The Black Banners_ 9_11 and the War Against Al-Qaeda - Ali H. Soufan [83]
George Crouch is a first-class investigator and has a great sense of humor. When working overseas on operations in hostile countries, you work, eat, and sleep in close proximity to your colleagues. You’re with them twenty-four hours a day, for months on end. A big consideration when choosing a team is who you’ll get along with. If the people don’t get along, it can harm an investigation. George is a former marine captain (he was in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps), and so he, too, would know how to work with the navy. The most important things in George’s life are his wife, Laura, and his family, and I’ve always had a special respect for him. He and Laura became close friends of Heather’s and mine.
Tom was assigned from the New York City Police Department to the JTTF; he is street-smart, with lots of investigative skills, and he pays close attention to detail. I never saw non-FBI members on the JTTF as outsiders—I include everyone from NYPD to CIA officials—so I didn’t think twice about taking Tom.
We only had a few hours before we had to leave for Yemen, and that time would be spent at the office, planning and preparing for the investigation. There was no time to go back home and pack for the trip, so I’d have to travel in what I was wearing and get anything I needed from stores near the FBI’s office or in Yemen. The command center was in full crisis mode: analysts were collecting data; agents were digging up old files on Yemen; allied intelligence services around the world were exchanging information; and senior officials were gathered on the main platform, discussing the case. As I finished preparing, I remembered that I had a date with Heather that evening. I tried calling her to tell her I’d have to rearrange, but I couldn’t reach her; she was at school, teaching a class. I left it to the ASAC’s secretary to tell her that not only did I have to cancel the date, but I didn’t know when I’d return.
An NYPD detective stationed with the JTTF drove Steve, George, Tom, and me to Andrews Air Force Base, and we met the team from the WFO there. A hostage rescue team (HRT)—an elite FBI SWAT team—came as well to provide protection. We couldn’t leave immediately, however, as we had to wait a couple of hours for our country clearances to be approved by Ambassador Bodine before we could take off. As we waited, news came through that there had been another terrorist attack in Yemen: a grenade had been thrown at the British embassy in Sanaa, blowing up one of its electric generators.
Once the clearances came we boarded a military cargo plane loaded with vehicles, weapons, and equipment. There were no seats, only netting on the side that we could rest on. The mood on the flight was anxious, as the FBI had no operational relationship with the Yemenis and we really didn’t know if we’d be welcomed or attacked. It was also possible that al-Qaeda might be stronger in Yemen than we thought, and that the USS Cole attack was a ploy to trap more agents in Yemen and then kill the new arrivals—us. In our investigation into the East African embassy bombings, we learned from interrogating one al-Qaeda member that this was a not uncommon maneuver.
We were also aware of problems that Yemeni officials had with the United States. Not long before the attack, Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh had said that if he shared a border with Israel, he would engage in jihad against the country because of the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict. He went on to lambaste the United States for supporting Israel—so it didn’t seem that we were heading into friendly territory. That’s why we had the HRT with us: they would provide extra firepower if something went wrong. With Somalia in the back of our minds—the image, from 1993, of U.S. soldiers overwhelmed by hostile fighters in Mogadishu and dragged through the streets and killed—we were determined not to go down without a fight if something happened.
No one was in the mood to talk much on the plane.