At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA

by George Tenet;Bill Harlow

  In the spring of 2002, computers, phone records, and other data from al-Qa’ida takedowns in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and elsewhere started to suggest troubling connections to individuals in the United States, particularly in the Buffalo, New York, area. As with so much else in those hectic days, I first learned about all this at one of our five o’clock meetings. I told the lead analyst on the matter to share her concerns immediately with the FBI. We had her take all her data to the regional FBI office, where, initially, she got a skeptical reception. Even in the aftermath of 9/11, there was a reluctance to believe that sleeper cells could be operating in the United States, particularly cells made up of American citizens. But as the FBI dug into the matter, the Bureau became believers. Six Yemeni Americans, all of whom had received training at an al-Qa’ida camp in Afghanistan prior to 9/11, were arrested in September 2002. The group, which became known as the Lackawanna Six, later pled guilty to terrorism-related charges and received prison terms ranging from eight to ten years each.

  The five o’clock meetings did more than coordinate the takedown of individual terrorists and unravel future plots. We also used them to track the ebb and flow of overall threat concerns. Throughout the three years after 9/11 there was a lot more “flow” than there was “ebb.”

  These times of heightened concern would often translate into increasing the terrorist threat warning levels from yellow to orange. We did so on four occasions. In each instance there was a credible intelligence basis for doing so. Initially, there was no choice but to burden the entire country. Over time, we became more sophisticated and surgical in focusing on specific geographical locations and sectors of the economy. In developing the system of protection, the initial option was imprecise. Some pundits alleged that the administration was only elevating the threat level for political purposes, but I can assure you that in each case we believed that the threat was real and imminent and that we had no other reasonable option.

  While we raised the threat level on four occasions during my tenure, one period stands out in my mind: the spring and summer of 2004. There were several streams of concern. First, we came into the possession of casing and surveillance reports focused on financial institutions in New York, New Jersey, and Washington. What was noteworthy about the reports was their specificity and attention to detail regarding the buildings themselves, perceived structural deficiencies, the location of security, and the types of alarms in specific locations within the buildings. The reports were written as though produced by an engineering consulting firm and were of a quality consistent with what a sophisticated intelligence service might produce. Only one dot to connect, perhaps, but there were more.

  The strategic context for concern was compelling. We were approaching national political conventions and an election. Al-Qa’ida had paid attention to the fact that the March 11 attack in Madrid had brought down the Aznar government in Spain. We believed that Bin Ladin himself had assessed that a logical time to attack the United States was just before the U.S. election, when he perceived the uncertainty created by a potential transition of government would make a response more difficult.

  There was the fear that the arrests of operatives in Canada, Pakistan, and New York suspected of planning attacks in London might force al-Qa’ida to accelerate the timing of attacks inside the United States. Because of military operations conducted by Pakistan in the southern tribal areas of Waziristan, al-Qa’ida was under enormous pressure, stimulating the need for a high-stakes showdown with the United States. The plotting against Musharraf’s life continued.

  The intelligence that we received was more frightening. By July 2004 we believed that the major elements of the plot were in place and moving toward execution and that the plot had been sanctioned by the al-Qa’ida leadership. We believed that al-Qa’ida facilitators were already inside the United States, in an organized group—which to the best of my knowledge has never been found—and that they had selected non-Arab operatives to carry out the attacks.

  A separate stream of reporting told us of al-Qa’ida plans to smuggle operatives through Mexico to conduct suicide operations inside the United States. This was linked directly back to direction being provided by al-Qa’ida’s leaders. All of this was consistent with the intelligence dating back to 2001 of either the presence of, or attempts to infiltrate, operatives inside the United States.

  There was strategic warning, further arrests, and disruption activities overseas and in the United States by CIA, our foreign partners, and the FBI. NSA was operating at a fever pitch attempting to determine linkages from dirty numbers overseas to numbers inside the United States. Detainees were questioned and financial data mined for operational activity, all in real time. We posited likely targets and methods of attack. It was a period of furious activity.

