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- [00:04]
A
For exclusive interviews, bonus episodes, ad free listening, early access to series first look at live show tickets, a weekly newsletter and discounted books. Join the Declassified club@the restisclassified.com. A plan to bring down transatlantic airliners with liquid bombs, all monitored by MI5.
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B
But.
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A
But now the CIA gets involved and puts at risk those carefully laid plans. Well, welcome to the Rest is classified. I'm David McCloskey.
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B
And I'm Gordon Carrera.
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A
And Gordon, last time we looked at how Mi5 had carried out a covert entry into the sort of bomb making factory of Abdullah Ahmed Ali and his cohort at Forest Road. MI5 has installed audio and video surveillance there. They've been watching this crew for some time. And MI5 now realizes that the plotters are building liquid bombs that'll go on planes. The idea is essentially blow a hole in the side of a plane as it's going across the Atlantic and bring it down in the first week of August 2006. We left off last time with the surveillance team in a frightening way. So seeing Ali and his team researching flights to the US and recording martyrdom videos. So this operation has gotten into the very late stages of planning.
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B
Yeah. And it's running very hot. People are getting worried at this point. The operation, which is codenamed Overt is terrible.
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A
Code name.
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B
It's terrible for a covert operation. Covert operation. But it's running as the biggest investigation ever, ever in MI5's history. So it's pushing the envelope. They're suspending other investigations to bring people in. It feels like it's taking up half of MI5. People are living. As it said on Diet Coke and Monster Munch. When I wrote this, you said you had no idea what Monster Munch was.
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A
I wrote actually in the comments. Is this some horrendous British snack?
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B
I bought some Monster Munch. And you've got Monster Munch for you. Courtesy of our team. Which is. Some of this was at Gold Hanger Towers. Actually.
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A
This is roast beef flavored. It's paw shaped. Is that a monster paw? There's this friendly pink character on the front who looks insane. Yeah. And let's see. Wow. That is a roast beef smell coming out of that bag. It's like beyond. To be sure that it's slightly disturbing.
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B
I really want one.
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A
Okay. This is what the MI5 team was.
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B
Should we get back to the story though? Or you can.
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A
I'm gonna have one more.
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B
Okay.
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A
But I like. You know what I like about yes.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Because I like. I like the shape of this A lot. Is this supposed to be a monster? What is this thing? It's. I think it's a baseball glove.
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B
I don't know if it's the monster or the monster's foot or hand. I don't know.
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A
Maybe because this is a monster. It looks like his foot, but he's also. It also looks like his mouth.
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B
Yeah. Shall we return to the serious business of a airline plot? I suppose so, as I was saying, they're living on Diet Coke. A monster munch is taking up a huge amount of resource for MI5, because you've got about maybe a dozen people under, effectively 24, 7 surveillance. And I think, again, I mean, you know this, that it's not like the movies where you just have a small team of people can follow people around. You need a big team to be able to do this. And you've got a lot of targets and you've got to watch them all the time because you're worried about potential attack.
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A
It raises. It raises this question, like, how do you. With that many people watching? I mean, it must have felt in that area like you had a bunch of new people who just suddenly arrived in the local community. Was it like 28 surveillance teams on the target?
- [03:54]
B
28 surveillance teams are working this case. I mean, they brought them in from. From the police, from the military, from everywhere else to help, because you need so many surveillance teams, it's exceeding the normal capacity of MI5 to carry out that kind of surveillance. So it is massive. And you're right, it must have felt like half the population of Walthamstow was either being followed or following someone.
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A
At that point, if you're not careful, you would literally have surveillance, like surveillance teams running into each other.
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B
I think that's going to be a problem, because imagine if you've got a couple of the plotters who. You're watching them and then they go to a park to meet each other and that's going to look weird. So you've got this need to deconflict your own surveillance teams as you're running them. And you. The truth is, you can only run that kind of intense surveillance operation for so long before there's just inevitably going to be a mistake or a compromise or someone spots that something's happened. So it's pretty. It's pretty intense. You can only do it for a short period.
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A
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- [05:07]
C
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- [07:19]
F
Experian.
- [07:25]
A
So, Gordon, the big question. Why not just round them up?
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B
It is a good question, isn't it? Yeah. You've got a bunch of people making bombs. Why not arrest them?
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A
We've got martyrdom videos, bomb making material, researching flights. I mean, it's. Yeah, it feels like a compelling body of evidence.
