88 Days to Kandahar: A CIA Diary

by Grenier, Robert L.

  The maliks agreed to organize lashgars, or local militia units, to guide and accompany the Pak Army troops in setting up watch posts high in the mountains. Each combined unit of militia fighters and Pak Army jawans was to include the son of a prominent malik, as a guarantee against betrayal by the tribes. The first Pak Army troops began to move in immediately, employing mules to transport their gear on the steep mountain tracks. In a matter of days, they had moved some six battalions—over 4,000 men—high above Parachinar. As the troops dug in to seek shelter from the frosty mountain winds, they could hear the rumble of huge explosions from across the peaks. The massive American bombardment of bin Laden’s Arabs, trapped in Tora Bora, was beginning.

  Chapter 33

  * * *

  TWIN REPRIEVES

  NOVEMBER 30, 2001

  I ARRIVED IN MY office, still tired from my late-night return from the Tribal Areas, to find the usual pile of overnight cables stacked neatly on my desk. I had only begun to glance at the top one when Dave came rushing in, holding yet another in his hand.

  “They’re in the air!” he said. I had no idea what he was talking about, but already it didn’t sound good.

  “Who’s in the air?”

  “The Director!”

  Good God. Director Tenet would be in Pakistan to meet with President Musharraf in a matter of hours, and had neither an invitation nor an appointment. At the moment, I didn’t even know where Musharraf was. I arranged to see General Ehsan ul-Haq, the ISI chief, immediately.

  That evening, I was standing at the foot of the stairs as George stepped down from the plane, with his security detail, some seniors from the Near East Division, and a number of analysts from CTC/WMD following behind. As the visitors, baggage, and logistics were being sorted, he and I climbed into the backseat of an armored sedan, and sped off toward Islamabad. I still didn’t know precisely why he was there.

  “We have to get to the bottom of UTN [Ummah Tameer-e Nau]. We’re operating on the assumption that they’ve given al-Qa’ida the means to build a nuclear weapon,” he said grimly. I was startled.

  “I didn’t know that was our assessment.”

  “It’s not,” he replied. “This isn’t an analytic judgment. It’s an operational one. If there’s any chance at all that it could be true, we have to pursue it as though there were a high probability that it is true.”

  The November 4 revelation concerning Dr. Bashir’s nuclear discussion with bin Laden and his subsequent meetings with Abu Zaydan had certainly gotten Washington’s attention, but hadn’t generated quite the degree of panic I had anticipated. Perhaps Washington’s relative sobriety reflected that so far, at least, all we knew about was talk and bad intentions, with no hard evidence that al-Qa’ida had either fissile material or any substantive nuclear knowledge or capability. Everything depended on determining whether the well of Bashir’s knowledge about al-Qa’ida’s nuclear aspirations had in fact run dry, or whether his cooperation with al-Qa’ida had gone further than he had admitted. Almost four weeks later, we still didn’t know for sure.

  In early November, at the end of his forty-eight-hour interrogation of Dr. Bashir, Barry McManus had felt that he had played out his string, at least for the time being. Bashir was exhausted, and would not budge beyond his current admissions. The polygraph indicated that he was still withholding some information, but it was Barry’s professional judgment that Bashir’s cooperation with al-Qa’ida, and his knowledge of their capabilities, was not significantly greater than what he had told us. In any case, in his current state he could not be usefully questioned further. During an evening video conference with a group of skeptical Washington WMD analysts, it was agreed that Barry and his colleague Dave would return home for consultations. It was time to regroup.

  In subsequent days, the political pressure on the government of Pakistan greatly increased. Stories began to appear in the press that Dr. Bashir had been arrested by the ISI, and was being tortured by foreign interrogators. He and his family made renewed claims of ill-health. We had no other leads to pursue, and no new information with which to confront either Bashir or his ISI minders: none of Bashir’s colleagues in UTN appeared to know anything. ISI, feeling the heat and wondering how much longer this could go on, was beginning, again, to make noises about releasing him.

