The Pretender Page 27
Mike German, successful infiltrator of the Aryan Nations, my fellow UC instructor and a fixture at the Starlight Lounge, now a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School, commented in a Huffington Post blog, “What I find problematic is when the defendant has no connection to real terrorists or access to weapons … There are real terrorists out there, and all of the resources used on these manufactured cases should be devoted to those real cases.”
I concur, and add that all of these issues and obstacles should serve to demonstrate the enhanced post-9/11 imperative to utilize the gold standard in investigation and then prosecution: the undercover.
* * *
After 9/11, there was also a universal call for extensive counterterrorism training to enhance the capabilities of all FBI agents to effectively wage the belatedly acknowledged war against Al-Qaeda and all the other jihadi cells. Few agents were familiar with the operational techniques utilized by the various IT organizations and the optimal investigative approaches. Naturally enough, my instinctual response to the crisis was to utilize undercover operations to identify and ultimately arrest the key players. However, the direct approach, trying to have an agent actually become a member of a terrorist organization, would be virtually impossible. (Confidential sources like John Sultan were difficult enough to find and trust.) An agent would not only need to speak the properly accented Arabic, but also have an intimate familiarity with the geographic area from which the group originated, acquaintances in common, and so forth. The appropriate UC scenario for the environment immediately following 9/11 was not to become a member of the group, but rather to provide an essential service. I hasten to note that in current times—the second half of the second decade post-9/11—close-knit terrorist cells have evolved into international armies, welcoming new recruits from the West, which should facilitate the introduction of UCs. But don’t forget: a jihadi organization overseas is the ultimate high-risk operational environment. I still believe that the operation that provides an essential service to the jihadis is still much more likely to succeed. It would also be much safer for the UCs.
Terrorists hoping to operate in the West would need fictitious ID, as they had obtained from Mahmoud back in the nineties. They would need secure means of travel, such as untraceable cars, secure means of communication, such as advanced encryption programs. They would need explosives and detonators. A suitably experienced UC, with the right introductions could provide all of these and more. And then the Bureau would know where the jihadis were going, what they were saying—and to whom. And the Bureau could be certain that the bombs would be harmless. The training for the UCs, for the case agents, for the analysts, for all the pertinent Bureau personnel would be time-consuming and costly, requiring in-service courses at the academy in Quantico—but highly worthwhile.
Following 9/11, however, that was the road not taken. That was the training that was not implemented. Instead, some committee at JEH had a brainstorm, and the FBI Virtual Academy was developed. Thanks to this invention, we could all sit comfortably at our desks, click through the twenty-minute modules followed by multiple-choice test questions, and in a couple of hours complete all of our training in international terrorism. But I exaggerate. It didn’t need to take two hours. The questions were so easily within the grasp of a high school student with a moderate familiarity with current events that it wasn’t even necessary for us college-educated FBI employees to actually read the modules. Nor did the virtual courses track the time spent on each module, only the duration of the entire course. You probably see where this is going: agents soon figured out that they could open the program, minimize the window and maybe work on their actual cases, get in a good workout, and/or grab a bite, then return to the program, click through the modules without paying much attention, correctly answer the questions for each module, and complete the training. Maybe the program recorded two hours of study, but in fact the charade had been finished in under half an hour.
Thanks to the Virtual Academy, the Director of the FBI could now testify before Congress and the American people that every single FBI employee had now received invaluable counterterrorism training.
Unbelievable, but true.
* * *
By November 2011, I was back at Safeguard’s covert headquarters, nosing around JEH for an appropriate role—but not UC for the time being. I was still in management, and that door was still closed—absent exigent circumstances, my bosses were not about to let me work undercover. Supervisors aren’t supposed to get their hands dirty. The state-of-the-art command post at Headquarters had the atmosphere of a NASA launching, only ratcheted up to peak level, every minute of every day, co-coordinating leads between agencies both CONUS and OCONUS (intel-speak for within and beyond the continental United States). At the International Operations Unit, I learned that many of the LEGATs (Legal Attachés, the discreet name for FBI offices in U.S. embassies) needed support. In particular, LEGAT Paris. I had maneuvered into a three-month assignment there a few years earlier, thanks to my native French proficiency. That experience made me the ideal candidate to ship out to Paris to lend a hand for three fascinating months.
