Kill Chain: The Rise of the High-Tech Assassins

by Andrew Cockburn

  Though large numbers of people were indeed being killed: Nick Turse, Kill Anything That Moves (New York: Henry Holt, 2013), p. 190.

  As he told author Nick Turse: Ibid., p. 190.

  Unsurprisingly, it was well penetrated: Sam Adams, War of Numbers (Hanover, NH: Steerforth Press, 1994), pp. 178–79.

  Vincent Okamoto, later a distinguished Los Angeles Superior Court Judge: Christian Appy, Patriots: The Vietnam War Remembered from All Sides (New York: Penguin Books, 2004), p. 321.

  In 2004, for example, David Kilcullen: David Kilcullen, “Countering Global Insurgency,” Small Wars Journal, November 30, 2004. smallwarsjournal.com/documents/kilcullen.pdf.

  “Sam, this may sound strange…”: Adams, op. cit., p. 168.

  The ban, first pronounced by President Gerald Ford: President Gerald R. Ford’s Executive Order 11905: United States Foreign Intelligence Activities, February 18, 1976. http://www.ford.utexas.edu/library/speeches/760110e.asp#SEC. 5.

  Administration officials later explained to the Washington Post: “Covert Hit Teams Might Evade Presidential Ban,” Washington Post, February 12, 1984.

  So, in 1986, President Reagan sent a fleet of F-111 bombers: Seymour Hersh, “Target Qaddafi,” New York Times, February 22, 1987.

  W. Hays Parks, a military lawyer working for the army’s judge advocate general: W. Hays Parks, Memorandum on Executive Order 12333 and Assassination, Department of the Army, Office of the Judge Advocate General, November 2, 1989. Posted by John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. http://www.hks.harvard.edu/cchrp/Use%20of%20Force/October%202002/Parks_final.pdf.

  As Parks later explained to me: Telephone interview, January 25, 2014.

  According to an authoritative account of the affair: Seymour Hersh, “Target Gaddafi,” op. cit.

  6 | Kingpins and Maniacs

  “That was a good time”: Interview with Rex Rivolo, Chantilly, VA, December 19, 2013.

  By the late 1980s, Rivolo, always enthusiastic about a new project: Jim Detjen, “Mapmaker Hopes to Chart Milky Way Star System,” Miami Herald, November 19, 1988.

  Early on, he concluded that the V-22 was dangerously unstable: Interview with Barry Crane, Williamsburg, VA, December 18, 2013.

  In 1993 the Clinton administration awarded the post to Brian Sheridan: Vanessa Mizell, “New at the Top: Brian Sheridan’s Interest in International Security Started Early in Life,” Washington Post, February 13, 2011.

  The ultimate solution appeared simple and obvious: Edward J. Epstein, Agency of Fear (London, UK: Verso, 1990), p. 144.

  Among these major traffickers: Andrew and Leslie Cockburn, “On the Trail of Medellín’s Drug Lord,” Vanity Fair, December 1992.

  At one point there were seventeen of these surveillance aircraft simultaneously in the air: Mark Bowden, Killing Pablo (New York: Penguin, 2002), p. 154.

  “We used Cali”: Interview, Washington, DC, February 2010.

  In a revealing address to a 1992 meeting of DEA veterans: Robert Bonner (one of several speakers), “The Kingpin Strategy, Did It Work and Is It Still Relevant?” DEA Museum Lecture Series, September 12, 2012. http://www.deamuseum.org/education/transcripts/091212-DEA-Kingpin-transcript.pdf.

  No less threateningly, the CIA had been anxious not to lose out: Ronald Chepesiuk, Drug Lords, The Rise and Fall of the Cali Cartel (Preston, UK: Milo Books, 2005), p. 99.

  The new unit pursued identical targets: Testimony of DEA Acting Administrator Donnie R. Marshall, DEA Oversight Hearing, House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Crime, July 29, 1999.

  “DEA and CIA were butting heads”: Interview with Robert Bonner, Los Angeles, January 28, 2013.

  The agency budget, always the surest token: Drug Enforcement Administration website, “DEA Staffing and Budget.” http://www.justice.gov/dea/about/history/staffing.shtml.

  The DEA, he discovered, put enormous effort: Dr. Barry D. Crane, Dr. A. Rex Rivolo, and Dr. Gary C. Comfort, “An Empirical Examination of Counterdrug Interdiction Program Effectiveness,” Institute for Defense Analysis, Washington, DC, January 1997, p. II-2. http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a320737.pdf.

  The implications were considerable: Ibid., p. II-20.

  Far from impeding the flow of cocaine onto the streets and up the nostrils of America: Ibid., pp. IV-3, IV-4.

  Deep in the jungles of southern Colombia: Alan Weisman, “The Cocaine Conundrum,” Los Angeles Times Magazine, September 24, 1995.