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B
Well, that is that, that word evidence is the key point because there's a couple of factors here. One is, remember that conversation where they're talking about, you know, 9, 10, 11, 12, 18 people. You want to know who those people are. You want a pretty good idea who are the people who are willing to get involved in this. And you might not know yet at this point who they all are. So you want to identify as many as possible. And the police are now working pretty closely with MI5. And I guess it's worth saying, isn't it, that this is different from the FBI in the US, because in the UK, MI5 do not have powers of arrest, only the police have powers of arrest. And so the police will be working with Mi5 and with the prosecution, Crown Prosecution Service, to try and work out, have we actually got enough evidence to charge these people with a crime? As many as possible, and evidence which would stack up on court. So you've got good surveillance of the group, including the bomb factory. And I guess the MI5 view is we've got this under control, we're watching them, we've got our arms around it in terms of being able to understand what they're doing. So let's get as much evidence as we can to put as way as as many as we can.
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A
And I guess at this point they haven't booked plane tickets, which I guess is a big factor. And if you have the 247 surveillance, if they just go to the airport to buy a ticket, just. You would arrest them there. Right. With the. If they're going with the material. So I guess there's a feeling on MI5 side that they're not going to wake up one day. These guys have slipped the net and then, you know, transatlantic airliners are taken down.
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B
Yeah. I mean, they haven't actually built the actual bombs that use it yet. That's crucial. They're still experimenting how to do it. Sarwa is still looking at concentrating the hydrogen peroxide, but they've not put everything together yet. And there's even a conversation where, you know, someone asks Ali, what's the timeframe anyway? And he says, a couple of weeks. But it's true. You've got to hold your nerve at this point if you're MI5 in the police, because if you get it wrong and you run this long, as they'd say, and something happens, you've got a huge loss of life. Talked about this last time. I mean, you've got, you know, thousands potentially dead. You've also got the fact that this would be. I think this is. Goes back to question you raised earlier on, which is, why do it in this way from the UK rather than doing it from Pakistan? And if you Think about it. What the aspiration is, is to have a group of British citizens attack the us.
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A
Yeah.
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B
From Britain. So Britain be the launch pad and British citizens be the attackers for an attack on the United States, which is really significant.
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A
That's a good point. That would place more tension on the special relationship than if you had, you know, citizens that just kind of used Heathrow as. As a transition transit point for the plot. That's right. And, you know, I mean, it was interesting, wasn't it, when we were inside MI5 and talking to Jonathan Evans, which declassified club members can hear that, can hear those, those two episodes up on the wall. There's the plaque, you know, connected to this MI5 operation. There's this quote from Home Secretary at the time, John Reed, who was having a conversation with Jonathan Evans about this. And I mean, I think this gets at the pot like we're starting to bubble up to the politics when an intelligence operation, a surveillance operation, is starting to have political consequences or potential political consequences, because John Reed at one point tells Jonathan Evans, and again, this quote is literally up on the wall in MI5, if this goes wrong, I'm out of a job, you're out of a job, and the government will fall. But you're absolutely right.
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B
And the reason the government were poor would be if it turned out that this group attacked the US from the UK and they'd been under surveillance. In other words, you know, MI5 had known about it. The consequences for the US and UK if this was to go ahead and it turns out that they'd known about it, you know, would have been just enormous. So that is John Reed's point is, you better be right about this. But I do think when you talk to people and read the accounts of it, Mi5 will say that John Reed was the Home Secretary, so responsible for MI5 in that sense, on a ministerial level, he does give them the support, you know, he basically gives them the space to keep going. And I think that matters, you know, that he's got their back politically, to say, you better have this. Right, but I have got your back. And you keep going, you keep running long on this. But the decision is, how long do you run it? That is the question.
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A
And this is where the Americans are going to have a slightly different perspective. Yeah, Gordon. Now, MI5 has been briefing the Americans on.
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B
Yes, right.
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A
So it's not like the CIA or the FBI are in the dark.
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B
Yeah.
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A
There's knowledge of what's going on and.
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B
The US has been aware of the investigation from early July. Yeah, through liaison. So, you know, you'd imagine that Brits in Washington and telling the Americans about it, about we've got this group under surveillance. But of course it's not yet clear how far developed it is at that point or what the targets are. And so it's early August when fears start to ramp up massively. Once it becomes clear, particularly as you have those conversations in the flat and they're researching the flight times, when it becomes clear that the group are targeting the US and it's potentially another 9 11, but maybe even bigger, maybe even more planes that are being targeted in the US system, I guess maybe understandably, goes into overdrive at that point.
- [13:25]
A
Well, and I mean, I guess so this is where the intelligence, you know, sort of community reforms that happened in 0405. Newly Foreign Department for Homeland Security under Michael Chertoff. Fran Townsend is the Homeland Security Advisor. She's liaising with the White House. And I guess the big question that the White House is going to have is will these bombs even work?
