Inside the CIA

After the assassination of yet another Iranian nuclear scientist, we talk espionage with New York Times bestselling author Ronald Kessler.

After the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, The Mark sat down with the New York Times bestselling author of The CIA at War: Inside the Secret Campaign Against Terror, Ronald Kessler, to talk about the headline-making hit and the world of espionage more generally.

Does the assassination of Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan have the hallmarks of a CIA hit or a Mossad hit? What are the signs that indicate which intelligence agency a hit like that comes from?

The CIA does engage in what it calls covert operations, but it does not engage in assassinations. It does kill individuals, mainly terrorists who are considered to be enemy combatants, who are enemies of the United States in a military sense. But every president since Gerald Ford has signed an executive order that prohibits assassinations. So there is a fine line between taking out Osama bin Laden versus, say, an Iranian scientist. There is that distinction. In fact, this executive order would have prohibited the killing of Saddam Hussein [because he was] the head of a country.

One reason behind this executive order is that if [the United States] starts killing individuals such as the head of a country or an Iranian scientist, the other side will retaliate against us. So I’m quite confident that the U.S. was not responsible for that hit. Of course, nobody knows – no one can say, “Well, it has the hallmarks of whatever [agency],” because different assassination methods can be used by anybody.

Obviously, the Israelis would be my prime suspects, and that’s where that stands.

Is there a lot of communication between the covert intelligence agencies of allied countries? Would the CIA have knowledge of an allied country like Israel making a high-profile assassination like this, or would it be as blind as the rest of us?

The Israelis would not want to share that information with anyone. It would be kept very closely within the Israeli government. To let anyone outside of Israel know would be a huge breach of secrecy. The CIA would not want to know and would have no reason to know.

It reminds me of the claims that the Pakistani government must have known about Osama bin Laden being in Pakistan. I think it’s just the opposite: Bin Laden would not have wanted anyone in the Pakistani government to know that he was there, because that would very possibly lead to a breach of security. Bin Laden also had no need for support form the Pakistani government because he was doing just fine by himself. The best way to keep a secret is to tell nobody, and the closer you adhere to that the better.

Still, I’m quite sure that the CIA is actively trying to thwart Iran’s nuclear program in other ways – not through assassination, but through the introduction of malware in their software and the introduction of other anomalies in anything that [the Iranians] might procure. They are very good at doing that sort of thing.

Something you examined at length in The CIA at War is espionage in this post-9/11 age of the war on terror. What has been the most fundamental change in the operations of black ops and other espionage? Where do you see it going?

I go into this in my latest book, The Secrets of the FBI. The biggest change since 9/11 has been that the various agencies are now co-operating with each other, talking with each other. There is a huge incentive now for agencies to share information as opposed to keeping it to themselves. Second, the FBI has become very prevention-oriented, so it emphasizes getting leads to the next plot and developing sources that might [entail] the next plot over prosecution. In terms of gathering things, there has certainly been increased attention paid to terrorists: The CIA, FBI, and NSA [National Security Agency] are all much more focused on terrorism as opposed to developing intelligence about Russia or China. But those are still considered possible threats, as well.

Do you think there has been a real break in the Obama presidency with the increased use of the CIA in counter-terrorism, or are we seeing more continuity with previous administrations?

I think it is the latter. Obama really has built upon the Bush policies and the Bush infrastructure. For example, the National Counterterrorism Center was established under Bush, and that has been very important under Obama. What has changed is the quantity of strikes against terrorists, and that is in part because Bush ordered an increase in drones and it take several years, of course, before drones are actually online. So what you are seeing is in part just another continuation of Bush policies because now there are so many more drones available.

But as soon as [he] started getting daily intelligence briefings, Obama realized that counter-terrorism is serious business. [The way he talks now is] far different from the way he talked during his campaign: He realized that his family and his country are at risk, and that he has to take action to take these terrorists out.

Photo courtesy of Reuters.