Authors: Aki Peritz,Eric Rosenbach

Find, Fix, Finish (40 page)

BOOK: Find, Fix, Finish

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Policymakers, legislators, and jurists all along the political spectrum will stumble and continue to make ill-advised choices in the nebulous fight against terrorism. Despite the efforts of hundreds of thousands of law enforcement officials, case officers, analysts, military personnel, customs officials, diplomats, and others, people with violent tendencies will attack civilian targets for political reasons. Some of them will succeed. But terrorists are not lurking behind every wall, around every corner, or up every tree. As John Brennan, Obama’s deputy national security adviser for homeland security and counterterrorism, wrote in February 2010, “[Al-Qaeda does not] deserve the abject fear they seek to instill . . . and the notion that America’s counterterrorism professionals and America’s system of justice are unable to handle these murderous miscreants is absurd.”
⁵¹

The US has the tools at its disposal and the political will to grapple with and attack the murderous group called al-Qaeda. The true test will nevertheless come not from finding, fixing, or finishing the terrorist threat, but instead from the way we accomplish this goal. President John Adams quipped two centuries ago that government is “little better practiced now than three or four thousand years ago,” and his deeply cynical insight may well be true.
⁵²It is, however, this system of government that offers the best chance of keeping America and Americans safe from the protean menace of terrorism.

In this imperfect vessel, for better or for worse, we place our trust.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book is the product of many people generously providing their time, expertise, and good humor. Certain individuals prefer to remain anonymous for personal and professional reasons, but they have our sincere thanks. We would like to thank our agent, Matthew Carnicelli, for his ability to navigate the choppy waters of the publishing world, as well as the hardworking folks at PublicAffairs who made this book possible: Clive Priddle, Jaime Leifer, Melissa Raymond, and Chrisona Schmidt. We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Ingrid Gustafson and David Millar, who performed months of research in service of this publication.

We would also like to thank Spencer Ackerman, Dick Best, Dick Clarke, Jack Cloonan, Charles Cogan, Ken Dilanian, Senator Bob Graham, Jack Goldsmith, Senator Chuck Hagel, Blake Hall, Ishmael Jones, Eric Joyce, Nicholas Karnaze, Juliette Kayyem, John McLaughlin, Renny McPherson, David Mesrobian, Cameron Middleton, Heba Morayef, Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, John Paine, Piers Platt, Jessica Reitz, Richard Russell, and James Wolfe. Special thanks go to Mieke Eoyang, Matt Bennett, Sean Gibbons, Jill Pike, and Bill Rapp at Third Way for their support of this project.

Finally, I (Aki) would like to thank my wonderful wife, Dana, who stayed up night after night to edit draft upon draft of this book. Without her assistance and encouragement,
Find, Fix, Finish
would not have seen the light of day.

