500 Days: Secrets and Lies in the Terror Wars

by Kurt Eichenwald

  • • •

  There he was. Pironi and the driver saw Abu Omar.

  “You’re going to have to stop him near the white van parked over there, on Via Guerzoni,” the driver said, pointing at the vehicle.

  “All right.”

  A telephone rang. It was the Samsung cell phone that Lady had given to Pironi for the operation.

  “Don’t answer that,” the driver said.

  Pironi nodded and removed the battery from the phone.

  The driver turned the key and headed down Via Guerzoni toward Abu Omar. He came to a stop and Pironi got out, standing in the middle of the road as the target approached.

  “Sir!” Pironi called out in Italian, flashing his badge. “Let me see your papers.”

  Abu Omar looked perplexed. “I don’t speak Italian,” he said in English.

  Pironi switched languages. “All right,” he said. “Let me see your passport.”

  He told Abu Omar to follow him and they edged toward the back of the white van. His suspect produced a residency card and his passport. Pironi studied them as he waited for someone to leap out of the van.

  Seconds ticked by, and nothing happened. Pironi felt nervous; he could stare at these documents only so long before raising suspicions. He took out his phone, hoping Abu Omar didn’t notice that it had no power. He pretended to make a call to run a check on the papers.

  The van’s front right-hand side door opened, and a man leaned out, facing Pironi. “What are you doing?” the man yelled.

  Both Pironi and Abu Omar jumped back, startled by the shouting. Two sets of arms reached out from the van and grabbed Abu Omar, whisking him inside and throwing him to the floor. The door clattered shut, the engine roared, and the van made a rapid U-turn before racing away.

  Pironi remained standing in the street, openmouthed and still holding Abu Omar’s papers.

  • • •

  The presentation by Blix to the Security Council that same day had a little bit for everyone, with a glass half-full, glass half-empty theme. That proved to be the problem.

  There was no specific evidence of any weapons violations, and the Iraqis were beginning to show real signs of cooperation, Blix said. On the other hand, the inspectors had located some prohibited missiles and engines, and Baghdad had failed to account for a range of other material.

  Still, there should not be a rush to judgment. The Americans had been marshaling data that they contended established the existence of illegal Iraqi arms programs, but Blix found their case weak.

  “Inspectors, for their part, must base their reports only on evidence, which they can, themselves, examine and present publicly,” he said. “Without evidence, confidence cannot arise.”

  ElBaradei of the International Atomic Energy Agency delivered the second report on possible nuclear programs, and his findings were more conclusive than Blix’s. His agency had neutralized Iraq’s past nuclear program by 1998, he said, leaving no unresolved disarmament issues.

  “Hence, our focus since the resumption of our inspections in Iraq, two and a half months ago, has been verifying whether Iraq revived its nuclear program in the intervening years,” he said. “We have to date found no evidence of ongoing prohibited nuclear or nuclear-related activities in Iraq.”

  ElBaradei stepped away from the Security Council table, leaving behind the delegates of fifteen nations who were more at odds than ever.

  • • •

  A Gulfstream jet carrying Abu Omar arrived the next morning in Egypt, less than twenty-four hours after the CIA had abducted him in Milan. He was brought out of the plane and turned over to Egyptian security officers. They tossed him into a car and drove to the Tora prison compound in Cairo. There, he was locked in an isolation cell.

  For the next seven months, Abu Omar would be interrogated and tortured. He was beaten and burned. Electrodes were attached to his genitals to give him shocks. His tormentors demanded that he tell them about his terrorist activities; he protested that there was nothing for him to tell.

  The Egyptians wrote reports on everything Abu Omar said. They turned over the documents to American intelligence, sharing the near-worthless answers they had managed to extract through torture.

  • • •

  The pressure was growing on Tony Blair. The Security Council seemed hopelessly split, and if that dissension wasn’t resolved, Bush would launch the Iraqi invasion in a few weeks without a second resolution.

