Good afternoon everyone. On behalf of the archivist of the United States, i like to welcome you all to the theater located in the National Archives building in washington dc. Id also like to give a special shout out to our good friends from cspan2 who are also joining us today. Before we hear from philip about his new book, the cia and the post 911 world, like to be about two upcoming programs taking place in the theater. This friday august 16th, at noon, William G Hyland junior will tell us about a forgotten family father george mason the founding father who gave us the bill of rights. Then on tuesday september 10th at noon, Sidney Blumenthal will tell us about his recently released volume three of his biography of Abraham Lincoln all powers of earth the political life of Abraham Lincoln 1886 to 1863. To find out more about these programs and error exhibits, please visit our website at archives. Gov challenger. Weve also find some printed materials of the lobby about upcoming coming events. Signup sheets and monthly calendar. Analyst specializing in south asia and then to the middle east. After the september 11th attacks, gives the cia member of the small medic team the help piece together and if government for afghanistan. After returning to the cia, he became Deputy Director of a Counterterrorist Center and served there until 2005. He was the first Deputy Director of the federal bureau of Investigations National Security Branch later became the fbis Senior Intelligence advisor. Philip has received numerous cia awards and accommodations. The comments about terrorism and congressional testimony and featured in broadcast and print news. He is now the president of mud management. A company specializing in security consulting. Annaly trading in public speaking about security issues. Hes a senior fellow at the new America Foundation and the George Washington universitys Homeland Security policy institution and serves as senior Global Advisor to oxford and litigant. A britishbased firm specializing in the advising multinational companies. He sits on the Advisory Board for National Counterterrorism center and for the director of national intelligence, and he serves on the evidence to Homeland Security group. Ladies and gentlemen please welcome philip months National Archives. [applause] you missed the most important part of the. I lived in memphis tennessee the bluff city. Screamac. I was running there in town memphis which is a historic part of memphis. Must be three or four years ago whether to write another book. Reflecting on some of what i witnessed at the cia particulate during the excruciating time after 911 and realizing this among my colleagues former friends had written their stories but many of the people that i worked with would never speak and would never write in their stories would never be told if no one talked to them. They put the story together in one simple narrative and explained what happened. So he decided the morning running my 5 miles in midtown memphis that i would do the. This is mostly their stories. Dishonor history, its not every document the ever appeared related to what we called the program, interrogation of prisoners. Its a story of men and women who i served with and they decide to talk me because they trusted me. Step back in time with me. Go back to the 1990s, a lot of my colleagues talked about the piece. In a time to paraphrase one of them we thought we had killed the dragon the soviet union. Only six were lift. The set a time after all of the soviet union the fall of the wall where people thought the intelligence challenges of the future may not reach the magnitude the they reached during the time of the the soviet union. They knew they had a problem. The problem started mostly when bin laden was in sudan accelerated when he moved to afghanistan. But when i spoke to them, and i spoke to 35 or 40 again, most of them who will never speak. When i spoke to them about the signs about the piece there is a great sense of frustration and in some ways sadness. The they witnessed the rise of a global network. If the tools they had were so limited when you look back in retrospect. That was only 20 years ago. Los than a full generation. The tools the cia were limited. If you think about loss of budget and personnel, im not accusing the National Security infrastructure of doing anything wrong, all of us that the same thing on the dragon is gone. But he think about the organization when it is a Tech Organization or manufacturing organization, if you lose substantial pieces of money and people, your ability to operate declines. There was also the attitude about terrorism. Only 20 years. Nobody spoke with good imagined a world where somebody would say we could conduct lighting raise in afghanistan after day after day. The thought the array would happen where there is a high risk of american soldiers lives, almost unthinkable about 911. Just arrayed against an al qaeda compound and we knew the they knew with some of the compounds were. Much los, and armed drone the could kill a terrace overseas. In debate for years, never happened. Meanwhile theres atrophy at the cia example training. Training spies. The number of spies declined. In the attitude about terrorism was mixed. Remember after 1947, the target the ci templin chased were pig targets. Soviet chinese the cuban missile crisis, pig targets. I served in a return from a leave of absence to the cia a in 1992 until we go to the Counterterrorist Center because it was seen as a place where you set people who maybe werent ready for prime time which of course was a model. The model. The changed. Like any Organization Even large organizations, people make the difference. The people personalities that i knew so well were critical in keeping