Hard Measures

by Jose A. Rodriguez, Jr.

  The months of continuous stress were taking their toll on CTC officers. Despite working twelve-, fifteen-, or eighteen-hour days, the common feeling as they made the long trek to the CIA headquarters parking lot was: “Maybe if I stay just one more hour, pore over a few more documents, listen to a handful more intercepts, I can find the key that will prevent another attack.”

  As stressful as the lives of CTC personnel back in Langley were, that was nothing compared to the burden on officers on the front lines in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and hellholes around the world.

  I struggled constantly to remind our young officers that they should not neglect their families or their health. This was going to be a long fight, and we would not be able to win it if our key people burned themselves out chasing our foes to the point that the CIA officers dropped from exhaustion.

  In early May 2002 I was in for a couple of big shocks. First I was told that our boss, Cofer Black, was leaving CTC. Battered from doing battle with al-Qa’ida and sometimes against U.S. and allied bureaucracy, Cofer was going to spend some time helping the Agency prepare for the inevitable outside investigations about how 9/11 could have happened. Later he would go on to become an ambassadorial-level counterterrorism coordinator at the Department of State.

  The second surprise was even bigger. I was asked to replace Cofer. Eight months before, the Agency’s Directorate of Operations was unsure if they had a job for me, and now I was being asked to take on their biggest mission imaginable.

  I didn’t have a lot of time to spend wondering why George Tenet had selected me for the job. To many insiders, I am sure, it was quite a surprise. A guy named Jose Rodriguez who spent most of his professional career running operations in Latin America and with only modest experience in counterterrorism was being thrust into a job in which you might expect to find the most seasoned Arabic-speaking Middle East hand.

  Looking back, I suspect the fact that I had run large stations and multidiscipline organizations for the Agency and my reputation for being someone who built strong teams were part of the rationale. Whatever the reason, the turnover was swift, and before I could think twice, I found myself with a tremendous challenge on my plate. I was certain (incorrectly as it turned out) that this would be my final assignment as an Agency officer and I desperately wanted it to be a success.

  At one point, the director took me to the White House to meet with the president for a Saturday “deep dive” on counterterrorism. The president had obviously been briefed on my background and knew that my last field assignment had been in Mexico. An engaging and personal man in private, he wanted to chat with me about my experience there in Spanish. He rattled off something that I couldn’t quite get. “Cómo?” I asked. He said it again and it was just as unintelligible to me. How odd, I thought, that my career might go down in flames over my inability to understand the president’s Spanish. Finally, with great difficulty, I figured out he was asking about a politician who was running for president of Mexico. To my relief, I was right.

  My transition to chief of CTC came during a precarious time. We had just captured our first major al-Qa’ida figure, Abu Zubaydah, and were struggling to figure out how to make the best use of the critical information we were getting out of him before the next wave of attacks might cross our shores.

  In the nine months since September 11, we had grown enormously in personnel, resources, and authorities. I had some extraordinarily able leaders working under me who were seized with the importance of our mission. I knew that I needed to empower them, inspire them, and prevent well-meaning but cumbersome government bureaucrats from getting in their way. I recognized that while we had been very successful during the Afghan phase of the war, we would have to adjust to be able to handle what was to come next. I gave orders that the compartmentalization that was typical of almost all intelligence organizations at the time must end in CTC. Our analysts were given access to the most sensitive operational databases. It may seem odd to outsiders, but in the intelligence community we spend a lot of time keeping secrets from each other. While there are security reasons for doing so, it can impede successful operations. We took a risk to share information more widely in CTC, and I never regretted my decision.

  Another of my priorities was to improve coordination not just with the Agency’s leadership on the seventh floor but also with the intelligence community, Congress, and the White House. All these organizations were bombarding CTC with requests for information, many of which could not be answered in a timely manner without getting in the way of critical operations. I wanted my people to pound away at the operational target, and my job was to get them the resources and people they needed. I also spent a lot of my time meeting and developing close relationships with our liaison partners by visiting them overseas and meeting them in Washington.

  One of the best things about working at the CIA is how “flat” an organization it is. The number of layers between an operative in the field and the head of CTC, for example, is remarkably few. Decisions can be made much more quickly and with far fewer sign-offs than would be found in the military or in most major corporations.

  The information coming out of Abu Zubaydah’s debriefing proved to be extraordinarily valuable. Things that were learned from his questioning at the black site were shared almost instantly with analysts and operators back at headquarters. Taking the threads of information he was providing us and weaving them into a fuller context, we were able to launch operations within a matter of hours or days that led to the capture, killing, or disrupting of many other al-Qa’ida operatives.

  One of the many myths about our enhanced interrogation program is that the harsh treatment continued during the entire time we held the senior detainees. In fact, only a handful of the most knowledgeable detainees received any rough treatment and in those cases, the techniques were permanently halted once the detainee became compliant. In Abu Zubaydah’s case, he moved from the interrogation to the debriefing stage quickly. It was less than a month after the enhanced interrogation techniques started in August 2002 when they ended for him.