  The attacks—based on very credible reporting—didn’t happen. Why? Had the effectiveness of law enforcement and intelligence disrupted the planning? Quite possibly. Was it a conscious decision on the part of al-Qa’ida to delay for its own reasons, out of concern for its weaknesses and the rally-round-the-flag impact an attack would have in the United States? Equally plausible. It was yet another period of high threat that had not come to much, other than exhaustion. I do not know why attacks didn’t occur. But I do know one thing in my gut: al-Qa’ida is here and waiting.

  The threat was not just within the United States. Often information I heard at the five o’clock meeting would cause me to schedule abrupt overseas trips to key Middle East capitals. At one such meeting, I learned of intelligence that al-Qa’ida operatives were planning to assassinate members of the Saudi royal family and overthrow the Saudi government. I quickly scheduled a meeting with the Crown Prince.

  Then–Crown Prince Abdullah is an incredibly impressive man, a billionaire like many Saudi princes, yet one who has never allowed himself to forget his roots. Alone among the top royals, he’ll go off and live in the desert for weeks on end to reconnect with the Saud family’s past. As cooperative as he could be in our pursuit of intelligence on terrorists, from our perspective, Saudi cooperation against al-Qa’ida could be slow and frustrating.

  The Saudis were equally frustrated with us for not sharing enough information, but the speed with which we needed Saudi action came only after the kingdom itself was attacked in May of 2003. Thirty-five people, including ten Americans and seven Saudis, died, and more than two hundred were injured in the al-Qa’ida attack on a Western housing compound in Riyadh. That brought the message home to the royal family in a way nothing else had.

  When I first heard about the Riyadh attacks, I knew I had to go see the Crown Prince, to offer condolences and to make a point while the wound was still fresh. I cleared the trip with the president and the national security advisor and gave them a rough idea of what I was going to say. But I wrote out my own talking points for use with the Crown Prince, and I didn’t clear them with anyone. There was no reason to do so. I knew what had to be said. I doubt if I’ve ever had a more direct conversation with anyone in my life.

  First, I started with an intelligence briefing on what had just occurred:

  • The debate within al-Qa’ida over conducting attacks in Saudi Arabia dates back to the fall of 2002. It was never about whether to strike, but about when and how.

  • The loss of sanctuary in Afghanistan, the settled areas of Pakistan, and northeastern Iraq raised an important question: Could the group afford to lose its position in the kingdom and, with it, its chief source of funds?

  • Bin Ladin, who prior to 9/11 had imposed a ban on attacks in Saudi Arabia, made his position clear when he urged a key Saudi-based operative, Abu Hazim al-Sha’ir, to move forward with the attacks at any price.

  • Khalid Sheikh Mohammed told us later that Bin Ladin’s highest priority is to spur a revolution in Saudi Arabia and overthrow the government and that al-Qa’ida operatives in the kingdom had blanket autonomy to conduct attacks on their own.

  “Your Royal Highness,” I said, “your family and
the end of its rule is the objective now. Al-Qa’ida operatives are prepared to assassinate members of the royal family and to attack key economic targets.”

  I told the Crown Prince that a Saudi-based contact of Saad al-Faqih, a London-based dissident, responded to Faqih’s call for the overthrow of the Saudi royal family in February by saying, “The assassination phase has already begun.”

  I said, “We know that senior al-Qa’ida operatives inside the kingdom are planning attacks against American interests, both in the United States and in Europe. Your Royal Highness, we are exactly where we were before September 11, but with some important differences. We have great specificity with regard to the planning. It’s directed against your family and religious leadership. It is directed from within the kingdom against the United States with the same apocalyptic language I saw before the attacks on September 11. Our relationship cannot sustain another attack. So what do we do about this? We either declare war, and act like we mean it, or we accept the catastrophic consequences.”

  It was a long meeting and an emotional one. Prince Bandar, the longtime Saudi ambassador to the United States, who had ridden with me to the palace, had encouraged me to lay everything on the line, and I did, chapter and verse.

  I have rarely been more direct in my life. By the time I was through with my presentation, the room was energized—by my words and by the attacks of a few days earlier—and virtually that very day, the Crown Prince began to implement a plan we’d helped create.

