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500 Days: Secrets and Lies in the Terror Wars
Kurt Eichenwald— New York Times bestselling author of Conspiracy of Fools and The Informant —recounts the first 500 days after 9/11 in a comprehensive, fly on the wall, compelling page-turner as gripping as any thriller.
Kurt Eichenwald— New York Times bestselling author of Conspiracy of Fools and The Informant — recounts the first 500 days after 9/11 in a comprehensive, compelling page-turner as gripping as any thriller .
In 500 Days, master chronicler Kurt Eichenwald lays bare the harrowing decisions, deceptions, and delusions of the eighteen months that changed the world forever, as leaders raced to protect their citizens in the wake of 9/11.
Eichenwald’s gripping, immediate style and trueto- life dialogue puts readers at the heart of these historic events, from the Oval Office to Number 10 Downing Street, from Guantanamo Bay to the depths of CIA headquarters, from the al-Qaeda training camps to the torture chambers of Egypt and Syria. He reveals previously undisclosed information from the terror wars, including never before reported details about warrantless wiretapping, the anthrax attacks and investigations, and conflicts between Washington and London.
With his signature fast-paced narrative style, Eichenwald— whose book, The Informant , was called “one of the best nonfiction books of the decade” by The New York Times Book Review— exposes a world of secrets and lies that has remained hidden for far too long.
Kurt Eichenwald— New York Times bestselling author of Conspiracy of Fools and The Informant — recounts the first 500 days after 9/11 in a comprehensive, compelling page-turner as gripping as any thriller .
In 500 Days, master chronicler Kurt Eichenwald lays bare the harrowing decisions, deceptions, and delusions of the eighteen months that changed the world forever, as leaders raced to protect their citizens in the wake of 9/11.
Eichenwald’s gripping, immediate style and trueto- life dialogue puts readers at the heart of these historic events, from the Oval Office to Number 10 Downing Street, from Guantanamo Bay to the depths of CIA headquarters, from the al-Qaeda training camps to the torture chambers of Egypt and Syria. He reveals previously undisclosed information from the terror wars, including never before reported details about warrantless wiretapping, the anthrax attacks and investigations, and conflicts between Washington and London.
With his signature fast-paced narrative style, Eichenwald— whose book, The Informant , was called “one of the best nonfiction books of the decade” by The New York Times Book Review— exposes a world of secrets and lies that has remained hidden for far too long.
640 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2012
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April 27, 2016
Back in September 2001, I was still in college, and my societal consciousness was – to put it kindly – undeveloped. Like most college students, I was most interested in my own existence. And in getting drunk. On September 11, and on the following days, I was glued to CNN along with the rest of humanity. After awhile, though, I stopped paying attention, and went on about my life. This is the luxury of tragedy’s spectators. Certainly, I often heard the news droning in the background, but I never stopped to pay it much attention. After all, there were beers to cram and exams to shotgun. Or something like that.
Thus, Kurt Eichenwald’s 500 Days: Secrets and Lies in the Terror Wars is like opening up a time capsule. The worst time capsule ever. Instead of old yearbooks and CDs, there are distant-yet-somehow-familiar phrases like “extraordinary rendition” and “enhanced interrogation” that bring to mind the worst excesses of America’s response to the worst terrorist attack in American history. It brought me back to a period I lived through but never intellectually engaged.
Eichenwald writes that he chose the 500 day timeline because – in his estimation – that is the time it took for the Bush administration to formulate its response to 9/11. With all due respect, it’s still an arbitrary number of days, one that is never fully explained.
And arbitrary is as good way to describe this book.
It hops, skips, and jumps all over the place, providing a wide-ranging yet inconsistent pathway through some turbulent events. The globetrotting takes place at terrific speed, from the Oval Office to Canada, from a Federal Courthouse to torture chambers in Egypt and Syria. All the big moments are there – the transformation of Guantanamo Bay into a prison, the nightclub bombing in Bali, the run-up to the Iraq War – but are allocated seemingly random amounts of space. For instance, the anthrax attacks, and the story of the alleged attacker, Dr. Bruce Ivins, is sprinkled liberally throughout the text, despite being an ancillary affair. On the other hand, the details behind the war in Iraq, and the nonexistent evidence used as a casus belli, are barely explored.
Eichenwald writes at a breathless pace. There is a dramatis personae at the beginning of the book, but the urgency of the storytelling made me unwilling to keep flipping back and forth. His style incorporates a seemingly-impossible fly-on-the-wall point-of-view, with entire pages filled with quotation-marked dialogue. Eichenwald certainly documents his sources, but the level of detail, and the precision of the dialogue, gives me pause (and to be sure, certain people mentioned in 500 Days have already written letters to the New York Times to complain).
In every respect, this reads like early Tom Clancy, with multiple plot threads, shallow characterizations, fascination with technology, and utter readability. Indeed, Eichenwald’s description of the Bali bombings read a lot like Clancy’s Super Bowl nuking in The Sum of All Fears:
In one key respect, the Clancy analogy fails. To be precise: Clancy was a master plotter. It didn't matter how many dots he created along the way; by the end, they’d all be connected. Obviously, this is real life, and things don’t wrap as neatly as they do in Cold War thrillers. But this downside of 500 Days is an unforced error. Eichenwald creates the confusion by shifting courses faster and more erratically than a tweaking rat. In fact, confusion appears to be part of Eichenwald’s intended aesthetic. Unfortunately, this decision (if it was a conscious choice) limits the dramatic/emotional impact of many of his storylines.
For example, Eichenwald follows the awful journey of an innocent Canadian of Middle Eastern descent as he is flagged by the U.S., transported to Syria, and tortured into giving a false confession. The power of this tale is inherent; however, Eichenwald chops it into so many thin slices, inserting them piecemeal into his frantic, dateline-dizzy narrative, that it drains the scenes of their power.
The best and most valuable portions of 500 Days, and the closest thing to a narrative through-line, is Eichenwald’s description of how the Bush administration came to embrace torture. These sections are shocking, frustrating, and proof-positive that the leap-without-looking response to any seminal event is a poor choice.
In great detail, Eichenwald takes you into interrogation chambers, where inexperienced CIA questioners, utilizing the non-credible work of a foolish psychologist, botch interview after interview, while simultaneously besmirching the reputation of an entire nation. Meanwhile, experienced FBI agents, who had been getting good information using tried-and-true non-torture techniques, were pushed to the sideline, and eventually withdrawn from the situation, lest they run afoul of the law.
Eichenwald could have done himself – and his book – a favor by concentrating on this story. Of lawyers in Washington, sitting in plush chairs behind wide oak desks, deciding how long a man could be placed in a box before it became “torture”; of men in cages in an American prison, tormented by Americans, with no value accruing to America; and of the innocents swept up in the net, their lives and psyches destroyed to no end. All the other stuff Eichenwald adds to the mix – the anthrax, the Bali bombings, Bush quoting the Bible to Jacques Chirac – only serves to blunt the impact of his A story.
500 Days ends with a brief description of Osama Bin Laden’s death. Perhaps this is unsurprising, since Americans are an optimistic lot. However, it is a bit jarring and discordant in a book devoted to intelligence failures. Five-hundred and nineteen pages are given over to mistakes, overreaction, and dead-ends, while the last three pages leap to a smashing intelligence/military success. Obviously, something happened in the interim – between the end of the 500 days and Bin Laden’s 2011 death – but that something isn’t the focus of 500 Days. Accordingly, that epilogue is a false “happy ending.”
That leads to a larger, ideological criticism. Eichenwald tells his story like a novelist. He doesn’t quibble over evidence. He doesn’t analyze or judge decisions. He just lays things out in a seamless way that is easy to read but entirely at odds with how life actually plays out. Despite this authorial detachment, it is clear – in the main body of the text – that Eichenwald is extremely critical of the Bush lawyers who okayed torture with flimsy and tautological legal reasoning.
But then, in the end, Eichenwald pulls back all his punches. He declares they were all good men doing the best they could and that all is fair in the confusion of war.
I must respectfully disagree.
This is not to say that torture memo author John Yoo is an inhumane sociopathic monster. He probably is not. Certainly, though, he never imagined what it’s like to get waterboarded when he wrote his advisory opinions. He fell victim to the classic lawyer’s trap: when you view all the world as a law school exam, forgetting that real people exist at the tail end of legal decisions.
I don’t doubt that Yoo and the rest thought they were protecting America. The problem is: they were not. Quite the opposite. And there were plenty of people around telling them this. Good intentions do not simply erase bad actions. At the very least, there is an argument to be made that any man close to the President – including the President himself – has to pass Kipling’s If test, and be able to “[K]eep your head when all about you/Are losing theirs and blaming it on you.”
Eichenwald doesn’t see it like this. He lays out a forceful brief that points in one direction, and then comes to the oddest conclusion of all: no conclusion whatsoever.
