A matter of survival

The author of "Imperial Hubris" says the moral cowardice and political correctness of senior intelligence officials have severely hurt the war on terrorism.

By Mary Jacoby

Jul 13, 2004 | The new book "Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terrorism" has been compared to former White House counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke's splashy bestseller, "Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror." Like Clarke, the CIA analyst who authored "Imperial Hubris" (under the nom de plume Anonymous) offers an insider's critique of the Bush administration's national security policies. But the analyst, identified in the Boston Phoenix as Michael Scheuer, head of the bin Laden desk at the CIA from 1996 to 1999, is in many ways almost the anti-Clarke.

Whereas Clarke is urbane and sophisticated, with years of experience in the White House and the Pentagon at the highest levels, Scheuer's background is more, well, blue-collar, and his perspective is that of the lower-level functionary. Unlike Clarke, who observed Bush and his team firsthand, Scheuer does not hold President Bush personally responsible for the decision to invade Iraq -- an invasion he criticizes for inflaming Muslim animosity toward the United States. In Scheuer's view, Bush was merely badly advised, and his harshest remarks are reserved for the "cowardly" intelligence bureaucracy that bows to political correctness (as Scheuer sees it) and refuses to present the unvarnished truth to policymakers.

A native of Buffalo, N.Y., Scheuer is a Republican who was the first in his family to go to college. He worked as a crane operator to put himself through school, obtaining a Ph.D. in British imperial history from the University of Manitoba in Canada. He joined the CIA in the early 1980s after answering a newspaper ad. In 1999, he was removed from the bin Laden desk for becoming, as Scheuer describes it, too "intense" about the threat from al-Qaida. He says his superiors called him "myopic" -- unable to recognize the larger picture that included diplomacy, politics and international relations. "After 3,000 dead Americans, I take that as a compliment," he says, referring to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Scheuer argues that it's nonsense to say that Osama bin Laden hates America for its freedom. He says bin Laden has laid out specific policy grievances with the United States, including our alliances with Israel and Middle Eastern authoritarian regimes, to build a popular anti-American movement. Scheuer argues that the United States cannot make progress in the war on terrorism until leaders agree to have an honest debate and confront the religious fervor that drives Islamic terrorism -- two efforts about which he is not hopeful.

Under his publication agreement with the CIA, Scheuer is not allowed to confirm his identity. A big man with wire-rimmed glasses and a gray-streaked beard, he spoke with Salon recently in the conference room of his publisher, Brassey's, in an anonymous office park near Dulles, Va.

You quote frequently from Robert E. Lee, Lincoln and Sherman in your book. People don't generally think of Civil War leaders in the context of the threat from militant Islam. Why all the references to the Civil War?

The book is designed for Americans. I am by training a historian. I tried to use analogies to indicate to Americans they should not think this is a movement that is completely foreign to their experience, or to their ideas. It's not an un-understandable problem. It stems from religion and politics and wars of liberation, although our leaders don't say that, and certainly the senior members of our intelligence community don't say that. I thought it would be helpful to an American reader to see an analogy that is at least plausible.

There's some confusion about your argument on the use of force. You say the United States must bring about a "Sherman-like razing" of the infrastructure of terrorism, which you describe as a "relentless, brutal and blood-soaked defensive military action" that must continue until "we have annihilated the Islamists who threaten us." Are you advocating such an offensive? Or are you saying that because we have failed to address this problem in the past, and because it is not likely that America will change its policies, you see no other option?

The way I would say it is that because we refuse to accept the enemy as he is -- not opposed to our democracy or our social system -- because of the unpopularity of our policies in the Muslim world, we have left ourselves only one option, and that's the military option. They never quote the last sentence of the passage, where I say we'll have to become more aggressive and that this is neither admirable nor desirable, but until we have a debate over the nature of our policies, it is our only option.

So are you advocating that we change our policies?

I'm advocating that until we decide ... I think my bottom-line position is it's not a choice of war and peace, it's a choice of war and endless war -- until we look at our policies and debate our policies. And maybe at the end of the day, the American people through their elected officials will say, "The status quo is fine. These are the policies that we want to keep." And if that's the decision, well, that's fine. Going into it, we know that we will be bleeding treasure and lives for the foreseeable future.

We don't realize that now, but that's the reality. If we don't change policies to some extent, we are bin Laden's only indispensable ally. Our policies are measures; they're visible. And certainly the scientific polling that's beginning to come out of the Middle East shows that our policies are detested by large majorities in every country polled. And at the same time, majorities have some respect for our society as an equitable society.

So you'd like to see the debate at least be waged?

That's the beginning. I was loath to put in a section of suggestions in the book. I don't think you can have a policy to win this war until you understand why the war is occurring. And that entails a debate over policies that have been more or less on autopilot for 30 years. But you're exactly right -- I'm not saying when that debate will occur.

But you're not advocating annihilation? People have picked up on that passage, and I'd like you to clarify.

What I intended to write in the book was that this is not the terrorism of the '70s or the '80s that was a lethal nuisance. It was a tragedy when an airplane got knocked down, or when that gentleman got pushed off the Achille Lauro. Those were tragedies, but they were not threats to national security. Al-Qaida, bin Laden and what they personify are a threat to national security. So we have to defend ourselves in some manner. It is a question of survival, not of anybody occupying North America.

If our goal is to preserve our way of life and live as we want, not as we have to, then we're going to have to defend ourselves. Optimally you're going to use every weapon at your command to defend yourself, not just military, not just economic, not just political. But right now, the military option is the only one on the table.

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