a reporter at large the spymaster

Can Mike McConnell fix America’s intelligence community? BY Lawrence wright

ast May, the director of National In- significantly at risk,” McConnell told me. budget, which last year was $43.5 billion, telligence, a soft-spoken South Car- He said that federal judges had recently omits the military’s intelligence opera- olinianL named Mike McConnell, learned decided, in a series of secret rulings, that tions, which, if included, would probably that three U.S. soldiers had been cap- any telephone transmission or e-mail push the total annual cost past $50 bil- tured by Sunni insurgents in central Iraq. that incidentally flowed into U.S. com- lion—more than the government spends As a search team of six thousand Amer- puter systems was potentially subject to on energy, scientific research, or the fed- ican and Iraqi forces combed through judicial oversight. According to McCon­ eral court and prison systems. Babil Province, analysts at the National nell, the capacity of the N.S.A. to moni- To call the disparate intelligence bu- Security Agency, in Fort Meade, Mary- tor foreign-based communications had reaucracies a community suggests that land, began examining communications consequently been reduced by seventy they share a collegial spirit, but through- traffic in Iraq, hoping to pick up conver- per cent. Now, he claimed, the lives of out their history these organizations have sations among the soldiers’ captors. To three American soldiers had been thrown been brutally competitive, undermining McConnell’s consternation, such surveil- onto the scale. one another and even hoarding vital in- lance required a warrant—not because McConnell is the head of the sprawl- formation. Since the establishment of the the kidnappers were entitled to constitu- ing assemblage of covert agencies known C.I.A., in 1947, the fractious intelligence tional protections but because their com- as the “intelligence community”—a term community has botched many of the munications might pass electronically that first appeared in the minutes of a major tasks assigned to it. Its failures in- through U.S. circuits. staff meeting of the Intelligence Advisory clude the Bay of Pigs invasion, the un- The kidnappings could have been just Committee, in 1952. That year, Presi- foreseen collapse of the Soviet Union, the another barely noticed tragedy in a long, dent Truman signed a secret memoran- inability to prevent the September 11th bloody war, but at that moment an im- dum creating the N.S.A., which is still attacks, and the catastrophic assessment portant political debate was taking place the largest of the sixteen intelligence bu- that Iraq, under Saddam Hussein, pos- in Washington. Lawmakers were try- reaucracies. The Pentagon has a Defense sessed weapons of mass destruction. ing to strike a balance between respect- Intelligence Agency, and each military There have been successes—in 2006, ing citizens’ privacy and helping law- branch has its own intelligence shop. American intelligence helped lead to the enforcement and intelligence officials There are three very expensive technical arrest in England of twenty-four con- protect the country against crime, terror, agencies: the N.S.A., which is responsi- spirators who were plotting to blow up espionage, and treason. McConnell, who ble for code-breaking, code-making, at least ten transatlantic airliners—but had been in office for less than three communications monitoring, and infor- they don’t begin to outweigh the damage months when the soldiers were captured, mation warfare; the National Geospatial- caused by bungled operations and mis- was urging Congress to make a change Intelligence Agency, which makes maps guided analysis. in the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveil- and analyzes surveillance photographs; Over the past sixty years, frustrated lance Act, or FISA, which governs the and the National Reconnaissance Office, Presidents and lawmakers have commis- process of eavesdropping on citizens and which provides satellite imagery. The sioned more than forty studies of the na- foreigners inside the U.S. and requires Central Intelligence Agency is in charge tion’s intelligence operations, to deter- agencies to obtain a warrant within sev- of human intelligence on foreign targets, mine how to rearrange, reform, or even, enty-two hours after monitoring begins. although the Defense Intelligence Agency in some cases, abolish them. Most of The act was a response to abuses of the also conducts “humint” operations for the these studies have concluded that the Nixon era, when the U.S. government military. Domestic intelligence is handled rivalries and conflicting missions of the turned its formidable surveillance powers by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, warring agencies could be resolved only against peace activists, reporters, religious the Drug Enforcement Administration, by placing a single figure in charge. Yet, groups, civil-rights workers, politicians, and divisions of the Department of until September 11th, there was no po- and even members of the Supreme Homeland Security. The State Depart- litical will to do so. In 2004, after the Court. Over the years, the act had been ment has its own intelligence-analysis 9/11 Commission recommended the ap- amended many times, but McConnell bureau, as do the Energy and Treasury pointment of a powerful overseer, Con- believed that FISA—a law written before Departments. The intelligence commu- gress passed the Intelligence Reform and the age of cell phones, e-mail, and the nity employs more than a hundred thou- Terrorism Prevention Act, which created Web—was dangerously outmoded. “If sand people, including tens of thousands the Office of the Director of National In- we don’t update FISA, the nation is of private contractors. And its official telligence, or O.D.N.I. Dissenting law-

42 THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 21, 2008

TNY—2008_01_21—PAGE 42—133SC. McConnell, the director of National Intelligence, wants tighter Internet security. Photographs by Mary Ellen Mark.

TNY—2008_01_21—PAGE 43—133SC.—live art r17004_A, critical cut to be watched throughout entire press run!pls pull kodak for color guidance—#2 page—change in caption makers complained that the new office in northern Virginia, near C.I.A. head- same concerns I had with the 2004 act, in would simply add another tier of bureau- quarters. McConnell was a senior vice- terms of the ability to get things done,” crats to an already congested roster. In- president of Booz Allen Hamilton, the Gates told me. “Under the legislation, the deed, although the 9/11 Commission oldest of these firms. The war on terror D.N.I. had the responsibility for execut- suggested that the O.D.N.I. needed no and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq ing the intelligence budget and assuring more than a few hundred employees, it were generating an economic boom that everybody in the community obeyed has quickly expanded to some fifteen in the Virginia suburbs, and McCon- the law, but he didn’t have the authority hundred. Most of these additions, how- nell, like many retired spooks, was reap- to fire anybody.” The community that ever, are transfers from other agencies— ing the benefits of his government ex- both men had spent decades serving was a maneuver that has rankled senior perience and his top-secret clearance. in tumult. Morale was low, especially after intelligence managers, es­ McConnell has pale, the W.M.D. disgrace, when many Amer- pecially in the C.I.A., thin, sandy hair, blue eyes, icans blamed the intelligence community which fiercely opposed the and skin as pink as a baby’s. for dragging the country into an unneces- establishment of the new His back troubles him, and sary conflict. A number of experienced office. Until the 2004 law he walks with a slight officers had walked away in shame and passed, the nominal leader stoop, which becomes frustration. Moreover, the nation that had of the intelligence com- more pronounced as the launched a war in Iraq because of faulty munity was the head of the day wears on. His friends intelligence was now losing the battle, in C.I.A. Now the agency re- describe him as quick- part because it was so poorly prepared to ports to the D.N.I., just minded and crafty, with an understand the enemy. Al Qaeda, which as the intelligence branch unusual ability to synthe- the C.I.A. and the military had failed to of the Coast Guard does. size large amounts of infor- vanquish in Afghanistan, was reconstitut- The reforms came at a time when the mation. A workaholic, he regularly ing itself there, as well as in Pakistan, Iraq, basic value of intelligence-gathering was lugged two briefcases home each night. Somalia, and North Africa. Meanwhile, in question. “We have such a huge infra- Yet, ten years after leaving the govern- North Korea had exploded a low-yield structure that adds so little to our under- ment, he was finally making real money— nuclear bomb, and China was emerging standing and frequently gets us in trou- two million dollars a year at Booz Allen— as a rival to American supremacy. The ble,” says Richard Clarke, who served as and was looking toward a comfortable need for reliable intelligence was arguably the counterterrorism coördinator under retirement, perhaps in a cabin in the Car- greater than it had been during the Cold President Clinton and, until 2002, in the olinas, where he could build birdhouses War, when the enemy was easy to find, if current Administration. “You’re left with (he and his wife, Terry, are members of a hard to destroy; now the enemy might be the impression that it wouldn’t make any society whose purpose is to protect the a small group of lightly armed men who difference if they didn’t exist.” Eastern bluebird) and listen to soft rock could be anywhere, and whose capacity to In April, 2005, Congress confirmed and rhythm and blues. He claims to be a cause great harm had been appallingly John Negroponte, then the U.S. Am- terrific dancer. demonstrated. bassador in Iraq, as the office’s first di- In September, 2006, McConnell was Gates informed McConnell that rector. General Michael Hayden, the offered the D.N.I. job and refused it. he had recommended McConnell’s old head of the N.S.A., became his deputy. One of the major limitations of the post friend Lieutenant General James Clap- But Negroponte lasted only two years in was that eighty per cent of the intelli- per to be Under-Secretary of Defense for the job before returning to the State gence budget was controlled by the Sec- Intelligence. “I thought that, between Department, where he clearly felt more retary of Defense—and at the time that Hayden, McConnell, Clapper, and my- at home. And Hayden left to lead the was Donald Rumsfeld, whose contempt self, we could reach an agreement on C.I.A. There were few candidates eager for the C.I.A. and other civilian intelli- some of the issues that hadn’t been re- to replace Negroponte in the last two gence agencies was well known. Two solved by the legislation,” Gates said. If years of an embattled, lame-duck Ad- months later, Rumsfeld resigned, and McConnell and Clapper took office, ministration. And although the 2004 Robert M. Gates replaced him. When each of the major agencies would be led reforms had given the director of Na- Vice-President Dick Cheney approached by a military man. This unique align- tional Intelligence responsibility for McConnell again, over Christmas, he ment, Gates and McConnell believed, overseeing the community, his powers asked for time to think about it. would offer the best chance that the in- were limited. “My first phone call was to Secretary telligence community would ever have to The President turned to Mike Mc- Gates,” McConnell recalls. The two men reform itself. Unsurprisingly, the model Connell, a retired admiral who had di- had known each other since the first Gulf they had in mind was the American rected the N.S.A. from 1992 to 1996, War, when Gates worked in the White armed forces. but who was not well known outside the House as deputy national-security adviser All four men were insiders who un- intelligence community. Sixty-three and McConnell was the intelligence derstood the culture of intelligence-gath- years old at the time, McConnell was officer for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Gates, ering. “There hadn’t been this kind of part of the featureless parade of manage- a former C.I.A. director, had been offered alignment of stars in the more than forty ment consultants and security experts the D.N.I. job before Negroponte, and years of my experience in the intelligence who work for federal contractors based turned it down. “Mike had a lot of the community,” Gates said. The question

