The Black Banners_ 9_11 and the War Against Al-Qaeda - Ali H. Soufan [93]
Naji remained true to his word. That night General Ghalib al-Qamish, the head of the PSO and Ansi’s superior, came to Aden from Sanaa. John and I went straight to meet him. Qamish is a small, skinny, bald man who looks like a Yemeni version of Gandhi.
“We can work together,” were Qamish’s first words to us. He then said: “I understand why you are in Yemen and the importance of your investigation. At the same time, you have to understand the sensitivities of Yemenis.” He explained that some viewed our presence as an invasion, and that there was anger toward the United States for its support of Israel against the Palestinians. He made it clear that he didn’t agree with this hostility to us but was just explaining the situation.
Qamish was knowledgeable about al-Qaeda. When the PSO was responsible for utilizing Islamists against the South during the civil war, he was one of the key players. Yemen was a country where things couldn’t be viewed in black and white but shades of gray. Whatever Qamish’s role in the past in dealing with Islamists, during the Cole investigation, with us, he was one of the good guys, and we were glad he was at the top. We agreed that we would primarily deal with him rather than Ansi.
With the Yemenis, when negotiating for access to evidence and witnesses, it was often a question of persistence. We had experienced similar problems when working elsewhere overseas, so we knew how to handle it: we needed to remain polite but be firm. And we needed to make it clear that we would not back down.
One of the first things we had done on arriving in Yemen was to ask the Yemenis for their harbor surveillance video from the time of the attack. As we watched the tape it was clear that the Yemenis had tampered with it—the time stamp and certain frames were cut out. I told Qamish that we’d been given a doctored tape and that we would like the original; he got it for us. The full tape didn’t show us much more, so it didn’t make sense that the Yemenis had edited it. We deduced that they were trying to waste our time or test us in some way.
FBI director Louis Freeh was aware of the problems we were having in Yemen and decided to fly to the country to help move the investigation forward. At the airport and again at the Mövenpick, we briefed him and the senior officials accompanying him. We then took the director to see President Saleh.
For security purposes, the presidential palace is up in the hills overlooking Aden, far from the general population. As we drove up the winding road to the palace, we saw down below us beautiful virgin beaches and bays. Great for scuba diving, I thought to myself.
President Saleh greeted us at the palace. He was shorter than I had expected and very reserved. The visit was mostly a matter of protocol: Director Freeh was coming to show President Saleh that the United States was serious about the investigation, and Saleh, in turn, was meeting him to show that Yemen would cooperate. The meeting started with a statement from President Saleh in which he said that it had yet to be determined who was responsible for the terrorist attack. He added that the weapons used in the attack were made in the United States or Israel. (The Yemenis were still keen at that point to blame Mossad.) And then, in a bizarre shift, Saleh added Libya’s Muammar al-Gaddafi to the mix, claiming that he was getting involved in Yemen’s affairs. Freeh politely sidestepped Saleh’s comments, saying it was too early to determine where the weapons had come from and that the United States was eager to work alongside the Yemenis and investigate the attack. He added that the United States would be the “junior partner” and that the Yemenis would take the lead. This pleased President Saleh because Yemen’s competence was acknowledged. President Saleh responded by saying that the Yemenis would fully cooperate with us, and he confirmed that John O’Neill should deal directly with Qamish.
Freeh went next