by Nada Bakos
9. on the case to find a quick cure: Ibid.
10. in the comfort of his sister-in-law’s home: Agence France-Presse, “Troops Came with Tanks: Neighbours: Tariq Aziz’s Arrest,” Dawn, April 26, 2003.
11. in the middle of the night: Ibid.
12. in the backs of luxury cars: Ibid.
13. Cropper: “Regime Strategic Intent,” April 22, 2007, https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/general-reports-1/iraq_wmd_2004/chap1.html#sect4.
14. something of a showman: Dominic Evans, “Tariq Aziz Was Saddam’s Voice Through War and Crises,” Reuters, June 5, 2015.
15. Hussein rarely left Iraq: Jack Healy, “Top Aide to Saddam Hussein Is Sentenced to Death,” New York Times, October 26, 2010.
16. even traveled to the Vatican: “Tariq Aziz, Ex-Saddam Hussein Aide, Dies After Heart Attack,” BBC News, June 5, 2015.
17. He had said Saddam did: “Report of the Select Committee on Intelligence, Postwar Findings on Iraq’s WMD Program and Links to Terrorism and How They Compare with Prewar Assessments,” United States Select Senate Committee on Intelligence; S Report 109-331, September 2006, https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/publications/109331.pdf.
18. “Mikhail Yuhanna”: Timothy R. Smith, “Tariq Aziz Dies; Saddam Hussein’s Top Minister, Longtime Spokesman for Iraq,” Washington Post, June 5, 2015.
19. Born outside Mosul in 1936: Ibid.
20. earned his journalism degree: “Iraq War 10 Years Later: Where Are They Now? Tariq Aziz,” NBC News, March 19, 2013.
21. then joined the upstart Arab Socialist Baath Party: “An Interview with Tariq Aziz,” Frontline, January 25, 2000, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/saddam/interviews/aziz.html.
22. changed his name to Tariq Aziz: Smith, “Tariq Aziz Dies.”
Chapter 9
1. caravans of fortified Chevy Suburbans: Rajiv Chandrasekaran, “On Iraq, U.S. Turns to Onetime Dissenters,” Washington Post, January 14, 2007.
2. a statue of Abbas Ibn Firnas: Oras Al-Kubaisi, “Abbas Ibn Firnas Statue—Baghdad,” Getty Images, http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/abbas-ibn-firnas-statue-baghdad-high-res-stock-photography/518707585.
3. known to many troops as the Winged Man: John F. Burns, “On Way to Baghdad Airport, Death Stalks Main Road,” New York Times, May 29, 2005.
4. onto Baghdad Airport Road: Ibid.
5. “Route Irish”: Ibid.
6. suburbs such as Amariya, Hamra, and Qaddisiya: Ibid.
7. Sunni strongholds under Hussein’s regime: Ibid.
8. the first major attack occurred on the road: Sarah Childress, “Iraq: How Did We Get Here?” Frontline, July 29, 2014, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/iraq-how-did-we-get-here/.
9. Death Street: Burns, “On Way to Baghdad Airport.”
10. IED Alley: Ibid.
11. Highway to Hell: John Geddes, Highway to Hell: Dispatches from a Mercenary in Iraq (New York: Broadway Books, 2008).
12. “Our knowledge of Iraq’s ties to terrorism is evolving”: Select Committee on Intelligence, United States Senate, “Iraq’s Links to Terrorism,” part XII of “Report on the U.S. Intelligence Committee’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq,” July 7, 2004, National Security Archive, George Washington University, http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB129/part12-terrorism.pdf.
13. “derived from sources… reliability”: Ibid.
14. On February 19: James Risen, “Iraq Said to Have Tried to Reach Last-Minute Deal to Avert War,” New York Times, November 6, 2003.
15. United States would be given “first priority” to Iraqi oil: Ibid.
16. “full support” for the US negotiation: Ibid.
17. assist the Bush administration in its counterterrorism efforts: Ibid.
18. help promote America’s strategic interests: Ibid.
19. allow “direct U.S. involvement on the ground in disarming Iraq”: Ibid.
20. the offer was deemed incredible: Julian Borger, Brian Whitaker, and Vikram Dodd, “Saddam’s Desperate Offers to Stave Off War,” The Guardian, November 6, 2003.
21. family visits once every two weeks: Abigail Hauslohner, “Prison Life Inside Baghdad’s Camp Cropper,” Time, http://content.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1856440,00.html.
22. five minutes of physical contact for hugs: Ibid.
23. born in Mosul, Iraq, in 1961: “Pentagon: Top al Qaeda Leader Taken to Guantanamo,” CNN, April 27, 2007, http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/27/al.qaeda.gitmo/index.html?eref=yahoo.