counterterrorism declining further in the 90s. For tenant, the cia director was immersed in counterterrorism and insisted the counterterrorism get some level of privacy and on budget and he insisted on ensuring the there was leadership there that was real garden across the agency. Not common in the 1990s including the director of the center a guy named cofer black legendary in my business who raise the profile and increasing the quality of people going over there and increasing the respective counterterrorism and pi before 911. Make no mistake the piece for intelligence and the lack of focus on terrorism, meant the on the day on the day, the cia and the counterterrorist world was not only not prepared but they could not be prepared. They all talk to me about feeling before but especially in the searing months after 911 about feeling like they are the backflip. On the day, and this is not over dramatizing. Everything change. Years of debate about armed drones, done. Years of debate about ralph in afghanistan, forget about raids. The cia will be first in with operatives and money technology, guidance within weeks of 911. Forget about ralph, the u. S. Army will invade afghanistan. The transition not only in resources but in attitude with sound to show. The cia directories asked if i sat in on the nightly beef breathing for years. We had about five or six reapers. I was treading back and forth with another run of my colleagues opening the meeting for threat breathing. A matrix of people riding into they uncovered a threat. Intercepted communications where al qaeda was talking about coming to the United States. I started those briefings and one of the things that was so evident and that was spoken around some of those tables was a simple concept. We anticipated a second wave, what we call the second way for years. The second way was we anticipated would be another 911. Perhaps worse because al qaeda had an anthrax program that we didnt not follow fully understand. For months, and longer we did not understand research and development, we did not understand whether they had taken strained and anthrax out of afghanistans. There was concerned the it might not be aircraft but anthrax. An attitude that was a fundamental problem. We did not understand the adversary. The human penetration that the breadandbutter of a human source of a human informant organization like ci the human source penetration and this is operative speaking to me, not me speaking. People are ran operations against al qaeda would tell you the human source penetration was a lot. So the midst of america watching horrific videos of people jumping off the buildings. And watching pages in the newspapers and faces of the fallen. We were sitting behind the scenes with the director saying if there is the second wave tomorrow, can you say i wish i had done this the or the other thing. Why does she do it today. In the midst of all of this, there was a drumbeat in the spring of 2002 and i witnessed a lot of this firsthand. It was intense, and getting louder. The drumbeat was hunt. For the first major ci captive. Beta. One of the challenges al qaeda had was they miscalculated with the us response to 911 would be and they did not anticipate such a huge response, they thought it would be maybe, they didnt dissipate they would take showers down, they got more cruise missiles, if the us military within, they would bleed them. They did not have an exit plan. Military operations intelligence operations and the cooperation with the afghan, the us was working with, an element of afghanistan a group called the Northern Alliance were so successful the al qaeda had to flee before they ever developed the plan. Many of them fled east. Into pakistan where they started making mistakes. Mistakes the allowed us in a part of the business and intelligence that we call targeting is having individual analysts responsible for an individual terrorist the a tactical level the where you know the terrorist Communications Patterns you know what his family is, the Carrier Network is, we had individual analysts in a growing intelligence progression call targeting analysts. They were watching and the breaking the growing drumbeat, was a sense that the circle around him almost by the day, was getting tighter. Then in the spring arena happened animals died. He suffered wounds from the gunfight the ensued particularly grievous lend to is like. It is a piece of the story the until this book the ci he would ensure the he would not die. Another bit of the agility after 911. Make the us response so powerf powerful. Could you imagine calling a Medical Center before 911 and saying wed like you to loan us some of your physicians to go treat the terrace overseas now. And were going to put him on the plane. Commit unimaginable before 911. The began the search for what a detainee could tell the cia about an organization the cia did not fully understand. Forget about plots. Those are important. The counterterrorism business a lot of what i witnessed was not about plots, that was what use on the newspapers. Our business was a people business. People if you stop a plot, if you harden a building, if you harden in aircraft, people are committed to a murder of innocents will civilly going to create another pot. So unless you can take on the architects, but al qaeda organizes you will face plots forever. Its. Who is creating thought . Who comes up with the propaganda . Thats critically important for intelligence carries those who dont want to communicate . That basic material that basic material is critical and we did not have a good understanding of that in 2002. Then in the memory of the people that i spoke with to shut down and told his interrogators go home and have babies and dont come back because im not speaking