because then “I can use the highest level of discrimination.”
Before we parted, we discussed using a code to communicate in the future.
I had series of phone calls and e-mail exchanges with Shah. The members of the squad running the operation wrote the e-mails, as I was busy running my own squad, but they showed me each one before it was sent. The e-mails contained questions about Sabir, and Shah wrote that he was concerned about how “open” the e-mails were and worried about the security risk. I told him not to worry.
Over the period of my undercover work, Shah continued working toward helping al-Qaeda and found possible training centers for al-Qaeda terrorists in the United States, including a warehouse in Long Island, New York. He also traveled to Phoenix, Arizona, to scout for possible recruits there, and came up with a list of people he had met across the country who were sympathetic to the cause.
On March 20, 2005, I called Shah on a cell phone using a Yemeni country code. He answered thinking it was Sabir—now in the Middle East—and was surprised to hear my voice. He didn’t know that I, too, was in the Middle East. I told him I was traveling, and in our agreed-upon code we spoke about the syllabus and the video. The handbook was almost complete, he said, and he was still working on the video. He assured me that he was still interested in our “business” proposal—code for his joining al-Qaeda.
On May 1, 2005, Sabir returned to the United States and stayed at a new apartment Shah had in the Bronx. I told Shah that I would return to the United States and would meet them both, which I did, on May 20, at Shah’s mother’s apartment, also in the Bronx.
With both of them present, Shah again attested to Sabir’s value, and told me that the two of them had been kicked out of a mosque in the Bronx, where Sabir was an assistant imam, after Sabir brought in Shah to teach urban warfare. I said I was “impressed” with what he had told me about Sabir and trusted his recommendation. “Sheikh Osama considers doctors our number-one resource,” I told Sabir. I said that we were ready for him and Shah to join the terrorist group.
I instructed them to continue their preparations. Shah still had not finished making his martial arts video for al-Qaeda to use. I warned him to wear a ski mask while on camera, in case the video “God forbid, falls into somebody’s hands.” I told them that before they were accepted as al-Qaeda members, they needed to pledge
They fell to their knees, took my hands, and repeated after me: “God’s pledge is upon me and so is his covenant to commit myself to the orders of the guardians of the agreement, for the misfortune and for the prosperity. And to be a loyalist to the path of jihad, and to my brothers, until God’s word is exalted. And to be protective of the secrecy of the oath and to the directives of Al-Qaeda.” They embraced me, completing the al- Qaeda initiation process. They had taken the same oath as Mohammed Atta and the other 9/11 hijackers. I was now looking at two members of al-Qaeda.
Leaving the Bronx, I returned to the office, took off the wire I was wearing, and handed in my badge. That was my last day at work. I was leaving the FBI and heading into the private sector. At a farewell party that night, friends and colleagues wished me good luck.
“It’s a big loss for us that you’re leaving,” my close friend and confidant Carlos Fernandez said.
“Well, the oath I took to defend the United States from enemies foreign and domestic doesn’t end with a paycheck,” I told him. “I’ll still be doing my part, just from a different angle.”
That was a Friday. The next day, Shah was arrested. In the interrogation booth, the agent questioning him asked, “Do you know someone called Ali?”
“No, I don’t.”
“You haven’t met someone called Ali a number of times?”
“No.”
“He looks like—” The agent went on to describe me.
“No, I don’t know him,” Shah said.
The agent realized that Shah truly believed I was a member of al-Qaeda and was trying to protect my identity. “Maybe you’ll recognize him if I show you a picture,” the agent said, and showed Shah an official FBI photo of me.
“Oh,” Shah replied, and, realizing the game was up, he confessed to everything.
Shah and most of his group pled guilty, but Sabir didn’t, so two years later, in 2007, I testified in court. That was the first time I had appeared before reporters—there had been many stories in the media full of speculation about who the undercover agent had been, and all of them had gotten it wrong.
We had done everything for the mission by the book, and the defense did little other than ask me to read the transcripts of my exchanges with Shah and Sabir.
Sabir was convicted.
POSTSCRIPT
On April 16, 2009, the U.S. Justice Department declassified a series of memos on the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques program. This followed an announcement earlier in the month by Leon Panetta, the new CIA director, that the agency’s black sites had been shut down. “The CIA no longer operates detention facilities or black sites,” he had written to his staff. On October 29, 2009, David Iglesias, a navy prosecutor (and the actual person on whom Tom Cruise’s character in the film
The declassified Department of Justice memos dispassionately detailed the coercive interrogation methods approved by the Bush administration, including waterboarding, and also listed “successes” of the program as a justification for their continuation. Featured prominently in the memos was Abu Zubaydah, the first to go through the program.
Within hours of the memos’ release, I received calls from outraged friends in the intelligence and law enforcement communities. As one friend put it, “This is why the United States ripped up the Constitution in dealing with these terrorists? The memos are full of lies. I can’t believe they’ve got the cheek to claim these successes as theirs! Didn’t any of the lawyers even bother to check the dates?”
I felt the same disbelief and anger. It was apparent from the memos that the introduction of EITs was based on lies. The proof resides in my notes—locked, as noted earlier, in FBI vaults. It’s no surprise that those behind the EITs fought so hard to keep these memos classified. From the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah to the information leading to the capture of Ramzi Binalshibh to the arrest of Khallad, the memos are full of misrepresentations of facts.
I received nonstop inquiries from journalists and television shows asking me about the memos, as it was no secret that I had opposed the techniques—a previously declassified Department of Justice inspector general’s report had made that clear. From 2002 to 2009 I was limited to closed-door briefings in classified settings.
I didn’t, however, speak out immediately, as I didn’t want to reopen a period of my life that I had been happy to put behind me. I also thought it would be pretty clear that the claims in the memos were false. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case, as the defenders of the EITs launched a media blitz campaign not only to defend the techniques but to argue for their reintroduction.
“As you always say, the oath you took to defend the American people against enemies foreign and domestic didn’t end when you left the FBI. Indeed, that’s why you agreed to be the government’s main witness in the trials at Guantanamo,” a former colleague reminded me, “and once again you have a duty to tell the truth. Otherwise there is a danger that the American people will become convinced the EITs were a success, and they’ll be reintroduced, and that will be disastrous.”
Some colleagues suggested specific journalists I might speak with, but my colleague and coauthor Daniel Freedman recommended that my first public comments be in my own words, on my terms, with no possibility of their being misconstrued. As I was weighing what to do, the