  This was more than just a hunch: IDA, “Deterrence Effects and Peru’s Force-Down/Shoot-Down Policy: Lessons Learned for Counter-Cocaine Interdiction Operations,” Paper P-3472, Washington, DC, 2000.

  The formula for the U.S.-sponsored eradication spray: Steve Kroft, “Good Intentions, Bad Results; Health Effects on Colombian Citizens from Pesticide Spraying by U.S. Planes to Kill Coca Plants,” CBS News, 60 Minutes, January 13, 2002.

  They show the median price of a gram of cocaine: UN Office on Drugs and Crime, “Illicit Drug Markets,” Bulletin on Narcotics, vol. LVI, nos. 1 and 2, 2004. http://www.unodc.org/unodc/secured/wdr/Cocaine_Heroin_Prices.pdf.

  As later reported by the Washington Post’s Dana Priest: Dana Priest, “US Role at a Crossroads in Mexico’s Intelligence War on the Cartels,” Washington Post, April 27, 2013.

  However, when Enrique Nieto replaced Calderón as president in December 2012: NPR, “Mexico’s New President Changes Drug-Trafficking Tactics,” January 1, 2013.

  “It led to the seconds-in-command…”: “Mexico’s War on Cartels Made Drug Crisis Worse, Says New Government,” The Guardian, December 19, 2012.

  “These were people who had done nothing else but look at Russia and Eastern Europe for forty years”: Interview, Washington, DC, December 4, 2013.

  Scheuer himself paints a different picture: Telephone interview, February 12, 2014.

  It should come as no surprise: National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, “The 9/11 Commission Report,” July 22, 2004, p. 184.

  Coincidentally the CIA already had on the payroll a team: James Bamford, A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America’s Intelligence Agencies (New York: Doubleday, 2004), pp. 184–88.

  Even when the White House did authorize a cruise missile strike: Interview with Michael Scheuer.

  In retrospect, of course, this sporadic and ill-planned pursuit of: Chris Wallace, Interview with Bill Clinton, Fox News Sunday, September 22, 2006.

  He even earned a word of commendation from the man himself: Mary Louise Kelly and Melissa Block, “CIA Chief Says al-Qaida Is Plotting Attack on U.S.,” NPR, September 7, 2007.

  Black had spent much of his career in the agency’s Africa Division: Craig Whitney, “A Onetime Backer Accuses Savimbi,” New York Times, March 12, 1989.

  The bloody attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania on August 7, 1998: John Mintz, “Panel Cites U.S. Failures on Security for Embassies,” Washington Post, January 8, 1999.

  Amazingly, a pair of FBI agents: WGBH Boston, “The Spy Factory,” PBS Nova, February 3, 2009.

  The accusation drew a heated denial from CIA Director Tenet, Cofer Black, and Richard Blee: “Joint Statement on Richard Clark Allegations,” posted on Georgejtenet.net, August 11, 2011. http://www.georgejtenet.com/latest-statements/joint-statement-on-richard-clarke-allegations-august-11-2011/2011.

  Shaikh, who later recalled the pair as being “nice but not what you call extroverted people”: Kelly Thornton, “Hijackers Who Lived Here: ‘Nice,’ ‘Dull,’” San Diego Union, September 16, 2001.

  Settling into their new home: Consortium News, “NSA Insiders Reveal What Went Wrong,” memo from former senior NSA officials Thomas Drake and William Binney, January 7, 2014. http://consortiumnews.com/2014/01/07/nsa-insiders-reveal-what-went-wrong/.

  President Obama himself, in defending the massive domestic “metadata” phone records program: President Obama, “Remarks by the President on Review of Signals Intelligence,” U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, DC, January 17, 2014.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/01/17/remarks-president-review-signals-intelligence.

  As it was, the pair was left unmolested: Consortium News, Former NSA officials’ memo, op. cit.

  Late in the evening of 9/11: Interview, Maclean, VA, June 26, 2014.

  “On the morning of September 11, 2001, the Counterterrorism Center was a collection of rejects and cast-offs”: Interview, Washington, DC, March 28, 2014.

  On the day he signed the document, Bush spoke with reporters at the Pentagon: ABC News, “Bush: Bin Laden Wanted Dead or Alive,” September 17, 2001. http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=92483.

  Reporting on the presidential “kill list”: “Threats and Responses: Hunt for Al Qaeda; Bush Has Widened Authority of CIA to Kill Terrorists,” New York Times, December 15, 2002.

  fully 20 percent of all CIA analysts: Greg Miller and Julie Tate, “CIA Focus Shifts to Killing Targets,” Washington Post, September 1, 2011.