44 THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 21, 2008

TNY—2008_01_21—PAGE 44—133SC.— live spot art—r 16988_B—please inspect and report on quality was whether they could be sufficiently “Where I grew up, in South Carolina, “Every service chief stood up and said, objective and forceful to reshape a subter- there’s a war, you’re supposed to go,” Mc- ‘This is the greatest thing to happen to ranean branch of government that had Connell said. He joined the Navy and, the United States military.’ ” failed so deeply in its mission. in August, 1967, went to Vietnam, spend- The 2004 intelligence legislation was McConnell accepted the post and in ing a year on a boat patrolling the Me- not nearly as comprehensive as Goldwa- February, 2007, he was sworn in. Clap- kong River. The lesson he learned from ter-Nichols, but McConnell came into per’s wife gave McConnell and her hus- Vietnam was “Be careful what you get office with a slate of reforms, called the band clocks that counted down to the last into.” He went on, “During the latter Hundred-Day Plan, that was modelled second of the Bush Administration, on stages of Vietnam, soldiers were fragging on the streamlined military command. January 20, 2009. That was the amount their own officers, and drugs were ram- He proposed a “culture of collaboration,” of time, McConnell believed, that he had pant. The military was a shambles.” Like which would require agencies to work to- to lead a revolution. the agencies of the intelligence commu- gether. The cost of one agency hiding in- nity, the military’s various branches un- telligence from others was made dismally “ don’t know much about you,” I ad- dermined rather than helped one another. clear in the recent Inspector General re- mitted to McConnell at the end of As McConnell put it, “The Navy has its port on the performance of the C.I.A. July,I when we met for the first of a series own ground force, its own air force, and before 9/11. The report revealed that in of discussions in his temporary office, its own ships. So the view of the Navy is: March, 2000, between fifty and sixty in- which is at Bolling Air Force Base, in Why do we need anybody else?” dividuals within the agency had known Washington. Despite his long career, A new generation of leaders at the that two future Al Qaeda hijackers were there was little in the public record about Pentagon, McConnell said, decided that infiltrating America, but nobody at the his background. the military needed to be reformed. C.I.A. had informed the F.B.I. “That’s a good thing,” he said. “I’m “Guys like Colin Powell, they just made McConnell’s hundred days ended in a spy.” a decision—‘This is our Army, we’re tak- August. He set up an executive commit- He told me that he was born in Green- ing it back.’ And they did. What that led tee made up of the heads of the most ville, South Carolina, in 1943. “Working to was an all-volunteer force, the most significant agencies, and took control of class. My father grew up in a mill village. professional army in history.” In 1986, the budget for the community. Some im- In the Depression, he worked sixty hours the Goldwater-Nichols Act restructured portant advances were made in sharing for six bucks. His view of the world was the military, despite resistance from the intelligence and in prompting career em- that wasn’t right. So he decided to become leaders of the uniformed branches. The ployees to serve outside their home agen- a union organizer.” McConnell’s father law established the Secretary of Defense cies, but he admits that his office should campaigned against child labor and was as the top decision-maker and awarded have been more realistic about how long an outspoken proponent of civil rights, at battlefield commanders more control. it would take to bring about such pro- a time when that was genuinely danger- The 1991 Gulf War, with its coördi- found changes. In the fall, he established ous. McConnell recalled, “The ‘n’ word nated use of overwhelming power, pro- a Five-Hundred-Day Plan, which coin- was forbidden in my house, and it wasn’t vided a stunning example of the restruc- cided with the number of days remaining uncommon for us to have black people tured armed forces. McConnell recalled, on his countdown clock. This second come over to the house for a meal. Kids I grew up with would absolutely reject any thought of that.” He said of his father, “He pushed back against everything. When I was ten, maybe thirteen years old, he described to me bureaucratic behavior and people being afraid of change. He said that people never accept change will- ingly. I remember it as clear as day, think- ing, Change will never frighten me.” McConnell’s parents were poor— “They had, basically, nothing”—so he got a student loan and a job and went to North Greenville Junior College, where he was elected student-body president in his second year; he then transferred to Furman University, a private college, liv- ing in a closet in the gym during his first semester while he managed the basketball team. In his senior year, he married his childhood sweetheart, Suzanne Gideon, in the first of two marriages. It was 1965, during the Vietnam War.

TNY—2008_01_21—PAGE 45—133SC—live art a13082 give us the documents to show what they needed the immunity for,” Silvestre Reyes, of Texas, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, told me.) McConnell’s third point was un- controversial: he wanted a warrant to be required whenever a person in the U.S. was the object of surveillance. However, the reform bill before Congress, which Democrats in both houses had rejected, did not protect Americans—travellers, soldiers, exchange students, diplomats— who happened to be outside the United States. As the vote on the legislation ap- proached, the Administration let it be known that threats from Al Qaeda had increased in number; there had even been signs, it claimed, of a plot to attack Con- gress. Many lawmakers felt manipulated and suspicious. In a meeting with Mc- Connell, I said, “According to Senator Harry Reid, the legislation ‘authorizes •• warrantless searches and surveillance of American phone calls, e-mails, homes, phase focusses on information technology “talking to a tower, happens all the time, offices, and—’ ” and clearance issues. The intelligence no warrant. Tower goes up to a micro- “Totally untrue!” McConnell ex- community is literally incapable of under- wave tower, no warrant. Goes up to a sat- claimed. “I’m telling you, if you’re in the standing the enemy, because substantial ellite, back to the ground station, no war- United States you have to have a warrant. security barriers have been placed in the rant. Now, let us suppose that it goes up Authorized by the court. Period!” Critics path of Americans who are native speak- to a satellite, and in the process it does argued, however, that the proposed law ers of Arabic and other critical languages. this”—his finger darted to the U.S. be- left a loophole. If the Attorney General In the six years since September 11th, very fore angling back to Pakistan. “Gotta and the D.N.I. decided that a foreign tar- little progress has been made in hiring have a warrant! So it was crazy.” get was a subject of interest, the law per- people who might penetrate and disrupt The changes to FISA that McConnell mitted them to conduct surveillance on Al Qaeda and its affiliates. proposed were minor, in his view. “Three any Americans who might be in touch McConnell was undaunted. “I grew things we wanted,” he told me, in char- with that person, to break into their up in this community,” he said. “I served acteristic bulletin language. “First, we homes, to open their mail, to examine it as a consultant. I’m passionate about it. had to have a situation where it doesn’t their medical records—all without a war- So this job gives me the opportunity to require us to get a warrant for a foreign rant. Legislators worried that the law make a contribution, even to the conster- person in a foreign country. Second would permit the intelligence commu- nation of the bureaucracies, because I am point, we need the coöperation of the nity to “reverse-target” Americans who going to force them to coöperate.” private sector. The private sector is being happened to be making international sued for allegedly coöperating with the calls but who had nothing to do with n August, just before the congressio- government.” He was referring to reports terrorism. nal recess, members of the House and that, even before 9/11, many of Ameri- “That’s a violation of the Constitu- theI Senate were frantically seeking a ca’s major telecommunications compa- tion,” McConnell said. “We can’t do that, compromise on a FISA-reform bill. Mc- nies had diverted virtually all records of wouldn’t do that.” Naturally, some inno- Connell explained one day over lunch at telephone and e-mail traffic from their cent Americans would be overheard, he his office, “When the law was passed, in routers into N.S.A. data banks, where it conceded. “What do you do about it? It’s ’78, almost all international communica- could be stored and examined. McCon- called ‘minimize.’ Courts reviewed it—it tion was wireless,” meaning that it relied nell wanted liability protection not only works. You get an inadvertent collection? mainly on satellites. “Today, ninety per for the companies’ future coöperation but When you recognize what it is, you de- cent goes through a glass pipe”—a fibre- for their past actions as well; however, he stroy it. Exception: let’s suppose it was optic cable. “So it went from almost all agreed to take the issue of retroactive im- terrorism or crime. In that case, as a com- wireless to almost all wire.” He put down munity off the table if Congress would munity, it is our obligation to report his sandwich and walked over to a world reconsider the matter after its recess. it. But to claim that this community is map on his wall. “Terrorist on a cell (“We were in a pissing contest with the monitoring the e-mail and telephone phone, right here”—he pointed at Iraq— Administration, because they wouldn’t calls of millions of Americans, and that

