Geoff: The CIA and the defense
department are two of the U.S.
Government's largest agencies,
which run both secret
paramilitary and military
operations around the world.
Amna has this conversation now
with the author of a new memoir,
who has played key roles in both
agencies.
Amna: Since the 1980's, the
United States has carried out a
number of large scale covert
military operations aimed at the
soviet union, Al Qaeda, and
Osama bin laden.
Iran and North Korea, just to
name a few.
A lot has been written about all
of this, but now one man who
played a key role in part of
those operations has stepped out
of the shadows to share his
story in a new book called "By
all means, available memoirs of
a life in intelligence, special
operations and strategy."
That author Michael Vickers
joins me here now.
It was in 1984 that you got your
first permanent assignment at
the CIA.
They were fighting the soviets
who had invaded in 19 79.
You came in and essentially
changed the entire CIA program.
Tell us about that.
What did you do?
Michael: The program had
received a large increase in
funding, quadrupling the budget
from congress, particularly led
by Charlie Wilson.
A movie has been made after that
story and his role.
I thought there were a lot of
possibilities with these greatly
increased resources.
The CIA had not asked for it but
it was just given to them.
And then I thought maybe we
could do more than just impose
costs on the soviets for their
occupation of Afghanistan.
Our analysts believed there is
no way the resistance could
begin in the red army had been
defeated.
Someone's letter, I came up with
a plan to do it that then got
implemented.
Geoff: This was all it -- this
was all about beating the
soviets.
Michael: President Reagan signed
a directive to beat the soviets
to drive them out of Afghanistan
by all means available and hence
that is where the title of the
book comes.
Amna: We now know how that U.S.
Support for the Afghan mujahedin
at the time that to other
consequences, to the empowerment
of other islamic extremists and
contributed to the birth of Al
Qaeda and ultimately attacked
the U.S. On 9/11.
He wrote about this, about the
hind sight in the book.
We missed strategic significance
of the Afghan Arabs, the
volunteers who would form Al
Qaeda and we did not just debate
how the defeat of one superpower
would motivate Al Qaeda to wage
a global war against the sole
remaining superpower or the U.S.
If you could go back and do
something differently, would you
have changed how you run the
program all those years ago?
Amna: No -- Michael: No, I don't
think so.
Amna: You were arming some of
the most extreme militants?
Michael: It was divided between
more fundamentalist groups and
more traditionalists, royalists,
secular.
And some of the fundamentalist
groups did make common cause
with the Taliban after 1996 and
we became their enemies and they
became ours.
I do not think -- I don't think
we would have done anything
differently in terms of the
soviet war.
Amna: You left the CIA after the
soviets withdrew from
Afghanistan and you joined the
George W. Bush administration,
working on special operations
one of your main areas of focus
were drone strikes that were
ramping up at the time.
And there was a period of time
in which I personally I was on
the ground, as I mentioned to
you earlier, in the part of the
world where the U.S. Was
dropping more drones and drone
strikes than anywhere else in
the Pakistan and Afghanistan
border region.
And I saw the buildup of
anti-american sentiment at the
time as a result of those
strikes. Were those strikes
worth it in the end?
Michael: Yes, I think they
really helped prevent another
9/11 attack.
You know, after Al qaida
resettled in the
afghanistan-pakistan border
region, the threat to the united
States went way up.
And so we had the transatlantic
airline plot to blow up ten
airliners over the atlantic, you
know, a 9/11 scale attack that
might have killed several
thousand people in 2006. And so
president bush made the decision
to launch a new campaign in 2008
to really start using these
these weapons, these drone
strikes against Al Qaeda and its
safe haven providers and the
border region.
And president Obama sustained
it.
And within about four years of
that core, Al qaida's back was
essentially broken in that
region.
And its ability to plot more was
limited.
And from polling I remember at
the time, the closer the closer
you were to the militants, where
you were being bullied by them
or other things, the more the
local populace supported it, the
further you were away.
-- The further you were away, it
looked like a violation of
Pakistani sovereignty.
So people in the so-called
settled areas of Pakistan had
much stronger feelings against
these things than those right in
the border region.
Amna: Many of those strikes were
carried out against people who
we did not know who they were.
Their identities weren't known
until after they were killed.
In some cases, the signature
strikes in which people were
being targeted simply based on
on signature behavioral aspects
or location, and we also know a
number of civilians were killed
along the way, too.
There were mistakes.
Women and children killed.
A U.S. Citizen, Warren
Weinstein, who was held hostage
in the area, was killed.
Do we get know the full cost in
terms of civilians and people
who shouldn't have been killed
as a result of U.S. Actions?
Michael: Well, I think we have a
pretty good idea.
I mean, one of the decisions
president Obama made late in his
administration was to release
the best data that we had in the
U.S. Intelligence about the
number of non-combatant or
civilian casualties, but that
number was pretty small.
It was in the 60 to 100.
Amna: You are saying 60 to 100
civilians killed?
Michael: Yeah, out of about 3000
combatants.
Amna: The bureau of
investigative journalism that
tracks that says that the
civilian casualties could be
upwards of 1700 people.
Michael: Yeah, I don't think
that's right. I ion't think the
U.S. Government believes that
either.
Amna: You mentioned another
major operation. You were a part
of, which was the U.S. Operation
to kill Osama bin laden in after
by Pakistan in 2011. And that
option, that nighttime special
forces raid was really the most
risky of all the options on the
table at the time is my
understanding.
You were in meetings with
president Obama and the CIA had
the secretaries of defense and
state.
How was that option chosen?
Michael: So the options
operationally ranged from air
strikes, big bomber strike to
small drone strike, and then
various kinds of raids.
And some were rejected like a
big bomber strike would have
caused collateral damage.
You know, not only would have
killed women and children in the
house with Osama bin laden, but
neighbors as well.
And so that one got rejected
pretty quickly.
A small drone strike option
didn't have much reliability to
it.
It would only work when bin
laden was walking around for
exercise and a very small bomb
might not might have missed
might have injured him, and then
he would have fled.
So president Obama settled on
the seal raid that we ended up
one version of a special
operations raid, but the one we
ended up conducting and that was
the best option.
It had its risky elements, but
we tried to reduce the risk as
much as we could by adding
additional helicopters,
reinforcing forces, etc., to
make sure the force could get in
and out.
And so with the special
operations raid, if we got him
and got his DNA, we would be
able to convincingly tell the
world if we had done an
airstrike, we wouldn't have.
Amna: The book is "By all means
available, memoirs of a life and
intelligence special operations
and strategy."
Michael Vickers, thank you so
much for being here.
Michael: Pleasure to be with