The Secret Sentry

by Matthew M. Aid

  When Powell gave his U.N. presentation on the morning of February 5, he had already decided that some of the best intelligence he had to offer came from SIGINT. Although their content may have been ambiguous, he thought the tapes were powerful and made for good presentation—and they were also the kind of material that the Iraqi government could not easily refute.60

  Powell in the end chose to use only three of the NSA intercepts, all of which were unencrypted telephone calls among Iraqi Republican Guard commanders. All three were chosen because they purportedly showed that Iraqi officials were striving to hide what were believed to be WMDs from U.N. weapons inspectors. But as it turned out, the intercepts were far from conclusive on this point.61

  The first NSA intercept was of a November 26, 2002, telephone conversation between two senior Iraqi Republican Guard officers. The conversation centered on what was described as a “modified vehicle” that a Republican Guard unit possessed which had previously been “evacuated.” The vehicle was from the al-Kindi company, which Powell alleged was “well known” to be involved in the development of WMDs. It turns out that there had been considerable controversy within the U.S. intelligence community about the meaning of this NSA intercept. Before Powell traveled to New York City to give his presentation at the U.N., Vice President Dick Cheney and his staff had strongly argued that the import of the intercept was that the “modified vehicles” that the Iraqis were trying to hide had to be associated with long-range ballistic missiles because that was what al-Kindi historically had specialized in.62

  But declassified documents show that the State Department argued that because the intercept gave no details about the “modified vehicles,” the intercept could only be used to demonstrate that the Iraqis were trying to hide “something” from the returning U.N. weapons inspectors. What they were hiding nobody could say. A former NSA analyst at the time agreed with the State Department’s position, saying, “It could have been a souped-up Volkswagen Beetle that they were talking about for all we know.” The State Department also disagreed with Cheney and the CIA’s conclusion that the “modified vehicles” were most likely associated with long-range ballistic missiles because other portions of the intercept that were not played for the U.N. Security Council indicated that they were used in conjunction with more mundane surface-to-air missiles.63Only after Baghdad fell in April 2003 did U.S. intelligence officials learn the truth about what the two Republican Guard officers had been talking about. Captured documents and interrogations of Iraqi officials confirmed that the much ballyhooed “modified vehicles” were actually trailers modified by al-Kindi that carried equipment used by the Iraqi Republican Guard to make hydrogen gas to fill weather balloons, which Iraqi artillery units used to measure wind strength and direction for targeting purposes.64

  The second intercept that Powell used, dated January 30, 2003, was again a telephone conversation between two Republican Guard officers, where the sen-ior officer ordered the subordinate to “inspect” (not “clean out,” as Powell said) portions of the ammunition depot that he commanded. The conversation referred to “forbidden ammunition,” but did not indicate that there was any “forbidden ammo” actually at the facility. The order simply was to inspect his depot for anything relating to “forbidden ammo.” Powell made much of the fact that the senior officer ordered the subordinate to “destroy the message” after he had carried out the instructions contained therein. But again, there was considerable doubt within the U.S. intelligence community about the actual meaning of this intercepted message. According to a senior government official interviewed by the Washington Post, “U.S. intelligence does not know whether there was ‘forbidden ammo’ at the site where the radio message was received. The tape recording was included in Powell’s presentation to show that there was concern such ammo could turn up.”65

  The third message, intercepted “several weeks before” Powell’s presentation, in mid-January 2003, was a telephone conversation between two officers of the Second Republican Guard Corps in southern Iraq. The crux of the intercept was that the senior officer on the call told his subordinate to write down the following order: “Remove the expression ‘nerve agents’ wherever it comes up in the wireless instructions.” No copies of the wireless instruction in question were presented by Powell. Taken in isolation, and out of context, the intercept suggested that the Iraqis were trying to hide any references to nerve agents in their files. But as a now-retired State Department intelligence official put it, “We tried to argue to anyone who would listen that this snippet didn’t prove anything other than the fact that the Iraqis were trying to purge their files. But no one wanted to listen to our contrarian viewpoint, so we were ignored.”66