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TNY—2008_01_21—PAGE 46—133SC.46—133SC.——live art a13022_RD we’re doing reverse-targeting, is clearly F.B.I. have the structure and experience bill. Reyes, among others, felt betrayed. absurd.” and time to learn, the way you do in the “We had thought we were dealing in McConnell admitted that Congress fisa world? In fact they did not. It was good faith,” he said. (McConnell denies had reason to be wary of the intelligence used in a sloppy way.” He said that the that he and the Democrats had a firm community’s intentions. “In the forties, FISA system, by contrast, was governed by agreement.) fifties, sixties, seventies—every President a strict protocol that had been in place for On Friday, August 3rd, in a furious used either law enforcement or intel to decades. (A special FISA court in Wash- scramble, the Democrats and the Re- conduct activities in the interest of na- ington, established in 1978, confidentially publicans pushed rival bills to the floor. tional security by tapping telephones of weighs all requests for FISA warrants.) McConnell happened to be on Capitol Americans,” he said. FISa had been a use- On August 1st, McConnell and his Hill, explaining some of the technical ful corrective. He summed up the law’s staff stayed up all night preparing their language to the senators, and was sur- intent as follows: “You intel guys go off position on fisa for lawmakers. Despite prised to discover that the Senate was and do your foreign-intel mission, but if his long government service, McConnell about to vote. “At that point, I had seen you ever do it in this country you gotta had never been enmeshed in a partisan neither version,” he said. He was in the have a warrant, O.K.?” legislative debate. “Mike McConnell is a Vice-President’s office in the Senate, The intelligence agencies have always first-rate professional,” Senator Arlen watching the debate on a monitor, as had a murky relationship with the law. Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, each side claimed to be sponsoring “Mc- “We have to be at the edge of legality all told me. “But he’s a little out of his ele- Connell’s bill.” McConnell wrote a note the time,” Admiral William Studeman, ment in politics.” officially rejecting the Democratic ver- who preceded McConnell as the director The next afternoon, the top Demo- sion, saying that it “creates significant of the N.S.A., told me. “Otherwise, we cratic leaders, including Reid and Reyes, uncertainty.” can’t do our job.” He added, “In foreign gathered in the office of Nancy Pelosi, the The Republican bill, called the Pro- environments, all espionage agencies Speaker of the House, and placed a call to tect America Act, passed that night. The break the laws every day—but they’re McConnell. The Democrats presented next day, the House, desperate to ad- somebody else’s laws. Now there seems to him with their proposal, which stated, journ, passed the legislation, which was be a notion that because we’re criminals among other things, that if Congress was designated a placeholder that would ex- overseas we’re criminals domestically.” going to allow the President to conduct pire in six months, allowing lawmakers Six weeks after 9/11, Congress passed warrantless surveillance the power had to to deliberate more fully after their break. the U.S.A. Patriot Act. The F.B.I. was be limited to matters of terrorism. McCon­ “Then all the press stuff started,” Mc- given expanded authority to issue “na- nell responded that this would hamper Connell said. “ ‘The White House rolled tional-security letters,” a form of sub- the ability of the intelligence community McConnell!’ ‘The naïve admiral learns a poena entitling the bureau to pry into the to collect information about dangerous hard political lesson.’ I guess the part that private lives of American citizens and vis- foreign powers such as Iran and North bothered me a bit was the rhetoric com- itors who were not the subject of a crim- Korea. He also rejected language in the ing off the Hill, impugning my integrity, inal investigation and might not even bill requiring the Attorney General and saying I was less than honest.” When have been suspected of being terrorists the FISA court to establish guidelines for asked if he had bowed to the White or spies. There was no judicial oversight. which kinds of contact between a targeted House, McConnell said, “Nothing could Unlike a FISA warrant, a national-secu- foreigner and a U.S. person merited a be further from the truth.” rity letter did not permit the government warrant; he called the idea a “poison pill.” to eavesdrop on phone calls or read The Democrats ceded on both points. He ix mornings a week, McConnell e-mails, but it did allow the examination pledged to get back to the leaders half an awakens at four, does twenty minutes of phone records, bank accounts, Web hour later, with a new draft of their bill ofS back exercises, then prepares for his searches, and credit-card purchases. The which reflected his concerns. daily briefing of President Bush—a task F.B.I. was required to prove a specific When McConnell didn’t call back, the that was formerly the jealously guarded national-security need before serving Democrats telephoned his office. His as- prerogative of the C.I.A. The night be- such letters, but a recent Justice Depart- sistant told them that he was talking to the fore each meeting, McConnell receives a ment audit uncovered dozens of cases in White House. McConnell called back at draft of the Presidential Daily Brief, a which bureau officials appeared to have around seven. According to two people compendium of topical items. At 6 A.M., violated this rule. “We found wholesale present in Pelosi’s office, McConnell apol- a dark armored Suburban arrives at his abuse of that authority,” Silvestre Reyes ogized, saying that he had been on the house, in northern Virginia, and takes told me. “It underscored the need for phone with “the other side” and that he him to the White House. On the way, constitutional protections.” could no longer abide by their compro- he says, he reads a summary of opera- I asked McConnell how the new FISA mise. He told the Democrats, “I’ve spent tional and intelligence traffic—“mes- law would be different. How could forty years of my life in this business, and sages, e-mails, or whatever”—from the Americans be sure that the intelligence I’ve been shot at during war. I’ve never felt past twenty-four hours. community wouldn’t commit even more so much pressure in my life.” The Presidential briefing starts be- intimate invasions of privacy? Late that evening, McConnell’s office tween seven-thirty and eight and rarely “A national-security letter was a whole sent the legislators a sweeping revi- lasts longer than an hour. In addition new tool,” he explained. “Now, did the sion that bore little resemblance to their to Bush and Cheney, the core group

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TNY—2008_01_21—PAGE 47—133SC.47—133SC.— includes Joshua Bolten, Bush’s chief of said. He noted the discord surrounding Live,’ ” Powell recalled. “That’s when I staff, and Stephen Hadley, the national- Lincoln’s decision to suspend habeas cor- knew we’d made a good decision.” security adviser. “We take analysts into pus during the Civil War. “There are a In 1992, both Powell and Cheney the Oval Office three or four times a lot of parallels. The current Administra- sponsored McConnell’s candidacy to week for what we call a ‘deep dive,’ ” Mc- tion is accused of spying on Americans. become the head of the N.S.A., even Connell said. Once a week, the deep dive And I’m right in the middle of that.” though McConnell had been promoted concerns Iraq. The Secretaries of State McConnell often speaks admiringly to a one-star admiral only nine months and Defense usually attend. “Sometimes of General Colin Powell, who, as chair- earlier. By law, the N.S.A. position re- we’ll go right out of the briefing in the man of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1990, quires three stars; thanks to his powerful Oval to the Situation Room, where we’ll hired McConnell, then a Navy captain, patrons, McConnell received two addi- meet with the National Security Coun- to be his intelligence officer. “I was im- tional ones. cil.” A screen in the room displays live pressed by his reputation and by his in- When he took over the N.S.A., the video feeds of Ryan Crocker, the Am- terview,” Powell told me. McConnell Cold War had just ended and Congress bassador to Iraq; General David Pe- was well versed in technical intelligence, had decided to extract a “peace dividend” traeus, the U.S. commander there; and but not in other important areas, such as from the intelligence community. New Admiral William J. Fallon, the cent- ground warfare. That didn’t seem like hiring came to a near-halt just as the se- com commander. McConnell went on, such a liability at the time. “It was go- curity challenges became far more diverse. “Another day, we do Homeland Secu- ing to be a quiet summer, so I hired There was a surfeit of Russian linguists rity, so in the room will be the core group, him,” Powell said, laughing. Four days but scarcely anyone who, for instance, plus the Attorney General, the director later, Saddam Hussein’s troops invaded could speak Serbo-Croatian, during the of the F.B.I., the Secretary of Homeland Kuwait. breakup of the former Yugoslavia, or the Security, and the adviser to the President It was McConnell who informed Creole dialect of Haiti, when the Clinton for Homeland Security. Another day, we Powell that Iraqi troops had massed on Administration sent troops there to re- could do a deep dive on the former Yu- the border. At a speech last fall at the store order. The agency had to hire Hai- goslavia, Georgia, Russia, China—what- Woodrow Wilson International Center tian menial laborers in Washington and ever the issue is.” for Scholars, in Washington, he recalled, put them to work listening to intercepts in By nine-thirty, McConnell is back in “I’m anticipating the question was going N.S.A. headquarters. the Suburban, headed to Bolling Air to be ‘How many divisions.’ He said, There was, however, an even greater Force Base. His temporary office is in the ‘Mike, how many maneuver brigades?’ I challenge for the N.S.A. than hiring new Defense Intelligence Agency building didn’t even know what a maneuver bri- linguists. The Internet and e-mail were there, a chilly steel-and-glass structure gade was. . . . So I now feel about two radically expanding the abilities of terror- with a Scud missile erected beside the el- inches tall. I said, ‘Sir, I don’t know, but ists and rogue states to communicate. evator bank and a pair of Saddam Hus- I’ll find out.’ ” Powell was not bothered by “When I went there in ’92, the Internet sein’s gold-plated automatic weapons the reply. He instructed McConnell in existed—it was called Arpanet—but the displayed in the lobby. His office is spare, his rules for an intelligence agent: “Tell World Wide Web did not,” McConnell except for a photograph of his children me what you know, then tell me what recalled. “Then the Web made the Inter- and a few treasured artifacts—a Yemeni you don’t know, and only then can you net accessible for everybody. My world dagger and a blue vase from the People’s tell me what you think. Always keep exploded.” Liberation Army of China. Through the those three separated.” Powell says that large windows, one can see planes land- McConnell spent weeks carrying around ne afternoon, as McConnell and I ing at Washington’s National Airport flash cards of Army terms. were walking back to his office and marines running around a track. He The government was desperate to de- fromO the cafeteria, in the basement, we frequently leaves the office to testify be- termine whether Iraqi troops were merely passed the security room, where a pair of fore Congress, or flies off for a speech. on a maneuver or were poised for inva- guards monitored half a dozen screens He usually arrives home around eight. sion. Cheney, then the Secretary of De- displaying a video of the building’s “My wife gets about fifteen minutes a fense, was demanding a verdict, and the grounds. The setup was, by Hollywood day,” he said. “She’s not a happy camper. intelligence community was typically re- standards, disappointingly low-tech. I Now, I’m not complaining. This is a de- luctant to render one. Twenty-two hours asked McConnell if he’d seen “The manding job, but I love doing it.” before the invasion, McConnell correctly Bourne Ultimatum,” in which Matt Da- McConnell claims to be “apolitical,” judged that Saddam intended to move mon’s character is pursued by C.I.A. by which he means nonpartisan. “I’m not into Kuwait. His willingness to take a officers with instant global access to sur- a Republican or a Democrat,” he told me. stand earned Cheney’s admiration. Soon veillance cameras, banking transactions, “My worry is good government.” On an- after the onset of Desert Storm, the and passport controls. “Yeah, we can’t do other occasion, he said, “I always vote, American-led effort that repelled the Iraqi that,” McConnell admitted. “That’s all and I’ve voted for both parties.” His po- invasion, Powell had so much confidence horse pucky.” litical heroes are Lincoln, Churchill, and in McConnell’s grasp of ground warfare The intelligence community has Franklin Roosevelt. “The thing that al- that he charged him with delivering daily lagged significantly behind private indus- ways impressed me was the pressure on press briefings. “He got so good that he try in the development and use of inno- Lincoln, and how he stood up to it,” he started being parodied by ‘Saturday Night vative technology. “There have been

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TNY—2008_01_21—PAGE 48—133SC. McConnell at Bolling Air Force Base, in Washington, D.C., where he works in a temporary office.

