See No Evil Review

8/14/2019 See No Evil Review

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See No Evil

Robert Baer

The CIA severely declined in capabilities and adopted a confused mission and corporate climatefollowing the end of the Cold War. The once-mighty European stations were allowed to atrophy

to almost nothing.The CIA failed to change its mission to fighting the growing threat of Islamic extremismfollowing the end of the Soviet Union. Europe had become a hotbed of Islamist activity in the1990s [and remains so today], but CIA offices on the continent often had few or no Mideastlinguists.The success of the 9/11 attacks was due to multiple failures on the part of the U.S. government,not any one blunder.Baer is critical of the CIAs DCIs in the 1990s. He believes the problem is that all of them werebureaucrats who were detached from the mechanics and needs of the spy business.During the 1990s, some Mideast countries were only covered by two CIA agentsBaer was part of a secret CIA team operating in northern Iraq during the mid 90s. In 1995, he

was called back to Washington and questioned by the FBI for his supposed role in a plot toassassinate Saddam Hussein. Executive Order 12333 [signed by Ronald Reagan] makes it illegalfor a CIA agent to kill a foreign leader.Ahmad Chalabi started the trouble when he met with Iranian government representatives andshowed them a forged letter from the NSC stating that the U.S. was prepared to kill Saddam.Chalabi thought it would strengthen his own planned rebellion against Saddam if the Iranians goton board. Somehow, the news of the fake letter leaked, along with claims that Baer wasconnected to the plot. Baer says that conspiracies and lies like this make the Middle East goround.The CIA has become increasingly risk-averse and favors signals intelligence, aerialreconnaissance, monitoring of publications, and getting human intelligence from foreign intel

services over recruiting and utilizing its own human intel.Baer led a very transient lifestyle as a child. His parents divorced when he was young, and hismother took him on road trips all over Europe, teaching him languages, history and philosophy.Baer developed into an impulsive and highly adventurous young man, prone to major pranks andstunts and obsessed with skiing (at which he became proficient).He graduated from Georgetowns School of Foreign Service in 1976 and held a few odd jobsbefore applying to the CIA on a whim at age 22. To his surprise, Baer got a positive response.A recruiter spoke with Baer and explained the organization of the CIA and what jobs wereavailable. The recruiter steered him towards the Directorate of Operationsthe part of the CIAthat gathers human intelligence in the field.The CIA sends Americans such as Baer overseas as handlers. Handlers have real, non-CIA jobsin foreign countries as a cover. But in their spare time, handlers perform their real function:Recruiting and debriefing agentslocals who wish to spy for the U.S.Handlers are taught to be social and to single out people with alcohol problems, anger towardstheir government, money problems, or pro-U.S. attitudes as potential CIA agents.After a protracted period of testing and interviews, Baer was accepted into the CIA. Heunderwent extensive paramilitary traininga holdover from the WWII OSS days when theagency made use of such skills. Today, the CIA is extremely averse towards using its personnelfor fighting of any sort.


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Baer then went for a second round of more cerebral training at The Farm, located outsideWilliamsburg, VA.A large amount of time was devoted towards teaching countersurveillanceevading enemieswho are following you. Even when being carefully watched, there are always brief momentsduring a typical daily routine in which a person is completely out of sight. It is during these

moments that the spy must do their work.A spy must spend large amounts of time exploring different travel routes and places to find ifthey are useful for doing clandestine activities, and much time must also be spent moving aroundjust to shake enemy observers off.During the late 70s, Baer had his first field assignment in India. Americas primary espionageobjectives there were to track Indias nuclear program [India detonated its first nuke in 1974] andto obtain information on Soviet weapons systems (the Soviets exported cutting-edge equipmentto India).Baers first big break came when an Indian agent managed to get copies of Soviet T-72 tankmanuals for two hours from the Indian military. The two split up and agreed to meet at a tennisclub later. Baer headed back to his office and made copies of the manuals. As he was driving to

