Just Deeds?

Penguin

Rs 499

Pages: 379

An intelligence officers preoccupations are many,but predominant amongst them is concern about the legality of actions that he is asked to perform for his country. Mark Mazzetti deals with this dilemma in this extensively researched book,on what he claims to be the untold story of USAs secret war. Well,it is not a story that remained entirely untold before the author wrote it. Steve Coll,for instance,had touched on the early efforts to arm Predator drones with Hellfire missiles in Ghost Wars (2004). Mazzetti carries the story forward by another decade.

Basically,it is a story of how decisions are made to kill people,and how legal justifications are found for such decisions. Harold Koh,legal advisor for the US Department of State,justified the drone killings saying,Some have argued that the use of lethal force against specific individuals fails to provide adequate process and thus constitutes unlawful extrajudicial killing. But a state that is engaged in armed conflict or in legitimate self-defense is not required to provide targets with legal process before the state may use lethal force. That may offer reasonable grounds for killing enemy combatants; but what about your own nationals? This issue came to the fore when Anwar al-Awlaki and his son were killed in Yemen in 2011. Both were American citizens. In the case of the father,the Justice Departments Office of Legal Counsel determined that he had no Constitutional right to due process because he had declared war on the United States. In the case of the son,who was apparently killed by mistake in a drone strike meant for a senior terrorist,there was no such justification.

Similar legal issues repeatedly crop up in the book. The author points out that the Pentagons activities are governed by Title 10 of the United States Code which limits military operations to declared war zones. In contrast,the President can send officers of the CIA (which is governed by Title 50 of the Code) anywhere in the world. In 2005,when it was decided to launch combat operations in Pakistans tribal areas,the legal hurdle of Title 10 was overcome by placing the special operation troops under the CIA.

Mazzettis extensive research has one disadvantage the reader could lose his way sometimes in the maze of names and events. But there are compensations aplenty in the insights that he provides. One such insight throws light on the end of the celebrated friendship between Admiral Mike Mullen and General Ashfaq Kayani. Another explains how Pakistanis dealt with Shakil Afridi,the doctor who helped the CIA in the operation to locate Osama. He was convicted under Frontier Crimes Regulations to 33 years in prison,not for helping a foreign agency,but for having treated (actually under duress) terrorists belonging to an outlawed group in FATA. Clever move to fix someone who had come to adverse notice for helping CIA capture Osama,but such legal acumen is unlikely to be displayed in the case of Hafiz Mohammed Saeed,the cleric against whom Pakistani investigators cannot find any evidence!

Mazzetti tells the fascinating story of how the CIA managed to overcome its demotion consequent to the appointment of a Director of National Intelligence (DNI) in 2005 to oversee its work. The tenure of Dennis Blair as DNI was cut short in April 2010 after he criticised the CIAs covert action campaign. Later,in June 2011,Leon Panetta,then CIA chief,shouted down the then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at a Washington meeting to sort out the turf war between the Ambassador and the CIA station chief in Islamabad as to who was in charge of the drone war in Pakistan. Obama backed the CIA.

The other narrative which runs through the book is the turf war between the CIA and the Pentagon. Mazzetti concludes that the American military runs its own espionage networks today in various parts of the world,while the CIA runs combat operations using special forces and drones,in a reversal of roles. It is also Mazzettis case that the CIA has made itself indispensable to the President by means of its successful,covert combat operations rather than its ability to collect and analyse intelligence. He says that the CIA completely missed the Arab Spring phenomenon and the death of North Korean dictator Kim Il Jong.

The preponderance of private players taking advantage of the turf war between defence services and intelligence agencies is mind-boggling. Most of these private players were former CIA operatives like Duane Clarridge or former Special Forces officers like Raymond Davies,but some rank amateurs were also playing prominent roles in the war against terrorism,often with disastrous results. However,outsourcing of intelligence work seems to have come to stay despite the Blackwater and Raymond Davies fiascos. Part of the reason could be the reluctance of Intelligence officers to dirty their own hands notwithstanding the availability of legal protection,having seen how some of their colleagues fell by the wayside despite assurances of Presidential support.

Mazzetti says he has drawn mostly on open source material and declassified government documents. It is in this area of declassification of documents that scholars in the US seem to have an immense advantage over researchers in India. I find that the author has relied on some documents,including State Department cables dated September 12,2001,which were declassified and released exactly 10 years later by the National Security Archives. The result is an informative and perceptive book which is a valuable addition to the library of those wishing to learn lessons from contemporary history.

Hormis Tharakan is a former chief of the Research and Analysis Wing