  But the prime minister was still facing the ugly reality that, given the analysis of his attorney general, Britain could not lawfully join a military action without specific U.N. authorization. If Blair didn’t find a middle ground, his country’s historic relationship with America could be irretrievably damaged.

  A possible answer might be with Hans Blix. Perhaps, Blair thought, he could persuade Blix to advance a proposal that would be less aggressive than an authorization for an invasion, but stronger than nothing. Blair arranged to speak with Blix by phone.

  On February 20, Blix called Number 10 Downing Street on a secure telephone line at the New York office of Jeremy Greenstock, the British ambassador to the United Nations.

  Blair’s voice was calm. “The Americans were quite disappointed in your report,” he said. “It undermined their faith in the U.N. process.”

  Well, Blix thought, it undermined their faith that the U.N. process would lead to the authorization of the military route.

  “The Americans are attracted by a second Security Council resolution, up to a point,” Blair said. “But they don’t feel like they need one. There’s a risk of the U.N. being marginalized.”

  There was an alternative, the prime minister said. He could offer the Americans a type of ultimatum that would include a requirement to meet certain benchmarks—dates when Saddam would have to achieve individual disarmament requirements—and impose a duty to cooperate actively. Then, if Iraq failed to comply with any of those step-by-step deadlines, it would be declared in breach of the original resolution.

  Blix liked the idea. “Full cooperation could be defined, or, as you suggest, listed in categories,” he said.

  But the Bush administration seemed unbendable. “There should be room for compromise in the American position,” Blix said. “They are going ahead too fast.”

  So they were agreed. Blair said he would pursue the benchmark idea with Bush and gain time for Blix. With luck, Blair thought, this process would resolve the legal barrier he faced about using military force against Iraq.

  16

  A thunderstorm rolled across Rawalpindi, Pakistan, after sunset on February 28, rattling the windows of a pink two-story house in the middle-class neighborhood of Westridge. Inside, a group of Islamic men knelt on prayer rugs, whispering the nighttime Isha’a devotionals. They ended their reaffirmation of faith in the ritual position, with their feet folded under their bodies.

  One of the men grunted as he hefted his bulky frame off the ground. He raised a hand and stroked his double chin, a postprayer habit he had developed when a thick beard covered it. Now there were just a mustache and a shadow of stubble, a change in appearance intended to disguise his true identity as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, mastermind of the 9/11 attacks.

  Sheikh Mohammed had been on the run for nearly eighteen months, most of the time shuttling to cities throughout Pakistan. Unlike bin Laden, he was not the kind to hide in an Afghani cave; he much preferred the creature comforts available in safe houses, despite the higher risk of capture.

  But his success in evading capture had made Sheikh Mohammed complacent, even sloppy. He met with strangers—friends of friends of associates. He used unencrypted cell phones. Documents and audio recordings were strewn around the house where he was staying. Financial records, telephone numbers, and other electronic data had been saved on unsecured computers.

  His recklessness would be his undoing—the authorities were closing in. The noose started to tighten three weeks before, when intelligence operatives intercepted a series of coded
instructions issued over the Internet by bin Laden’s spokesman, Abul Baraa Qarshi. The messages included details about a planned attack against bridges and gas stations in the United States and repeatedly mentioned “Mukhtar”—Sheikh Mohammed’s code name.

  From that cybertraffic, investigators gleaned information that indirectly led them to a house in Wahdat Colony, a ramshackle area of Quetta where an Egyptian aide to al-Qaeda was holed up. American agents began to monitor the aide’s calls; several were placed to 18A Nisar Road in Rawalpindi. Electronic surveillance of the house began immediately, allowing for eavesdropping on calls placed and received by Sheikh Mohammed.

  About that time, an informant contacted the Americans; he knew of the comings and goings at the house on Nisar Road. He offered to help capture Sheikh Mohammed, in anticipation of receiving the $25 million bounty on the terrorist.