  The world is still not a safe place, but it is a safer place now because of the aggressive steps that the Saudis began to take. They arrested, captured, or killed many (if not all) of the senior al-Qa’ida operatives involved in the plotting. One major capture involved Abu Bakr al-Azdi, who confirmed that indeed plotting against the United States was occurring from within the kingdom. They began to clamp down on al-Qa’ida’s finances, and engaged with their clerical establishment to overturn fatwas urging mass violence as a tactic. Al-Qa’ida made an important strategic miscalculation, never counting on the Crown Prince’s reaction. The anger of this honest man at what had happened to his country was palpable that day. As frustrating as the U.S.-Saudi relationship had been over the years, our patience had paid off.

  Particularly important at that time, and from then on, were the efforts of Prince Mohammad bin Naif, interior minister Prince Naif’s son, who worked for his father as deputy interior minister for security affairs. MBN, as we called him, became my most important interlocutor. A relatively young man, he is someone in whom we developed a great deal of trust and respect. Many of the successes in rolling up al-Qa’ida in the kingdom are a result of his courageous efforts.

  Let’s be clear: the Saudis acted out of self-interest. At stake were not only plots against the United States but the stability of Saudi Arabia as well. While sustained Saudi action had been a long time coming, the Crown Prince’s sense of urgency was matched by our determination to deny al-Qa’ida the key elements of their political strategy. Al-Qai’da wanted the destruction of the House of Saud and the creation of a Bin Ladin–inspired caliphate, with the economic muscle that oil would confer. The accommodation that the House of Saud had made with the Wahabi branch of Islam had turned the kingdom into a ready source of finance, recruitment, and inspiration for al-Qa’ida. We now had the beginning of a sustained counterterrorism partnership that has carried on since. It has been vital to eliminating an al-Qa’ida safe haven that had operated within Saudi Arabia.

  As important as our relationship with the Saudis was, we depended on foreign partners all over the world. Of all the terrorist takedowns, none was more important or memorable than the capture in Pakistan of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, whom everyone in our business referred to simply as KSM. No person, other than perhaps Usama bin Ladin, was more responsible for the attacks of 9/11 than KSM, and none, other than UBL, more deserved to be brought to justice.

  Although KSM grew up in Kuwait, his family comes from the Baluchistan region, which straddles the Iran-Pakistan border. During the mid-1980s, he attended college in North Carolina.

  The future Most Wanted list all-star first came to the attention of U.S. intelligence about the time it was learned that his nephew, Ramzi Yousef, had been involved in planning the 1993 World Trade Center attack. Yousef was arrested in Islamabad, Pakistan, in 1995 and later tried and convicted in U.S. courts for his part in planning “Operation Bojinka,” which envisioned simultaneously blowing up twelve airliners over the Pacific. Yousef had also been involved in plots to assassinate Pope John Paul II during an official visit to the Philippines and in a plan to have a suicide pilot fly a small plane loaded with explosives into CIA headquarters. Clearly, he and KSM came from the same gene pool.

  During the mid-1990s, CIA chased KSM around three continents. We attempted to bring him to justice in Qatar, the Philippines, and even Brazil. He eluded us and ended up in Afghanistan, where he first met Usama bin Ladin. Through the late 1990s, we knew that KSM was taking on an increasingly important role with al-Qa’ida. It was only after the capture of Abu Zubaydah that we learned how significant that role had become. From our interrogations of Abu Zubaydah and later KSM himself, we would learn that it was KSM who first proposed the idea of flying aircraft into the World Trade Center. Initially he suggested stealing small private aircraft and filling them with explosives. Usama bin Ladin reportedly asked, “Why do you use an axe when you can use a bulldozer?” and altered the plan to use commercial airliners full of passengers.

  By early 2002, we believed that KSM, like much of the al-Qa’ida leadership, was in hiding in the teeming cities of Pakistan. To find him, CIA ran elaborate human intelligence operations.

