The Great War of Our Time: The CIA's Fight Against Terrorism--From Al Qa'ida to ISIS

by Michael Morell

  Muammar Qadhafi’s departure from the scene in Libya in 2011 was a good thing in that it prevented the slaughter of thousands of his own citizens. But what followed was a failed state that provided room for extremist groups to flourish. At the end of the day, are the Libyan people better off after their revolution than before? I’m not so sure. Certainly what occurred in Libya was a boon to al Qa‘ida all across North Africa and deep in the Sahel, which includes parts of Mauritania, Mali, and Niger. The fledgling government that replaced Qadhafi’s lacked even a rudimentary ability to govern, militias with various ideologies reigned in large parts of the country, and much of Qadhafi’s stockpiles of conventional weapons were openly available throughout the country and, because of poor or nonexistent border security, the region.

  Because of this lack of governance, during the spring and summer of 2012, the security situation across Libya, particularly in the eastern part of the country, was deteriorating and extremism was on the rise. CIA analysts accurately captured this situation, writing scores of intelligence pieces describing in detail how the situation in Libya was becoming more and more dangerous. One of them from July was titled Libya: Al Qa‘ida Establishing Sanctuary. These pieces were shared broadly across the executive branch and with the members and staff of the intelligence committees in Congress. This was not welcome news to some of those senators who had supported the overthrow of Qadhafi. A senior DOD official told me that at one closed-door hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, he was taken to task for being too pessimistic about developments in eastern Libya.

  Normally I would not be able to confirm the existence of a CIA base overseas, let alone describe its mission. But because of the tragic events in Benghazi on September 11, 2012—and the controversial aftermath—the Agency’s role there has since become declassified, which allows me to discuss it here.

  The city of Benghazi was vitally important in Libya. It had been the center of much of the opposition to Qadhafi for years, and it remained a key outpost used by the United States to understand developments during the revolution and to influence key players in eastern Libya after Qadhafi. CIA had established a presence there with the mission of collecting intelligence in eastern Libya, to include on terrorists there, which had long been a hotbed of extremism as well as the birthplace of many key Libyans in the leadership of al Qa‘ida. The CIA base in Benghazi performed this mission well. Contrary to some press reporting, the CIA base in Benghazi did not play any role in moving weapons from Libya to the opposition in Syria—and neither did any other CIA officer or facility in Libya.

  The State Department facility in Benghazi has been widely mischaracterized as a US consulate. In fact it was a Temporary Mission Facility (TMF)—a presence that was not continuously staffed by senior personnel and that was never given formal diplomatic status by the Libyan government. The TMF included a large plot of land that housed numerous buildings. The CIA base—because it was physically separate from the TMF—was simply called “the Annex.”

  In the months leading up to the September 11 attacks, many assaults and incidents directed at US and other allied facilities occurred in Benghazi—roughly twenty at the TMF alone—and CIA analysts reported on every significant one, including an improvised explosive device (IED) that was thrown over the wall of the TMF, an attack on the convoy of the UN special envoy to Libya, and an assassination attempt against the British ambassador to Libya.

  As a result of the deterioration in security, we at CIA at least two times reevaluated our security posture in Benghazi and made a number of significant enhancements. It was only later—after the tragedy of 9/11/12—that we learned that only a few security enhancements had been made at the TMF. CIA does not provide physical security for State Department operations. Why so few improvements were made at the TMF, why so few State Department security officers were protecting the US ambassador, Chris Stevens, why they allowed him to travel there on the anniversary of 9/11, and why they allowed him to spend the night in Benghazi are unclear (I would like to know the conversations that took place between Stevens and his security team when the ambassador decided to go visit Benghazi on 9/11/12). These were all critical errors. The reader will remember from the previous chapter that my security detail would not even allow me to spend the night in Tripoli, and the leader of my security team brought what seemed to me like a small army to Libya to protect me.

  With the anniversary of 9/11 on the horizon and the security situation throughout much of the Arab world in flux, in early September CIA sent out to all its stations and bases worldwide a cable warning about possible attacks. I don’t want to imply that there was any particular intelligence regarding planned attacks. There was not. We routinely sent such cables each year on the anniversary of 9/11—but we did want our people and their US government colleagues to be extra vigilant.

  We also sent an additional cable to Cairo because we had picked up specific intelligence from social media that there might be a violent demonstration there in reaction to an obscure film made in the United States that many Muslims believed insulted the Prophet Muhammad. The social media posting encouraged demonstrators to storm our embassy and kill Americans. It turned out that our embassy in Cairo had independently picked up the same social media report and had already taken precautions. The ambassador and most of her staff were not at the Cairo embassy on 9/11/12 when a mob breached the walls of the compound, setting fires, taking down American flags, and hoisting black Islamic banners. Eventually Egyptian security forces restored order, although the news of what the protesters had accomplished in Cairo spread quickly through Arab media, including to Benghazi.

