The time frame of some of their recollections falls somewhere between recent history and fading memory. But what was so remarkable, and rewarding, was how time and again an interviewee would go to great trouble to check his personal recall with official records and a wide variety of private material. In the beginning I had wondered what motivated them to provide such cooperation. One day, as I was walking through Rafi Eitan’s garden in a break between filming his recollections, he suddenly turned to me and said: “I don’t want anything for my help except the guarantee you will present only the facts. And if you can convey the most important fact of all, that intelligence has changed dramatically in the past twenty years with the end of the Cold War and the collapse of Soviet Communism, I will be satisfied.” He had paused, looked at me and smiled, flexing his hands. “You fail to do that and I won’t be happy.”
Field agents, analysts, divisional directors, and several department heads of Mossad all contributed their insights into how Mossad works, its decision making process, its relationship with other services. This has enabled me to write accurate stories about Mossad for reputable newspapers and magazines. Some of those accounts have not been flattering.
Since the original edition was published in 1996, new information on Mossad has continued to be passed to me. Some of it came in the form of leaks. I had long learned that Mossad, along with other secret services, likes to get its side of the story out. In all the time I have dealt with its employees, I cannot say a leak has ever been misleading. Nevertheless, the golden rule for my kind of investigative work is enforced: check and check again. I cannot recall an example where my original source had not told the truth.
Since the book was first written, Mossad, like all intelligence services, has found itself confronting new challenges. The end of the Cold War found that while superpower confrontation had vanished, the new world order required a new role for spies. Mossad, like the CIA, MI6, and all the major intelligence services, found itself having to counter drug running, terrorism on an unparalleled scale, and economic espionage. At the same time, Mossad was determined to maintain its position as the one service that still insisted on a prime role for its human spies as a complement to the satellites and the other exotic systems to counter the threat posed by Osama bin Laden.
The milestones along his road to become the evil guru of terrorism were those he exploited: Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, the failure of the Oslo Accord, the second Intifada, the suicide bombers, the wars in Iran and Iraq.
In September 2006, thereafter, and for the foreseeable future, Osama bin Laden continued to solemnize the suicide bombers with their body belts of explosives, their car bombs, truck bombs, bombs powerful enough to topple buildings and the concrete bunkers which proved no defense against the explosions. He continued to encourage mothers to give their children up to martyrdom. He told them, in that soft, certain voice that seemed to come from deep within him, that martyrdom was the only way a Muslim could bypass the painful interrogation that awaits us all on the Day of Judgment and proceed directly to heaven immediately transported to Allah’s garden where the celestial virgins awaited. Emerging from the al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan, the northwest frontier of Pakistan, the mountains of Iran, and the deserts of the Yemen, the martyrs went to their deaths convinced of the purity of their cause.
Against such an enemy Meir Dagan was among many who said there was no more formidable foe. By 2006, a year that saw more suicide bomber attacks than in previous years, the art of mass murder had been refined with the use of new combinations of explosives, sharper nails and nuts and bolts. In May of that year there were more human bombings in Iraq than during the entire first Intifada. From a city, London, that had witnessed the effect of suicide bombers in the July bombings, 2005, came the view of its then-mayor, Kenneth Livingstone: “Given that they don’t have tanks, they only have their bodies to use as weapons, in an unfair balance that’s what people use.” Such encouragement can only have pleased Osama bin Laden. And just as those many millions still believed the CIA had been the instrument that triggered 9/11, so many others accepted Livingstone’s judgment, one that was widely reproduced across the Islamic world.
The rise of al-Qaeda in so short a time is one of the more startling aspects of the closing decade of the twentieth century. It was a brilliantly executed conversion of millions of hearts and minds, first across the Middle East, then into Asia, and the Muslim rump of the old Soviet Union. From there it was but a leap into the depths of Africa, from the deserts of Sudan down to the shores of the Cape of Good Hope. At the same time bin Laden’s apostles began to proselytize in Latin America, promising the impoverished of that continent a better way of life awaited them in the new Caliphate bin Laden had insisted was coming. The United States and Canada also became fertile grounds for ensnaring the disenfranchised. By then a Mossad analysis indicated, Europe may have attracted “possibly a million” sympathizers for al-Qaeda’s aims to bring about a new world where corruption, perversion, prostitution, and all other Western vitiation would be excised. People who were dissatisfied with the failure of organized religion and an unequal way of dispensing justice were drawn to the stark principles of Sharia Law.
In their offices the analysts of Mossad, like those in other intelligence services, tried to predict how this would play out in the closing quarter of 2006. Much would depend on what happened in Iraq. The signs had never been good since the Bush administration, supported by Tony Blair, had made the monumental mistake of not paying close attention to the history books. Baghdad had been the spiritual seat of the original Caliphate. To attack it was an offense in the eyes of Osama bin Laden only rivaled by an assault on Mecca. In his speeches he had often spoken of “the joy of meeting the Infidel in the Land Between the Rivers”—the Euphrates and the Tigris which bisect Iraq. It is now his frontline, a place where his jihadists roam, showing the occupiers it is no longer the “slam dunk” (Tenet) or a “cakewalk” (Rumsfeld). If the original reason for the invasion—to remove the tyranny of Saddam Hussein—was in many ways an honorable one, it lacked a plan for what would follow. Now as the United States and a reluctant coalition of NATO troops struggled to pacify the Taliban in Afghanistan, the bodies in the streets of Baghdad—sixty-five found murdered on one day in September—continued to accrue.