  It all came down to this night. The informant had joined in the prayers at the house, then engaged in chitchat with the people there. They included Ahmed Abdul Qadoos, a Pakistani Islamist; Mustafa al-Hawsawi, an al-Qaeda financial expert; and Sheikh Mohammed. Eventually, the informant excused himself, went into the bathroom, and took out a cell phone that the Americans had given him. He typed a text message.

  “I am with KSM,” it said.

  • • •

  Hours passed with the capture team quietly watching the house, waiting for the predawn darkness. Not only timing but tactics compelled the delay—they wanted the element of surprise, with their targets unaware and undressed.

  At about 3:00 A.M., more than twenty commandos brandishing rifles slipped silently across the remote shadows on the lawn, smashed down the front door, and stormed inside. In a bedroom, they found Sheikh Mohammed, groggy in half sleep. Before he could grab a weapon, they pulled him from the bed, slipped a hood over his head, and dragged him outside to a waiting vehicle.

  • • •

  A search of the house yielded a trove of high-value information. A computer hard drive included instructions that Sheikh Mohammed had sent to an al-Qaeda associate, directing him to case targets in America; spreadsheets of payments sent to the families of al-Qaeda members; transcripts of chat sessions with a 9/11 terrorist; and three letters from Osama bin Laden. But the prize was an al-Qaeda address book—a computer file listing phone numbers, e-mail addresses, and other contact information of fellow terrorists.

  It was the largest haul of intelligence about al-Qaeda ever—enough to fill a small cargo plane, the investigators joked. And all because of a supposed mastermind’s foolishness.

  • • •

  For three days, Sheikh Mohammed refused to answer any questions posed to him by Pakistani intelligence agents. He sat in a near trance, reeling off verses of the Koran. One of the Muslim agents in the room was surprised by what he heard—Sheikh Mohammed made repeated mistakes in his recitations. For someone eager to murder innocents in the name of Islam, he hadn’t bothered to develop much familiarity with the religion.

  Finally, on March 4, the orchestrator of the 9/11 attacks began to speak, but only to condemn his Muslim captors as apostates.

  “Playing an American surrogate won’t help you or your country,” he snarled. “There are dozens of people who will give their lives but won’t let Americans live in peace anywhere in the world.”

  For several minutes, the Pakistanis listened to Sheikh Mohammed’s railings. Finally, one of the agents asked a simple question. “Is bin Laden still alive?”

  Sheikh Mohammed laughed. “Of course he is,” he said. In fact, he had met with the al-Qaeda leader just a few months earlier in Afghanistan. Both bin Laden and his fighters were ready to act if America invaded Iraq.

  “Let the Iraq war begin!” he said. “The U.S. forces will be targeted inside their bases in the Gulf. I don’t have any specific information, but my sixth sense is telling me that you will get the news from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Kuwait.”

  A CIA officer in the room saw the chink in Sheikh Mohammed’s armor. Arrogance. He opened his mouth not to insult or deceive his interrogators, but to suggest that he was someone at the center of the jihad against the West. A real warrior would never reveal anything just to boast about his insider knowledge. Sheikh Mohammed was an amateur, a braggart. He wasn’t a soldier, just a psychopathic murderer. No doubt, he would break under interrogation.

  Later that day, the Pakistanis hooded Sheikh Mohammed again and drove him to the nearby Chaklala air force base in Rawalpindi, where he was turned over to the Americans. The CIA spirited him away to an interrogation center at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.

  • • •

  The next day in Paris, the foreign ministers of France, Germany, and Russia emerged from a meeting and released a statement, calling on Iraq to be more cooperative in disarmament and praising the work of the weapons inspectors. Banal stuff, but they saved the bombshell for the end.

  “We will not let a proposed resolution pass that would authorize the use of force,” it said.

  • • •

  The declaration hit the Blair government hard. That day, the prime minister had telephoned Bush again, arguing that world opinion was hostile to an invasion and that countries reluctant to support a second resolution needed to be given a reason—maybe even a cover—to end their opposition. He suggested that he could travel to Chile, which was struggling to find a middle ground in the dispute over the second resolution.

