by John Weisman
Bottom line: after several media outlets produced exposés on his missteps, the White House was told by several high-ranking Democrats that Daley was unconfirmable for any position that required Senate approval.
And so Dwayne Daley was offered the counterterrorism advisor job in the current administration, with the rank of deputy national security advisor and assistant to the president. Not because he was good, or bright, or even competent. But because of simple chemistry. For some inexplicable reason, the president was comfortable with Dwayne Daley. From the campaign on, he’d golfed with him, played one-on-one basketball with him. Worse, Daley managed to shut out the director of national intelligence and the CIA director after he somehow convinced the president that he, not they, should conduct POTUS’s daily intelligence briefs.
It was a chronic Washington conundrum. In many White Houses, this one included, competency all too often took a backseat to affability and chemistry. Otherwise, how else could disasters like Bush 43 staffers Harriet Miers and Alberto Gonzales and the current administration’s Dwayne Daley be explained?
The president shook hands all around, wished everyone a happy New Year, and then dropped into an armchair in the Oval Office’s seating area, his back to the desk where he normally conducted business. The others spread out on the two facing sofas.
SECDEF spoke first. “Mr. President, I asked Vince to come with me today because there have been some developments on the Pakistani front.”
The president nodded. “Positive ones, I hope.”
“I would characterize them as promising,” the secretary answered. Richard Hansen was a naturally restrained individual. He had spent most of his professional career as a CIA analyst, rising to become deputy director of intelligence, and finally director of central intelligence in the long wake of the Iran Contra affair of the late 1980s. But he found his true calling in the mid-1990s as the president of the University of Missouri. SECDEF Hansen may have been the consummate Washington insider, but he was an academic at heart: thorough, precise, and judicious. His scholarly persona, however, also contributed to what many thought a tendency toward too much caution. Indeed, at CIA Rich Hansen had always been notoriously risk-averse when it came to operations.
He’d brought that quality back to Washington as secretary of defense, along with a professorial wit and a deep intellect. In this administration, made up largely of youngsters, ideologues, and political neophytes, he, along with D/CIA Vince Mercaldi and Secretary of State Katherine Semerad, were the troika of adults who supplied the president with sage advice, prudent political counsel, and sufficient necessary institutional memory to give presidential decisions context and gravitas.
Rich Hansen wasn’t imposing. He wore nondescript suits, white shirts, and boring ties. But he had one of the sharpest minds of his generation, and he wasn’t shy, despite his restrained appearance, at speaking truth to power.
“We are having great success with the Pakistani high-value target program we’ve been running in partnership with CIA,” Hansen said, swiveling to look at Mercaldi, who nodded in agreement.
The president nodded. “Can you bring me up to speed?”
“Of course.” The secretary spoke for seven or eight minutes, providing the president with a verbal snapshot of the joint program.
When he concluded, the president said, “Thanks, Rich. It’s good to see some positive steps have been taken. I’m only sorry we can’t inform the American people about what’s being done on their behalf.”
Dwayne Daley cleared his throat. “Mr. President,” he said, “I don’t want to be negative, but there’s a downside that could prove perilous to our strategic goals in the region.”
“Really?” The president turned toward his counterterrorism advisor. “Give us your thoughts, Dwayne.”
“We’re in danger of alienating the Pakistanis, Mr. President. These reckless missile attacks are nothing less than provocations. Every attack becomes a recruiting message to al-Qaeda and Pakistan’s own extremist elements.”
“Every attack takes out the enemies of Pakistan as well as the U.S., Dwayne,” Wes Bolin interrupted. “We’re killing the same people who are killing Pakistanis by the scores.”
The admiral turned toward the president. “Sir, I’ve been to Pakistan six times in the past eight months, and I can tell you firsthand”—Bolin looked pointedly at the counterterrorism advisor—“that, one, the program is working, and two, the Pakistanis are grateful.”
“Well,” Daley said reprovingly, “not universally, Admiral. Let’s be accurate.”
“You’re right, Dwayne, not every single Pakistani loves us.” Bolin wasn’t about to take on the counterterrorism advisor in this venue. But he wasn’t going to be stepped on, either.
There was a brief silence. Then the president asked, “What about the other program? The one you’re running in Abbottabad?”
“We are making consistent progress,” Vince Mercaldi said. “The monitoring base is set up. We have identified eighteen individuals so far as occupants of the villa.”
“But,” the president interjected, “not our primary target, right?”
“Not yet, Mr. President.”
“Can you give me a ballpark?”
The CIA director shook his head. “I’m afraid not, sir. These things take time. We have eyes and ears on scene. We have good resources on the ground—we even sent one of our assets, a doctor, to the compound as part of an inoculation program in the Abbottabad area.”
The president looked quizzically at the D/CIA. “CIA set up an inoculation program?”
“We did, Mr. President. Through a false-flag front, which is an organization that doesn’t know it’s working for CIA, we covertly funded a Pakistan-based NGO that wanted to offer hepatitis B shots in Abbottabad. Then we slipped in our penetration agent, a physician, as a volunteer inoculator. We figured we could get some bang for the buck by not only getting him inside the compound, but also doing some good for the people of Abbottabad.”
