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Inside the CIA: Secrets and Spies - Season 1 - Episode 04: Mark Kelton
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00:10CIA's business is all about understanding threats and taking risk.
00:16Our mission is a secret one.
00:19Of course, there are ramifications for exposing people that are undercover.
00:24The press said, we're going to publish your name,
00:27and the fact that you were allegedly poisoned.
00:31It certainly was the most tightly compartmented operation in the history of the United States.
00:37The first thing the Pakistanis did was scramble their jets to shoot down our helicopters.
00:41The experience told me that some things would not go according to plan,
00:45because there is always some aspect of it that goes wrong.
00:53American citizen has been handed to police one day after he shot dead two people in Lahore.
00:58Facing a possible death sentence,
01:00this was jeopardizing the most important CIA operation that had been planned in years.
01:06When he returned, he didn't look like someone who was going to survive.
01:26There are no coincidences in espionage.
01:31I had a one-year assignment in Pakistan, so I arrived in January 2011.
01:35But by the second week of June, I was pretty sick.
01:40Went back to Washington, went to a doctor.
01:44They couldn't figure out what was going on.
01:47Went back to Pakistan, and ultimately, very quickly, within a couple of days, I couldn't function anymore.
01:54His health had dramatically declined.
01:57He had lost an extraordinary amount of weight in a very short amount of time.
02:01You have to react to situations, and there are always situations that come up.
02:07I never saw an operation in my career that went wholly as planned.
02:13Never.
02:19My name is Mark Kelton, and I was chief of station Islamabad, Pakistan.
02:25The opportunity to come to Islamabad came out of the blue.
02:30The job of COS Islamabad, it's a massive job.
02:33When he was first selected to be our senior officer in Pakistan,
02:37a few different things going through my mind, and maybe some people could be surprised.
02:42I was happy.
02:43Happy for him, happy for the organization,
02:46because I knew what he would bring to that mission.
02:50I'm Jennifer Yubeng.
02:52I was deputy director of the CIA for digital innovation.
02:56Most of my career has been in Asia, Europe, and Eastern Europe.
03:01Mark Kelton also happens to be my husband.
03:04To foreign partners, Mark can be your best, strongest partner and supporter when our interests align,
03:10and probably your most formidable adversary if your interests are not aligned.
03:17He is a man of extraordinarily deep integrity.
03:21He's got kind of a limitless reserve of strength and determination.
03:26And now that can look like stubbornness at times to some people.
03:32But it's also resilience.
03:34I had no idea that Mark would be part of one of the most secretive missions that CIA have ever
03:40pursued.
03:42So I went to our counterterrorism center, got a briefing.
03:45The mission there, as described by the director, was A, attacking al-Qaeda, degrading al-Qaeda.
03:51B, was to work with the local intelligence service counterparts, the ISI, on that mission.
03:57And the last thing, which became the main mission, was this compound in Abbottabad.
04:04It was clear to me that the compound itself indicated that it had been built and was being used to
04:10hide something or someone.
04:15Well, there was an urgency to get out there because the people in the field needed leadership.
04:21The highest-ranking American spy in Pakistan was rushed back to the U.S. today after his cover was blown.
04:27The identity of the CIA station chief was revealed in a lawsuit accusing him of orchestrating drone missile strikes that
04:35killed Pakistani civilians.
04:37There was a concern of an increased threat against the previous COS.
04:42Being publicly known as the chief of station and the media is not a way to operate.
04:47My name is Pat Winninger.
04:49From the 2010 to 2011 time frame, I served as the chief of base in the CIA in South Asia.
04:55No matter where you work as the chief of station, normally the host nation knows who you are.
05:01But it's not something we talk about publicly, ever.
05:05That led to Mark's early arrival in January of 2011.
05:09Director Panetta, in fact, his words were, get your butt out there, but he didn't use butt.
05:17It was a very difficult operating environment from a counter-terrorist perspective.
05:24I hadn't served in Pakistan before.
05:26I didn't speak the language, which is always uncomfortable.
05:31Pakistan is a dangerous place to operate in.
05:34Americans identified as Americans are at risk.
05:36You've seen kidnappings.
05:37You've seen killings.
05:38Dating back to Daniel Pearl.
05:40There were bombings there.
05:42Marriott Hotel bombing, 2008.
