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Terrorism, Betrayal, and Resilience: My Story of the 1998 U.S. Embassy Bombings / Prudence Bushnell

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Terrorism, Betrayal, and Resilience: My Story of the 1998 U.S. Embassy Bombings / Prudence Bushnell TERRORISM, BETRAYAL & RESILIENCE adst- dacor Diplomats and Diplomacy Series series editor Margery Boichel Thompson Since 1776, extraordinary men and women have represented the United States abroad under widely varying circumstances. What they did and how and why they did it remain little known to their compatriots. In 1995 the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training (adst) and dacor, an organization of foreign affairs professionals, created the Diplomats and Diplomacy book series to increase public knowledge and appreciation of the profession- alism of American diplomats and their involvement in world his- tory. The disturbing aftermath of the August 1998 bombings of Embassy/Nairobi and Embassy/Dar es Salaam forms the dramatic core of Ambassador Prudence Bushnell’s “tale of terror and resil- ience.” It is the sixty- fifth volume in the series. TERRORISM, BETRAYAL & RESILIENCE MY STORY OF THE 1998 U.S. EMBASSY BOMBINGS PRUDENCE BUSHNELL an adst- dacor diplomats and diplomacy book Potomac Books An imprint of the University of Nebraska Press © 2018 by Prudence Bushnell Part of chapter 12 was originally published in Foreign Service Journal (January–February 2017). The views and opinions in this book are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Association of Diplomatic Studies and Training, dacor, Inc., or the Government of the United States. All rights reserved. Potomac Books is an imprint of the University of Nebraska Press. Manufactured in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Names: Bushnell, Prudence, 1946– , author. Title: Terrorism, betrayal, and resilience: my story of the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings / Prudence Bushnell. Other titles: adst- dacor diplomats and diplomacy series. Description: Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2018. | Series: adst- dacor diplomats and diplomacy series | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: lccn 2018008993 isbn 9781640121010 (cloth: alk. paper) isbn 9781640121324 (epub) isbn 9781640121331 (mobi) isbn 9781640121348 (pdf) Subjects: lcsh: United States Embassy Bombing, Nairobi, Kenya, 1998. | Jihad. | Women ambassadors— United States— Biography. | Ambassadors— United States— Biography. | Leadership. | Leadership in women. | Terrorism— Prevention. Classification: lcc hv6433.k4 b87 2018 | ddc 363.325096762509049— dc23 lc record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018008993 Set in Scala OT by E. Cuddy. This book is dedicated to the people whose lives were lost on August 7, 1998, in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania CONTENTS List of Illustrations ix Preface xi Acknowledgments xv Part 1. What Happened? 1. The Bombing 3 2. The Past as Prologue 19 3. The Response 43 4. The Impact 55 5. The Turning Point 77 6. The Consequences 91 Part 2. How Did It Happen? 7. The Proxy War 113 8. The Blowback 127 9. The Plots 137 10. The Plans 153 11. The Execution 169 Part 3. So What? 12. The Outcomes 189 Epilogue 215 Notes 225 Bibliography 233 Index 241 ILLUSTRATIONS Following page 126 1. The rubble of the U.S. embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, August 7, 1998 2. Riz Khaliq and the author immediately following the bombing 3. Dufie and Gerry Bushnell in France, 1950 4. Bushnell sisters on ship to Germany, 1950 5. Bushnell sisters dressed for school in France, 1956 6. Easter Sunday, 1960 7. Christmas Day in Karachi, Pakistan, 1960 8. The Marine Corps Ball in November 1990 9. Duncan Musyoko, the ambassador’s driver, 1997 10. Farewell to Americans killed in the bombing, August 10, 1998 11. Laying a wreath at the bomb site, August 15, 1998 12. Madeleine Albright and the author near the bomb site in downtown Nairobi 13. 1998 Marine Corps Ball 14. Joseph Kamotho, William Daley, and the author, December 1998 15. The author in her garden, 1997 16. Memorial to those who died in the Nairobi bombing 17. Remembrance and Recognition Ceremony, January 1999 18. Susan Rice, George Mimba, and the author, Remembrance and Recognition Ceremony, January 1999 19. Nairobi embassy surprise farewell party, May 1999 20. Women’s Community Banking Group in Tecpan, Guatemala 21. Richard Buckley with Guatemalan women’s group 22. Jesse Jackson and the author during his visit to the Rift valley, January 1998 23. The women of Lamu, Kenya, June 1998 24. The women of eastern Kenya, June 1998 25. The Masai women, May 1998 26. A field trip with U.S. and Kenyan militaries, 1998 27. Top Spouse and the author at the Marine Corps Ball, 1997 28. President Daniel arap Moi and the author, July 4, 1998 29. Arlington Cemetery marker dedicated to those lost in the bombing