Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror (36 page)

Branco and I shared thoughts about the ongoing conflict in Bosnia, where essentially his government and mine were on different sides. It was a purely professional exchange, tinged with some sense of the human cost of the war.

At one point Branco leaned into me over lunch and lamented the deaths of so many young men. He talked especially about Serb grief, with one- and two-child families now the norm, and then it happened. “But these Muslim families,” he continued with a wave of his hand, “they are so large, what does it matter to them?”

There is little point in arguing. Just don’t agree or even seem to agree. Sit there, expressionless, not allowing yourself the almost instinctive head nod signaling “transmission acknowledged,” hoping that the episode passes quickly and you can get back to useful dialogue.

It took a while, but one night as I was preparing for an overnight hop to another destination on a foreign trip, the thought struck me. What of my side of these dialogues did our partners dismiss as American mythology? When I talked about self-determination? Cultural pluralism? The curative effect of elections? And when were my partners patiently waiting while I finished before we got back to “serious” talk? I never figured that out, but the longer I did this, the more certain I was that it had to be going on.

There was another danger that you always had to be alert to. Contrary to specious claims that US intelligence outsources its dirty work, we are not allowed to assist or enable a partner to do things that we ourselves are not allowed to do. We can’t even suggest that it might be a good idea.

I was in a private meeting with Gabi Ashkenazi, the thoughtful head
of the Israeli Defense Forces. After showing me a large photo of an Israeli F-15 missing-man formation over the Nazi death camp at Birkenau—a stern reminder of “never again”—we sat down on his sofa to discuss Iran. He asked me what I thought might be the best way to slow down the Iranian nuclear program.

As I’ve noted, besides enriching uranium at Natanz, the Iranians were building confidence and knowledge there. And that confidence and knowledge went home at night in the persons of key Iranian nuclear scientists. Putting any broader considerations aside, the best way to slow the program down was to kill the scientists. I did
not
raise it. I didn’t even suggest it as a theoretical possibility or an interesting talking point. I just sat there, with nothing particularly useful to say.

So there were always challenges. American (and CIA) values, laws, interests, and policies are
never
totally coincident with those of an allied service, not even a close one. The job of intelligence is to work in the common space for common goals while minimizing the impact of (or changing) the dissonant elements.

I spent an afternoon on the Nile with Omar Suleiman, the sonorous head of the Egyptian service, listening to his wise counsel on Israel and the Palestinians. He was the most knowledgeable and effective go-between we had on that question, and he was a tough counterterrorism partner to boot. We gained much from the relationship.

I wondered at the time, though, and still do, if we might not have pulled our punches on other questions—like working contacts within the Egyptian opposition, including the Muslim Brotherhood—for fear of alienating Omar on these other critical issues. If we did, it was to the harm of us
and
our Egyptian partners.

During a visit to Egypt in August 2008, Omar asked me to stay longer to visit with President Mubarak, for whom he was as much consigliere as intelligence chief. They were close, coming from military backgrounds, and Omar had backstopped Mubarak against political opposition for more than a decade.

Mubarak wasn’t available on Friday, the Sabbath, so we filled our time
with taking in the pyramids of Giza, the Sphinx, and the Egyptian Museum. Even with the Egyptian intelligence service smoothing the way, traveling the hot, teeming, and boisterous streets of Cairo was a challenge. It made one wonder how the unity of Egypt, shaped by the country’s deep history, would fare against the obvious fractures in the country’s modern society.

The next morning was brilliantly clear as our small group made its way to the presidential palace, set in the tony suburb of Heliopolis, which was eerily like a ghost town as shops and restaurants were shuttered and empty, presumably because of Mubarak’s presence. Omar ushered us into the president’s office, where I sat at the end of a couch near the president’s chair, within arm’s reach of Mubarak, as he began a long critique of US policy and President Bush’s freedom agenda.

We had no idea of the situation here, he began, obviously referring to ongoing US support for pro-democracy activists and to pressure to release political prisoners. This meddling was a misguided and self-defeating strategy, he said. We didn’t understand the true nature of his opponents, especially the Muslim Brotherhood. Democracies develop differently, he added, and at different speeds. “His” people were not yet ready.