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B
Yeah.
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A
Right. And. And I guess MI5 had already done tests, but the Americans do their own tests.
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B
Yeah.
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A
With a homegrown energy drink.
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B
Gatorade. Yeah.
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A
They use Gatorade, not Lucas Aid.
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B
Yeah. Yes. They're going to do trials with Gatorade because you don't have Lucas Aid.
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A
What good is having an empire if you can't use it to, you know, sort of hawk your wares? But the crucial across the Atlantic, the.
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B
US realize that this would work and that their scanners, you know, the TSA scanners won't pick up, won't pick up a liquid. And the CIA are kind of going, you know, is this going to work? Is it going to blow up a plane? And the answer is yes, if you put the bomb in the right place at the side on the kind of fuselage of the plane. And that's what's going to really worry them. And so the US really do start really worrying about this.
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A
Which makes sense.
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B
Yeah. Which I guess is the context of the times, isn't it?
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A
It's worth saying, I think it's very hard to kind of put ourselves back into that mentality. But at this point, we are five years post 9 11. Yeah. The US is involved in two massive land wars in the Middle east that are connected, I mean, different ways, but connected to this fight against terrorism. There's also, I think, a view in the States of just, we're never going to let a 911 happen again. Right. And a sense from the President on down into The, I mean, into the working level ranks of the intelligence community that we failed.
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B
Yeah.
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A
To prevent 9 11. And I mean, I think if you're President Bush, you're thinking your, your entire political future, your personal future probably depends on preventing these kind of attacks from happening again. Right. And so it gets really at the heart of things. So I can understand why the agency would, you know, would think let's end this thing. Right.
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B
Yeah. I think the US mentality is very much like if there's a 1% chance of this happening.
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A
Right.
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B
We want to eliminate that 1% chance. Right. We do not want to take any risks. I think that is a function of the time and of, yeah, the culture, I guess that came out of 911 and the never again idea. Do whatever it takes to stop it. And this, it's really interesting because this plot is being briefed up to the highest levels. You know, Fran Townsend, the Homeland Security Advisor is briefing President Bush and it's in the President's daily brief.
- [16:07]
A
Yeah. Which, which again I think is just, it's an interesting case study in the liaison relationship because when you have information that's going to this CIA station in London here, probably between, you know, the liaison with MI5 that's getting turned into intelligence reports that are then being worked up by US analysts for inclusion in, you know, PDB articles about this attack plotting. So again, I mean there are elements of the story that are going to show the tension between the two services, but others, I mean this is the kind of day to day cooperation between MI5 and the CIA is.
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B
It's very close, very close and information is going back and forth. So you can see that the US are going to be nervous once they start seeing that idea that this could be an attack targeting the US and that's where the difficult conversations I think start because as we said, John Reed, the UK Home Secretary is like, trust us, we've got it under control. Just give us a bit more time to collect the evidence and to do this. Whereas the US are like this. We're not happy with that.
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A
Well, there had been some tension, yes. In the counterterrorism relationship in particular. Right. Where I'm not sure that the US and the UK were ever sort of strategically at odds over the issue. But I think there's this questionable. How do you deal with it? The two legal approaches taken after 911 were addition. Were very different.
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B
You know, these issues have been tense. You know, how far do you go to get intelligence to stop plots?
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A
That's right. I mean there was a case in 2004 where a Libyan national was captured by the CIA based on intelligence from SIS MI6 and then he's rendered to Libya where he's presumably not treated well. Yeah, there's a lot of political sensitivities here in the UK to exactly how you collaborate with the CIA on counterterrorism work.
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B
And I think there is an awareness on the UK side at that time that they're staying close to the Americans. That is very much the policy. But also the Americans are willing to do things that the Brits aren't and are, you know, in this kind of post 911 mindset. So I think that context is important.
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A
And the Cheney team at the White House blown one of your agents. Agents as well.
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B
I think it's Eamon Dean who's really interesting agent within Al Qaeda. And you do find these cases where the Americans are either using some British intelligence or it's leaking out of what, Washington into the media and the Brits. And this, this is a kind of frequent thing over those years, Even though after 77 some of the details of the bombs were leaked from the American side. And the Brits are kind of, there's a little bit of tension there, but as ever, guess this is worth saying, the Brits are the junior partner. Americans are producing more intelligence. So the Brits to some extent have to kind of deal with it because they know they need to be in that relationship and that's important. But here on this, it's a dispute. You know, there is a real disagreement here between the two sides and it's.
