by Bob Woodward
* * *
As the Obama administration fanned through possible options, the discussion turned to the possibility of increasing the cyber attacks on North Korea. Some viewed cyber as the below-the-radar magic wand that might mitigate the North Korean threat.
To launch broader cyber attacks effectively, the National Security Agency would have to go through servers that North Korea had in China. The Chinese would detect such an attack and could conclude it was directed at them, potentially unleashing a cataclysmic cyber war.
“I can’t promise you that we can absorb a cyber counterattack,” one senior Obama cabinet member told Obama. And that was a big problem. The use of cyber could trigger escalation and set off a round of attacks and counterattacks that could cripple the Internet, financial systems like banking and credit cards, power grids, news and other communications systems, potentially bringing the American or even the world economy to its knees.
The administration lawyers who had the top security clearances and were involved in the discussion objected strenuously. It was too risky. Little new happened.
* * *
North Korea’s cyber capability had been demonstrated powerfully in a 2014 attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment designed to stop the release of a satirical movie about Kim Jong Un. The movie, a comedy called The Interview, depicted two journalists going to North Korea to assassinate the youthful dictator.
Investigators later discovered that North Korean hackers had lurked inside Sony’s networks for three months waiting to attack. On November 24, North Korea took over Sony’s computer screens. To maximize shock value, the screens displayed a menacing red skeleton coming at the viewer and the text “Hacked by #GOP,” short for “Guardians of Peace,” stating, “We’ve already warned you, and this is just a beginning.” North Korean hackers destroyed 70 percent or more of Sony’s computers, including laptops.
Employing thousands of hackers, the North was now regularly using cyber programs to steal hundreds of millions of dollars from banks and others on a global scale.
* * *
Two days after the election, Obama and Trump met at the White House. The meeting was intended to last for 20 minutes, but it continued for over an hour. Korea is going to be the biggest, most important thing you’ve got going, Obama told the president-elect. It’s my biggest headache. Trump told staff later that Obama warned him that North Korea will be your biggest nightmare.
One intelligence analyst with vast experience and who also had served in South Korea said, “I’m shocked that the Obama administration closed their eyes and acted like the deaf, mute and blind monkey on this issue. And now I understand why the Obama team said to Trump that the major problem you have is North Korean nukes. They’ve been hiding the problem.”
CHAPTER
13
In February, General Dunford stopped by the office of Senator Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican, for a private talk.
Probably few in the Senate worked harder on military matters than Graham. A bachelor and colonel in the Air Force reserve, he seemed always on duty. He had built a vast bipartisan network in Washington. Former vice president Joe Biden, who had served 36 years in the Senate, said that Graham had the “best instincts” of anyone in the upper chamber. Graham, 61, a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, was best friend and virtual permanent sidekick to the committee’s chairman, the outspoken Senator John McCain.
When Dunford arrived at Graham’s office, Graham could see that the chairman was shaken. Trump was asking for a new war plan for a preemptive military strike on North Korea, Dunford confided.
The intelligence on North Korea was not good enough, Dunford said. “We need better intelligence before I give the president a plan.”
A Marine and combat veteran and former commandant of the Marine Corps, Dunford had served as commander of the 5th Marine Regiment during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. His nickname was “Fighting Joe” and he had served under then Major General James Mattis. He was clearly rattled by Trump’s impulsive decision-making style. Graham sensed that Dunford was stalling Trump’s request given the risk.
* * *
Graham had a contentious relationship with Trump during the primaries. One of 16 besides Trump running for the Republican nomination, Graham had not made it past the second tier. He’d called Trump a “jackass,” and in retaliation Trump gave out his cell phone number at a campaign rally in South Carolina, flooding his phone with so many calls that Graham destroyed it in a comic video. He endorsed Jeb Bush, contrasting him to Trump: Bush “hasn’t tried to get ahead in a contested primary by throwing dangerous rhetoric around.”
Priebus urged Graham to build a relationship with Trump. One of the selling points, he told Graham: “You’re a lot of fun. He needs fun people around him.”
Graham was pounding Trump pretty hard, especially on the first executive order, on the Muslim ban. “Some third grader wrote it on the back of an envelope,” he said.
Graham and McCain had released a joint statement: “We fear this executive order will become a self-inflicted wound in the fight against terrorism. This executive order sends a signal, intended or not, that America does not want Muslims coming into our country. That is why we fear this executive order may do more to help terrorist recruitment than improve our security.”
Graham was now willing to put the past behind.
* * *
Several weeks later, on March 7, Trump invited Graham to lunch at the White House. Graham had prepared a little speech.
When he walked into the Oval Office, Trump was sitting behind the Resolute Desk. He jumped up, moved swiftly toward Graham, and gave him a big hug. “We’ve got to be friends,” Trump said. “You’re going to be my friend.”
“Yes, sir,” Graham replied. “I want to be your friend.”