  But Bush seemed almost indifferent to the diplomatic squabble. He still didn’t know that Britain would be unable to join in a military operation against Iraq without further action by the Security Council.

  Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, dropped in for a chat with Blair. It was not too late for Britain to switch course and disentangle itself from America’s military adventure, he said, aligning itself instead with the coalition of nations committed to a diplomatic solution. Marching alongside the military hawks in the United States was simply too grave a choice.

  “If you go next Wednesday with Bush, and without a second resolution,” Straw warned, “the only regime change that will be taking place will be in this room.”

  • • •

  A report issued in the name of the Detainee Interrogation Working Group was circulated around the Pentagon the following day. While it was meant to be the group’s final statement on permissible techniques, it suffered from a significant problem—most of the group’s members opposed its analysis.

  The findings were based almost exclusively on the Yoo memo, a fact that enraged a majority of the military lawyers. Whatever words the Defense Department put on paper, the detractors argued, few of these findings would be accepted by international tribunals or, in some cases, even American prosecutors. Members of the military could well be subject to arrest, they maintained. Adopting these standards would invite enemies—not just al-Qaeda, but any enemy in the future—to torture American soldiers. Detainee statements might be prohibited from being admitted in criminal prosecutions, including those before military commissions, since they could be deemed as having been obtained illegally. Topping it off, there was no evidence that these methods worked.

  Just before the report’s release inside the Pentagon, Major General Thomas Romig, the army judge advocate general, sent a memo to Jim Haynes, expressing his reservations. The Justice Department memo, he wrote, sanctioned techniques “that may appear to violate international law, domestic law, or both.”

  Haynes forwarded Romig’s complaint to Yoo. Nothing was changed.

  • • •

  Members of the British government were planning for the resignation of Tony Blair.

  The likelihood of pushing a second resolution through the U.N. had all but evaporated. Bush and Blair had both appealed to Vladimir Putin to reconsider his decision but instead the Russian president had hardened his position, declaring that his government would veto not only the resolution as currently written, but any other proposed authorization of military force as well.

  On the other hand, there
was still some cause for hope, in the view of British officials—Bush had postponed the attack date twice, from the original March 10, to March 12, and then to March 17, giving the Security Council an extra week to act.

  Now Blair was juggling two challenges to his leadership—impending votes in the U.N., and also in the House of Commons. The prime minister was seeking parliamentary approval for British troops to fight alongside the Americans in Iraq, if an invasion took place.

  Bush had won approval from Congress for his own war resolution in a lopsided vote held in October. But the politics of Britain were much more complex. Blair’s own Labour Party was teetering on open revolt, and if the British Parliament rejected his proposal on the heels of a veto at the Security Council, the prime minister would have no choice but to step down. Already, the cabinet secretary was exploring how to establish a caretaker government.

  Blair gathered with a few of his aides for a gloomy meeting laced with black humor and speculations about his potential political demise.

  Still, he remained unshaken in his decision. “I still feel like we’re doing the right thing,” he said.

  • • •

  A Gulfstream V executive jet landed at the remote Szczytno-Szymany Airport in northeast Poland at 4:00 P.M. on March 7. Military officers and border guards secured the perimeter; the civilian employees at the facility had been ordered inside the terminal building. On the edge of the runway, a few vans were waiting, their engines running.

  The plane taxied to a halt. The vans raced out to the far end of the runway, stopping near the jet. A team of CIA agents scrambled out of the vehicles and boarded the aircraft. Soon, they brought out Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, shackled and hooded, and placed him inside one of the vans. The vehicles turned on their brights and drove past the terminal through the security gate, onto a tarmac road lined with pine trees.

  About fifteen minutes later, the vans reached an unpaved road, little more than a path, next to a lake. They came to a stop at the Stare Kiejkuty intelligence training base maintained by the Polish government. A group of hulking men in black outfits dragged Sheikh Mohammed out of the vehicle and took him to the basement of the building. There, they put him in a cell, chained his arms above his head, and slashed off his clothes. They left him naked.