Breaking Cover Read online

  Then it dawned on me: If there was an engagement of this magnitude yesterday at a clearly defined location, then we should have no problem obtaining evidence it had occurred. If Ahmad was telling the truth and he and his friends were risking (and losing) their lives in the war on terror, then we should be able to confirm his account and find ways to help the villagers stave off the enemy.

  Thankfully, in war zones, there are a variety of resources that can be used to fact-check information. You just have to know how to summon them, how to talk people into helping when they are just as overloaded with work as you are.

  Within the span of twenty-four hours, we were able to deploy a range of assets (human and technical) to take a closer look at the area. And guess what we uncovered? Nothing, nada, walla haga. We could find no evidence that anything resembling a battle or even a minor scuffle had occurred at that location. There were no burned-out vehicles, no scrap metal littering the ground, and no scorched earth or post-blast markings where multiple VBIEDs had exploded. Ahmad had said that thousands of rounds were expended in the fight, but there were no shell casings on the ground.

  And what about all those dead bodies? In Islam, when someone dies, they must be buried as soon as possible, usually within twenty-four hours. This means that the dead would have been buried within a day or two. But no funeral processions had wound their way through the village streets. There had been no recent activity at the cemetery, no sign of grief-stricken mourners. The morgue wasn’t full of unclaimed bodies, and no injured fighters were being treated in local hospitals.

  Our conclusion: Ahmad’s story was a fabrication, meant to show the CIA how incredible he and his people were at fighting AQI. He wanted money, and he was willing to do whatever he could to trick us into giving him more.

  It’s funny . . . when I first started working as an officer in the field, I thought that the process of determining what was helpful information and what was misleading or fabricated would be enormously hard. Iraq taught me that this wasn’t necessarily the case. Separating truth from fiction was not an impossible task. It just required common sense and a bit of motivation.

  That, and the faith to trust my God-given intuition.

  In both Ahmad’s and Mansur’s cases, my internal wiring went crazy telling me that something was wrong. Just because a source was useful in the beginning did not mean he or she would stay that way forever. Things changed (especially in a war zone), people changed, and circumstances changed. I couldn’t let my guard down for a minute.

  The year I spent in Iraq was—in many respects—hellish. But the experience I gained working with informants was invaluable—not only for the agency, but for me as well. I was finally starting to believe that not only was I good enough, I might actually be pretty skilled at interacting with sources and vetting information. This was a significant realization for me, as I had spent years believing that I wasn’t fit for the CIA, that I wasn’t really supposed to be there, or that I had somehow slipped through the cracks of the hiring process.

  I had always imagined that people hired to be spies were endowed with gifts beyond measure. While I was learning how to drive a car or graduating from high school, they were almost certainly honing their spy craft, learning new languages, and acquiring black belts in the martial arts. I was just an average human who was hardly destined for a life of espionage and intrigue.

  Once I got into the CIA, however, I looked around and realized that the officers weren’t carbon copies of the slick actors I’d seen playing them in the movies. They were just regular people. But here’s the rub: They were significantly different from me in personality and temperament.

  When I walked through the halls of the CIA or met people in leadership positions, I felt completely inadequate and, well . . . different. Many of these officers were unfriendly and extremely serious, and they often sported furrowed brows. As a result, I spent the first few years of my career at the CIA trying to change the way I came off to the world. I really wanted to fit in.

  Smile less, I told myself. Look serious. Don’t be so friendly or outgoing. It seemed to me that the more severe and authoritarian people were, the better the chance they’d get promoted. I could never be frosty or truculent, but I figured I could definitely scale back my genial nature and rein in my extroversion.

  I have spent much of my life wondering whether I had the necessary talent or skill required to succeed at every new challenge. It didn’t matter if I was in elementary school, high school, college, or the CIA: I have always assumed that everyone else was smarter than me, more experienced, and better prepared.

  Maybe that’s why I was so surprised when Ted, a retired CIA colleague whom I respect greatly, told me that he, too, had been plagued with doubt from a young age. I would never have thought Ted struggled with a lack of confidence. He was so well respected that the whole room stopped talking whenever he spoke. We all wanted to draw from his experience, intelligence, and wisdom. Yet despite all he had achieved, Ted grew up believing he was behind the curve.

  It all started in kindergarten. Ted remembers his first day of school like it was yesterday. The school building was being renovated, so classes began at a local agricultural training center. Five-year-old Ted walked into the strange classroom and immediately noticed images on the walls that he called “exploded engines.” They were renderings of automobile engines that looked as if they were bursting in order to reveal various engine parts and demonstrate how the components fit together. Ted assumed that the colorful pictures were hung on the walls for the benefit of the new kindergarten students.

  Ted sat down at one of the desks and looked around. The other kids were smiling, laughing, and playing with each other. They seemed to be having a jolly good time. But Ted wasn’t feeling very celebratory. He looked back up at the exploded engines with great concern. Ted thought to himself, They must want us to be able to put engines together. Why else would they put these pictures on the wall? In his mind, the carefree expressions on the other kids’ faces meant that they were not concerned and already knew how to assemble an engine.