APPENDIX I: LIST OF ACRONYMS

AFRICOM Africa Command

AQAP Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula

AQI Al-Qaeda in Iraq

AUMF Authorization for Use of Military Force

BSS British Security Service

CIA Central Intelligence Agency

COS Chief of Station

CSG Counterterrorism Security Group

CTC Counterterrorism Center

DCI Director of Central Intelligence

DEVGRU Naval Special Warfare Development Group

DHS Department of Homeland Security

DIA Defense Intelligence Agency

DITSUM Defense Intelligence Terrorism Summary

DNI Director of National Intelligence

EIJ Egyptian Islamic Jihad

EIT Enhanced Interrogation Technique

FBI Federal Bureau of Investigation

FISA Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act

FM Field Manual

GCHQ Government Communications Headquarters

GID General Intelligence Department

HAMAS Harakat al-Muqāwamah al-Islamiyyah

HUMINT Human Intelligence

HVD High Value Detainee

HVT High Value Target

IC Intelligence Community

ICU Islamic Courts Union

IIS Iraqi Intelligence Service

IRA Irish Republican Army

IRTPA The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act

ISI Inter-Services Intelligence

JAG Judge Advocate General

JeM Jaish-e-Mohammed

JSOC Joint Special Operations Command

JTAC Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre

JTJ Jama’at a-Tawhid wa Jihad

JTTF Joint Terrorism Task Force

KSM Khalid Shaykh Mohammed

LeT Lashkar-e-Taiba

LIFG Libyan Islamic Fighting Group

MI5 Military Intelligence-5

MI6 Military Intelligence-6

MNF-I Multi-National Force–Iraq

MON Memorandum of Notification

NCA&T North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University

NCTC National Counterterrorism Center

NIC National Intelligence Council

NIE National Intelligence Estimate

NRO National Reconnaissance Office

NSA National Security Agency

NSC National Security Council

NYPD New York Police Department

ODNI Office of the Director of National Intelligence

OIF Operation Iraqi Freedom

OLC Office of Legal Counsel

OSP Office of Special Plans

PCTEG Policy Counter Terrorism Evaluation Group

PDB President’s Daily Brief

PDD Presidential Decision Directive

QJBR Tanzim Qa’idat al-Jihad Fi Bilad al-Rafidayn

SAR Synthetic Aperture Radar

SCIF Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility

SCIRI The Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq

SDR Surveillance Detection Route

SEAL Sea, Air, and Land Teams

SF Special Forces

SIGINT Signals Intelligence

SIS Secret Intelligence Service

SOCOM Special Operations Command

SOF Special Operations Forces

SSCI Senate Select Committee on Intelligence

SSE Sensitive Site Exploitation

TATP Triacetone Triperoxide

TFG Transitional Federal Government

TTP Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan

TTP Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures

UAV Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

UCMJ Uniform Code of Military Justice

UNSC United Nations Security Council

USA-PATRIOT Act Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act

WMD Weapons of Mass Destruction

APPENDIX II: IBN SHAYKH AL-LIBI TIMELINE

• September 11, 2001—Al-Qaeda attacks NYC and Washington DC

• September 20, 2001—President Bush declares “war on terror”

• October 2001—US-led coalition invades Afghanistan

• October 2001—USA-PATRIOT Act passes Congress

• November 2001—Al-Libi is captured in Pakistan

• December 2001—Pakistan turns al-Libi over to US at Kandahar air base

• December 2001—Al-Libi is transferred to Bagram air base

• January 2002—The CIA transfers al-Libi to the USS
Bataan

• Late January 2002—The CIA transfers al-Libi to Egyptian custody

• Late January 2002–February 2002—Al-Libi provides information that al-Qaeda agents traveled to Iraq for training

• February 2002—The DIA publishes DITSUM 044–02, which casts doubt on the truth of al-Libi’s testimony

• March 2002—The CIA establishes the first “black sites”

• Summer 2002—Support builds for the Iraq War

• August 1, 2002—John Yoo writes the “torture memo”

• September 2002—The CIA’s
Iraqi Support for Terrorism Report
casts doubts on al-Libi’s statements

• September 2002—DCI Tenet and National Security Adviser Rice use al-Libi’s statements as proof of an Iraq-al-Qaeda link in testimony

• September 2002—Undersecretary of Defense Feith and Deputy Secretary of Defense Wolfowitz found the Office of Special Plans

• October 1, 2002—The IC delivers the Iraq NIE to Congress

• October 7, 2002—Bush references al-Libi’s testimony in his Cincinnati speech

• October 10, 2002—Congress authorizes the use of military force against Iraq

• November 8, 2002—The UNSC releases Resolution 1441, which claims that Iraq is in breach of cease-fire agreements

• January 2003—The CIA’s
Iraqi Support for Terrorism
report is updated and more broadly disseminated

• February 5, 2003—Secretary of State Powell presents the US case for war with Iraq to the UN

• Early 2003—Egypt returns al-Libi to US custody; he is reportedly detained in Afghanistan

• March 19, 2003—Operation Iraqi Freedom begins

• June 2003—The Office of Special Plans is dissolved

• October 2003—Undersecretary Feith sends
Summary of Body of Intelligence on Iraq–Al-Qaeda Contacts,
which references al-Libi’s testimony, to members of Congress

• January 2004—Al-Libi recants his testimony and alleges torture by the Egyptians

• February 2004—Al-Libi is reportedly transferred to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; CIA learns of his recantation

• February 2004—Senior administration officials learn of al-Libi’s recantation

• April 2004—News of abuse at Abu Ghraib breaks

• June 2004—In an interview with CNBC, Vice President Cheney argues that an al-Qaeda–Iraq connection exists

• June 2004—The torture memo is leaked to the press; CIA suspends the use of enhanced interrogation techniques

• July 2004—The media first publishes accounts of al-Libi’s recantation

• July 9, 2004—The SSCI releases its first assessment of prewar intelligence on Iraq

• September 2004—The Iraq Survey Group concludes that Iraq did not have an active WMD program

• October 2005—DITSUM 044–02 is declassified

• Early 2006—The US transfers al-Libi to Libyan custody

• September 6, 2006—President Bush orders the CIA to transfer fourteen HVDs from black sites to Guantanamo Bay

• September 8, 2006—The SSCI releases its Phase II reports, which include descriptions of al-Libi’s recantation and harsh interrogation

• November 2006—The Democrats gain a congressional majority in the midterm elections

• February 9. 2007—The Pentagon’s inspector general releases a report on the Office of Special Plans that finds the organization’s work “inappropriate”