05:45Newsweek magazine, on the cover of it in 2007, said Pakistan was the most dangerous nation in the world.
05:54The security detail accompanied me everywhere I went, around town.
05:57I did not leave the embassy as frequently as I normally would have.
06:03Really, the job is just all about risk, managing risk.
06:06And so that's a natural part of your everyday life.
06:09I was always conscious of the fact that if I was going to go out, it had to be for
06:12a good reason.
06:14Because it is a risky environment, and I'm responsible for the people that were protecting me as well.
06:20And that became more important as time went on.
06:26Fire!
06:28At the time, of course, the United States was involved in Afghanistan, and the Taliban and the extremists would use
06:35bases and staging areas in Pakistan to attack into Afghanistan.
06:41Many times, along the border of Pakistan, loyalty wasn't to the United States, and it wasn't to the Pakistani government.
06:48It was to the Taliban.
06:51I'm Mike Brogers, former chairman of the House Select Committee on Intelligence.
06:56Pakistan was helpful in the war on terror.
06:58They understood that that lion could bite them as well as it could be biting your neighbor.
07:04We knew that a large number of al-Qaeda operatives were located there.
07:09So they understood that they, the Pakistanis, wanted to help us in the fight in terrorism.
07:15Yes, they were with us, but yes, that had some constraints.
07:19It's the first time I heard the term frenemy.
07:23Complicated is another way I'd put it.
07:25But at the same time, they're also trying to monitor and identify who the CIA officers are and what they're
07:30doing unilaterally in their country.
07:32You combine that with the political instability in that region, it makes for a very challenging and high-threat environment
07:41to operate.
07:43Capturing or killing bin Laden remains a high priority of this administration.
07:48Part of what's happened is, is bin Laden has gone deep underground.
07:51But we have the best minds, the best intelligence officers, the best special forces who are thinking about this day
08:02and night.
08:07Prior to my arrival, the compound had been under surveillance for about nine or ten months.
08:12It was 2010 when it was identified.
08:16Abbottabad was effectively the home of the West Point of Pakistan.
08:20We had to be very, very careful about getting near the compound because the last thing we wanted to do
08:25was spook the people that were in the compound.
08:30There were a number of things that were apparent.
08:32A, that the compound itself was a significant operational challenge.
08:37Twelve-foot walls, balconies that you couldn't see into laterally.
08:41If you looked down the driveway, you couldn't see left or right into the courtyards.
08:46The compound itself was massively large compared to the areas around it.
08:51And we had to be very careful as to who was exposed to it.
08:55Within CIA, there is what we call compartmentation, where we take particularly sensitive activities and allow people insight into them
09:04based on their need to know.
09:05In this case, the knowledge of the compound was highly restricted.
09:10Pakistan's intelligence service, the ISI, was not included.
09:14That was a decision taken by the president himself and keeping it within the tightest possible circle.
09:19The great concern was that it would leak somehow.
09:22I've been involved in a lot of tightly compartmented operations, but it certainly was, given the stakes, the most important
09:29of those operations.
09:32Operational planning is something that we do a lot of and try to take account of every possible problem that's
09:38out there.
09:39But invariably, things happen.
09:55Mark Hilton arrived in country at the end of January, two days later, while he happened to be in meetings
10:02with senior Pakistani government officials.
10:04According to published reports, two men on a motorcycle tried to rob a U.S. government security contractor at gunpoint.
10:18The U.S. says it was self-defense.
10:21A local police called it cold-blooded murder.
10:24Imagine that you show up in country your second day to present your credentials to your host nation counterparts in
10:31an event like this happens.
10:33And the U.S. security contractor, he defended himself.
10:54I can't say it was a surprise because Pakistan is a dangerous place.
10:58And I don't see that he could have taken any other action.
11:01American citizen Raymond Davis has been handed to police on six-day physical remand one day after he shot dead
11:07two people in Lahore.
11:08He was arrested and charged with two counts of murder and illegal possession of a weapon.
11:14Facing a possible death sentence, Raymond Davis has been catapulted from an obscure job at the American embassy in Pakistan
11:21to the center of a diplomatic meltdown with a critical ally.
11:25There was a perception that the U.S. security contractor was a former special forces Rambo type operating and abated
11:34within Pakistan.
11:36There was anger within the Pakistani government.
11:40And there was a tremendous amount of anger with the Pakistani populace.