  Poor Ted was worried that he was lagging behind the rest of the kindergarten class because he had no idea how to put an engine together. As Ted contemplated the situation, he told himself, School is not going to be easy. I’m going to have to work extra hard to keep up with the rest of the class.

  Ted said he never knew how intelligent he was until he learned his SAT scores were extremely high and that he would be graduating high school at the top of his class. He always assumed he was below average academically, but due to his excellent test scores, Ted received a full-tuition scholarship to college. That was a turning point in his life.

  Whenever I think about it, Ted’s story always gives me a belly laugh because I can’t imagine that he was anything other than extraordinary. But how often do we do that to ourselves? We assume everyone else has it all figured out, and we are the only ones who don’t. We beat ourselves up as we try to change who we are or be something different.

  Up until my Iraq tour, I hesitated to think of myself as an expert. I had hung on to the assumption that “others” knew more about the Middle East and counterterrorism affairs than I did. But after dealing with hundreds of intelligence officers, diplomats, and administration officials in Washington, DC, and the Middle East, I finally realized that I knew more about the region than most of the people I came into contact with.

  I wasn’t just “good enough”; I was a full-fledged member of the team. While in Iraq, I figured out that I had an ability to understand, assess, and predict changes in the complicated web of interstate relationships, politics, culture, and religion that characterizes the Middle East.

  To say that serving in Iraq at the height of the war was my single most difficult challenge is an understatement. It was the most physically, emotionally, and mentally draining experience of my life.

  And yet, had I not gone to Iraq, I would not have discovered how resilient I was. I would not have figur
ed out how good I was at interacting with such a broad range of people, from the US military to Iraqi collaborators. Had I not gone to Iraq, I would not have known how skillful I was at debriefing sources. Had I not been overwhelmed by work, I would not have learned to collect, process, and analyze information so quickly and efficiently. Had I not been exposed to so much bad intelligence, I would not have had the opportunity to hone my craft in identifying and exposing fabricators.

  The lessons I learned in one year in Iraq far outweigh what I learned in multiple tours in other locations. Without a doubt, I could not have developed this level of expertise anywhere else.

  Maybe God knew what he was doing sending me there after all.

  The period that Joseph and I served in Iraq, between 2006 and 2007, was the deadliest of the war. The number of persons killed on all sides of the conflict hit a high point in December 2006, with 3,000 deaths in just one month. IED placements peaked in May 2007 with 2,080 explosions. In terms of overall attacks, the summer of 2007 was the worst, with almost 1,600 attacks occurring during a single week in June.[6]

  Needless to say, when our tour in Iraq finally drew to a close, Joseph and I vowed that we would never go back. We would also do whatever we could to avoid ending up in the middle of another hardship tour.

  Word to the wise—when you say, “I will never [fill in the blank],” watch out because inevitably, you will end up doing that very thing. I am still unsure which of God’s laws governs this principle, but after decades’ worth of life experience, I realize such statements could also be translated as Lord, deep down in my soul I can feel you are pulling me in X direction, but it scares me so much I cannot even fathom how I could do it. Please, please don’t make me [fill in the blank]. It’s as if we can feel the hand of God moving us—on a subconscious level—and we try to steer clear of it at all costs.

  Just as I tried to pray my way out of the Iraq assignment, I wanted to avoid one other location like the plague. After serving in both █████ and Baghdad, I assumed that this wouldn’t be an issue. We had certainly earned the privilege of a nice assignment.

  I remember saying to my friends, “You know what? I’m not choosy. I’m flexible about the next posting, but please, please . . . I’ll go ‘anywhere but Saratoga.’” (For simplicity, I will refer to the country by this name.) We said this phrase so many times through the years, we decided to shorten it to ABS.

  Needless to say, guess where we went next? You got it. We were sent to Saratoga! You’d think I’d learn. You’d think I’d wise up a bit. You’d think I’d stop making such declarations. (On a side note, I’ve now taken to saying things like “I will never live in Italy, Portugal, or the Virgin Islands. Please don’t make me go there, God!”)

  It was hard to fathom how our colleagues could get sent to the most beautiful cities in the world while we were repeatedly sent from one danger zone to another. It seemed like we couldn’t catch a break. The pattern was demoralizing and made us feel like we kept getting sucker punched. (I can hear the HR people right now saying, “No one wants to go to Saratoga. What are we going to do? I know, let’s send Joseph and Michele!”)

  Every time we sat our families down to reveal the location of our next tour, they would cringe in anticipation of the news. By this point, they were conditioned to expect the worst, which we usually dished out. And they had gotten used to praying for us—a lot.

  Outside of Iraq, Saratoga was one of the few places in the world that truly frightened me. I was completely unnerved.

  Even worse, I had the added stress of arriving in the new country alone. Unlike other tours where Joseph and I would come and go at the same time, on this tour each of us was replacing a different officer, and their departure schedules were nearly a month apart. That meant I was scheduled to arrive three weeks ahead of Joseph.

