Spycraft - Melton [188]
That event was one of many during the 1970s that would commit Crown, the QDL, and every other component of the TSD, to America’s war on terrorism. Increasingly the document examiners would turn their attention to understanding, tracking, and exposing the travel and identification papers used by terrorists. Already it was evident that passports, visas, and other documentation essential for terrorism could be forged, purchased from a commercial vendor, created from stolen blanks, altered from valid passports, or procured with assistance from corrupt officials.66 According to a CIA report, “Clandestine Travel Facilitators: Key Enablers of Terrorism,” passports for terrorists were available for purchase from drug addicts in foreign countries or forgers based in Chad or Saudi Arabia. A genuine passport could be purchased in Pakistan with bogus visa stamps to age it.67
Putting their knowledge of forgeries to work, the QDL created a passport examination manual, known as the Redbook. The manual, with a distinctive fire engine-red cover, included samples of forged passports, stolen passports, and fabricated entry/exit stamps.68 In all, the Redbook contained exemplars of thirty-five forged passports and cachets from forty-five different countries.69 Each example was illustrated in color with its faults clearly marked. Printed in six languages, the Redbook was made available to U.S. Customs and Immigration officials and countries cooperating with U.S. counterterrorism and counternarcotics programs.
The 1986 edition of the Redbook reported that over fifty individuals carrying forged passports provided by terrorist organizations had been identified before they could carry out their terrorism assignments. The Redbook’s authors also concluded a brief introduction to document examination with a cautiously optimistic yet ominous paragraph that read:
Terrorism is a plague that threatens all of us. It must be stopped. Use the REDBOOK! . . . whether at border control, police registration, or visa application. If we screen travelers and check their passports, as experience proves, terrorists will lose their ability to travel undetected and international terrorism will come one step closer to being stopped! The threat is real!70
The threat was indeed real. In 1986, as international terrorism continued to grow, OTS document specialists trained hundreds of immigration and border control officials to spot spurious passports, visas, travel cachets, and other forms of documentation. OTS supplemented the Redbook and training with a film titled The Threat Is Real that was translated and distributed among law enforcement personnel in any country willing to cooperate with the U.S. counterterrorism effort.71
By 1992 use of the Redbook and a companion passport-examination manual had been credited for the apprehension of more than 200 individuals carrying forged passports provided by terrorist groups. The manuals were annually updated as the quality and sophistication of the terrorist documents improved each year.72
Time showed that terrorists became better at forging passports, and rapidly adapted computer software to help them with forgeries. Instruction booklets began circulating among terrorists on how to “clean” visa cachets and alter passports. Genuine official documents came from Arab “volunteers” fighting in Afghanistan who were ordered to give their passports to commanders upon arrival at their unit. If killed, the “volunteer’s” documents were altered, usually by photo substitution, and passed along to another operative.73 Prior to 9/11, al-Qaeda mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed traveled on a Saudi passport with bogus cachet stamps to “age” it.74 Now, twenty-five years after Curt Moore’s death, the war on terrorism would dominate U.S. intelligence.
CHAPTER 19
Tracking Terrorist Snakes
We have slain a large dragon but we now live in a jungle filled with a bewildering variety of poisonous snakes . . .
—R. James Woolsey in Congressional testimony after the