  On September 11, 2012, I was in Amman, Jordan, in the middle of meetings with intelligence counterparts in the region. I had already been to Israel and was due the next day to depart for Saudi Arabia. Earlier in the day I had seen reports about the incident in Cairo that, although troubling, seemed to have ended without too much damage and with no injuries. I had dinner with the head of the Jordanian military and the head of Jordanian intelligence, and upon returning to the hotel I checked in with Washington and caught up on e-mail before going to bed. I was woken from a sound sleep by a knock on the door from one of my assistants, who told me that another incident had taken place, this one at the State Department facility in Benghazi, and that CIA security officers had responded in order to assist. My assistant told me that one State Department officer had been killed and the ambassador’s whereabouts were unknown. She said that everyone else had relocated to the CIA base in Benghazi and was believed safe, adding that our chief of station (COS) in Tripoli was sending security officers as reinforcements from Tripoli to Benghazi.

  Early the next morning, my assistant banged on my door again to tell me that the CIA base was now under heavy attack. I threw on some sweats and made my way to my command post, just down the hall from my room. In the command post was a security tent that covered two tables holding secure phone lines and computers capable of accessing CIA’s top secret network.

  At CIA we make use of an instant messaging program called Sametime for informal quick communications among our personnel worldwide. I “sametimed” the Agency’s chief of station in Tripoli to ask him for an update and to see if I could help him in any way. But I did not want to be a pest. On my mind was the thought that the last thing our senior officer in country needed was to be micromanaged by the Agency’s deputy director.

  During our back-and-forth messaging over Sametime, the chief recounted what he knew about the attack on the Annex, which had by that time just concluded. He told me two officers had been killed in a mortar attack on the Annex—I simply typed, “I am sorry”—bringing the total number of Americans killed to four, including Ambassador Stevens, who had been reported dead at a Benghazi hospital. Stevens was a legend in the diplomatic corps for his understanding of Arab culture and for his ability to work effectively in it. The others were Sean Smith, a State Department communications officer, killed at the TMF, and Glen Doherty and Tyr
one Woods, two security officers, both killed at the Annex.

  Over our nearly two-hour on-again, off-again instant messaging conversation, the COS said that he had decided to pull his people out of Benghazi and was working on getting transportation for them and the State Department personnel back to Tripoli. I asked him several times if he needed anything, if I could help in any way. He said he thought he had everything he needed at the moment. I told him that I wanted “to know when everyone is safe,” adding that I was heading to the embassy in Amman and that he could reach me there. I signed off by typing, “Hang in there. I am praying for you.” When I stepped away from the computer, I told my staff that I was very impressed with how the COS was handling a very difficult situation and that I was proud of him. He was calm and determined—and was making all the right decisions.

  From the embassy in Jordan, I called Director Petraeus and told him that I thought I should cut my trip short. He agreed. I hung up the phone and told my staff, “We are going home.”

  * * *

  Dave Petraeus is one of those larger-than-life figures, with a reputation borne of real and significant success on the battlefield as well as a multitude of media stories about him. But to know him—to be his deputy—was a real lesson in leadership. He taught me a great deal. He was effective at driving an organization in the direction he wanted it to go—concerning himself with everything from a large strategic initiative like leadership training to a specific type of weapon he wanted to provide our allies overseas. He accomplished this through sheer force of personality—he would not stop pressing, he would not stop asking about the follow-through on a directive until it was done.

  Like almost all directors, Petraeus came to love CIA. He walked into my office on a Friday afternoon in the fall of 2011, just two or three months after arriving. He shut the door and sat down. He said, “Michael, I’ve been the commander of CENTCOM and the commander of coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I can tell you that this is the best job that I’ve ever had. Bar none. The mission here is critically important, and the capabilities of this place are unique. And the people here are the best I have I worked with anywhere. I am very lucky.” I know he meant every word.

  Unfortunately, the organization did not feel the same way about him. He did not connect with most of the people of the organization the way Panetta did. Part of it was that he created the impression through the tone of his voice and his body language that he did not want people to disagree with him (which was not true in my own interactions with him). And part of it was that his expectations of what a staff would do for him—borne of being a four-star general—were inconsistent with the Agency culture. This all improved over time, and he was missed after he departed.

  Petraeus was very good to me. He allowed me to manage the Deputies Committee process and the day-to-day operations of the Agency—keeping him fully informed along the way. He also consciously made an effort to mentor me, to make me a better officer. I was sorry that circumstances required his early departure from the Agency, and I know that no one feels more than he does that he let the organization down.

  I first learned about his extramarital affair on November 8, 2012, the night before he resigned, just two days after the 2012 presidential election. He had not come to work during the day or communicated with me—despite visiting with the president in the afternoon and asking, through staff, that I attend an NSC meeting on his behalf. At about nine p.m., he finally called. His tone was decisive, as always. He walked me through the entire story of the affair. He told me, “Michael, I am going to resign,” saying that he had made a terrible mistake and his resignation was a first step toward redemption. He added that his focus now was to save his marriage and his family and that “I cannot accomplish that and run the Agency at the same time.” He read me the note to the workforce that he had drafted. I did not know how to respond, so I kept repeating the phrase “I understand.”