Trump said he shouldn’t have publicly given out Graham’s cell phone number.
“That was the highlight of my campaign,” Graham joked.
“What’s your new number?” Trump asked. He wrote it down, laughed and asked how their rift had occurred.
“It was a contest,” Graham said. “You know I never got any traction. I couldn’t get on the big stage. Now you won. I’m humbled by being beat, and I accept your victory.” He knew this was what Trump wanted to hear. “Do you want me to help you?”
Trump said he did.
“Before we go into lunch,” Graham said, “I want to apologize to you for a very fucked-up Republican majority. Congress is going to fuck up your presidency. We have no idea what we’re doing. We have no plan for health care. We’re on different planets when it comes to cutting taxes. And you’re the biggest loser in this.” Tax reform and a replacement for Obamacare should have been done years ago. “Now you’re the one who can do it. You’re a deal maker. These leaders in Congress don’t know how to do something as simple as buying a house. If there was ever a time for a deal maker, this is it. There are a lot of good people, but most of them never made a deal in the private sector. There are not five people on Capitol Hill I’d let buy me a car. I’d let you buy me a car. And here’s what I want to convince you of: that you’d let me buy you a car.”
They went into the adjoining dining room. The large TV screen was tuned to the Fox cable channel with the sound off. McMaster and Priebus joined them.
“What’s on your mind?” Trump asked.
“Short term, North Korea,” Graham said. “There’ll come a day when somebody’s going to come in and say, ‘Mr. President, they’re on the verge of getting a missile. They’ve miniaturized a nuclear weapon to put on it. They can hit the homeland. What do you want us to do?’ ”
Suddenly everyone’s attention was drawn to four North Korean missiles shooting across the giant TV screen. Just days before, on March 5, North Korea had fired four missiles into the Sea of Japan.
Trump’s eyes were as big as silver dollars.
“That’s old footage, old footage,” Graham said, trying to calm everyon
e. He had seen it before.
“I’ve got to do something about this,” Trump said, pointing to the screen.
“That day is coming,” Graham said. “What are you going to do about it?”
“What do you think I should do about it?” he asked.
“You can accept they’ve got a missile and tell them and China that if you ever use it, that’s the end of North Korea,” Graham said. “And have a missile defense system that has a high percentage of knocking it down. That’s scenario one. Scenario two is that you tell China that we’re not going to let them get such a missile to hit our homeland. And if you don’t take care of it, I will.”
“What would you do?” the president asked.
It had to be the second option, Graham said. You can’t let them have that capability. Number one is too risky.
The president leaned toward McMaster. “What do you think?”
“I think he’s right,” the national security adviser said.
“If it gets to be a mature threat,” Graham said, “don’t let us [Congress] just sit on the sidelines and bitch and moan. If you had the evidence, the day that they come in and tell you that, you call the congressional leadership up and say, I may have to use force here. Let me tell you why I want your backing for authorization to use force against North Korea. If we had a vote that was decisive and you had that authority in your back pocket, it may prevent you from having to use it.”
“That’d be very provocative,” Priebus said.
“It’s meant to be provocative,” Graham replied. “You only do that as a last resort.”
“That will get everyone worried and excited,” Priebus said.
“I don’t give a shit who I make nervous,” Trump said.
“You don’t want it on your résumé that North Korea, a nuclear power, got a missile that could reach the United States on your watch,” Graham said.
Trump said he had been thinking about that.
“If they have a breakout,” Graham said, “and have a missile that will reach the United States, you’ve got to whack them. If you get congressional authorization, you’ve got something in your back pocket.” It would be an intermediate step and would give Trump leverage.
“They think if they get a missile with a nuclear weapon on top, they’re home free. You’ve got to convince them if they try to get a missile with a weapon on top, that’s the end of them.”
McMaster said that the intelligence on North Korea was incomplete.
“Call me before you shoot,” Graham told them.
* * *
Graham urged as much bipartisanship as possible. Bring in the Democrats. He wanted to provide a roadmap to Trump for dealing with Congress. “Mr. President, you’ve got to buy some Democrats,” Graham said. “The good news is they come cheap.” He said that Trump needed to get to know key Republicans and Democrats. “Use your deal-making past and skills. You’ve got to put something on the table for these people. Look, I’ve been doing this with Republicans and Democrats for 10 years.”
Would there be disagreements? Yes, he said. Good friends disagree all the time. “Washington is always about the next thing. After something doesn’t work out, you’ve got to move on.”
The president had to knock off the tweeting. The week prior, on March 4, he had sent out four tweets accusing Obama of wiretapping Trump Tower.
“You got an upper cut to the jaw, delivered by you,” Graham said of the widespread negative reaction to the tweets. “They’re out to get you. Don’t help them.”
“Tweeting,” the president said, “that’s the way I operate.”
