Objective Troy: A Terrorist, a President, and the Rise of the Drone by Scott Shane

Author:Scott Shane [Shane, Scott]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Political Science, Terrorism, Intelligence & Espionage, History, Modern, 21st Century
ISBN: 9780804140294
Google: MgRfBwAAQBAJ
Amazon: 0804140294
Goodreads: 25241648
Publisher: Crown/Archetype
Published: 2015-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

10

i face the world as it is

It was Obama’s inauguration week in January 2009, a time of historic pronouncements and lofty predictions. On Tuesday, a frigid day, the new president touched on the terrorist threat that had shaped the previous American decade, but he framed his new approach as one rooted in ideals. “For those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that, ‘Our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken. You cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you,’ ” Obama told the spirited crowd massed on the National Mall, where people climbed into the trees to try to catch a glimpse of the stage. In Yemen, as it happened, Yemeni and Saudi militants had chosen that day to announce a new alliance called Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), but that was an obscure news brief probably unnoticed by anyone in the exuberant crowd. Obama invoked earlier generations who had “faced down fascism and communism” not just with military force but with “sturdy alliances and enduring convictions.” “Our security,” he said, “emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.” On Wednesday, with a phalanx of retired generals and admirals standing behind him and photographers snapping away, Obama signed executive orders banning torture, shuttering the CIA’s black sites, and promising to close Guantanamo within a year. “We intend to win this fight,” he declared. “We are going to win it on our own terms.”

Now, on Friday, just the fourth day of his presidency, in a detailed intelligence briefing in the Oval Office, the president was facing the grimmer facts of the terrorism fight. Vague euphemisms like “We intend to win this fight” were replaced by gruesome details of actual missile strikes. Michael Hayden, the outgoing CIA chief, went over plans for the latest drone operations in Pakistan, showing photos of recent strikes, explaining the guidance systems of drone-fired missiles, the blast radius of a Hellfire—all the technical details of targeted killing. Obama’s new team was there to learn: General Jim Jones, the new national security adviser; Admiral Dennis Blair, the director of national intelligence; John Brennan, the counterterrorism adviser; and Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff. Hayden’s reputation as a “great briefer” had powered his rise from lowly intel officer in Guam to director of the National Security Agency (NSA) and then of the CIA. Now he was on the way out—Obama had decided to nominate Leon Panetta as CIA chief—but Hayden wanted to impress the new crowd.

Obama was attentive and asked numerous questions. The drone, after all, offered him the middle ground he wanted between the wasteful big wars and doing nothing. It offered the extraordinary chance to take out terrorists without risking American lives. Hayden, who had proposed and run the escalated drone campaign in Pakistan for some six months, and who would describe the drone to me as “an exquisite weapon,” was the right man to sell this program.

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