  Once AZ became compliant the harsh treatment stopped and we began questioning him. He quickly impressed our officers with his intelligence, depth of knowledge, and willingness to help. As one officer later told me, “He became part of our team.” That doesn’t mean that we blindly accepted what he had to say. Every statement he made was checked and double-checked. Far more often than not, however, he told us the truth.

  CIA officers at the black site developed an odd affection for him. A woman officer who was assigned to the debriefing team described him to me as a “mensch.” “He loves his mother,” she said, “and tried hard to take care of his al-Qa’ida brothers.” AZ was responsible for finding wives for some of the al-Qa’ida operatives and at one point even “gave away” a potential wife of his own to take care of the needs of one of his charges.

  And yet, despite his part-time charisma and cooperative spirit, Abu Zubaydah was no innocent. His prime motivation was his hatred for Jews. He was deeply devoted to the Palestinian cause and expressed great unhappiness that bin Ladin and others elected to launch their devastating 9/11 attack on the United States, whereas he would have much preferred that the target have been Israel.

  During one conversation in which AZ was showing the softer side of his personality, one of his debriefers tossed out a hypothetical question. “If you were made free today, what would you do?” she asked. Without hesitation AZ answered: “Rejoin the jihad and kill Jews.”

  Such comments were stark reminders that despite the fact that some of the detainees would occasionally display normal human tendencies, there was a very good reason for us to imprison them and to plumb the depths of the plots that they and others had hatched.

  When it became clear that the EITs worked and that we were going to be accumulating a number of additional senior al-Qa’ida operatives who might be candidates for them, I ordered some of my staff to create a training program so that additional officers
could learn precisely how they were to apply the techniques. The course lasted two weeks. Those going through it were carefully screened by Agency psychologists before they were allowed to enter the program, and a couple of volunteers were not selected to participate because of that review. The careful and precise application of the techniques, carried out by people who were themselves psychologically equipped to administer them, was something we insisted on.

  The debriefing of Abu Zubaydah following the use of the EITs paid immediate dividends. Information he provided led to the capture of Ramzi bin al-Shibh in a gun battle in Karachi, which happened to take place on September 11, 2002. Bin al-Shibh had been part of al-Qa’ida’s “Hamburg cell” and was a close associate of at least three of the 9/11 hijackers. He had intended to be part of that operation. He was not only because he could not get a valid U.S. visa to enter the United States.

  Bin al-Shibh consoled himself with the role of communications coordinator for al-Qa’ida with the hijackers who did make it into the U.S. He never lost his zeal for murder, however. A few months after 9/11 we captured five martyrdom videos, including one of bin al-Shibh vowing to commit suicide for the cause.

  In the same raid that produced Ramzi bin al-Shibh’s capture, we were able to nab several other important al-Qa’ida players and capture a lot of very valuable documentation. One of the operatives seemed to have been somewhat obsessive-compulsive and had amassed a huge stockpile of receipts and a variety of other documents that were a windfall for our analysts. Also found at the site was a spare prosthetic leg belonging to AQ operative Walid bin Attash. Sadly, bin Attash wasn’t connected to it at the time. Some of our people discovered that bin Attash had frequented online dating websites and described himself as someone who “Loves to travel—sometimes at a moment’s notice.” It took us six more months, but finally we captured him in Karachi in April 2003 and put a serious dent in his social life.

  AZ’s debriefing led directly to the arrest and detention of a number of other al-Qa’ida supporters, some of whom ended up residing with him at our black site. One particularly disreputable example was Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who was captured in the fall of 2002. Al-Nashiri was the self-proclaimed “mastermind” of the bombing of the USS Cole on October 12, 2000, while the ship was at anchor in Aden, killing seventeen U.S. Navy sailors and very nearly sinking the $250 million warship.

  “Mastermind” was not an apt description of al-Nashiri. One of our interrogators described him to me as “the dumbest terrorist I have ever met.” He was also one of the vilest. It is impossible to describe this gently, but al-Nashiri was a nose picker who delighted in plastering the wall of his cell with whatever he could excavate from his nostrils. He also enjoyed throwing food around his cell and refused to clean up his mess.

  Abu Zubaydah suggested a way of dealing with al-Nashiri’s disgusting habits. “Drag me into his cell,” he said, “and throw me onto the floor. Don’t be gentle about it. Order me to clean up my brother’s mess. He will be ashamed and change his habits.”

  The scenario played out just as he had scripted it. Al-Nashiri was quick to pull AZ away from his cleanup chores and to promise that he would not put him in that position again.

  We learned a lot from Abu Zubaydah, and not just the intelligence we collected. He also essentially gave us the playbook we used to get the most information out of fellow top operatives, people like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

  We were convinced that al-Nashiri was in a position to know about impending attacks, and he was subjected to EITs. He was the second person to undergo waterboarding, but unlike AZ he became compliant almost immediately.

  For the most part, al-Nashiri’s interrogation went by the book. There were a few exceptions. In one case, two CIA officers blew cigar smoke in his face. Not particularly cruel treatment, but as an example of how carefully the approved steps were being monitored, those officers were reported to their Agency superiors for exceeding authorized guidelines.