the meeting to give them back, a number of cars full of Indian security personnel startedfollowing him. A car chase ensued, and Baer tossed a suitcase full of the manuals out into thebushes outside the club, where the agent grabbed them and ran away. Baer then grabbed histennis bag, ran into the tennis clubs lounge, sat down next to a rich-looking Indian man he didntknow, ordered drinks for them both, and began a friendly conversation. Shortly afterwards, theIndian officers burst in and assumed that Baer had come there to meet the rich man. [Baer doesnot tell how the incident ended.]Baer then went to the Mideast even though he knew nothing about the region. He admits it was avery impulsive decision he didnt understand at the time. [He clearly has an impulsivepersonality.] Baer underwent extensive Arabic training before deployment.On April 18th, 1983, the U.S. embassy in Beirut was hit by a car bomb, killing 63 people. TheCIA was especially hard-hit, losing eight people, including a top director, Robert Ames. Thebomb was massive, and the investigation revealed that the entire job had been extremelyprofessional. A mysterious group no one had heard of called the Islamic Jihad Organizationclaimed responsibility and then disappeared for a time. The truck had actually been owned inAmerica before being shipped overseas.In the Middle East, the CIA recruits clans and families, not individuals.Baer was next deployed to Lebanon. He had a bad boss who was very risk-averse and turneddown Baers requests for operations because they risked upsetting diplomatic relations or theboss superiors. The Lebanon boss was obsessed with making sure all paperwork was in order.Baer says he didnt realize it at the time, but this man was the face of the new CIA. [CIAsdecline began before the end of the Cold War.]Baer learned where Abu Nidal lived and wanted to have an agent rent an apartment next to his soa CIA team could secretly come in, drill a hole through the wall, and put microphones in Nidalsplace. The boss rejected the idea.During the Lebanese Civil War, the Iranian Pasdaran established a strong presence in the country,using its own personnel for terrorism and providing training and resources to other Islamicterrorists. The Pasdaran took over the Sheikh Abdullah barracks and converted it into itsheadquarters for several years. Foreign hostages, including Americans, were kept here secretly.

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Kidnappings of Westerners were common in Lebanon. Iran was behind many of them and didthis primarily through proxies.Baer became friends with a member of the Moussaui clan. The man had terrorist ties within hisfamily, and told Baer that a group intended to kidnap a high-ranking American soon. Shortlyafterwards, on March 16th, 1984, CIA station chief Bill Buckley was kidnapped in Beirut. He was

secretly held until being killed in 1991 and dumped on a street.At the time, the CIA also had a very valuable agent inside of an Islamic terrorist organization.The CIA allowed him to bomb one of its compounds, with secret precautions being taken first toensure no casualties, so he could impress his bosses. The ploy worked and the terrorist groupremained convinced that the agent was loyal.In the Middle East, all events and groups are connected. It is an extremely intricate andmultilayered place.Baer joined Dewey Claridges new CIA Counterterrorism Center (CTC) in the mid-80s. Baerdescribes the CTC headquarters as a place of frenetic activity, with hundreds of people workingin a single, large room.Deweys operation quickly ran into problems. First, it had a bad shortage of Mideast linguists.

Second, regional CIA departments were unwilling to allow CTC operations within their zones forfear of upsetting host governments (i.e.German government becomes upset when it finds outCIA has been spying on German Muslims without giving notice).Baer met with some members of the Muslim Brotherhood who were trying to kill Qaddafi.Syria has been under a secular, Baath Party dictatorship since 1966 when General Hafez al-Assad seized power in a coup [he died in 2000, and his son Bashar took over the Presidency].The Islamic Brotherhood of Syria wanted to kill Assad and they knew that America hated theman too since he supported terrorism in Lebanon and Israel. So, the Islamic Brotherhoodapproached Baer and held a meeting with him in Germany (the group had a presence there)where they asked the CIA to help in an assassination attempt. The group had smuggled AAmissiles near the Damascus airport, and needed American intelligence to tell them when Assadsplane was flying out. Baer had to decline because it was illegal for the CIA to assist inassassinations.The Iranian presence in Lebanon actually scared Syria because the Iranians backed all Islamicterrorist groups except those with Syrian ties.Aerial reconnaissance photos, Baers own disguised visit to the site, and interviews with anescaped American prisoner gave the CIA much more information on the Sheikh Abdullahbarracks, and convinced Baer it was staffed with Iranians and was where American hostageswere being held.After the 1983 bombing of the U.S. embassy to Lebanon, the staff was relocated to a newembassy building in a safer location in East Beirut. Security measures were also increased, buton September 20th, 1984, another suicide bomber managed to plow his vehicle into the buildingand blow it up, killing 22 people and again forcing the embassy to be moved to a new location.Baer visited the third U.S. embassy and described it as a low building in the middle of ten acresof flat land, all covered with barbed wire and obstacles and with antimissile nets strungoverhead. The security presence was also extremely heavy. Embassy personnel still lived off-site,and had to move around in convoys of heavy vehicles full of armed men. But in a warzone suchas 1980s Beirut, everyone has automatic weapons and explosives, so fighting your way out oftrouble was often not an option. Baer instead says that the best way to stay safe in such a place is

