The Way of the Knife

by Mark Mazzetti

  “the nation has relied on mercenaries”: Author interview with two former senior CIA officials.

  “paying for all sorts of intelligence activities”: Ciralsky.

  lobbying their former agencies: Author interview with two former CIA officials.

  “Deniability is built in”: Enrique Prado e-mail, dated October 2007, released during investigation by Senate Armed Services Committee.

  the CIA had first proposed: Ciralsky.

  “We were building”: Ibid.

  vacuumed out of the shredder: Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., Hard Measures: How Aggressive CIA Actions After 9/11 Saved Lives (New York: Threshold Editions, 2012): 194.

  the CIA trying to cover its back: Details about the exchange between Hadley and Goss come from two former CIA officials and one White House official during the Bush administration.

  criminally liable for participating: Three CIA officers who attended the meeting with Andrew Card described the scene in the conference room.

  reaching nearly $8 billion in 2007: Dana Priest and Ann Scott Tyson, “Bin Laden Trail ‘Stone Cold,’” The Washington Post (September 10, 2006). See also, Wayne Downing, “Special Operations Forces Assessment,” (Memorandum for Secretary of Defense, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff, November 9, 2005).

  “Neither was easy to understand”: Stanley A. McChrystal, “It Takes a Network,” Foreign Policy (March/April 2011).

  extracted from thumb drives: Dana Priest and William M. Arkin, “‘Top Secret America’: A Look at the Military’s Joint Special Operations Command,” The Washington Post (September 2, 2011).

  sustained operations: Downing.

  “The future fight,” it read: Ibid.

  risky spying missions inside Iran: Author interview with two former senior Pentagon officials and a retired CIA officer.

  who was in charge of each front: Details about CIA and Pentagon negotiations come from two former CIA officers and Robert Andrews interviewed by author.

  missed Patek but killed several others: Information about the missile strike in the Philippines comes from four current and former CIA officers.

  give away the precise coordinates: Author interview with senior military officer who participated in the surveillance missions.

  officials took only hours: Information about the Damadola operation in 2006 comes from two former CIA officers.

  CHAPTER 8: A WAR BY PROXY

  payment for their services: Author interview with CIA, State Department, and congressional officials. See also, Mark Mazzetti, “Efforts by CIA Fail in Somalia, Officials Charge,” The New York Times (June 8, 2006).

  “cultivating supporters”: Director of National Intelligence, “Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States,” (declassified key judgments of the National Intelligence Estimate, April 2006).

  “People made relationships”: Robert Worth, “Is Yemen the Next Afghanistan?” The New York Times (July 6, 2010).

  al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula: The Interpol notice is cited in Bill Roggio, “Al Qaeda Jailbreak in Yemen,” Long War Journal (February 8, 2006).

  punishments like stoning adulterers: David H. Shinn, “Al Qaeda in East Africa and the Horn,” The Journal of Conflict Studies 27, no. 1 (2007).

  a weak and corrupt organization: Bronwyn Bruton, “Somalia: A New Approach,” Council on Foreign Relations, Council Special Report no. 52 (March 2010): 7.

  reopen some of its previously shuttered stations: Author interview with three former senior CIA officials.

  found themselves being extorted: Clint Watts, Jacob Shapiro, and Vahid Brown, “Al-Qa’ida’s (Mis)Adventures in the Horn of Africa,” Harmony Project Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, July 2, 2007, 19–21.

  the CIA was running guns: Author interview with State Department and congressional officials described Nairobi cables.

  “positive U.S. steps”: Cables from the American embassy in Tanzania to State Department, “CT in Horn of Africa: Results and Recommendations from May 23–24 RSI,” July 3, 2006.

  amassed a small fortune: “Miscellaneous Monongalia County, West Virginia Obituaries: Edward Robert Golden,” Genealogybuff.com. Also, Edgar Simpson, “Candidates Promise to Liven Last Days Before Election,” The Charleston Gazette (October 26, 1986).

  cutting up a piece of cardboard: United Press International, “Braille Playboy Criticized,” September 27, 1986. Also, “Debate with Stand-In Short in Fayetteville,” The Charleston Gazette (August 19, 1986).