The president smiled. “That’s thinking outside the box, Vince. Great idea.”
“Thank you, Mr. President. I wish it had been mine. But it came from one of our Bin Laden Group people.”
“Oh, really. Who?”
“We call him Spike.”
“I’d like to meet Spike someday.”
“Of course, sir.”
“So, what finally happened?”
“Our doctor was admitted to the Khan compound, but not the house itself. Nor was he allowed to vaccinate anyone. So we never obtained any DNA samples.”
“Too bad,” the president said.
“Nor did he see anyone who resembled UBL.”
The president bit his lower lip but said nothing.
Mercaldi continued. “Still, we are confident the Pakistanis have no idea about our presence in Abbottabad.”
The president frowned. “So, we have not yet enjoyed eyes on target.”
“Regrettably correct, Mr. President. For the moment, anyway, that’s where things stand.”
“Mr. President, perhaps it’s time—” Dwayne Daley started to say. But he caught the expression on Vince Mercaldi’s face. It made him stop short. “Sorry, sir. Nothing.”
The president rubbed his chin with his forefinger. “Should we get what you call ‘eyes on’ our target, Vince, how long would it take to mount an operation?”
“It’s so preliminary we hadn’t discussed specifics yet, Mr. President.”
“Not even a ballpark?”
That damn ballpark again. Then the CIA director caught something in the president’s eye, an almost indiscernible glint of negativity and reluctance to act, that made him swivel toward Wesley Bolin. “Wes, any ideas?”
Vince Mercaldi knew that Wes Bolin had ideas because they’d discussed them not two hours before. Bolin had told him that a capture/kill strike by Delta Force or SEALs was the most efficient way to take out Bin Laden. He’d mounted more than a thousand such raids over the past year. The only problem w
as Pakistan. They’d have to make a stealth approach in order to get in under the Pak radar. Otherwise, it was all very straightforward. As Bolin put it, “Vince, we’ve been doing these sorts of snatch-and-grabs for nigh on thirty years.”
The SEAL admiral thought about the question for a few seconds. He’d noted the tension in the room and decided that specificity wasn’t a good idea right now. “Less time than you might think, Mr. President. We’ve already got a pretty good idea about the venue’s layout. The question is what we’d like the outcome to be. We could use air assets—repeat what we did in the opening hours of the Iraq war, when we bombed the three locations we believed were the most likely places Saddam would be. But as you know, we missed him then. My preference would be boots on the ground, which—”
“Admiral, as Vince just said, perhaps it’s still very early in the process to be discussing specifics,” Hansen interjected, cutting Bolin off. The SECDEF had good sources at this White House. He knew that both Daley and the national security advisor had been telling the president that the CIA base in Abbottabad was a risky operation that could end in disaster, and that a manned assault mission would permanently fracture U.S. relations with Pakistan.
Privately, Rich Hansen shared a rare agreement with the counterterrorism advisor about a special operations raid, but for other reasons. Hansen had been at CIA during the Desert One catastrophe. It was his firm opinion that the mission had been designed to fail by a timid, spineless administration led by a timid, spineless president. Still, that shattering experience colored every decision he had subsequently made. There was no way he would allow American lives to be squandered the way they had been in April 1980.
There was another factor as well: this president. Hansen and Mercaldi were Washington veterans who had worked for administrations both Republican and Democrat. They had discussed it and agreed that neither had been a part of any administration so lacking in weltanschauung and strategic sophistication as the one they both now served.
They had also agreed earlier in the day that this particular meeting was neither the time nor the place to debate the tactical—or, for that matter, the strategic—issues surrounding a possible Abbottabad operation.
Bolin swiveled toward the SECDEF. “Sorry, Mr. Secretary. You’re right: we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves.”
Hansen was relieved to see the admiral stand down so readily. Besides, there was one more reason the SECDEF didn’t want to discuss specific tactics. He knew from previous experience that this commander in chief was a man who possessed very little background in military planning. Neither did this particular president possess a sophisticated understanding about the real-life imperatives of special operations missions—or just about any other military mission, for that matter. It was, Hansen thought, partially generational—this president had been nowhere near draft age when the draft was abolished—but also cultural. This president, Hansen had noted with increasing disappointment over the past twenty-four months, was virtually tone-deaf when it came to dealing with the military, military personnel, or military issues.
Which was why, even though Hansen was personally opposed to a direct assault on the Abbottabad compound, there was no way he was going to argue the case in this venue. He had already discussed the matter with Mercaldi, and they were agreed on one critical item: the Abbottabad mission would never be anything but capture/kill. With emphasis on the kill. Precisely how the mission would be executed, and how the president would be presented with their decision—and convinced to approve it—would be worked out at a later date.
Wes Bolin also knew of the secretary’s negative view about a possible assault on the Abbottabad compound. He had spent most of the early afternoon discussing Hansen’s opposition with Mercaldi. That was one of the primary reasons the D/CIA had insisted that Bolin accompany him to the White House. He wanted the SECDEF to see Bolin in action, and also allow the SEAL admiral to get a read on the secretary. The D/CIA’s advice was classic Vince. He’d advised the former Navy linebacker, “Know your adversaries, and prepare for every possibility.”
