Ghost Wars

by Steve Coll

  In Ziauddin’s fall from power the CIA’s South Asia branch had lost an ally. The general was dull-minded and his authority was weak, but at least he was cooperative, always ready to hold a meeting. Now the CIA had to establish a new relationship with Mahmoud. If Pakistani intelligence could be turned to the American agenda, it offered by far the fastest, easiest path to disrupt al Qaeda’s Afghan sanctuary and capture or kill bin Laden.

  The CIA began to research Mahmoud’s biography, looking for a way to establish a connection with him. He was an artillery officer. He had served with Musharraf in the same unit earlier in their careers. Case officers discovered that when Mahmoud was a student at Pakistan’s elite officers’ college, he had written his thesis on the battle of Gettysburg. The new Islamabad station chief, known to his colleagues as Bob, talked with Mahmoud about visiting the United States to meet with counterparts at Langley, including George Tenet. The CIA promised to arrange an expert guided tour of Gettysburg. It would be a chance for intelligence officers on both sides to get to know each other better.2

  The U.S. embassy in Islamabad already had a passing acquaintance with Mahmoud. Pakistan’s army prohibited ambassadors or station chiefs from making official visits to corps commanders, but the Americans saw Mahmoud anyway. The general’s duties with the Tenth Corps meant he sometimes received dignitaries at the Islamabad airport, and he occasionally socialized on the capital’s diplomatic circuit. He seemed to be a general of a certain Pakistani type: British in comportment, spit and polish in appearance, disciplined and correct. He wore a waxed handlebar mustache in the colonial style. He obviously was an ardent nationalist, and his authorship of the Kargil raid suggested the depths of his animus toward India. Yet on the surface he did not seem to be an unusually religious general. He spoke openly with the Americans about the need to bring military discipline and chain-of-command authority to Pakistan’s intelligence service. These private comments could be interpreted as a repudiation of how Ziauddin had tried to politicize ISI to protect Sharif and flank the army, but they also hinted at a desire to manage Pakistani intelligence more closely, to rein in rogue elements—or so some of the Americans who talked with Mahmoud that winter chose to believe.3

  Clinton’s national security advisers, still divided over how to react to Musharraf’s coup, debated early in 2000 about whether the American president should visit Pakistan. Clinton had committed to visit India in March. The Secret Service maintained that a stopover in Pakistan would be too dangerous. Pakistani intelligence could not be trusted to protect details of Clinton’s itinerary, they argued, and there were too many motivated, well-equipped terrorist groups in the region. Al Qaeda or Taliban squads might move Stingers from Kandahar and fire at the American president’s plane. Musharraf’s government, watching India lobby hard in Washington to persuade Clinton to shun Pakistan, pushed the White House for a reciprocal visit. Lanny Davis worked Capitol Hill. In Islamabad the government made gestures on terrorism. Mahmoud volunteered to help the CIA take custody of two Arab militants, one with an American passport, who had been secretly detained by Pakistani police. Musharraf announced that he was “actively considering” a trip to Kandahar to lobby Mullah Omar to hand bin Laden over to the Americans.4 It was in many ways a cynical charm offensive, designed to compete with India’s diplomacy. It did not mark a shift in Pakistan’s jihad strategy. Pakistan’s army had long ago learned that it could earn credits with the Americans, especially with the CIA and FBI, by cracking down on relatively small numbers of al Qaeda terrorists who were not important to Pakistan’s policies in Kashmir or Afghanistan.

  The tactic seemed to work again: Clinton decided in March on a one-day visit to Islamabad. Clinton’s decision had many facets. He wanted to coax Pakistan away from nuclear dangers, promote American engagement, and cultivate regional stability. Partly because there were so many sensitive issues, Clinton’s team did not want to push the Pakistani army too hard on terrorism. Reading the American agenda attentively, Musharraf quietly allowed Kashmiri radical groups with close ties to ISI and al Qaeda—including one whose leader signed bin Laden’s original 1998 fatwa declaring war on the United States—to reorganize and dramatically expand their recruitments across Pakistan on the eve of Clinton’s trip.5

  Clinton’s visit was one of the strangest in presidential history. He was the first American president to visit Pakistan since Richard Nixon in 1969.6 By defying advice to stay away he forced the Secret Service into an elaborate, deception-laden security regime for the Islamabad stopover on the way back from India. “We’re going to show them a new look,” a Secret Service agent announced on the tarmac in Bombay, adapting the language of American football coaches to the challenge of counterterrorism. A Clinton lookalike wandered between two white executive jets and boarded one marked with the presidential seal. The real president slipped into an unmarked CIA G-5. His aides were already aboard; the window shades were drawn shut.