“It’s okay to tweet to your advantage, Mr. President. Don’t tweet to your disadvantage. They’re always trying to drag you into their swamp. You’ve got to have the discipline not to take the bait.”
* * *
Trump phoned Graham the next day to thank him for the discussion.
“Invite John McCain and his wife, Cindy, to dinner,” Graham said. “John is a good guy. You guys need to get along, and he can help you on lots of things.”
In 2015, Trump had made one of his most cruel and thoughtless comments about McCain. “He’s not a war hero. He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”
Graham knew McCain hated Trump. He knew that in Washington, you had to deal with people who hated you. But he did not impart that particular piece of advice to the president.
“My chief job is to keep John McCain calm,” Graham remarked. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell was “scared to death of John McCain. Because John knows no boundaries. He’ll pop our leadership as much as he’ll pop their leadership. And I will, at times, but mine’s more calculated. John’s just purely John. He’s just the world’s nicest man. And a media whore like me. Anyway, he’s a much nicer guy than I am.”
The dinner with McCain and Cindy was arranged for April. Graham also attended. Cindy McCain had dedicated her life to fighting human trafficking, and Graham suggested that Trump make her his ambassador for that cause.
At the dinner in the Blue Room, Trump pulled out a letter. He read it to Cindy McCain line-by-line, drawing it out.
I would very much like you to be my ambassador at large for human trafficking, he read, noting that she had devoted her life to human rights causes.
“I’d be honored,” she said, and teared up.
McCain was visibly touched. As chairman of the Armed Services Committee, he also thanked the president for promising to rebuild the military.
What do you want us to do to help you? McCain asked.
“I just want to get to know you,” Trump said, laying it on very thick. “I admire you. You’re a very tough man. You’re a good man.”
It was as close as he might get to, I’m sorry.
McCain again seemed touched. “It’s a tough world out there,” he said. “We want to help you.”
What about North Korea? Trump asked.
“Everybody screwed this up,” McCain said. Democrats, Republicans—the last three presidents over 24 years, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.
“Here’s the decision, Mr. President,” Graham said, repeating what he’d already told Trump. A containment strategy—let North Korea get the advanced missile with a nuclear weapon, betting you could shoot it down, or that they would be deterred and never shoot—or telling China that the United States would stop North Korea from getting the capability.
What do you think? Trump asked McCain.
“Very complicated,” he said. “They can kill a million people in Seoul with conventional artillery. That’s what makes it so hard.”
Graham offered a hawkish view: “If a million people are going to die, they’re going to die over there, not here.”
“That’s pretty cold,” Trump interjected. He said he believed that China loved him. He seemed to say it almost 10 times, and that it gave him great leverage.
* * *
During a spring meeting in the Oval Office, discussion turned to the controversy in South Korea about the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system, which had become an issue in the South Korean presidential race. The system would help protect South Korea from a North Korea missile attack. More crucially, it could be used to help protect the United States.
“Have they already paid for it?” Trump asked.
“They didn’t pay for it,” McMaster said. “We paid for it.”
“That can’t be right,” Trump said. He wanted an explanation so McMaster set out to get some answers from the Pentagon.
“It’s actually a very good deal for us,” McMaster said when he returned in the afternoon. “They gave us the land in a 99-year lease for free. But we pay for the system, the installation and the operations.”
Trump went wild. “I want to see where it is going,” he said. Finally some maps came in that showed the location. Some of the land included a former golf course.
“This is a piece of shit land,�
� said the former golf course and real estate developer. “This is a terrible deal. Who negotiated this deal? What genius? Take it out. I don’t want the land.”
The major missile defense system might cost $10 billion over 10 years, and it wasn’t even physically in the United States, Trump said. “Fuck it, pull it back and put it in Portland!”
Trump was still outraged by the $18 billion trade deficit with South Korea and wanted to pull out of what he called the “horrible” KORUS trade deal.
Rising tensions around THAAD were bad enough. South Korea was a crucial ally and trade partner. Trump met with McMaster and Mattis. Both said that given the crisis with North Korea, it was not the time to bring up the trade deal.
“That’s exactly when you bring it up,” Trump said. “If they want protection, this is when we get to renegotiate the deal. We have leverage.”
Trump later told Reuters that the initial cost for THAAD was an estimated $1 billion. “I informed South Korea it would be appropriate if they paid,” he said. “It’s a billion-dollar system. It’s phenomenal, shoots missiles right out of the sky.”
On April 30, McMaster called the South Korean national security chief. He told Chris Wallace on Fox News, “What I told our South Korean counterpart is until any renegotiation, that the deals in place, we’ll adhere to our word.”
As a first step, the South Korean trade ministry later agreed to start to renegotiate the KORUS trade deal.
CHAPTER
14
In February, Derek Harvey, a former Army colonel—one of the premier fact-driven intelligence analysts in the U.S. government—was appointed director for the Middle East on the National Security Council staff. It was a plum position in a region that was on fire.