Thus, Kurt Eichenwald’s 500 Days: Secrets and Lies in the Terror Wars is like opening up a time capsule. The worst time capsule ever. Instead of old yearbooks and CDs, there are distant-yet-somehow-familiar phrases like “extraordinary rendition” and “enhanced interrogation” that bring to mind the worst excesses of America’s response to the worst terrorist attack in American history. It brought me back to a period I lived through but never intellectually engaged.
Eichenwald writes that he chose the 500 day timeline because – in his estimation – that is the time it took for the Bush administration to formulate its response to 9/11. With all due respect, it’s still an arbitrary number of days, one that is never fully explained.
And arbitrary is as good way to describe this book.
It hops, skips, and jumps all over the place, providing a wide-ranging yet inconsistent pathway through some turbulent events. The globetrotting takes place at terrific speed, from the Oval Office to Canada, from a Federal Courthouse to torture chambers in Egypt and Syria. All the big moments are there – the transformation of Guantanamo Bay into a prison, the nightclub bombing in Bali, the run-up to the Iraq War – but are allocated seemingly random amounts of space. For instance, the anthrax attacks, and the story of the alleged attacker, Dr. Bruce Ivins, is sprinkled liberally throughout the text, despite being an ancillary affair. On the other hand, the details behind the war in Iraq, and the nonexistent evidence used as a casus belli, are barely explored.
Eichenwald writes at a breathless pace. There is a dramatis personae at the beginning of the book, but the urgency of the storytelling made me unwilling to keep flipping back and forth. His style incorporates a seemingly-impossible fly-on-the-wall point-of-view, with entire pages filled with quotation-marked dialogue. Eichenwald certainly documents his sources, but the level of detail, and the precision of the dialogue, gives me pause (and to be sure, certain people mentioned in 500 Days have already written letters to the New York Times to complain).
In every respect, this reads like early Tom Clancy, with multiple plot threads, shallow characterizations, fascination with technology, and utter readability. Indeed, Eichenwald’s description of the Bali bombings read a lot like Clancy’s Super Bowl nuking in The Sum of All Fears:
A burst of current flowed through electrical wires in a nanosecond, simultaneously reaching multiple detonators. The impulse vaporized thin wire filaments inside the blasting caps, setting off an explosive charge. Each solid molecule of TNT was converted into fifteen molecules of hot gas and powdered carbon. The blast expanded at a velocity of more than twenty-nine thousand feet per second, creating a percussive wave that could tear apart everything in a sixty-foot radius…
In one key respect, the Clancy analogy fails. To be precise: Clancy was a master plotter. It didn't matter how many dots he created along the way; by the end, they’d all be connected. Obviously, this is real life, and things don’t wrap as neatly as they do in Cold War thrillers. But this downside of 500 Days is an unforced error. Eichenwald creates the confusion by shifting courses faster and more erratically than a tweaking rat. In fact, confusion appears to be part of Eichenwald’s intended aesthetic. Unfortunately, this decision (if it was a conscious choice) limits the dramatic/emotional impact of many of his storylines.
For example, Eichenwald follows the awful journey of an innocent Canadian of Middle Eastern descent as he is flagged by the U.S., transported to Syria, and tortured into giving a false confession. The power of this tale is inherent; however, Eichenwald chops it into so many thin slices, inserting them piecemeal into his frantic, dateline-dizzy narrative, that it drains the scenes of their power.
The best and most valuable portions of 500 Days, and the closest thing to a narrative through-line, is Eichenwald’s description of how the Bush administration came to embrace torture. These sections are shocking, frustrating, and proof-positive that the leap-without-looking response to any seminal event is a poor choice.
In great detail, Eichenwald takes you into interrogation chambers, where inexperienced CIA questioners, utilizing the non-credible work of a foolish psychologist, botch interview after interview, while simultaneously besmirching the reputation of an entire nation. Meanwhile, experienced FBI agents, who had been getting good information using tried-and-true non-torture techniques, were pushed to the sideline, and eventually withdrawn from the situation, lest they run afoul of the law.
Eichenwald could have done himself – and his book – a favor by concentrating on this story. Of lawyers in Washington, sitting in plush chairs behind wide oak desks, deciding how long a man could be placed in a box before it became “torture”; of men in cages in an American prison, tormented by Americans, with no value accruing to America; and of the innocents swept up in the net, their lives and psyches destroyed to no end. All the other stuff Eichenwald adds to the mix – the anthrax, the Bali bombings, Bush quoting the Bible to Jacques Chirac – only serves to blunt the impact of his A story.
500 Days ends with a brief description of Osama Bin Laden’s death. Perhaps this is unsurprising, since Americans are an optimistic lot. However, it is a bit jarring and discordant in a book devoted to intelligence failures. Five-hundred and nineteen pages are given over to mistakes, overreaction, and dead-ends, while the last three pages leap to a smashing intelligence/military success. Obviously, something happened in the interim – between the end of the 500 days and Bin Laden’s 2011 death – but that something isn’t the focus of 500 Days. Accordingly, that epilogue is a false “happy ending.”
That leads to a larger, ideological criticism. Eichenwald tells his story like a novelist. He doesn’t quibble over evidence. He doesn’t analyze or judge decisions. He just lays things out in a seamless way that is easy to read but entirely at odds with how life actually plays out. Despite this authorial detachment, it is clear – in the main body of the text – that Eichenwald is extremely critical of the Bush lawyers who okayed torture with flimsy and tautological legal reasoning.
But then, in the end, Eichenwald pulls back all his punches. He declares they were all good men doing the best they could and that all is fair in the confusion of war.
I must respectfully disagree.
This is not to say that torture memo author John Yoo is an inhumane sociopathic monster. He probably is not. Certainly, though, he never imagined what it’s like to get waterboarded when he wrote his advisory opinions. He fell victim to the classic lawyer’s trap: when you view all the world as a law school exam, forgetting that real people exist at the tail end of legal decisions.
I don’t doubt that Yoo and the rest thought they were protecting America. The problem is: they were not. Quite the opposite. And there were plenty of people around telling them this. Good intentions do not simply erase bad actions. At the very least, there is an argument to be made that any man close to the President – including the President himself – has to pass Kipling’s If test, and be able to “[K]eep your head when all about you/Are losing theirs and blaming it on you.”
Eichenwald doesn’t see it like this. He lays out a forceful brief that points in one direction, and then comes to the oddest conclusion of all: no conclusion whatsoever.
December 9, 2012
The first 500 days after 9/11/2001 could have gone in multiple directions. We could have leveraged the tragedy to reconsider how we engage with the Arab world. We could have used 9/11 as an opportunity to re-evaluate how we monitor and take on threats. We could have used it as an opening to engage deeply into a mideast peace process.
This book is about the path that was was taken instead, a path that was very different from the options above. Instead, we invaded Iraq and instituted torture in interrogration practices. These two dark decisions become part of the lasting legacy of 9/11.
500 Days by Kurt Eichenwald describes how these misguided approaches came to fruition. Both with torture and with the Iraq invasion, government officials approach the new reality of 9/11 with preconceptions that didn't align to any current reality.
Regarding torture: FBI officials were participating in humane interrogations of detainees with CIA officers. The CIA officers had received approval to use torture, to the continued astonishment of the FBI. Again and again, the FBI team would gain valuable information by treating the detainees humanely and with respect. The CIA team would leverage torture to gain lies, or worthless information.
In the CIA, and eventually in the Pentagon, officials were conviced that torture would work. They felt that a new type of enemy required a new type of technique. Decades of recognized interrogation techniques could be tossed. And amazingly, the CIA started believing that torture scenes from TV shows like 24 could be adopted in real practice.
The result was a "toxic stew at Guantanomo: poorly trained interrogators, told to mistreat prisoners, with no limitations and no exposure to the law."
In the case of Iraq, Bush and Cheney were looking for any reason to invade Iraq. September 11 was an opportune event in that it gave them an excuse to move forward. Time and again, Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld provide reasons that were false: linkages to al-Queada, WMD.
The team had a pre-conception that Iraq was an imminent threat, despite any evidence.
Unfortunately, no one in the government was able to objectively discern the situation and the facts. No one was able to put aside pre-conceptions and approach the problems with a fact-based approach.
The book is a challenge for the Obama administration to discern the world based on reality, not on preconceptions.
This book is about the path that was was taken instead, a path that was very different from the options above. Instead, we invaded Iraq and instituted torture in interrogration practices. These two dark decisions become part of the lasting legacy of 9/11.
500 Days by Kurt Eichenwald describes how these misguided approaches came to fruition. Both with torture and with the Iraq invasion, government officials approach the new reality of 9/11 with preconceptions that didn't align to any current reality.
Regarding torture: FBI officials were participating in humane interrogations of detainees with CIA officers. The CIA officers had received approval to use torture, to the continued astonishment of the FBI. Again and again, the FBI team would gain valuable information by treating the detainees humanely and with respect. The CIA team would leverage torture to gain lies, or worthless information.