  “Are we going to have these windows down the whole time?” Clinton asked. “I can’t fly like that.”

  “Mr. President, as soon as we get up in the air …”7

  Clinton seemed indifferent to the threat of Stingers. He napped, did a crossword puzzle, and then took a short briefing from his Pakistan specialists. On the ground in Islamabad his double walked conspicuously to the terminal, prepared to draw the fire of assassins. When all proved safe, Clinton slipped into an armored car for a ride down Islamabad’s broad avenues to a meeting in Musharraf’s modern boxy office complex. There were no waving crowds; the Secret Service had ordered that the roads be absolutely clear.8

  On a balcony downtown Clinton looked out and remarked, “I don’t see any people around.”

  “Mr. President, you can’t because we were asked to make sure that there weren’t any people around,” one of his hosts from the Pakistan foreign ministry explained.

  “Oh, really? I didn’t know that.”

  “Didn’t you notice that from the airport to this place there weren’t any people around?”

  “Yes, it did strike me.” They joked about how it was now possible to visit a country without actually seeing anyone who lived there. Recalled the Pakistani official: “It was really quite humiliating, there’s no question about it.” Many elite Pakistanis felt that Clinton had treated their entire nation like the inmate population of a medium-security prison.9

  Clinton and Musharraf talked for almost two hours, surrounded by aides for all but a few minutes. The Americans listed their talking points in the usual order of priority: nuclear proliferation, regional tensions, and economic issues, then terrorism and other problems. Clinton’s counterterrorism aides said later that there were worries about whether Musharraf would survive long in office, and so they did not want to talk about bin Laden in front of Pakistanis of “uncertain loyalties.”10

  In a smaller session with Musharraf, recalled National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, Clinton pressed “very hard” and told the general “to use Pakistan’s influence with the Taliban to get bin Laden.” A Pakistani official present remembered Clinton worrying aloud that bin Laden would acquire weapons of mass destruction. Musharraf said he would do as much as he could. But he urged engagement with the Taliban to encourage good behavior. The next day Musharraf told Thomas Pickering that Pakistan had little leverage in any event.11

  Clinton spoke live on Pakistani television for fifteen minutes. Through the relative safety of a broadcast camera lens he warned the people he had not seen against the “danger that Pakistan may grow even more isolated, draining even more resources away from the needs of the people, moving even closer to a conflict that no one can win.”12

  The CIA used the visit to secure Mahmoud’s commitment to travel to the United States. The ISI chief flew to Washington in April. The agency arranged for a private tour of the Gettysburg battlefield, escorted by a teacher from the U.S. Army War College at Carlisle Barracks in Pennsylvania. Gary Schroen and other CIA officers came along as well. Their tour guide had spent many ho
urs walking the battlefield park to retrace the 1863 command decisions of Robert E. Lee. Mahmoud came alive and talked animatedly about battle tactics, personalities, and the fateful turning points of the American Civil War. The Pakistani general was relaxed, talkative, seemingly engaged. The CIA men had made a personal connection with Mahmoud, a first step toward deeper cooperation or recruitment, it seemed.13

  There were limits to their hopes. Officers in the bin Laden unit at the Counterterrorist Center remained deeply skeptical that Mahmoud or any other Pakistani general would ever do the right thing about the Taliban. Also, when Mahmoud talked with CIA officers at Langley and with officials at the White House, he often seemed to condescend and evade. One official who met with him recalled, speaking caustically, “His orientation toward the Americans was to attempt to educate us about the complexities of that area of the world. With very little prompting he would do me the kindness to bring out a map and show me how high the mountains are, how difficult it is to operate.”14