11:46It's going to be, as one of my Pakistani sources said, like an atomic bomb.
11:56Not just for the Americans, but for the Pakistanis.
11:59So the threat was even more significant for not only the security contractor that was illegally being held, but those
12:05U.S. government officials operating in that region.
12:08It doesn't really matter whether he was a diplomat or not.
12:10A murderer is a murderer and a murderer is a murderer.
12:14So you had an already high threat environment where U.S. government officials were operating, and you just poured gasoline
12:22and lit a match.
12:27I would argue it takes a special kind of officer to operate within Pakistan.
12:31One who understands what they're walking into first.
12:34Second, somebody who understands tradecraft, has good judgment, and more importantly, has courage.
12:39I remember in 2010, I met with one of my superiors in Washington.
12:44He said, bad things are going to happen.
12:47You better be prepared.
12:50You're in command.
12:51You don't get to be in command for the good things only.
12:53You're also in command for the bad things.
12:55And particularly when the bad things happen, that's when leadership is needed.
13:01Mark was the right person for that role at the right time.
13:04He is, in my opinion, you know, the finest officer of his generation.
13:07Because of the breadth of his experience.
13:10I grew up in New Hampshire.
13:11My parents never went to college.
13:14Working class family.
13:15My dad was an airborne black hat paratrooper.
13:18So service of country was in my family.
13:21He has a deep sense of duty and responsibility to a country that he cherishes.
13:28Even as a young boy, he asked to go off to military academy because he wanted to serve.
13:33After I came out of grad school, I was hired by CIA as a Soviet military analyst.
13:37I had never been outside the United States.
13:39Never.
13:40I was a Reagan baby going in to fight the Soviet Union.
13:43We're talking 1981-82 here.
13:46At that time, Soviet operations was the holiest of holies.
13:49It was the center of operations against the evil empire.
13:53When you're a young officer, of course, you're out there trying to cut your teeth to make an impression early
13:58on.
13:58It was also scary.
14:00It's not physical fear so much.
14:02It's fear of making a mistake that's going to jeopardize someone else.
14:06It's nerve-wracking.
14:08So managing that fear was something that I had to learn.
14:11Once it happened, I had confidence in myself to deal with any of the challenges that would confront me.
14:20By the time I got to Pakistan, I was a very experienced officer.
14:30Pakistani police say an American diplomat carried out an intentional and cold-blooded murder.
14:36A judge ordered that Raymond Davis remain in custody for at least another two weeks.
14:40Normally, when a person with diplomatic status is arrested by a local government,
14:46the embassy is called, the ambassador will come and get them out back in the charge of the United States.
14:51That did not happen here.
14:53And that this seems to be shaping up as a battle between the CIA and the ISI, the Pakistani Secret
14:59Service.
14:59This is a proxy war.
15:00He was, in fact, charged with murder.
15:03Raymond Davis is interrogated by the Lahore police.
15:06He's got a story and he's sticking to it.
15:08My name is Mark Mazzetti.
15:10I'm a correspondent for The New York Times focused on national security, foreign affairs, intelligence.
15:16The Pakistani government isn't quite buying it.
15:19I need to tell the embassy where I'm at.
15:20I need to tell you.
15:22You're from America?
15:23Yes.
15:24And you're from American embassy?
15:25Yes.
15:26I just work as a consultant there.
15:29And the U.S. government's position is pretty clear.
15:32If our diplomats are in another country, then they are not subject to that country's local prosecution.
15:41The Pakistanis said, well, you know, we don't think he's actually a diplomat.
15:46We think he's a spy.
15:48The court has arrived to the conclusion in our past order that he doesn't enjoy immunity.
15:52He has to face trial before this court.
15:54That in itself is a major diplomatic meltdown in a country that was still essential for the United States.
16:01Beyond the demonstrations that were happening outside and the danger that they created for people working in the consulate or
16:09in the embassy,
16:10the fact that he was detained in an area that was beyond the reach of the United States,
16:15there was always worry that what might happen to him in jail.
16:17There was great concern for his safety.
16:22At the same time, we were trying to find HVT1, high-value target 1, which, of course, was thin lot.
16:29The pressure grew to get greater specificity as to who was inside the compound.
16:34We reviewed a piece of surveillance that showed a person we called the PACER walking in the compound in the
16:42area behind the main building.
16:45And that person was the focus.