In the CIA, and eventually in the Pentagon, officials were conviced that torture would work. They felt that a new type of enemy required a new type of technique. Decades of recognized interrogation techniques could be tossed. And amazingly, the CIA started believing that torture scenes from TV shows like 24 could be adopted in real practice.
The result was a "toxic stew at Guantanomo: poorly trained interrogators, told to mistreat prisoners, with no limitations and no exposure to the law."
In the case of Iraq, Bush and Cheney were looking for any reason to invade Iraq. September 11 was an opportune event in that it gave them an excuse to move forward. Time and again, Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld provide reasons that were false: linkages to al-Queada, WMD.
The team had a pre-conception that Iraq was an imminent threat, despite any evidence.
Unfortunately, no one in the government was able to objectively discern the situation and the facts. No one was able to put aside pre-conceptions and approach the problems with a fact-based approach.
The book is a challenge for the Obama administration to discern the world based on reality, not on preconceptions.
March 5, 2013
Page 342 (my book) Robert Douman (judge)
“We must protect the freedoms of even those who hate us and that we may find objectionable. The warlords of Afghanistan may have been in the business of pillage and plunder. We cannot descend to their standards without debasing ourselves.”
I have read a few books on the Bush presidency and the aftermath of 9/11. This is quite possibly the best one. It gives a broad view of events in the U.S., Europe, and to a lesser extent Afghanistan and Pakistan. It also provides us with striking portraits of the many personalities involved along with their conversations.
The structure is chronological which I initially found confusing, particularly as there are constant shifts throughout (sometimes on the same page) to diverse topics and characters. But this also gives us a feeling of how several events during that time were intersecting and colliding with each other simultaneously. In a sense it makes the book a real page turner as we experience this progression and constant movement.
Obviously there are many disturbing situations throughout the first 500 days after 9/11. We vividly see the downgrading of the Bush administration where human rights are trodden over. Several actions stand out. I will provide just one – why did Dick Cheney have so much power in influencing and making decisions – he was a vice-president who traditionally has no authority. By contrast, Truman, when he took over after Roosevelt’s’ death, did not even know of the developments on the atomic bomb.
While the author does give Bush and his entourage latitude in that they were trying to protect their country from further attacks. We also are provided with the details of a grab for power where the U.S. constitution was over-looked. It was like in order to protect ourselves – let’s go it alone, overrule government regulations and international law... and by the way we will do torture too. The author shows how both the CIA and the U.S. military took this slippery slope where torture became a “modus operandi”. Its’ devastating when something unacceptable becomes acceptable.
The author never lets us lose site of the enemies we are dealing with – Islamic fundamentalists who are bent on destroying Western liberal democracy. In their own country they blew apart the Bamiyan statues that were made in the sixth century because they were deemed an affront to Islam. In Bali (an awful event that we tend to forget) they meticulously planned and bombed a nightclub area in 2002 that killed over 200 people and injured over 200. Obviously these terrorist groups must be stopped.
The prelude to the Iraq war is brought up. It is clear this had nothing to do with pursuing terrorism. We are given a good view of the Orwellian doublespeak that led to this invasion. In the U.S. administration the war build-up for Iraq was brought up within hours after 9/11.
This book gives us a perspective on how the United States, Canadian and British governments coped after 9/11. Sadly, it is not ennobling. The personalities and what they said and did, speak for themselves.
Page 156
Bush proclaimed that he could set up a trial system on his own, then determine what constituted a crime and what rights would be afforded the defendants...Had anyone in the White House even read the Constitution?
“We must protect the freedoms of even those who hate us and that we may find objectionable. The warlords of Afghanistan may have been in the business of pillage and plunder. We cannot descend to their standards without debasing ourselves.”
I have read a few books on the Bush presidency and the aftermath of 9/11. This is quite possibly the best one. It gives a broad view of events in the U.S., Europe, and to a lesser extent Afghanistan and Pakistan. It also provides us with striking portraits of the many personalities involved along with their conversations.
The structure is chronological which I initially found confusing, particularly as there are constant shifts throughout (sometimes on the same page) to diverse topics and characters. But this also gives us a feeling of how several events during that time were intersecting and colliding with each other simultaneously. In a sense it makes the book a real page turner as we experience this progression and constant movement.
Obviously there are many disturbing situations throughout the first 500 days after 9/11. We vividly see the downgrading of the Bush administration where human rights are trodden over. Several actions stand out. I will provide just one – why did Dick Cheney have so much power in influencing and making decisions – he was a vice-president who traditionally has no authority. By contrast, Truman, when he took over after Roosevelt’s’ death, did not even know of the developments on the atomic bomb.
While the author does give Bush and his entourage latitude in that they were trying to protect their country from further attacks. We also are provided with the details of a grab for power where the U.S. constitution was over-looked. It was like in order to protect ourselves – let’s go it alone, overrule government regulations and international law... and by the way we will do torture too. The author shows how both the CIA and the U.S. military took this slippery slope where torture became a “modus operandi”. Its’ devastating when something unacceptable becomes acceptable.
The author never lets us lose site of the enemies we are dealing with – Islamic fundamentalists who are bent on destroying Western liberal democracy. In their own country they blew apart the Bamiyan statues that were made in the sixth century because they were deemed an affront to Islam. In Bali (an awful event that we tend to forget) they meticulously planned and bombed a nightclub area in 2002 that killed over 200 people and injured over 200. Obviously these terrorist groups must be stopped.
The prelude to the Iraq war is brought up. It is clear this had nothing to do with pursuing terrorism. We are given a good view of the Orwellian doublespeak that led to this invasion. In the U.S. administration the war build-up for Iraq was brought up within hours after 9/11.
This book gives us a perspective on how the United States, Canadian and British governments coped after 9/11. Sadly, it is not ennobling. The personalities and what they said and did, speak for themselves.
Page 156
Bush proclaimed that he could set up a trial system on his own, then determine what constituted a crime and what rights would be afforded the defendants...Had anyone in the White House even read the Constitution?
August 8, 2014
As crazy and/or sick as this may sound, I wish I could go back to the late summer/early fall of 2001. I want to experience it now - again knowing what time and history has shown us. Since time travel is impossible this book is the closest we'll ever get to re-experiencing the entire panorama of it all from that fateful sunny, clear Tuesday morn in September through the Anthrax attacks of that fall up to the Guantanamo Bay scandals - even up to the precursor to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, a war that myself and so many others still consider unwarranted and unfounded.
Read this book (it actually reads almost like a novel) and be taken back to a time that was unprecedented in its history, its scope and its moralities. I wonder how any of the actual players in this drama would react to how this story plays itself out. You read it and then you can totally understand just why George W. Bush is looked upon with such disdain. This book reveals it, it is the beginning of it all. I cannot recommend this book any more.
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN 2012.
Read this book (it actually reads almost like a novel) and be taken back to a time that was unprecedented in its history, its scope and its moralities. I wonder how any of the actual players in this drama would react to how this story plays itself out. You read it and then you can totally understand just why George W. Bush is looked upon with such disdain. This book reveals it, it is the beginning of it all. I cannot recommend this book any more.
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN 2012.
June 24, 2012
I wish this was fiction, so that I did not have to believe what I read. The account of what happened in the 500 days after 09/11 is mind blowing, harrowing, even surreal, and so not according to what the USA stands for. In spite of the honest, decent work of thousands of Americans in the war on terror, this is a story about incompetence, arrogance, and jealousy on the highest levels in American politics. When the USA rejects universal agreements, when American jurists are searching for the legal meaning of pain and the legality of torture, .... may God help America ...
Well written, fast paced, and what a creepy reality!
Well written, fast paced, and what a creepy reality!
October 9, 2012
I'm halfway through this book and it is a page turner. It is definitely on my list of books that I will read twice. Only a very few books get that rating from me.
I will read it twice because in my first reading, done in record time, I am sure to have missed some nuances. This is a great book for any reader that wants to understand how the top level leadership and mid level leadership got us to where we are today.
There are heroes and incompetents that formed the response to 9/11, but they are not who you might think. I read Hank Crumpton's book about his time in Afghanistan, but after reading this book, Hank's book seems seems a little light and narrowly focused.
I have read that we are in a scientific revolution in real time, to me this is history in real time. It should be required reading for anyone that is elected or who is in high government office. As a Canadian, I often feel like an outside observer to world events, however in this case there is a significant Canadian component, and I am a not proud of our conduct during this time.
Update: I'm now finished the book, it is everything that I thought it was going to be. As to my feelings about the Canadian conduct, I am somewhat relieved, although the conduct of authorities at the mid- management level was very disappointing, in the end the Canadian Government recognized the mistakes and negotiated restitution. Unfortunately, the US is still trying to wiggle out of "manning up".
I will read it twice because in my first reading, done in record time, I am sure to have missed some nuances. This is a great book for any reader that wants to understand how the top level leadership and mid level leadership got us to where we are today.
There are heroes and incompetents that formed the response to 9/11, but they are not who you might think. I read Hank Crumpton's book about his time in Afghanistan, but after reading this book, Hank's book seems seems a little light and narrowly focused.
