“Sounds good, but did you say I can only have forty-five minutes with them?”
“Yes, forty-five minutes.”
“Okay, I’ll take what I can get.”
“Thank you, it’s good to be home,” I replied. I had just returned to New York from working with the fusion cell in Yemen.
“We’re going down to ground zero,” Kevin said, “and I’d like you and Steve Bongardt to carry the FBI wreath to the memorial.”
“But there are others better suited than us.”
“No, it would be an honor for the FBI to have you and Steve do this.” Steve and I had been trying to get the CIA to share information with us before 9/11 that could have stopped the attacks, so I understood why Kevin wanted us to carry the wreath—the act would be symbolic.
As Steve and I walked, holding the wreath, I couldn’t hold back my tears. The history of what had happened kept swirling around in my mind.
I felt almost physically unable to look at the site where thousands of Americans had died, in an attack that in my heart I knew we could have stopped. At one point I passed a picture of John O’Neill, and as I looked at John’s face I felt a sharp pain in my chest. We laid the wreath at the memorial for law enforcement personnel who had died in the attacks.
After the walk, I returned to my office. Others were going to a nearby bar, but I was too emotional to deal with other people. As I sat at my desk, reliving what had happened a year earlier and trying to work, my phone rang. It was FBI headquarters in Washington telling me that Ramzi Binalshibh and [1 word redacted] had been captured, [16 words redacted]
[1 word redacted] flew to Washington, DC, where [1 word redacted] met [1 word redacted] and [1 word redacted] and another FBI agent, [2 words redacted], who would help with our security, and we got on a private plane chartered by the CIA and flew to Islamabad. CIA officers met us on the tarmac, and one, an older man, came up to me and asked, “Are you [2 words redacted]?”
“Yes,” [1 word redacted] replied, “I am.”
He stuck out his hand. “I’ve heard a lot about you. I look forward to seeing you in action.”
“Thank you. We’ll see how it goes.”
A few hours later [1 word redacted] took a small cargo plane from Islamabad to Karachi, and a new group of CIA officials flew with us. While the officials on the plane from DC and at the airport in Karachi were friendly, on this plane [1 word redacted] were ignored. [1 word redacted] recognized some of them, including Fred, the CIA official who had caused problems in Jordan during the millennium investigation and who had threatened Ibn al-Shaykh al- Liby, ruining that interrogation. It was a bad sign that he was involved.
In Karachi [1 word redacted] were met by [1 word redacted] CIA officers and Pakistani special forces who were holding the detainees. The [1 word redacted] terrorists, who were all blindfolded and handcuffed, were one by one taken from a building on the side of the runway onto [1 word redacted] cargo plane.
One of the [1 word redacted] CIA officers pointed at a detainee, identifying him as [1 word redacted]; he didn’t really look like his brother, whom [1 word redacted] had interrogated in Yemen. The officer said to me: “That one is a troublemaker. He’s very arrogant. He’s even telling the others that they’ll open an Islamic school in Guantanamo.”
Once the prisoners were loaded onto the plane, [1 word redacted] flew to [1 word redacted], and there [1 word redacted] met other CIA officials, including Samantha, from the HVT unit. The sun had set and [1 word redacted] was dark, and we boarded 4x4 jeeps and headed into the darkness. [1 word redacted] was in the same vehicle as Samantha, and at first sat silently as [1 word redacted] drove out of the city, watching as [1 word redacted] passed remnants of [3 words redacted] and other military equipment, which the [1 word redacted] had deliberately left as symbols of their victory against a superpower.
“Where are we going?” [1 word redacted] asked Samantha after a few minutes.
“There’s a detention facility outside the city that we use to question terrorists,” she replied.
[1 word redacted] were waved through the detention facility’s gate by [3 words redacted], who appeared to be in control of the place. The detainees were taken to cells, and [1 word redacted] were instructed to sit in a waiting area.
[1 word redacted] were eager to start interrogating the suspects. [1 word redacted] and [1 word redacted] had both been assigned to 9/11 investigations and had been trailing Binalshibh [3 words redacted], and [1 word redacted] was very familiar with [1 word redacted] and [1 word redacted] entire family. “If we are lucky,” [1 word redacted] said, “these guys might lead us to Khallad and even to bin Laden.”
[1 word redacted] had waited for about an hour when a CIA official came up to [1 word redacted] and said: “You guys can interview the [1 word redacted], but not Binalshibh or [1 word redacted].”
“Excuse me?” [1 word redacted] asked. “Why not?”
“We received specific instructions from Washington that the FBI agents are not authorized to speak to the two main subjects. I’m sorry.” Later, [1 word redacted] learned that a cable from the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center had ordered: “FBI Agent [2 words redacted] is not, repeat NOT, to have access.” The CTC was angry with [1 word redacted] for my stark disagreement with them over the Abu Zubaydah [1 word redacted].
“You guys flew us on a plane all the way from the United States just to tell us we can’t actually interrogate the two main suspects?” [1 word redacted] asked.
“That’s the rule. You can have those [1 word redacted] or nothing, your choice.”
“We’ll take the [1 word redacted], but please reconsider.”
[1 word redacted] and [1 word redacted] called FBI headquarters to see if they knew about any of this. They didn’t, and were just as annoyed and confused as [1 word redacted]were.
This wasn’t the first time [1 word redacted] had had conflicting messages from the CIA. It’s a big agency, and within it there were some officials who had opposed the use of enhanced interrogation techniques, siding with [1 word redacted] on the issue of the Abu Zubaydah interrogation. They were the individuals who wanted [1 word redacted] to interrogate these detainees. Others, notably the CTC, which had brought in the contractors and the enhanced interrogation techniques, didn’t want [1 word redacted] involved.
Divisions in the CIA were also seen before [1 word redacted] got to the Abu Zubaydah interrogation; the CTC, after all, hadn’t bothered to show up originally, because according to their intelligence reporting, he wasn’t actually Abu Zubaydah. Unfortunately for the CIA, those supporting the EITs seemed to have the final word—and the others were forced to go to the CIA’s inspector general to register their complaints.
[1 word redacted] began interrogating [1 word redacted] and soon gained valuable intelligence: on the movement of al-Qaeda operatives in Pakistan, their escape routes, and the smugglers who transport them into Pakistan and Iran. The [1 word redacted] were surprised by what [1 word redacted] already knew about the al- Qaeda network, the various operatives, the structure, and about their native country, Yemen—and this helped convince them to cooperate with [1 word redacted].
They told [1 word redacted] about safe houses al-Qaeda used on both sides of Afghanistan’s borders with Pakistan and Iran, and they detailed how operatives were smuggled from [2 words redacted] and elsewhere in Iran to [1 word redacted], Yemen, and other countries in the Arabian Peninsula.
[1 word redacted] were naturally interested in ongoing operations, and they told [1 word redacted] what they had been involved in before they were picked up. One detainee mentioned an al-Qaeda operative [3 words redacted], who was putting together a cell to conduct “attacks in the Peninsula.” Based on his name, [1 word redacted] thought he was a Yemeni, [8 words redacted]
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[8 words redacted] replied, looking him straight in the eye. [78 words redacted] As [1 word redacted] finished speaking, [1 word redacted] put my hand gently on his shoulder.
He looked down for a few seconds, and then looked up at [50 words redacted]
Later that night, CIA officials told [5 words redacted] that they would come back and pick us up in a few
