The Black Banners_ 9_11 and the War Against Al-Qaeda - Ali H. Soufan [8]
To this day I vividly remember, down to minute details, Palestinian militants pulling up in jeeps outside homes in our neighborhood, swinging their machine guns toward the occupants, and ordering them to hand over their car keys. People had no choice but to obey, as there was no effective police force to appeal to for help.
A few months after my conversation with Joe, there was a career fair, and the bureau had a booth, reminding me of the bet. A few days later I decided to send in an application—more out of curiosity than anything else. I still didn’t know much about what the bureau did, beyond the conventional knowledge and what I’d “learned” from some social science classes, movies, and, of course, the television shows. But after I submitted the application, I spent some time researching the FBI.
The information was mostly new to me. I discovered that the bureau was created in 1908—given its prominence today, I had thought it would have been around longer. I also learned that only under J. Edgar Hoover had it been built into the powerful law enforcement tool it is today, which makes the bureau’s successes and reputation even more impressive. The application process includes tests of all sorts, from physical to aptitude, along with lots of interviews, often spaced out over months. As I jumped through the hoops, my friends started a pool betting on how long I’d last.
During the polygraph tests—while I was hooked up to the machine—the polygrapher asked: “Have you ever done anything that would embarrass you if your mother knew about it?”
“Yes,” I replied, which puzzled him: it was not the answer he was expecting. I jokingly explained to him that the machine probably wasn’t programmed to take in how strict the ethics of a Muslim mother can be.
After completing the long series of interviews and tests, for almost a year I didn’t hear anything from the bureau, and I began to think that my application had failed somewhere and that they had forgotten to notify me. It didn’t bother me too much, as applying to the bureau had been more a source of amusement than anything else, and I certainly hadn’t been basing my future on the FBI. I was planning on a career in academia, and as I was finishing up at Mansfield, I had applied to do a master’s degree in international studies at Villanova University. By the time I was at Villanova, I had almost completely forgotten about the bureau, and so it was a surprise to receive a letter of acceptance as I was finishing and preparing to move to England to pursue a PhD. I went back and forth in my mind as to what to do, with friends and family divided in their recommendations. Ultimately the bureau’s offer was too tempting to pass up. The idea of being an agent appealed to my sense of adventure, as did the chance to help protect America, a country I had come to love dearly. I loved it because of the welcome it had given me and my family and because, having grown up in a country pulled apart by sectarian discord, I had come to appreciate the greatness of the United States and admire the ideals that had created the nation.
I was fascinated by the protections the U.S. Constitution provides citizens. While the Constitution and the Pledge of Allegiance may perhaps seem largely symbolic to many Americans, to those of us who have lived with alternatives, they are filled with meaning. I know that the protections offered therein are very necessary.
The idea of being part of something bigger than me prevailed. I accepted the offer, and, in November 1997, after sixteen weeks of training at the FBI Academy, in Quantico, Virginia, I joined the bureau as a special agent, assigned to the New York office.
The FBI’s New York field office, located in downtown Manhattan, in many ways resembles the city in which it is housed: it’s full of colorful characters who are not afraid to voice their opinions and for whom politeness is often an unnecessary convention that gets in the way of making