anymore. So the intensity when they said make sure this doesnt happen again with the president of the United States is make sure this doesnt happen again in Congress Said how do you fail to catch it the first time in the anticipation the cia officers in the cauldron of decisionmaking in the summer of 2002 said what are our options we can send them to the us Justice System where he will lawyer up and never speak again. We can send him to another foreign country that might have charges against him the prospect is that other country will interrogate him themselves and we will not sit in the room and they will shield critical intelligence that we need also they will not have the same priorities that we have. They will want to ask questions about their country and we want to ask and treat questions about america. So through a series of conversations among cia leader leaders, there was a faint full decision of the subject of the book should we develop our own clandestine facilities black sites where we will transfer prisoners and interrogate them using the harsh techniques splashed across every page for more than a decade. Here is another piece everybody knew that if people would ask questions later and everybody knew this was not only sensitive but controversial with a secret black site network so there were conversations between the Inspector General and a cia and the lawyers at the department of justice who set and interpret law for america to say what is appropriate in terms of interrogation for the cia black site that complies with u. S. Constitution and what complies with federal law. We want it on paper and were not moving until its on paper. Through the summer of 2002 they discussed what could be done he was already stabled and transferred to a black site with authorization from the department of justice did not arrive until august 2002 thats when my colleagues were given the black site program. He went through tough interrogation techniques people talk about waterboarding three of those were water boarded and he was one of them. One of the challenges of talking to a detainee and to discuss this in a public environment where we dont have the luxury of time in this auditorium but people look at me every day to say come on. If you put somebody under duress they will lie. So let me explain as we went through that process, wipe not here to defend the program but because i thought the views of the cia should be explained so those americans to attack or support it and i hear both on the streets to understand what happened and why we can walk in the shoes to say i understand what they did regardless whether i like it or not but on the foundational question of why would you pressure someone to speak with techniques like sleep deprivation because you know will live my answer is first of all thats not the full answer but the al qaeda terrorists not under duress will make up stories all day long that is not the real point the real point is the analytic effort that i mentioned called targeting you cannot have a successful highend interrogation of a prisoner unless you know so muc much, not midlevel or low level but so much because you have been following so long that you can come up with in concert with other interrogators to come up with a package of questions over weeks with that detainee starts to realize these guys know a lot more than i know they seem to know what im lying. When that prisoner is under duress and is in a confined box under sleep deprivation is exhausted and starts to realize he cannot lie his way out and starts to get answers. Not truth. We were not stupid some answers never came like Location Information of osama bin laden. But we would get compliance some would give it some pieces that they think are less valuable. Yes there was a guy who was a german so this bits and pieces could be gold for intel. If a prisoner is compliant and gives you what he thinks is throw away information like a german or a frenchman who trained three years ago then game on four people in my world. I will balance that against every bit of data that we have every travel data we can acquire every detainee that i know over time it will tell us who that person was based on one tiny shred of information from a compliant detainee giving you stuff he thought was irrelevant. The point that im making is of course they lie the only way to get out of the box is develop a interrogation package that is so complete that he feels he needs a lifeline and that lifeline was the cia. A lot happened after the initial stages of interrogation and when i spoke with lawyers and managers of black site and the program they talk about the maturation of the program the first months and years remember you have an agency trained to collect information overseas now serving as a prison conducting interrogation the cia values agility but sometimes they step into programs because they believe nobody will ever do it despite the fact we dont have experience we will do it. That was part of the genesis that led to the program but because of conversations with lawyers who are meticulous the black sites matured in 2003 and 2004 policies and procedures tightened and trainings changed some individuals who were involved early should not over time those who were recruited if they walked into the room because i want to go after with a vengeance those who committed acts of 9 11 they were weeded out you would not pass the application process unless you could be assured you are in there to be professional program realize there were weaknesses outlined in the book and mistakes early but leadership got involved after some egregious mistakes than the program matured. Other things happen that were surprising. I can tell you sitting at the threat table in 2002 until i shifted