  Despite flying all over the world and navigating a host of strange and sometimes hostile cultures, I have never been so scared to land in a country before. I didn’t know what to expect, and I didn’t know how to act. What if I accidentally did something wrong and was chastised by the locals—or worse?

  As the plane made the final approach to the airport, my heart rate soared. I could not believe my own reaction. I was shaking.

  Truth be told, this wasn’t the first time I had been in this country. Several years earlier, while traveling in the Middle East, I ended up on a flight that had a brief layover in Saratoga. Even though my plane was only on the ground for an hour, what I experienced filled me with dread at the thought of actually living in that country full-time.

  Uttering a quick prayer, I pushed myself forward in spite of the fear and nervously stepped off the plane and onto the Jetway. The hundred-plus-degree heat of the desert air hit me in the face like a sledgehammer. It was the middle of summer, and despite the fact that it was well past sunset, the hot wind made it feel like high noon.

  A few more steps and we were inside the air-conditioned airport heading toward passport control. Having crossed the threshold into conservative Islamic cultures many times, I automatically changed my demeanor, adopting a meeker comportment. I was the only white, Western female in the crowd and didn’t want any extra attention. I dropped my eyes and tried not to make eye contact with anyone, especially the men.

  As I proceeded through the airport, I prepared myself for long lines in passport control because several planes had landed within minutes of one another. Once I turned the corner, I saw a line of entry booths and hundreds of foreign workers waiting to get into the country. It would take forever to move people through passport control because of the strict requirements governing the entry of foreign laborers and the language barrier that made the process even more complicated. Getting their fingerprints taken and retinal scans completed would not be an easy task.

  As I walked to the back of one of the lines, passport control officers saw that I was an unaccompanied female and waved me to the front of the line. The officer summoned me to the counter, where I presented him with my landing card and passport opened up to the visa page. He looked at my photograph and then looked back up at me and said, “Is this your first time in Saratoga?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said, feigning cheerfulness at the thought.

  He scanned the visa page, entered something into the computer, and then stamped the passport and handed it back to me.

  With a big smile on his face, he said, “Welcome, Ms. Assad!”

  I replied, “Thank you very much,” and exited the arrivals hall.

  That’s all? I thought. No problems? No interminable wait in long lines? Nobody yelling at me for not wearing a head covering?

  All the anxiety I’d built up in my head about how I’d be treated as a female traveling alone was unnecessary. Instead of having run-ins with security, I ended up having a surprisingly pleasant entry experience. Frankly, I’d had more difficulties with hostile passport control officers in the UK than here. Maybe this won’t be so bad after all.

  After gathering my luggage, I headed for the exit where my male colleague said he’d be waiting. He was a good friend of mine and was the person I’d come to replace. We’d worked it out so that our tours would overlap for a couple of weeks and he could show me the ropes. I scanned the crowd looking for him, trying not to acknowledge all the faces staring at me as I walked by.

  Relief washed over me as I saw Andrew waiting behind the rope. After greeting each other, Andrew grabbed my luggage and led me out to the waiting SUV.

  And so began my adventure of living in an alternate reality, one in which I really struggled to find my footing and feel comfortable. As much as I knew about Saratoga from my travels and studies, nothing could have prepared me to live so far outside the bounds of what was normal in my own culture.

  Admittedly, I felt much more comfortable once Joseph finally arrived. And the compound where we lived and worked—while far from Main Street, USA—was worlds safer than the surrounding city. Truth be told, we were so busy at work that there was very little
time to wander around and explore the city. And that may have been a good thing. I’d heard so many horror stories about run-ins with local citizens and police officers that I went out of my way to minimize the amount of time I spent away from our closely guarded compound.

  Adding to the general stress level of living in that culture was the knowledge that terrorist cells were operating all over the country. We were constantly on edge because we knew we were considered the ultimate enemy every time we left the safety of the well-guarded compound. After all, we were targets. Need to go to the grocery store? Keep an eye out for surveillance. Need to buy a new pair of shoes? Look for surveillance. Even the simplest of tasks turned into a major operation given the number of terrorists who were attacking and killing foreigners and members of the country’s security services.

  During that tour, I had the rare opportunity to provide training to a group of counterterrorism officers with whom the United States had worked closely. Normally public speaking is one of my favorite things to do, and this was a special briefing I’d designed and presented to many counterterrorism officers in the past. But standing in front of that group of about fifty officers, I had a sinking feeling. They wore the most hostile looks I had ever seen. I could hear them whispering, “Who is this?” to each other in Arabic.

  Simply put, they were annoyed that a Western female who clearly didn’t know a thing about the Middle East would dare to stand in front of a group of male officers as if she had something valuable to say. What could a woman possibly teach them? A woman’s place was in the home bearing children and taking care of the family. Counterterrorism was a man’s game, so what could I possibly say that could be useful to the descendants of desert warriors? None of them were having it.