  “It symbolizes a gentler way”: Ellen Gamerman, “To know if you’re anybody, check the list: In Washington, the snobby old Green Book is relished as a throwback to less-tacky times,” The Baltimore Sun (October 22, 1997).

  the transformation of Michele into Amira began: Author interview with Michele Ballarin.

  “He has appointed his chief”: The e-mails were first reported by Patrick Smith in the September 8, 2006, issue of respected newsletter Africa Confidential. More e-mail excerpts were included in a September 10, 2006, story in The Observer of the United Kingdom.

  the French debacle in Indochina in 1954: Ibid.

  A better bet, he said, was the Pentagon: Ibid.

  free to spend the day at the beach: Author interview with Bronwyn Bruton.

  it would try to ensure: Details of Abizaid’s visit to Addis Ababa comes from an American official stationed at the embassy at the time.

  ten thousand people displaced by the floods: United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, “OCHA Situation Report No. 1: Dire Dawa Floods – Ethiopia occurred on August 06, 2006,” August 7, 2006.

  senior ICU operatives: Details about the clandestine shipments into Dire Dawa come from two former military officials involved in the operation. The same officials described the makeup of Task Force 88.

  a small fishing village: Michael R. Gordon and Mark Mazzetti, “U.S. Used Base in Ethiopia to Hunt Al Qaeda,” The New York Times (February 23, 2007).

  kill his father: Human Rights Watch, “So Much to Fear: War Crimes and the Devastation of Somalia,” December 8, 2008. See also Bronwyn Bruton, “Somalia: A New Approach,” 9.

  CHAPTER 9: THE BASE

  “The ideal person”: Information in this chapter about Art Keller’s experiences in North and South Waziristan come from author interviews with Keller.

  “Eighteen months later”: Author interview with Arthur Keller.

  he held a grenade up: Amir Latif, “Pakistan’s Most Wanted,” Islam Online (January 29, 2008).

  the wrong photograph: Lisa Myers, “U.S. Posts Wrong Photo of ‘al-Qaida Operative,’” MSNBC (January 26, 2006).

  the uncomfortable position: Conflicts were also erupting between CIA officers in Afghanistan and those in Pakistan, battles that reflected the animosities between the two countries on both sides of a porous border. For much of 2005, the station chief in Kabul, Greg, had been writing reports about spasms of violence in Afghanistan and blaming Pakistan’s inability to control the militants crossing into Afghanistan from the tribal areas. CIA officers in Kabul were also receiving alarming reports about Pakistan’s complicity in the attacks from Amrullah Saleh, the director of Afghanistan’s spy service, a former fighter with the Northern Alliance who despised Pakistan and its historical ties to the Taliban. Greg had a particularly close relationship with President Hamid Karzai, and Karzai believed he even owed Greg his life. In 2001, when Greg was part of a Special Forces team inserted into Afghanistan at the beginning of the American invasion, he saved Karzai from being blown up by a Taliban bomb. The CIA station chief in Islamabad, Sean, thought the tight relationship between Greg and Karzai had warped CIA analysis in Afghanistan, and accused Greg of “going native” by accepting conspiracy theories spun by Afghan intelligence about Pakistan’s meddling in Afghanistan. Sean also believed that secret missions into Pakistan’s tribal areas by both JSOC and a CIA-trained Afghan militias, which the agency had named Counterterrorism Pursuit Teams, were an unnecessary risk and threatened to get the CIA kicked o
ut of Pakistan. The tribalism got so bad that Porter Goss intervened, calling both Sean and Greg to a meeting at the U.S. Central Command headquarters in Qatar in July as a way to get the two men in the same room and dampen tensions between the dueling CIA outposts.

  had converted to Islam: Greg Miller, “At CIA, a Convert to Islam Leads the Terrorist Hunt,” The Washington Post (March 24, 2012).

  nineteen thousand of them children: Earthquake Engineering Research Institute, “EERI Special Earthquake Report,” February 2006.

  “angels of mercy”: Trip report by Joint Chiefs chairman General Peter Pace, March 30, 2006.