  I vividly remember Marty M., the then chief of the Sunni Extremist Group of CTC, asking me at the end of one of our Friday five o’clock meetings, “Boss, where are you going to be this weekend? Stay in touch. I just might get some good news.”

  Later that evening, Pakistani security officials surrounded a house in Rawalpindi where they suspected KSM was hiding. The Pakistanis stormed the residence and were wrestling KSM to the ground when he grabbed for a rifle. In the melee, the weapon went off, shooting one of the Pakistanis in the foot, before KSM was subdued for good.

  Marty woke me with the good news. “Boss,” he said. “We got KSM.” You don’t take down a major terrorist in the middle of a large city and have it go unnoticed. Before sunrise, Pakistani media were reporting that KSM had been taken into custody.

  By the next morning, Sunday, March 2, U.S. media outlets were carrying news of the capture as well. Some of the stories described the worldly KSM as an al-Qa’ida James Bond. To illustrate the point, they showed photos of him with a full dark beard wearing what were supposedly his traditional robes. It didn’t take long for Marty to phone me and relay his disgust at some of the coverage. A native of Louisiana, Marty speaks with a Cajun patois that is sometimes hard to decipher. We used to joke that he speaks “level 5” (fluent) Arabic but only “level 2” English.

  “Boss,” he said, “this ain’t right. The media are making this bum look like a hero. That ain’t right. You should see the way this bird looked when we took him down. I want to show the world what terrorists look like!”

  Turns out, our officers on the scene in Rawalpindi had snapped and sent back some digital photos of KSM just after his capture, so I suggested that Marty call the Agency spokesman, Bill Harlow, and work something out. Within an hour, Harlow was in CTC looking over a selection of photos that made KSM look nothing like James Bond. Together they picked out the most evocative photo. Then Harlow, armed with a digital copy, called up a reporter at the Associated Press and told him, “I’m about to make your day.” Asking only that the AP not reveal where they got the picture, he released the image of a stunned, disheveled, scroungy KSM wearing a ratty T-shirt. The photo became one of the iconic images of the war on terrorism. If we could have copyrighted it, we might have funded CTC for a year on the profits. Foreign intelligence services l
ater told us that the single best thing we ever did was release that picture. It sent a message more eloquently than ten thousand words ever could that the life of a terrorist on the run is anything but glamorous.

  Just after KSM’s capture, I left on a trip to a half-dozen Middle Eastern countries. Among my stops was Islamabad. I wanted to personally thank the courageous Pakistani security officials who had captured KSM, and indeed I gave several of them CIA medals. I particularly remember the man who had been shot in the foot during the takedown painfully limping forward to receive his medal. From their side, the Pakistanis presented me with the rifle they had seized from KSM.

  There have been published reports that CIA paid millions of dollars in “prize money” for capturing al-Qa’ida figures. That is absolutely right. It seemed to us entirely appropriate to tell countries around the world that there is both a price to pay if they cooperate with terrorists, and an appropriate reward to be earned for bringing them to justice. While we could, and sometimes did, simply present a check to the intelligence service responsible for helping us capture a major terrorist, we would occasionally opt for a more dramatic approach. We would show up in someone’s office, offer our thanks, and we would leave behind a briefcase full of crisp one-hundred-dollar bills, sometimes totaling more than a million in a single transaction. Post–September 11, the influx of cash in our hands made a huge difference. We were able to fund training, support technology upgrades of our key partners, and generally reward good performance.

  I also had the opportunity at one of our stops to meet the foreign agent who had led us to KSM. The man bought his first suit to wear to our meeting. I thanked him for his courage and expressed our gratitude for what he had done. He embraced me, looked me in the eye, and asked just one question: “Do you think President Bush knows of my role in this capture?” I smiled. “Yes, he does,” I said, “because I told him.” The fellow beamed with pride. “Does he know my name?” he asked. “No. Because that is a secret that he doesn’t need to know,” I replied. I asked the man why he had agreed to help us and to place his life at risk. His answer goes to the heart of the struggle we’re involved in against terrorists worldwide: “I want my children free of these madmen who distort our religion and kill innocent people,” he told me.