TNY—2008_01_21—PAGE 49—133SC.—live art r17004_B, critical cut to be watched throughout entire press run!pls pull kodak for color guidance breakthroughs,” General Clapper, the Defense Under-Secretary, told me, cit- ing the use of cell phones and computers old marx on the battlefield, although he acknowl- edges that Al Qaeda has also made cre- I try to envision his last winter, ative use of those technologies. By com- London, cold and damp, the snow’s curt kisses parison, during the Second World War on empty streets, the Thames’ black water. the U.S. government developed ad- Chilled prostitutes lit bonfres in the park. vanced radar and jet engines, and in- Vast locomotives sobbed somewhere in the night. vented the atomic bomb. Six years of the The workers spoke so quickly in the pub war on terror have brought nothing that he couldn’t catch a single word. nearly as significant; instead, the intelli- Perhaps Europe was richer and at peace, gence community has only warily appro- but the Belgians still tormented the Congo. priated models whose usefulness is blind- And Russia? Its tyranny? Siberia? ingly obvious. In 2006, the community adopted Intellipedia, a secure version of He spent evenings staring at the shutters. Wikipedia. Blogging is now permitted He couldn’t concentrate, rewrote old work, on internal servers, giving contrarian reread young Marx for days on end, opinion a voice. There is a new “A- and secretly admired that ambitious author. Space”—based on sites such as MySpace He still had faith in his fantastic vision, and Facebook—in which analysts post but in moments of doubt their current projects as a way of creating he worried that he’d given the world only social networks. The Library of National a new version of despair; Intelligence is an online digest of official then he’d close his eyes and see nothing reports that will soon provide analysts but the scarlet darkness of his lids. who use it with tips, much the way Am- azon and iTunes offer recommendations —Adam Zagajewski to their customers. These innovations (Translated, from the Polish, by Clare Cavanagh.) have not yet made their way to the ana- lysts and agents in the field, however. Despite such attempts to bring to- ference room, featuring a table that can Haseltine and his successor, Steve gether resources and staff, the commu- change its shape and has pop-up com- Nixon, have set up an intelligence version nity still relies on more than thirty online puter consoles. Three times a day, ana- of DARPA, the Defense Advanced Re- networks and eighty databases, most of lysts gather around it to discuss the search Projects Agency, which was cre- which are largely inaccessible to one an- “threat matrix.” The heart of the building ated in 1958, after the Soviet launch of other. After the 2004 reforms, which is the operations center, a dim room Sputnik, and led to the development of mandated greater information sharing, where analysts from various agencies are the Internet, the Global Positioning the community turned to private indus- illuminated by the lights of multiple System, night-vision goggles, Predator try for help in creating the National computer monitors. When I was there, drones, and Stealth aircraft. (After 9/11, Counter-Terrorism Center, which is in Fox News was playing on a huge televi- DARPA also gave birth to Total Informa- northern Virginia, at an undisclosed lo- sion screen at the front of the room. tion Awareness, a program designed to cation. An engineer from Walt Disney Disney Imagineering also provided the sort through vast sets of data about indi- Imagineering, the theme-park developer, O.D.N.I.’s first science-and-technology viduals, including Americans, in order to designed it. “Even the chairs in the director, Eric Haseltine, who joined the identify potential terrorists. Congress lunchroom are the same ones we had at N.S.A. after September 11th. He was dis- killed the program in 2003, but many of the Disney Studios,” a former Disney ex- mayed by the lumbering pace of innova- its capabilities were passed along to other ecutive, who now works at the center, tion, the absence of collaboration, and the departments.) Like DARPA, the O.D.N.I. told me. “The only difference is these lack of thought about how new products version sponsors radical innovation— chairs don’t have the mouse ears.” She might be employed. “Insufficient atten- “game-changing breakthroughs,” as was one of several former Disney em- tion was being paid to the end user,” he Nixon puts it. The program has only ployees who signed up for government said. Much of the intelligence community a few dozen employees, but it expects service after 9/11. The fantasy worlds is technophobic and is also hamstrung by to collaborate with private businesses, that Disney creates have a surprising security concerns. Only recently have nonprofits, and universities. The most amount in common with the ideal uni- BlackBerrys made their way into some significant product of this effort so far is verse envisaged by the intelligence com- agencies, and many offices don’t even Argus, a program that monitors foreign munity, in which environments are care- have Internet connections. “At Disney, news reports and other open sources fully controlled and people are closely we had to make technology work for a looking for evidence of bird die-offs, crop observed, and no one seems to mind. four-year-old and a grandmother in- failures, an unusual number of death no- The center has a futuristic videocon- stantly, and be fun,” Haseltine said. tices—anything that could provide an

50 THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 21, 2008

TNY—2008_01_21—PAGE 50—133SC. early warning of an epidemic, nuclear ac- versations, faxes, and e-mails from un- faces similar problems. “Chinese spying cident, or environmental catastrophe. warranted monitoring was coming on has gone up significantly, and Russian The program, which began in 2004, the market, but the programs could also spying hasn’t decreased at all since the spotted the appearance of avian flu in block entirely legal efforts to eavesdrop Cold War,” he says. (A spokesman for the 2006 and a recent outbreak of Ebola on criminals or potential terrorists. Under Chinese consulate called the German and in Angola. During flu season last year, McConnell’s direction, the N.S.A. de- American accusations “preposterous.”) Ed the program tracked more than a thou- veloped a sophisticated device, the Clip- Giorgio explained the situation to me: sand socially disruptive diseases simul- per Chip, with a superior ability to en- “There are forty thousand Chinese hack- taneously. Argus now monitors a mil- crypt any electronic transmission; it also ers who are collecting intelligence off U.S. lion Web pages in twenty-eight lan- allowed law-enforcement officials, given information systems and those of our guages and in nearly every country in the the proper authority, to decipher and partners. How many of them can read world—except the U.S., where such eavesdrop on the encrypted communica- English? Almost every one of them. If you scrutiny would stir concerns about do- tions of others. Privacy advocates criti- ask how many intelligence-gathering mestic spying. cized the device, though, and the Clipper people are doing similar things in Mike’s The intelligence community is also was abandoned by 1996. “They con- vast empire, the answer would be tiny. marshalling insights from the social sci- vinced the folks on the Hill that they And you won’t find any who understand ences. Psychologists, for example, are couldn’t trust the government to do what Mandarin. We should never get into a studying how terrorists behave when it said it was going to do,” Richard Wil- hacking war with the Chinese.” they are attempting to avoid detection; helm, who was in charge of information One day in May, at a meeting with the agents will then be trained to look for ex- warfare under McConnell, says. President and several cabinet members, amples of such behavior. Nixon said, At Booz Allen, McConnell helped McConnell asked for authority to wage “We’re also looking at virtual worlds and develop a program designed to protect information warfare against the tech- gaming—immersive environments in the global financial network. He and a savvy insurgents in Iraq. First, he de- which to train agents,” such as Second team of veterans from the New York scribed the three aspects of information- Life. He conceded that such efforts were Stock Exchange and information-tech- warfare operations. Computer-network derivative. “Our brightest people are nology officers from major financial in- exploitation—that is, the theft or manip- working on things in the commercial en- stitutions put together a report that sur- ulation of information—is done by the vironment. The problem is that we don’t veyed the system’s vulnerabilities, and N.S.A. Computer-network attacks are have a lock on that. Technology is a two- submitted it to the President’s Commis- the province of the Department of De- edged sword for the intelligence commu- sion on Critical Infrastructure Protec- fense. The third element, computer-net- nity. For instance, with biology, there tion. “Our study, which was unclassified, work defense, was not the specialty of could be a time in the not distant future was so compelling that they classified it!” any agency. According to someone who when teen-agers can design biological McConnell says, laughing. McConnell’s was in the Oval Office, McConnell then components just as they do computer vi- team eventually won nearly three hun- said, “If the 9/11 perpetrators had fo- ruses today. That’s why I think intelli- dred million dollars in government con- cussed on a single U.S. bank through gence is as critical now as at any time in tracts for Booz Allen. cyber-attack and it had been successful, our nation’s history.” Every day, the Defense Department it would have an order-of-magnitude At the N.S.A., McConnell set up a detects three million unauthorized probes greater impact on the U.S. economy.” new office to conduct information war- of its computer networks; the State De- The President blanched and turned to the fare against potential enemies, but he partment fends off two mil- Secretary of the Treasury, eventually realized that America, with its lion. Sometimes, these turn Henry Paulson. “Is that true, huge computer networks, was far more into full-scale attacks, such Hank?” he said. Paulson vulnerable to such attacks than its adver- as an assault last spring on said that it was. The Presi- saries. Ed Giorgio, a security consultant the Pentagon that required dent then charged McCon- who worked at the N.S.A. under McCon­ fifteen hundred computers nell to come up with a secu- nell, and who is the only person to have to be taken off-line. In May, rity strategy, not only for been both the nation’s chief code breaker the German government government systems but and its chief code maker, said, “Early on, discovered that a spyware also for American indus- Mike had what many directors of the program had been planted try and private individuals. N.S.A. have near the end of their ten- inside government computers in several One proposal of McConnell’s Cyber- ure—that is, an info-sec epiphany. ‘If key ministries, and also in the office of Security Policy, which is still in the draft only I had paid more attention to our Chancellor Angela Merkel. The Ger- stage, is to reduce the access points be- own systems!’ ” Practically nothing was mans blamed the Chinese Army. The tween government computers and the In- being done to secure American compu- head of Britain’s M.I.5, the domestic in- ternet from two thousand to fifty. “The ter networks, which the entire world telligence agency, recently said that Chi- real question is what to do about indus- routinely depended upon. Information nese and Russian spying was at such a try,” McConnell told me. “Ninety-five per security became McConnell’s passion. high level that combatting it was divert- cent of this is a private-sector problem.” In the nineties, new encryption soft- ing government resources from counter- He claimed that cyber-theft accounted for ware that could protect telephone con- terrorism. McConnell says that the U.S. as much as a hundred billion dollars in

THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 21, 2008 51

TNY—2008_01_21—PAGE 51—133SC.—live spot art—r 16988_c—please inspect and report on quality annual losses to the American economy. secret protocol that the White House when someone is giving you information “The real problem is the perpetrator who had devised to govern future interroga- that is not connecting up to what you doesn’t care about stealing—he just wants tions. Shortly after Attorney General know. You also know when to use a to destroy.” The plan will propose restric- Alberto Gonzales came into office, in polygraph.” tions that are certain to be unpopular. In February, 2005, he issued an opinion en- McConnell refused to specify what order for cyberspace to be policed, Inter- dorsing the most brutal interrogation new methods had been approved for the net activity will have to be closely moni- techniques that the C.I.A. had ever used. C.I.A. “There are techniques to get the tored. Ed Giorgio, who is working with According to the Times, the agency had information, and when they get the in- McConnell on the plan, said that would learned some of these methods from formation it has saved lives,” he said mean giving government the authority to Egyptian and Saudi intelligence officials; vaguely. “We have people walking around examine the content of any e-mail, file others were drawn from old Soviet tech- in this country that are alive today be- transfer, or Web search. “Google has re- niques. The methods included stripping cause this process happened.” cords that could help in a cyber-investiga- a suspect naked and placing him in a cold Couldn’t the information be obtained tion,” he said. Giorgio warned me, “We cell; manacling him in a painful posture; through other means? have a saying in this business: ‘Privacy and subjecting him to deafening rock music; “No,” McConnell said. “You can say security are a zero-sum game.’ ” head slapping; and waterboarding, an act that absolutely.” He again cited the case With the cyber-security initiative, of simulated drowning that was used in of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. “He McConnell is asking the country to con- the Spanish Inquisition. Any one of would not have talked to us in a hundred front a dilemma: Americans will have to these techniques would likely violate the years. Tough guy. Absolutely commit- trust the government not to abuse the au- international legal standards banning ted. He had this mental image of himself thority it must have in order to protect torture, such as the Geneva Conven- as a warrior and a martyr. No way he our networks, and yet, historically, the tions. The C.I.A. had used “special would talk to us.” Among the things that government has not proved worthy of methods of questioning” on about thirty Mohammed confessed to was the mur- that trust. “FISA reform will be a walk in people, McConnell learned. der of Daniel Pearl. And yet few people the park compared to this,” McConnell “I had to sign off on that program,” involved in the investigation of Pearl’s said. “This is going to be a goat rope on McConnell told me. “The President said death believe that Mohammed had any- the Hill. My prediction is that we’re we don’t torture anyone, but I had to thing to do with the crime; another man, going to screw around with this until convince myself by going through the Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, was con- something horrendous happens.” whole process.” He pored over the pro- victed of killing Pearl. cedures that had been secretly authorized I mentioned McConnell’s hero, Gen- or all McConnell’s insistence on by the Bush Administration. “I sat down eral Powell, whose disastrous speech to change, he often thinks like a tradi- with the doctors and the medical person- the United Nations, in February, 2003, tionalF spy. During one conversation, I nel who oversee the process,” he said. made the case to the world for invading asked McConnell, “Have we gotten mean­ “Our policies are not torture.” Iraq—a case founded on faulty intelli- ingful information through torture?” I asked how he defined torture. gence. Part of Powell’s presentation was “We don’t torture,” he responded “There’s a history of people making based on the testimony of Ibn al-Sheikh automatically. claims that it’s not torture if you don’t al-Libi, an Al Qaeda operative who was “O.K., through aggressive interroga- force the failure of a major organ,” Mc- captured by Pakistani forces in Decem- tion techniques.” Connell said, referring to the infamous ber, 2001. The Pakistanis turned him “ ‘Aggressive’ is your word,” he said. 2002 memo by John Yoo, a Justice De- over to the Americans. According to Jack “Have we gotten meaningful informa- partment lawyer, who argued that an in- Cloonan, a former F.B.I. agent involved tion? You betcha. Tons! Does it save terrogation technique was torture only in the interrogation, Libi was providing lives? Tons! We’ve gotten incredible in- when it was as painful as organ failure or useful and accurate intelligence until the formation. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. death. “My view is, that’s kind of absurd. C.I.A. took custody of him and placed K.S.M. No. 3. Go pull his testimony. A It’s pretty simple. Is it excruciatingly him inside a plywood box for transport. lot of what we know about Al Qaeda and painful to the point of forcing someone He was reportedly sent to Egypt and tor- what we shut down came out of that.” to say something because of the pain?” tured. (An agency spokesman said, “The (The reliability of the confession of Mo- McConnell leaned forward confidentially. C.I.A. does not transport individuals hammed, who after sustained abuse “Now, how descriptive do I want to be anywhere to be tortured.”) Libi allegedly claimed a role in more than thirty crimi- with you? I don’t want to tell you every- told his interrogators that the Iraqi mili- nal plots, has been widely questioned.) thing, and why is that? Look, these guys tary had trained two Al Qaeda associates He peered over his glasses. “And this was talk because, among other things, they’re in chemical and biological warfare. This a test for Mike McConnell. When Abu scared.” was the essence of Colin Powell’s claim: Ghraib happened, my view was that we McConnell asserted that it was not Saddam had weapons of mass destruc- had lost the moral high ground.” difficult to evaluate the truthfulness of tion and was working with Al Qaeda. McConnell had not yet returned to a confession, even a coerced one. “And Neither assertion was true. How could government when the Abu Ghraib scan- as soon as they start to talk we can tell we ever trust information obtained under dal broke, but after becoming director of in minutes if they are lying,” he said. torture when such methods had already National Intelligence he received the still “One, you know a lot. And you know led us into a catastrophic war?

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TNY—2008_01_21—PAGE 52—133SC.52—133SC “Now, wait a minute,” McConnell said. “I assume you can get to the point America Act a permanent law. He un- said. “You allege torture. I don’t know. that a person is actually drowning.” That derscored the need for FISA reform by Maybe it was. I don’t know.” He wasn’t would certainly be torture, he said. The citing the example of the three kidnapped in office at the time. definition didn’t seem very different from American soldiers in Iraq. (The body of I asked what personal experiences in- John Yoo’s. The reason that he couldn’t one serviceman has since been discov- formed his views. be more specific, McConnell said, is that ered; the other two men remain missing.) McConnell recalled that before going “if it ever is determined to be torture, In a hearing of the House Intelligence to Vietnam he had participated in the there will be a huge penalty to be paid for Committee, McConnell asserted that military’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance anyone engaging in it.” bureaucratic delays caused by requesting and Escape program. “You had to go a FISA warrant had slowed the search in through jungle training, get slapped n early September, German authori- the critical moments after the soldiers’ around, knocked down, put in a box, ties arrested three Islamic radicals who capture. This argument made a deep im- physically abused,” he said. “That’s to wereI allegedly planning terrorist strikes pression on the legislators. Representa- prepare you for what the enemy might do against an American military base and tive Heather Wilson, of New Mexico, to you.” McConnell was thrown into a the Frankfurt airport. In a hearing of the said to McConnell, “We had U.S. sol- covered pit with a snake. There was no Senate Homeland Security and Govern- diers who were captured in Iraq by insur- room to stand or move around. “They mental Affairs Committee, on Septem- gents and . . . we weren’t able to listen to would open up the thing and whack ber 10th, Senator Joseph Lieberman their communications. Is that correct?” you a few times and close it down,” he asked McConnell if the temporary FISA She asked, “If it was your kid, is that said. “They beat us up reasonably well.” legislation that Congress had just passed good enough?” However, he knew that he was not going contributed to the arrests of those men. I asked McConnell about the rele- to die. “Yes, sir, it did,” McConnell replied, ex- vance of the soldiers’ kidnapping, since Waterboarding was not a part of the plaining that, by monitoring the com- the FISA law allowed a three-day grace training when McConnell went through munications of the underground cell, the period, after the start of monitoring, to SERE, although it sometimes has been. U.S. learned that the men had already obtain a warrant. “When people hear “You know what waterboarding is?” he obtained explosive liquids. “The German that story, they say, ‘Well, don’t you have asked. “You lay somebody on this table, authorities decided to move,” he said. emergency authority?’ ” McConnell said. or put them in an inclined position, and In fact, the information about the “Sure we do. But the emergency author- put a washcloth over their face, and you German cell had been obtained under ity still has to go through a process. just drip water right here”—he pointed the previous FISA law. McConnell con- Somebody’s gotta approve it.” to his nostrils. “Try it! What happens ceded the point two days later, after an He refused to be more specific about is, water will go up your nose. And so article in the Times questioned his what, if anything, had prevented the in- you will get the sensation of potentially claim. telligence community from monitoring drowning. That’s all waterboarding is.” Later that month, McConnell ap- the kidnappers immediately. “If you un- I asked if he considered that torture. peared before congressional committees, derstand it, and you write it down, then McConnell refused to answer di- seeking to make the provisional Protect the bad guys understand it,” he said cryp- rectly, but he said, “My own definition of torture is something that would cause ex- cruciating pain.” Did waterboarding fit that de- scription? Referring to his teen-age days as a lifeguard, he said, “I know one thing. I’m a water-safety instructor, but I cannot swim without covering my nose. I don’t know if it’s some deviated septum or mucus membrane, but water just rushes in.” For him, he said, “waterboarding would be excruciating. If I had water draining into my nose, oh God, I just can’t imagine how painful! Whether it’s torture by anybody else’s definition, for me it would be torture.” I queried McConnell again, later, about his views on waterboarding, since this exchange seemed to suggest that he personally condemned it. He re- jected that interpretation. “You can do waterboarding lots of different ways,” he “Your résumé is very impressive. What kind of no-show job do you want?”