  “We actually began to develop”: Author interview with Michael Hayden.

  an uneventful arrest: Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., Hard Measures: How Aggressive CIA Actions After 9/11 Saved American Lives (New York: Threshold Editions, 2012): 8.

  a mission bedeviled: Hayden’s description of hunting the courier network as a “bank shot” is in Peter L. Bergen, Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden—from 9/11 to Abbottabad (New York: Crown, 2012): 104.

  information that the CIA: Bergen, 100.

  critical proxies for its defense against India: Author interviews with five current and former American intelligence officials and one Pakistani official.

  phone calls between Pakistani spies and Haqqani: In 2008, shortly after the National Security Agency intercepted communications that linked ISI operatives to a bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul carried out by the Haqqani Network, Pakistan’s president, Asif Ali Zardari, pledged that the ISI would be “handled.” He assured American officials that, unlike his predecessor, he had no policy of using the ISI to cultivate ties to terror groups. “We don’t hunt with the house and run with the hare, which is what Musharraf was doing,” he said.

  “strategic asset”: David E. Sanger, The Inheritance: The World Obama Confronts and the Challenges to American Power (New York: Crown, 2009): 248.

  allow American troops to withdraw: Mark Mazzetti and David Rohde, “Amidst U.S. Policy Disputes, Qaeda Grows in Pakistan,” The New York Times (June 30, 2008).

  American financial support to Pakistan would continue: Ibid.

  incursions from the tribal areas into Afghanistan: Ibid.

  a CIA drone killed Khalid Habib: Pir Zubair Shah, “US Strike Is Said to Kill Qaeda Figure in Pakistan,” The New York Times (October 17, 2008).

  CHAPTER 10: GAMES WITHOUT FRONTIERS

  “A Mighty Wurlitzer”: Frank Wisner, quoted in Richard H. Schulz, The Secret War Against Hanoi: Kennedy’s and Johnson’s Use of Spies, Saboteurs, and Covert Warriors in North Vietnam (New York: HarperCollins, 1999): 129. Original citation of the “Wurlitzer” quote is in John Ranelagh, The Agency: The Rise and Decline of the CIA (New York: Touchstone, 1986): 218.

  convinced he had just received approval: Much of the material for this chapter is based on interviews with more than a dozen former executives at U-Turn Media/IMV, hundreds of pages of corporate documents, and discussions with current and former military and intelligence officials. Most of the U-Turn/IMV employees would not agree to have their names used because of nondisclosure agreements with the now-defunct company. Michael Furlong was also interviewed about his information-operations projects for the Pentagon.

  fishermen were even asked: Author interview with Robert Andrews. The Sacred Sword of the Patriots League is discussed further in Richard Schultz, The Secret War Against Hanoi, 139–148.

  “we all cursed it”: Author interview with Robert Andrews.

  ways to communicate: Early efforts were halting, and in 2004 a report by the Pentagon’s Defense Science Board—a panel that advises the Secretary of Defense—concluded that there was a “crisis” in America’s efforts to communicate its messages overseas. The war on terrorism, the report concluded, couldn’t be just about dropping bombs on mud huts, jailing terror suspects, and killing people with Hellfire missiles launched by remote control. There needed to be a softer side of the war, an effort to “counter violent extremism” in the parts of the world where the United States was deeply unpopular. Congress gave the Pentagon money to try to solve the problem.

  U-Turn was hired to help: U-Turn Media (PowerPoint presentation to SOCOM).

  “almost every waking minute”: U-Turn Media (Proposal to SOCOM, May 8, 2006).

  a contract worth just $250,000: SOCOM contract H92222-06-6-0026.

  named after a Lebanese commando unit: JD Media (Presentation to SOCOM, May 29, 2007).

  get them distributed in the Middle East: Michael D. Furlong, e-mail message to SOCOM officials, June 22, 2007.

  the Pentagon’s more basic requirement: Joseph Heimann and Daniel Silverberg, “An Ever Expanding War: Legal Aspects of Online Strategic Communication,” Parameters (summer 2009).

  how easy it might be for Russian intelligence: Information about the cables from the CIA station in Prague comes from two American intelligence officials.

  CHAPTER 11: THE OLD MAN’S RETURN

  the funding for the information program: Details about McKiernan’s desire for the AfPax contract comes from five current and former military officers in Afghanistan at the time, as well as three private contractors. The timeline for the events chronicled in this chapter comes in large part from a Pentagon investigation into a private spying operation run by Michael Furlong. The investigation’s final report, “Inquiry into Possible Questionable Intelligence Activities by DoD Personnel and Contractors” by M. H. Decker, was completed and given to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates on June 25, 2010. The report, hereafter referred to as the “Decker Report,” remains classified but a copy was obtained by the author.

  more American troops had died: Mark Mazzetti, “Coalition Deaths in Afghanistan Hit a Record High,” The New York Times (July 2, 2008).

  the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center: Decker Report, A-2.

