The Great War of Our Time: The CIA's Fight Against Terrorism--From Al Qa'ida to ISIS

by Michael Morell

  I had another reaction to the White House talking points as well. I have always believed that there should be a bright red line in any White House between the individuals responsible for national security and those responsible for politics. And the line about how Benghazi was not a failure rooted in broader policy seemed to me to be a political statement, not a national security one.

  The reaction to what Ambassador Rice said on those Sunday shows became a slow-moving tidal wave that eventually sank the president’s intention to nominate her as secretary of state. A good bit of what she said was consistent with the CIA points, but she also said that the video had led to the protests in Benghazi. Why she said this I do not know. It is a question that only she can answer. Perhaps she was following the White House talking points. Perhaps she had her own views; policy-makers are permitted to do so. In this regard, perhaps she was “connecting the dots.” After all, the analysts did believe that the incident in Cairo had been caused by the video and that at least one of the motivations for the protest in Benghazi had been the “success” of those who had gotten over the embassy fence in Cairo. The harder statement to explain is why Rice said that there was a “substantial security presence” in Benghazi, as that point was not in either the CIA or the White House talking points.

  That Saturday morning, a day before Ambassador Rice went on the Sunday shows and before I edited the talking points, another set of conversations took place that some would come to see as evidence of politicization on the part of the Agency and me. One media outlet accused me of knowing that there had not been a protest when I edited the talking points—because the CIA chief of station in Tripoli had written me a note telling me so on the morning that I edited them. Here is the real story.

  Each CIA station chief in the Muslim countries affected by the regional violence had been asked to send in daily situation reports. In the situation report, or SITREP, from Tripoli filed on Saturday, September 15, our chief there noted that the attacks in Benghazi “were not/not an escalation of protests.” The word not was repeated for emphasis. That claim immediately jumped out at me—because I recognized that it was inconsistent with what the analysts thought.

  What also jumped out at me, however, was that neither of the chief’s two explanations in the e-mail was compelling. He noted that some press reports said there had been no protest—but that was not convincing because there were also press reports saying just the opposite. And he explained that his officers in Benghazi, when they reached the TMF that night, had not seen a protest. That was also not compelling because his officers had arrived at the TMF almost an hour after the attack started, and a protest, if there had been one, could easily have dissipated by then. Finally, I was struck by the fact that on the previous day the chief’s own station had sent in a report from a CIA source saying there had been a protest at the TMF. Given all of this, I immediately requested that the chief send a more detailed note, with “supporting evidence and logic” for his view.

  I took another step that morning. During the Deputies Committee meeting, I told my colleagues about our chief of station’s view regarding the protest; I pointed out that it differed from what the analysts thought and that we would work to resolve this difference, and get back to everyone. This was not the action of someone who was trying to hide the chief’s view—a charge made against me by some in the media and some in Congress.

  The chief responded quickly to my tasking and his follow-on note arrived early on the morning of Sunday, September 16. I did two things. First, I tasked the analysts to read it and to tell me in writing by five p.m. that same day whether the chief’s argument changed their judgment in any way regarding the protest question. Second, I forwarded the chief’s e-mail to Director Petraeus, telling him, “Sir—The bottom line is that I do not know what to make of this. We need to have the analysts look at this and see if there is anything here that changes their view. I have asked them to do so.” The director responded to my note, saying, “Look forward to what the analysts have to say.”

  That same Sunday afternoon, the analysts responded with a memo to both the director and me. They stuck with their original view, although they indicated that they were keeping an open mind on the question.

  I handled this situation exactly the way I should have. Despite the claims of some members of Congress and some media commentators, at CIA our operations officers collect intelligence and our analysts produce the assessments. Period. That is the way it has been for the entire history of the organization. Operations officers are the eyes and ears of CIA; analysts are the voice of the organization. Analysts have access to all the available information; our officers in the field do not.

  Some have said that I “sided with the analysts” in this debate and that I made a decision that the Agency was going to “go with the analysts’ view rather than our station chief’s view.” At CIA, directors and deputy directors do not tell the analysts what to think and they do not determine the analytic line of the Agency. The analysts do.

  While the analysts establish the official line of the Agency, CIA chiefs of station are free—indeed, they are encouraged—to put on record their own view, particularly if it differs from that of the analysts. Our chiefs can, and do quite frequently, disseminate across the intelligence community and within the policy community assessments that capture their own views on a situation (these assessments are called “aardwolfs”—named after an African mammal that has a keen understanding of its environment). Our chief in Tripoli did not produce such an assessment on the protest issue.

  Seven days after the CIA talking points were produced—on September 22—the analysts changed their judgment based on new information they had received in the days since their initial assessment, explaining that armed assailants had been present from the incident’s outset and that this suggested it had been an intentional assault and not the escalation of a peaceful protest. The analysts changed their judgment after the Libyan government recovered the security surveillance footage from the TMF’s multiple video cameras, watched it, saw no protest, informed our station of that on September 18, and turned over the footage a few days later.