TNY—2008_01_21—PAGE 53—133SC.53—133SC.—live art a12998—#2 page—fixed a bad word division in lh Column that the soldiers were kidnapped south of Baghdad on May 12th. Over the next two days, intelligence officials picked up signals that they believed were coming from the kidnappers, and they received FISA authorization to tar- get the communications of insurgents. The record shows that the intelligence community had immediately assigned all available assets to search for the missing soldiers. Then, on May 15th, at 10 A.M., lead- ers from several key intelligence agencies met to discuss other options for “en- hanced” surveillance. (McConnell would not disclose what form of additional monitoring was being explored.) By 1 P.M., the N.S.A. had determined that all the requirements for an emergency “Oh yeah—I’ve been supporting her going way back to the beginning FISA authorization had been met. But of the end of the New Hampshire vote count.” intelligence officials and lawyers contin- ued to debate minute legal issues for •• four more hours. At 5:15 p.m., hours after the N.S.A. made its determination, and three days after the soldiers disap- tically. “I’ve told you that this debate, FISA court, or by the Congress for that peared, Justice Department lawyers de- this debate is going to cost American matter.” Shortly after McConnell began layed the process further by deciding lives.” He tapped the table for emphasis. his opening statement, Leahy testily cut that they needed to obtain direct autho- “This debate is going to cost American him off. He mentioned McConnell’s rization from Attorney General Gonza- lives!” mistaken testimony about the relevance les, who was in Texas making a speech. McConnell returned for another of the Protect America Act to the recent Gonzales finally called back, at 7:18 p.m., hearing on September 25th. Many Dem- arrests in Germany. “Now, I’m just won- and within twenty minutes the en- ocrats remained angry with him over his dering, why did you testify to something hanced surveillance began. It was not retreat from the compromise bill during that was false?” McConnell’s ears turned the FISA law that retarded the intensified the August FISA debate. “You gave assur- bright red. He said that he had been re- monitoring of the insurgents but, rather, ances that were not fulfilled, and made ferring to FISA in general, not the new internal wrangling between the Justice agreements that were not kept,” Senator reforms. Department and the intelligence com- Jay Rockefeller, of West Virginia, had Leahy mentioned an attorney in his munity. That said, the confusion over written him during the summer recess. home state who is representing a client the limits of American law when applied Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, of Rhode detained at the American-run prison in to a desperate situation in a foreign Island, echoed these complaints. “The Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. “He’s worried country underscored the need for legal stampede worked,” he wrote in a note. that his calls regarding his client are clarity. “You won. But you did so at a substantial being monitored by the government,” Despite his missteps, McConnell has price, one that will be paid in rancor, sus- Leahy said. “He makes calls overseas, in- so far succeeded in winning every impor- picion, and distrust.” cluding to Afghanistan, on behalf of tant point in the fisa debate. The bills Such emotions were very much in ev- his client. . . . You can see why people that are now under consideration award idence as McConnell sat at the witness worry.” the intelligence community nearly as table in a wood-panelled hearing room. That month, McConnell’s office was much authority as it enjoyed under the The glowering face of Senator Patrick forced to make another embarrassing President’s secret wiretapping program, Leahy, of Vermont, loomed over the disclosure. Silvestre Reyes, the House although with somewhat more supervi- dais. Before administering the oath to Intelligence Committee chairman, de- sion and with the stipulation that war- McConnell, he chided, “I hope we’ll not manded that the O.D.N.I. release a time rants be obtained to monitor Americans hear any more irresponsible rhetoric line of the kidnapping of the American inside the country. The battle has harmed about congressional inquiries risking soldiers in Iraq. McConnell had earlier McConnell’s reputation, however. “It is American lives.” testified that it took “somewhere in the convenient to say, ‘McConnell was a bad Many Democrats clearly regretted neighborhood of twelve hours” to get the guy, McConnell broke faith’—it’s easy passing the temporary fisa bill. Leahy, Attorney General to authorize an emer- to say that because they lost!” McCon- in his introduction, said that the act gency FISA wiretap on insurgents. nell said. “We went to the mat, and “provides no meaningful check by the The O.D.N.I.’s time line showed they lost.”

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TNY—2008_01_21—PAGE 54—133SC.54—133SC..—live opi art—a13080 McConnell forced a debate upon the “I’m not surprised at that,” McCon- “Now if you ever became a target for country that it was reluctant to have. In nell said. “Because you were getting surveillance, they would go get a warrant agreeing to reform FISA along the lines a phone call from some telephone num- and tap your telephone,” McConnell that McConnell proposed, Congress ber that’s associated with some known said. “But they would have to have prob- has acknowledged that technology has outfit—O.K., that’s monitored. In my able cause to do that.” created new tools for terrorists and made view, it should be.” “What bothers me is that my daugh- a salad out of existing laws that distin- Actually, I had placed the call. ter’s name came up in this,” I said. The guish between foreign and domestic in- On another occasion, at McConnell’s agents had told me they believed that telligence. Instantaneous global com- prompting, I described more fully what she was the one making the calls. That munications, cell phones, the free flow had happened. After I published a Profile was ridiculous, but it placed her on the of commercial data, an untethered In- of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the deputy of bin F.B.I.’s link chart as an Al Qaeda con- ternet, and the unprecedented ease of Laden, in this magazine, in February, nection. “Her name is not on any of our travel have erased the once rigid distinc- 2002, I was asked by one of his relatives, phones,” I continued. “So how did her tion between what is native and what is a respected architect in Cairo who had name arise?” foreign. American law needed to reflect been a useful source, if I could learn “I don’t know,” McConnell admitted. these changes. But the reforms leave it whether all of Zawahiri’s children were “Maybe you mentioned her name.” up to the intelligence community to de- dead. An F.B.I. source told me that they “That troubles me,” I said. cide whether to monitor an American’s were, and that there was no reason the “It may be troublesome, it may not international communications without family shouldn’t know that. I relayed be,” McConnell said. “You don’t know.” a warrant and what to do with that the news to the architect. (The F.B.I. knowledge. Moreover, by giving immu- official turned out to be wrong.) Re- “ hat would make a great target,” nity to telecommunications companies cently, a source in the intelligence com- McConnell observed in early Oc- for future actions, the legislation pres- munity told me that a summary of that toberT as his government jet passed over sures them to turn over to the govern- conversation was archived in an inter- the two cooling towers of a power plant ment any and all communication rec­ nal database. I was surprised, because in Pennsylvania. I had joined him on a ords, whenever they are asked for. the FISA law stated that my part of the trip to speak to a group of government Unfortunately, intelligence officials conversation should have been “mini- contractors in Farmington, in the south- have a poor record of safeguarding civil mized”—redacted or rendered anony- west corner of the state. The twin stacks liberties within the country, nor do mous—because I am an American citizen. looked dismayingly vulnerable from the Americans have any obvious recourse if “He’s a terrorist, or he’s associated air, and I recalled that the 9/11 plotters they learn that they have been spied with terrorists,” McConnell said of my had considered attacking nuclear plants upon. Egyptian contact. “Now, if I’m targeting, before settling on the World Trade Cen- I’m looking at his number. If he places a ter, the Pentagon, and the Capitol. hen McConnell and I first met, call, I listen. If he gets called, I listen. I In July, the O.D.N.I. had released he defended the President’s war- don’t know who is going to call him, but a National Intelligence Estimate ti- rantless-wiretappingW initiative. To many, once I got it, I gotta deal with it. Turns tled “The Terrorist Threat to the U.S. the program seemed to violate the spirit out it is Larry Wright. You would have Homeland.” The N.I.E., the most au- of FISA, because Americans were clearly been reported as ‘U.S. Person 1.’ You thoritative document that the intelli- involved in the conversations. McCon- would never have been identified, except gence community produces, represents nell didn’t see it that way. “There’s no if the F.B.I. learns that this unidentified the agencies’ coördinated judgments spying on Americans,” he had told me. U.S. person is talking to a known terror- about the various perils the nation faces. “The issue was if a known bad guy, ist. Then the F.B.I. would go in and re- The reputation of the N.I.E. was seri- somebody associated with Al Qaeda, quest the identity of U.S. 1. The N.S.A. ously damaged, though, by the notori- calls into the United States, the Presi- would have to go through a process to ously mistaken 2002 assessment that dent authorized the community to mon- determine if the request was legitimate. Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass itor that call. If you have a different po- So here’s what I think—I’m guessing. destruction. This N.I.E. had been in the litical point of view, you turn that into You called a bad guy, the system listened, works for three years, an indication ‘spying on Americans.’ ” tried to sort it out, and they did an intel of how cautious the community had “Let me make a disclosure,” I said. “I report because it had foreign-intelligence become in issuing consequential new have been monitored.” I told him that, value. That’s our mission.” findings. The new report declared that while I was researching “The Looming I then told him about the F.B.I. offi­ Al Qaeda was stronger than at any time Tower,” a book about Al Qaeda, the cials who visited my house. “They were since September 11th, and that it was F.B.I. had come to my house, in Austin, members of the Joint Terrorism Task “likely to continue to focus on promi- Texas, to ask about some calls that I had Force,” I said. They wanted to know nent political, economic, and infrastruc- made from my home office. I also said about phone calls made to a solicitor in ture targets with the goal of producing that a source in the intelligence commu- England who represented several jihadis mass casualties, visually dramatic de- nity had read a summary of a telephone I had interviewed for my book. “The ac- struction, significant economic after- conversation that I had from my home tual calls involved her telling me, ‘Please shocks, and /or fear among the U.S. with a source in Egypt. don’t talk to my clients,’ ” I said. population.” It went on to say that the