- [19:10]
A
Essentially over whether you should move now and just arrest them, roll them up or wait.
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B
Yeah, because one, I mean, U.S. official describes the situation as a loaded gun. You know, the idea these guys are developing, these liquid bombs, they want it shut down. And the MI6 team, and you hear this from some of the kind of memoirs from the CIA side as well, are saying, don't rush, give us time. An MI6 official tells Jose Rodriguez, who's an important figure, who's the CIA director of operations at the time. The MI6 guy is reported as saying to him, don't rush to judgment, trust us. To which Jose Rodriguez from the CIA says, famous last words. There's a very good book by Aki Peretz called Disruption, which is really good, I think, at recounting from the American side what was going on because he's an American author about what was happening on the American side in this plot.
- [20:02]
A
And I guess the, the U.S. view, if I could take that side for A second is that if you let the thing run on the assumption that MI5 has it all under control and importantly is seeing all of the different players in the plot, that's fine if those assumptions are true. But if you don't have it all covered and you let it run, if one of those people gets on a plane, you just didn't know that they were there and you miss it on surveillance, you could end up with hundreds, if not thousands, of dead Americans and Brits and everybody else.
- [20:38]
B
Right? Yeah, I guess that's the American view, is, are you really sure you've got that good coverage if you're MI5 across everyone? Are you sure that there aren't other plotters out there? But I guess, you know, the MI5 view would be the longer we watch, the more we know about, the more certain you can be and the more you can uncover any other kind of connections or any other cells. So I think that's where the tension lies between the two sides.
- [21:05]
A
And I think this is another interesting dynamic in the liaison relationship, is that as you get some of this cooperation fused with tension, when the stakes are this high, it starts to get political. And so we have then PM Tony Blair and President George W. Bush start to talk about this plot in late July, and Blair is actually visiting Washington for a summit. It's one of the topics of conversation.
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B
Yeah. And MI5 and MI6 warn Blair ahead of that meeting with Bush on July 28th, that Washington is pushing for action. And they say, we need patience. And, you know, the American view is our citizens are planes. So you can see the tension here about the investigation. You've got kind of specific American cities and planes being talked about. So by the start of August, you know, the Americans are really piling on the pressure. And supposedly twice a day, the President would contact Fran Townsend, asking, are you comfortable letting the planes fly every day? Bush wanted to shut it down. One person recalled or arrest all these guys. He'd say, this is all in from the Saki Perez book disruption. Fran Townsend, the Homeland Security Advisor as well, is saying, I don't care about convictions in court. We just want to stop this plot. I don't give a shit if it blows the case. That's what one person is quoted.
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A
Yeah. Which, as you'd argue, would be a little shortsighted because if you don't, actually, if you're not able to convict them, they would then go free.
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B
And the Brits are getting angry because their view is, this is not your case. They're telling the CIA counterpart The liaison does sound really tricky. And you know, Andy Heyman, who's one of the police chiefs at the time, in his memoir, he talks about the US authorities had been getting edgy, seeking reassurance that this was not going to slip through our hands. We'd moved from having congenial conversations to eyeball to eyeball confrontations. We thought we'd managed to persuade them to hold back so we could develop new opportunities and get more evidence to present to the courts. But I was never convinced they were content with that position.
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A
It's also interesting that I guess you could assume that maybe the pressure on the US side is purely coming from the politicians. But it does seem the CIA, the security officials, kind of agree with the politics.
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B
I don't think it was just like the politics. I think the CIA and all the officials in the White House everywhere else are also in on this. I think the Brits maybe think, well, it's just a political thing. We can talk to our liaison counterparts and they'll be.
- [23:26]
A
They'll be real, they'll understand.
- [23:28]
B
And I don't think the Brits realized at the time that actually CIA, you know, all these others were also out to do something. So I guess this is going to push it towards, as we'll see, the end game. Early August.
- [23:39]
A
Tony Blair's on vacation.
- [23:41]
B
Tony Blair's on vacation in Cliff Richard. Do you know who Cliff Richard is?
- [23:44]
A
No.
- [23:44]
B
Popular singer.
- [23:45]
A
Okay.
- [23:46]
B
Popular singer. He has a villa in Barbados.
- [23:48]
A
Oh, that sounds lovely there. It sounds lovely. It's the perfect command center to stop a terrorist operation.