I have read that we are in a scientific revolution in real time, to me this is history in real time. It should be required reading for anyone that is elected or who is in high government office. As a Canadian, I often feel like an outside observer to world events, however in this case there is a significant Canadian component, and I am a not proud of our conduct during this time.
Update: I'm now finished the book, it is everything that I thought it was going to be. As to my feelings about the Canadian conduct, I am somewhat relieved, although the conduct of authorities at the mid- management level was very disappointing, in the end the Canadian Government recognized the mistakes and negotiated restitution. Unfortunately, the US is still trying to wiggle out of "manning up".
June 18, 2022
3.5 stars in that I think this was written very well and managed to competently explain many topics but I didn't really enjoy reading this book. I think I would find a more narrowly focused book to be more interesting. This book details many different events occurring between September 11 and the beginning of the Iraq war. I found the interrogation pieces and anthrax pieces (of which there was not enough of) to be very interesting but wasn't as compelled by some of the other stuff. I had just turned 2 when 9/11 happened, so obviously I have no memories from this time. This book is a very good comprehensive telling of the initial post-9/11 period and if that is interesting to you I would recommend this.
October 26, 2012
A NYT review prompted me to read this fascinating and depressing book. There were no specific jaw dropping revelations for me, as I have carefully read most of the legitimate news media accounts on the Bush administration and its near declaration of martial law in the post 9-11 years. To say that this bunch used the Constitution as toilet paper is to be generous.
The NYT reviewer opined that these were the years that an inexorable psychosis took hold of the Bush administration and he is right. This book details that descent into panic, paranoia and madness. Lies and unsubstantiated rumors fed a White House that was only too willing to act on them, much to the chagrin of the rest of the world. But the administration's hubris and arrogance completely blocked out the sanity that other world powers tried to bring to the rush to war and torture, and the relinquishment of any vestige of a U.S. moral compass.
The administrations lack of self control resulted in their making baseless assertions to the American people about a purported plot to blow up the U.S. Embassy in Bosnia and the presence of WMD in Iraq. Their stupidity resulted in their looking foolish vis a vis other world leaders, in addition to the long suffering Tony Blair. Apparently Bush told Jacques Chirac that biblical prophecies were being fulfilled and that “Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East.” Oh my. I could not believe my eyes when I read that. Chirac, a sane person, decided that his country was not going to be dragged into a war on the basis of Bush's interpretation of the Bible. The French paid for this economically when the administration sought revenge for their "betrayal." I could go on, but it truly is depressing to think that we have gone to war, squandered our resources, both human and capital, and wasted a decade making ourselves hated more than we already were because of this bozo administration.
The book is well researched and well written -- almost too well written for non-fiction. Bravo. It is very detailed and some might find it overly detailed. But it is must reading for those who are deluded and ignorant of what happened to this country and the danger of government run amok that were the Bush years. But, I doubt that those who need to read this eye opener ever will.
The NYT reviewer opined that these were the years that an inexorable psychosis took hold of the Bush administration and he is right. This book details that descent into panic, paranoia and madness. Lies and unsubstantiated rumors fed a White House that was only too willing to act on them, much to the chagrin of the rest of the world. But the administration's hubris and arrogance completely blocked out the sanity that other world powers tried to bring to the rush to war and torture, and the relinquishment of any vestige of a U.S. moral compass.
The administrations lack of self control resulted in their making baseless assertions to the American people about a purported plot to blow up the U.S. Embassy in Bosnia and the presence of WMD in Iraq. Their stupidity resulted in their looking foolish vis a vis other world leaders, in addition to the long suffering Tony Blair. Apparently Bush told Jacques Chirac that biblical prophecies were being fulfilled and that “Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East.” Oh my. I could not believe my eyes when I read that. Chirac, a sane person, decided that his country was not going to be dragged into a war on the basis of Bush's interpretation of the Bible. The French paid for this economically when the administration sought revenge for their "betrayal." I could go on, but it truly is depressing to think that we have gone to war, squandered our resources, both human and capital, and wasted a decade making ourselves hated more than we already were because of this bozo administration.
The book is well researched and well written -- almost too well written for non-fiction. Bravo. It is very detailed and some might find it overly detailed. But it is must reading for those who are deluded and ignorant of what happened to this country and the danger of government run amok that were the Bush years. But, I doubt that those who need to read this eye opener ever will.
September 26, 2019
Charting a variety of events and decisions taken during the first 500 days in the wake of 9/11 - in the US and UK governments, various detention sites and lawyers' offices, Guantanamo, and beyond - this book weaves together the experiences of a number of both key and lesser players over that time. There's not much here that was really new to me (other than that tidbit about Bush quoting the Bible at Chirac to get him to go to war and coming off like a complete religious fanatic in the process), and so, so much that just makes me angry beyond words - the power plays, political backstabbing, power grabs, illogical and reprehensible justifications for all manner of awfulness including invading Iraq, imprisoning people without trial, kidnapping, torture... seemingly endless successions of groups of lawyers evidently lacking anything resembling a functioning moral compass quibbling over legalese while signing off on violations of international laws and human rights... I could go on. What makes me even more angry is, still, after all these years, the lack of true accountability and consequences for all those who were involved. The author strove for objectivity in recounting these events, but quite frankly, given what he's documenting, somewhat more decisive criticism seemed called for.
April 30, 2013
The title made me think this would be just another political rant, but this book is admirably balanced and never gets polemic. Eichenwald shows how the Bush administration struggled to find a proper balance between national security and legal rights. While it is all too easy to portray the Bush team as evil dictators hellbent on breaking laws, it is important to consider the context of the time period. After 9/11 NOBODY wanted to see another such terrorist attack happen without having done something about it. All this talk of conspiracies and curbing of civil liberties has nothing to do with some evil conspiracy. Rather, it has everything to do with preventing another catastrophe like 9/11 from happening again. We as citizens can, and should, debate whether these methods' benefits outweighed their drawbacks. But portraying it as some evil conspiracy completely misses the point. In an ideal, perfect world, the Bush team would never have considered the things they considered after 9/11. But after 9/11, it was a different world, and the Bush team, or anyone in their position, for that matter, did what they felt was necessary. If the typical pundit who criticizes the Bush team's decisions was in their place during and after 9/11, I find it hard to imagine how THEY would have steered policy into some sort of perfect, rosy, fantasyland where there is no human cost,no paranoia, no hard decisions and an abundance of perfect solutions.
Eichenwald's book moves along at a crisp, smooth pace and never bogs down. However, a big limitation of the fast-paced style is that it precludes analysis and insights into why something happened. For example, an extended analysis of the misconceptions about the "Manchester Manual" is consigned to the "Notes and Sources" appendix (pp 545-552). Advice: Read it -- it is a critical part of the story. One of my biggest frustrations with the accounts -- this and others -- is that I haven't seen a remotely satisfying explanation of why the CIA didn't have qualified, experienced interrogators as part of its normal course-of-business. Or why the military did not use experienced interrogators from the Reserves -- predominantly from civilian law enforcement -- despite the Reserves being explicitly structured to preserve and provide that capability.
There are several themes that are developed in 500 Days. One of the most important themes is how United States conducted the War on Terror. The War on Terror was multifaceted. It involves the military, the CIA, the FBI, the Justice Department, the State Department, the border patrol and the Department of the Treasury just to name a few of the departments that were involved. This book discusses the decisions that were made in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 in order to try to prevent a second attack. George Tenet, director of central intelligence, was convinced the 9/11 was the first in a series of attacks. The FBI and the CIA were convinced that there were sleeper cells here in the United States and abroad. These cells were ready to act. Because of this, the Bush administration always felt like they were behind the eight ball. The Bush administration felt that they needed to catch up in order to prevent the next attack.
One of the sub themes in 500 Days was what to do with detainees and how to interrogate detainees. An outsider, like me or you, would probably figure that there was a big meeting in the White House with the president, vice president and other principles sitting around then discussing how to take care of detainees and how to interrogate detainees, that never happened. Instead, a series of lower-level meetings occurred on the fly. The complexity of this issue is well demonstrated in this book. The central role of John Yoo, Alberto Gonzales, Dr. Jim Mitchell, psychologist for the SERE program, David Addington and William "Jim" Haynes is painstakingly described. The amount of detail on who did what, in my mind, is unprecedented. And enhanced interrogation techniques were not "illegal." They were approved all the way up the line at the Justice Department. The problem was no their legality but their ineffectiveness. FBI rapport-building techniques had been successful time and time again. Harsh tactics simply caused weaker detainees to fabricate lies in order to get the torture to stop and tougher detainees (who came from countries that employed torture on a regular basis) to harden up. As if this isn't stupid enough, when Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded, he had already spilled the beans on what he knew. Before he was waterboarded. How odd.
