Dirty Wars (103 page)

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Authors: Jeremy Scahill

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54
“‘
finish' capabilities
”:
Downing, memorandum to Rumsfeld and Pace, “Special Operations Forces Assessment.”

54
Title 10
:
See sections 153 and 163 of Title 10 of the US Code.

54

based on deception
”:
General Hugh Shelton (Ret.),
Without Hesitation: The Odyssey of an American Warrior
(New York: St. Martin's Press, 2010), pp. 401, 413.

55
had lawyered
:
Rowan Scarborough,
Rumsfeld's War: The Untold Story of America's Anti-Terrorist Commander
(Washington, DC: Regnery, 2004), p. 16. Scarborough discusses Shultz's report, for which he received top security clearances to interview senior commanders and policy makers. “Pentagon lawyers in the 1990s argued that DoD did not have the legal authority until Title 10” to authorize covert operations, Shultz wrote. “Rumsfeld overturned the Clinton policy of arguing in favor of Title 10 restrictions, and has decided that covert missions can indeed be authorized from the Pentagon,” Scarborough wrote.

55

possibility of hunting
”:
Shultz, “Showstoppers.”

55
security clearance
:
Scarborough,
Rumsfeld's War,
p. 14.

55
UN peacekeeping mission
:
United Nations Security Council Resolution 794, adopted December 3, 1992, accessed December 5, 2012,
www.un.org/documents/sc/res/1992/scres92.htm
.

55
warlords openly defied
:
Dr. Richard W. Stewart,
The United States Army in Somalia, 1992–1994,
U.S. Army Center of Military
History, accessed January 2011,
www.history.army.mil/brochures/Somalia/Somalia.pdf
.

55
green light
:
Mark Bowden, “How a Relief Mission Ended in a Firefight,”
Philadelphia Inquirer,
December 14, 1997.

55
descended into disaster
:
Ibid.

56

Mogadishu disaster
”:
Shultz, “Showstoppers.”

56

check off boxes”
: Ibid.

57
began briefing
:
Ibid.

57
SECRET
:
Scarborough,
Rumsfeld's War,
p. 14.

57

for fifteen minutes
”:
Jamie McIntyre, “Rumsfeld Versus Shelton,” Line of Departure (blog),
Military.com
, February 25, 2011,
www.lineofdeparture.com/tag/rumsfeld-shelton/
.

57

learn the right lessons
”:
Scarborough,
Rumsfeld's War,
p. 15.

57

allies and friends
”:
Douglas J. Feith,
War and Decision; Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism
(New York: Harper, 2009), p. 51.

57

Forget about ‘exit strategies
'”:
Donald H. Rumsfeld, “A New Kind of War,”
New York Times,
September 27, 2001.

58

No one amongst those people
”:
Author interview, Malcolm W. Nance, May 2011.

58
seven hundred covert operatives
:
Jennifer Kibbe, “The Rise of the Shadow Warriors,”
Foreign Affairs
83 (2) (March-April 2004): 112.

58

paramilitary expertise
”:
Author interview, Vincent Cannistraro, August 2010. All information and statements attributed to Vincent Cannistraro come from the author's interview.

58

bunch of pansies
”:
Author interview, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson (Ret.), May 2011.

59
were cautioning against
:
Transcript,
NewsHour,
PBS, March 26, 2004. Colin Powell: “I recommended to the president that our focus had to be on al-Qaida, the Taliban and Afghanistan. Those were the ones who attacked the United States of America on 9/11.”

59

no choice
”:
Transcript, “Secretary Rumsfeld News Briefing in Brussels,” December 18, 2001.

59
draw up a list
:
Seymour Hersh, “Manhunt: The Bush Administration's New Strategy in the War Against Terrorism,”
New Yorker,
December 23, 2002.

60

exploring targets
”:
Memorandum to President George W. Bush, no subject, September 23, 2001,
www.rumsfeld.com/
library/.

4: The Boss: Ali Abdullah Saleh

61
Yemen's leader
:
Robert F. Worth, “For Yemen's Leader, a Balancing Act Gets Harder,”
New York Times,
June 21, 2008.

61

The Boss
”:
Gregory D. Johnsen, “The Boss Falls. Then What?”
New York Times,
March 24, 2011.

61
“We would drive around
”:
Author interview, Colonel W. Patrick Lang (Ret.), February 2011. All information and statements attributed to Colonel Lang come from the author's interview. Details about Colonel Lang's background are from the author's interview.

62
coordinated and funded
:
Gregory D. Johnsen,
The Last Refuge: Yemen, Al-Qaeda, and America's War in Arabia
(New York: W. W. Norton, 2013), p. 7.

62

sent to Afghanistan
”:
“An Interview with President Ali Abdullah Saleh,”
New York Times,
June 28, 2008.

62
safe haven
:
Worth, “Balancing Act Gets Harder.”

62

political pluralism
”:
“An Interview with President Ali Abdullah Saleh.”

62
Islamic Jihad
:
Lawrence Wright,
The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11
(New York: Vintage Books, 2006), p. 365.

62
southern secessionists
:
Robert F. Worth, “Yemen's Deals with Jihadists Unsettle the U.S.,”
New York Times,
January 28, 2008.

62
against Shiite Houthi rebels
:
Author interview, former US counterterrorism official, January 2011.

62

They were the thugs
”:
Author interview, Ali Soufan, January 2011.

62
five hundred pounds of explosives
:
William Branigin, “Two Sentenced to Die for USS Cole Attack,”
Washington Post,
September 30, 2004.

63

charged and destroyed
”:
Diana Elias, “Video Offers Strong Bin Laden-USS Cole Link,”
ABCNews.go.com
, June 19, 2001.

63
aides had written
:
Wright,
The Looming Tower,
p. 333.