24. risen to the rank of major in Hussein’s Iraqi Army: Bill Roggio, “Senior Al Qaeda Operative Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi Captured,” Long War Journal, April 27, 2007, http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2007/04/senior_al_qaeda_oper.php.
25. international operations chief: Ibid.
26. bin Ladin’s ten-man personal shura council: Seth G. Jones, Hunting in the Shadows: The Pursuit of Al Qa’ida Since 9/11 (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2012).
27. the show of intellectual force was clearly important for bin Ladin: Sami Yousafzai, “Terror Broker,” Newsweek, April 10, 2005.
28. rebel groups in Jordan… and elsewhere: Stanford University, “Mapping Militant Organizations: The Islamic State,” May 15, 2015, http://web.stanford.edu/group/mappingmilitants/cgi-bin/groups/view/1.
29. had fled across the country’s western border into Iran: Douglas Jehl, “Iran Said to Hold Qaeda’s No. 3, but to Resist Giving Him Up,” New York Times, August 2, 2003.
30. placed under “house arrest”: Craig Whitlock and Munir Ladaa, “Al-Qaeda’s New Leadership: Saif al-Adel,” Washington Post, 2006, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/specials/terror/adel.html.
31. “pose a grave and growing danger”: “President Delivers State of the Union Address,” White House archives, January 29, 2002, http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/01/20020129-11.html.
32. “threaten the peace of the world”: Ibid.
33. “It is both our responsibility… fight”: Ibid.
34. three explosions: Douglas Jehl and Eric Schmitt, “U.S. Suggests a Qaeda Cell in Iran Directed Saudi Bombings,” New York Times, May 21, 2003.
35. At around 11:15 p.m.: “One Bombed Compound Owned by Pro-Western Saudi,” CNN, May 13, 2003, http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/05/13/Saudi.jadawel/.
36. three housing compounds in… Riyadh: Ibid.
37. killing three dozen people: Jehl and Schmitt, “U.S. Suggests a Qaeda Cell.”
38. Iran tightened the reins… borders: US Department of State, Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, “Overview of State-Sponsored Terrorism: Patterns of Global Terrorism,” April 29, 2004, http://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/crt/2003/31644.htm.
39. vanishing inside Iran until fairly recently: Yassin Musharbash, “Saif al-Adel Back in Waziristan: A Top Terrorist Returns to Al-Qaida Fold,” Spiegel Online, October 25, 2010.
40. made it safely to meet with Zarqawi: Yousafzai, “Terror Broker.”
41. “Why is the sheik sending someone else?”: Ibid.
42. al-Iraqi seems to have found a connection with Zarqawi: Ibid.
43. al-Iraqi defended the brash Jordanian to bin Ladin: Ibid.
Chapter 10
1. publicly feuded with the UN: Maggie Farley and Maura Reynolds, “Bush, Schroeder End Feud; Germany Offers Aid in Iraq,” Los Angeles Times, September 25, 2003.
2. a fifty-five-year-old… named Sergio Vieira de Mello: Samantha Power, Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World (New York: Penguin Press, 2008).
3. thirty-four years as a UN diplomat in war-torn countries: Samantha Power, “The Envoy,” The New Yorker, January 7, 2008.
4. Named the UN’s high commissioner for human rights in 2002: Ibid.
5. it could never be allowed to become a “country club”: Ibid.
6. “I gave U.N. peacekeepers shoot-to-kill authority”: Ibid.
7. it was a key strategic gambit: Ibid.
8. “in
search for international legitimacy”: Bill Spindle, “Vieira de Mello Took On Big Job with Iraq Position,” Wall Street Journal, September 2, 2003.
9. “join in and help create these new institutions”: Ibid.
10. the UN had set up its offices at the Canal Hotel: Power, “The Envoy.”
11. “he will also have to distance himself from the Coalition”: Ibid.
12. the envoy’s third-floor office: Gil Loescher, “Sole Survivor,” Notre Dame Magazine, Spring 2004.
13. At the end of the service road was a busy catering school: Ibid.
14. there were 117 attacks against coalition forces: “Report of the Independent Panel on the Safety and Security of the UN Personnel in Iraq,” United Nations, October 20, 2003, http://www.un.org/News/dh/iraq/safety-security-un-personnel-iraq.pdf.
15. That number rose to 307 in June: Ibid.
16. and 451 in July: Ibid.
17. killing seventeen people… and wounding more than sixty: Reuters, “Jordanian Sentenced to Death over 2003 Iraq Bombing,” November 5, 2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/uk-security-jordan-sentence-idUKL0571040720071106.
18. the number of attacks… crept toward 320: “Report of the Independent Panel.”