One of the simplistic arguments that has been perpetuated in the mainstream media was the decision to torture or not torture a particular detainee. The mainstream media has told us that "no actionable intelligence" has come from torturing detainees. Kurt Eichenwald was thrown a wrench in this simplistic view of the world. He has shown us that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed who was tortured under US custody gave us a ton of actionable intelligence. (Al Qaeda in Southeast Asia was almost completely wrapped up, disabled, because of the information that came from KSM.) On the other hand, Abu Zubaydah who was initially interviewed by the FBI, gave them excellent intelligence before he was subjected to harsh interrogation (torture). The issue is not black or white. The problem is extremely complex. I tip my hat to Kurt Eichenwald for letting us see that these decisions aren't so black and white.
The most glaring error is stating that each plane had four hijackers, except United 93, which had three. Since there were 19 hijackers the math doesn't add up. Of course there were five on the three; four on United 93 to get to 19.
Other than that,a great read.
Eichenwald's book moves along at a crisp, smooth pace and never bogs down. However, a big limitation of the fast-paced style is that it precludes analysis and insights into why something happened. For example, an extended analysis of the misconceptions about the "Manchester Manual" is consigned to the "Notes and Sources" appendix (pp 545-552). Advice: Read it -- it is a critical part of the story. One of my biggest frustrations with the accounts -- this and others -- is that I haven't seen a remotely satisfying explanation of why the CIA didn't have qualified, experienced interrogators as part of its normal course-of-business. Or why the military did not use experienced interrogators from the Reserves -- predominantly from civilian law enforcement -- despite the Reserves being explicitly structured to preserve and provide that capability.
There are several themes that are developed in 500 Days. One of the most important themes is how United States conducted the War on Terror. The War on Terror was multifaceted. It involves the military, the CIA, the FBI, the Justice Department, the State Department, the border patrol and the Department of the Treasury just to name a few of the departments that were involved. This book discusses the decisions that were made in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 in order to try to prevent a second attack. George Tenet, director of central intelligence, was convinced the 9/11 was the first in a series of attacks. The FBI and the CIA were convinced that there were sleeper cells here in the United States and abroad. These cells were ready to act. Because of this, the Bush administration always felt like they were behind the eight ball. The Bush administration felt that they needed to catch up in order to prevent the next attack.
One of the sub themes in 500 Days was what to do with detainees and how to interrogate detainees. An outsider, like me or you, would probably figure that there was a big meeting in the White House with the president, vice president and other principles sitting around then discussing how to take care of detainees and how to interrogate detainees, that never happened. Instead, a series of lower-level meetings occurred on the fly. The complexity of this issue is well demonstrated in this book. The central role of John Yoo, Alberto Gonzales, Dr. Jim Mitchell, psychologist for the SERE program, David Addington and William "Jim" Haynes is painstakingly described. The amount of detail on who did what, in my mind, is unprecedented. And enhanced interrogation techniques were not "illegal." They were approved all the way up the line at the Justice Department. The problem was no their legality but their ineffectiveness. FBI rapport-building techniques had been successful time and time again. Harsh tactics simply caused weaker detainees to fabricate lies in order to get the torture to stop and tougher detainees (who came from countries that employed torture on a regular basis) to harden up. As if this isn't stupid enough, when Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded, he had already spilled the beans on what he knew. Before he was waterboarded. How odd.
One of the simplistic arguments that has been perpetuated in the mainstream media was the decision to torture or not torture a particular detainee. The mainstream media has told us that "no actionable intelligence" has come from torturing detainees. Kurt Eichenwald was thrown a wrench in this simplistic view of the world. He has shown us that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed who was tortured under US custody gave us a ton of actionable intelligence. (Al Qaeda in Southeast Asia was almost completely wrapped up, disabled, because of the information that came from KSM.) On the other hand, Abu Zubaydah who was initially interviewed by the FBI, gave them excellent intelligence before he was subjected to harsh interrogation (torture). The issue is not black or white. The problem is extremely complex. I tip my hat to Kurt Eichenwald for letting us see that these decisions aren't so black and white.
The most glaring error is stating that each plane had four hijackers, except United 93, which had three. Since there were 19 hijackers the math doesn't add up. Of course there were five on the three; four on United 93 to get to 19.
Other than that,a great read.
Read
May 28, 2020Kurt is a writer with integrity; both his non-fiction investigative books and his more personal memoirs require courage. In my opinion, his willingness to risk has made him a national treasure.
November 24, 2012
This book's subtitle should NOT be called "Secrets and Lies in the Terror Wars" (not sure why Goodreads says it is "Decisions & Deceptions in the Shadow of 9-11"). It should be "Stuff that Happened After 9-11....stuff you probably already knew if you're interested in this book in the first place."
I like Eichenwald. "Conspiracy of Fools" and "The Informant" were both good. This one is not so good. In fact, it's downright boring and dry in parts. Where "Informant" and "Conspiracy" moved with a swift-pace and were intriguing/interesting throughout, this book dragged in many, many places. The discussions over legal minutea (spell) was about as interesting as chewing aluminum foil.
I honestly thought Eichenwald would take the Bush administration to task and/or present some "new" information to the discussion - he didn't. Basically, it is simply a review of what happened in the 500 days after 9-11 (though, he curiously completely overlooked the Patriot Act - a fact I found disturbing and baffling - Bagram is also brushed over only lightly). I already knew 90% of what was in this book and it never revealed a single thing I would call a "Secret" at all. No challenges are really presented and the book doesn't open the informed-reader's eyes to anything they couldn't have found by reading the newspaper during those same 500 days. OK, he re-creates some inner-office discussions and brings some "inside" accounts of people who were tortured in Syria (and elsewhere), but otherwise this is not any sort of an "eye-opening" account in any way.
In the end, Eichenwald tows the Official Line far too much. He doesn't even address the many, many "alternative" perspectives out there, all of which are documented with a wealth of evidence. I think he anticipates this criticism by providing something like 50 pages of footnotes. Perusing these footnotes and referencing them reveals an overt reliance on "official" sources and "mainstream sources" (example - using Bush's book about Bush as a source? Really? What "secrets" are you going to uncover there?). I guess this comes from Eichenwald being a former NY Times columist and, presumably, he doesn't want to lose his many contacts in gov't (and other areas) by contradicting them or making them look like liars. I couldn't really tell you.
His "epilogue" talks about the (supposed) killing of Osama bin Laden, but completely fails to address a single one of the many continuations of the "secrets and lies" by the Obama Administration - kill lists, targeting assassination, NDAA, Patriot Act etc. etc. Granted this wasn't the point of the book, but neither was the (supposed) killing of OBL.
In the end, the book is a disappointing slog through a mundane account of the 500 days after 9-11 which offers little to nothing new (or "secret" or a "lie"). If you asked me name one "lie" he revealed that I didn't already know, I couldn't tell you.
If you want a review of this era, the book is fine. Is it worth reading over 500 pages? No way.
Not 1-star, b/c only total rags like Austerlitz and Krakatoa deserve that. But, if there was Zero Stars available, this would get 1 star. Disappointing.
By the way, he spells John Yoo incorrect twice, calling him John You (sic). Disappointing editing errors. And, when I noticed he was a Goodreads Author, I clicked on his page....only to find out that he "liked" his own photograph. Who does that?
I like Eichenwald. "Conspiracy of Fools" and "The Informant" were both good. This one is not so good. In fact, it's downright boring and dry in parts. Where "Informant" and "Conspiracy" moved with a swift-pace and were intriguing/interesting throughout, this book dragged in many, many places. The discussions over legal minutea (spell) was about as interesting as chewing aluminum foil.
I honestly thought Eichenwald would take the Bush administration to task and/or present some "new" information to the discussion - he didn't. Basically, it is simply a review of what happened in the 500 days after 9-11 (though, he curiously completely overlooked the Patriot Act - a fact I found disturbing and baffling - Bagram is also brushed over only lightly). I already knew 90% of what was in this book and it never revealed a single thing I would call a "Secret" at all. No challenges are really presented and the book doesn't open the informed-reader's eyes to anything they couldn't have found by reading the newspaper during those same 500 days. OK, he re-creates some inner-office discussions and brings some "inside" accounts of people who were tortured in Syria (and elsewhere), but otherwise this is not any sort of an "eye-opening" account in any way.
In the end, Eichenwald tows the Official Line far too much. He doesn't even address the many, many "alternative" perspectives out there, all of which are documented with a wealth of evidence. I think he anticipates this criticism by providing something like 50 pages of footnotes. Perusing these footnotes and referencing them reveals an overt reliance on "official" sources and "mainstream sources" (example - using Bush's book about Bush as a source? Really? What "secrets" are you going to uncover there?). I guess this comes from Eichenwald being a former NY Times columist and, presumably, he doesn't want to lose his many contacts in gov't (and other areas) by contradicting them or making them look like liars. I couldn't really tell you.
His "epilogue" talks about the (supposed) killing of Osama bin Laden, but completely fails to address a single one of the many continuations of the "secrets and lies" by the Obama Administration - kill lists, targeting assassination, NDAA, Patriot Act etc. etc. Granted this wasn't the point of the book, but neither was the (supposed) killing of OBL.
