Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden--From 9/11 to Abbottabad by Peter L. Bergen Page B
Authors: Peter L. Bergen
Tags: United States, History, Political Science, Terrorism, Political Freedom & Security, Intelligence & Espionage, 21st Century
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al-Qaeda believed it fit into that history, which made her a formidable interrogator of al-Qaeda detainees, some of whom found the fact that she was a well-informed female particularly disconcerting. After 9/11, in addition to her busy job at the CIA, she was also raising three young children.
Frederica (a pseudonym) was another smart, tough CIA officer who was indefatigable in chasing after al-Qaeda. Scheuer says ofher, “If she bites your ankle, if she gets her teeth into your foot, you’re done like dinner. You may as well give up. It may take two years, but she’s going to get you.”
And there was Gina Bennett, who in August 1993, while working at the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, inside the State Department, had authored a paper that was thefirst strategic warning about a man named “Usama Bin Ladin.” When bin Laden was expelled to Afghanistan in May 1996 from the Sudanese capital of Khartoum, Bennett also wrotea prescient analysis, warning, “His prolonged stay in Afghanistan—where hundreds of ‘Arab Mujahidin’ receive terrorist training and key extremist leaders often congregate—could prove more dangerous to US interests in the long run than his three-year liaison with Khartoum.”
In the years after the attacks on New York and Washington, Bennett helped draft the key National Intelligence Estimates on the state of al-Qaeda while at the same timebalancing the demands of her five children. She reported to David Low, who recalls how quick she was to absorb complicated information: “I could walk into her office at noon and say, ‘I need fifteen pages on X,’ and it’s there three hours later.She is really fast.”
The prominent role that women played in the hunt for bin Laden was reflective of the largest cultural shift at the CIA in the past two decades. Veteran CIA operative Glenn Carle recalls, “When I started, there were to my knowledge four senior operation officers who were females, and they had to be the toughest SOBs in the universe to survive. And the rest of the women were treated as sexual toys.” When Scheuer set up the bin Laden unit, Carle remembers the reaction among his fellow operations officers: “What’s his staff? It’s all female. It was just widely discussed at the time that it’s a bunch of chicks. So, the perspective was frankly condescending and dismissive. And Scheuer [and his staff] essentially were saying, ‘Youguys need to listen to us; this is really serious. This is a big deal, and people are going to die.’ And of course they were right.”
Scheuer’s team had mounted aggressive efforts in the years before 9/11 to take out bin Laden, but they were often beset by a certain amount of confusion. Senior national security officials under President Bill Clinton believed that he had authorized bin Laden’s assassination, while the Agency officers implementing the program believed it was a capture bin Laden program in which he might only be killed inadvertently. When the Afghan militia leader Ahmad Shah Massoud was told in 1999—at the same time that he was waging a battle to the death with the Taliban—that the CIA was hoping to partner with him in capturing but
not killing
bin Laden, he responded, “You guys are crazy. You haven’t changed a bit.”
CIA operatives in Afghanistan had bin Laden in their sights a number of times before 9/11. The exact number is in dispute. Clinton’s counterterrorism coordinator RichardClarke says three times, while Scheuer says there wereas many as ten opportunities. But there is little disagreement thatthe best chance to capture or kill bin Laden came in early February 1999 when he was spotted by CIA assets on the ground in Afghanistan as part of a hunting party outside of Kandahar. The group was hunting desert bustards with falcons in a remote area, so there was little risk of causing civilian casualties during a strike—a consideration that had hampered previous operations to target bin Laden.
On February 9,
Frederica (a pseudonym) was another smart, tough CIA officer who was indefatigable in chasing after al-Qaeda. Scheuer says ofher, “If she bites your ankle, if she gets her teeth into your foot, you’re done like dinner. You may as well give up. It may take two years, but she’s going to get you.”
And there was Gina Bennett, who in August 1993, while working at the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, inside the State Department, had authored a paper that was thefirst strategic warning about a man named “Usama Bin Ladin.” When bin Laden was expelled to Afghanistan in May 1996 from the Sudanese capital of Khartoum, Bennett also wrotea prescient analysis, warning, “His prolonged stay in Afghanistan—where hundreds of ‘Arab Mujahidin’ receive terrorist training and key extremist leaders often congregate—could prove more dangerous to US interests in the long run than his three-year liaison with Khartoum.”
In the years after the attacks on New York and Washington, Bennett helped draft the key National Intelligence Estimates on the state of al-Qaeda while at the same timebalancing the demands of her five children. She reported to David Low, who recalls how quick she was to absorb complicated information: “I could walk into her office at noon and say, ‘I need fifteen pages on X,’ and it’s there three hours later.She is really fast.”
The prominent role that women played in the hunt for bin Laden was reflective of the largest cultural shift at the CIA in the past two decades. Veteran CIA operative Glenn Carle recalls, “When I started, there were to my knowledge four senior operation officers who were females, and they had to be the toughest SOBs in the universe to survive. And the rest of the women were treated as sexual toys.” When Scheuer set up the bin Laden unit, Carle remembers the reaction among his fellow operations officers: “What’s his staff? It’s all female. It was just widely discussed at the time that it’s a bunch of chicks. So, the perspective was frankly condescending and dismissive. And Scheuer [and his staff] essentially were saying, ‘Youguys need to listen to us; this is really serious. This is a big deal, and people are going to die.’ And of course they were right.”
Scheuer’s team had mounted aggressive efforts in the years before 9/11 to take out bin Laden, but they were often beset by a certain amount of confusion. Senior national security officials under President Bill Clinton believed that he had authorized bin Laden’s assassination, while the Agency officers implementing the program believed it was a capture bin Laden program in which he might only be killed inadvertently. When the Afghan militia leader Ahmad Shah Massoud was told in 1999—at the same time that he was waging a battle to the death with the Taliban—that the CIA was hoping to partner with him in capturing but
not killing
bin Laden, he responded, “You guys are crazy. You haven’t changed a bit.”
CIA operatives in Afghanistan had bin Laden in their sights a number of times before 9/11. The exact number is in dispute. Clinton’s counterterrorism coordinator RichardClarke says three times, while Scheuer says there wereas many as ten opportunities. But there is little disagreement thatthe best chance to capture or kill bin Laden came in early February 1999 when he was spotted by CIA assets on the ground in Afghanistan as part of a hunting party outside of Kandahar. The group was hunting desert bustards with falcons in a remote area, so there was little risk of causing civilian casualties during a strike—a consideration that had hampered previous operations to target bin Laden.
On February 9,
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