  “I had to come up with a euphemism”: Author interview with Michael Furlong.

  a program the agency thought: Decker Report, A-3.

  Jan Obrman’s International Media Ventures: Ibid.

  classified military-intelligence databases: Decker Report, A-7.

  Both fluent in Dari, Pashtu, and Arabic: Michael Furlong e-mail.

  “Let’s be honest guys”: Michael Furlong e-mail.

  “Get used to it, world”: The War on Democracy, directed by Christopher Martin and John Pilger, 2007.

  “prying S.O.B.”: Douglas Waller, Wild Bill Donovan: The Spymaster Who Created the OSS and Modern American Espionage (New York: Free Press, 2011): 353.

  operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan: Some of the agents in Clarridge’s network still work undercover in Pakistan and Afghanistan, occasionally for the U.S. government, and the author has agreed not to reveal the identities or professions of the agents.

  “God willing, we will do it”: Intercepted conversation contained in Afghanistan military situation reports released by WikiLeaks.

  “moved an operative in” inside Pakistan: Michael Furlong e-mail.

  he would “need top cover”: Ibid.

  “huge potential for mistakes”: Decker Report, A-5.

  they entered the reports: Decker Report, A-6.

  Taliban fighters in the poppy-growing regions: Ibid., A-9.

  The assassin was his longtime bodyguard: “Afghan President’s Brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai Killed,” BBC News (July 12, 2011).

  missions that the CIA couldn’t accomplish: U.S. Central Command, “Joint Unconventional Warfare Task Force Execute Order,” September 30, 2009. The order remains classified, but a copy was obtained by the author.

  extremist networks and individual leaders of terror groups: Ibid.

  perhaps the most influential general: Decker Report, A-6.

  lying to his superiors: Three former military officers and two contractors with direct knowledge of the contents of the memorandum described the memo’s contents.

  “And I made it happen”: Author interview with Michael Furlong.

  “prepare approximately 200
local personnel”: Decker Report, A-9.

  CHAPTER 12: THE SCALPEL’S EDGE

  “We’ll continue saying”: Cable from U.S. embassy in Sana’a to State Department, “General Petraeus Meeting with President Saleh on Security Assistance, AQAP Strikes,” January 4, 2010.

  posted informants inside mosques: Michael Slackman, “Would-Be Killer Linked to al Qaeda, Saudis Say,” The New York Times (August 28, 2009).

  “We have a problem”: Cable from U.S. embassy in Riyadh to State Department, “Special Advisor Holbrooke’s Meeting With Saudi Assistant Interior Minister Prince Mohammed Bin Nayef,” May 17, 2009.

  leaving a smoking crater: “Profile: Al Qaeda ‘Bomb Maker’ Ibrahim al-Asiri,” BBC (May 9, 2012).

  a Saudi spy network in Yemen: “Al Qaeda Claims Attempted Assassination of Saudi Prince Nayef,” NEFA Foundation (August 28, 2009).

  “We will reach you soon”: Ibid.

  Brennan withdrew his name: Brennan denounced the CIA prison program after he joined the Obama campaign. However, several CIA officers who served with Brennan in 2002 do not recall him voicing his objections to the program at the time he was serving.

  Obama was just as committed: Cable from U.S. embassy in Riyadh to State Department, “Special Advisor Holbrooke’s Meeting with Saudi Assistant Interior Minister Prince Mohammed Bin Nayef,” May 17, 2009.

  the drone killings in Pakistan: Interview with two Obama administration officials who attended the meetings at the CIA.

  “Once the interrogation was gone”: Author interview with John Rizzo.

  the United States could use a “scalpel”: Speech by John Brennan on May 26, 2010, at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

  “none of the baggage”: Bob Woodward, Obama’s Wars (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010): 377.

  a military commander for a secret war: Panetta’s reaction to learning about the CIA drone strikes comes from two senior American government officials.