In the end, the book is a disappointing slog through a mundane account of the 500 days after 9-11 which offers little to nothing new (or "secret" or a "lie"). If you asked me name one "lie" he revealed that I didn't already know, I couldn't tell you.
If you want a review of this era, the book is fine. Is it worth reading over 500 pages? No way.
Not 1-star, b/c only total rags like Austerlitz and Krakatoa deserve that. But, if there was Zero Stars available, this would get 1 star. Disappointing.
By the way, he spells John Yoo incorrect twice, calling him John You (sic). Disappointing editing errors. And, when I noticed he was a Goodreads Author, I clicked on his page....only to find out that he "liked" his own photograph. Who does that?
March 26, 2013
This is a spectacular piece of writing. Eichenwald blends a dozen or so storylines into a taut thriller that actually happened. A warning, though- this book will hurt you. Having lived through these events, and even been privileged to be a part of a late chapter in some, I had to put this book down more than a few times and just breathe. You know most of these stories: terrorists in the US, having been tracked by the CIA into the country, then left to wander as they pleased. You know about FBI agents in Florida and Minnesota sounding warnings, with pieces of the puzzle but unable to put it together. You know they are in a race against time... and you know they lose. You know what happens next. Anthrax. Afghanistan. Rendition. Guantanamo. Waterboarding. Bali. Iraq. I knew all these pieces, I watched on the news, I had never seen them put together like this. Eichenwald is a fabulous storyteller with a narrative gift, and his tale is the defining one of my generation. You should read this book. Don't be intimidated by the size or subject- you'll blaze through it since you never want to put it down. You may not agree with his politics, but this book is a masterful piece of work filled with intricate detail that beggars belief. You will thank me for recommending this book.
February 24, 2013
This book does a beautiful job of taking a very dark period of our history and laying bare the truth of how our leadership lost their way. It does a wonderful job of switching from key player to key player, world leader to world leader, as a group of misguided appointees hurtles the country towards a war we never needed and a war based on lies and faulty intelligence sculpted into something we wanted to believe. Mr Eichenwald is a masterful storyteller and has a unique way of taking fairly dry content and making it very readable and always interesting. He is one of the few authors where I will purchase anything they write. Well done and well worth the reader's time.
April 30, 2013
Despite being 500+ pages, this was a pretty quick read. Eichenwald has a very easy to read narrative style, which is both a strength and a weakness of the book (I find that narrative journalism often actually takes me OUT of the book, it can be distracting in non-fiction). Although there weren't any startling revelations, having a compact narrative of the post-9/11 Bush administration was a nice refresher on this nightmare, and should be a primer on how to NOT run the executive branch.
January 3, 2013
This book should be required reading for all Americans...it is a meticulously researched history of the 500 days following 9/11. To say that the policy and legal choices made by our government in those days have had horrifying and long-lasting consequences may not really do justice to the situation created, but it should give all of us pause when we consider what was done in our name. The author did a masterful job of research and writing here.
June 2, 2013
Excellent book with an enormous amount of detail of what actually went on behind the scenes. The relationship between the UK and the US though we know has had its moments, will be even enlightened more in this book.
Cannot help but think, people will do what they want to do without thinking of its validity, legality etc but with purely a 'get it done' subjective lens.
Cannot help but think, people will do what they want to do without thinking of its validity, legality etc but with purely a 'get it done' subjective lens.
September 8, 2013
This was an especially good read - so timely in light of what is going on in the world now (SYRIA) I highly recommend this book to anyone with any interest in what goes on in Washington - it is very good. It is a travesty what happened to so many innocent people -
October 11, 2012
Very interesting factual based book written by same author as The Informant. Some surprises such as Jose Padilla stopped at O'Hare for customs declaration form filled out improperly, then questioned by agents from NY who already had a material witness subpoena signed by future US Attorney General Michael Mukasey, then a federal judge in NY, for grand jury testimony in NY in case he did not cooperate as a witness. Padilla requested to talk to his mother, then a lawyer, and told the agent he would have to arrest him for him to do any talking, which they did. He had a lawyer, and before going before Mukasey, was classified as an enemy combatant and whisked to Guantanomo Bay.
The involvement of White House lawyers (staff lawyers Addington & Gonzalez, Miers), military lawyers, DOJ lawyers and CIA lawyers in determining what was to be done with detainees is also very informative, showing that the US government had to literally bounce around ideas and then individual department or staff lawyers had to come up with supporting prior case law to reinforce what their opinions were as to how things should be handled. US military was against torture techniques, as well as suspending Geneva Convention protocols for the detainees. However, they got overruled by White House lawyer Addington & Gonzalez, with Ashcroft pushing for input, with Gonzalez pushing for the President making the decisions. When Bush confronted, his request was is it legal, trusting possibly a little too much his staff and that of Cheney; Mr. Addington extremely versed in tactics and logic, however, maybe a little overboard in what was the way things should be done. Military commissions were his idea, bypassing federal courts however the issue of US citizens caught overseas & transferred to Gitmo were not getting initially their right to a lawyer under the US Constitution because of the suspension of those rights under the declaration of enemy combatants done by John Yoo, OLG of DoJ. I personally am glad to see numerous lawyers, upon hearing of individuals plight under the circumstances, immediately recognized the overreach of power & the Constitution and took up various cases to ensure the Gitmo detainees had rights to be heard on several subject matters, including living conditions, forced detention, how long they could be held without being charged, as well as the release of numerous persons who were detained improperly, ie Al-Qaeda Claus (elderly man with no connections to Al-Qaeda).
Torture tactics employed by the CIA, with the full backing of the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel via John Yoo who rewrote the "book" on what was deemed necessary, allowable, AND LAWFUL in interrogations of detainees, with the cooperation and backing of one of the Gitmo commanders, as well as a few unthinking lawyers. Fortunately, the US DoD establishment kept fighting to have these matters reviewed, and the tactics were later reversed.
Ashcroft appears inept in his press conferences, with the egomaniac side poking through. Soufan definitely proved the FBI right in interrogation techniques employed did produce info. It is visibly demonstrated that torture techniques that were the preferred method did provide false information as suspects were used to or were familiar with other countries' forms of interrogation and what to expect, not always what the so-called Manchester Manual prepared them for according to US interpretation of the Manual; plenty of wrong assumptions there. Some of the detainees had heard stories of interrogation methods employed throughout the Middle East intelligence agencies, and some were actual subjects of it. The descriptions are horrific if you realize that the CIA employed techniques that were shortly thereafter deemed unproductive by CIA lawyers, and were blinded to the fact that the intelligence being produced was in most cases not true. The author's notes at the end are a must-read regarding the suspected true origin of the Manchester Manual, as it is not suspected Al-Qaeda material but it interpreted by others as that of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, which is currently "taking over" in Egypt's revolution currently, as was predicted by, I believe it was, Mubarak (I could be wrong on this, however, I am reasonably certain Mubarak's administration was predicting this if Mubarak was removed from power.)
The book also points out the different terrorist groups that comprise the world's "war on terror" that are not always true Al-Qaeda groups. Lumping together all groups under one umbrella that was originally done with these groups is an incredible intelligence failure in and of itself, and numerous others are documented in the book dealing with Iraq's lack of WMD and the overriding executive office opinion that the US needed to move quickly to remove Hussein from power even though inspectors were finding no current usable WMD. Hussein's later questioning about why none were found by an FBI agent - there wasn't any as his response wasn't surprising to this reader as the prior military actions against Iraq (Desert Storm) as well as prior weapons inspections were part of the proper intelligence already in hand. It is a shame the US had the improper information regarding numerous issues, or that intelligence was blown out of proportion by a few, including the Joe and Valerie Plame incident (a whole other subject), to the point that US military is still involved in Iraq, as well as the continued "uprisings" occuring within that country amongst its own leadership and political groups.
The discussion of the overall 500 days and what occurred, as well as the insight into how the US wound up with its numerous policies regarding how to handle the "terrorist" including Military Commission Act passed by Congress, the handling of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), the mastermind of 9/11, and his admission that he was responsible, not Osama Bin Laden, for the attacks, the behind the scenes movements of numerous lawyers in Washington provides a very good book on what occurred, who made decisions, the bad intelligence, and who later backtracked on their opinions.
A must-read as far as I'm concerned for every American History class at the high school and collegiate levels, as well as great material for the Political Science class to learn the going's on in the government sector known as Washington, DC. It should be a must-read for ever person who has ever been affected by 9/11, or any other terrorist attack, as well as every government official from the President down. It is a very good reflection of some of the absurdity in making assumptions based on someone else's opinion not necessarily fact, and then enacting policies that unfortunately put the US on the same level as those governments that the US and world's human rights communities have been trying to change due to interrogation tactics and mistreatment of citizens and prisoners. A reminder of the Geneva Conventions enacted following WWII is included for those who debate the subject of enemy combatant versus prisoner of war status.