  Subsequently al-Nashiri told us the next al-Qa’ida attack might come in housing compounds in Saudi Arabia. We immediately notified our Saudi counterparts, but al-Nashiri insisted that he didn’t have any additional information. About six months later, on May 12, 2003, a group of heavily armed terrorists in an SUV, a pickup truck, and two cars stormed a housing compound in Riyadh, killing thirty-one people, including nine American citizens.

  In addition to being dumb, al-Nashiri was heartless. He was asked why his operatives who conducted the suicide attack on the USS Cole were not allowed to try to save themselves before their explosive-laden boat detonated against the hull of the American destroyer, killing seventeen U.S. sailors and injuring thirty-nine others, and nearly sinking the ship. Al-Nashiri just shrugged. Their survival didn’t matter, he said.

  With each new detainee we gained new insights into what they were likely to know and what actions were best to get the latest arrivals to cooperate. Our officers weren’t above a little theatrics. There was one case, which was later dubbed “Operation Kebab,” in which a new detainee who was being fed a reduced-calorie, but medically healthy, diet was moved in shackles from one part of the building to another. He and his escorts happened to pass through another room where a fellow detainee (who had already become compliant) was enjoying a large, sumptuous meal. His captors told him something funny just before the reluctant detainee came by. The shackled prisoner saw his unchained former colleague laughing uproariously and chowing down with gusto. The ruse worked. “That’s it,” the detainee said. “My jihad is over.” He was ready for serious talk—and kebab.

  One of the many myths about interrogating terrorists is the “all or nothing” fable. Some people suggest that captured terrorists will tell you nothing unless and until you squeeze them, at which point they will tell you everything. That is far from the case. Often they will tell you things they think are trivial or will provide information that they mistakenly think you already know. Such was the case in the early days of Abu Zubaydah’s interrogation, long before he was subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques, when he solved a mystery for us.

  For years we had been seeing in intelligence traffic references to a high-ranking al-Qa’ida official who was known by the alias “Mukhtar.” We knew this person was heavily involved in a wide range of past AQ plots and figured that he was likely in on future plans as well. Al-Qa’ida uses lots of pseudonyms in its communications, and many operatives use similar or matching names, so it is only through the context that recipients of email and telephonic communications know whom they are talking about. So we were delighted when Abu Zubaydah let slip the true identity of “Mukhtar.” A cable back to CIA headquarters put it simply:

  “Mukhtar = KSM.”

  Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had also been known to the intelligence community for many years, but we did not know the full extent of his role in al-Qa’ida. We later learned that he had up to fifty aliases and that if there was a single person who deserved the awful title of “mastermind” of the 9/11 plot, it was KSM.

  As I previously described, the information gleaned from Abu Zubaydah, particularly after the application of the EITs, provided a road map to identifying, locating, and capturing a string of top al-Qa’ida operatives. Based on complex link analysis, we were able to learn which terrorist associated with which other AQ members, how they communicated, and how they supported each other. As a result, we were able to lay meticulous plans that we hoped would lead us to the biggest catches.

  We got close to KSM a couple of times. At one point we had narrowed down his whereabouts to a few square miles in Karachi. But a few square miles in that crowded city can host tens of thousands of people. Working with Pakistani liaison, we tried to narrow it down. But then a corrupt Pakistani policeman who had somehow learned of the effort tipped off KSM. An email from the crooked cop was intercepted. In it he told KSM, “They know where you are.” That was good news and bad news. Good, because it helped us pinpoint KSM’s location, but bad because it took us a couple of da
ys coordinating with Pakistani officials to orchestrate a raid. By the time we got there, KSM was gone. We found videotapes, documents, children’s clothing that belonged to his kids, and other evidence that we had just missed our target. In the trash, written in English in red ink, was information about the murder of American journalist Danny Pearl. After getting so close to being captured, KSM stopped using cell phones and email in an effort to hide his trail.

  At one point, in a location I can’t describe, the Agency met with a man who said he had contacts that might lead us to KSM. This guy had at least two motivations. He was not happy about the way his religion had been hijacked by al-Qa’ida. He thought that the terrorists had done tremendous damage to the image of Islam. But he was also interested in the hefty financial rewards the CIA was offering for those who could help us get to senior AQ leaders. He said he was interested in becoming our “agent.” You often hear the media describe people like me and my colleagues as “CIA agents.” In CIA parlance, we call our employees “officers.” Those who conduct clandestine operations are generally “case officers.” The foreign nationals whom we recruit to spy on our behalf are termed “agents.” If you hear Americans call themselves a “CIA agent” or “former agent,” you can almost automatically assume they are fakes.

  Our officers on the scene wanted to test this volunteer with some low-level projects to see if he was able to deliver. But he was not interested in starting small. I guess he figured that if he was to take the risk of betraying any al-Qa’ida figures, he might as well make the reward involved worthwhile.

  Our agent contacted his CIA handlers and said that he might be able to lead us to KSM.