The Triple Agent

More ominously, Baitullah Mehsud’s Taliban faction had quickly regrouped and was veering off onto a dangerous new course. The missile strike on August 5 had created a temporary leadership vacuum and touched off several bloody rounds of street fighting among Mehsud’s would-be successors, but now Baitullah’s charismatic cousin, the recklessly ambitious Hakimullah Mehsud, was firmly in charge. While Baitullah Mehsud had contented himself with waging attacks against Pakistani soldiers and police, his cousin was more virulently anti-American and also more willing to commit his forces into alliances with al-Qaeda and other militant groups attacking American troops in Afghanistan. Greater numbers of Mehsud fighters were signing up with al-Qaeda’s Shadow Army, a paramilitary force led by a Libyan commander, Abdullah Said al Libi, that wore its own distinctive uniform and carried out lightning raids on military targets on both sides of the border. These were al-Qaeda’s new shock troops, and they were drawing funds and recruits from as far away as Saudi Arabia and Kashmir.

This was Panetta’s dilemma. The CIA’s missiles were finding their marks, but it wasn’t enough. Slain commanders were being quickly replaced, often with younger leaders with more extreme views and international ambitions. Al-Qaeda was adapting, commanding a widening network of committed followers from the region’s patchwork of militant tribal groups. Meanwhile the terrorist group’s most senior leaders, including Osama bin Laden and his operational commander, Ayman al-Zawahiri, were coordinating strategy from secure hiding places. Something more was needed to flush them out.

In the late summer and early fall Panetta and his team finalized the detailed plan the director would present to the president and his National Security Council, which was in the middle of a months-long review of its Afghanistan strategy. Panetta had a long wish list, but the lead item was the most critical one: more robot planes—lots of them. Not just Predators, but the newer, more powerful Reaper aircraft, along with operators and hardware to support them. Panetta wanted to dramatically increase the pressure on al-Qaeda, not only with increased firepower but also with blanket surveillance, enough human and mechanical eyes watching the tribal region around the clock to detect the movement of even small groups of fighters. It would be “the most aggressive operation in the agency’s history,” Panetta later said, and its chief aim would be to find and destroy the graybeards who were the root cause of all the trouble.

“The leadership of al-Qaeda—from bin Laden down to the top twenty—these guys are located in a place that is our primary target,” Panetta said. “And we’re the point of the spear.”

When it was time to make his case, Panetta made the trip to the White House to deliver his pitch to President Obama in person.

“Mr. President,” he began, “in order to really accomplish our mission, these are the things I need.” He proceeded to describe al-Qaeda’s resilience in the tribal region and his plan for ratcheting up the pressure, denying the terrorists even the smallest space to hide or regroup.

Obama looked at Panetta thoughtfully for a moment and turned to his aides.

“We’re going to do what Leon wants,” he said.

The discussion was over.

It would take months to deploy the new orbits, as the systems of unmanned aircraft and operators were called, but the agency proceeded immediately to put pieces of the new plan into place. CIA targeters would be needed not only in Langley but also nearer to the front line, to coordinate a highly specific search for senior al-Qaeda leaders.

The limits of the new strategy were understood. The Predator was an impressive machine, but air power and advanced robotics could accomplish only so much against a widely dispersed enemy that hid among the local population in Pakistan’s tribal region. The same kinds of technology had helped turn the tide against Iraq’s insurgents, but there was an important distinction: In U.S.-occupied Iraq, U.S. Special Forces commandos had free rein to go anywhere in the country. They worked in tandem with the drones and could rapidly act on new intelligence during any time of day or night, inserting small teams on the ground to kill or capture. No such possibilities existed in Pakistan.

There was yet another problem. To eliminate al-Qaeda’s generals, the CIA first had to find them. Nine years after Osama bin Laden’s terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, U.S. intelligence officials had no idea where he was.