Mubarak was impressively sharp at eighty years of age, but also decidedly paternalistic, not just toward his citizens, but to me. Occasionally, he would lean forward, put his hand on my arm, confide to me that he knew that we were both military officers (both air force, in fact), absolve me of personal blame, and then resume his tirade. I believe that he referred to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as “that woman.”

Mubarak had been governing Egypt since 1981 under an emergency law that expanded police powers and limited constitutional rights, and it was clear that he had no intention of stopping. Omar was the primary agent for implementing that, but he was mostly quiet throughout this session. This was the president’s show. Omar’s job had been to deliver the audience.

A bare thirty months later, events were to prove that neither Mubarak nor Suleiman had as good a handle on the situation in Egypt as they
thought. No telling if a little more democracy delivered a little earlier would have spared Egypt its serial revolutions, but it probably wouldn’t have hurt.

I never saw Omar again personally, but I did catch him on national television during his brief stint as Mubarak’s vice president, a desperate move made at the height of the Tahrir Square demonstrations. Omar’s usual confidence was visibly shaken in these appearances, and he slipped from public life after a short, ill-advised flirtation with running for the presidency. He died, suddenly, in the summer of 2012 while at a US hospital in Cleveland.

We rarely visited Egypt, or anywhere else in the Middle East, without stopping in Saudi Arabia. When we did, King Abdullah usually made time for us. He had a purpose. Abdullah was passionate about Iran, urging us to “cut off the head of the snake” and warning us to be careful not to “lose our aura” in the region.

Steve Kappes and I once visited the king at his farm (some farm—gardens, fountains, etc.) in Morocco. I extended an overseas trip and flew there from Brazil; Steve came directly from Washington. The Moroccan service kindly scurried to accommodate us, and we drove from Rabat to Casablanca to await our late-night (actually early morning) appointment with Abdullah. The monarch, moving slowly with cane in hand, quite unexpectedly met us at the entryway to his estate house. We had a lot of time for the king. He obviously had time for us.

Steve and I had left a few members of our staff on the corniche in Casablanca as we departed for the royal farm. They filled the time shopping the kiosks and souvenir stands. When they discovered that they were in the section of the souk hawking bin Laden dolls and al-Qaeda T-shirts, they decided that they had shopped enough.

Adel al-Jubeir, the savvy Saudi ambassador in Washington, would usually translate for the king. Adel knew America and CIA well; he was a graduate of the University of North Texas and Georgetown, and since his home was just down Chain Bridge Road from Langley, he was always a welcome guest at CIA for tea and conversation. In one such session he
related how Abdullah had deep concerns about America’s troubled Iraq policy. In what was clearly a bow to American pragmatism, Adel told us that he had responded, “Your Majesty, these are Americans. If it’s not working, they’ll change it.”

During one trip to Jeddah, we dropped in on one of Adel’s predecessors, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, who had served over twenty years as the kingdom’s emissary in Washington. Bandar was then secretary general of Saudi Arabia’s recently created National Security Council; he apparently wanted to sustain his American connections, and we were more than happy to meet with the garrulous, USAF-trained ex–fighter pilot.

It was a delightful and informative evening (once again, it was actually early morning), capped off by Bandar gifting me with a large, framed photo of President Roosevelt meeting King Abdul Aziz bin Saud, the founder of the kingdom, on the cruiser
Quincy
in Great Bitter Lake along the Suez Canal in February 1945. Roosevelt was returning from Yalta and was obviously near death (he died two months later), but the scene commemorated the unspoken contract between the two men and the two countries: oil for security, security for oil. Bandar was messaging.

I hung the photo in my Langley office, not least because the uniformed translator kneeling between the two leaders was Colonel Bill Eddy, a member of OSS, CIA’s organizational ancestor.

My actual counterpart in Saudi Arabia was Prince Muqrin, the youngest surviving son of Abdul Aziz. Muqrin was head of the General Intelligence Presidency, the external intelligence service. He had been an air force pilot, schooled in Great Britain with some later military education in the United States. He was very comfortable in English and a good friend, but the GIP was short on resources.