- [23:53]
B
I'm sure Eliza Manningham Buller, who we should say is the head of MI5 at the time, is in the UK but is on leave. So, John, Jonathan Evans, who we've spoken to for our club episode, he's the number two and he's overseeing this. Twice a day he's briefing the Home Secretary, John Reed, and then Reid, the Home Secretary, briefs Blair, who's in Barbados. They're working up an arrest plan in case they need it. Interesting enough here as well. There's also talk that the plotters might do a dry run. In other words, they would take the components onto a flight and actually fly. And actually fly.
- [24:26]
A
Okay.
- [24:27]
B
Just to make sure they could get through security. So one of them would do it before getting through the whole lot to make sure they don't. It doesn't get stopped or spotted.
- [24:35]
A
MI5 has gotten hints of that, presumably from the surveillance, that the plotters themselves are mulling over the idea of a dry runner talking with Rashid Ralph.
- [24:44]
B
Yeah, there's coded references to a rap concert. I mean, Ralph later claims there had been some kind of dry run, but it doesn't look like that had happened at the UK end. And there's some intelligence they're going to do it roundabout by the end of August 11th or around that time. So now the US and UK are kind of worried that people are going to get on board with actual bomb components. And then I guess the problem you're starting to worry is, well, what if they. What if they just do it?
- [25:09]
A
Yeah, exactly.
- [25:10]
B
Michael Hayden, who's CIA director, says this really pushed the needle into the red, you know, so now the US is thinking we are really, really worried about this.
- [25:19]
A
Yeah, exactly. And it feels like a point from the American side of the investigation where you just can't take risk any longer. Right. So let's take a break. When we come back, we'll see how something blows the case wide open.
- [25:35]
F
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- [26:37]
A
Well, welcome back, Gordon. The U.S. has lost its patience, hasn't it? Yeah, we're usually a very patient country and reasonable and. And now we've lost. We've lost all of our patience.
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B
Yeah. And this is going to be interesting because the US Are going to effectively, you could say, compromise the operation or.
- [26:57]
A
At least that's an unchari. Hold on.
- [26:59]
B
Oh, you're already driving forward.
- [27:02]
A
There is some unilateral action.
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B
Unilateral.
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A
I'm very comfortable. When we act unilaterally, it usually goes very well.
- [27:09]
B
And now we're going to explain how the US act unilaterally it's really interesting because it all centres on Pakistan. And back to Rashid Rauf, who as you remember, is the Al Qaeda facilitator, the kind of contact for the plotters. By coincidence, CIA Director Michael Hayden and CIA operations chief Jose Rodriguez are in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad in early August. As this is all coming to a head. They just come from Baghdad.
- [27:35]
A
You don't think it was a coincidence? Well, I think they've arrived to do what they're about to do.
- [27:39]
B
I do wonder about that. They say by coincidence, I mean, they're coming from Baghdad, so. Yeah. And they're going to Afghanistan. So it is plausible this was a prearranged trip. UK police don't know they're there.
- [27:49]
A
We told the bobbies that we're here.
- [27:52]
B
Okay, okay, I'll give you that one. The CIA has close but difficult liaison with Pakistan and its intelligence service. Is that a charitable way of putting it?
- [28:01]
A
That's very charitable, I would say. Yeah. As we'll see from the way that.
- [28:05]
B
This story unfolds, because most of Al Qaeda's leadership had fled Afghanistan after the Taliban had been overthrown. And they go to the tribal areas of Pakistan, which we should say the Pakistani authorities don't have control over effectively day to day. They, Their, their wild tribal areas. Pakistan has some insight, but not total insight to what's going on there. And the US needs Pakistani help to deal with them. But at the same time, the Pakistanis have their own agenda, including supporting, for instance, the Taliban because they. There's one.
- [28:40]
A
Is one thing.
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B
Yeah, there's one thing, for instance, supporting or having at least a relationship with the Taliban and some jihadist groups because they're more worried about India than they are about anything else.
- [28:50]
A
Right. And we should say that at this point in time, in 2006, we're still a year or two away from the alleged drone campaign.
- [28:59]
B
Yeah.
- [28:59]
A
That the CIA will allegedly run in the tribal areas. Like a true former CIA of Pakistan. Getting in around 2007, the CIA began.
- [29:09]
B
Yeah.
- [29:09]
A
But at this point a drone campaign. But this is not happening.
- [29:11]
B
It's not happening yet. And so it's CIA kind of. Relations with the counter terrorist branch of ISI are pretty good, probably slightly better maybe than the Brits have with the isi, of course, because the Americans are bigger, more resources. But then there are other bits of isi, Pakistani intelligence where who are working on different purposes. And so there's always this kind of suspicion between the two sides about what games they're playing. Now we do have quite a few American accounts of what. What happens on this visit by the CIA. So let's. Let's put those out there, and then we can discuss if we think they're the full story. He says, charitably so people who aren't.
