500 Days: Secrets and Lies in the Terror Wars

by Kurt Eichenwald

  The first few weeks had focused on Saddam’s history in Iraq. But by March, as it became clear that Iraq possessed no weapons of mass destruction, Piro’s supervisors told him to find out why. How could intelligence agencies worldwide have been so wrong?

  On May 13, Saddam returned from a break to his nine-by-twelve tiled cell and took a seat on a metal chair across from Piro. The FBI agent and the former dictator of Iraq engaged in a casual conversation, and the discussion soon turned to Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.

  “The U.N. weapons inspections achieved their objectives,” Saddam said simply. “Iraq does not have any WMD and has not for some time.”

  “A lot of people think that you were reluctant to cooperate with the inspections process.”

  Saddam tossed up his hands. “We cooperated for seven years! We granted the inspectors access to the entire country, including the presidential palaces.”

  Piro challenged Saddam, saying that there were instances where illegal components had been hidden.

  “There were individuals in the government who were initially reluctant to cooperate with the inspectors,” Saddam replied. “It was difficult for them to be told one day to open all of their files and turn over all of their work and government secrets to outsiders. It took time and occurred in steps.”

  By 1998, he said, all of the weaponry was gone. There had been claims that he had secreted away the weapons in presidential palaces. His own palaces! It was an absurd idea. The entire Iraqi leadership would have been put at risk if such armaments were kept there. Before they were destroyed, the weapons had been stored in remote locations in the desert, he said.

  “The coalition has gathered information indicating that Iraq was either maintaining or redeveloping its WMD capability,” Piro said.

  “They may think so,” Saddam replied, “but it’s not true.”

  “Would others in your country do this without your knowledge?”

  Saddam shook his head. “No,” he said. “I had meetings with all of my ministers and asked them specifically if Iraq had WMD that I was unaware of. All of them said no.”

  He had made it clear to them long before, Saddam said, that he wanted the country to shed all of the chemical and biological weapons and disband any nuclear projects. They knew this, and followed his instructions.

  “Iraq,” Saddam Hussein declared, “did not have WMD.”

  • • •

  Cows and chickens scampered about in fear as a team of twelve Navy SEALs ran through an animal pen in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Behind the men, their MH-60 Black Hawk helicopter rested at an angle on a wall where it had just crashed.

  It was early morning on May 1, 2011. After America’s decadelong hunt for Osama bin Laden, the elite military force was closing in on the terrorist leader’s recently discovered home. Bush had been out of office since 2009, and the raid this night had been green-lighted by his successor, Barack Obama. Shortly after assuming the presidency, Obama had ordered his director of the CIA, Leon Panetta, to set in motion plans for capturing bin Laden. A number of new and expanded initiatives were adopted but still the location of the terrorist leader remained a mystery. Then, in August 2010, the intelligence agency believed it had located a bin Laden courier, a man who had been identified through interrogation at Guantanamo. Operatives with the CIA and the National Reconnaissance Office tracked the courier, who eventually led them to the Abbottabad compound. Months of intelligence gathering and preparation for an assault followed, culminating in that night’s operation.

  The SEAL team sprinted toward the steel gate of the animal pen. A three-man demolition team stuck C-4 explosives to the metal, squeezing it like hardened ice cream onto the hinges. They set off the detonators, and the C-4 blasted open the gate.

  From there, more gates and more explosions as the SEALs hustled toward the house where they believed bin Laden was staying. Almost immediately after the American fighters reached the patio, a stocky man appeared brandishing an AK-47. He was shot and killed, along with his unarmed wife, who had been standing beside him.

  Some of the SEALs charged the three-story house. They began clearing the first floor, room by room, but the job was more complicated than they could have anticipated. The house was something of a maze, with false doors and blocked entryways that slowed the search.

  The SEALs believed that if bin Laden was in the house, he would be on one of the higher floors, probably the third. But another gate blocked entry to the staircase. The demolition team took over again and blasted through. Three SEALs climbed the darkened stairs. On the way, they saw one of bin Laden’s sons, Khalid, rushing toward them, an AK-47 in his hands. Khalid fired the weapon, and the SEALs shot back, killing him.