The surprise for this reader - the viewpoint held by a few that the American Red Cross is a pain in the butt regarding Guantanomo Bay. Maybe it's a good thing they were around, as well as a few of the defense lawyers who took one look, took a stance and started filing a few of those cases asserting rights for the US citizens at Gitmo, as well as some of those who weren't citizens, in order for the military establishment to further look within itself and say, no, we're not going to do this before things got any further out of hand. The premise of classified information so that US prisoners of war being held are treated well is still a good one and should still be in effect, however, in the interest of future policy, my opinion is one of someone should be responsible enough to put their foot down, keep it down, and others to stop and review things before policies are agreed upon that are detrimental to the military as well as law enforcement agencies.
It is a shame the DoJ is in such a shambles, with more than just interrogation going on in the present day. Interrogation under the law enforcement practices was shown to be extremely effective in getting background information, military satellites for actual photo and video footage of movements as well as electronic intercepts, and the foreign intelligence community for providing additional important information regarding potential planning and other cell members involved in their respective countries.
The involvement of White House lawyers (staff lawyers Addington & Gonzalez, Miers), military lawyers, DOJ lawyers and CIA lawyers in determining what was to be done with detainees is also very informative, showing that the US government had to literally bounce around ideas and then individual department or staff lawyers had to come up with supporting prior case law to reinforce what their opinions were as to how things should be handled. US military was against torture techniques, as well as suspending Geneva Convention protocols for the detainees. However, they got overruled by White House lawyer Addington & Gonzalez, with Ashcroft pushing for input, with Gonzalez pushing for the President making the decisions. When Bush confronted, his request was is it legal, trusting possibly a little too much his staff and that of Cheney; Mr. Addington extremely versed in tactics and logic, however, maybe a little overboard in what was the way things should be done. Military commissions were his idea, bypassing federal courts however the issue of US citizens caught overseas & transferred to Gitmo were not getting initially their right to a lawyer under the US Constitution because of the suspension of those rights under the declaration of enemy combatants done by John Yoo, OLG of DoJ. I personally am glad to see numerous lawyers, upon hearing of individuals plight under the circumstances, immediately recognized the overreach of power & the Constitution and took up various cases to ensure the Gitmo detainees had rights to be heard on several subject matters, including living conditions, forced detention, how long they could be held without being charged, as well as the release of numerous persons who were detained improperly, ie Al-Qaeda Claus (elderly man with no connections to Al-Qaeda).
Torture tactics employed by the CIA, with the full backing of the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel via John Yoo who rewrote the "book" on what was deemed necessary, allowable, AND LAWFUL in interrogations of detainees, with the cooperation and backing of one of the Gitmo commanders, as well as a few unthinking lawyers. Fortunately, the US DoD establishment kept fighting to have these matters reviewed, and the tactics were later reversed.
Ashcroft appears inept in his press conferences, with the egomaniac side poking through. Soufan definitely proved the FBI right in interrogation techniques employed did produce info. It is visibly demonstrated that torture techniques that were the preferred method did provide false information as suspects were used to or were familiar with other countries' forms of interrogation and what to expect, not always what the so-called Manchester Manual prepared them for according to US interpretation of the Manual; plenty of wrong assumptions there. Some of the detainees had heard stories of interrogation methods employed throughout the Middle East intelligence agencies, and some were actual subjects of it. The descriptions are horrific if you realize that the CIA employed techniques that were shortly thereafter deemed unproductive by CIA lawyers, and were blinded to the fact that the intelligence being produced was in most cases not true. The author's notes at the end are a must-read regarding the suspected true origin of the Manchester Manual, as it is not suspected Al-Qaeda material but it interpreted by others as that of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, which is currently "taking over" in Egypt's revolution currently, as was predicted by, I believe it was, Mubarak (I could be wrong on this, however, I am reasonably certain Mubarak's administration was predicting this if Mubarak was removed from power.)
The book also points out the different terrorist groups that comprise the world's "war on terror" that are not always true Al-Qaeda groups. Lumping together all groups under one umbrella that was originally done with these groups is an incredible intelligence failure in and of itself, and numerous others are documented in the book dealing with Iraq's lack of WMD and the overriding executive office opinion that the US needed to move quickly to remove Hussein from power even though inspectors were finding no current usable WMD. Hussein's later questioning about why none were found by an FBI agent - there wasn't any as his response wasn't surprising to this reader as the prior military actions against Iraq (Desert Storm) as well as prior weapons inspections were part of the proper intelligence already in hand. It is a shame the US had the improper information regarding numerous issues, or that intelligence was blown out of proportion by a few, including the Joe and Valerie Plame incident (a whole other subject), to the point that US military is still involved in Iraq, as well as the continued "uprisings" occuring within that country amongst its own leadership and political groups.
The discussion of the overall 500 days and what occurred, as well as the insight into how the US wound up with its numerous policies regarding how to handle the "terrorist" including Military Commission Act passed by Congress, the handling of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), the mastermind of 9/11, and his admission that he was responsible, not Osama Bin Laden, for the attacks, the behind the scenes movements of numerous lawyers in Washington provides a very good book on what occurred, who made decisions, the bad intelligence, and who later backtracked on their opinions.
A must-read as far as I'm concerned for every American History class at the high school and collegiate levels, as well as great material for the Political Science class to learn the going's on in the government sector known as Washington, DC. It should be a must-read for ever person who has ever been affected by 9/11, or any other terrorist attack, as well as every government official from the President down. It is a very good reflection of some of the absurdity in making assumptions based on someone else's opinion not necessarily fact, and then enacting policies that unfortunately put the US on the same level as those governments that the US and world's human rights communities have been trying to change due to interrogation tactics and mistreatment of citizens and prisoners. A reminder of the Geneva Conventions enacted following WWII is included for those who debate the subject of enemy combatant versus prisoner of war status.
The surprise for this reader - the viewpoint held by a few that the American Red Cross is a pain in the butt regarding Guantanomo Bay. Maybe it's a good thing they were around, as well as a few of the defense lawyers who took one look, took a stance and started filing a few of those cases asserting rights for the US citizens at Gitmo, as well as some of those who weren't citizens, in order for the military establishment to further look within itself and say, no, we're not going to do this before things got any further out of hand. The premise of classified information so that US prisoners of war being held are treated well is still a good one and should still be in effect, however, in the interest of future policy, my opinion is one of someone should be responsible enough to put their foot down, keep it down, and others to stop and review things before policies are agreed upon that are detrimental to the military as well as law enforcement agencies.
It is a shame the DoJ is in such a shambles, with more than just interrogation going on in the present day. Interrogation under the law enforcement practices was shown to be extremely effective in getting background information, military satellites for actual photo and video footage of movements as well as electronic intercepts, and the foreign intelligence community for providing additional important information regarding potential planning and other cell members involved in their respective countries.
January 25, 2018
من اكثر الكتب السياسيه الأمريكيه المتميزه التى قرأتها للأسباب التاليه :
1.الأحداث و الأفكار متسلسله و مرتبه بشكل ممتاز جدا
2.تناول العديد من الشخصيات و المواقف بشكل مفصل
3.وجود بحث و وثائق عده عن الاحداث و الشخصيات و الاجتماعات و المؤتمرات توضح مدى المجهود الذي قام به المؤلف
4.التناول السياسي قبل احداث 11 سبتمبر حتي بعد ضرب العراق متميز بشكل كبير
5.توضيح ما قام به النظام الامريكي في عهد الرئيس بوش من تجاوز للقوانين و إستثناءات و إخفاء للحقائق و ذلك بغرض تحقيق الأهداف المطلوبه من ضرب لأفغانستان ثم العراق و ما بينهما للقبض على عدد كبير جدا من البشر دون اى وجه حق او تحت اى صفه قانونيه
6.التأكيد على ان الحرب على الارهاب هي من اكثر الذرائع التى تدعوا الرئيس لكسر كافه القواعد و القوانين حتي و لو ثبت بعد ذلك خطأه و عدم محاسبته
7.التناول المتميز لما آل اليه حال كافه الشخصيات في نهايه الكتاب
8.إيجاز كافه الأحداث في نهاي الكتاب و بموجز شديد جدا في 11 صفحه كان أكثر من رائع
** الكتاب ليس فقط مجرد كتاب إنما بحث و مجهود كبير يستحق الإشاده و التحيه و يعتبر أيضا وثيقه سياسيه لهذه الفتره
1.الأحداث و الأفكار متسلسله و مرتبه بشكل ممتاز جدا
2.تناول العديد من الشخصيات و المواقف بشكل مفصل
3.وجود بحث و وثائق عده عن الاحداث و الشخصيات و الاجتماعات و المؤتمرات توضح مدى المجهود الذي قام به المؤلف
4.التناول السياسي قبل احداث 11 سبتمبر حتي بعد ضرب العراق متميز بشكل كبير
5.توضيح ما قام به النظام الامريكي في عهد الرئيس بوش من تجاوز للقوانين و إستثناءات و إخفاء للحقائق و ذلك بغرض تحقيق الأهداف المطلوبه من ضرب لأفغانستان ثم العراق و ما بينهما للقبض على عدد كبير جدا من البشر دون اى وجه حق او تحت اى صفه قانونيه
6.التأكيد على ان الحرب على الارهاب هي من اكثر الذرائع التى تدعوا الرئيس لكسر كافه القواعد و القوانين حتي و لو ثبت بعد ذلك خطأه و عدم محاسبته
7.التناول المتميز لما آل اليه حال كافه الشخصيات في نهايه الكتاب
8.إيجاز كافه الأحداث في نهاي الكتاب و بموجز شديد جدا في 11 صفحه كان أكثر من رائع
** الكتاب ليس فقط مجرد كتاب إنما بحث و مجهود كبير يستحق الإشاده و التحيه و يعتبر أيضا وثيقه سياسيه لهذه الفتره
September 16, 2021
A fascinating examination of the decisions made the day of, and in the long aftermath of 9/11. From those borne out by terror, to those created through ignorance and incompetence, and even a few with malice, it paints a vivid, and disturbing picture of how the world we know was formed in the 500 days after the 9/11 attacks. It was a very enlightening read for me with many details I did not know, and others I was aware of. My only critique would be that with the sheer volume of information presented, the book naturally seems to have to rush past the rationale for some decisions. The pivot from Afghanistan to Iraq for instance, is presented matter of factly, without much analysis into why it was decided on.
