Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan & Bin Laden from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001

by Steve Coll

Were you in any way involved in an attack on an industrial site deep inside the Soviet Union . . . in Uzbekistan . . . anytime in the last month?” “If anything like that is going on, we’re not involved here,” Bearden said, equally careful. He knew that American law prohibited his involvement in such operations; they went far beyond the scope of the CIA’s authority. Iran-Contra and its related inquiries were now in full tilt. The agency was under political fire as it had not been since the 1970s. There were lawyers crawling all over the Directorate of Operations. Bearden and Clair, confronting similar dilemmas in the past, had long taken the view that once the CIA supplied weapons to Pakistani intelligence, it lost all title of ownership and therefore all legal responsibility for the weapons’ use. “ We stand by our position that once the stuff is delivered to the Paks, we lose all control over it,” Bearden said.