  Another gate blocked the stairs again; more C-4 took care of that. A bearded man peered over the third-floor railing. It appeared to be bin Laden himself. One of the SEALs raised his gun and fired, but the terrorist leader fell back and ran into his bedroom.

  The SEALs reached the third floor and rushed down a hallway, where one of them pushed open the bedroom door. Inside, he saw two women standing with bin Laden. The younger of the two—bin Laden’s fifth wife, Amal—screamed at the SEALs. She approached them, and the first SEAL in the room, fearful that she might have a bomb strapped to her body, shot her in the calf with his M4 rifle. Then he wrapped his arms around her, pushing her and the other woman to the side.

  Near the bed, the al-Qaeda chief stood alone, dressed in a traditional Arab outfit of loose, drawstring pants, a tunic, and a prayer cap. The second SEAL team member moved into the room, raised his M4, and trained the infrared laser at bin Laden. He pulled the trigger, and a 5.56-millimeter bullet slammed into the terrorist leader’s chest. As bin Laden fell, the SEAL fired another shot that hit him in the face, blowing off part of his head.

  The shooter pushed a button on his radio. “For God and country, Geronimo, Geronimo, Geronimo,” he said. “Geronimo EIKIA.”

  The words were code announcing the astounding news—bin Laden was dead.

  • • •

  Hours later, in the Arabian Sea, the flat-bottom rounded nose of a V-22 Osprey came into view of the sailors standing on the deck of the USS Carl Vinson. The engine nacelles mounted on the end of each wingtip rotated from horizontal to vertical, and the Osprey descended toward the Nimitz-class supercarrier. The group of waiting sailors ran over to the aircraft when it landed.

  A detail of military police climbed out of the Osprey, then worked with the sailors to remove their cargo from the plane’s belly. It was the body of Osama bin Laden, delivered to the Vinson for its final disposal.

  Members of the Obama administration had given careful thought about how to handle bin Laden’s corpse. The primary goal was to avoid further inflaming Islamic passions, potentially increasing the dangers faced by Americans from extremists. Photographs were ruled out—releasing a picture of bin Laden, with his head partly gone, would have been not only a strategic blunder, it also would be downright ghoulish. As for bin Laden’s burial, the Americans had to be careful to honor Islamic customs while simultaneously ensuring that they did not create a shrine where jihadists could gather.

  Bin Laden was removed from the Osprey and placed in a spot out of sight of other sailors on the Vinson. The body was washed and wrapped in a burial shroud. Weights were attached to ensure that it would never rise in the water. Then the military police and sailors placed the corpse on an open-air elevator and took it down to the lowest level of the ship, where it was laid out on a prepared flat board. After some religious words were spoken and translated into Arabic, three of the sailors tipped up the board. The body slid down and fell about twenty-five feet, hitting the water with a splash.

  Osama bin Laden, the most infamous mass murderer of the twenty-first century, sank silently to the bottom of the sea.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Every so often, a person of immense talent and skill comes along, and I was lucky enough to have one working with me on this book. I first m
et Jordan Wolf eight years ago when he was a high school student whom I had hired to sort documents for my last book. I was startled by his quick mind and incomparable work ethic and soon promoted him to be one of my researchers. From there, he went to Yale University for his undergraduate degree and Tufts for his master’s in philosophy, and now is headed for UCLA School of Law to pursue his J.D. and Ph.D. in law and philosophy. But, while he was in school, Jordan agreed to help me again with 500 Days. This time around, he did everything—interviewing sources, digging up documents, writing depictions of events, and serving as my all-around partner in thinking through this book. Remember his name—I have no doubt he will go on to great things.

  As he has for my last two books, Brent Bowers read over the manuscript and provided unparalleled editing and all-around guidance. His magic has dusted every page. Diane Obara served as my invaluable transcriber, proving herself, as always, to be irreplaceable.

  The folks at the Wylie Agency once again were invaluable. On top of everything else he has done for me, Andrew Wylie was the idea man: he was the one who suggested that I write a national security book, a new direction for me, and took a stand as my fiercest advocate. Jeff Posternak was my hand-holder and all-around powerhouse who helped fight off the demons when they needed to be slayed.

