500 Days

by Kurt Eichenwald

  They had been considering a few options to deal with that, Bush said. If Blix couldn’t handle the job, maybe they should just provoke Saddam into a confrontation.

  “Blix mentioned at the U.N. that Saddam wouldn’t guarantee the safety for a U-2 reconnaissance flight,” Bush said. “So we were thinking of flying one over Iraq with fighter cover, but paint it with U.N. colors. Then, if Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach.”

  That would undoubtedly persuade every member of the Security Council to support a second resolution—or might even justify immediate military action against the Iraqi dictator.

  “We’ve also been thinking about bringing out a defector, and having him give a public presentation about Saddam’s WMD,” Bush said.

  Then there was one last option under consideration: assassinating Saddam Hussein. The lawyers at the Office of Legal Counsel had reviewed that alternative and concluded that Bush had the authority at a time of war to give an order for Saddam—or any other enemy he designated—to be killed.

  • • •

  At that same time, other Blair aides were in the office of Dan Bartlett, a close advisor to the president. The topic of discussion: the political nightmare enveloping the prime minister.

  Some 70 percent of British citizens opposed joining the United States in a military operation, said Alastair Campbell, a senior Blair aide. Without a second U.N. resolution, the prime minister’s government could be forced to sit out the war if it could not win wider public support.

  “We’ve really got our balls in a vise here,” Campbell said.

  Not a problem in the United States, Bartlett said. “We believe that both politically and legally we can go without a second resolution.”

  Minutes later, the group joined their bosses in the Oval Office to offer advice on the message they should convey at a press conference that was about to begin.

  “I’m up for the idea of saying that I’m open for a second resolution,” Bush said.

  “That’s a good way to frame it,” Rice said.

  Ari Fleischer, the White House press secretary, broke in. “I strongly disagree,” he said. “If we say that, it will be seen as a shift in U.S. policy. A better way to say it is that we’re hopeful that the U.N. will approve the second resolution, but we are prepared to move forward either way.”

  “Wait a minute,” Campbell said. “After everything Tony has said in press interviews, that’s going to end up with a ‘split’ story.” The president and the prime minister would be portrayed as being in disagreement.

  Blair and Bush listened impassively as their aides debated how to portray the meeting to the press. After several minutes, no agreement had been reached, and Bush grew tired of the discussion. He stood.

  “Let’s just do it,” he said.

  • • •

  Shortly after 4:10, Bush and Blair strode together down Cross Hall toward the East Room, where the press corps waited. Both men dispensed with opening statements. Bush called on Ron Fournier from the Associated Press.

  “Thank you, sir,” Fournier said. “First, quickly to the prime minister, did you ask President Bush to secure a second U.N. resolution and give the weapons inspectors more time?”

  Blair began his answer by saying that the U.N.’s November Resolution 1441 had been Saddam’s final chance to disarm and that Blix had subsequently established that the Iraqi leader was failing to meet his obligations.

  “What is important is that the international community come together and make it absolutely clear that this is unacceptable,” he said. “So this is a test for the international community.”

  Standing nearby, some of Blair’s aides winced. He had bobbed and weaved, and hadn’t answered the question—did he ask Bush to get a second resolution and give the weapons inspectors more time? But Blair couldn’t give a straight response; he didn’t know what Bush was going to say and it was imperative that they show unanimity in their plans. Above all else, they had to avoid creating the impression that Bush was waving off pleas from Blair.

  Second question, from Andrew Marr of the BBC. About seeking a new resolution, what was the status of that, and was it worth the effort?

  Uneasiness flashed across Bush’s face. His body language exuded discomfort.

  “This needs to be resolved quickly,” he said. “Should the United Nations decide to pass a second resolution, it would be welcomed if it is yet another signal that we’re intent upon disarming Saddam Hussein. But 1441 gives us the authority to move without any second resolution.”

  The answer virtually threw Tony Blair under a bus. Welcomed. Not “needed” or “encouraged” or even “hopeful to have.” If a second resolution showed up, well, that would be fine. But Bush didn’t much care—the United States could legally invade Iraq under the first resolution. He still didn’t know that Britain’s attorney general disagreed.

  As the short press conference ended, Campbell glanced at Sally Morgan, Blair’s director of political and government relations. She grimaced. Holding the press conference without proper preparation had been a mistake.

  • • •

  Major Nick Lovelace from the military’s Joint Staff Directorate for Intelligence sent an e-mail that week asking for more information on SERE techniques.

  His request went to Joseph Witsch, who had formerly conducted training at the Army’s SERE school. Witsch had known for months that the harsh methods employed in SERE training had been used at Guantanamo, which in his mind was a prelude to fiasco. He had warned his superiors against the idea, saying that the tactics might be usesful for toughening up American soldiers, but there was no evidence that they would work in a real interrogation. His objections had been ignored.

  Now the e-mail from Lovelace suggested that the Pentagon was pushing for an escalation of SERE tactics at Guantanamo. A working group on interrogation had just contacted him for additional details on how SERE worked, Lovelace said. Witsch replied that he had already provided that information to the Defense Intelligence Agency. Not enough, Lovelace said—the Pentagon needed more detail.