19. sending ten thousand troops… rebuilding efforts: Howard LaFranchi, “Turks Pitch In: New Troops to Iraq,” Christian Science Monitor, October 8, 2003.
20. a car bomb detonated outside the Turkish embassy in Baghdad: Alex Berenson and Ian Fisher, “Bomb at Turkish Embassy in Baghdad Kills Bystander,” New York Times, October 15, 2003.
21. fifty-seven people were killed and seven hundred wounded: Benjamin Harvey, “7 Get Life in ’03 Istanbul Bombings,” Associated Press, February 16, 2007.
22. “it is only a matter of time”: Power, “The Envoy.”
23. an orange truck with a brown cab: “Report of the Independent Panel.”
24. witnesses reported seeing the truck speed up: Ibid.
25. spraying the hotel’s windows with gravel: Ibid.
26. “one million flashbulbs going off all at once”: Power, “The Envoy.”
27. Twenty-three people were killed in the blast: UN News Centre, “UN Envoy for Iraq Sergio Vieira de Mello Laid to Rest in Geneva,” August 28, 2003, https://news.un.org/en/story/2003/08/77882-un-envoy-iraq-sergio-vieira-de-mello-laid-rest-geneva.
28. Vieira de Mello lay tangled in the rubble: Power, “The Envoy.”
29. By 7:30 p.m.… consciousness: Ibid.
30. by 8:00 p.m., he was dead: Ibid.
31. the UN pulled the majority of its remaining staffers out of Iraq: “Regret at UN’s Iraq Retreat,” BBC News, September 26, 2003, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3140184.stm.
32. the most exclusive newspapers in the world: Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones and Christopher Andrew, Eternal Vigilance? 50 Years of the CIA (London: Frank Cass and Company, 1997).
33. ten-to-fifteen-page collections of articles written by CIA analysts: Robert Windrem, “What Is a PDB?” NBC News, April 12, 2004.
34. hand-delivered six days a week: Ibid.
35. PDBs… generally have to be read in the company of the delivering Agency officer: Ibid.
36. a bomb… was detonated in central Baghdad: “Terror Strikes Blamed on al-Zarqawi in Iraq,” NBC News, May 4, 2005, http://www.nbcnews.com/id/5437742/ns/world_news-hunt_for_al_qaida/t/terror-strikes-blamed-al-zarqawi-iraq/#.VnB11cqPyaw.
37. Zarqawi’s associates attacked a police station… in Sadr City: Ibid.
38. five suicide bombers blew up vehicles: Ibid.
39. an attack at the Italian carabinieri training center in Nassiriyah: Ibid.
40. Seventeen killed at a police station in Khalidiyah: Ibid.
41. three Iraqis killed and twenty-nine wounded: Ibid.
42. outside the coalition headquarters in Baghdad: Ibid.
43. an attack on a police station in Mosul: Ibid.
44. roughly $140 a month: Ann Scott Tyson, “Increased Security in Fallujah Slows Efforts to Rebuild,” Washington Post, April 19, 2005.
45. a bomb in the bed of a red Toyota pickup: “Terror Strikes Blamed on al-Zarqawi.”
46. Fifty-six people were killed: Ibid.
47. blew himself up at an Iraqi Army recruiting station: Ibid.
48. forced to divert nearly $2 billion in reconstruction funds: Howard LaFranchi, “Iraq’s Hottest Front Line: The Police,” Christian Science Monitor, September 17, 2004.
49. “I live in West Chester, Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia”: Jesse Singal, Christine Lim, and M. J. Stephey, “Seven Years in Iraq: An Iraq War Timeline,” Time, March 19, 2010.
50. a twenty-six-year-old telecommunications engineer: Ibid.
51. twice gone to Iraq in search of work: Brian Whitaker and Luke Harding, “American Beheaded in Revenge for Torture,” The Guardian, May 12, 2004.
52. a few weeks prior to the video being posted: Ibid.
53. “and they refused”: “Militants Behead American Hostage in Iraq,” Fox News, May 11, 2004, http://www.foxnews.com/story/2004/05/11/militants-behead-american-hostage-in-iraq.html.
54. “coffin after coffin slaughtered in this way”: Ibid.
55. mental health professionals to counsel analysts: Shane Harris, “The Shrinks Who Only See CIA Officers,” Daily Beast, April 4, 2015.
56. Iraq to al Qaida: “Zarqawi Letter: February 2004 Coalition Provisional Authority English Translation of Terrorist Musab al Zarqawi Letter Obtained by United States Government in Iraq,” https://2001-2009.state.gov/p/nea/rls/31694.htm; “Letter May Detail Iraqi Insurgency’s Concerns,” CNN, February 10, 2004, http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/02/10/sprj.nirq.zarqawi/.