Those twelve-to-fourteen-hour days flashed past. Working with the Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire, the Police Nacionale, and the Gendarmerie proved revelatory. Reluctant as Bureau upper management might be to acknowledge the fact, the French counterintelligence operation knew whereof it spoke. As the former colonial rulers of most of North Africa, the French CT establishment had a long history of managing CT investigations to deal with the various insurrections. And sporadic fatal jihadi bombings in Paris over several years were more than enough motivation to enhance the already well-developed intelligence-gathering network, with numerous productive sources and sophisticated management of the collected information. And pragmatic, deceptively simple countermeasures as well. Example: The casual tourist may not realize the rationale for the design of Paris trash receptacles, those steel hoops holding a colored but transparent plastic bag. Any bomb would be visible. Okay, but a bomber could simply put the bomb in an ordinary package of some sort, and put that package into the transparent garbage bag. Yes, but any appropriately sized package will trigger alerts, particularly in times of heightened awareness.
Also revelatory: French authorities were not limited by an equivalent of America’s Constitutional protections of individual privacy (requirements for court-ordered warrants and the like). I was stunned to learn the French CT forces, at any given time, were listening in on seventy thousand ongoing phone intercepts.
Approaching Christmastime, three months after 9/11, the work in Paris slowed down. The holidays provided an excuse to recharge my batteries after the exhausting fall months. A very short recharge, however, because Legat Enrique Ghimenti called my cell phone on the evening of December 22. Soft-spoken and controlled—even in times of unspeakable pressure—Enrique asked if I would be so kind as to come into the embassy. It seemed that there had been a bombing attempt on an American Airlines flight that had originated in Paris, bound for Miami. LEGAT Paris was immediately flooded with leads. The Director wanted the facts. All the facts. Right away. Theories about coordination with other, potential bombings were everywhere. We were all concerned that this attempt was just the first of a series of Al-Qaeda Christmastime airline bombings, and were taking all imaginable steps to prevent the anticipated catastrophe.
The entire world knows that the hapless Richard Reid was subdued before he could blow up that AA Flight 63 to Miami with the explosives hidden in his shoe. And we also know from the exhaustive follow-up investigation that the concerns at the time were valid: Reid had been selected as the first of several Al-Qaeda operatives to blow up a series of U.S. carrier flights over the holiday period, in a coordinated attack matching 9/11 in scope and calculated to shatter the collective Western psyche.
Having worked on the investigation from its inception, I have my own thoughts as to why he failed. First, like any terrorist bureaucracy, A
l-Qaeda was reticent to use (and therefore lose) their top talent. Way, way down from the top of the chart were Richard Reid and the projected second bomber, Saajid Badat. Reid had been ordered to board the flight on the 21st of December, but he had bungled his simple task, arousing suspicion by his frazzled looks and absence of luggage. After that failure, he was operating on his own. The planned scenario had taken a twist, and the plot now required its principal operator to take independent action, to use his judgment, to make decisions. And that is when it started to go south, because Reid was not the sharpest nail in the coffin. He checked into one of the airport hotels. With a full day before he could again attempt to board AA Flight 63, he would have felt his stress levels rise. He had much to occupy his thoughts. He had bungled the early stages of an important mission—already the leadership would no doubt be grumbling. And tomorrow he would be dying. That’s no minor matter for a long night’s consideration. On his first attempt to board the flight, all through the final steps leading to his arrival at Orly, Reid would have been accompanied by comrades, constantly reminded of the importance of his martyrdom and his impending euphoria upon arrival in Paradise, and kept busy with the execution of last-minute details and checks. Busy work. But now, one day later, all of that support structure was gone. He had no comrades, little to do, and plenty of time to reflect on what little remained of his future. Perhaps, a little weed was called for. A short walk through the hotels, maybe chatting with some service staff, and he could retire to his room with enough marijuana to carry him through to the next day. One joint, now relaxed. Maybe another one, for good measure … and another. All lit with the same disposable butane lighter he had been given to light the fuse of the bomb in the heel of his shoe.