in the fbi i thought we were losing. That may come as a surprise us army had invaded afghanistan supported by the cia i saw brett of network and a volume of threats and attacks that we could not contain. Nonetheless the people that i spoke with said business was good. They never anticipated the volume of highend prisoners that happen because of the raids around the world. For example the architect of 9 11 the highest prisoner the cia ever captured and held or the yemen bombing against the uss cole time and time again with the intelligence picture to be clarified not only to those policies and procedures mature but the cia needed more sites they started to develop their own sites the first was not custombuilt it was a remote location in a Foreign Government agency. The expertise the agency had to train people to talk to prisoners what techniques were the most effective in determining how to build a psychological package with each terrace to maximize the prospect they would say they know more than i ever expected. I better speak. Better and better and better. But there was a flipside. That was the iraq war after the remarkable unity of 9 11 and increasing questions whether the cia program is sustainabl sustainable, especially since the second wave never happened. The fact that america had the time and space to discuss what should be done in a Democratic Society resulted partly from the fact there was not another major attack many colleagues are persuaded that if there had been a more catastrophic attac attack, people would have asked far fewer questions about what techniques we used against terrorist. I will make it simple. The decline of the program was part of the success of keeping america safe. The word used by my colleagues was simple as early as 2002 and 2003 the cia was starting to say our job is to extract intelligence from a terrorist for we are not jailers or the bureau of prisons once we extract that we will not be Holding People for 20 years we dont want to even hold them for two years or one year but to extract intelligence and move on to professionals of incarceration nobody wanted to answer that question. No one. Because as soon as you answer the question you acknowledge there is a black site program and publicly what happened in the program so leaks contributed to the endgame question. Major leaks about location one was close because it was disclosed but also more questions and those who had not been briefed very few were brief i was among those that briefed that we told them what we were doing we told them in some detail but very few were briefed. Increasing questions of the endgame and outside what are they doing whatever happened to Khalid Shaikh mohammed cracks the white house was not too excited about fielding questions that i dont blame them and i understand once you open the door you have to answer every single question how you authorize that but this led to increasing frustration to the cia including white house meetings where officials time and time again told me they said we cannot be put in the position of being jailers. You the american policymakers asked us to go down this road of detentions you have to participate in a painful conversation about what happens after. The questions continued and got more intense directors transitioned one going back through 2006 was Michael Hayden a legendary director with cia officials. Former director of nsa with intelligence in the military experience highly respected for his discipline he came in 2006 for years after the first detainee and said put this on solid ground he said let me Read Everything and he was a voracious reader to master the detail let me Read Everything and ill figure out the right path. I think in talking to my colleagues that led to a few more interrogations but even by that point the writing was on the wall just five years after 9 11 just four years after the capture of the program was already declining the appetite was not there. Hayden asked questions waterboarding was dropped the interrogator said despite the conversations we dont think this is the most thing significant thing we have like sleep deprivation again and again comes up is a technique that was successful people dont like to be tired they start to lose their well. So he scale back the program there were more conversations with the department of justice sometimes it was shut down because the department of justice officials were starting to scale back on the original opinions every time a scale back cia leadership said if you change the documentation we are not moving until you change it. We dont move without paper and that has to explain why what we are doing is in compliance with federal law. But the writing was on the wall so george bush made his announcement we have the prisoners. There were black sites and now we are transitioning them to guantanamo where some my Khalid Shaikh mohammed still are. That is not the final end of the Program Including under general hayden those that were authorized but once the president made an announcement i think in retrospect you could say that was the beginning of the end with the final chapter now widely reported some officers were debriefed president elect obama what the program was shortly after he came to office he said the United States committed what he called torture. I think the colleagues that i spoke with bristled at that for a simple reason every president has the right to change policy but we were told from the beginning of time that not only this is the policy but to comply and then being told what you did doesnt comply with the law or basic values that we all signed up for. And that was painful and the program was done. I did spend time with everyone of the individuals that i spoke with because of their jobs