  In the meantime, unsubstantiated clandestine reports began to appear that al-Qa’ida was actively planning weapons of mass destruction attacks in the United States. Fear and tension were rising palpably in Washington. On November 29, George briefed President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and national security advisor Condoleezza Rice on our state of knowledge as to al-Qa’ida’s efforts to acquire WMD. Reacting to information on Dr. Bashir and UTN, the vice president asked if we thought al-Qa’ida had a nuclear weapon. A senior analyst accompanying George stated that we did not, but that we couldn’t exclude the possibility. Thus was born Dick Cheney’s “one percent doctrine”: If there is a 1 percent chance it could be true, he said, we have to pursue it as though it were true. Given the stakes involved, that was hard to argue with—particularly at a time when the crushing fear of another, infinitely more devastating attack on the homeland hung like an incubus over every moment, waking or sleeping. The president directed George to leave immediately for Pakistan and to get from President Musharraf whatever help we needed to determine absolutely whether or not al-Qa’ida had gained from Pakistan the ability to hit us with a nuclear weapon. This was why Tenet had appeared, so suddenly that some of his security people didn’t even have a change of underwear.

  I dropped George at the ambassador’s residence for the night, with plans for a preparatory meeting early in the morning. The director did not look good: he was obviously exhausted. The next morning, he looked worse. I had serious doubts as to how this would go. His big advantage, I told George, was that he definitely had the Pakistanis’ attention. They had no idea why he had arrived with almost no notice, and given all that was happening, both across the border and on their own streets, they were highly concerned at what this might mean. If he was trying for a dramatic entrance, he had succeeded.

  Just before 9:00 AM, we were joined by Wendy Chamberlin, and then whisked off at high speed to the old prime minister’s residence, on a bougainvillea-draped hillside overlooking the city behind the presidency. As we walked down the long carpet toward the reception room, I could see a transformation coming over George. He suddenly had a bounce in his step. It was showtime, and I could sense the trouper in him rising to the occasion. He shook hands with Musharraf and exchanged a few pleasantries, the president motioning him to take a heavy, ornate chair just to his right. Ambassador Chamberlin, George’s retinue, and I fell in alongside Tenet, across from a parallel row of Musharraf’s senior staff and some of the army brass, a grim-faced General Ehsan among them.

  George began by thanking Musharraf for seeing him on such short notice, and conveyed greetings from President Bush, on whose orders he had come. The U.S. president was seized with the continuing threat posed by al-Qa’ida, which we knew to have a strong interest in developing nuclear weaponry. Dr. Bashir and UTN had admitted attempting to provide nuclear expertise to others in violation of their solemn commitments, and Bashir had admitted discussing such assistance with bin Laden and al-Qa’ida. Now the president was seeking Musharraf’s commitment to do everything necessary to determine whether UTN’s involvement with al-Qa’ida might have gone further. We had to know whether al-Qa’ida might have a nuclear bomb.

  Musharraf nodded. He had obviously been briefed on UTN, and was prepared. He understood the president’s concerns, he said, but we were talking about Afghanistan. Whatever bin Laden’s aspirations, he would need access to a large, industrialized infrastructure to build a nuclear weapon—an infrastructure that Afghanistan lacked. Pakistan knew quite a lot about what was required, having taken many years to produce a nuclear weapon itself. Our fears, he said, were surely misplaced.

  George leaned forward and looked Musharraf in the
eye. What the general had said was true of efforts to produce fissile material; this did indeed require a large-scale effort and considerable industrial capacity. But if terrorists were able to gain a supply of such material, the situation was completely different. We had checked with the best informed experts in the United States, and they had assured us that with recent advances in available technology, a terrorist group with access to a small supply of highly enriched uranium or plutonium could build a nuclear device in a garage. All they would need was access to the necessary brainpower, the necessary technical expertise. With the dissolution of the Soviet system, the opportunities for criminals and terrorists to acquire nuclear materials had greatly expanded. It was possible that bin Laden could have gained access to these materials from these or perhaps other sources. Given the courageous stand which Pakistan had taken against terrorism, it now could find itself at least as vulnerable to an unconventional nuclear attack by al-Qa’ida as we. Could we count on Musharraf’s assistance in dealing with this mutual threat?