  These sorts of repetitious frustrations with ISI generals and brigadiers had built to the point where at least a few American officials suggested that Clinton present an ultimatum: Either Pakistan moved to cut off aid to the Taliban, or it would be placed on the official list of countries that supported terrorism. But Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Hugh Shelton and others at the Pentagon urged caution. Shelton remembered that he “vacillated a couple of times” during these months as he tried to decide whether America had crossed into appeasement of Pakistan or whether it just had to accept the obstacles and continue to engage. General Zinni of CENTCOM declared that Pakistan “may hold the key to stability in Afghanistan and Central Asia.” America had to keep reaching out, he argued. The Clinton national security team forged an informal compromise: The CIA’s Near East Division and Islamabad station would try to butter up Mahmoud and recruit him into partnership, while other American officials would try to pressure him hard.15

  Thomas Pickering had become Clinton’s diplomatic intimidator, a designated bad cop assigned to deliver tough messages that other officials in liaison roles felt they could not afford to send. A bald, bulky diplomat with several decades of experience in political and intelligence issues, Pickering often leaned into his guests as he spoke, and he could unfurl rapid-fire sentences with direct and solemn force. In his office above C Street on April 4, 2000, Pickering lit into Mahmoud about Pakistan’s support for the Taliban. He warned that the Taliban were harboring terrorists who had killed Americans. “People who do that are our enemies, and people who support those people will also be treated as our enemies,” Pickering intoned. Pakistan ought not to “put itself in that position.” Of course, announced American policy still offered the Taliban hope of reward if it reformed, and American officials never called Mullah Omar an enemy in public. After earlier reports of sharp tensions between Taliban leaders and bin Laden, U.S. intelligence discovered that the Taliban’s Council of Ministers had unanimously endorsed its alliance with al Qaeda at the end of 1999. Mullah Omar had even reportedly executed Taliban dissenters over the issue. Pickering warned Mahmoud that U.S. policy was on the verge of a turn: Washington might even sanction support for Ahmed Shah Massoud in the Afghan war if the Taliban did not do something about bin Laden soon.16

  Mahmoud flew back to Pakistan and quickly arranged a trip to Kandahar to meet with Mullah Omar. Classified Pakistani papers later discovered in Kabul describe the talking points Mahmoud carried to the meeting. The Pakistani intelligence chief told Omar that the situation was becoming serious. Mahmoud listed America’s demands: “Nothing short of the extradition of Osama bin Laden to a place where he could be brought to justice would satisfy the U.S.” Also, “Washington wants immediate results.” If the Taliban refused to comply, the Americans were demanding that Pakistan end all support.17

  Even more dramatically, Mahmoud reported, the Americans might endorse “missile attacks targeting the Taliban’s military assets. Osama—and even Omar himself—could be targeted.” In addition, “Russia and its allies could be given the go ahead to embark on hot pursuit against terrorists” into Afghanistan. They could bomb strategic targets in northern Afghanistan, “thereby eliminating the military potential of the Taliban to the complete advantage of Ahmed Shah Massoud… . The U.S. and Russia could coordinate their actions in pursuance of the above measures.”18

  It was all a bluff. The Clinton administration was not prepared to follow through on these sorts of threats. Pickering had opened a few talks with Russian intelligence about possible cooperation on Afghanistan but nothing so advanced as what Mahmoud reported to Mullah Omar. Richard Clarke and others had urged missile strikes against Taliban targets, but Sandy Berger, among others, remained opposed. Still, the United States could always make threats. Perhaps the Taliban would capitulate.

  Mahmoud asked Omar to “resolve the Osama bin Laden issue before it is too late… . The U.S.must be given a plan of action. The Osama issue also affects Pakistan because his aides are using Pakistan as a transit point.”

  The Taliban leader replied, according to Mahmoud’s report, that he “wanted to get rid of Osama but did not know how.”19

  It was impossible for the Americans to tell how sincerely Mahmoud pressured the Taliban at this meeting.Was it all just for show, winks all around? Or did Mahmoud truly believe it would be better for Pakistan if bin Laden was gone? The Americans could see that Pakistan’s army continued to play the Afghan issue both ways in the spring and summer of 2000. Mahmoud might relay American threats, but ISI was not prepared to cut off oil, money, or military supplies to the Taliban. When FBI Director Louis Freeh met Musharraf in Lahore on April 6 and pleaded for help on bin Laden, he found the general “polite but unhelpful.” Musharraf explained that he had “personal assurances from Mullah Omar” that bin Laden was innocent of terrorism.