Yet in his weekly morning conference Meir Dagan had warned his heads of department that Iran was now a priority for intelligence gathering in preparation for an aerial assault on its nuclear facilities.
In October 2007, Meir Dagan told his staff he had agreed to remain in office until “the Iran problem” was resolved. A year later, Ehud Olmert, the prime minister of Israel and Dagan’s political boss, announced he would retire to give more time to rebutting the corruption scandal engulfing him. Israel’s foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, declared she would run for office as leader of the Kadima party. The hard-talking former Mossad agent, who had chased terrorists in Europe at the age of twenty-six, had given up the job after her future husband said he did not want his future wife spending nights in European hotels surrounded by fit, young Mossad agents. When in October 2008 Israel’s president said there would be a general election, Livni, now a vivacious fifty-year-old, made it clear she could count on the support of Meir Dagan in her bid to become the first woman prime minister since Golda Meir. Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the conservative opposition Likud Party, made a similar claim. Meir Dagan maintained a diplomatic silence on who he would support except to tell his staff anyone would be better than Olmert.
In 2008 the diversity of threats to Israel and the world beyond its borders led to Mossad acting with even more deadly purpose. It is still the only intelligence service that has an officially sanctioned assassination unit: its kidon squad have continued to kill and kill again. “We fight fire with fire,” Mossad’s latest director, Meir Dagan, has told his staff. But where, in the past, it maintained silence about its executions, today it allows the details to emerge—in the belief it will deter its enem
ies. There is no convincing proof it has.
While today most people have a reasonable, if limited, idea of how spies work and understand terms like “double agent,” “safe house,” and “tradecraft” they will not know the total scale of international espionage and its economic cost. The demise of the Warsaw Pact, the Iraq War of 2003, and the continuance of al-Qaeda as the new godfather of terrorism has only increased the need for intelligence. Espionage exerts a perennial hold on the public imagination and appetite. My aim has been to satisfy that hunger.
The one great truth today is that if President Bush’s War on Terror, so optimistically launched in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, is to succeed, there is a need for other intelligence services to take careful note of how Mossad goes about its business. Mossad can be harsh beyond belief to its enemies. It often treats its own staff who fail with a ruthlessness no other agency—with the exception of the Chinese Secret Intelligence Service—would consider. But Mossad prides itself as rightly being regarded among the best, if not the very best. This book is not an apology for what Mossad does, but hopefully it continues to do what Meir Amit said after its first publication: “Tells it like it was—and like it is.”
—Gordon Thomas
Bath, England
November 2008
OTHER INTELLIGENCE SERVICES
ISRAEL
IDF Responsible for coordinating all intelligence for the General Staff of the Israeli Defense Forces. From time to time gives Mossad specific tasks.
AMAN Intelligence branch of the IDF with specific responsibility for gathering military, geographic, and economic intelligence. Its prime focus remains the activities of Israel’s Arab neighbors in the new millennium.
AFI Intelligence branch of Israel’s air force. Specializes in gathering signals intelligence and aerial reconnaissance. By the year 2001, the latter will be largely replaced by satellite, leaving AFI’s role to provide conventional air support intelligence.
BP Paramilitary-style border police in Israeli-occupied territories. Limited intelligence-gathering role.
NI Naval intelligence unit of all Israeli seaborne forces. Work includes monitoring Israel’s coasts and updating foreign naval resources.
GSS Also known as Shin Bet or SHABEK. Responsible for internal security and defense of Israeli installations abroad such as embassies, consulates, and important Israeli organizations.
RPPC Research and Political Planning Center advises prime minister of the day and his policymakers on longterm strategy.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
CIA Conducts covert operations, provides intelligence analysis for the incumbent president. Forbidden by Executive Order from conducting assassinations.
DIA Coordinates all military intelligence for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
INR State Department’s small intelligence and research department (1999 staff approximately 500). Reports only to incumbent secretary of state.
NIO Based in Pentagon The National Imagery Office controls all U.S. satellite intelligence gathering. Constantly “tasked” by the CIA and DIA.
NRO Pentagon-based. Works closely with NIO and has specific responsibility for all satellite hardware and deployment.
NSA Operates from Fort George G. Meade, Maryland. Over the years its “spy in the sky” image has given the National Security Agency a glamour once only the prerogative of the CIA. Specializes in signals intelligence, cryptography. Works closely with NIO on satellite intelligence gathering.
