Lawrence Wright discusses the United States’ intelligence strategy with Mike McConnell, the director of National Intelligence. In a rare interview, McConnell, who has been charged with bringing unity to a set of agencies that, for years, have been “brutally competitive, undermining one another and hoarding vital information,” speaks candidly with Wright about cyber-security, torture, intelligence leaks, and the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Cyber-security is one of McConnell’s top priorities; as he said in one Oval Office meeting, “If the 9/11 perpetrators had focussed on a single U.S. bank through cyber-attack and it had been successful, it would have an order-of-magnitude greater impact on the U.S. economy.” “My prediction is that we’re going to screw around with this until something horrendous happens,” McConnell tells Wright. He is drafting a Cyber-Security Policy that seeks to protect not just government but also American industry and individuals from attack, but may be seen by some as violating privacy. Ed Giorgio, a former N.S.A. official working with McConnell on it, explains that the policy would give government “the authority to examine the content of any e-mail, file transfer, or Web search.” Giorgio tells Wright, “Google has records that could help in a cyber-investigation,” and warns him, “Privacy and security are a zero-sum game.” Wright emphasizes this tension between security and privacy, saying, “Americans will have to trust the government not to abuse the authority it must have in order to protect our networks, and yet, historically, the government has not proved worthy of that trust.”
Wright questions McConnell on the U.S.’s use of torture in intelligence investigations. McConnell denies that the U.S. tortures detainees, but says of the C.I.A.’s “special methods” of interrogation, “Have we gotten meaningful information? You betcha. Tons! Does it save lives? Tons! We’ve gotten incredible information.” When Wright asks him to define torture, McConnell answers, “My own definition of torture is something that would cause excruciating pain.” On the subject of waterboarding, he says, for him, “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.”
Wright also discusses “the continuing failure of the intelligence community to capture or kill bin Laden and dismantle his organization.” David Shedd, McConnell’s deputy director for policy, tells Wright, “The trail is cold. It’s as hard a target as we’ve ever faced.” Wright notes that the C.I.A. shuttered its unit in charge of tracking bin Laden in 2005, and a former agency official tells Wright that “there’s a sense that there’s not a quarterback” in the fight against Al Qaeda. Regarding rumors that bin Laden is hiding in Pakistan, McConnell st... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]
The world promised reconstruction to Afghanistan; it was to be thrust from the medieval rule of the fundamentalist Taliban into the booming twenty-first century. However, progress has materialized only in scattershot fashion across this country where elite villas, five-star hotels, and fabulous malls for a very few take precedence over roads, schools, and farms. Hovels were bulldozed to make way for expensive housing for Kabul’s wealthiest residents—top government officials and their lackeys. Hundreds of refugee families living on government-owned land in the posh Wazir Akbar Khan neighborhood were ejected from that prime real estate. Mansions and malls tower over mud-and-burlap vendor stalls in a clash of priorities between, on the one hand, a tribal, Islamic culture and, on the other, secular, gotta-have-it, drug-infused venture capitalism. The latter influences everything, including international aid organizations.
Overall, terrorist cells around the world have become noticeably more skilled at avoiding detection, European counterterrorism officials and analysts said in interviews. For instance, operatives now commonly use Skype and other Internet telephone services, which are difficult to trace or bug.
By the end of July, 25 percent of American combat troops are due to withdraw from Iraq. FP sat down with Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, to find out how he plans to draw down without leaving chaos behind.
One day last month, I climbed onto a crowded rooftop in Quetta, near Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan, and wedged myself among men wearing thick turbans and rangy beards until I could find a seat. We converged on the rooftop that afternoon to attend the opening ceremony for Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam’s campaign office in this dusty city in the southwestern province of Baluchistan. ...
A cool breeze blew across the rooftop, and a green kite flew above in the crisp, periwinkle sky. The J.U.I. was gearing up again for national elections, then scheduled for the second week of January, but the message this time was remarkably different from what it was five years ago. One by one, hopefuls for the national and provincial assembly constituencies gave short speeches. Most of them spoke in Pashto, but, knowing Urdu, I could understand enough to realize that they weren’t rehashing the typical J.U.I. rhetoric. No one praised the Taliban. Shariah was mentioned only in passing. Just one person, a first-time candidate in a suede jacket who probably felt obliged to prove his credentials in a party of fundamentalist mullahs, attacked the United States. Afterward, party workers handed out free plates of cookies and cups of tea.
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When I met Rehman in Peshawar in the fall we sat outside on plastic lawn furniture in the shade of a large oak tree. He rubbed a strand of chunky, orange prayer beads, and we discussed the changing leadership in the borderlands of Pakistan. In the past five years, more than 150 pro-government maliks, or tribal elders, had been killed by the Taliban. Oftentimes, the Taliban dumped the bodies by the side of the road for passers-by to see, with a note, written in Pashto, pinned to the corpse’s chest, damning the dead man as an American spy. “When the jihad in Afghanistan started,” Rehman told me, “the maliks and the old tribal system in Afghanistan ended; a new leadership arose, based on jihad. Similar is the case here in the Tribal Areas. The old, tribal system is being relegated to the background, and a new leadership, composed of these young militants, has emerged.” He added, “This is something natural.”
Though Rehman describes the emergence of the local Taliban in evolutionary terms, he explains it as a result of a leadership crisis in Pakistan. He respects the secular-minded people who created Pakistan but insists that social and religious changes over the past two decades have made such leaders much less relevant: “We have to adjust to reality, and that demands new leaders with new visions.”
I asked if he considered himself such a new leader with a new vision.
“I don’t consider myself as someone extraordinary,” Rehman said. “I have the same feelings as everyone else in the current age: if the weather is warm, everyone feels warm; if it is cold, everyone feels cold. The difference between me and other people is in our responsibilities.” He took a long breath of the fresh, fall air, continued rubbing his prayer beads and leaned over the chair to spit. “That’s why I am so careful, because my decisions can affect many, many people. I am trying to bring people back from the fire, not push them toward it.” Rehman once seemed ready to introduce Taliban-style rule in Pakistan. Now he is trying to preserve democracy from being destroyed by ruthless militants. If he can’t succeed, can anyone?
Presidential candidate Bill Richardson, in Wednesday's Boston Globe:
PRESIDENT PERVEZ MUSHARRAF of Pakistan must go. Rather than waging the "unstinted" war against Al Qaeda that he promised, he has become a source of instability that terrorists are exploiting. Pakistan urgently needs a new government, and the United States should suspend all nonterrorism-related military aid until Musharraf steps aside.
Instead of treating Pakistan like the ally it isn't, the country should be treated like the national security problem it has become. Moreover, Bush should be careful with his language. The United States needs to be tough with Pakistan, not gullible.
Terrorism experts say radical groups are targeting teenagers as young as 14.
I suppose it's time to rethink this:
"Children in the back seat, lower suspicion, we let it move through," Barbero said. "They parked the vehicle, the adults run out and detonate it with the children in the back."