  * * *

  In the days, weeks, and months that followed, Benghazi became a constant stream of controversy. Take for example a media story at the time—and recently replayed in a book—that alleged that CIA senior leaders had ordered their officers at our Benghazi base to “stand down” and not come to the aid of their State Department colleagues. Here is what really happened. Within minutes of the attack, the TMF called our base and asked for immediate assistance. The Agency officers sprang into action, breaking out their weapons, armor, and vehicles. These are the kind of men who instinctively run toward danger rather than from it, to help those in harm’s way. And that is exactly the kind of response I’d expected from them. It took about fifteen minutes for them to assemble their gear and be ready to deploy. I expected a different kind of response from the chief of base, and he delivered on that expectation. He had to ensure that he was not sending his officers needlessly to their deaths. So he tried to round up assistance from local Libyan militias. In a few minutes it became clear that there would be no assistance from the locals. While these calls were being made, the response team was frustrated that it was not moving out. Although the delay was no more than five to eight minutes, I am sure that to those involved it must have seemed like forever. The delay was in no way ordered by anyone further up in the chain of command. It was totally justified under the circumstances, and it was exactly the right decision by our chief on the ground.

  The allegation that there had been some intentional delay gained media traction, however, and Director Petraeus asked me to call in members of the media and conduct press backgrounder. During this session, I carefully recounted—minute by minute—the time between the Annex’s getting the first call for help from the TMF and when the CIA team arrived at the ambassador’s compound, about an hour in total, as the team first stopped short of the TMF and tr
ied to enlist the support of a militia group. I then spent another thirty minutes or so answering questions. Many media outlets ran stories the next day outlining what had really happened, and the stand-down allegation was relegated to the fringe press.

  I actually did two media backgrounders that day. The second was with a group of a dozen or so national security reporters, while the first was a one-on-one session with David Ignatius from the Washington Post. I have the greatest respect for Ignatius’s commentary on national security. I have always found it fair and insightful, and therefore I wanted Ignatius to have the opportunity to ask as many questions as he wished and I wanted his questions to help prepare me for the larger group of reporters. We also committed a faux pas when our public affairs office failed to invite Andrea Mitchell from NBC News to the group session. They just forgot. Mitchell was angry and so was I. Mitchell in many ways is the dean of national security reporters and to leave her out was huge mistake. I ran into her several weeks later and apologized, which she accepted in good humor. Years earlier, when I was George Tenet’s executive assistant and Mitchell was doing a story on the Agency, she asked me, “Is it true that George dribbles a basketball in the halls of CIA?” I responded, “Andrea, I will tell you the answer to that question if you tell me what your husband [Alan Greenspan, then the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board] is going to do with interest rates!”

  There was also a controversy over how I answered two questions at a closed hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee. It is over these answers that Senators Chambliss and Burr questioned my integrity. The first question, from Senator Burr, was directed to all the witnesses testifying that day: “Who took ‘al Qa‘ida’ out of the talking points?” Because I did not know the answer at the time, I said I did not know. While this was truthful, Senator Burr told me later in a private meeting before I left government that he would have expected me to say, “I do not know, Senator, but you should know that I myself edited the talking points at one stage in the process.” I agreed with Senator Burr, and I told him so at the time. I wish that the “Minority Views” section of the SSCI report on Benghazi had captured this conversation. It did not.

  The second question was “Were the talking points provided to the White House for coordination or for awareness?” I said awareness. That was clearly not right, as the White House had suggested changes—albeit editorial ones—that we accepted. The important thing is that my answer to this question was not meant to mislead. I was careless with my words. What I meant to convey in my answer was that there was no way we would have allowed the White House—or anyone else for that matter—to make a substantive change with which CIA did not agree. Was there a lack of clarity in my response to the question? Yes. Should I have been clearer? Yes. Deliberately misleading Congress? No way.

  There was additional uproar over how I sat next to DNI Jim Clapper at a closed House Intelligence hearing the very next day and did not speak when Chairman Rogers asked the DNI, “Who did take out… the al Qa‘ida–linked information in the talking points as they were being formed up?” I did not say anything, again because I did not know who had taken out the reference to al Qa‘ida. Later, Representative Peter King would try to reframe the chairman’s question, saying the DNI had been asked, “Who changed the talking points?”—suggesting the question “How could Morell sit there and not answer when he’d made extensive changes to the talking points?” But King was wrong; the question had been much narrower. But again, I would have served the committee better had I followed the DNI’s answer by saying, “I don’t know who took al Qa‘ida out, but you should know that I took some other stuff out.”