  It was not until after the successful conclusion of the U.S. invasion of Iraq that interrogators from the CIA and the U.S. military finally learned what all three of the intercepts were referring to. In the fall of 2002, Hussein, under enormous pressure from the French and Russian governments, agreed to comply with U.N. demands that he let weapons inspectors back into the country. At the same time, he issued an order to his military commanders to destroy any and all records relating to Iraq’s previous WMD programs “in order not to give President Bush any excuses to start a war.” As the Iraqis hurriedly began sanitizing their records of anything relating to their long-dormant WMD program in advance of the arrival of the U.N. weapons inspectors, a few of the instructions from Baghdad to field commanders were intercepted by NSA and led the intelligence community to conclude that the Iraqis were trying to hide their WMDs. The Iraqis’ attempt to “pretty up” their files so that the inspectors would find nothing that would give the Bush administration a casus belli backfired badly, providing the administration with exactly what Hussein had wanted to avoid at all costs— an excuse to invade Iraq.67

  But there was a price to be paid for making the intercepts public. NSA had argued strenuously against it, but to no avail. It did not take the Iraqis or al Qaeda in Iraq long to take appropriate countermeasures. Two weeks after Secretary Powell’s speech, al Qaeda leader al-Zarqawi suddenly stopped using his cell phone, killing off a vitally important source of intelligence.68

  Then on March 18, 2003, only a few days before the U.S. invasion of Iraq was to begin, the Iraqi government suddenly switched off all telephone service across Iraq, and the use of satellite and mobile phones was specifically banned by the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior, even by foreign reporters based in Baghdad. This closed off the last low-level sources of SIGINT that were then available to NSA about what was going on inside Iraq.69

  Conclusions

  The performance of the U.S. intelligence community prior to the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 was a complete and unmitigated disaster at all levels. The distinguished British defense correspondent and military historian Max Has -tings described the Iraqi WMD intelligence fiasco as “the greatest failure of western intelligence in modern times.”70

  NSA fared better than the CIA and the rest of the U.S. intelligence community in the subsequent congressional investigations, but only because so much of the criticism of the agency’s perfor mance was kept secret, including the fact that the fiber-optic network in Iraq had made it impossible for NSA to perform its mission. This was a chilling reminder that changes in telecommunications technology were making it increasingly difficult for NSA to do its job.71

  CHAPTER 14

  The Dark Victory

  NSA and the Invasion of Iraq:

  March–April 2003

  Rejoice! We conquer!

  —PHIDIPPIDES, GREEK MESSENGER AFTER BATTLE OF MARATHON

  The March–April 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, designated Operation Iraqi Freedom, is a case study of NSA’s massive SIGINT collection system mostly performing well, but not completely. But as will be seen in this chapter, the agency’s long-standing problem of not being able to quickly and efficiently process, analyze, and disseminate the intelligence that it collected showed up repeatedly in the lead-up to and during the invasi
on itself. And unfortunately, much of the intelligence NSA produced never made its way to the frontline army and marine field commanders who needed it the most.

  NSA’S Iraqi Surge Begins

  On Tuesday, February 11, 2003, NSA director Michael Hayden issued a secret directive called a Director’s Intent to all NSA components, warning that war with Iraq was near. “I intend to conduct a SIGINT and Information Assurance operation for the Iraq campaign that will meet the combatant commanders’ objectives of shock, speed and awe while also providing policy makers information that is actionable and timely. Success will be measured by our ability to limit the conflict geographically, secure regime change in Iraq, and dismantle Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.” 1

  Within hours, the agency’s sixty thousand military and civilian personnel began implementing long-standing NSA war plans to provide SIGINT support to General Tommy Franks’s CENTCOM for the upcoming invasion of Iraq.2 NSA then sent out classified “war warning” messages to its listening posts covering Iraq, ordering them to immediately ramp up their SIGINT collection efforts. 3 An Iraq Operational Cell was created within the National Security Operations Center (NSOC) in order to manage NSA’s SIGINT support for Operation Iraqi Freedom, and from this unit finished intelligence was disseminated in electronic form to cleared intelligence consumers in Washington and the Persian Gulf.4In addition, Brigadier General Richard Zahner, NSA’s associate deputy director of operations for military support, flew down to CENTCOM headquarters in Florida to coordinate NSA’s SIGINT support for General Franks’s combat troops.5

