Predator (57 page)

CIA Director George Tenet, with the NSC's Richard Clarke sitting behind him, watched President Bush address the nation on the evening of September 11, 2001, from the White House bunker. Before that day, Tenet and Clarke were at odds about whether to use the armed Predator to try to kill Osama bin Laden. Afterward, Tenet became a Predator disciple.

Air commander General Chuck Wald, styrofoam cup in hand to catch sunflower seed shells, watches live CIA Predator video with subordinates at an air base in Saudi Arabia as the war in Afghanistan begins. “Who is in control?” Wald fumed to a fellow general after being surprised by the Predator's first missile launch. “I'm ready to fold up and come home.”

A special Air Force team launched the first intercontinental drone strikes from a complex on the CIA campus that became known as the Trailer Park. Later, those involved created a memento—a coin embossed with a mobile home built around an armed Predator and bearing a motto reflecting the CIA's shift to ordering Hellfire strikes independently: “Never Mind … We'll Do It Ourselves.”

 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book is the product of a journey of discovery that began five years ago and led me to a number of facts and stories that some institutions and officials have been reluctant to see revealed. It is therefore not merely difficult but impossible to thank by name all of the dozens of people who gave me the benefit of their time, knowledge, insights, documents, contacts, advice, or just encouragement. For various reasons, some who helped insist on remaining anonymous. You know who you are; I hope you know how grateful I am. I am equally grateful to a number of people who played roles in the rise of the Predator and generously helped me understand it, but whose names go unmentioned in this book. I hope they will understand that the demands of narrative rather than lack of gratitude are to blame for their anonymity.

It would have been impossible to write this book without the cooperation of its main characters, particularly the inimitable Abe Karem and the utterly different but equally inimitable Neal and Linden Blue. Each is among the most extraordinary people I have ever met in a career that has often put me in close proximity to extraordinary people. Each has been generous with his time and assistance, and I am grateful to all three for opening to me not only their own doors but also the doors of others.

Another who has been a great friend to this project is retired Air Force Lieutenant General David Deptula, one of those rare military officers who truly understands the media and who, as a result, earns the media's respect. Aside from sharing his own recollections with me, Dave spent many hours over the past five years helping me try to understand and deal with his beloved Air Force. For all these reasons, I will always be grateful to him.

I am deeply grateful to many others who played larger roles in the Predator story and whose names appear often in the narrative. Many granted me one or more lengthy interviews, followed by repeated phone calls and e-mails to verify facts. So many helped so much that to name them one by one and describe their contributions would require several pages. I hope it will suffice if here I simply say to them as well, you know who you are, and I hope you know how much I value all you have done for me and this book.

The list of those who played no role in the story but contributed greatly to my ability to tell it, and to whom I am also indebted, includes people at two prestigious Washington addresses where it has been my privilege to work on this project: the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum.

At the Wilson Center, rightly ranked as one of the top ten research institutions in the world, I thank Sam Wells for opening the door and Rob Litwak for inviting me in as a Public Policy Scholar in 2011. That opportunity marked a turning point in my research, and my work that year was greatly aided by my Wilson Center intern, the diligent Dylan Jones. My seven-month stay in 2011 turned into a continuing affiliation, and in 2013 I had the honor of being named a Wilson Center Global Fellow, for which I again thank Rob Litwak, as well as Mike Van Dusen and Jane Harman. Among the many benefits of being affiliated with such a respected think tank is the ability to lean on some of the world's best librarians, who include the Wilson Center's unfailingly helpful Janet Spikes and Michelle Kamalich. I owe them both greatly for going above and beyond the call of duty to assist me on many occasions.

