Black Site

May 1, 2019

Mudd (former deputy director, CIA Counterterrorist Ctr.) strives to re-create the tense and uncertain environment faced by CIA counterterrorism personnel following 9/11 in order to demonstrate the complex nature of the mission and decisions that surrounded what was termed the Program. Simply put, the Program describes the rendition, detainment, and interrogation of hundreds of al-Qaeda prisoners in secret "black sites" around the world with the purpose of extracting intelligence to prevent further terrorist attacks. Throughout, the matter-of-fact approach of CIA personnel responding to the new counterterrorism mandate is as clear as the urgency. Though some individuals had visceral reactions to the program and its techniques early on, most personnel interviewed were unapologetic and communicated the belief that they did what was necessary for the mission. Mudd begins with a glance back to the last days of the Cold War and CIA culture prior to 9/11, then follows the program through the initial response to 9/11 and its development over the years. Mudd describes some of the enhanced interrogation techniques and the surrounding controversy but also highlights CIA interest in legal authority and discipline. VERDICT Recommended as an inside look into an unsavory yet complex period of American political history.--Philip Shackelford, South Arkansas Community Coll., El Dorado

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May 15, 2019
An insider's view of life inside the CIA following 9/11, when all the old protocols were off. In theory, the CIA is above politics. In fact, writes Mudd (The HEAD Game: High-Efficiency Analytic Decision Making and the Art of Solving Complex Problems Quickly, 2016, etc.), the former deputy director of the CIA's Counterterrorist Center and the FBI's National Security Branch, the agency takes its cues from presidential directives, to say nothing of sometimes-veiled remarks by senior administration officials. After 9/11, agency leaders held that it was George W. Bush's "presidential guidance [that was] one of the pillars that later led them down the path to the Program." The Program in question was a sweeping set of reforms that provided mandates for capturing suspected al-Qaida members and other terrorists and extracting information from them in various unpleasant ways--so unpleasant that, given American sensitivities, the work was often done in "black sites" in other countries and sometimes farmed out to intelligence agents working for other governments. (At one point, he writes, the agency contemplated recruiting China for the purpose until the sensible objection arose that the Chinese might thereby have too much leverage--and something to blackmail America with.) In general, Mudd defends the Program as highly effective in gathering the information that would later lead to finding and killing Osama bin Laden, who figures prominently in these pages. There were hiccups along the way. The author writes that once the scandal of Abu Ghraib unfolded, the CIA feared that the Pentagon would expose more of its black-site operations "to deflect attention" while Bush disarmed some of the Program by ordering all al-Qaida prisoners to be sent to Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, a dismantling that Barack Obama later completed. Mudd closes with a checklist to "help clarify the interrogation thinking," from asking whether a given activity is legal to pondering whether one's mother would be ashamed on learning how a given piece of information was obtained. For students of intelligence work, a revealing and engaging account of life in the shadows.

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