- [29:48]
A
Watching should note that Gordon is looking. He's looking at me with intense suspicion.
- [29:54]
B
So according to the American accounts, CIA Director Hayden Operations Chief Jose Rodriguez. First of all, they're taken to a military compound, probably isihq. They just. Outside of Islam. I visited it.
- [30:05]
A
You've gone there?
- [30:06]
B
I've been there. If you told me before I went there that I'd visit ISAI hq, I'd have thought maybe with handcuffs on and, you know, with a hood on. But actually it was. It was a very beautifully manicured compound, really, where a group of us were kind of briefed on ISI counterterrorism by an official there.
- [30:23]
A
It was very interesting.
- [30:24]
B
They're absolutely charming, but you also know, absolutely ruthless, those ISI people that you meet. You know what I mean? They have.
- [30:31]
A
But you were charmed by them, but.
- [30:33]
B
Charmed but also scared. Like, I remember one guy, and he kind of was incredibly urbane and sophisticated. But when I asked him about, you know, but do you kind of torture people here? We'll come back to torture. He said something to me like, we have very different methods from you. And you kind of go, I'll take that as a yes. That was the gist I got.
- [30:54]
A
It's a tough neighborhood.
- [30:55]
B
Yeah, it's putting it mildly. But they meet. Rodriguez and Hayden, meet Kayani, who was the head of the ISA at the time. Chat in a large conference room. Kyani is annoyed at being told Pakistan's not doing enough to fight Al Qaeda. At one point, he mutters to CIA Director Hayden, I'm tired of you Americans saying we're not doing enough to fight the terrorists. This is where Rashid Raf comes into it, because the Brits have asked for surveillance of him, but it's a bit intermittent because he's mainly in a tribal areas, but he's moving around. Hayden says, well, we'd be interested to know where he was. Rashid Ralph. This is the account of it. And also Kajani will kind of suggest to Jose Rodriguez, are you with me? Are you going to kind of support me? And Rodriguez says, yeah, of course. Hayden leaves, goes to Afghanistan. Rodriguez operations director stays for more talks, which I also find curious. You know, maybe it's, again, entirely understandable. We'll come back to my cynicism later. Okay, hold this thing. There wouldn't be Fine.
- [32:00]
A
So at this point, Rodriguez is the ddl. It feels like a pretty normal thing for.
- [32:06]
B
He's flown around in a helicopter tour of the tribal areas. See where the action has happened on that as well. It's very impressive. They come back to Islamabad, brief Rodriguez on the airline plot. He's been on the road for a few days. He says he's surprised by how much has happened. He hears about, for instance, the female police officer in the Internet cafe in Walthamstow seeing Ali write down the US flight times.
- [32:30]
A
We should say Rodriguez is being briefed by the CIA at this point. Right. ISI is not involved in, but he's.
- [32:36]
B
Suddenly realizing this is moving on. And then Rodriguez, you're right, that's CIA. And Rodriguez thinks, okay, this is getting serious. Rodriguez meets Kayani, the RSI chief, who says the Pakistanis had learned that Rashid Rauf might soon be travelling from the tribal areas towards a city. And Kayani. This is from Jose Rodriguez book, Hard Measures. And the title gives you some idea about his mentality. He says, Kajane says, here's an opportunity. Would you support us if we captured Ralph right now? And Rodriguez says, I made an on the spot decision. Absolutely. We want this bad guy. It seemed to me that telling Kyani anything else would have undermined the relationship we were trying to build with the isi. And he says, I made the call despite a vague understanding that British authorities were hoping we would not move too rashly against Ralph. And then he tells this story about after that meeting ends, he departs. He's heading for dinner. They're in an armored sedan. There's a kind of security convoy. The CIA's Chief of Station kind of joins him in the back of the car. A phone rings for a Pakistani who's with them. And he's told, Ralph is on a bus heading for one of our checkpoints. We want to capture him. Are you with us? And, you know, the colleague turns to Jose Rodriguez and says, what do you think, boss? And Rodriguez says, I said, let's get him. The cautious thing would have been to consult with Washington, but doing so would have been the equivalent of saying no. Washington never responds instantly.
- [34:16]
A
I mean, he also mentions that, I mean, in this sort of acerbic way, would have wanted meetings, develop position papers and consult the British. Yeah, three things that sound tiresome. Right.
- [34:28]
B
I think that does give you some insight into Jose Rodriguez, who, let's say, is a more controversial character in the. Well, controversial horror, hardline character in the annals of the Central Intelligence Agency.