  When Musharraf met with Omar’s interior minister in May, he did not threaten any economic punishment, and he did not even demand that bin Laden be handed over. Musharraf said instead he might revive the idea of forming an Islamic court to try bin Laden, a proposal long ago rejected by the Clinton administration. George Tenet flew secretly to Islamabad and met with Musharraf on June 21. Musharraf accepted his proposal for a joint working group on terrorism. Tenet said he was not asking the Pakistanis to deliver bin Laden the next Tuesday—he was “ambitious but not crazy,” he said. The Americans were lowering their expectations, accepting Musharraf’s stall.20

  Meanwhile, there was the war against Massoud: On the ground in Afghanistan that summer, Pakistani volunteers poured across the border to fight with the Taliban against the Northern Alliance.

  It was around this time that the Pakistani intelligence chief began to talk openly with some of his colleagues about a new Islamic religiosity in his life. Explaining what he meant, speaking in English, Mahmoud said that he had become a “born-again Muslim.”21 In the gossip-obsessed parlors of elite Islamabad, a casual confession like that from the chief of ISI got around. Eventually the American embassy learned of it, too. Neither the embassy’s diplomats nor the Pakistani officials who worked more closely with Mahmoud were quite sure what to make of his private declarations about Islam. The general did not grow a beard or proselytize openly or ask his wife to take the veil at home—a step so rare among the Pakistani elite that it would have signaled a powerful conversion. Still, in the roiling sea of ambiguity that was ISI and the Pakistan army, the notion that a born-again Muslim was now in charge of the intelligence agency and the jihad campaigns seemed foreboding.

  Some of his colleagues saw Mahmoud as angry and hurt in part because of the dressing down he had taken from Pickering in Washington. Pakistan’s generals and diplomats were proud but easily bruised. “He went back feeling very humiliated,” one senior Pakistani official recalled. “And he told the CIA forces, ‘You brought me here, and I don’t need to listen to this. I thought you wanted to engage and hear from us.’ ”22

  Whatever the cause, CIA officers could see that soon af
ter Mahmoud returned from Washington that spring, he began to shut them off. The official CIA-ISI intelligence liaison in Islamabad went cold. CIA officers had been able to meet with Ziauddin once a week or more often if they wished. Now they could barely get in to visit Mahmoud once a month. The daily paper exchanges of intelligence continued, but the high-level partnership between the CIA and Pakistani intelligence turned icy. There was no prospect, for instance, that a secret Pakistani commando team to capture bin Laden could be revived. Musharraf delivered a speech that summer declaring that he had completed a review of Pakistan’s policy toward Afghanistan, and he had decided to carry on as before. Mahmoud Ahmed had seen Gettysburg. Now he had his own wars to tend.23

  SAUDI ARABIA COMPETED with Pakistan for the status of America’s most frustrating counterterrorism ally. As on Pakistan, the Manson Family in the bin Laden unit of the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center took one of the hardest lines. Time after time the CIA asked the Saudi interior ministry or its intelligence department for help investigating specific al Qaeda operatives and cells. The agency’s frontline officers felt they got next to zero cooperation. They could only guess at Saudi motives. They knew that the kingdom’s politically insecure royal family convulsed whenever news of their helping the Americans became public, out of fear that such publicity would aid their Islamist opposition. Even the most confidential terrorism investigations in the American system inevitably leaked to the press. That seemed to be one reason that the Saudis refused to get involved. Some among the Manson Family wondered, in addition, whether the Saudis had forged some kind of unofficial pact with bin Laden in which he agreed to concentrate his fire on the United States, away from Saudi Arabia. That certainly seemed to be the effect, if not the conscious intent, of Saudi interactions with bin Laden. Even if there was no such formal understanding, the Saudis seemed to regard American worries about bin Laden as alarmist, overwrought.24