  The documents that Jordan and I collected for this book proved to be quite overwhelming, filling up two offices, a spare bedroom, and ultimately, rooms in someone else’s house. Margie and Terry Tippen became the document wranglers, organizing thousands of pages of records with such precision that I was actually able to find the information I needed from the mountain of paper. Tim Perkins offered me badly needed office space, as well as his insights about the manuscript. And I would be remiss not to recognize the contributions of Errington Thompson.

  One of the biggest thrills for me with this book is that I was once again able to work with one of the finest editors in the business, Stacy Creamer. She showed me almost every day the delight of working with a top-notch publisher. Megan Reid was my endlessly cheerful guide through Touchstone who was willing to jump into the mix whenever I needed help; at times, she also served as my desperately needed taskmaster, pushing me back on track whenever I began to wander. Lisa Healy, the production editor, and George Turianski, the production manager, treated me with patience as I missed deadline after deadline—sorry, guys. Martin P. Karlow, the copy editor, and W. Anne Jones, the proofreader, saved me from myself more than a few times. And Ruth Lee-Mui, the designer, gave a crisp appearance to the whole book.

  Finally, as always, my family played the most important role, giving me back my smile when I felt frustrated and encouraging me to keep going when I felt stuck. My wife, Theresa, was there for me every step of the way as both my editor and my best friend. My three boys—Adam, Ryan, and Sam—brought me delight every day and were endlessly patient and supportive when things got rough. Adam also took a direct role in the work by assuming the unenviable job of printing out thousands of pages of e-mails and other records that I had obtained in digital format. The four of you have made my life an endless delight. I cannot find the words to express how much I love you all.

  On the other hand, perhaps those are the words.

  PHOTOGRAPH © JESSICA D’ONOFRIO

  KURT EICHENWALD is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and a New York Times bestselling author of three books. He previously worked as a reporter at the Times for more than twenty years. He is a two-time winner of the George Polk Award for Excellence in Journalism and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2000 and 2002. His second book, The Informant, was made into a major motion picture starring Matt Damon. He lives in Dallas with his wife and three children.

  Visit him on Facebook at facebook.com/kurteichenwald, and on Twitter @kurteichenwald.

  www.kurteichenwald.com

  MEET THE AUTHORS, WATCH VIDEOS AND MORE AT

  SimonandSchuster.com

  • THE SOURCE FOR READING GROUPS •

  Facebook.com/TouchstoneBooks

  Twitter.com/TouchstoneBooks

  JACKET DESIGN BY JASON HEUER

  JACKET PHOTOGRAPH © HITOSHI NISHIMURA/GETTY IMAGES

  COPYRIGHT © 2012 SIMON & SCHUSTER

  ALSO BY KURT EICHENWALD

  Conspiracy of Fools

  The Informant

  Serpent on the Rock

  NOTES AND SOURCES

  This book is based on more than six hundred hours of interviews, many of which were tape-recorded, with more than one hundred people involved in these events, as well as thousands of pages of documents.

  The documents include notes of interviews and interrogations from the United States and other countries, secret government Teletypes and e-mails, medical records, scheduling books, travel documents, personal memos, diaries, recordings and transcripts, formal written statements provided to government investigators and in court trials, sworn testimony from criminal and civil trials and hearings, and an array of other records.

  Most of the interviews were conducted on condition of anonymity. However, none of the participants in these interviews will be named. That is because I have found that, in a book, identifying those who spoke on the record makes it far easier to discern the names of others who asked me not to disclose their cooperation. A message, also, to those who sat for lengthy interviews with me but whose information did not make the book—I apologize. The direction of these large projects is often hard to predict in the early going, and the result has been that multiple story lines I pursued in my reporting hit the cutting room floor.

  At times, recollections and documents conflicted. In most of those instances, I relied on the documents. However, if those records were unsworn statements, I gave them the same weight as the interviews and set out to resolve the conflict. If I could not reach a resolution, I did not use the information.