- [34:39]
A
His memoir is titled Hard measures.
- [34:41]
B
Yeah. He was involved in overseeing the kind of enhanced interrogation. I'm using scare quotes there because lots of people call it torture program. I know that's something that he'd deny, but, you know, that's the. Yeah, that's his reputation and his attitude is, I don't want to be in front of a commission or a congressional inquiry explaining why I didn't take the opportunity.
- [35:01]
A
It is interesting how this Pakistani benevolence to go after Ralph.
- [35:05]
B
Yeah.
- [35:05]
A
Came together so smoothly.
- [35:07]
B
Yes.
- [35:07]
A
Now while the CIA was out there.
- [35:09]
B
Yes. So this is all despite the fact we should be clear that the Brits have said, hold off arresting Ralph. We need more time to collect information. That has been the request from Tony Blair to George W Bush. Rodriguez says he didn't know about the presidential conversations with Tony Blair and he only had a vague idea the Brits didn't want them to arrest Ralph. Dunno, what do you think? I'll say what I think. I think these memoirs are disguising the true thing of what happened, which is, I think the Americans decided they wanted to do it rather than the Pakistanis coming, oh, hey, there's an opportunity. I think the Americans said, we want this guy out. We don't care what the Brits think. We want this operation rolled up. Our way of doing it. They won't. They're not moving fast enough in London. They're not listening to us saying, roll it up. So we're going to shortcut this by getting the Pakistanis to arrest Ralph.
- [36:08]
A
I think that's probably not so far from the truth. What I guess I don't understand, though, is if you arrest Ralph, there's a world where the plotters stop. There's also a world where that accelerates.
- [36:23]
B
Yeah. The attack has a risk.
- [36:25]
A
Right. There's. There's a risk attached to it, which does make me wonder if at least pieces of what Jose Rodriguez is saying here is true, which is that maybe there is a. Not a complete picture on his side of the conversations that had happened between Bush and Blair. Yes.
- [36:46]
B
Yeah.
- [36:46]
A
Jonathan Evans and. Yeah. Michael Hader.
- [36:49]
B
Because we should say that the reason why this is. And we'll come back to this a bit later, but this is so significant. Arresting Ralph is. We talked earlier about how Ralph was in daily, constant contact in Sarwa and Ali in London. So they are constantly talking to each other about the bomb, about plans, about the timings. I mean, you know, Ali's kind of there constantly communicating with him about the updates. So as soon as you arrest Ralph, Ralph, you're tipping the hand that they.
- [37:17]
A
Yeah, because those go dark. Communication. Yeah.
- [37:20]
B
Michael Hayden, CIA Director, says ISI did not want to move against Ralph without American support and cover. But I have to say some Pakistanis suggest that it was the Americans pushing for Ralph's arrest during the meetings, including the one between.
- [37:34]
A
I think that makes the most sense. Yeah, like it doesn't, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me that the Pakistanis would.
- [37:41]
B
Oh yeah, yeah, we could do this for you now.
- [37:43]
A
We could do this for you now. I mean there must have at least been a set of conversations that happened where the Americans bring up Ralph.
- [37:50]
B
Yeah.
- [37:50]
A
And then the Pakistanis realize, oh, this guy's, they're all the Americans and we can demonstrate our value by arresting him. And that feels like the more, the more.
- [37:58]
B
I mean, there was some US reports I read which even said the US had threatened to render Ralph themselves if the Pakistanis didn't pick him up. Andy Heyman, the UK police chief also says he thinks the US his words lost their nerve and triggered the arrest in Pakistan. And it's interesting because the CIA will try and blame what happens on the Pakistanis and suggest it was their fault and not a U.S. decision. And it's very interesting because the person who has to come into MI5 and MI6 in London and tell them that what I think a lot of people think is a bit of a half truth or you know, a non truth that it was the Pakistanis fault and not the Americans, interestingly enough is the CIA head of counterterrorism in London, which is Jennifer Matthews, who we, you know, talked about in a previous episode who.
- [38:48]
A
Dies in the series we did on the coast bombings.
- [38:51]
B
Yeah, right. And she was, she was very direct and uncompromising, you know, generally. But some Brits I think will later almost feel sorry for her because their view is she's being sent to come into MI5 and MI6 and basically tell them an untruth, which is this is all the Pakistanis fault. When I think they view it as an American decision. So anyway, that, that is the, the issue. So in Pakistan, you know, Jose Rodriguez was supposed to be out for dinner. They scrap plans for dinner. They set up a command center to get a live feed of the forces providing a blow by below count of the arrangement arrest of Rashid Ralph. And he says the capture was carried out by Pakistani troops with CIA officers providing high tech assistance nearby. Again, that strikes me as the fact they had a CIA team nearby ready to go also suggests this was, you know, not a oh, he happens to be here. Let's, let's take him.
