Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror

Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror

Michael V. Hayden

Language: English

Pages: 464

ISBN: 1594206562

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


An unprecedented high-level master narrative of America's intelligence wars, from the only person ever to helm both CIA and NSA, at a time of heinous new threats and wrenching change
 
For General Michael Hayden, playing to the edge means playing so close to the line that you get chalk dust on your cleats. Otherwise, by playing back, you may protect yourself, but you will be less successful in protecting America. "Play to the edge" was Hayden's guiding principle when he ran the National Security Agency, and it remained so when he ran CIA.  In his view, many shortsighted and uninformed people are quick to criticize, and this book will give them much to chew on but little easy comfort; it is an unapologetic insider's look told from the perspective of the people who faced awesome responsibilities head on, in the moment.
 
How did American intelligence respond to terrorism, a major war and the most sweeping technological revolution in the last 500 years?  What was NSA before 9/11 and how did it change in its aftermath?  Why did NSA begin the controversial terrorist surveillance program that included the acquisition of domestic phone records? What else was set in motion during this period that formed the backdrop for the infamous Snowden revelations in 2013?  
 
As Director of CIA in the last three years of the Bush administration,  Hayden had to deal with the rendition, detention and interrogation program as bequeathed to him by his predecessors. He also had to ramp up the agency to support its role in the targeted killing program that began to dramatically increase in July 2008. This was a time of great crisis at CIA, and some agency veterans have credited Hayden with actually saving the agency. He himself won't go that far, but he freely acknowledges that CIA helped turn the American security establishment into the most effective killing machine in the history of armed conflict.
 
For 10 years, then, General Michael Hayden was a participant in some of the most telling events in the annals of American national security. General Hayden's goals are in writing this book are simple and unwavering: No apologies. No excuses. Just what happened. And why. As he writes, "There is a story here that deserves to be told, without varnish and without spin. My view is my view, and others will certainly have different perspectives, but this view deserves to be told to create as complete a history as possible of these turbulent times. I bear no grudges, or at least not many, but I do want this to be a straightforward and readable history for that slice of the American population who depend on and appreciate intelligence, but who do not have the time to master its many obscure characteristics."

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image fit perfectly. They were genuine photos of the same facility. The morning after my colleague’s visit we briefed the president on what we had. Since my colleague had been part of a delegation to the White House the day before to talk to the vice president and Steve Hadley, this wasn’t going to be a total surprise. As we were getting settled in the Oval, I leaned toward Vice President Cheney, who had long been convinced of a Syrian nuclear program, and confessed, “You were right, Mr. Vice

particularly forceful about the underlying pathology and ultimate folly of trying to win Sunni hearts and minds with an Iraqi army dominated by Iran and Iranian-backed militias and steeled with augmentees from the Quds Force and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. These weren’t just empty complaints; Abdullah paid his dues. At our strong urging and against the advice of some of his leadership, the king in August 2008 became the first Sunni head of state to visit Baghdad. He also welcomed Iraqi

Intelligence (DNI), 153–78, 358 CIA director’s relationship with, 168, 178 CIA station chiefs as representative of, 170–71 Executive Order 12333 and, 169–70 National Counterterrorism Center of, 177 Donilon, Tom, 380, 382, 383 Donovan, William “Wild Bill,” 329, 333 Drake, Thomas, 22, 24, 26, 125 drones, see unmanned aerial vehicles Drug Enforcement Administration, 167 Duquesne University, 246–47, 250–54 Durand, Mortimer, 209 Durand Line, 209, 349 Durham, John, 241, 242, 393, 395, 396,

ESPIONAGE, BUREAUCRACY, AND FAMILY LIFE LANGLEY, VA, 2006–2009 SIXTEEN IRAN: BOMBING OR THE BOMB? LANGLEY, VA, 2007–2009 SEVENTEEN A GLOBAL ENTERPRISE LANGLEY, VA, 2007–2009 EIGHTEEN “THERE WILL BE NO EXPLAINING OUR INACTION” WASHINGTON, DC, 2002–2009 AND BEYOND NINETEEN TRANSITION CIA, NOVEMBER 2008–FEBRUARY 2009 TWENTY “GENERAL, THEY’RE GOING TO RELEASE THE MEMOS” MCLEAN, VA, 2009–2014 TWENTY-ONE THE PRIVATE SECTOR WASHINGTON, DC, 2009–2014 Acknowledgments Index FOREWORD:

When it came to integration and synchronization, we got plenty of criticism, usually about as sophisticated as “You guys are all screwed up.” But a line I never heard following that one was “So you need to be more like the ——.” Because there wasn’t a country to fill in that blank that made the sentence true. Even if we might need more integration, and we did, on 9/10 the American IC was already the most integrated intelligence community on the planet. DCI George Tenet was actually a powerful

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