16:47Who is that person?
16:49Another senior terrorist leader, an important Gulf Arab hiding for other reasons.
16:55Director Panetta met me and said, we've got to find other ways to get a look into this compound.
17:00So we undertook activities that allowed us, ultimately, to identify the sexes, ethnicities, nationalities of everybody in that compound, except
17:12one.
17:13I'm not going to tell you how we did that, but we did that.
17:16And when you looked at those sexes, ages, ethnicities, it matched exactly Bin Laden's family and the families of the
17:24couriers,
17:25which gave me a good degree of confidence.
17:28I'm 95% sure it's Bin Laden.
17:32The concern was is that circle of knowledge would expand.
17:37And that knowledge could leak, hence the need to reach a decision as quickly as possible on what we were
17:44going to do.
17:46The problem was, of course, the embassy security contractor, he's sitting in a jail.
17:53We got to get him released because we couldn't go forward with the operation out of fear of his security.
17:59Depending on how the raid came out, the extremists could take action against him, bring him in direct physical threat.
18:08This was possibly jeopardizing the most important CIA operation that had been planned in years.
18:15So it was an imperative to get him out.
18:23Al-Qaeda is not a forgiving organization.
18:26So we were concerned that even the security contractor was in Pakistani detention.
18:32We'd seen incidents before where Pakistani police or others had worked in conjunction with the extremist groups,
18:40and that could have put him at direct risk.
18:43The U.S. negotiates for him to be basically in a wing, effectively by himself,
18:49where the guards were not heavily armed because there was a suspicion an accident might happen
18:55and a guard might shoot him trying to escape or something like that.
18:59And then another provision that was built in was because they were worried about actually him being poisoned,
19:05they negotiated for dogs to taste his food.
19:09So it was a very tenuous and difficult time and probably an all-time low in the relationship
19:17between the United States government and Pakistan.
19:24While this is happening, in the backdrop, you have the planning of the bin Laden raid,
19:30and Mark is leading both those efforts.
19:33During my time working against Russia, the risks were very high.
19:37If you failed, the person that suffered was not only you, but the person you were responsible for.
19:42What you learn is, of course, a tremendous number of hours went into each operational activity.
19:50Like Eisenhower said, plans are useless, planning is everything.
19:53Constant planning for all possible contingencies, things that could happen.
19:59This is a highly risky and uncertain business.
20:02Things do tend to go wrong.
20:03You rely on your training, you rely on your experience.
20:06You judge the situation and assess it in the moment and then execute.
20:13In planning for the raid, remember that you're conducting an operation inside a foreign country without that country's knowledge.
20:20There could be resistance on the site and there could be casualties.
20:24So, these were all the factors that weighed heavily on decision-makers in Washington.
20:29Ultimately, the SEALs were selected because they had access to aircraft and the ability to bring to bear all of
20:34the capabilities of the United States military.
20:39One of those unforgettable days, I was standing in my kitchen talking to my wife.
20:43The phone rang.
20:44The voice on the other end of the line said,
20:46Hey, Dave, you and the boss got to get to CIA headquarters.
20:49Something is up.
20:50My name is Dave Cooper.
20:51At the time, I was the command master chief of the Naval Special Warfare Development Group.
20:56Our relationship with the CIA depends on the day.
20:58When the CIA called, it was usually a political hostage, a nuclear threat, some kind of counterterrorism operation.
21:06The training for this particular operation was done on a mock-up of the compound that was built by CIA
21:12based on our intelligence gathering.
21:14We built them a model that they could practice on.
21:17I'm John Pereira.
21:18I served in CIA for 31 years.
21:21I was the deputy director of CIA for support, and I was in that role prior to and during the
21:27bin Laden raid.
21:27We were responsible for making sure the people are ready, they're in place, they have what they need.
21:34But the facility itself had to be protected from any visibility.
21:40Meaning that we didn't want adversary countries to know that we were planning for an operation against a compound that
21:46looked like the bin Laden compound.
21:48So we did it in a remote location.
21:51We had to have this as protected as we could possibly get it.
21:54The folks that do cyber security, they know a great deal about the satellites that our adversaries have.
22:01They could track those satellites through the sky.
22:03So when those satellites came overhead, we simply took a break.
22:06You know, we went inside.
22:12There were things that we couldn't confirm.
22:15And going into that day, of course, those are all the ones that you're worried about.