UNITED KINGDOM
GCHQ Its 7,000 (approx. 1999) staff act as Britain’s “invisible eye in outer space.” Formally known as Government Communications Headquarters, it monitors and decodes radio, telex, fax, and e-mail traffic in and out of the United Kingdom. Regularly “tasked” by Britain’s two main intelligence services.
MI6 Also known as the Secret Intelligence Service. Staff of under 2,000 (1999) plan, carry out, and analyze worldwide clandestine operations and intelligence gathering.
MI5 2,000 staff (1999). Britain’s prime internal counterespionage service. Specializes in monitoring all designated subversives in the country and conducts surveillance on a large number of foreign diplomats and embassies, including, those of Israel.
RUSSIA
GRU Glavnoye Razvedyvatelnoye Upravlenie provides Kremlin with military intelligence. Staffed with the best of the former Soviet Union’s intelligence services. Equipped with satellite surveillance.
FCS Renamed the Federal Counter-intelligence Service, it is really the old KGB updated. Staff of 142,000 (1999). Focuses on border movement control,
internal counter-intelligence, surveillance of all foreign diplomats, many journalists, and business people. Has a powerful secret police division with units in every major city in Russia.
SVR Sluzhba Vneshnie Razvedaki runs worldwide, multilayered intelligence-gathering operation. Specialist units gather political, industrial, and commercial intelligence. Conducts covert operations, including assassinations.
CHINA
ILD Harmless-sounding International Liaison Department, the organization engages in a wide range of covert activities. Prime target is the United States.
MID Military Intelligence Department reports to the General Staff of the People’s Liberation Army. Brief includes updating all foreign military capabilities (especially the United States) and conducting satellite reconnaissance. Staff are attached to every PRC embassy and consulate.
MSS Founded in 1983, the Ministry of State Security is responsible for all counter-espionage within China. Has a fearsome reputation.
STD Based in Ministry of Defense, the large Science and Technology Department has two prime functions: to collate all signals traffic from the Chinese navy and overseas embassies; to target primarily U.S. firms working at the cutting edge of military and civilian technology.
NCNA Nominally a news agency reporting on Chinese affairs. Has long been a cover for all other Chinese intelligence agencies engaged in clandestine activities.
FRANCE
DAS Miniscule (staff of under 50 in 1999). Focuses on assessing long-term defense planning work by other nations.
DPSD Direction du Production et de la Sécurité de la Défense. Responsible for gathering military intelligence abroad.
DRM At the coal-face of French satellite intelligence program. Divided into five sub-directorates. Reports directly to prime minister of the day.
DST The Directorate for Surveillance of the Territory is the largest and most powerful of France’s intelligence agencies. Has several thousand employees. Operates both internally and overseas. Wide-ranging responsibilities include surveillance of all foreign embassies in Paris and conducting a large number of clandestine operations. Reports directly to incumbent minister of the interior.
DGSE Direction Générale de la Sécurité Exterieure. Brief is to gather industrial and economic intelligence, penetrate terrorist organizations, and conduct oldfashioned spying.
SGDN Reports to the incumbent prime minister, the Secrétariat Général de la Défense Nationale provides an overview of military intelligence developments in countries of interest to France.
JAPAN
NAICHO Part of Cabinet Research Office. Has a large budget to analyse defense policies of all major nations of interest to Japan.
MITI Responsible for gathering commercial and economic data worldwide.
PSIA The Public Security Investigation Agency concentrates on counter-terrorism and counter-espionage. Primarily operates internally but increasingly by 1999 had developed a global approach.
BRIEF ARABIC GLOSSARY
Ayatollah Title in the hierarchy of the Shite clergy
Dawa Propagation of the faith; also a call to Islam
Deobandi School of doctors of Islamic law founded in 1867 to preach against British domination in India
Fatwa Legal opinion based on the holy texts of Islam; usually ratified by senior clerics
Fedayeen Men ready to sacrifice themselves for a sacred cau
se; most recently applied to suicide bombers
Fiqh Unchallengeable Muslim law
Haj Pilgrimage to Mecca to be attained by every devout Muslim once in a lifetime
Harb War, especially when waged in the land of infidels
Hezbollah Party of God, prominent in Israel and Lebanon
Hegira Flight of the Prophet in September 622 from Mecca to Medina, signifying the establishing of Islam
Hudud Punishments in religious law, sharia, such as the stoning of a woman guilty of adultery, beheading for a crime, etc.
Imam A mosque’s director of prayer and the authority on all matters of religious regulation
Intifada Uprisings; usually applied to the two Palestinian uprisings of 1987 and 2000
Jihad Holy war to propagate Islamic faith and overthrow infidels
Madrassa Religious school where Islamic law is taught
Mujahideen (singular: mujahed ) Jihad fighters.
Pasdaran Members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards
Shebab Arab youth
Takir Excommunication from the Islamic faith
Taliban Graduates of a religious school
Ulema Doctors of Islamic law
Wahhabism Founded by Ibn Abu al-Wahhab (1703–92); Puritan doctrine still dominating Saudi Arabia
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