and interrogations with the cia directors and then to ask some common questions with ethics and reflections so when my colleagues look back that the knowledge on september 12th would have said there will be as second wave and if you argue against it if you said there will not be another catastrophic attack people wouldve said you are crazy. When there is a fair amount of unanimity that i was a tiny piece of a puzzle to make sure another 3000 did not die. They look back on the program itself not with regret and with the knowledge and then to make sure there isnt a second event. And that is painful for the colleagues. To say that would never happen again not because they regret it but they are embarrassed or they thought it was an effective so they know if a program like that and what do you do and why do you do it and then for the department of justice. In terms of the program themselves and maybe be help ensure another kid k grow up. And then i dont want them getting hate mail but one of the most thoughtful officers ever worked with in those pieces of ethical thinking does the law allow you cracks with the department of justice to comply for the constitution. And then with what the agency has written down those are pretty straightforward. There is a classic question how clearly can you explain this to a public audience we would call this the Washington Post test. If you are in front of a journalist, can you capture what you are doing in one sentence your mother would understand and if you cant be careful. In the last test that i think my friends have to think about what would your mother say cracks dont care what the law or regulations are but what would your mother say cracks using the litmus test most people still look back to say im not sure i can give a perfect answer but i am sure of one thing and drove down the gw parkway and you thought you were a tiny sliver of the response from that ever happening again they still sleep at night. Thank you for listening to my story. [applause] because there is a televised component i will insist you go to the microphones of this can be copied on captured on audio. Talk about the dragon to be slayed from the perspective of that aspect the soviets and russians departed afghanistan that could have been interesting is that possible from those that were there that the us could somehow rely on prior to 9 11 . But thats a great question nobody ever raise that the relationship with the Russian Security service not too much into detail with russian intervention but tenuous even after 9 11 talk about common threats i dont think the russians were a great partner even after 9 11 so that prospect is extremely helpful at a tactical level thats what the cia needed. Thats a great question no i will have to secretly ask my friends i dont remember that coming up at all. Starting strong for quite never thought about that. If everybody else could do that that would be great. [laughter] thank you for your fascinating story. Its great to hear from somebody who was there at the time of the member of the Intelligence Community about the tragedy that day. I am curious to know if counterterrorism is on its way out i know the discussion is focusing on Great Power Competition and domestic instances with the proliferation in the us is this counterterrorism is on its way out quick. I dont know. I am not sure for the simple reason that terrorism has declined dramatically by 2014 there was an attack every single day from isys look at what is a threat breaking through the noise dont just look at the local Police Station and look for leadership that has a safe haven. You dont see that today that leadership is gone but the speed with which the organization could constitute leadership and safe haven, i would not rule out a group rapidly reemerges to get americas attention and i agree by the way of the shift in focus to the most traditional post 1947 in korea, china, South China Sea , i ran but its not hard to imagine there is a place for the local government cannot take them out. So two quick things. Some of those tactics of chasing people not laws but the analytic capability to be transferred to the white supremacist groups im not suggesting the cia would do that or that we should but the techniques of how you chase somebody down if america says we have a different threat the Intel Community learned a lot how to look at people and not just threats. I see that changing but im not sure america has the stomach if there is a terrorist to shoot up something that the americans have the stomach to say we have to do this all over again. So talk about the language used the personal view is regardless of the ethics with the dictionary definition of torture like enhanced interrogation is more of a euphemism. And with that debate around. Most people dont ask that question lightly. Im serious i get attacked a lot i never went to a black site im not saying i know everything and never interrogated but speaking as a result of my colleagues from a conversation i can give you a couple of answers technically speaking so torture is illegal you are acknowledging you should be in a federal prison the technical way they looked at it there were phrases used and legal concept one is knowingly doing something that longterm physical or psychological damage so you could say i am uncomfortable with waterboarding it mitts meets my human definition is not a Legal Definition im not excusing it but another phrase called shock of conscience that is a legal phrase if you pick up somebody for stealing gabi will not put them in a black site if they are participating in the murder of 3000 americans that doesnt shock the conscience so the right conversation to have is not from the law but its where you are headed is please dont look back. We did this in congress that okay. Look forward if the answer is no then create a law to stop it. But if you ask the technical question of the language and philosophy you philosophies behind the program. Thank you for being polite. Thats a fair question. Since the beginning this year to dramatically expand the protection act. One of the reasons the cia of past going issues shes talking about the black site program so from your experience what could those issues be and why does that come up now quick. I have seen commentary trying to protect the identities secret officers more aggressively i have not looked at the law but i will put two things to gather that the anger in this culture is something i have not seen before. That is fueled by political debate and ic elements and sparks of that with hate mail that i receive the level of anger and violence and culture today is highs are just doing mathematics 330 million americans if you export the cia officers what is the statistical chance that one person who is angry will not show up at somebodys door because you can find the residence by Public Record . I dont worry because i work in a public world i dont know the law but in this culture with a number of people to say you should die of cancer that people would say maybe we should work harder to protect those who took great risks because even contrasted ten years ago i wouldnt be surprised if somebody knocks on the front door. I dont want to complain but most the time somebody is ticked off in their basement but if my mail is any indication it is working because the volume of people in the language that they use is unprincipled every day. Every day. My address is Public Knowledge and i think about that my people would want to be protected. You mentioned the first wave that we waited for the second wave that never came meaning and track fund anthrax did we just skip the wave . Was at that second one never came quick. Thats a good question. I will give up soon because i am tired. We focused on a large group based threat. Nobody talked about homegrowns in 2002. Im not sure we used the word. So our concept of second wave was another Major Organization creating another hijacking catastrophe. But what i would characterize is a third wave is the realization that there was a diverse disparate movement who did not understand the ideology and thought their anger was validated. Typically young people who are not connected except by watching a Youtube Video. That were strategically scary but harder to track because theyre not part of an organization and then you start over all over again and then to see that morph into individual actors and those that want to see the isys video that we would not have defined that certain wave in any terms other than this is the next big one from al qaeda. Lets do one more. This may pick up on what you are talking about but i am interested in what you learned about the motivations of the people you interrogated and to what degree that may help us in the future to the forming of more groups. There are two basic groups of people originally they were smart Khalid Shaikh mohammed says he would sit in front of a white board and explain the ideology theyre also very proud of 9 11 they were not apologetic that is one explanation why it was hard to get them to speak. They didnt do anything wrong so that motivation was interesting from an American Perspective that is shortsighted and selfish what is in it for me there motivation they would say it wont come in my generation or my childrens generation but maybe my grandchildrens generation the only way to live is by the rules of the book that nations across that they dont rule because the leaders are corrupt and the only way to take them out because they are the backstop to the corrupt regimes if you get the americans out then a strike at the economic target and a political target to congress and the americans are so soft in the underbelly and then we can move more aggressively over 50 or 75 years that was their philosophy. Now they would say that was justified because they are preventing the rise. So this changed with the Homegrown Movement started so the further you get from the nucleus into the homegrown california or georgia the less likely that person will understand the ideology they will come at this with curiosity what they have witnessed they validate their anger will give you three minutes but in contrast if you asked three questions about ideology they cannot get you there. They are ticked off they will validate the anger and give you a Youtube Video why you exist so those real differences that can give you chapter in first and homegrowns were the ideology is razor thin. You cannot tell Khalid Shaikh mohammed what he did was wrong. You cant he will explain otherwise. Dealing with Law Enforcement action dealing with the homegrown to be indoctrinated the likelihood you can turn them much higher simply because they dont have that depth of ideological understanding and someone who is an expert could say what are you thinking . After a while they can explain so a committed years long terrorist went the wrong way at 17 of how ud and doctrine he is significantly different Khalid Shaikh mohammed will be proud of 9 11 forever. Thank you again now i will sign your books. Thank you for the questions. [applause] this is the question of how much do you really trust do you think god is limited to the twoparty system . He cannot fulfill his will on earth on the shoe vote for the republican i think the argument is tempting but dangerous and contributes to keeping a system in place that takes accountability out of the system and it is an easy way to bring evangelicals and use that that is the worst possible way
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