  Frustrated, Witsch wrote his own email to Lieutenant Colonel Dan Baumgartner, the chief of staff for the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency, which oversaw the SERE schools. He reiterated his objections to using SERE tactics at Guantanamo, this time more forcefully than before.

  Word would get out about what they were doing, he warned, and it would get out quickly. The backlash would be immediate. Their group would be blamed and investigated when Guantanamo interrogators went too far. None of them had any idea how the information they were providing to the intelligence units was being used.

  One problem, he wrote, was more important than the rest. “The physical and psychological pressures we apply in training violate national and international laws. We are only allowed to do these things based on permission from DOD management and intense oversight by numerous organizations within DOD. I hope someone is explaining this to all these folks asking for our techniques and methodology!”

  Witsch said that he understood interrogators might consider the tactics “cool,” and he was not suggesting that the SERE experts remove themselves completely from the effort. But it was reckless to simply toss information about the techniques to anyone who asked.

  “We must get a handle on all these people seeking information on our stuff,” he wrote. “This is getting out of control!!!”

  • • •

  Haynes arrived late to the February 4 meeting of the interrogation working group. “Sorry, everybody,” he said as he rushed into the room. “Let’s get going.”

  A draft “final report” on harsh tactics was passed around the room. Inside was a chart listing the various methods, each marked with a stoplight color. Green meant there was no reason to worry about legal ramifications. Those marked with yellow were lawful, but had problems that could not be eliminated. Red was saved for those that might be illegal or present other significant challenges.

  The report concluded that thirty-six t
echniques could be used to different degrees without moralistic fanfare. An additional ten options, the report said, ought to be reserved for exceptional cases. These included isolation, prolonged interrogation, slapping, and other abusive techniques. Only waterboarding was marked as “red,” but the report recommended its use anyway.

  Jane Dalton, the legal advisor to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, studied the chart with growing alarm. One column graded the techniques for their adherence to customary international law. In that category, all of them were marked as green; methods that any foreign body would deem illegal were now declared to be fine, because Yoo’s analysis decreed that international law had no sway in American jurisprudence. The premise, Dalton thought, was wrongheaded and an embarrassment to national honor. It would have to be removed.

  • • •

  In Conference Room A at the Cabinet Office Building in Whitehall, no one knew yet what was going on, but MI5 was working hard to find out.

  Operatives with the British security service had picked up a swirl of intelligence that al-Qaeda terrorists were planning a massive attack at London Heathrow Airport. The information was good, but sketchy; the terrorists intended either to shoot down civilian aircraft with surface-to-air missiles, or to hijack planes and crash them into the terminals.

  The February 10 meeting at Whitehall of the group—known as COBRA—had been called to weigh options for disrupting the attack. London police were already sweeping through the city, arresting suspects and anyone else linked to Islamic extremist groups. That program, the COBRA members decided, would continue. From there, they agreed to bring in the military, dispatching troops and tanks to Heathrow to serve as both a deterrent and an offensive force if the terrorists turned up. A third option, closing the airport, was raised. Blair rejected that; the British people would not accept such a drastic move unless the government turned up very specific information about a possible strike.

  Blair emerged from the conference room filled with pride at the diligence of Britain’s intelligence service in uncovering the plot in time to thwart it. He could not have known that the Americans would eventually claim credit for detecting the threat to Heathrow by waterboarding a terrorist suspect—one month after the COBRA meeting.

  • • •

  On the afternoon of February 10, Alberto Mora was walking down the hallway on the third floor of the Pentagon’s E-ring. Jim Haynes had asked him to drop by so they could discuss Mora’s thoughts about the draft report finished six days before by the working group.

  Mora was not going to have any good words about it. The report was as bad as—no, worse than—he expected. Again, it made no mention of limits on questioning techniques to ensure that interrogators didn’t violate laws forbidding cruel or degrading treatment. Either the lawyers running the working group didn’t know the law, or else they didn’t care about it.

  The process that led to the writing of the report was deeply flawed, Mora thought. Members of the group were allowed to voice their concerns about the proposed tactics. Then, without warning, their opinions were ignored. The Yoo memo dictated every answer—if his analysis said a proposal was lawful, then it was recommended. And there wasn’t much that Yoo considered unlawful.

  Mora had met with Yoo directly but emerged from that discussion even more convinced that the Justice Department lawyer was dangerous. He had never witnessed such unsullied arrogance. If Yoo thought something met the standards of law, well, then it did, period. Any disagreements were legal sideshows, he declared, pointless excursions into policy making. Mora decided to push Yoo’s opinion to its logical extreme and asked him if the president could lawfully order a detainee to be tortured. Yes, Yoo replied, he could.

  The only hope for stopping this madness, Mora thought, was Haynes, so he was delighted when the Pentagon general counsel invited him for a chat.

  Both Haynes and his principal deputy, Daniel Dell’Orto, were waiting for Mora in a conference room. “Thanks for coming, Alberto,” Haynes said. “So, I’m eager to hear your thoughts.”