Overall, a thrilling book which is a must read for anyone trying to understand the world we live in 20 years after those terrible days.
Overall, a thrilling book which is a must read for anyone trying to understand the world we live in 20 years after those terrible days.
December 8, 2023
The thing I really took out of this, besides the Putin saying he'd invade Georgia if the U.S. decided to invade Iraq!, was the part about gog and magog. People ignore or forget that there were religious undertones to all the "terror" war stuff. Even now it all seems very senseless and the arguments are transparently baseless. Fear of another attack was somewhat valid it was out of proportion and I think the part where they thought the retaining wall might collapses (killing more people) was very telling they didn't actually care about people living or dying.
The anthrax stuff was interesting but maybe could have been cut. The nightclub bombing goes to show how luck and regular investigation stuff can be used for terrorism because at a certain level it's still crimes.
The anthrax stuff was interesting but maybe could have been cut. The nightclub bombing goes to show how luck and regular investigation stuff can be used for terrorism because at a certain level it's still crimes.
October 19, 2019
A very fair and even-balanced account of how a single tragedy has shaped American security policies for almost two decades. Granular details and extensive research transform this into a political thriller as much as a non-fiction account.
Provocative, revealing and equitable - it served to explain a great many things in contemporary US foreign policy, many of which are abused or over-leveraged to this day for perhaps less than genuine reasons.
Intense, heavy and rewarding reading.
Provocative, revealing and equitable - it served to explain a great many things in contemporary US foreign policy, many of which are abused or over-leveraged to this day for perhaps less than genuine reasons.
Intense, heavy and rewarding reading.
October 19, 2017
You remember living through the post-9/11 Bush power grab? This re-lives and documents the whole shit show all over again.
The U.S had the sympathy of the world and the chance to pull people together to combat a common enemy, and fucking blew it by overreaching and being the biggest asshole on the block.
The U.S had the sympathy of the world and the chance to pull people together to combat a common enemy, and fucking blew it by overreaching and being the biggest asshole on the block.
August 31, 2017
A truly insightful look into how a small number of people, with limited actual knowledge but very strong opinions, led the US a) into a war that should never have been fought, and more importantly, b) onto a path that subjugated American values to fight the fear engendered by terrorism.
February 7, 2020
Shocking, but will fall on deaf ears.
March 25, 2023
Second read.
July 22, 2024
Very interesting, reading this book is a commitment to read but well worth it in the end.
December 11, 2016
Very good books,what happens after 9/11/2001
February 6, 2013
"Every aspect of the terror wars flowed from judgements made in little more than 500 days after 9/11-- 554 to be exact. Everything-- the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, warrantless wiretapping, detainee treatment, CIA tactics, and more-- could be traced to those eighteen months. What followed in the nearly six years afterward was little more than reactions to those early decisions." -xiii
What the hell happened after 9/11? How did we go from chasing terrorists to being bogged down in two countries that never had WMDs, never aided terrorists in the first place? Why didn't we pursue police action, extradition, any of the options other countries pursue after terrorist attacks? Why does everyone hate us?
Before reading this, I would've just answered "Bush." I mean, he was president at the time and now he's wanted as a war criminal, so must've been his fault, right? Eh. Somewhat his and somewhat his administration's-- one of the strengths of this book is that it doesn't play politics, it delivers straight facts. It has the pacing of a thriller and a hundred pages of footnotes.
The book does have a few drawbacks, and I admit that I don't know enough about the years immediately following 9/11 to know if it falls prey to framing bias (i.e. making things that look true by omitting half the story). Bush gets a fair shake here, coming off as an affable, smart guy who never reads his memos-- even if the memo is, say, on using military spying tactics against US civilians for the first time in our history. He had a plane to catch, yanno?
You can see the complexity of the issues by the book's portrayal of his administration, and how issues got muddled in the quest for immediate results... and the total incompetence of one CIA "psychologist." I know my stance on many of the issues, and I can't say the book changed my thinking-- just enraged me-- but I can see better how the US got into the mess it's in in, for example, Guantanamo. If the CIA says that torture is the only way to avoid another terrorist attack, another attack this week, and you have a couple high-ranking government officials with a hard-on for vengeance and conviction to spare, well... You get very different actions than if you heed the volumes of FBI literature that says gentle relationship-building techniques are the most effective means of interrogation.
As a perk, you also get impressive arm muscles from chucking this 650-page lump across the room so many times.
This book is very US- and UK-centric, since the Iraq War was in fact a US and UK initiative. It makes sense, although it means the international scope of the book is limited; first and foremost, it is a book US policy, foreign and domestic. I would also add that the pace of this book slows considerably in the second half, as it moves from chasing terrorists and "terrorists" across the globe and starts to focus more on the legal disputes brewing inside the US. And while it is fun to see the Department of Justice slap the Bush administration around for completely ignoring, I dunno, the entire legal history and structure of the US, it does get repetitive about 200-300 pages. So there's that.
This book also come with an epilogue, so that you too can see exactly how much we've screwed up. Yeah, I went right from this book to The Chocolate War, which is about a kid who doesn't want to fundraise and not quite as rage-inducing. As an alternative, you could try getting drunk.
What the hell happened after 9/11? How did we go from chasing terrorists to being bogged down in two countries that never had WMDs, never aided terrorists in the first place? Why didn't we pursue police action, extradition, any of the options other countries pursue after terrorist attacks? Why does everyone hate us?
Before reading this, I would've just answered "Bush." I mean, he was president at the time and now he's wanted as a war criminal, so must've been his fault, right? Eh. Somewhat his and somewhat his administration's-- one of the strengths of this book is that it doesn't play politics, it delivers straight facts. It has the pacing of a thriller and a hundred pages of footnotes.
The book does have a few drawbacks, and I admit that I don't know enough about the years immediately following 9/11 to know if it falls prey to framing bias (i.e. making things that look true by omitting half the story). Bush gets a fair shake here, coming off as an affable, smart guy who never reads his memos-- even if the memo is, say, on using military spying tactics against US civilians for the first time in our history. He had a plane to catch, yanno?
You can see the complexity of the issues by the book's portrayal of his administration, and how issues got muddled in the quest for immediate results... and the total incompetence of one CIA "psychologist." I know my stance on many of the issues, and I can't say the book changed my thinking-- just enraged me-- but I can see better how the US got into the mess it's in in, for example, Guantanamo. If the CIA says that torture is the only way to avoid another terrorist attack, another attack this week, and you have a couple high-ranking government officials with a hard-on for vengeance and conviction to spare, well... You get very different actions than if you heed the volumes of FBI literature that says gentle relationship-building techniques are the most effective means of interrogation.
As a perk, you also get impressive arm muscles from chucking this 650-page lump across the room so many times.
This book is very US- and UK-centric, since the Iraq War was in fact a US and UK initiative. It makes sense, although it means the international scope of the book is limited; first and foremost, it is a book US policy, foreign and domestic. I would also add that the pace of this book slows considerably in the second half, as it moves from chasing terrorists and "terrorists" across the globe and starts to focus more on the legal disputes brewing inside the US. And while it is fun to see the Department of Justice slap the Bush administration around for completely ignoring, I dunno, the entire legal history and structure of the US, it does get repetitive about 200-300 pages. So there's that.
This book also come with an epilogue, so that you too can see exactly how much we've screwed up. Yeah, I went right from this book to The Chocolate War, which is about a kid who doesn't want to fundraise and not quite as rage-inducing. As an alternative, you could try getting drunk.
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