22:18We don't know what the inside looks like.
22:20We know what the outside looks like.
22:21What we were able to build is something that had some modularity to it.
22:25We could reconfigure it so they could train on different scenarios once they got inside.
22:29Staircase here, windows there.
22:31And that's typical of, you know, what we call shoot houses, right?
22:34They are modular, so you can just mix it up for the guys.
22:38At some point, there are going to be stairs right in front of them.
22:40The next time they come in, that's going to be a hallway.
22:43And the stairs will be over to the left.
22:45On at least one occasion, they're going to go up a stairway that doesn't go anywhere.
22:48They would take out a door, go through.
22:50We would rebuild that door.
22:51So we don't want it to be routine, right?
22:53Keep the guys sharp.
22:54Keep them thinking.
22:55Keep them on their toes, so to speak.
22:59Then we come together to talk about how we're actually going to do the full mission profiles
23:03and working out contingencies.
23:06And the mindset is we don't prepare against surprise.
23:08We prepare to be surprised.
23:10What will cause us to fail?
23:13I had known that something was brewing.
23:15Not from work.
23:17But I just knew that for a period of weeks, he was unavailable.
23:20Sleep was at a premium.
23:22Most nights, three, four hours of sleep, maybe.
23:27It was an exhausting period.
23:33In public, you know, it's looking like Raymond Davis is going to stand trial.
23:38While the U.S. and Pakistan are secretly negotiating what to do.
23:42The embassy was able to work with Pakistani authorities.
23:45Led by an effort by the consul general in Lahore, Carmela Conroy.
23:49She used to meet with him every day to ensure his safety.
23:55She really had a critical role in leading the U.S. government charge, both locally and with
24:02the embassy, to help resolve this.
24:06Raymond Davis was released after Pakistan paid $2.3 million in so-called blood money to the
24:12families of the two men he shot and killed.
24:15Under Sharia law, the families of the victims have to forgive the perpetrator of the crime,
24:22and they're paid money for it.
24:25Davis has no idea what's going on.
24:27He doesn't speak Urdu.
24:28And he's basically spirited out of the court, thrown into a car, driven to the airport,
24:34where a plane was waiting to basically get him out of Pakistan.
24:38And only then does he realize that, you know, he's now a free man.
24:42This was a very difficult time, and I think Mark's leadership was critical in getting us
24:46through that.
24:49People ask me what a day in the life is like as an intelligence officer.
24:53Each day is different.
24:54Different challenges, different threats, lots of early mornings, lots of late nights,
24:57lots of weekends, lots of time away from home.
25:01We don't have places anywhere in the world where two senior officers could work together.
25:04So we've done six years of separated deployments, and that presents its own challenges to a couple,
25:10to a family.
25:12So his middle of the night, I just knew that he was away.
25:16And so I had started piecing together what I thought could be going on without any real knowledge.
25:28There were several options considered for the date, but we settled ultimately on May 1st, U.S. time.
25:35May 2nd, it's 12.30 a.m., was Pakistan time.
25:40The run-up to the raid, of course, there was nerves.
25:43Nervous anticipation.
25:44What if the U.S. government launched an operation into Pakistan and come up dry?
25:49What if it was a leak and bin Laden, or whoever was there, escaped?
25:54What if, what if, what if?
25:57We flew out to Afghanistan, got set up and ready to go with communications and everybody in place,
26:03helicopters in place.
26:06I was in my office with the officer from SEALs, as well as the ambassador,
26:11and several other officers from my station.
26:14We were watching on live video feed the target.
26:18The audio was provided by Admiral McRaven, who was listening to the tactical radio net of the SEALs.
26:26We see the first helicopter come over the target and then slowly slide off the target.
26:33When the helicopter went down, it was sort of a gasp.
26:35You know, there were some people in the operations center that jumped up.
26:40They said, hey, they've trained for this, let them deal with it.
26:43We did a controlled crash and the SEALs all got out and they did what they were trained to do,
26:48and they did it perfectly.
26:51The other thing we were worried about, of course, was the reaction of people around.
26:54This was in the middle of a town.
26:56Very shortly after the helicopter crashes, you have the curious onlookers starting to come out of their houses.
27:02What were the civilians going to do in this middle-class town when they started hearing helicopters and gunfire in
27:08the middle of the night?
27:08What were the police going to do?
27:10What was the military response going to be?
27:13We really didn't have an answer to any of those questions.
27:16There are so many ways for this mission to go wrong.
27:20We are invading a sovereign nation, generally frowned upon.
27:25Our relationship with Pakistan was already on the rocks.
27:28But now imagine if we start killing innocent men, women, and even possibly children, how that will look.
27:35We had a sense that there was a stir happening when the helicopters came in.
27:40We didn't want any innocents to get hurt in this.
27:43And so on the night the SEALs went in, they had their interpreter dressed up as a Pakistani ISI agent.
27:49Everybody in Pakistan knows what ISI is, their version of the FBI and the CIA.
27:56Who, when those people started pouring out of their houses to see what the ruckus was,
28:00he was there with a bullhorn essentially saying, ISI, go back inside your houses.
28:05And they all went back inside their houses and they didn't call the police.
28:09So that very creative bit of problem solving took two huge problems right off the table.
28:16We did not encounter any civilians whatsoever.
28:20And no police showed up.
28:26We have video feed until they went into the main building.
28:29So all we're hearing at that point is the relay of the tactical communications.
28:34McRaven was walking us through as they went on.
28:40And there was a period of quiet.
28:42It felt to me like five or six hours.
28:45I think it was 10 minutes.
28:47It was less than 10 minutes.
28:49It might have been less than five.
28:51Several minutes later we heard Geronimo.
28:54Geronimo.
28:55Geronimo came pretty quickly.
28:57Which of course was the designator for bin Laden.
29:05I can't tell you what that felt like.
29:07I mean, I liken it to the world just changed.
29:14We celebrated.
29:16I cheered that.
29:17I mean, I, you know, normally one wouldn't cheer the death of another man, but this guy
29:21richly deserved it.
29:22I can tell you that the dozen or so people inside of that joint operations center erupted.
29:30Closure, joy, elation.
29:33I mean, this chapter is over.
29:37You know, if you go back and you remember how you felt on September 12th.
29:48For me, personally speaking, there was no greater moment, I think, in my career and the career
29:54of many officers who contributed to it when he was removed from the battlefield.
30:07But that's quick.
30:08That elation doesn't last very long because now we've got to get folks out.
30:16Let's get everybody out safely and then let's deal with the consequences.
30:20The breachers went out and began to essentially rig that helicopter to blow.
30:25We watched all of that.
30:26But, you know, the concerns then, of course, didn't stop then.
30:28The first thing the Pakistanis did was scramble their jets to shoot down our helicopters.
30:34That was the only time that I was remotely nervous.
30:38You have to do a time distance problem, right?
30:40The boys leave Abad Abad doing 150 miles an hour in their helicopter.
30:44Forty minutes later, the two Pakistanis leave going 1,000 miles an hour in their jets.
30:48How long until they shoot the boys out of the sky?
30:51We never answered that question.
30:53Thankfully, the jets went the wrong way.
30:55Literally went the wrong way.
30:58And the guy flew back to the base in Afghanistan.
31:01A puzzle had been worked on for a long time by a lot of extraordinary people.
31:05And extraordinary resources had been thrown at this objective for years.
31:11And, you know, I'm biased because I share a life with this officer, this person.
31:16But I felt like he brought that extra piece to the puzzle.
31:19And so I was very proud.
31:24This was Pakistan's fight back.
31:26A senior military and intelligence team took over the compound and sealed all roads leading to it.
31:32They're closing down, putting up the defenses, and going on the offensive.
31:37Of course, we had worried about Pakistani reaction.
31:40And there was already a plan in place to call senior officials in Pakistan and talk to them.
31:46I've been doing this work for a long time.
31:47And I know that the elimination of the leader of al-Qaeda does not eliminate the terrorist threat to the
31:53United States.
31:53It was maybe one chapter of a book.
31:57Some of the contingencies that we had to work through is the level of security for Americans in that area.
32:05Are we prepared to handle what might be a backlash?
32:09And naturally, one would be concerned about senior officers involved in that effort being publicly identified.
32:16We knew that there would be risks there.
32:18Do we have the right security levels there?
32:20Do we have the right tripwires there?
32:21Can we tell if there's an action about to be taken?
32:24Do we have any intelligence on specific retribution that they might be planning?
32:30There was great concern.
32:32It's a prideful country.