  It was a brilliant performance. The DCI had not come to browbeat the Pakistanis to do something against their will. Instead, with reason and empathy, he had explained a mutual vulnerability of which they had been insufficiently aware, and had sought mutual cooperation to deal with it. Musharraf was won over. He glanced at General Ehsan. We could count on Pakistan’s complete cooperation, he said. We could bring any experts we required in order for us both to get to the bottom of any threat these Pakistani scientists might pose. His solidarity in confronting terrorism, he said, was unshakable. Was there anything else we could do to improve our cooperation?

  Tenet looked over at me. I had not anticipated this. With a glance toward General Ehsan, I looked back at Musharraf.

  “Mr. President,” I said, “our cooperation with ISI has been excellent. We have been working very closely with our liaison contacts as ISI has conducted investigations of al-Qa’ida. However, I think it would be more efficient and effective if we could work directly with those who are actually conducting those investigations on ground.” To date we had had to work through General Jafar’s staff, which played an intermediary role, making operational requests and proposals on our behalf, and passing back to us the fruits of the resulting investigations. But responsive as Jafar and his people were to our needs and desires, they were essentially acting as a post office. It would be far more efficient for us to deal directly with the investigators themselves. Musharraf glanced at Ehsan. The latter nodded. We would have what we wanted.

  There was a buoyant atmosphere that afternoon in the “bubble,” our bug-proof room, as the station conducted a full briefing for the director. I invited Wendy Chamberlin to sit in on the first part of the briefing, which gave her the opportunity to lobby George for “deliverables” she wanted from Washington, including compensation for the Pakistanis for war-related expenses they were incurring, border security equipment, and U.S. market access for Pakistani textiles. I knew George was unlikely to get into policy recommendations back in Washington, especially concerning textiles, when CIA was already so far out of its normal lane, but it was a gesture that the ambassador appreciated.

  We discussed follow-up with the Pakistanis on Bashir, and on other WMD-related challenges. Just three days before, documents related to anthrax had come into our hands from a house previously used by UTN in Kabul. There were a large number of operational leads which would have to be followed up on, and I was already overstretched. Between the newly intensive effort on Bashir and these new leads, I would need more help from CTC/WMD. George looked at the CTC people with him.

  “How about it?” he asked them, pointing at me. “He’s got a war to run.” After we conferred a bit, they agreed that three of the analysts would remain behind.

  In addition to briefing on the progress of the war across the border, we spent considerable time describing what we were doing with ISI to dismantle the support infrastructure al-Qa’ida had painstakingly built to facilitate the movement of people, money, and things in and out of Afghanistan. We described the Joint Operations Center, the “Clubhouse,” we’d set up with ISI, where every lead we forwarded was being followed up quickly by the Pakistanis. Having just returned from Tora Bora, I described the role General Jafar Amin was playing in trying to get Pak Army forces arrayed to intercept the Arabs we expected to start fleeing south. Asked what information we were passing the Pakistanis to give them advance warning as to where and when the Arabs might start moving through the passes, I had to tell him, “None.” Our requests, I explained, had been denied. Asked what we expected to do with those we captured, I described my proposal for a joint detention and interrogation center.

  “Good idea,” George enthused, only to hear from me that that proposal, too, had been refused by headquarters. A look began to come over George’s face. “These guys are doing a lot for us,” he said. “They’ve done everything we’ve asked. What are we doing for them? They’re incurring expenses on our behalf. Have we given them anything?”

  This time a look came over my face. “No,” I replied.

  George sat back and looked directly at me. “There’s a problem here, isn’t there?”

  A senior Near East Division officer who had accompanied the DCI as part of his delegation spoke up quickly. “No, George, we’re working these issues with CTC. We’re handling it. There’s no problem.” I looked at him for a couple of beats. If the Near East Division was handling anything with CTC on my behalf, I sure couldn’t see any sign of it. But the tradition in the Clandestine Service is that we settle our problems internally. In the context of the DO, even the director is an outsider. I looked back at George.