I was able to finish this book as the Alfred V. Verville Fellow for 2013–14 at the National Air and Space Museum, where the benefits include not only financial support but also the privilege of having an office around the corner or down the hall from some of the best aerospace historians alive. At the NASM there are several people I want to thank for their support, advice, and help, as well as their collegiality. The list begins with my two primary advisers, Aeronautics Department Chairman Bob van der Linden and Space History Department Chairman Paul Ceruzzi. It includes fellowship committee chairman Dom Pisano, fellowship program coordinator Collette Williams, NASM director General (Ret.) John Dailey (USMC), Deputy Director Roger Launius, and Tom Paone. But above all I must thank the NASM's Roger Connor, my guru on drones, rotorcraft, and just about any other aerospace topic. Roger and I met as I worked on my previous book,
The Dream Machine: The Untold History of the Notorious V-22 Osprey
, and I have drawn on him regularly and relentlessly ever since as a reservoir of advice, information, and enjoyable conversation. On this book, Roger's counsel has been invaluable at every stage, from suggesting research materials and other sources as I was getting started, to helping me define my concept for the book, to encouraging my interest in the Verville Fellowship, to reading and commenting on my draft manuscript. Roger even scanned photos for me to include in the book. Without question, this is a better book because of his generous help. If there are errors in it, they of course are my responsibility.

Many others deserve thanks for lending their support in other ways as I researched and wrote this book. They include former Air Force Secretary F. Whitten Peters, Robert L. Hutchings of the University of Texas, William Warmbrodt of NASA Ames Research Center, Michael Hirschberg of the American Helicopter Society International, J. J. Gertler of the Congressional Research Service, and John Harrington, Amir Pasic, and Eliot Cohen of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, where I was honored to be a visiting scholar in 2011–12. I also thank Rebecca Grant, former director of the Air Force Association's Mitchell Institute for Airpower Studies, for publishing my 2011 Mitchell Institute monograph, “Predator's Big Safari.” I am grateful as well to Linda Shiner, editor of
Air & Space Smithsonian
, for giving me the opportunity in 2013 to profile Abraham Karem in her fine magazine.

Others who have written about the Predator deserve my thanks for sharing their insights and documents. I am grateful to David Fulghum, now retired but for many years one of the brightest stars at
Aviation Week & Space Technology
, for giving me a copy of an unpublished Big Safari history that was illuminating, as well as pointing me to groundbreaking articles he wrote about this obscure organization during his impressive career. I am also grateful to Air Force Colonel Sean Frisbee, who shared not only his thoughts and knowledge but also a trove of key documents he collected as he wrote his excellent 2004 Air University master's thesis, “Weaponizing the Predator UAV: Toward a New Theory of Weapon System Innovation.”

The Air University is a natural starting point for any research on Air Force topics, and I thank Colonel John Davis of the Air Force Research Institute, who as a lieutenant colonel at the Air University in 2009 provided academic papers and Air Force contacts that helped me get this project off the ground. For more recent Air Force assistance, I thank Major Mary Danner-Jones of Air Force Public Affairs for patiently arranging important interviews and quickly reviewing documents for release as I raced toward the finish line. She is a true professional.

Few if any books are shaped by an author alone, and on this one, the influence of several people is invisible but has been invaluable. I am lucky to have the best literary agent in the business, Richard Abate, who kept me focused and resilient as this project turned from a sprint into a marathon. I am also indebted to my friend and literary mentor James Reston Jr., a master craftsman whose seventeen (going on eighteen) books include several renowned narrative histories, and whose advice shaped this one in important ways. I am also grateful to Jim for sharing his wisdom on how to deal with the many challenges of life as an author aside from writing.

This is my first book for Henry Holt and Company, where I have been honored and blessed to have as my editor another master craftsman, John Sterling. When Richard Abate told me that the editor of Rick Atkinson's acclaimed Liberation Trilogy on World War II was interested in my book about the Predator, I was excited. Now, having seen John strengthen and sharpen every page of my manuscript, I am elated. At Henry Holt, I also thank Emi Ikkanda, production editor Chris O'Connell, and copy editor Jenna Dolan for their important contributions to this work.

My first and toughest reader, as always, has been my gifted and giving wife, Faye Ross, who read and reread every chapter as I drafted and redrafted, serving as a one-woman focus group and doing her best to keep me focused on the narrative as well as the facts—a challenge, at times, for a recovering newspaper reporter. For this, and so much else, I love her more than I can say.

 

ALSO BY RICHARD WHITTLE

The Dream Machine:

The Untold History of the Notorious V-22 Osprey

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Richard Whittle
is author of
The Dream Machine: The Untold History of the Notorious V-22 Osprey
. A Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center and a 2013–14 Verville Fellow at the National Air and Space Museum, Whittle has covered the military for three decades, including twenty-two years as Pentagon correspondent for
The Dallas Morning News
. He lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland.