CIA’s covert war
on bin Laden
Agency has had green light since
1998, but terrorist proves elusive
By Bob Woodward and Vernon Loeb
THE WASHINGTON POST
Sept. 14 — The CIA has been authorized since 1998 to use covert means to disrupt and pre-empt terrorist operations planned abroad by Saudi extremist Osama bin Laden under a directive signed by President Bill Clinton and reaffirmed by President Bush this year, according to government sources.
Reliable intelligence on the whereabouts of bin Laden has been rare, despite what one source called a “rich and active” surveillance program.
U.S. INTELLIGENCE has observed the elusive multimillionaire, thought to be hiding in the mountains of Afghanistan, several times this year, one source said, adding that this holds out the prospect that military strikes could be directed against him.
But reliable intelligence on the whereabouts of bin Laden, who was fingered Thursday by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell as a prime suspect in Tuesday’s suicide attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, has been rare, despite what one source called a “rich and active” surveillance program.
“We have a hell of a targeting problem,” the source said, noting that Pentagon analysts are attempting to match current intelligence with military capabilities contained in contingency plans for striking terrorist groups. Those analysts, the source said, are trying to determine whether to attempt to strike bin Laden directly or to target military action against his aides, training camps or the broader global network known as al-Qaeda, which has connections to other Middle East terrorist groups.
One well-placed source said Thursday night that intelligence gathered since Tuesday’s attacks indicates that bin Laden’s camps in Afghanistan, and his other training centers throughout the Middle East, are now virtually empty. In addition, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has moved military equipment this week, as he frequently does when he anticipates U.S. military action, the source said.
The new information on bin Laden comes as the Pentagon reviews plans for what Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz described Thursday as a “broad and sustained” campaign against those responsible for Tuesday’s attacks and any government found to have provided them sanctuary.
TARGETING SPONSORS OF TERRORISM
“I think one has to say it’s not just simply a matter of capturing people and holding them accountable, but removing the sanctuaries, removing the support systems, ending states who sponsor terrorism,” Wolfowitz said. “And that’s why it has to be a broad and sustained campaign. I think one thing is clear — you don’t do it with just a single military strike, no matter how dramatic. You don’t do it with just military forces alone, you do it with the full resources of the U.S. government.”
The 1998 intelligence directives, known formally as presidential findings, were issued after terrorists linked by U.S. officials to bin Laden bombed U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. They were designed to give CIA agents maximum capability to stop attacks planned by bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network against additional American targets, which agency officers succeeded in doing several times, the sources said.
The highly classified directives adhered to a legal ban on the assassination of foreign leaders but authorized lethal force for self-defense, which was used by the CIA in several cases when armed terrorists were stopped moments before they initiated attacks, sources said. Since 1998, CIA counterterrorist officers, working with “liaison” partners from foreign intelligence organizations, have succeeded in pre-empting al-Qaeda attacks in Jordan, Egypt, Kenya and the Balkans, sources said.
CIA spokesman Bill Harlow declined comment Thursday on any aspect of the agency’s counterterrorist operations.
BUILDING UP THE MILITARY
Briefing reporters at the Pentagon, Wolfowitz said that military forces would receive a “significant” portion of a $20 billion supplemental appropriation now before Congress to pay for “some huge requirements to build up our military for the next year, maybe longer.” Much of the supplemental funds, he said, are necessary “to prepare our armed forces for whatever the president may ask them to do. The costs mount rapidly, and they will mount more rapidly as this campaign develops.”
Some of that funding could be used to call up more than 40,000 reservists to active duty, a proposal under consideration, according to a senior military official. Several thousand reservists with “specialized skills” could be called up in the next few days, the official said.
Many of the extra personnel are necessary to support combat air patrols over major metropolitan areas instituted this week by filling out the ranks of pilots, aviation maintenance crews and military air traffic controllers, the official said.
State authorities have enlisted about 10,000 National Guard troops to assist in civil recovery efforts in Washington and New York. But the Pentagon move represents the first significant federal call-up. Major U.S. military actions almost invariably require reservists to supplement regular troops.
Pentagon planners are focusing on starting any military campaign with sustained bombing raids, first against bin Laden sites in Afghanistan, a senior U.S. official said Thursday. If that proves ineffective, the plan would call for the bombing of targets associated with Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban militia, which has harbored bin Laden for the past five years, the official said.
“That was what the president meant when he said the U.S. was prepared to retaliate against both those responsible for terrorism and those who harbor them,” the official said.
U.S. attempts to negotiate with the Taliban earlier this year to have it expel bin Laden failed, another official said, adding: “We have moved past there. Now we are trying to affect their intentions.”
Several military officers said the Pentagon is also considering an array of special forces operations aimed at suspected terrorist redoubts in Afghanistan, Yemen, Sudan, Pakistan and Algeria. The Pentagon also is considering flying unmanned drones capable of lingering over terrorist camps for extended periods to provide almost continuous surveillance, one officer said.
“Things are different this time,” another senior officer added. “I don’t think the American people expect a light response.”
ISSUE OF GROUND TROOPS
One factor restraining previous military action was an emphasis on zero casualties, which has tended to constrain the Pentagon from employing ground troops and has led to a reliance on sea- or air-launched cruise missiles. Following the embassy bombings in 1998, the United States launched cruise missiles against sites in Afghanistan and Sudan thought to have ties to bin Laden. The attacks were criticized as largely ineffectual.
• Senate OKs force, funds
• Arrests false alarms
• World joins mourning
• Pentagon recorders found
• Readers share thoughts
• Few planes flying
• Economy takes a hit
• Tallies of missing, dead
• WP: Bin Laden elusive
• WSJ: Air rules scrutinized
• Newsweek: Houses united
• COMPLETE COVERAGE
Bush and his advisers appear ready to consider the use of ground troops, particularly special forces, military officers said. “If you regard what happened as an act of war, as the president has said, your standard of application for what you do about it is different,” said a four-star officer.
At the same time, military officials knowledgeable about the extent of Pentagon preparations characterized the planning as still in the early stage. They said no specific targets had been selected and no forces yet earmarked for action.
“It’s really embryonic at this point,” the four-star officer said.
Former CIA director R. James Woolsey said that Iraq would have multiple targets for military planners if it is conclusively demonstrated that Iraq “had a substantial hand” in Tuesday’s attacks.
Should such evidence materialize, Woolsey said, “all instruments of power to the Iraqi state should be destroyed: the Republican Guard, everything associated with Saddam Hussein, everything associated with their weapons of mass destruction program.”
Woolsey said he believes there is evidence suggesting that Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, the convicted mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, was an Iraqi intelligence agent. “If Iraq is behind the ’93 attack, it’s never really paid any price for that — and we can start right there,” he said. “But if it’s behind the ’93 attack, there’s a good chance it’s behind this one.”
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