The Unknown Known Page #8

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Yes, but he would have.

I have since gone

to the dictionary,

and I have looked up

several things,

one of which I can't

immediately recapture,

but one was "guerrilla war."

Another was "insurgency."

Another was

"unconventional war."

Pardon me?

"Quagmire"?

No, that's someone

else's business.

Quagmire's the...

I don't do quagmires.

As I looked at the dictionary,

I'm not uncomfortable

with "unconventional,"

because it is not an army,

and it is not a Navy,

and it is not an air force.

But even there,

the dictionary...

the Pentagon dictionary...

I haven't looked

in a regular dictionary.

The Pentagon dictionary does not

even land that one perfectly

on what's taking place.

The bush administration has been

on a stepped-up P.R. Campaign

to stop the erosion

of support at home

for the dangerous mission

in Iraq.

Today, an unprecedented

series of bombings

left a trail

of death and devastation.

The concern

that Iraq's reconstruction is,

in fact, falling well short

of expectations.

Today in Fallujah,

Iraqi guerrillas

used a roadside bomb to bring

an American patrol to...

Briggs accused the Rumsfeld

team of being under-prepared

for post-war conditions

on the ground and unwilling

to share decision-making

with other government agencies.

Acknowledgement

that long-simmering tensions

over Iraq and its aftermath,

particularly between

the departments of state

and defense,

have now reached full boil.

October of 2003.

I became worried

that we were having trouble

measuring progress,

and I wrote a memo called

"global war on terror."

"Are we winning or losing

the global war on terror?

Is D.O.D. Changing

fast enough to deal

with the new 21st-century

security environment?

Are the changes we have

and are making too modest

and incremental?

My impression is that

we have not yet

made truly bold moves,

although we have made many

sensible, logical moves

in the right direction."

"But are they enough," I asked.

"Today we lack metrics to know

if we are winning or losing

the global war on terror.

Are we killing or deterring

more terrorists every day

than the madrassas

and the radical clerics

are recruiting and deploying

against us?

It's pretty clear

that the coalition can win

in Afghanistan and Iraq

in one way or another,

but it will be

a long, hard slog."

It was Christmastime.

I can recall going up

to the secure phone closet.

It's in the second floor

of our house,

not too far from my bedroom.

What was in there

was a noise system

that sounded like an ocean wave.

They had scooped up some people,

low-level people,

who might have some reason

to know where he might be.

He'd been moving

around the country every day,

sleeping a different place,

moving around in taxicabs.

Also moving around

were some body doubles,

people who looked

exactly like Saddam Hussein,

indeed, had the same

distinguishing marks

on their bodies.

Some low-level individual

said that he believed

he knew where

Saddam Hussein was.

They inspected this farm

out in the middle of nowhere.

There was a trapdoor.

They opened this up.

Lo and behold, here was

this bedraggled, bearded man

down in that hole.

Saddam Hussein clearly

concluded it was all a bluff.

The United States

was a paper tiger.

They weren't gonna do anything.

The first Gulf war

left him feeling

that no one

was gonna bother him.

He was the person who prevailed.

He obviously felt

that he was a survivor.

And he was, for a while.

Someone said, "do you want

to go see Saddam Hussein,"

after he was captured.

And I said,

"no."

I said, "I would like

to talk to Tariq Aziz."

It's a complicated situation

for me.

As the number two man,

simultaneously

deputy prime minister

and foreign minister

for Saddam Hussein,

and you meet with him,

you come away

with that he is a perfectly

rational, logical individual.

I've spent hours and hours

with him.

You wonder what goes on

in a mind like that.

I would love to talk

to Tariq Aziz and figure out

what in the world

they were thinking.

What else might

the United States have done

to reach out to them

and get them

to behave rationally.

On February 6, 2003,

to Jim Haynes.

"Subject:
Detainees.

I am concerned

that the detainee issues

we were wrestling with

have not been resolved.

And as far as I can see...

...it has just

dropped into a black pit.

We have to get it figured out.

Thanks."

"January 10, 2003.

Subject:
Detainees.

I have simply got to know

when you folks

are going to be prepared

to brief the White House

on detainees.

In fact, I don't think

I'll even do it that way.

Instead, let me just say,

you should be prepared

to brief the White House..."

"Subject:
The N.S.C."

"Or the principals committee

on detainees,

including the most recent

issue that has been raised,

no later than next Tuesday."

"January 14.

I want to get briefed

on the Iraqi detainees fast.

I'm really worried about it.

Thanks."

When the pictures came,

it had an impact

that was well beyond

anything that I'd experienced.

Why do you think

the pictures did it?

What it showed was people

engaging in acts of abuse

that were disgusting

and revolting.

There were pictures

showing that prison guards

in the midnight shift

were doing things to prisoners

that didn't kill them,

that didn't create injuries

that were permanent,

but they were engaging

in sadistic things,

and there was nudity involved.

I knew that it would create

a advantage for the terrorists,

for Al-Qaeda and for the people

in the insurgency,

who were out recruiting.

They could show

that the Americans

were treating people badly.

It worked against everything

we were trying to do.

I walked in

and said to the president,

"I'm the senior person,

and I believe in accountability.

Here's my resignation."

It was in my handwriting.

I didn't want to dictate it

or have it typed up by somebody.

I felt a very strong sense

that something terrible

had happened on my watch.

He said, "don, I recognize

how you feel about this,

but that's not gonna

solve the problem."

I testified before the house,

testified before the senate,

tried to figure out

how everything happened.

When a ship runs aground,

the captain of the ship's

generally relieved.

You don't relieve

your presidents,

and I couldn't find anyone

that I thought

it would be fair and responsible

to pin the tail on.

So I sat down and wrote

a second letter of resignation,

and I still believe to this day

that I was correct

and it would have been better,

better for the administration

and the department of defense

and better for me,

if the department

could have started fresh

with someone else

in the leadership position.

So you wish

it had been accepted?

Yes.

There's a claim

that the interrogation rules

used in Guantanamo

migrated to Iraq,

where they led

to incredible abuse.

The evidence is to the contrary.

There were 12 investigations

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