The next morning, rising late, still half-stoned, he rushed to the gate. Checking his pockets while hurriedly striding through the terminal. The lighter! Did I leave it in the hotel room? A quick stop at a newsstand, cigarettes, and a couple of books of matches, and boarding time. Seated on the plane, wasn’t the mission nearly accomplished?
No. The mission was already a failure. Reid no longer had the requisite tools to destroy the airliner and murder those within. The detonator cord. In order to light the fuse, the cord required uninterrupted exposure to a source of intense heat. Hence the butane lighter. The cord could not be ignited with a match—or even matches, plural, frantically lit one after the other. Reid sought, over and over again, to light the fuse. The cord would not light. Finally, passengers reacted and won the struggle. It was over. Richard Reid had bungled the operation and was now just uniquely a loser.
Security measures at airports worldwide skyrocketed. The Al-Qaeda masterminds immediately realized the entire, meticulously planned operation would have to be scrapped.
* * *
I wasn’t the only temporary duty agent with LEGAT Paris in those months right after 9/11. The office had required a steady supply of temporary duty agents to supplement the permanent staff. However, a permanent vacancy was also imminent, Enrique had confided: ALAT (Assistant Legal Attaché). The assignment was for three to five years. There would be a beautiful office in the chancery, the classically designed embassy building, next door to the supremely elegant Crillon Hotel, walking distance from the Arc de Triomphe. I believed that my UC career was in all likelihood behind me. I was very wrong about that, but that was my feeling. And the ALAT posting was quite attractive in its own right. As a senior law enforcement diplomat, one of the three special agents assigned to represent the FBI in France, I would be working day-to-day with the highest level officials in the Ministry of the Interior, the French National Police, and the Gendarmerie. At embassies throughout Paris, I would be networking with my counterparts from across the globe. Periodically, I would be attending conferences at Interpol (in Lyons, culinary capital of France) and across Europe. Finally, Paris was the city of my birth. Uncles, aunts, cousins, childhood friends resided there. I knew instantly that I wanted that job. I wanted Paris.
So did Marc Beauchemin, also on temporary assignment in Paris, with only a week remaining prior to his return to JEH in Washington. A supervisor in the Finance Division (yuck), he had less than five BuYears under his belt. Though generally suspicious of those who enter management with minimal street experience—he had clearly applied for a hard-to-fill vacancy to wedge his way into the mainstream—I suppressed my instinctual reaction to Marc’s position. We had much in common, after all: two less-than-hulking skinny guys, both born in France, native French speakers, with many relatives and friends living nearby, both aspiring to a permanent assignment in Paris. Beauchemin had served as a paratrooper in the French military prior to moving to the United States. (This impressed me.) In evening chats while leaving the U.S. Embassy, walking down the snowy boulevards, we exchanged plans and goals. I talked of perhaps one day living in retirement in a country house in southern France. He wanted to pursue his career and raise his family in his native France.
Marc had been required to renounce his French citizenship as a precondition of joining the Bureau (though his children retained their French nationality). He was surprised (and then some) to learn that I enjoyed dual-nationality status, entitled to hold both French and American passports. (In my time, nearly ten years before Marc’s, the question hadn’t come up. The box on the application form asked a simple yes/no question, Are you a citizen of the United States? Yes, and assistant DA that I was, I knew better than to answer unasked questions.)
Given his short tenure—just five years of combined street and management time—in the Bureau, I counseled Marc not to get his hopes up. Time was on his side. There would be plenty of opportunities in the years to come. Both of us returned to the states early in 2002. It was springtime in Virginia. I could ride my Honda Valkyrie 1500cc touring bike to work and on Sunday cruises through horse country. During the week, I was back at Safeguard, where, now four to five months after 9/11, we had resumed our work supporting the Bureau’s undercover agents and operations.