  Hundreds of military reserve and National Guard SIGINT operators and analysts were recalled to active duty. By the beginning of March 2003, 98 percent of all army reserves and 45 percent of all National Guard intelligence units were on active duty either in the United States or in the Persian Gulf. Beginning in January 2003, and continuing right up to the invasion, nearly five hundred army reserve and National Guard personnel, including dozens of Arabic linguists, began arriving by airplane and train at Fort Gordon’s Regional SIGINT Operations Center (GRSOC) to reinforce its SIGINT collection and analytic capabilities.6

  GRSOC’s primary task was to thoroughly map the locations and track the activities of Saddam Hussein’s seventy-thousand-man Republican Guard. Consisting of six divisions equipped with nine hundred Russian-made T-62 and T-72 tanks, the Republican Guard was nominally headed by Hussein’s thirty-six-year-old son, Qusay, although its actual military commander was its chief of staff, Lieutenant General Sayf al-Din Fulayyih Hassan Taha al-Rawi, a staunch Hussein loyalist and competent field commander who had been severely wounded in the 1980s while leading a counterattack against Iranian forces.7

  NSA wanted GRSOC to monitor 24-7 all radio and satellite telephone traffic coming in and out of the headquarters of the Second Republican Guard Corps at Salman Pak, south of Baghdad, which was commanded by one of the Republican Guard’s best field commanders, Lieutenant General Raad Majid al-Hamdani, who was responsible for protecting the southern approaches to Baghdad. Al-Hamdani’s corps controlled the Medina Division, at As Suwayrah, thirty-five miles southeast of Baghdad; the Al-Nida Division, at Baquba, thirty-five miles northeast of Baghdad; the Baghdad Division, at Al Kut, one hundred miles southeast of Baghdad; and the Third Special Forces Brigade, at the Al-Rasheed military airfield on the southern outskirts of Baghdad.8

  NSA’s Bad Aibling Station, in southern Germany, would provide SIGINT coverage of the activities of the ten Iraqi combat divisions deployed in northern Iraq. This coverage was deemed essential because CENTCOM planned for the U.S. Army’s Fourth Infantry Division to land in Turkey and invade northern Iraq. But the plan was discarded when the Turkish government refused to allow this.9

  However, NSA’s most urgent SIGINT assignment was finding and tracking Iraqi ballistic missile units, which the Iraqis supposedly could use to deliver chemical or biological weapons. NSA simply couldn’t come up with intercepts reliably associated with these units.10

  The U.S. Air Force war planners wanted every detail about the offensive operations of the Iraqi air force’s MiG fighters. NSA, however, picked up such limited traffic from enemy airfields that it informed U.S. Air Force war planners that the Iraqi air force’s estimated 325 combat aircraft were not flying at all. No U.S. Air Force or co alition aircraft were lost or even damaged in action by Iraqi MiG fighters.

  Ever since Operation Desert Shield/Storm in 1990–1991, NSA had closely monitored the Iraqi air defense forces. This coverage was now essential if the first air strikes inside Iraq were to be successful. SIGINT satellites scooped up all micro wave relay traffic throughout Iraq. U-2 and RC-135 reconnaissance aircraft equipped with sensitive SIGINT equipment constantly orbited over northern Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, intercepting the communications between Iraqi SAM and antiaircraft gun battery commanders. Right up to the invasion, intercept operators at Fort Gordon and Bad Aibling Station successfully monitored Iraqi radar operators tracking allied aircraft flying training or reconnaissance missions along the Iraqi borders, and NSA intercepted and analyzed the computer-to-computer data traffic between the Iraqi air defense operations center in Baghdad and its subordinate sector operations centers at Taji, Kirkuk, H-3, and Talil air bases. The Iraqi air defense traffic showed that Iraqi radar operators were paying close attention to U.S. Air Force flight activity over Kuwait and Turkey.11