  For many years the preferred Hebrew term for assassination: Gideon Alon, “Rubinstein Expressed Support for the Assassinations, Added That the Term ‘Killings’ Tarnishes Israel’s Name and That They Should Be Named ‘Targeted Prevention,’” Haaretz, November 29, 2001. http://www.haaretz.co.il/misc/1.752603. Trans. by Noga Malkin.

  “the sexiest trend in counterterrorism: Ben Kaspit, “The Polish Poet and the Art of Prevention,” Maariv, June 10, 2005. Trans. by Noga Malkin.

  ‘barrel of terror’: Patrick Tyler, Fortress Israel (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2012), pp. 456–57.

  “If you do something for long enough,”: Jeff Halper, “Globalizing Gaza” Counterpunch.org., August 18, 2014. http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/08/18/globalizing-gaza/. Accessed August 20, 2014.

  Immediately following his retirement: Avi Dicter, Daniel L. Byman, Israel’s Lessons for Fighting Terrorism and their Implications for the United States. Washington, DC. Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, Analysis Paper no. 8. March 2006.

  7 | Legally Blind

  “I felt a familiar rush of adrenaline”: Tommy Franks, Malcolm McConnell, American Soldier (New York: William Morrow, 2005), pp. 291ff; Interview with David Deptula, Washington, DC, February 14, 2013.

  a former day care center: Dana Priest and William Arkin, Top Secret America (Boston: Little Brown, 2011), p. 204.

  According to the Mullah’s driver: Anand Gopal, No Good Men Among the Living (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2014), p. 14.

  Tirin Kot: Gopal, op. cit., p. 28ff.

  Bin Laden himself had slipped the net with relative ease: Peter Bergen, Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden from 9/11 to Abbottabad (New York: Broadway Books, 2013), p. 54.

  Less fortunate was Mohammed Atef: Richard Whittle, Predator. The Secret Origins of the Drone Revolution (New York: Henry Holt, 2014), pp. 276–79.

  but was swiftly replaced as military commander: BBC News “al-Qaeda’s New Military Chief,” December 21, 2001.

  “to capture or kill as many Al Qaeda as we could”: Yaniv Barzilai, 102 Days of War (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2014), p. 45.

  Abdul Rahim al-Janko: Gopal, op. cit., pp. 145–46.

  “the Joint Special Operations Task Force (i.e., Task Force 11) had become frustrated”: Colonel Andrew N. Milani, Pitfalls of Technology: A Case Study of the Battle on Takur Ghar Mountain (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, 2009), p. 1.

  One such was Saifur Rahman Mansoor: Rahimullah Yusufzai, “Battle Creates a New Taliban Legend,” Time, May 7, 2002.

  he opened negotiations with the authorities in Kabul: Gopal, op. cit., p. 133.

  A surge in cell-phone traffic: Sean Naylor, Not a Good Day to Die (New York: Berkley, 2006), p. 37.

  “Unfortunately … the enemy thought so too”: Milani, op. cit., p. 12.

  the pictures showed no sign of any human presence: Ibid., p. 8.

  These were exactly the kind of telltale signs: Harrison, op. cit., p. 107.

  But in the sudden jolt of the takeoff: Milani, op. cit., p. 13.

  This was a means of revealing location: Milani, op. cit., p. 17.

  They felt they had “total situational awareness”: Malcolm Macpherson, Roberts Ridge (New York: Presidio Press, 2005), pp. 68–71.

  “Get off the Net”: Naylor, op. cit., location 6620.

  $1 million a day: Dana Preist, op. cit., p. 246.

  legal definition of blindness: http://police.laws.com/illegal/legally-blind.

  To make matters worse, the people operating this drone: Macpherson, op. cit., p. 68.

  Technical Sergeant John Chapman … who was left for dead: Milani, op. cit., p. 21.

  rain of bombs: Sean Naylor, Operation Anaconda, MIT Security Studies program seminar, March 22, 2006.

  “Go get ’em”: David Wood, “Inside Command Post in Hunt for Bin Laden,” Seattle Times, March 8, 2002.

  when Scott “Soup” Campbell arrived on the scene, he found chaos: Telephone interview with Campbell, January 10, 2014; Lawrence Lessard, Interview with Lieutenant Colonel Scott “Soup” Campbell, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, pt. 3, May 15, 2009.

  But he lived to fight on many more days: Rahimullah Yusufzai, “Battle Creates a New Taliban Legend,” Time, March 7, 2002.

  He finally died in a battle: Bill Roggio, “Taliban Leader Killed in Clash in South Waziristan,” Long War Journal, January 13, 2008. http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2008/01/taliban_commander_ki.php.

  At his crowded memorial service: Milani, op. cit., p. 34.

  “enmeshed in a network of preconceptions”: Milani, op. cit., p. 30.

