The Art of Intelligence: Lessons from a Life in the CIA’s Clandestine Service by Henry A. Crumpton

Author:Henry A. Crumpton [Crumpton, Henry A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781101572221
Publisher: The Penguin Press
Published: 2012-05-13T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 9

AFGHANISTAN, STRATEGY

In all fighting, the direct method may be used for joining battle, but indirect methods will be needed in order to secure victory.

—SUN-TZU, THE ART OF WAR (TR. LIONEL GILES)

THE NEW ASSIGNMENT WAS EVEN BETTER THAN I HAD HOPED, in terms of both work and family.

We had just moved from a temporary apartment into our new home. Only a couple of blocks from our sons’ school, the house was nearly perfect, with a large, open floor plan and plenty of light. The beautiful garden wrapped around the small pool. The spacious, modern kitchen could easily accommodate our sons and their new friends, who had quickly discovered the convenience of nearby food and lovable Labradors.

We had collected our two Labs from the kennel after they had served their mandatory quarantine. Six years earlier, I had paid an African farmer $25 for each. Since that purchase, we had spent several thousand dollars for their airfare, transporting them all over the world. It was worth every cent. Our boys loved them intensely.

Our household effects had arrived two days earlier. Boxes, some only half unpacked, were scattered around the house. Our vehicles would arrive the next week. We were settling in for a four-year tour.

I was asleep when my brother-in-law called from New York City.

“Turn on the TV,” he ordered.

“Yeah, OK. Are you all right?” I asked, as I fumbled for the remote control. Cindy sat up next to me.

“Not sure. It looks bad. You have it?” he asked.

“Yeah. I’ll call you later.”

“What is it?” Cindy asked.

“Your brother called. Look.” I gestured to the TV.

We watched the smoke pour out of the hole in one tower of the World Trade Center. We were sitting on the edge of the bed now, a few feet away from the screen. A few seconds later, the second plane hit.

“Oh no, no,” she said.

“Al Qaeda,” I responded.

We watched transfixed. Not so many but very long minutes later, we saw the towers collapse.

I tried to calculate the number of people in the buildings, how many were dead. I wondered about my friend John O’Neil, the recently retired FBI associate director in charge of New York who had started working as chief of security for the Port Authority’s Twin Towers. I would later learn that he directed the evacuation and rushed back into the building to save more, only to die as the structure collapsed.

The TV continued to broadcast fragmented news reports of the Pentagon attack and the hijacked airliner that crashed into the Pennsylvania countryside.

How did AQ execute this operation? When and where would their next attack be?

Like me, my wife, a veteran of many overseas tours and many uncertainties, understood that this was vastly different. The entire risk landscape had convulsed, with breathtaking consequences rippling across the globe. This was no single quake, but rather a shift of geopolitical tectonic plates. Cindy asked, “What will we do?”

For years the CIA’s strategic warnings had gone unheeded by our policy masters. Now, the U.S. government had no choice but to respond.

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