right, both about the importance of serving our country in dangerous places and the reality of the risks involved. Most Americans understand that our troops often must be in harm’s way. But the same is also true for our intelligence officers, diplomats, and development experts, as we were tragically reminded during my years at State.
When I arrived at Langley for our meeting, Leon brought me to his seventh-floor office, which looked out over the woods and sprawl of suburban Virginia and the Potomac.
Soon we were joined by analysts from the Agency’s Counterterrorism Center for a briefing on the fight against al Qaeda. We discussed how the State Department could work more closely with the intelligence community to counter violent extremism in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and other hotspots around the world. The CIA team was especially eager for our help in the information wars online and in the airwaves. I agreed. I still had the angry complaints of Pakistanis ringing in my ears. And it drove me crazy that, as Richard Holbrooke once said, we were losing the communications battle to extremists living in caves. Most important, we had to find ways to slow the spread of radicalization or more terrorists would spring up to replace those we were taking off the battlefield. We also needed to bring more countries into the fight against al Qaeda, especially Muslim-majority nations who could help counter extremist propaganda and recruiting. Leon and I directed our teams to work together to draw up concrete proposals that we could bring to the President. Over the next few months, thanks to the leadership of my counterterrorism advisor Danny Benjamin, we developed a four-pronged strategy.
First, to do a better job contesting the online space, including media websites and chat rooms where al Qaeda and its affiliates spread their propaganda and recruited followers, we wanted to create a new Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications housed at the State Department but drawing on experts from across the government. This nerve center in Washington would link with military and civilian teams around the world and serve as a force multiplier for our embassies’ communications efforts to preempt, discredit, and outmaneuver extremist propagandists. We would expand our small “digital outreach team” into a battalion of communications specialists fluent in Urdu, Arabic, Somali, and other languages who could do battle with extremists online and answer anti-American misinformation.
Second, the State Department would lead a diplomatic offensive to better coordinate with partners and allies around the world who shared our interest in combating violent extremism. Remarkably, nearly a decade after 9/11 there was still no dedicated international venue to regularly convene key counterterrorism policymakers and practitioners. So we envisioned a Global Counterterrorism Forum that would bring together dozens of countries, including many from the Muslim world, to share best practices and address common challenges, such as how to strengthen porous borders and respond to ransom demands from kidnappers.
Third, we wanted to step up training of foreign law enforcement and counterterrorism forces. The State Department already worked with nearly seven thousand officials from more than sixty countries each year, and we had experience building counterterrorism capacity in Yemen, Pakistan, and other frontline states. We wanted to do even more.
Fourth, we wanted to use targeted development programs and partnerships with local civil society to try to tip the balanc
e away from extremism in specific terrorist-recruiting hotspots. Over time we had found that recruits tended to come in clusters, influenced by family and social networks. We might not be able to end poverty or bring democracy to every country in the world, but by focusing on specific neighborhoods, villages, prisons, and schools, we might be able to break the cycle of radicalization and disrupt the recruiting chains.
I thought that these four initiatives, along with aggressive efforts by the Treasury Department to disrupt terrorist-financing networks, added up to a coherent, smart power approach to counterterrorism that would complement what the intelligence community and the military were doing. I asked Danny Benjamin to brief the White House staff on our plans and to find a time for me to present our strategy to the President and the rest of the National Security Council.
Some of the White House national security aides supported our plan, but others were concerned. They wanted to be sure that State wasn’t trying to usurp the White House’s role as the primary coordinator of activity across the various agencies, especially when it came to communications. Danny patiently explained that this was intended to be a highly targeted initiative to combat extremist propaganda. To clear the air, as had already been necessary a number of times, I decided to present it directly to the President.
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