  8 | Kill Them! Prevail!

  Three years in the planning, budgeted at $250 million: Sean Naylor, “War Games Rigged,” Army Times, August 16, 2002.

  But Van Riper was a twofold enemy: Telephone interview with Paul Van Riper, September 6, 2006.

  This happy state being achieved: Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade, Shock and Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance (Washington, DC: National Defense University, 1996), XXIV.

  According to a postwar Pentagon assessment: BBC News, “Russia Denies Iraq Secrets Claim,” March 25, 2006. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4843394.stm.

  “We were sure we’d got him”: Interview with former DIA analyst, Alexandria, VA, February 18, 2014.

  “I really didn’t care”: Julian Borger, “2 pm: Saddam Is Spotted. 2:48 pm: Pilots Get Their Orders. 3pm: 60ft Crater at Target,” The Guardian, April 9, 2003.

  According to the former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst Marc Garlasco: “Bombing Afghanistan,” CBS 60 Minutes, October 25, 2007.

  But there was a flaw: the Thuraya’s GPS system was not so precise in fixing its position: Human Rights Watch Report, “Off Target: The Conduct of the War and Civilian Casualties in Iraq,” December 12, 2003. http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/usa1203/usa1203.pdf.

  “Our number was thirty”: CBS 60 Minutes, “Bombing Afghanistan,” op. cit.

  In no case had it been refused: Michael Gordon, “After the War, Preliminaries, U.S. Air Raids in ’02 Prepared for War in Iraq,” New York Times, July 20, 2003.

  “if you lop the head off a snake”: John Burns, “The Capture of Saddam Hussein,” New York Times, December 15, 2003.

  “Kill them! Prevail!”: Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, Wiser in Battle: A Soldier’s Story (New York: HarperCollins, 2008), pp. 149–50.

  “producing desired futures”: Major Robert Herndon et al., “Effects Based Operations in Afghanistan: The CJTF-180 Method of Orchestrating Effects to Achieve Objectives,” Field Artillery, January–February 2004.

  whose head Zarqawi sawed off with a carving knife for the benefit of the camera: CBS News, “CIA: Top Terrorist Executed Berg,” May 13, 2004.

  To guarantee his high-value status as the cause of all ills: Thomas E. Ricks, “Military Plays Up Role of Zarqawi,” Washington Post, April 10, 2006.

  “[I]t was mentioned every morning”: Mark Urban, Task Force Black: The Explosive True Story of the Secret Special Fo
rces War in Iraq (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2011), p. 80.

  again being held in “tiny” dog kennels: Ibid., p. 67.

  Tellingly, McChrystal, at that time and since, liked to repeat the mantra: e.g., Stanley McChrystal, “It Takes a Network,” Foreign Policy, February 22, 2011.

  Arquilla served as a Pentagon adviser: John Arquilla (autobiography), “John Arquilla, Professor and Director,” Naval Postgraduate School website, posted September 20, 2011. http://www.nps.edu/About/News/Faculty/NPSExpert/John-Arquilla.html.

  NSA, under the ambitious command of General Keith Alexander: Ellen Nakashima and Joby Warrick, “For NSA Chief, Terrorist Threat Drives Passion to ‘Collect It All,’ Observers Say,” Washington Post, July 13, 2013.

  That was where a classified technology developed by NSA: Dr. Christopher Soghoian, American Civil Liberties Union, “Testimony Before the LIBE Committee Inquiry on Electronic Mass Surveillance of EU Citizens,” December 18, 2013. https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/libe-testimony-csoghoian.pdf.

  What resembles “LITTLE BOY”…: Jeremy Scahill and Glenn Greenwald: “The NSA’s Role in the U.S. Assassination Program,” The Intercept, February 10, 2014. https://firstlook.org/theintercept/article/2014/02/10/the-nsas-secret-role/.

  “It is not enough to have several eyes on a target”: M. T. Flynn, et al., “SOF Best Practices,” National Defense University, Institute for National Strategic Studies, Fort Lesley J. McNair, Washington, DC, 2008. www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA516799.

  “industrial counterterrorism”: Mark Urban, op. cit., p. 91.

  Reminiscing years later about happy days at Balad: Stanley McChrystal, My Share of the Task (New York: Penguin, 2013), p. 165.

  apart from discreet references by privileged insiders: e.g., Bob Woodward, “The War Within,” CBS News, 60 Minutes, September 7, 2008.

  “By hollowing out its midsection”: McChrystal, op. cit., p. 162.

  A leading pioneer had been the mathematician and social scientist Valdis Krebs: Valdis Krebs, “Case Study: Connecting the 9/11 Hijackers,” War 2.0: National Security and the Science of Networks. http://nationalsecurityzone.org/war2-0/case-studies/september-11-hijackers/.