- [39:49]
A
It makes it sound a little bit less spur of the moment. Although the agency would have had lots of teams, lots of resources in Islam.
- [39:56]
B
Yeah, maybe, maybe, maybe so. Ralph is asleep at the back of a bus. It reaches a checkpoint by a railway track. He opens his eyes and he looks out the window and he can see armed police, including plain clothes police, waiting. The bus stops. They come towards the bus. Ralph realizes at that point he's in trouble. He actually wonders at first if it's something that Ali and the guys in the UK have done, which, which has compromised him and, you know, led the authorities to him. But actually he realizes he'd left his own phone on, which allowed him to be tracked, which is how they get to it. And he tries to turn it off. It's too late. The officers come to the back of the bus, quickly see it's him. They cuff him, hood him, take him to a van and to an army camp. That is it for the moment. Qurashi Ralph, for the moment.
- [40:45]
A
And Jose Rodriguez writes in his memoir that he called Langley and told his chief of staff, who was Gina director Gina Haspel, what had happened. And he says, I asked Gina to go down the hall and brief the then Deputy Director, Steve Kappas. She called back minutes later. Steve is livid. He wants to know why you let the Pakistanis conduct the takedown. Because I agreed with them, was my simple answer, is how Jose Rodriguez describes that. And, you know, Gina says that the Brits are insistent on following the leads on the case a while longer to see who else might be implicated. President Bush apparently told Prime Minister Blair a few hours earlier that we would move slowly on this plot. She said, I would imagine that over at Thames House. Yeah, there's some consternation.
- [41:34]
B
I think there would be. I mean, at CIA, it sounds like there's consternation because, you know, Rodrigo says, all hell broke loose at my headquarters. I was glad to be in a war zone. So it does, I mean, it does suggest whether it was Rodriguez himself, but it's going to be absolute fury from the Brits. I mean, the Americans are slightly, you know, this is bad, but it's bad because they know how angry the Brits are.
- [41:57]
A
So the fact that the Deputy Director of the CIA is furious about this suggests to me that what may have happened is Jose Rodriguez goes out for liaison meetings with isi. There's going to be a whole bunch of different items on the agenda. One of those things might have been Rashid Ralph which may have just been a discussion about him. And then the. When the Pakistanis realize that this is interesting as you're sort of doing the wheeling and dealing because these meetings are sort of commerce.
- [42:28]
B
Yeah.
- [42:28]
A
If Rodriguez is suggesting that this guy's valuable and the Pakistanis think, well, we're already watching him and we don't care about handing this guy over, potentially he becomes immediately in that commerce a sort of bargaining chip. And all of this could be going on without any knowledge, certainly in London or back at headquarters in Langley. And then it could just happen.
- [42:53]
B
Yeah, it could do. So that's the charitable you. Which is. It's basically Rodriguez in the Pakistan Danis making their move, being only half sighted of what the higher ups were.
- [43:03]
A
Well, it would explain why Capis was furious.
- [43:07]
B
Yeah. If you're going to buy that account. I'm still, I still think maybe there was.
- [43:12]
A
You're still skeptical.
- [43:13]
B
But Rodriguez, you know, says himself it was better to ask for forgiveness than ask for permission. I think that's very Rodriguez. But as we said, the problem is Ralph is in such regular contact with the plotters. When he breaks contact, the fear is they'll know something is up. Just at that moment, Rashid Ralph is being arrested. Some of the plotters are recording what are believed to be martyrdom videos in that Forest Road flats. And the Americans have kept the Brits in the dark about this plan to arrest Ralph. So the Brits have no idea Ralph is approaching the checkpoint, he's going to be arrested. They don't know anything that's going on and when they find out, that is going to cause them to hit the panic button in London.
- [43:57]
A
So we're there with the Brits slamming the panic button and the Special Relationship in tatters. Let's end the third episode. When we come back next time we will see how it all comes together and how the special Relationship really is able to mend all wounds. Isn't that right, Gordon?
- [44:15]
B
I think we'll see how difficult it really gets.
- [44:17]
A
That's right. But if you don't want to wait, don't wait. Go and join the declassified club@therestisclassified.com. get that last episode right now, binge the whole series. And also get access to our two part interview with Jonathan Evans, who was overseeing this operation at MI5 at the time and has some really amazing insights into how it all went down. We'll see you next time.
- [44:43]
B
See you next time.