  The next afternoon I took a phone call from the president of the United States. He shared with me that Petraeus’s resignation was unfortunate but understandable and he asked me if I would again serve as his acting director of the Central Intelligence Agency, saying, “We need now, more than ever, stability at the top.” I of course said yes immediately. I owed it to both the Agency and to General Petraeus.

  * * *

  My return to Washington on the morning of September 13 coincided with the beginning of a long process of piecing together what had happened in Benghazi. It took weeks before most of the details were known. My understanding of what happened was shaped in large part by an intelligence community analysis—led by the National Counterterrorism Center and coordinated fully with CIA analysts. This was the best information available to us at the time and was completed a number of weeks after the attacks and shared with the two congressional intelligence committees. This analysis was based on all available sources, most important the video feeds from both the TMF and the Annex.

  * * *

  There are a number of myths about what happened during the nighttime and early-morning hours of the Benghazi attacks. One misconception is that there was a single four-hour-long battle. Another myth is that the attacks were well organized, planned weeks or even months in advance. In fact, there were three separate attacks that night, none of them showing evidence of significant planning, but each of them carried out by Islamic extremists, some with connections to al Qa‘ida, and each attack more potent than the one before. Since the definition of terrorism is violence perpetrated against persons or property for political purposes, each attack in Benghazi was most definitely an act of terrorism—no matter the affiliation of the perpetrators, no matter the degree of planning, and no matter whether the attack on the TMF was preceded by a protest or not (an issue that would take on enormous political importance in the weeks and months ahead).

  The first attack was on the State Department’s Temporary Mission Facility. We know from having monitored social media and other communications in advance that the demonstration and violence in Cairo were sparked by people upset over a YouTube video that portrayed the Prophet Muhammad negatively. We believe that in Benghazi—over six hundred miles away—extremists heard about the successful assault on our embassy in Egypt and decided to make some trouble of their own, although we still do not know their motivations with certainty. Most likely they were inspired by the prospect of doing in Benghazi what their “brothers” had done in Cairo. Some may have been inspired by a call Ayman al-Zawahiri—the leader of al Qa‘ida in Pakistan—had made just the day before for Libyans to take revenge for the death of a senior al Qa‘ida leader of Libyan origin in Pakistan. Still others might have been motivated by the video—although I should note that our analysts never said the video was a factor in the Benghazi attacks. Abu Khattala, a terrorist leader and possibly one of the ring leaders of the attacks, said that he was in fact motivated by the video. Khattala is now in US custody and under indictment for the role he played in the assault.

  I believe that, with little or no advance planning, extremists in Benghazi made some phone calls, gathering a group of like-minded individuals to go to the TMF. When they attacked, at about 9:40 p.m. local time, the assault was not well organized—they seemed to be more of a mob that had come to the TMF with the intent of breaching the compound and seeing what damage they could do. This was my interpretation of what I saw on the video feed from the cameras at the TMF and the Annex. And it was also the interpretation of the intelligence community analysts who watched the video.

  When you assess the information from the video, there are few signs of a well-thought-out plan, few signs of command and control, few signs of organization, few signs of coordination, few signs of even the most basic military tactics in the attack on the TMF. Some of the attackers were armed with small arms; many were not armed at all. No heavy weapons were seen on the videotape. Many of the attackers, after entering through the front gate, ran past buildings to the other end of the compound, behaving as if they were thrill
ed just to have overrun the compound. They did not appear to be looking for Americans to harm. They appeared intent on looting and conducting vandalism. They successfully broke down some doors but failed to do so with others, often in what would appear to be a farcical fashion, if you did not know that tragedy was about to take place. When they did enter buildings, they quickly exited with stolen items. One young man carried an Xbox, another had a suit bag stolen from an American’s quarters. The rioters started to set fires, but there was no indication that they were targeting anyone. They entered one building with Americans hiding inside, did not find them, and quickly departed. Through it all, none of the Department of State security officers at the TMF fired a weapon.

  Clearly, this was a mob looting and vandalizing the place—with tragic results. It was a mob, however, made up of a range of individuals, some of whom were hardened Islamic extremists. And it was a mob that killed two Americans by setting fires to several buildings. After reviewing the information in the video, I was in favor of releasing it publicly. Doing so would have helped Americans better understand the nature of the attack. I do not know why the White House did not release the information—this despite urgings to do so from Jim Clapper, the director of national intelligence, and from other senior intelligence officials, including me. The videos, at this writing, still have not been declassified.

  The ambassador and Sean Smith were in the main building when a fire was set there, and the thick black smoke that quickly enveloped the building suffocated them. There is no evidence that the attackers were targeting the ambassador specifically or US officials generally when they set that fire or any of the other fires that night.

  About an hour after the mob stormed the compound, officers from the CIA base came to the aid of their State Department colleagues. The Agency security team fired the first American shots of the night, exchanging gunfire with the attackers, pushing them back, and then helping the State Department security officers search (unsuccessfully) for the ambassador. They recovered the body of Sean Smith, and unable to find the ambassador, organized a retreat to the Annex. The State Department officers had to fight their way to the CIA base, speeding past a roadblock just down the street from the TMF. Our officers took a different route and returned to the CIA base without incident.