  The biggest controversy on Benghazi was the one that arose over Ambassador Rice’s use of the talking points in her public statement. She became a lightning rod, and it was clear that her potential nomination for secretary of state was in jeopardy. In an attempt to end the attacks on her, she wanted to face her accusers directly. A meeting with Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Kelly Ayotte was arranged for November 27. I was asked by Denis McDonough, still deputy national security advisor at the time, to accompany Ambassador Rice to the Hill. He made clear that my job was to show that the talking points were fully consistent with the classified analysis produced by the intelligence community. I said yes to the request.

  In retrospect, attending the meeting was a mistake. The meeting was inherently political, and by attending, I inserted myself into a political issue. I’m sure that McCain, Graham, and Ayotte saw it that way. I’m sure they saw me as taking sides in a political fight. That is not where an intelligence officer should be. I was politically naïve to have attended, and I have paid a price for it.

  The meeting went forward in a secure Senate conference room. The news media had the hallways leading to the room staked out, and photographers snapped photos of me while reporters yelled questions. A friend e-mailed me later that evening, saying that I’d looked as if I were going to my own execution, and urging me to force a smile in such situations. But once we got started there was nothing to smile about.

  Senators McCain, Graham, and Ayotte were on one side of a table, Ambassador Rice and I on the other. McCain and Graham wasted no time in launching an attack against Ambassador Rice. They repeatedly called Rice a “political hack,” and they sometimes would not let her finish a thought before interrupting her with a new question. Senator Ayotte did not contribute to the vitriol and seemed genuinely interested in getting to the truth.

  I was a silent witness, until Rice asked me to explain the consistency between the talking points and the classified intelligence analysis. Then it was my turn to be attacked. I had brought along copies of the talking points and the classified analysis from September 13, and I tried to show the senators that every sentence in the talking points had a virtual match in the classified analysis. McCain and Graham turned on me, attacking my analysts’ capabilities, judgment, and integrity, interrupting me mid-sentence as they had Rice. “Why did it take you so long to admit there was no demonstration?” they asked. “Why didn’t you immediately interview the people on the ground?” “Why didn’t you call this a terrorist attack?”

  At one point, while being battered with questions, I made an error. One of the senators asked me who had removed the reference to al Qa‘ida from the talking points—and I, incorrectly, said it had been the FBI. I was thinking about the one change that the FBI had made—when it asked for a change in the talking points so that they would not be too definitive in describing who might have conducted the attack, because the Bureau was just beginning its investigation. I got the two changes mixed up. I made a mistake. In the car on my way back to headquarters, our director of congressional affairs, who had joined me in the meeting, told me that he thought I had made a mistake. I immediately responded, “If I made a mistake, let’s fix it.” Upon returning to CIA headquarters and looking at the facts, I quickly realized that I had misspoken. The decision to remove al Qa‘ida from the draft talking points had been an internal CIA decision—made long before I knew that the talking points existed. I immediately directed our Office of Congressional Affairs to notify the senators’ staff of my mistake. It did so within a couple of hours. In response to my clarification, the senators issued a press release citing my mistake and using it to blast the administration about unanswered questions on Benghazi.

  Even worse, months later, Senator Graham publicly insisted that he’d asked me, “Who changed the talking points?” In fact, I was asked, “Who took al Qa‘ida out of the talking points?” By providing an inaccurate account of what he had asked me, Graham left the impression that there was no way I could have made an honest mistake in answering such a broad question. Graham also insisted that it had taken me twenty-four hours to correct the record and that I’d done so only after receiving an angry call from the FBI for saying that it had made all the changes to the talking points. The facts, as with much about what many people have said about Benghazi, could not be more different. The senators ha
d asked a much more specific question that it was indeed possible to make a mistake in answering: “Who took al Qa‘ida out of the talking points?”—a fact that Graham, McCain, and Ayotte’s own press release issued the day of the meeting with Ambassador Rice makes clear.

  Here is what that press release stated: “Around 10:00 this morning in a meeting requested by Ambassador Rice, accompanied by acting CIA Director Mike Morell, we asked Mr. Morell who changed the unclassified talking points to remove references to al-Qaeda. In response, Mr. Morell said the FBI removed the references and did so to prevent compromising an ongoing criminal investigation. We were surprised by this revelation and the reasoning behind it. “However, at approximately 4:00 this afternoon, CIA officials contacted us and indicated that Acting Director Morell misspoke in our earlier meeting. The CIA now says that it deleted the al-Qaeda references, not the FBI. They were unable to give a reason as to why.”

  In addition, the FBI never called me to complain about the mistake I’d made while briefing the three senators. Moreover, as the timing of their own press release makes clear, I corrected the record within a couple of hours, not twenty-four.

  * * *

  At the end of the day, I find three significant ironies in the views of those who were attacking CIA and me. The first is the striking difference between the record of CIA in assessing what happened in Benghazi and the record of those making allegations about the executive branch.

  The judgments of analysts, operating with only twenty-four hours of information, have held up over time. Only one of their main judgments regarding what had happened in Benghazi that night—that a protest immediately outside the TMF had evolved into the attack—has been shown to be wrong. They still believe their other judgments.