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 Recent commentary from National Journal: Legal Affairs: Wiretaps Are An Overblown Threat To Privacy (October 10, 2001) The possibility of being watched by Big Brother or smeared by the FBI seems more remote than the prospect of being blown to bits by terrorists. By Stuart Taylor. Political Pulse: A Cold War-Style Conflict (October 10, 2001) Americans usually don't want to get involved in other countries' politics. Has that view changed? By William Schneider. Social Studies: Charter Schools: A New Hope For America's Latinos (October 2, 2001) Some liberals will wonder if 'schools of color' are a good idea. It depends on whether they work. By Jonathan Rauch. Legal Affairs: How to Minimize The Risks of Overreacting To Terrorism (October 2, 2001) If elements of Ashcroft's anti-terrorism bill need to be enacted quickly, so be it. But then sunset them. By Stuart Taylor Jr. Political Pulse: A Generational Call to Arms (October 2, 2001) 'In our grief and anger, we have found our mission and our moment,' Bush declared. By William Schneider. Media: Features Out Front (October 2, 2001) These days, the best feature writing is usually found on pages once reserved for "serious" reports. By William Powers. More from National Journal. |
Media 
A Very Secret WarAgents, or reporters? Hard to tell, given all the yarns supposedly based on somebody's "secret plans." by William Powers ..... The drop arrived at my house by special courier shortly before dawn on October 1. An opaque plastic bag concealed the contents from foreign agents who might be walking their dogs on [redacted] Lane at that hour. I do not know the identity of my courier, nor does he/she know mine. The secret intelligence network to which we both belong, known in the community by the acronym "NYT," is vast, with many discrete compartments. When I need to reach my NYT handler, I am patched in directly through a dedicated phone line to which I was given access upon joining the network: 1-800-[redacted]-[redacted]. The bag contained various reports from agents who have infiltrated key organizations in recent weeks. Most notable was a dispatch from two identified only as "Michael R. Gordon" and "David E. Sanger." Like all sensitive war-related information, it bore an all-caps codeword heading: BUSH APPROVES COVERT AID FOR TALIBAN FOES. The report began, "President Bush has approved a secret effort to strengthen a diverse array of groups opposing the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan, administration officials said today." I am uncertain how many others know about this secret effort. Surely, no more than a handful. Since the entire war could be riding on the support we receive from Afghan opposition groups, the existence of the program must be revealed only on the strictest need-to-know basis. In one of those only-in-Washington coincidences, several of my neighbors appear to be receiving similar overnight drops, in nearly identical bags, and I wondered if some of them got this same report and knew as much as I did. Of course, there are different versions for different clearance levels. (Mine, code-named "Washington Final," goes to the most restricted group.) When I run into these neighbors at the market or the dry cleaner, the subject never comes up, beyond the exchange of a subtle glance that says: Like you, I know the Gordon/Sanger secrets and, if necessary, will protect them with my life. The report—which emphasized that the United States has "shrouded" the covert assistance in "secrecy"—said the aid would go to the Northern Alliance, but "is also aimed at stirring up resistance among the Pashtun tribal groups in the south." It disclosed that "a prime goal" of the secret plan is to encourage defections from within the Taliban ranks. One can only imagine what Osama bin Laden and his cohorts, unaware of this covert program, will make of these defections when they start, and the Taliban leadership begins to crumble. As the terrorists have demonstrated, in these matters, surprise is crucial. Looks like our adversaries are in for a big one. On the afternoon of the same day, I used my secret password to sign on to a restricted, members-only Internet service, where I learned that a somewhat sanitized version of the NYT intelligence had been shared with the limited group of operatives with top-secret code-word "AOL" clearance. That sanitized report, which I viewed at 1407 hours, had a slightly different title from the original—"Bush Approves Anti-Taliban Support"—but the content was similar. It's unfortunate that, in a time of war, an open society like ours has to rely so much on secrecy. But war is serious business, and a great deal is at stake. I was reflecting on this earlier this week, as I received a briefing from "Gertz," a special agent from a supersecret agency code-named "WASH TIMES" that has its own headquarters—totally separate from NSA—just off Route [redacted], north of Washington. "Gertz" reported: "Terrorists linked to Osama bin Laden have shipped weapons to Somalia, a sign that their Al Qaeda group may be moving its operating base out of Afghanistan, U.S. intelligence officials said. The shipments were detected by U.S. intelligence agencies over the past two weeks and included small arms, grenade-launchers and shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, said officials familiar with intelligence reports. The weapons arrived by cargo ship at a secluded port and are believed by U.S. intelligence agencies to have originated in Afghanistan." This struck me as a development of immense military significance. After the briefing, I had to ponder why those who collected this intelligence had ordered "Gertz" to pass it on to me (the agent was silent as to purpose). After a while, it hit me: The Somalia shipments might well be a ruse concocted for the satellites and other electronic eavesdropping capabilities that Sen. Orrin Hatch, when talking to journalists, calls "electronic intel." Thus it's crucial that "humint" (human intelligence) assets like me be on the lookout for signs that bin Laden is not headed for Somalia at all, but is hightailing it to some third country, or staying put in his cave in the hills near Kandahar, Afghanistan, where, I have read in numerous secret reports, he lately has been based. I am using a small attic window to keep an eye on [redacted] Lane and its immediate environs, in case the terrorist leader should emerge here. If he does show up, I know where I and all the other valuable humint assets are headed. Back on September 13, special agent "Safire," also of NYT, sent me a report based on intelligence from "a high White House official" who spoke on "background" (i.e., sources and methods remained secret). "Safire" said that at the time of the terrorist attacks, Vice President Cheney was hurried to what "Safire" called the "PEOC," for "President's Emergency Operations Center." According to "Safire," this "is an underground facility hardened to withstand blast overpressure from a nuclear detonation." He added that it is a "tubular structure." So I know what to look for, and the enemy, thank goodness, doesn't.
What do you think? Discuss this article in the Politics & Society conference of Post & Riposte. More from National Journal. More on politics and society in Atlantic Unbound and The Atlantic Monthly. William Powers is media columnist for National Journal. He recently spent three months in Japan as a Japan Society Fellow, studying the role of reading in Japanese life. This column appears every week in National Journal, a weekly magazine covering politics and government published in Washington, D.C. For information on National Journal Group publications, see NationalJournal.com. Copyright © 2001 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved. |
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