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to try to blend in as much as possible, and to change apartments, cars, and daily routes every fewdays. Baer says he often went around unarmed or with just a pistol.[Baer goes into an extraordinary level of detail discussing how he tracked terrorist activities inLebanon using human intelligence and analysis. It appears almost identical to police detectivework. I am not interested in these specifics and have skipped it.]

Baer concludes that Fatah orchestrated the 1985 hijacking of TWA flight 847, and that YassirArafat knew beforehand and may have given the go-ahead.Agents who provide human intelligence are sometimes given CIA polygraphs to verify the truthof their statements. The polygraphs are conducted in-country at secret locations.Baer made it a personal side project to research the 1983 embassy bombing over the years. Hewas troubled by the fact that nobody was ever arrested. In 1987, he recommended to hissuperiors that several new suspects be arrested for the crime. This was denied, and Baer came torealize that his bosses were all bureaucrats who had never served in the field, did not appreciatethe loss, and just wanted to move on.Baer reminds the reader that Yassir Arafat started out as an Islamic extremist before he turned topolitics [he fought alongside the Muslim Brotherhood against Israel in 1948, and later his first

advisors were from the same group], and he never severed his ties with Sunni and Shiiteterrorist groups even decades later.Baer was next assigned to Tajikistan in the early 1990s, right after the breakup of the SovietUnion. At the time, the Russian army retained a strong presence in the former Soviet republics,and was fighting a war with Islamic radicals in Tajikistan. It was seriously feared that all ofcentral Asia might fall to Islamic fundamentalism. [The Tajik civil war went from May 1992-June 1997 and cost 50,000-100,000 lives. The secularists won with Russian help.]Boris Yeltsin alienated the Russian army in the aftermath of the August 1991 coup.Russian troops stationed in the former republics lived terribly: Many died in fighting againstIslamists or other separatists, tours of duty lasted months or years in very remote locations, andbases were not resupplied. The central government sold military equipment and weapons to thirdparties legally and illegally, leaving the Russian army to rot. Some inside the Russiangovernment were also involved in the drug trade. A plot to overthrow Yeltsins corruptgovernment formed among frontier military commanders, who had the best-trained units inRussia. They planned to tap Alexander Lebed as their leader. A Russian colonel in Tajikistanasked Baer how the U.S. would react to a coup, and Baer was ordered to say that Americasupported Russias democratically elected government.During Baers time in Tajikistan, the CIA office was actually located inside the Russian embassyto Tajikistan. It was a very bold statement of post-Cold War unity.The Pasdaran took advantage of the Soviet Unions fall to spread agents throughout central Asiaand to help Islamic fundamentalist groups trying to seize power.Baer took a break from his work for a hellish vacation along Tajikistans southern border to drivehis truck out in search of an ancient civilization rumored to exist in one of the valleys. Along theway, he found more Russian border stations in terrible shape, with haggard, scared garrisonslacking supplies and decent leadership. Many still believed the Soviet Union existed. Baerdescribes the area as stunningly beautiful at points, but also extremely dangerous andimpoverished.After two years of living in very poor conditions (no hot water, dirty water, eating Army rations,etc.), Baer decided he had had enough and wanted to leave Tajikistan. However, Baer couldnt

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find a qualified replacement since CIA personnel lacked the necessary language skills and sincegoing overseas had become a bad career choice for those wishing to advance in the ranks.Said Abdullah Nouri was a warlord who headed Tajikistans Islamic Renaissance Party, whichwas fighting in the civil war against the government. The Russians and Tajiks begged Americafor help against him.