63

50 million machine guns,” “the most hostile environment
”:
Ibid., p. 365.

63
had to pull out completely
:
Ibid.

63

death threats
”:
Ali H. Soufan, “Closing the Case on the Cole,” op-ed,
New York Times,
October 11, 2010.

63
Saleh's government
:
Soufan does note in his op-ed that the FBI team “left Yemen with most of the terrorists locked up” but says that they were soon released by the government.

63

No one in the Clinton White House
”:
Soufan, “Closing the Case on the Cole.”

63

great victory
”:
Wright,
The Looming Tower,
p. 374.

63

denied them access
”:
Walter Pincus, “Yemen Hears Benefits of Joining U.S. Fight; Officials Discuss up to $400 Million in Aid,”
Washington Post,
November 28, 2001.

64

Those who make war
”:
Transcript, President George W. Bush radio address, September 15, 2001,
www.nytimes.com/2001/09/16/us/after-the-attacks-the-president-s-message-a-different-battle-awaits.html
.

64
put Yemen on a list
:
Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker,
Counterstrike: The Untold Story of America's Secret Campaign Against al Qaeda
(New York: Times Books, 2011), p. 30.

64

graveyard for the invaders
”:
Jonathan Mahler, “The Bush Administration vs. Salim Hamdan,”
New York Times Magazine,
January 8, 2006.

64
held talks
:
“Issues of Interest; Yemeni-American Relations,” website of the Embassy of the Republic of Yemen in Washington, DC, accessed December 1, 2012,
www.yemenembassy.org/issues/ymusrelshp/index.htm
.

64

principal partner
”:
Ibid.

64
Ritz Carlton
:
Author interview, Yemeni official, January 2013.

64
presented with an aid package
:
Pincus, “Yemen Hears Benefits of Joining U.S. Fight.”

65

counterterrorism camp
”:
Philip Smucker and Howard LaFranchi, “Anti-US strike Shakes Yemen; Three US aid Workers Slain in a Hospital,”
Christian Science Monitor,
December 31, 2002.

65
permission for the CIA to fly drones
:
Dana Priest, “U.S. Military Teams, Intelligence Deeply Involved in Aiding Yemen on Strikes,”
Washington Post,
January 27, 2010.

65

knew how to survive
”:
Author interview, Dr. Emile Nakhleh, January 2010.

65

expressed his concern
”:
“Issues of Interest; Yemeni-American Relations.”

65
ordered his forces to raid a village
:
Gregory D. Johnsen, “The Expansion Strategy of Al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula,”
CTC Sentinel,
September 2009, pp. 8–11.

66
nine hundred military and intelligence personnel
:
Robert Schlesinger, “In Djibouti, US Special Forces Develop Base amid Secrecy,”
Boston Globe,
December 12, 2002.

66
establish operational capacity
:
Priest, “U.S. Military Teams, Intelligence Deeply Involved.”

5: The Enigma of Anwar Awlaki

67

Uncle Saleh, I am here
”:
Author interview, Sheikh Saleh bin Fareed, January 2012. All statements and information attributed to Saleh bin Fareed come from the author's interview, unless otherwise noted.

67

We should be concerned
”:
Audio recording of Anwar al Awlaki lecture, “Lessons from the Companions Living as a Minority,” JIMAS Conference, University of Leicester, August 2002.

68

given permission
”:
Anwar al Awlaki, “The Islamic Education of Shaikh Anwar al Awlaki,” Imam Anwar's Blog,
anwar-alawlaki.com
, August 12, 2008.

68
traveled to Saudi Arabia
:
Author interviews, Awlaki family members, January and August 2012.

68

air went out of the balloon
”:
Chitra Ragavan, “The Imam's Very Curious Story: A Skirt-Chasing Mullah Is Just One More Mystery for the 9/11 Panel,”
US News and World Report,
June 13, 2004,
www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/040621/21plot.htm
..

68

support a criminal prosecution
”:
National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States (Philip Zelikow, Executive Director; Bonnie D. Jenkins, Counsel; Ernest R. May, Senior Advisor),
The 9/11 Commission Report
(New York: W. W. Norton, 2004), p. 517.

68
warrant issued
:
“Justice Department Response to Fox News Regarding Colorado 2002 Awlaki Matter,”
FoxNews.com
, May 21, 2010. For the warrant itself, see
www.scribd.com/doc/29510870/Al-Awlaki-Arrest-Warrant
.

68
resolved the issue
:
The letter from the Justice Department, published by FoxNews.com, says he “corrected” the mistake.

68

We were ecstatic
”:
Joseph Rhee and Mark Schone, “How Anwar Awlaki Got Away,”
ABCNews.go.com
, November 30, 2009.

68
up to ten years in prison
:
Ibid.

69
TECS II
:
Journalist Paul Sperry obtained information from the TECS II system concerning Awlaki; see
www.sperryfiles.com/
images/1–3.jpg.

69

Give it another shot
”:
Author interview, Nasser al Awlaki, September 2012. All quotations from Nasser al Awlaki come from interviews the author conducted between January and September 2012, unless otherwise noted.

69
intelligence memo
:
9/11 Commission Report,
p. 517.

69
filed a motion
:
Catherine Herridge,
The Next Wave: Inside the Hunt for Al Qaeda's American Recruits
(New York: Crown Forum, 2011), p. 95.

69

having a bad reputation
”:
Joseph Rhee, “U.S. Attorney Defends Decision to Scrap Awlaki Arrest Warrant,”
ABCNews.go.com
, December 7, 2009.

69
arrived at JFK Airport
:
TECS II “Incident Log” entry concerning arrival of Anwar at John F. Kennedy Airport, October 10, 2002, accessed March 2012,
sperryfiles.com
,
www.sperryfiles.com/images/
1-4.jpg.

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