PREFACE This is an account of the “war on terror” and my life. The book begins with the al- Qaeda attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania on August 7, 1998, and ends in the fall of 2017. This is my personal perspective. Most books about al- Qaeda and the war on terrorism highlight the perpetrators. This one starts with the story of survivors and how we found resilience as a Kenyan and American community. Most books about al- Qaeda and the war on terrorism are written by men; I am a woman. Most books about the war on terrorism focus on tactics; I focus on leadership. I cannot separate the story of August 7–– what happened and how– – from my own because we were both products of foreign policies made in Washington with little thought of long- term impacts, much less of the people implementing them overseas. I grew up in a Foreign Service family among the ruins of World War II in Germany and France and the consequences of the Cold War in Pakistan and Iran. When I returned for college in the United States in the mid- 1960s, policy discussions about race and war were taking place in the streets, and I had to figure out where I fit into this country of mine. In the 1970s policies and attitudes about women made me a feminist, and a court- imposed affirma- tive action program in the Department of State brought me into the Foreign Service in my own right in the early 1980s. In 1998, when the bombs went off in Kenya and Tanzania, Con- gress was in recess. The White House, along with the entire coun- try, was focused on the “Monica Lewinsky scandal” and efforts to impeach President Bill Clinton. Congress held no hearings about the bombings, the national security community held no after- action reviews, and the mandatory Accountability Review Board focused on narrow security issues. Then on September 11, 2001, al- Qaeda attacked the U.S. homeland and the East Africa bomb- ings became little more than a footnote. Investigations into the 9/11 attacks revealed just how much parts of our law enforcement and intelligence communities had known about al- Qaeda since 1996, two years before we were blown up in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. I wanted to know how these bomb- ings could have happened, given the scrutiny bin Laden and his cell in Nairobi were getting from special groups in the National Security Council, the fbi, the cia, and the nsa. I also wanted to tell the story of our community and what it was like to work in an embassy struggling toward normalcy after a life- changing attack. For all of the treasure and lives consumed by the war on terror, the targets and survivors receive little atten- tion. As terrorist threats and our conflicts with “jihadists” continue through a fourth presidency, I highlight lessons that prevented our government from safeguarding its diplomatic facilities in con- trast to our community’s resilience and leadership that enabled good people to prevail. We can be wounded, angry, happy, sorry, sad, scared, and hopeful and still carry on. I tell the story in three parts. Part 1 is a personal chronicle of the bombing and its aftermath that includes a narrative of my own life. I move back in time to share what it was like beginning life as a “third culture” kid in the Foreign Service and moving through patriarchal cultures and the State Department hierarchy to become an ambassador. As a girl growing up in the 1950s, it was incon- ceivable that I could become a leader, much less one who excelled in disasters. My only role model was Joan of Arc, and I was well aware of what happened to her when she put on a pair of pants and led men. But I did become a leader, intentionally, and the bombing in Nairobi was a test of leadership the likes of which I never imagined. More important to the nation, it was the act of a war in which the United States had no idea it was engaged. xii preface Part 2 reviews the formation of jihadist groups, including those supported by the United States when it worked to make Afghan- istan “Russia’s Vietnam.” It lays out three competing forces— al- Qaeda, the U.S. law enforcement and intelligence communities, and my embassy— all careening down parallel tracks to the fate- ful day of August 7, 1998. Part 3 offers the leadership lessons I acquired and an assess- ment of results after fighting the war on terrorism for almost twenty years, four presidencies, trillions of dollars, and millions of civilians dead, injured, and displaced. preface xiii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Those who were killed deserve to be recorded in history, and those whose lives were forever changed by the al- Qaeda attacks on August 7, 1998, deserve to know what happened and how. Richard Buckley, aka Top Spouse and Don Ricardo, stood by my side, researched the facts, and stayed on my back until the book was finished. Betty Douglass Sparkman supported me, and Rheta Grimsley-Johnson taught me.
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