The Saudi Royal Family, under the auspices of the World Islamic/Muslim League of SaudiArabia, smuggled money and weapons to Nouri.Nouri connected al Qaeda to the Iranian intelligence services. In July 1996, he arranged forOsama bin Laden to meet an Iranian representative. It is suspected that bin Laden asked forterrorist assistance and proposed an alliance against the U.S.In 1995, Baer was in northern Iraq. His CIA teammate was a contractoranother sign of wherethe agency was headed.The Arab leaders, who understood the effects of power vacuums in their regions, had opposedAmerican plans to topple Saddam during the First Gulf War.After the end of the First Gulf War, the Kurds achieved a level of independence from Saddamand fell into their own civil war. While the civil war was really a disorganized clan war, by the

time Baer got there, there were two main sides.Baer arrived in Kurdistan in January 1995 to recruit spies mainly in an effort to learn about IraqsWMD program.Since leaders are so far removed from their people, state decisions are made in secret, and themedia is state-controlled, many Arabs rely on conspiracy theories and rumors for news and toform their world views. Iraq was no exception. Most Iraqis believed that the U.S. was actuallykeeping Saddam in power so that his presence would threaten the Gulf States into seeking U.S.protection, which would only be provided if they lowered oil prices. Iraqis saw the Americanfailure to topple Saddam at the end of the First Gulf War and the weak retaliations againstSaddams misbehavior as proof of this secret relationship.A high-ranking Iraqi military official approached Baer and revealed plans for a coup: Threedivisions of tanks and mechanized infantry would stage a surprise attack against Baghdad.Saddam would flee to a fort outside of Tikrit, where a fourth tank unit would surround him andeither capture or kill him. The coup would be over within a few hours. The coup force was notlarge enough to beat the entire Iraqi army and would depend on total surprise for success. Theofficial told Baer about this for two reasons: 1) He was beholden to the conspiratorial view thatthe U.S. supported Saddam and that American permission was thus needed before the operation,and 2) fast U.S. recognition of the new Iraqi government would be critical to the plans success.Baer checked out the info. the officer provided him and discovered that the military official hadnamed real Iraqi officers in charge of the correct units, and that they all did have connections toeach other.But events unfolding in the Kurdish civil war threatened the coup plot. Massoud Barzani andJalal Talabani led the two major Kurdish factions. Barzani was gaining a decisive edge in theconflict thanks to the fact that the main oil smuggling route to Turkey passed through histerritory and he could tax the contraband, giving him money for arms and ammunition. Thisarrangement also meant that Barzani had developed a relationship with Saddams government,which actively supported the illegal oil smuggling. Talabanis forces had become weak bycomparison because no smuggling routes traversed their land. Talabani was becoming desperate,and there were signs he might gamble everything on a massive offensive against Barzanissuperior forces. Barzani, who put the power of his tribe and himself within it above all else,

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might call in the Iraqi army in such an event and allow them onto his territory in Kurdistan(Talabani, by contrast, had a much broader worldview that went beyond his tribe and the Kurds,and he hated Saddam and wanted better for all of Iraq). This would mean that the coup unitswould move from the Baghdad area to northern Iraq, ruining the entire operation.It was during this same time that Ahmad Chalabi met Baer. Chalabis Iraqi National Congress

had a base in Kurdistan. Chalabi also wanted to overthrow Saddam (though he was ignorant ofthe Generals plot), but he wanted his group to constitute the new government.Baer thought Chalabi was a poor choice for an Iraqi leader for several reasons:-Chalabi was a Shiite, and Shiites had never ruled Iraq in its history.-Chalabi had no military experience, which would prove especially bad if the INC intended totake Iraq by force.-Chalabi came from a wealthy family that had fled Iraq when he was eight and moved toLebanon. Chalabi thus spoke with a Lebanese accent.-He was educated in the U.S., which would have led many Iraqis to distrust him as an Americanlackey.-Because of these last two facts, Chalabi was widely viewed by Iraqis as a stateless exile.