32:33They're proud and they're protecting their own sovereignty.
32:35We demand of America to treat us as a sovereign nation, not to treat us as a colony of theirs.
32:43And we tried to the degree that we could to mitigate that by talking about the fact that
32:47bin Laden was a common enemy, enemy of both our countries.
32:51You know, according to published reports, the host nation was humiliated.
32:56And they were furious with Mark.
33:00I don't think that I personalized it or, you know, thought about me.
33:04I would argue post-raid, if the senior officer on site was known to our adversaries,
33:12that officer would have had a target on their back.
33:24After the raid, I thought every American potentially had a target on his back.
33:29I feel Al-Qaeda reacted, certainly.
33:32There was a lot of animosity toward the United States in the wake of the raid.
33:37But it became pretty clear pretty early on that the reaction was more personal, directed at me.
33:44I wasn't the most popular man in the world after the operation.
33:48Mark was the senior CIA officer on the ground.
33:52The environment, as you might imagine, would have been very tense.
33:55They were upset that we had violated their sovereignty.
34:00But I was there to do a job, and I hope, you know, that they recognize that.
34:04But if a personal relationship with the people you're working with is a problem,
34:09that they feel trust has been violated, then sometimes it's easier to remove the cause of the problem.
34:18By first week, second week of June, I was pretty sick.
34:24The symptoms weren't normal.
34:26I spoke with Mark on the phone a few times about it.
34:29It was clear that something was off.
34:31Very quickly, within a couple of days, I couldn't function anymore.
34:35By that time, pain was a real issue.
34:38His health had dramatically declined precipitously, I would say.
34:46He had lost an extraordinary amount of weight in a very short amount of time,
34:49in a way that seems medically impossible.
34:53I'm not going to get too much into the nature of the symptoms,
34:56but just to say it was extremely painful.
34:58And as they developed, they got worse.
35:00His condition was unusual in its rapid development and unusual in its symptomology.
35:09In my opinion, I'm not a doctor.
35:11It happened in the middle of the night.
35:12I just reached the point where I was close to collapse.
35:15I wasn't doing any good for myself, but more importantly,
35:18I wasn't doing any good for the people that were there.
35:23It's definitely stressful, right, trying to figure out what's going on.
35:27When you get to the point you're not able to function,
35:29then there was only one choice.
35:32And as you might imagine, if you were the senior CIA officer in Pakistan
35:37and had a role in the hunt for Osama bin Laden,
35:40in a country where people were not happy about that,
35:43you wouldn't seek medical care there.
35:53If I recall correctly, he wasn't all that eager about leaving post, but it was time.
36:01It's almost unfathomable, the sense of commitment and duty that he feels.
36:07It was terrible.
36:09It felt like abandoning my post.
36:10I wanted to be part of trying to fix the problem to get things better with Pakistan,
36:15and that was just not possible.
36:18It was some tough love and strong encouragement on the part of a security team that basically said,
36:24sir, we're getting you out of here.
36:26And at that point, he was candidly in such bad shape that he just said, fine.
36:31An indicator of Mark's leadership he was leading and making decisions
36:35and giving guidance right up to the last moment before he departed.
36:39It just tells you something about what a promise and a commitment means to him.
36:44It's somehow woven into the very fiber of his being.
36:47I mean, you cannot separate that from him.
36:51When I came back, my wife was obviously very worried about my condition.
36:54I had lost 40 pounds, you know, and was in great pain.
36:57And so we did a lot of doctor's appointments, but she was always there to help me, you know,
37:02and there was concern about what was going on.
37:05He had really lost kind of all color when I did see him when he returned.
37:10Candidly, he didn't look like someone who was going to survive.
37:15I worried more at that stage about the impact on my family and others.
37:19There was a period of uncertainty coming back as to whether I'd be able to continue a career and all
37:23of that.
37:23It was pretty sick.
37:24But, you know, I had good doctors, and, you know, we've been able to manage it.
37:35I retired in 2015.
37:38A Russian intelligence officer once told me,
37:41there's no such thing as a former intelligence officer.
37:45And that's absolutely true.
37:47I will always be a CIA officer, always.
37:50I still wake up in the night thinking about operational decisions I made or didn't make.
37:56Nobody ever leaves with everything they wanted to accomplish.
38:01Done.
38:02You know, it's the nature of the business.
38:04It carries on.