  Some of the dialogue comes directly from recordings or direct transcripts of the conversation. The majority of those recorded discussions, however, were not in English. There were also a good number of documents and transcripts of wiretaps in foreign languages. As a result, I hired translators to interpret Arabic, Italian, French, German, Spanish, Bosnian (much in the Shtokavian dialect), Balinese, and Polish. I located several of those translators through Link Translations in New York; others I hired were independent, or I located them in the relevant country.

  Most of the dialogue was reconstructed with the help of participants or witnesses to the conversations or documents that describe the discussion. In a few, rare instances, secondary sources were informed of events or conversations with a participant. If the secondary sources agreed on what they were told, or they were corroborated by documents, the dialogue was used. However, the dialogue reconstructed by this method never amounted to more than three sentences in a single scene and was never incriminating.

  Of course, I am not claiming that the dialogue in these pages is a perfect transcript of incidents that occurred years ago. It does, however, represent the best recollection of these events and conversations by participants. In my books, I have invariably found that these renditions more accurately reflect reality than mere paraphrase would. Indeed, I have had sources summarize a conversation for me, after which I forced them to go back and try to reconstruct the dialogue. In a number of instances, when pushed to dig into their memories—or when aided by documents I placed before them—these sources frequently came to realize that their general recollection was incomplete or even incorrect compared to the dialogue they reconstructed.

  In some cases, I was unable to determine the precise date when an event occurred. In those cases I have presented the relevant scene at the point in the narrative that is most consistent with the information contained in the relevant documents and interviews. In those instances, I give no indication of the event’s date. For ease of reading, there were also times when a particular event was moved a few days out of order, to allow for a theme in one chapter to be completed. These movements never had any impact on the story, an
d the scenes had no relationship to any surrounding information.

  Descriptions of individual settings come from direct observation, interviews, and documents. Most details of weather conditions come from records of the National Climactic Data Center or Weather Underground at www.wunderground.com.

  Every history builds off the work of others, and I was fortunate to be standing on the shoulders of giants. Lawrence Wright, in his astonishing work The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, Knopf, 2006, provides an invaluable depiction of the formation of al-Qaeda and the events leading to 9/11, as does Steve Coll in his seminal work Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001, Penguin, 2004. Bob Woodward detailed the weeks leading up to the invasion of Afghanistan in Bush at War, Simon & Schuster, 2002, and then turned his expert eye toward Iraq in Plan of Attack, Simon & Schuster, 2004. Jane Mayer provided an invaluable analysis and depiction of the events and implications of the war on terror in her book The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals, Doubleday, 2008.

  Prologue

  1: The date of the briefing and a confirmation of the Bush attendees from “CIA Briefs Bush on National Security; Aides Rice, Wolfowitz Participate in Session at Texas Ranch,” Washington Post, September 3, 2000.

  2: Bush’s appearance at the briefing from photographs of the event.

  2: Background on the sarin gas attacks in Tokyo from T. R. Reid, “Tokyo Police Link Sect to Nerve Gas,” Washington Post, March 22, 1995.

  2–3: The briefing for Bush remains classified. However, a senior CIA official directed me to open-source materials about the threat of CBRN and terrorists that contain the same information. They include Richard A. Falkenrath et al., America’s Achilles’ Heel: Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Terrorism and Covert Attack, MIT Press, 1998; and George Tenet’s testimony of February 2, 2000, before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, “Global Realities of Our National Security.” Other documents I obtained provided statistical and historical references that I was assured were reflected in the Bonk presentation. They include Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), “Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) Terrorism,” December 18, 1999; Falkenrath et al., America’s Achilles’ Heel; National Defense University, Center for Counterproliferation Research, “Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Terrorism: The Threat According to the Current Unclassified Literature,” May 31, 2002; and Central Intelligence Agency, “Terrorist CBRN: Materials and Effects, CTC-2003-40058, May 2003. Historic statistical information referenced in the Bonk briefing is also reported in Kate Ivanova and Todd Sandler, “CBRN Attack Perpetrators: An Empirical Study,” Foreign Policy Analysis, 2007 (3).