The INC also had no support inside of Iraq.There were also questions about Chalabis integrity since his biggest business venturethe PetraBankhad failed spectacularly in 1989, losing investors hundreds of millions of dollars andleading to Chalabis indictment in a Jordanian court for embezzlement.Baer met Chalabi several times, both in D.C. and Kurdistan, and he also knew other governmentpeople who dealt with the man as well. Baer described Chalabi as being a highly intelligent,charismatic, manipulative man who cleverly assumed the form of Washingtons ideal Iraqi leadereven though he lacked true substance, thus gaining strong support from some Americanpoliticians. [This would later explain why members of the Bush administration so stronglypushed for his leadership in 2003]Chalabi was concerned that the course of the Kurdish civil war would soon lead Barzani to inviteSaddams army in, which would mean the end of INC activities in Iraq. Chalabi was pressured toact, and formed his own coup plans, which he shared with Baer. Chalabi supposedly knewKurdish and Shiite leaders whom he could convince to start uprisings against Saddam in Iraqsnorth and south, respectively. But he needed the CIA to convince Barzani and Talabani to worktogether to fight Saddams northern forces in order for the plan to succeed.Barzani, who was comfortable with the status quo, refused Baers request to fight againstSaddam.The State Department, which was growing concerned over the unstable situation in Kurdistan,sent an envoy to speak with the various sides. Baer says the envoy was very unfriendly towardshim and had the view that the CIA had somehow caused the problem. [Example of U.S.government turf wars] The envoy promised to give the Kurds $2 million to stop fighting, but saidthey could get the money from the CIA via Baer. Baer had not been informed of this, and had tomake the embarrassing revelation to the Kurdish leaders that the money could not be givenbecause such an exchange was illegal.With the option of a negotiated peace gone, Talabani was pressured to act on his own to escapehis bad situation. He shared with Baer a bold plan to withdraw all troops from the front withBarzani and to throw everyone into a southward attack against Saddams entrenched V Corps.[Presumably Saddams front line of containment against the Kurds] Baer was shocked: V Corpsconsisted of tanks, artillery and infantry and was several times the size of Talabanis force. The

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attack would also leave Talabanis territory completely exposed to Barzanis forces. However,Talabani believed that V Corps was in fact very weak because its troops were demoralized andbadly led, and that Barzani would be killed as a traitor if he dared attack another Kurdish tribewhile that tribe was in the middle of fighting against a superior Arab force.Baer agreed that most of Saddams army was in very bad shape. He knew this from speaking

with Iraqi deserters of all ranks who fled to the north and described units lacking food, fuel,ammunition, and all other supplies.Thus, in early 1995, three different groups of Iraqis had all hatched plans to overthrow Saddam.Chalabi and the generals agreed to work together. Barzani refused to participate in the uprising.Talabani said he might help.Baer had been in direct contact with CIA headquarters and the State Department during all ofthis. The U.S. had been noncommittal the entire time, and on the eve of the coup, NationalSecurity Advisor Tony Lake sent a telegram to Baer stating that the U.S. government neithersupported nor opposed the plan.The operation began on March 4th, 1995. Baer visited the INC headquarters to find it acommunications nerve center abuzz with activity. He also received news that the tank unit

around Tikrit had armed itself with stolen shells.However, the plan quickly failed. Barzani arrested one of the coup generals as he was transitingKurdish territory and imprisoned him for six critical hours. Saddam also got word of the plot andarrested several other generals. Chalabi got spooked and the entire INC packed up and went to asecret location elsewhere in northern Iraq, abandoning the whole coup. Talabani did not attack.Baers analysis of satellite reconnaissance showed that none of the Iraqi units that were to havetaken part in the coup did anything unusual around the time of the planned coup.It was at this time that Baer was first informed by his CIA boss that he was under investigationbecause of the supposed connection to the forged Chalabi letter that stated CIA support forSaddams assassination. Baer was ordered to return to Washington in a week for an FBIinterview.It was at this critical moment that Talabani staged his attack against V Corps. They scored majorvictories and Talabanis assessment of V Corps weakness proved correct: Entire unitssurrendered with little or no resistance. Thousands of prisoners were taken along with tons ofweapons and supplies. During the first day, Talabanis forces even beat back a Republican Guardcounterattack meant to relieve the crumbling regular army, inflicting heavy losses.Baer and his CIA contractor loaded up their truck and set out to find Talabani. On route, they sawthe results of the battles. When they found Talabani, he was in good spirits and was planning totake Tikrit and then to drive all the way south to Baghdad to depose Saddam.Baer contacted the CIA with news of the new developments. However, since satellitesurveillance and signals intelligence had failed to show evidence of the uprising, no one believedBaers claims that Talabani was tearing apart the Iraqi army. Requests for U.S. support were alsodenied. Baer was forced to return to Washington in the middle of all of this for the criminalinvestigation. He and his contractor left in early March 1995 and were replaced by a differentCIA team.Baer says the CIA officials and FBI agents treated him badly during the investigation. As soon ashe passed a polygraph test proving his noninvolvement with the assassination plot, theinvestigation was dropped.