38:08Got a phone call from a journalist who said we're going to publish your name
38:12and the fact that you were allegedly poisoned in Pakistan.
38:16You know, there were all sorts of theories about why that happened.
38:18We don't know why I got sick.
38:21I don't know till this day.
38:23Was there a real explanation?
38:25No.
38:25Never.
38:27It could be I'll never get an answer to it.
38:32That's, that's, uh, something I live with.
38:36Anything's within the realm of possibility, but, you know, I wouldn't,
38:41I would be uncomfortable levying any accusations.
38:46Foreign intelligence services, of course, have used poison and other things, you know,
38:50and we have demonstrated instances of it.
38:52I've written about it publicly, of Russia using it against, uh, dissidents and people it considers traitors.
38:59But never, to my knowledge, against a foreign intelligence officer.
39:04It's a totally different thing.
39:07Of course, I was not, I was not happy to get the phone call.
39:12The story was going to associate me with the bin Laden operation by name.
39:18I was not so much worried about me, worried about my family.
39:26I mean, there are people out there who definitely wouldn't like that.
39:34My name being out there, there's a potential that somebody doesn't like CIA
39:39or like what I was allegedly involved with and comes to my door and harms me or my family, right?
39:46That's the concern.
39:47There are, there are enough crazy people out there.
39:51So, we appealed to them not to publish my name.
39:55The agency appealed to them as well.
39:59And the press decided, no, we're going to publish it.
40:03Which had safety and security ramifications for me and my family that continue till this day.
40:09It's not pleasant.
40:11My name is pretty much all over the place.
40:13We're an open society.
40:14Once somebody prints a story like that, it goes everywhere.
40:17It doesn't stop at the borders of the United States.
40:22I thought the story was poorly researched, poorly written, should never have been published.
40:27And his inclusion of the name was both irresponsible and gratuitous.
40:30Seemed designed, in my opinion, just to yield clicks online.
40:34The salacious, scandalous, or, you know, kind of dramatic aspects of the story
40:38were never anything that we conveyed to people.
40:46But the article did, let's say, ratchet up our focus on safety, safety for our family members,
40:55safety for our environment.
40:56That's a reality that I live with.
40:58That being said, you know, once it happened, I make the best of it and try to, A, document
41:04some of the history, and B, try to ensure that the American people understand what CIA does
41:09in its name, and they can be proud of them.
41:12They can be proud of the officers who serve there.
41:17Otherwise, you wouldn't even, you would never have met me.
41:22The job demands great sacrifice of you, so you have to give up some things personally,
41:27particularly if you're in an operations field.
41:29You're out there alone without your family.
41:31You're working long hours.
41:33You might be in places that are dangerous.
41:35Of course, the professional satisfaction might be quite high, but the cost for your family
41:40can also be high.
41:42It's been pros and cons.
41:43I would say in the pro column, there's something special about being able to share what is a
41:49unique life with someone who really understands it.
41:53My wife was a very positive thinker.
41:55You know, she comes from my world, too.
41:57You know, doesn't pay to dwell on the negative.
42:00Focus on success.
42:02She's the greatest thing that ever happened to me.
42:06Support in that time was unbelievable.
42:09And ultimately, she helped me through it, which I'll be forever grateful for.
42:16Mark was an exemplary leader.
42:18I mean, he had the unique ability to have a strategic vision and execute that vision during
42:26an extremely complex and challenging set of circumstances.
42:32He had been, you know, kind of forged in the fire of some pretty challenging work across
42:39decades.
42:40I never saw an operational success at CIA that was a result of one person's action.
42:47CIA works and fights as a team.
42:49People with all different skills being brought together.
42:52And that's true of the Bin Laden operation.
42:55Well, the lesson to our enemies is that if you attack the United States, we will not quit.
43:01You can do everything you want to hide, but we will not quit.
43:04We will find you and you will pay a price for that.
43:09It's not just a job.
43:10It's a way of life, right?
43:12You choose that life.
43:13Then you get the good and the bad that goes with it.
43:15And from my perspective, it was overwhelmingly good.
43:18Even when it was bad, it was good.
43:22Looking back on it, it was worth it.
43:23It was worth it.
43:24We delivered a great victory in the United States.
43:28You know, joining CIA, it isn't like the movies, no, but there are thrills that are comparable.
43:35You know, it's a great victory in the United States.
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