Which is exactly what Slam Bolin had been doing since before January. At Mercaldi’s invitation, on New Year’s Day he had assigned Captain Larry Bailey, one of his senior JSOC SEALs, as his personal liaison to CIA’s Bin Laden Group and sent him off to Langley. By then he had already replaced the National Security Council’s JSOC special warfare liaison, an Army lieutenant colonel, with a SEAL rear admiral. And he’d had elements of his Tier One units—Delta, DEVGRU, and the 75th Ranger Regiment’s Strike Force—training for an assault on UBL’s Abbottabad compound within days of CIA’s setting up Valhalla Base.
The troops just didn’t know it.
7
Dam Neck, Virginia
January 12, 2011, 0730 Hours Local Time
Troy Roberts loved to work the shoot houses. Which was a good thing, because now that he was back from Purgatory, he was spending a lot of time in them. He knew it was a cliché, but he still loved the smell of gunpowder, the adrenaline rush of shooting on the move, the unit integrity that came from knowing—really knowing—where every member of your team was every millisecond of the scenario, and the satisfaction of putting his rounds exactly, precisely where he wanted them to go.
Another reason he loved working in shoot houses was that they gave him—and the rest of his six-man assault element from Charlie Troop—the chance to practice over and over and over again the intricate, complex, sometimes problematical choreography of snatch and grab and capture/kill executed at close quarters, under high stress, and always contrapuntally against unforeseen events and the omnipresent Mr. Murphy of Murphy’s Law.
Because despite all the hours of rehearsals, all the force-on-force scenarios, all the endless repetitions that every man in DEVGRU was responsible for doing, Troy and his shipmates understood—because they’d been there—that no matter how well prepared you were, no matter how many times you’d rehearsed the scenario, no matter how much you honed your body and your mind and prepped your gear, in the real world Murphy’s Laws of Combat always apply. Troy’s favorite was Murphy’s original law: What can go wrong, will go wrong. But he was also a firm believer in a few of the others. He understood that no op-plan ever survives initial contact, that five-second fuses always burn just three seconds, and that if your attack is going perfectly, it’s an ambush.
And there was the one Murphy’s Law of Combat that, at least to Troy, summarized much of the thinking behind special operations: If it’s stupid but it works, it’s not stupid.
The shoot houses at Dam Neck, much like the one at top-drawer training facilities like the old Blackwater complex in Moyock, North Carolina, are multilevel structures with moveable walls and adjustable stairwells. They can be rigged to resemble an intricate warren of narrow hallways connecting small rooms, like the ones you’d find in Beirut’s southern suburbs or droguista hideaways in Bogota, Colombia, or the multilevel Iraqi villas common to the Triangle of Death, where Sunni Jihadis still lived, or walled Taliban compounds like the ones in Helmand Province, or even a couple of floors of the Taj Mahal Hotel and Tower in Mumbai. All you needed was a floor plan and the shoot house crews would build it for you.
Within twenty-four hours you could practice assaulting a Yemeni hovel or a Saudi prince’s palace; rehearse multiple simultaneous entries; blow doors with shaped charges or rake-and-break windows. You could work force-on-force using Simunitions—flesh-seeking, red- or blue-dye primer-powered rounds that stung like hell when you got hit—with one of the other assault elements playing the bad guys.
And then there was the occasional dog-and-pony show, when some VIP—the speaker of the house, the secretary of state, Prince Charles and Camilla—would visit the compound, and they’d sit inside one of the shoot house rooms and an assault element would show off all its bells and whistles and stage a live-fire hostage rescue using mannequin terrorists and the VIPs as the hostages.
The shoot house instructors loved to make life di
fficult. They would add nasty elements—invisible tripwires attached to flash-bang grenades, for example—to keep DEVGRU shooters alert. They’d start a scenario in total darkness and then turn the lights on, watching how the suddenly blinded shooters adjusted to their new situation. They would do their best to introduce Murphy’s Laws into every stage of every exercise, so that every single DEVGRU SEAL would be able to think on his feet and realize that rigidity ain’t no good and blindly following an op-plan just because it’s there can get you killed.
Lieutenant Colonel Pete Blaber, one of Delta’s better squadron commanders in the 1990s, had put it this way: “If you fail to prepare, you prepare to fail.”
DEVGRU’s shoot house instructors phrased it a little more starkly. A stenciled sign nailed above the entrance of Shoot House No. 1 at Dam Neck said it all:
DARWIN SUN TZU MUSASHI
ADAPT, OVERCOME, OR DIE!
This morning’s exercise would be a variation of the standard capture/kill template that had been in existence since 1983. It had been refined since then, of course, and DEVGRU’s equipment was a lot more sophisticated and its weapons a lot more efficient and reliable. Sure, now mission briefs were done on PowerPoints instead of using chalk on a blackboard, and you had drone and satellite imagery instead of drawings. But the core of capture/kill hadn’t changed in decades. In fact, it hadn’t changed in more than half a century.