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Nevertheless, his bosses at the CIA were concerned that he was a bit of a rogue element, andreassigned him from field duties to a desk job at CIA headquarters in 1995. There, he controlleda staff of 25 people.The arrest of Aldrich Ames in February 1994 led to terrible repercussions within the CIA, inlarge part because Ames managed to escape detection for years even though he had been

spending impossibly high amounts of money given his CIA salary. Counterespionageresponsibilities were turned over to the FBI. The FBI man in charge of this was overzealous andoften hostile to CIA personnel. He reopened every suspected espionage investigation within CIA,and in the process of investigating this and other things, created a hostile, fearful environmentwithin the agency. Everyone at the CIA who had ever had an unofficial or suspect contact with aforeigner was polygraphed. Baer believes that many honest employees were fired or resigned inembarrassment because they failed these polygraphs due to nervousness.Because of all the new investigative red tape that now came with speaking to foreigners, CIAfield offices de-emphasized recruiting new agents and instead focused on paperwork and dealingwith bosses.It was at this time that Baer came into contact with a man named Roger Tamraz. Tamraz was a

very successful Lebanese-American businessman who, in the early 90s, was in talks to build anoil pipeline from the Caspian Sea to Turkey, passing through Azerbaijan and Armenia. However,at the same time an oil consortium including Exxon and BP was trying to secure rights to buildthe pipeline. The consortium had been burned by Tamraz in the past, and didnt want to beoutcompeted by him again. So, the companies used their political connections to their favor: TheState Dept. and Dept. of Energy both called the Azerbaijani President to pressure him to give theconsortium the contract. Baer first became involved with this when NSC Eurasian staffer SheilaHeslin contacted him and demanded CIA dirt on Tamraz. Baer searched his files and found thatTamraz had a secret relationship with the CIA going back to 1972. Heslin was part of thegovernment effort to block Tamrazs pipeline deal.Tamraz and Baer spoke often during this period. One day, Tamraz called Baer and told himseveral important things: 1) The Chinese had agreed to finance Tamrazs Turkmenistan-Azerbaijan-Armenia-Turkey oil pipeline, 2) Tamraz had sought American support for the project,and had illegally donated large sums of money to the DNC and Ted Kennedys family, for whichhe was rewarded with a stay in the Lincoln Bedroom and a promised one-on-one session withBill Clinton, and 3) Tamraz had already convinced Boris Yeltsin to support the pipeline, andYeltsin gave Tamraz KGB money to illegally funnel into Clintons 1996 campaign fund (Yeltsinliked Clinton). [Strange since Russia opposes Central Asian pipelines that bypass its ownterritory and hence dont allow Russia to take a cut]In 1995, Saudi Hezbollah asked the Iranian government for help conducting terrorist activities.The Iranians eagerly agreed, and the Pasdaran create a terrorist training base in Lebanon forSaudi Hezbollah. The Pasdaran gave the terrorists extensive training and completely funded theiroperations. In November 1995, the group used a car bomb to kill five American servicemen andseveral Saudis, and in June 1996, Saudi Hezbollah used a truck bomb to attack a U.S. Air Forcebarracks in Dharan, Saudi Arabia (the Khobar Towers), killing 19 Americans.In 1995, an al Qaeda representative met with Iranian intelligence officials inside of Iran. In Julyof 1996, an Iranian intel officer traveled to Afghanistan and met with Osama bin Laden. It isbelieved that bin Laden asked for Iranian terrorist training and supportwhich al Qaeda badlyneededand proposed an alliance against the U.S. Baer states that a strong al Qaeda-Iranterrorist union would be extremely dangerous.

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Baer wanted to bug a Pasdaran building in central Asia to obtain more information on the group,but he had to get permission from Sheila Heslin. At first, she forbid the operation, claiming that itmight enrage the Iranians and cause them to retaliate by attacking Amoco personnel working onthe pipeline in Azerbaijan. Amoco belonged to the consortium working to build a competingpipeline against Tamraz. Heslin had previously sought CIA dirt on Tamraz to use against him.

Baer was sickened by what appeared to be Heslins ulterior motives interfering with her nationalsecurity decisions, so he reported it to a superior. Heslins decision was subsequently reversed,and the building was bugged.In March 1997, Baer became sickened of the campaign finance scandal and decided to officiallyreport the illegal activities he had observed. Baer first contacted the offices of Senator RichardShelby because Shelby had begun the investigation into illegal funding of Clintons 1996reelection campaign. When his office failed to respond, Baer made arrangements to speak withthe Justice Department. When his superiors found out about this, they declared that Baer hadgone out of bounds and they instead used their own people to debrief him. The CIA sanitizedhis testimony to ensure that none of it reflected badly upon the agency and it was then given toJustice.

