A spook speaks out

The circumstances of the book's publication, and the author's thinly veiled anonymity, have given rise to much speculation about his motives. It is highly unusual for a serving intelligence officer to publish a book sharply critical of the White House. Though the book contains no classified information, by some accounts officials at the CIA, using an arcane set of classified regulations, required Scheuer to be anonymous. The agency may even have tried to block the book's publication for fear of explosive political fallout. According to the Boston Phoenix, one veteran intelligence official familiar with Scheuer's situation put it this way: "Think back to 2002, and imagine what would have happened if a book had come out that said 'by Michael Scheuer, former chief of the CIA's bin Laden unit' on the cover -- it would have been a bestseller overnight, reviewed and discussed all over the place."

In fact the book has already received ample attention from the media, and there's no great mystery about Scheuer's intentions. His book is the latest salvo in the intelligence wars that have been raging, to an unprecedented public degree, since 9/11. From Seymour Hersh's New Yorker pieces to James Bamford's "A Pretext for War," numerous members of the intelligence community have written or leaked harsh condemnations of the White House, the Pentagon and their own superiors, whom they accuse of ideologically driven meddling.

The book's searing criticisms reach well beyond the Bush White House. Scheuer, who from 1996 to 1999 headed the CIA's special Osama bin Laden task force code-named "Alec," charges that for more than a decade U.S. policymakers, military and intelligence leaders have failed to grasp the true reasons behind the rise of militant Islam, and in their pursuit of narrow policy goals have overlooked -- or manipulated -- critical intelligence. This springs from what Scheuer calls American "imperial hubris," a myopic, self-regarding perspective held by the nation's elites since the end of World War II. "It is a process of interpreting the world so it makes sense to us," he writes, "a process yielding a world in which few events seem alien because we Americanize their components." Fear of a casualty-averse public, and an illusory faith in exporting democracy to ancient theocracies, he argues, have left U.S. leaders ignoring "the long, bloody history of warfare, invariably leaving behind half-finished, or, more accurately, half-started wars that will be refought later." From the first Gulf War to Somalia to Serbia to Afghanistan, "their remains litter the international landscape like huge land mines waiting to be detonated by an unanticipated pressure."

Top Bush officials get the brunt of Scheuer's ire. He savages Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for telling reporters more than a year ago that "the bulk of [Afghanistan] is permissive and secure," while offering platitudes like "Children are out in the street again. It's a measure of progress, the success taking place here." Scheuer estimates that nearly 40,000 armed Taliban insurgents were left to fight another day by the Pentagon's few-boots-on-the-ground battle plan and its failure to seal Afghanistan's borders from the get-go. "Ignoring reality, Rumsfeld -- with the Taleban and al Qaeda intact, [interim President Hamid] Karzai's writ fading, and guerrilla warfare flaring -- went to Kabul in May 2003 to declare victory. Mr. Rumsfeld, to be charitable, is ill-informed; America's Afghan war is still in its infancy."

Scheuer also believes the invasion and occupation of Iraq was a grave strategic error, distracting from and exacerbating the real threat posed by stateless Islamic holy warriors. That threat, he warns, is now dire. He says the West has failed to heed bin Laden's warnings, and his decree that the use of WMD on enemies of Islam is religiously "legitimate." "No one should be surprised," Scheuer writes, "when bin Laden and al Qaeda detonate a weapon of mass destruction in the United States."

Scheuer further condemns the Bush administration for its declaration of a war on "terror." He says he wants to "ensure wide recognition that America is at war with a faith-driven force that dwarfs anything that can, with intellectual honesty, be called terrorism"; the conflict, he says, "must be described as a Muslim or an Islamic problem." In practical terms, this doesn't mean declaring war on Islam as a religion, as some extreme right-wingers advocate, but addressing militant Islam's political grievances -- and Scheuer recognizes that Islam doesn't separate religion and politics as the West does.

But he also recognizes that the U.S. is not likely to address those grievances anytime soon, as it would mean utter transformation of U.S. global relations, so we must prepare for a much more brutal fight. "America is in a war for survival. Not survival in terms of protecting territory, but in terms of keeping the ability to live as we want, not as we must ... There are two choices. We can continue using and believing the cant [of current U.S. policymakers], or we can act to preserve our way of life by engaging in whatever martial behavior is needed." Americans, he notes, better "get used to and good at killing."

Scheuer's handling of the intelligence turf wars is more concise and equally pointed. One of his main arguments is that we must re-empower the CIA to fight a covert war against the worldwide Islamic insurgency -- and move away from the FBI's law-enforcement approach. He argues that the missions of law enforcement and intelligence work are "compatible only at the margins" and that policymakers' drumbeat for a perfectly integrated intelligence community is an "ideology" based on "moral cowardice." Historically, Scheuer writes, "no agency would cite the refusal of others to cooperate, and all agreed that no such gripe reach Congress. Intelligence-community careers were made by ensuring Congress heard no evil and were ruined by citing the national security risks inherent in falsely claiming effective cooperation."

In Scheuer's view the contemporary mandate of the FBI, with its by-the-book approach, has had a devastating impact on the battle against al-Qaida. "For the U.S. military, the law-enforcement focus of U.S. policy makers [overseas] has prevented killing enough of America's enemies, especially since Sept. 11 ... [it] also has dulled U.S. intelligence operations against al Qaeda, especially those of the CIA." Bitter politics between the agencies only heightened the problem, he says. "Based on my experience, I would say there was ill intent and negligence by senior FBI officers since major operations against bin Laden began in 1996."

Like Thomas Powers, James Bamford, Seymour Hersh and many other experts, Scheuer charges that the Bush administration has politicized intelligence to an unprecedented degree -- and done incalculable damage to national security. He points to the flood of leaks of classified information to the public: "I can say with confidence that the most damaging leaks about al Qaeda come from the FBI, the Department of Defense and the White House. A reliable rule of thumb is that the federal agencies who have done least to protect America from al Qaeda leak the most to take credit for others' work and disguise their years of failure."

At the end of his provocative, careening and at times downright sloppy polemic, Scheuer reiterates his hope that a more honest debate about America's myopic imperialism will lead to "new policies that have potential, over time, for a less confrontational and bloody relationship with Islam." That would mean addressing taboo issues like religious fundamentalism (both at home and abroad), nonnegotiable support for Israel, and U.S. leaders' blind faith in the notion of gifting American democracy to the entire globe.

He is not optimistic. For now, Scheuer believes U.S. military confrontation with Islam can only escalate. "Victory," he writes, "lies in a yet undetermined mix of stronger military actions and dramatic foreign policy change; neither will suffice alone."

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