Finally, the call came from International Operations Unit I, responsible for Europe. Out of the eight applicants for the ALAT job in Paris, the Career Board (the Bureau’s best-attempt mechanism at ensuring fair and impartial promotions, and it does work pretty well … when left alone and not tampered with) had selected me for permanent assignment to Paris. Sixteen years in the Bureau, thirteen of them in the field, had come to fruition. Five years in Paris as ALAT would presumably be followed by five years as Legat, the big (Camembert) cheese. Imagine: a large and beautiful paid-for-by-Uncle Sam apartment would allow me to accumulate sufficient funds to buy the apartment I would occupy while working at my retirement job with some global corporation with a presence in Paris. By which time, I would have met a cosmopolitan beauty and started a family. Delightful dreams.
My orders were cut. As with all intra-BuTransfers, I had ninety days to report to my new duty station. A global relocation company received the contract and contacted me to initiate the move. Even my Honda Valkyrie would cross the ocean. A vacancy was posted to fill my place at Safeguard. By midsummer, I would be sipping a crisp and chilled white burgundy at a familiar café overlooking the Seine. Then, one morning while I was at home preparing to move into a furnished apartment for my last few months in the States (I had canceled the lease on my Virginia residence), I received a second call from the International Operations Unit. My orders had been put on hold. The Unit Chief didn’t know why.
The rest of this tale could have been written by Franz Kafka. Here’s the short version, but it still says a lot about ponderous government bureaucracies and their knee-jerk reactions to crisis. The Bu’s feared and generally despised Security Division (SECDIV) had inexplicably intervened in my transfer. Why? Well, Robert Hanssen, an FBI agent who had been spying for the Soviet Union since 1979, had finally been arrested slightly over a year earlier, in February 2001. This was on top of the fiasco with Aldrich Ames, the now-infamous CIA intelligence officer, who had been spying for the Soviets for nearly a decade
before his arrest in 1994. For years undetected at the center of their respective agencies, Hanssen and Ames had been selling secrets of enormous value to our enemies. Covert intel-gathering operations costing multimillions of dollars had been exposed. The identities of Russian generals and officials secretly working with us had been exposed. The two traitors were responsible for at least a dozen deaths, some (intended as object lessons) were particularly gruesome. One betrayed high-ranking KGB officer was tossed alive into the Lubianka furnace, while his colleagues were forced to look on.
Ames was bad enough for the Washington-based law enforcement bureaucracies. Hanssen was the last straw. In the post-Hanssen Bureau, the upper-upper managers were determined to avoid another such disaster, and the consequent public humiliation. SECDIV bureaucrats were no longer a bunch of back-office benchwarmers. They were now clean-up batters with disproportionate influence, almost all-powerful, given a free hand and a blank check with which to clean house.
And SECDIV had received an anonymous report. Allegations had been made which necessitated thorough investigation. Concerning a certain Headquarters supervisor: Marc Ruskin.
What the hell was going on? If there was to be any possibility of salvaging my transfer (and career, for that matter), I needed information. Bimonthly trips to JEH became biweekly, visiting all my acquaintances, looking for rumors, overheard conversations, anything that could shed some light on the source and contents of this anonymous report. And I had a head start in this regard. Unlike many, actually most of my fellow GS-14 supervisory special agents (despite the title, the lowest rank of agent at HQ, the grunts), I had never limited my networking to those at the next higher rung. Over the four years (much longer than anticipated) of my Headquarters tenure, I had befriended inhabitants of many hidden corners in JEH: phone operators, freight handlers, electricians and mechanics, supply clerks, analysts. The permanent staff of the building. Those in a position to provide real intelligence of value, real favors. Who is talking to whom, who is coming and who is going, what’s available and what isn’t. UC techniques, though not UC.