  NSA was also responsible for helping the CIA and the FBI identify Iraqi agents operating in the United States and abroad who were tasked with launching terrorist attacks on American targets. The name given to this effort was Operation Imminent Horizon. Based in part on material gathered by NSA, on March 5 two diplomats at Iraq’s U.N. mission were declared personae non gratae and given forty-eight hours to leave the country.12

  But Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was not the only target that came under closer scrutiny by NSA and its foreign partners after General Hayden signed his war directive. In January 2003, NSA was tasked by the White House to monitor the communications of a surprisingly large number of international organizations, all of whom were key players standing in the way of the Bush administration’s strenuous efforts to convince the world community to join the U.S. and Britain and its so-called Coalition of the Willing in an invasion of Iraq.

  NSA and Britain’s GCHQ began intercepting all of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s telephone calls and e-mails, and a special eavesdropping device was surreptitiously planted inside Annan’s office suite on the thirty-eighth floor of the U.N. headquarters building in New York City; it recorded all of the private conversations held in his office. The U.S. and British governments were both concerned that Annan was personally opposed to the United Nations’ approving a resolution calling for war against Iraq.13At the same time, NSA and GCHQ mounted a joint “surge operation” to intensively monitor the communications traffic of governments with seats on the U.N. Security Council in order to determine whether they would vote for the resolution. Included were Chile, Pakistan, Angola, Guinea, Cameroon, and Bulgaria, all of whom were then being intensively lobbied to vote with the United States and Britain. A GCHQ linguist named Katherine Gun, who was shocked at what the United States and Britain were up to, confided the details to the British newspaper the Observer, which broke the story on March 2. A leak investigation ensued, and Gun was subsequently fired from her job after she was arrested for violating the Official Secrets Act.14

  As of January, NSA was also intercepting the communications traffic (calls, e-mails, cables, etc.) of the United Nations’ chief weapons inspector, Dr. Hans Blix, and his deputies. According to Bob Woodward of the Washington Post, President Bush was convinced that the Swedish diplomat was saying one thing in public and quite another privately in the intercepted UNMOVIC message traffic that Bush, as he interpreted it, was getting from NSA.15NSA was also monitoring the telephone calls and e-mails of Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, the director-general of the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), because of the White House’s intens
e dislike of his agency’s policies with regard to Iraq, which almost always ran contrary to what the Bush administration wanted.16

  CENTCOM Prepares

  On January 19, 2003, six days after General Hayden ordered NSA to war alert status, General Franks and 350 members of his staff flew to Camp As Sayliyah in Qatar, which was to serve as CENTCOM’s forward headquarters for the invasion. Accompanying them was a small team of NSA liaison officials and communicators who became known as the CENTCOM Cryptologic Services Group.

  In early March, as the final preparations for the invasion of Iraq were being made, small teams of U.S. Army, Marine Corps, and British SIGINT intercept personnel were secretly deployed, with the help of the Kuwaiti border police, to the Mutla Ridge, the heights that run along the full length of the Kuwaiti border with Iraq, to monitor the activities of the Iraqi army. One marine radio intercept team from the First Radio Battalion was moved up to border post 11 on the Shatt al-Arab waterway to listen to radio traffic coming from Iraqi forces deployed across the way in the port city of Umm Qasr.17

  One of NSA’s highest priorities was to look for any defensive preparations by the Iraqi Regular Army and the Republican Guard in southern Iraq. In January and February, SIGINT indicated that Iraqi forces were making surprisingly few preparations for war, despite the fact that the imminent invasion was front-page news in the United States and Western Europe. Radio intercepts revealed that the Iraqis were not moving any combat units, preparing defensive positions, making logistical preparations, or holding any training exercises. Radio traffic volume remained constant but very light, and the content of the low-level housekeeping radio traffic that NSA could access was amazingly routine.18