At this point, Sen. Shelby heard of Baer and asked him to attend a private meeting. Six peoplewere present, including Baer and Shelby. It became clear that Shelby was really holding themeeting just to gather more dirt against Tony Lake, Bill Clintons nominee for the new CIA DCIwho was being battered during Senate confirmation hearings. Baer was barely allowed to speak,but towards the end he blurted out the fact that Tamraz had illegally funneled KGB money intoClintons reelection campaign through Senator Kennedy and the DNC Chairman. At that, Shelbyabruptly ended the meeting and left.Baers outspokenness on this issue now began to hurt him. He was called in to a meeting withtwo, unfriendly men from the CIA Inspector Generals office. They levied a number ofaccusations against him and ignored his denials:-They claimed he had destroyed an important October 1995 memo about Tamraz. Baer said thiswas false and that he knew the Deputy DCI still had a copy.-They claimed he had been bribed by Tamraz to expunge incriminating details about hisactivities from official CIA records. Baer denied this.-They claimed that Baer had threatened Sheila Heslin in an effort to get her to remove Tamrazsname from the Secret Services blacklist of people who couldnt meet the President. Baer deniedthis and pointed out that records showed he and Heslin had a friendly relationship at the time.Afterwards, the CIA Inspectors tossed Baers office, and intimidated and interviewed his staff.Most of them found jobs in other CIA departments as a result.Baer complains that the Justice Department investigation was also uninterested in exploring theRussian-DNC funding link and instead sought to discredit him, this time using against him thefact that Tamraz had offered him a job.Congressional hearings over the illicit funding issue also ended quickly. Baer believes that thiswas because members of both parties had taken illegal foreign contributions or had beeninvolved with Tamraz in the past, so no one wanted to make any of the happenings public. Baerwas never called to testify.Even after 15 years, Baer was still intrigued by the 1983 Lebanon bombings and wanted to knowwho did it. With his own years of research and working with an experienced CIA colleague, Baerconcluded that the Pasdaran had been directly responsible for the bombings, and that theshadowy Islamic Jihad Organization was really just a dummy front used by Iran. Ayatollah

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Khameni knew of the attacks in advance and may in fact have ordered them. A small, highlysecret CIA team had investigated the bombings and determined Irans responsibility early on.Very high-ranking members of the U.S. government knew all this, but they chose to keep it quietfor fear of the international repercussions. All of the evidence was hidden and the public was ledto believe that the case was unsolved.

Later on, something similar happened when the U.S. government forbade intelligence analystsfrom using official channels to sound the alarm on the growth of Islamic fundamentalism insideSaudi Arabia because such an action would have upset the Saudi Royal Family.Baer criticizes the Clinton administration for ignoring the growing threat of Islamic radicalism,for its attitude that the next President could deal with it, and for the campaign finance scandal.Baer believes that al Qaeda had help from other Islamist groups for the 9/11 attacks. He pointsout that terrorist groups are not bound by the same bureaucratic inertia and infighting thatdemocratic governments like ours are: The Islamists can operate with great flexibility andopportunism, and different groups can easily join for large operations or to exchange resourcesand training and then dissolve bonds.After leaving the CIA in 1997, Baer worked as a contractor for a private company in Lebanon.

One of his clients was a man from a powerful Middle Eastern family. The man told Baer of howhis government had given Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and another al Qaeda terrorist fakepassports to escape once the government learned that the FBI wanted to arrest them. Baerreported this to the CIA but received no response.In 2001, one of Baers friends within the Saudi military told him that al Qaeda was planningsomething big, and he provided Baer with the names of hundreds of al Qaeda members in theKingdom. The man also told the Saudi defense minister about this, but the latter refused to takeany action.Baer believes that the U.S. should marginalize Osama bin Laden instead of publicly deriding himas Public Enemy #1 because this makes bin Laden famous and drives angry Muslim men tolisten to bin Ladens ideas and seek him out to serve.Terrorists lack armies and territory, and therefore cannot be fought with conventional forces.Good intelligence is the only defense against them. Baer believes that in order to win the War onTerror, the CIA must recruit more field agents, cut down on the bureaucracy and red tape, and bemore willing to engage in operations critical to U.S. security regardless of whether or not theyupset the sensibilities of foreign diplomats.

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