Takedown: Inside the Hunt for Al QaedaOn September 11, 2001, as Central Intelligence Agency analyst Philip Mudd rushed out of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next to the White House, he could not anticipate how far the terror unleashed that day would change the world of intelligence and his life as a CIA officer. For the previous fifteen years, his role had been to interpret raw intelligence and report his findings to national security decision makers. But within weeks of the 9/11 attacks, he would be on a military aircraft, flying over the Hindu Kush mountains, en route to Afghanistan as part of the U.S. government's effort to support the fledging government there after U.S. forces had toppled the Taliban. Later, Mudd would be appointed deputy director of the CIA's rapidly expanding Counterterrorist Center and then senior intelligence adviser at the FBI. A first-person account of Mudd's role in two organizations that changed dramatically after 9/11, Takedown sheds light on the inner workings of the intelligence community during the global counterterror campaign. |
From inside the book
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... thought I had a good explanation for a rash drive across town to one of the most secure facilities in washington. “I understand you are running newspaper advertisements for new employees, and I have my resume here,” I answered, through ...
... thought that our office building might be the next target. During a chaotic few hours on September 11, we went quickly from a buzz about what appeared to be a tragic but isolated airplane hitting a tower in new York—I first thought it ...
... thought captures the chaos and confusion, and the sense of unknowing, that came to characterize the rest ofthat day, and ensuing days and weeks. So after that warning passed down the halls and into offices and cubicles, I joined the ...
... thought of these implications then, though: only reflection on the enormity ofwhat had just happened, what it meant, and what we would do about it. and a sense of horror at the senseless loss oflife as humans jumped from buildings. For ...
... thought of yet another foreign force invading their country. alexander the great had gone through here, and legend has it that he left a line ofblue-eyed descendants in the country as he made his legendary sweep across asia. now it was ...
Contents
1 | |
2 A Return to Langley | 27 |
Moving Beyond the Core of Al Qaeda | 70 |
The Intelligence Problem of Iraq | 90 |
Deputy Director of the Counterterrorist Center | 104 |
6 The Years of Threat | 135 |
The FBI Calls | 145 |
Intelligence at the Department of Homeland Security | 191 |
Index | 199 |