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
... for hollywood had made it to real-life in washington. what is this? I remember thinking. and what are we in for? and, even then: how will this change things? already, there was less a sense of chaos than of sadness; early estimates ...
... 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 later ...
... of the counterterrorism campaign that exploded on that day. as U.S. intelligence agents and special forces allied ... what was in late 2001 a hazy future path seem as if it was pre-ordained, or inevitable. Despite that initial haziness, the ...
Inside the Hunt for Al Qaeda Philip Mudd. I received word early on that Dobbins's ... of CIa headquarters, that if there was to be a CIa officer detailed to the ... what his mission might entail, I wanted to be on his team. This was weeks ...
... of his personality. whoever picked him got the right guy. Those of us early ... what you read in novels. where are all the pallets for this going to come ... of State in the Foggy Bottom section of downtown washington and quickly sensing ...
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 |