  “They’re very negative, Jim,” he said. “The working group was a flawed process and it did not lead to a paper that’s a quality product.”

  He criticized Mary Walker, the group’s head, for ignoring dissident opinions. There were no clear standards set on how far any technique could go, and no restrictions explored on cruelty and degrading treatment.

  “This shouldn’t be issued,” Mora said. “What you should do is thank Walker for her service, then stick the report in a drawer and never let it see the light of day again.”

  Haynes listened, saying nothing as usual. Mora didn’t take that as a bad sign. He knew that there weren’t going to be any debates at this point.

  “So, those are my thoughts, Jim,” Mora said.

  Haynes paused a moment, then stood. He shook Mora’s hand. “Thanks for coming by, Alberto,” he said.

  • • •

  On First Avenue in Manhattan, Hans Blix arrived at the building that housed the American delegation to the U.N. and was taken to the office of the ambassador, John Negroponte. It was February 11, three days before Blix was scheduled to deliver his next report to the Security Council, and he had come to the American mission to provide Condoleezza Rice with a preview of what he planned to say.

  Three officials were waiting for him in Negroponte’s office—the ambassador, Rice, and John Wolf, the assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation.

  Blix began with a discussion of surveillance flights. At the time of his last report, the Iraqis were refusing to guarantee the safety of any U-2 that entered the country’s airspace, unless Blix accepted certain requirements. He had refused. Now that impasse was moot.

  “It’s my understanding that they have accepted U-2 surveillance without restrictions,” he said, “and we’d like to start the flights as soon as possible.”

  Overall, he said, there appeared to be more willingness among the Iraqis to cooperate actively. It was always possible that Baghdad’s seeming compliance was a delaying tactic, but he had no proof either way. The Iraqis turned over a lot of documents, none of them amounting to anything significant.

  And the Security Council wasn’t providing much help. “I must say, I haven’t been terribly impressed with the intelligence provided by member states so far,” he said.

  “That’s the nature of intelligence,” Rice replied. “It goes stale very quickly. We’re not withholding any intelligence, but that information is no substitute for what Iraq needed to do voluntarily.”

  Blix had to remember, she said, that American intelligence wasn’t on trial; Saddam Hussein was.

  Neither Blix nor Rice knew the magnitude of the American intelligence community’s failure to assist the U.N. inspection effort. The agencies had identified 105 sites that were the most probable hiding places for weapons of mass destruction. Despite public proclamations by Tenet and other top intelligence officials that all of this information had been shared with Blix, it had not; twenty-nine of those locations—about 30 percent—had been withheld.

  Still, Rice insisted, Saddam was compelled to disclose his weapons, whether the U.N. team could find them or not. “The aim of Resolution 1441 was to force Iraq to make a strategic decision to disarm,” she said, “but he’s still playing a process game. He can’t be allowed to get away with that.”

  Saddam was undermining the credibility of the Security Council, she said, and yet the international body was showing a weakening resolve to enforce its own resolutions. The United States was not going to stand by and endlessly tolerate wavering.

  “This issue is quickly coming to an end,” she said.

  • • •

  Shortly before noon on February 17, a young police officer on a motor scooter parked at Piazza Maciachini in Milan. He began to lock his bike when a dark Volkswagen zipped up behind him. The driver opened his window.

  “I’m Bob’s friend,” he called out in perfect Italian. “Get in!”

  The officer, Luciano Pi
roni from the Carabinieri, felt a rush of excitement. This nameless, fortysomething man worked with Bob Lady, the CIA officer who had told Pironi in August about the agency’s plan to kidnap a resident of Milan. Lady had agreed to give Pironi a role in the operation, and now, after weeks of practice, the day for the abduction had finally arrived.

  Pironi climbed into the passenger seat, and the car took off. The two men barely spoke. After a few minutes, they reached a side street called Via Bonomi and came to a stop just before the intersection with Via Guerzoni.

  For several minutes, the two men remained still and silent. The driver’s mobile phone rang. On the line was Lady, letting him know that their subject, Abu Omar, was on the move.

  “Yes, all right,” the driver replied.

  He started the car and drove to the intersection of Via Guerzoni and Via Davanzati. Then, they watched.

  • • •

  The heavyset, bearded man was walking briskly down Via Ciaia, coming from Piazza Dergano. He arrived at Via Guerzoni. Ahead of him, a Volkswagen sat in the intersection.

  • • •

  There he was. Pironi and the driver saw Abu Omar.

  “You’re going to have to stop him near the white van parked over there, on Via Guerzoni,” the driver said, pointing at the vehicle.

  “All right.”

  A telephone rang. It was the Samsung cell phone that Lady had given to Pironi for the operation.

  “Don’t answer that,” the driver said.

  Pironi nodded and removed the battery from the phone.

  The driver turned the key and headed down Via Guerzoni toward Abu Omar. He came to a stop and Pironi got out, standing in the middle of the road as the target approached.

  “Sir!” Pironi called out in Italian, flashing his badge. “Let me see your papers.”

  Abu Omar looked perplexed. “I don’t speak Italian,” he said in English.

  Pironi switched languages. “All right,” he said. “Let me see your passport.”