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TNY—2008_01_21—PAGE 55—133SC.55—133SC war in Iraq had helped the terrorist or- American government is now responsi- Moreover, there is the quandary of ganization find new recruits. ble for the apprehension of Osama bin what to do with bin Laden if he was ac- The report reflects the continuing Laden?” Riedel asked. “There’s the tually captured. Killing him would only failure to capture or kill bin Laden and director of the National Counter-Ter- insure his “martyrdom” and seal his leg- dismantle his organization. “The trail is rorism Center, but I doubt that’s his job. acy; putting him on trial grants him a cold,” David Shedd, the deputy director The D.N.I.? Who does the President priceless venue for promoting his cause of the O.D.N.I. for Policy, Plans and think is responsible?” and invites acts of terror in response, in- Requirements, admitted. “It’s as hard a McConnell, when asked this question, cluding kidnappings designed to ran- target as we’ve ever faced.” said, “If the President picked a single som the Al Qaeda leader. Wayne Mur- McConnell bridled when I used the person, he’d probably point to Mike phy, the assistant director of the F.B.I. word “failure” to describe Hayden, the C.I.A. director. for Intelligence, told me that the radi- the bin Laden situation. He At another level, he might calization of young Muslims will con- said, “We’re coming up on say Secretary of Defense. tinue, regardless of bin Laden’s mortal the sixth anniversary”—of Depends on where bin fate. “In the end, I don’t know if the 9/11—“and we have not had Laden might be.” benefits of getting bin Laden would bal- a major terrorist event in the And where was that? ance out,” he said. “And I don’t know if country.” He claimed that “He’s in the border it buys us anything. Think about what the intelligence community region of Pakistan and we just went through with Saddam had stopped “many, many” Afghanistan,” McConnell Hussein.” attacks on America in that replied. There is another reason that we span of time, but that most of those suc- McConnell was referring, in part, to haven’t captured bin Laden. “Given the cessful efforts were classified. the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, quality of Al Qaeda’s operational secu- In late 2005, the director of the a mountainous expanse about the size of rity, you need trusted people who can C.I.A. at the time, Porter Goss, shut- Massachusetts. Between 2004 and 2006, penetrate the organization,” Thomas tered Alec Station, a counterterrorism President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan Fingar, the deputy director of the unit devoted exclusively to tracking struck deals with the chieftains inside the O.D.N.I. for Analysis, said. Yet the down bin Laden. The C.I.A. now main- tribal areas which permitted them to po- American intelligence community has tains that the unit was not actually dis- lice their own territory. Al Qaeda and the traditionally been a white-male enclave. banded but, rather, folded into the Taliban quickly reconstituted themselves Few agents can even pronounce Arabic Counter-Terrorism Center. And yet for- there. Capturing bin Laden, then, would names correctly. On September 11th, mer agency officials criticize the absence possibly mean invading Pakistan, with there were only eight fluent Arabic- of a clear leader in the fight against Al the likely consequence of destabilizing speaking agents in the F.B.I.; now there Qaeda. “There’s a sense that there’s not an already volatile country. “You cannot are nine. The U.S. government ranks a quarterback,” one of them told me. indiscriminately attack a sovereign na- language proficiency on a zero-to-five “Part of me believes the people involved tion,” McConnell observed, though he scale, in which five is the equivalent of a like this arrangement—there’s no one promised that if American officials pin- native speaker. “Training a person up to really to blame.” point bin Laden’s location “we’ll bring it a four-plus is almost impossible,” Philip Bruce Riedel, a fellow at the Brook- to closure.” Mudd, who is in charge of staffing and ings Institution, who had a long career For more than six years, Predator training two thousand analysts for the in the C.I.A. and also served in the cur- drones have crisscrossed the tribal areas, F.B.I.’s National Security Branch, told rent Administration as the senior direc- scanning the terrain for anyone who me. “The people you want are first-gen- tor for Near East Affairs at the National might resemble bin Laden. In February, eration immigrants. But the security guys Security Council, pointed to some re- 2002, a Predator near the border fired will say, ‘Wait!’ ” cent successes: the capture in Afghani- a Hellfire missile at a man because he Although McConnell recognizes the stan of Mir Amal Kansi, who murdered was tall, killing him. The United States need to hire Americans with native two C.I.A. employees outside the gates has paid the Pakistani government more foreign-language skills, the Office of of the agency in January, 1993, and the than ten billion dollars since Septem- Management and Budget oversees the arrest in Pakistan of Ramzi Yousef, the ber 11th for its help in tracking down government security-clearance process, mastermind behind the February, 1993, bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders. which takes months or even years to bombing of the World Trade Center. But for the past four years the special re- complete, especially for candidates who “They were in some ways harder tar- lationship with Pakistan has been un- are intimately familiar with the cultures gets,” Riedel said. “The reason we productive; in a recent interview with deemed most critical in terms of Amer- haven’t captured bin Laden, I think, is CBS, President Musharraf said of bin ica’s safety. “We have mounted an un- Iraq. We took needed resources and Laden, “We are not particularly look- precedented effort to recruit affinity transferred them out of the hunt for bin ing for him.” John McLaughlin, the groups,” Michael Morell, the associ- Laden.” This happened, he told me, as former deputy director of the C.I.A., ate deputy director of the C.I.A., told early as the spring of 2002, when the told me, “It’s not too hard to figure out me. The agency recently helped spon- Bush Administration was already se- why we haven’t gotten bin Laden. We’re sor the Arab International Festival, in cretly preparing for war in Iraq. “Who in not there.” Dearborn, Michigan, the heart of the

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TNY—2008_01_21—PAGE 56—133SC.56—133SC.——live spot art—r 16988_d—please inspect and report on quality. American-Arab community. But few of mer civilian analyst for U.S. Naval In- could turn that into a human virus. You those possible recruits are willing to put telligence, who pleaded guilty to espio- could have fifty million to five hundred their lives on hold for a year or more as nage in 1986. “He transferred reams million deaths.” they await clearance. Michael Hayden, and reams and reams of data to the Is- the C.I.A. director, told me that he raelis! Well, in today’s world that stuff is n 2005, the intelligence community could circumvent the security backlog in not sitting on a shelf somewhere—it’s in informed President Bush that the special cases, and he has done so on sev- a database. So if you want to transfer it greatestI danger in the Middle East came eral occasions. you’ve got to print it or get an electronic from Iran. An N.I.E. on the subject de- McConnell, upon landing in Far- copy or whatever. That’s what I mean clared that Iran intended to build a nu- mington, delivered his speech before the by monitoring.” clear weapon. Some of that information government contractors. “There was a I asked McConnell if he believed that came from a purloined laptop containing study done in 1955,” he told them. “One Al Qaeda was really the greatest threat drawings of an implosion device and in- conclusion it came to was that it was an America faces. formation about the history of the Ira- abomination that the government takes “No, no, no, not at all,” he said. “Ter- nian nuclear effort. But there was little fifteen months to clear someone! I’m rorism can kill a lot of people, but it can’t supporting evidence, and the President happy to tell you we got that down fundamentally challenge the ability of the was frustrated that reliable intelligence to eighteen months.” The contractors nation to exist. Fascism could have done was so difficult to obtain. Soon after- laughed in recognition. “When I agreed that. Communism could have. I think ward, the C.I.A. created an Iran Opera- to take the D.N.I. post, the first surprise our issue going forward is more engage- tions Division. There was already an Iran was being told, ‘Fill out the form,’ ” Mc- ment with the world in terms of keeping mission manager in the O.D.N.I., whose Connell continued. “I’ve been cleared for it on a reasonable path, so another ism job was to coördinate all the available re- forty years! Then the agent shows up. He doesn’t come along and drive it to one ex- sources in the community. wants to know if I am a Communist and treme or another. And we have to have Those efforts were being folded into do I advocate the violent overthrow of some balance in terms of equitable distri- a new N.I.E. on Iran, which had been the U.S.” bution of wealth, containment of conta- demanded by Congress; the report, ex- That experience prompted McCon- gious disease, access to energy supplies, pected last spring, was mysteriously de- nell to reflect on what causes members and development of free markets. There layed. In mid-November, McConnell of the intelligence community to turn are national-security ramifications to said that he did not intend to declassify into traitors. “Look back at all the spies global warming.” any part of the N.I.E. On occasion, the we’ve had in our history,” he said. He looked down at the patchwork key judgments of N.I.E. reports have “About a hundred and thirty. How quilt of the Pennsylvania countryside. been made public, though they are gen- many did it for money? A hundred and His thoughts quickly turned back to ter- erally kept secret so that analysts can twenty-eight.” He contrasted the gov- rorism. “One of the things I worry about present their findings with candor. “But ernment’s security-clearing process with most would be something like a pan- here’s the real reason,” McConnell said. the vetting that multinational banks do demic, particularly if it could be weapon- “If I have to inform the public, I am in- for American and foreign employees— ized, like avian flu,” he continued. “You forming the adversary.” He used the ex- the process can take less than ten work- ing days. The opportunities for fraud at such a bank are obvious, he noted: “If I can slow down the movement of money by one single second, I can make mil- lions through arbitrage.” How do com- panies prevent such losses? “Every key- stroke can be monitored.” McConnell advocates a simplified clearance proce- dure that will take a month or less. Under his plan, it will be much easier for first- and second-generation Amer- icans to enter the intelligence commu- nity. The trade-off will be that they will be subjected to what he calls “life- cycle monitoring”—that is, constant surveillance. Flying back to Washington after the speech in Pennsylvania, McConnell said, “I’m trying to change the rules, say- ing if you want to be in this community, here are the conditions of employment.” He mentioned Jonathan Pollard, a for- “I always gain five to seven enemies over the holidays.”