57. the PDB I wrote about the correspondence: Dexter Filkins, “U.S. Says Files Seek Qaeda Aid in Iraq Conflict,” February 9, 2004, https://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/09/world/the-struggle-for-iraq-intelligence-us-says-files-seek-qaeda-aid-in-iraq-conflict.html.
58. swimming without getting wet: Fulton T. Armstrong, “Ways to Make Analysis Relevant but Not Prescriptive,” Studies in Intelligence 46, no. 3 (2002), https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol46no3/article05.html.
Chapter 11
1. The drone program employed by both Presidents Bush: Dave Boyer, “Bush Policies Still Alive in Obama White House,” Washington Times, April 24, 2013.
2. that today is part of its Special Activities Division: Gary C. Schroen, First In: An Insider’s Account of How the CIA Spearheaded the War on Terror in Afghanistan (New York: Presidio Press, 2005).
3. SAD personnel were inserted into Tibet in 1950: Jonathan Mirsky, “Tibet: The CIA’s Cancelled War,” New York Review of Books, April 9, 2013.
4. they ran the Agency’s covert Air America program: Associated Press, “CIA Creates Paramilitary Unit to Fight Terrorists,” June 4, 2002, http://www.foxnews.com/story/2002/06/04/cia-creates-paramilitary-unit-to-fight-terrorists.html.
5. the CIA had… plotted the assassinations: Simon Tisdall, “CIA Reveals Decades of Plots, Kidnaps and Wiretaps,” The Guardian, June 23, 2007.
6. the very first ones into Afghanistan following the 9/11 attacks: “FLASHBACK: Sept. 26, 2001—CIA Is ‘First In’ After September 11th Attacks,” CIA Featured Story Archive, September 26, 2013, https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/2013-featured-story-archive/flashback-sept-26-2001.html.
7. Another attack near a military base in Taji: Council on Foreign Relations, “Iraq Timeline 2004,” December 31, 2004, https://www.cfr.org/timeline/iraq-war.
8. Then simultaneous assaults in five cities… left one hundred dead: Christopher Allbritton and Maki Becker, “Slaughter, Chaos in Iraq: 100 Are Killed in Six-City Blitz,” Daily News (New York), June 25, 2004.
9. wore yellow headbands: Ibid.
10. the mechanic found himself based near Karbala, Iraq: Jo Dee Black, “Military Moms Help Family See Son Hurt in Iraq,” Great Falls Tribune, May 24, 2004.
11. Maintenance Platoon… Ar
mored Division: Rudi Williams, “Regis Philbin Inspired by Wounded Service Members’ Spirit,” American Forces Press Service, June 23, 2004.
12. Forward Operating Base Saint Michael: Tim Dyhouse, “Always Know It’s Going to Get Better,” VFW Magazine, February 2012.
13. whose duties included driving… tow truck: Ibid.
14. “a matter of when and where you would get it”: Ibid.
15. “but that wasn’t happening”: Ibid.
16. the 875 US troops who’d already been killed there: Associated Press, “Insurgents Kill 3 U.S. Troops in Northern Iraq,” July 12, 2004.
17. the 5,300 wounded men and women: “Insurgent Attacks Kill 8 in Iraq,” CNN, July 1, 2004, http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/07/01/iraq.main/.
18. Ghul was a facilitator: Select Committee on Intelligence, United States Senate, “Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Detention and Interrogation Program,” December 9, 2014, https://www.congress.gov/113/crpt/srpt288/CRPT-113srpt288.pdf.
19. a courier tasked with crisscrossing the Middle East: “Treasury Targets Three Senior Al-Qa’ida Leaders,” US Department of the Treasury, Press Center, September 7, 2011.
20. Ghul would later tell us: Select Committee on Intelligence, “Committee Study.”
21. missiles for manpower: Ibid.
22. perhaps even chemical ones… Ghul said: Ibid.
23. In exchange, Zarqawi needed al Qaida personnel: Ibid.
24. Al-Iraqi agreed to at least hear him out: Ibid.
25. sending Ghul to meet with Zarqawi… in January of 2004: Ibid.
26. spread word throughout the border villages: Ibid.
27. a tall man in a light jacket and trousers: Ibid.
28. they recovered two CDs… flash drive: Stanley McChrystal, My Share of the Task: A Memoir (New York: Portfolio, 2013).
29. During the forty-eight hours after Ghul’s capture: Ibid.
30. names of fighters al Qaida was considering sending to Iraq: Ibid.
31. four separate e-mail addresses Ghul had for Zarqawi: Ibid.
32. the ideological differences… Ghul discuss: Ibid.
33. That was hardly the end: Ibid.
34. photographed him: Ibid.