Muqrin did manage to convene a meeting of intelligence chiefs from regional Sunni states to talk about Iraq. I hesitated: it would be a tough, short trip; the session would comprise prepared formal statements rather than dialogue; and no one was going to share any real secrets. But I really had to attend. Our final work product was an undramatic description of the situation in Iraq and some modest statements of support for the US
and coalition effort there. Before we adjourned, I suggested that maybe next time we could invite the Iraqis. The intel chief in Baghdad
was
a Sunni, after all.

Prince Mohammed bin Naif (MBN, as we referred to him) was head of the all-powerful Mabahith, the kingdom’s internal intelligence and investigative service and our primary point of contact in Saudi Arabia. Mohammed had been educated in Oregon with additional professional classes with the FBI and Scotland Yard. He was an incredibly tough counterterrorism professional; he ruthlessly dismantled al-Qaeda in the kingdom following AQ’s attacks on Western housing compounds in 2003. But he also established the best jihadi rehabilitation program in the world, relying on faith and family to recapture souls. And when Mohammed briefed me on the program at his seaside villa near Jeddah, he insisted that my wife—who has a master’s degree in counseling—accompany me.

MBN will likely be the next king of Saudi Arabia. He is now crown prince behind his uncle, eighty-year-old King Salman.

Another near-mandatory stop in the region was Amman. Actually, it was always a welcome stop: Arab hospitality, great food, and a society broad-minded enough that you could order a glass of good wine at the hotel without guilt.

Abdullah II of Jordan was as approachable as his Saudi counterpart, Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, was regal. At a small informal lunch at the royal residence in Amman, we had to dodge the tricycles and other toys spilling out of the children’s playroom. When the king is in the United States, he motorcycles our back roads in the company of a close American friend, a former CIA senior.

Deep Jordanian-American security cooperation flowed from 1951, when Abdullah’s father, Hussein (then fifteen), witnessed the assassination of Abdullah I, Hussein’s grandfather, at the hand of a Palestinian terrorist as the royal pair was leaving the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. Within the year Hussein succeeded his mentally ill father to the throne, and Jordan’s intelligence service, the General Intelligence Directorate (GID), was established—the latter with significant American help.
Keeping the moderate Hashemite dynasty safely on the throne was in the interest of both countries.

Cooperation continues to this day. During one of my visits to Amman I accompanied the king for the formal opening of GID’s counterterrorism center, a facility built with American advice and assistance and within which American work spaces had been provided. After I had left government, the tragedy at Khost in December 2009, which cost the lives of seven CIA officers and contractors, also took the life of a GID case officer (a royal, in fact, cousin to the king) with whom the agency had been working.

I never got the sense that relations between Abdullah and the Bush administration were particularly close. Given its history with Jordan, the agency was happy to step in. Like his Saudi counterpart, Abdullah spent a lot of time talking to us about the dangers posed by Iran, both in Iraq and throughout the region. He was particularly forceful about the underlying pathology and ultimate folly of trying to win Sunni hearts and minds with an Iraqi army dominated by Iran and Iranian-backed militias and steeled with augmentees from the Quds Force and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

These weren’t just empty complaints; Abdullah paid his dues. At our strong urging and against the advice of some of his leadership, the king in August 2008 became the first Sunni head of state to visit Baghdad. He also welcomed Iraqi prime minister Maliki to Amman that same year. Operationally, GID was the only Sunni intelligence service that pulled its weight in Iraq. With Sunni tribes straddling the border, it was an invaluable partner.

Some of this was self-interest. Iraqi refugees were a threat to stability in Jordan. The poor who were displaced from Iraq were a social burden and a potential security threat; the rich who had fled were driving housing prices in Amman out of the reach of Jordanians. Both groups were problems.

Abdullah also wanted to talk about the Palestinians, who now comprised about half of his population. Failure of the Middle East peace
process, he said, made everything—like Iran and terrorism—harder. He argued that there was a destructive downward cycle whenever we missed an opportunity: the Palestinian Authority’s credibility was weakened; its status as a viable negotiating partner was undercut; violence then spiked as confidence in the PA waned; Israel then felt justified in taking harsher measures (security, settlements, etc.); and the two sides were then further apart than ever.