TNY—2008_01_21—PAGE 57—133SC.—live art a13044 often full of errors. “Because it was secret, it had never been tested,” I said. “The se- crecy was actually self-destructive.” “I disagree with that completely,” Mc- Connell said. “There’s as much misinfor- mation and trash in the system on the outside as there is on the inside.” Many newspaper articles about him, he noted, contained errors of fact and of interpreta- tion. “So it doesn’t surprise me that you would see a classified document that had some incorrect information in it.” “You’d want to prosecute a guy that leaked something to me?” “Absolutely,” McConnell said. “He ought to be put in the slammer.” “You’d want to prosecute me as well?” “Depending on what you did with it.” And yet, three weeks after our dis- cussion, McConnell abruptly decided to declassify the key judgments of the “Heavens, Henry, we’re only going away for two days.” N.I.E., which was titled “Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities.” Among •• the revelations was that Iran had de- cided in the fall of 2003 to halt a secret program to design nuclear weapons. ample of code breakers in the Second sponsored invasion. In such instances, This finding reversed the 2005 assess- World War. “On Nebraska Avenue, the community supported its findings ment that had portrayed the Iranian re- where the Department of Homeland Se- with National Intelligence Estimates or gime as determined to build a nuclear curity is located now, there was a girls’ authoritative studies that led American arsenal. If the former document had school. The nation recruited many young policymakers astray. In a 1998 book supported the Bush Administration’s women gifted in science and math to that titled “Secrecy,” Moynihan wrote that aggressive posture toward Iran, the new girls’ school. They were brought in and “too much of the information was se- one introduced a confounding note of told, ‘If you ever tell anybody what you cret, not sufficiently open to critique by uncertainty. “We assess with moderate are doing, you will go to prison for the persons outside government.” Having confidence that Tehran had not re- rest of your life.’ ” The women operated served on the Senate Intelligence Com- started its nuclear program as of mid- the machinery that deciphered the Ger- mittee, he had seen how the community 2007,” the N.I.E. stated, in the probabi- man naval code, shaving months off hoarded secrets and overvalued them to listic language of intelligence. “But we the war. “Now, that is secrecy in its the point of excluding common sense. do not know whether it currently in- most powerful form,” McConnell said. He spoke of a “culture of secrecy” that tends to develop nuclear weapons.” “Changed the course of history, I would inevitably gave rise to conspiracy think- The report came at a time when the argue, for the good.” ing and loyalty tests, and recommended Bush Administration was gathering in- Secrecy imposes its own risks, how- that the C.I.A. be shut down. ternational support at the United Na- ever. After the collapse of the Soviet McConnell strongly disputed Moyni- tions to strengthen sanctions against the Union, in 1991, Daniel Patrick Moyni- han’s analysis. Moreover, he told me that Iranian regime—an effort that appears to han, who was a distinguished social sci- he intended to prosecute anyone who have been quietly tabled. John Bolton, entist before becoming a U.S. senator leaks classified information, such as the the former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., from New York, sought to understand Iran N.I.E. That has rarely been done in told the German magazine Der Spiegel why the American intelligence commu- the past, largely because a trial would that the N.I.E. was “politics disguised as nity had failed to anticipate the event. have the unwanted consequence of ex- intelligence,” and that the release of the Examining the history of the Cold War, posing secret sources and methods. “I document amounted to a “quasi-putsch” Moynihan saw a series of misguided ad- think we ought to step up and pay the by the intelligence community. Many ventures steered by incorrect or poorly price of going through an investigation, Democratic political figures in Washing- understood intelligence—from the pur- an indictment, and a trial—and, hope- ton, however, welcomed McConnell’s ported “missile gap” that never existed fully, from my point of view, a convic- decision. “The key judgments show that to the confident assumption that the tion,” he said. the intelligence community has learned Cuban people would rise up against Like many reporters, I’ve received its lessons from the Iraq debacle,” Sena- Fidel Castro following an American- classified information in the past; it was tor Rockefeller stated. “This demon-

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TNY—2008_01_21—PAGE 58—133SC.—live art a12727 strates a new willingness to question as- ably the best we have ever known.” his analysts to write key judgments with sumptions internally, and a level of While the intelligence community the notion that they are going to be independence from political leadership was digesting the new intelligence, the declassified.” Gates said that he was that was lacking in the recent past.” Administration continued its belliger- strongly in favor of releasing the find- I asked McConnell what had changed ent rhetoric toward Iran. In October, ings, and, in the end, the decision was his mind. Vice-President Cheney warned, “We unanimous. “The fear that, if we didn’t release it, it will not allow Iran to have a nuclear The decision to declassify the key would leak, and the Administration at weapon,” and President Bush invoked judgments was painful not only for the that point would be accused of hiding in- the spectre of a Third World War if Administration but also for the intelli- formation,” he said. He had a personal Iran continued its supposed secret weap- gence community, both because the conflict as well: the new information was ons program. Bush later said that Mc- new N.I.E. refuted a previous assess- at odds with his own testimony about Connell had told him in August that ment and because it inevitably raised the Iran before Congress, and with remarks there was new intelligence about Iran: question of whether this one was any that he had made in a background press “He didn’t tell me what the information more reliable. McConnell also worried briefing. He knew how that might look if was. He did tell me it was going to take that the effect of the release would be he kept the intelligence classified. a while to analyze.” Later, Dana Perino, to diminish the serious threat that he The N.I.E. had been nearly com- the White House press secretary, ad- believes Iran still poses. “What’s the pleted when, in July, new information mitted that the President was also told difference between being on hold and caused the intelligence community to in the August meeting that Iran might not being on hold?” he asked rhetori- reëvaluate its findings. Iranian nuclear have halted its nuclear-weapons pro- cally. “The Supreme Leader could say, officials were overheard complaining gram. “The President could have been ‘Turn it back on.’ ” about the suspension of the military pro- more precise in that language,” Perino When we last spoke, McConnell gram. Analysis of photographs taken told reporters. “But the President was said, “There’s no doubt in this observer’s during a 2005 visit to Iran’s uranium- being truthful.” mind that Iran is on the path to get a nu- enrichment plant, in Natanz, suggested McConnell wondered why, if Iran clear weapon. It will force an arms race that it was not designed for the high level had a nuclear-weapons program up until in the region.” That would place the of enrichment required to make nuclear the fall of 2003, it suddenly placed it on U.S. in a dangerous spot, for it stands as weapons. hold. He said, “They’re still pursuing the security guarantor for many major oil “We had to stop and consider the fissile material, they’re still building and producers. new information, run it to ground, com- testing and weaponizing missiles, so I asked McConnell if he believed pare it to hundreds of sources of data,” why did they do it?” He pointed to the that, in releasing the key judgments of McConnell said. “Does it correlate? Is it invasion of Iraq earlier that year. “Al- the N.I.E., he had compromised sources misinformation? Is this a counterintelli- though we don’t have senior Iranian and methods, which was the reason gence plan?” He compared the process officials telling us, ‘We did this because he had given previously for withhold- to a trial: the data are evaluated in terms we were worried about where you crazy ing the document. “Our job is to steal of the level of confidence the commu- Westerners were going to go with this the secrets of foreign governments, or nity places in their veracity. “We also ex- invasion,’ I believe, as an analyst, that foreign terrorist organizations, and so amine what’s missing,” McConnell con- certainly had some bearing the more they know about tinued. “What are the gaps? What on the decision.” the effectiveness of our would let us know more?” From July On Wednesday, No- tradecraft the more difficult to late November, Iran analysts vetted vember 28th, McConnell it’s going to be for us,” he the information. “Every source is chal- went to the White House said. “I think putting it out lenged,” McConnell said. “We do alter- for the daily briefing and was the right thing, but, as native analysis. We take a set of smart shared the N.I.E.’s key the leader of this commu- people and say, ‘All right, your mission judgments with President nity, I’ve got to tell you, is to figure out why we got this wrong. Bush. He took with him the we’re going to need better What could be an alternative?’ We finish three principal analysts who information in the future. that, we have a Red Team. Red Team had done the assessment. We got to go back and ver- will attack and see if there are weak- Cheney was also present, as ify, ‘Did they re-start it?’ nesses. Did we challenge our hypothe- were members of the National Secu- For the community I represent, I just ses in the right way? Did we put too rity Council. “We handed the President made our life a lot harder.” much emphasis on some evidence?” All the key judgments to read, which he The clock on his desk showed that this was done in the reflected glare skimmed through,” McConnell said. he had four hundred and two days, of the failures of the past. “This com- “You could see him thinking about what fifteen hours, seventeen minutes, and munity is consumed with not repeat- this meant, how do we manage this forty-five seconds left.  ing the mistakes that were made in information.” 2002,” McConnell said. “I will tell you, Secretary Gates was present at the newyorker.com the tradecraft and the professional- meeting. “Mike was a little uneasy about ism that went into this N.I.E. was prob- releasing it,” he said. “He doesn’t want An audio interview with Lawrence Wright.

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