  “Yes, there’s a problem,” I said. “There’s a big problem.” Before 9/11, as George well knew, the Paks had been the enemy, refusing to provide us any assistance against al-Qa’ida or the Taliban. Now, I said, they had demonstrated that General Musharraf’s abrupt shift in policy was not a sham. Not only were they providing basing rights and support to U.S. military operations, but ISI was providing us everything we asked for in terms of on-ground investigations and intelligence cooperation. They had facilitated the movement of Afghan oppositionists across the border to attack the Taliban. It wasn’t important whether we liked the Pakistanis, or whether we considered them friends. They were going to continue to pursue their national interests as they saw fit. But we needed to be able to take yes for an answer: where they were willing to provide us help, we should take it. And if providing them with money would give them the means to help us more, we should do it. After a bit more discussion, Tenet suggested that we provide the ISI with a modest subvention.

  I had my own reasons to be enthusiastic about this idea. I still owed the ISI over half the sum Tenet had proposed, and couldn’t get authorization to pay them. Having been told on November 24 that the director’s verbal authorization to procure weapons from the Paks was not valid, and that I should renegotiate the price in any case, I had sent a response a couple of days later, on the 26th. I explained that the matter of the badly used weapons was all my fault, but that our refusal to pay the agreed price was leaving General Jafar in a badly exposed position within the Pak Army. He was being told by the Supply Corps that the weapons were perfectly serviceable, and he had no compelling proof to the contrary. They were dunning him for the payment and making him look bad. For us, the amount of money at issue—the difference between new and reconditioned weapons—was negligible compared with what was being spent even on an hourly basis in Afghanistan, and yet for this we risked undermining the one individual who, perhaps apart from Musharraf himself, was our most important Pakistani ally. I thought the logic unassailable, but days passed without even the courtesy of a headquarters response. In the meantime, Jafar was inquiring about the money practically on a daily basis. The man had gone well out of his way to help me, and here I was embarrassing him. By the eve of Tenet’s visit, I had had enough.

  “I’m bringing you the payment tomorrow,” I said. The general st
opped and looked at me with genuine alarm. He knew me well enough to sense a hint of self-destructiveness in my demeanor.

  “Do you have authorization?”

  “No, but that’s my problem, and I don’t want you to pay the price for it.” He could see that I was serious. From the look on his face, I surmised this would be as serious a breach in his system as it would be in mine.

  “Well,” he said slowly, “I suppose a few more days wouldn’t hurt.” With that one remark, he saved my career. It’s very hard to get fired outright in the federal service. Even in CIA, manifest incompetence will simply get you shuffled off to some obscure sinecure where, with luck, you will do no harm. But financial malfeasance will get you fired, and nothing and no one can save you. Working on little sleep and high daily doses of adrenaline, furious with headquarters, I was beyond caring. Jafar saved me from myself.

  Now Tenet was providing me a way out. He, too, believed that he had authorized the Pak weapons purchase during the November 13 video conference, but couldn’t get in the middle of a fight over financial regulations. What he could do was arrange a reward for the ISI’s good behavior. Suddenly seeing that the director was on our side, the Near East Division officer excitedly arranged a meeting to finalize signed authorization for the payment after their return. Walking alone with George toward the ambassador’s residence on the embassy compound that evening, we discussed some of the internal obstacles I was facing.

  “I understand what’s going on here, but I can’t solve this for you,” he said. “It’s just not my role.” He was right. I told him I understood.

  Some days later, I carried a heavy duffel bag stuffed with neat bricks of hundred-dollar bills into the ISI Headquarters. I insisted upon conveying it myself. In a long CIA career, I had never been a bagman; this was my one opportunity. The carefully worded receipt, signed by Jafar, stipulated that with this payment all outstanding financial obligations between CIA and ISI had been met. I never did get authorization from headquarters to pay for those weapons.