Decision Points

the
Washington Post
ran a front-page story about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s transformation. Headlined “How a Detainee Became an Asset,” it described how Mohammed “seemed to relish the opportunity, sometimes for hours on end, to discuss the inner workings of al-Qaeda and the group’s plans, ideology and operatives. … He’d even use a chalkboard at times.” The intelligence he provided, which proved vital to saving American lives, almost certainly would not have come to light without the CIA’s enhanced interrogation program.
    Of the thousands of terrorists we captured in the years after 9/11, about a hundred were placed into the CIA program. About a third of those were questioned using enhanced techniques. Three were waterboarded. The information the detainees in the CIA program revealed constituted more than half of what the CIA knew about al Qaeda. Their interrogations helped break up plots to attack American military and diplomatic facilities abroad, Heathrow Airport and Canary Wharf in London, and multiple targets in the United States. Experts in the intelligence community told me that without the CIA program, there would have been another attack on the United States.
    After we implemented the CIA program, we briefed a small number of lawmakers from both parties on its existence. At the time, some were concerned we weren’t pushing hard enough. But years later, once the threat seemed less urgent and the political winds had shifted, many lawmakers became fierce critics. They charged that Americans had committed unlawful torture. That was not true. I had asked the most senior legal officers in the U.S. government to review the interrogation methods, and they had assured me they did not constitute torture. To suggest that our intelligence personnel violated the law by following the legal guidance they received is insulting and wrong.
    The CIA interrogation program saved lives. Had we captured more al Qaeda operatives with significant intelligence value, I would have used the program for them as well.

    On the morning of March 10, 2004, Dick Cheney and Andy Card greeted me with a startling announcement: The Terrorist Surveillance Program would expire at the end of the day.
    “How can it possibly end?” I asked. “It’s vital to protecting the country.” Two and a half years had passed since I authorized the TSP in October 2001. In that time, the NSA had used the program to uncover key details about terrorist plots and locations. NSA Director Mike Hayden later said publicly that the program had been “successful in detecting and preventing attacks inside the United States” and that it was his “professional judgment that we would have detected some of the 9/11 al Qaeda operatives in the United States” if it had been operational before the attacks.
    Andy explained the situation. While John Ashcroft had regularly recommended the renewal of the TSP since 2001, the Justice Department had raised a legal objection to one component of the program.
    “Why didn’t I know about this?” I asked. Andy shared my disbelief. He told me he had just learned about the objection the previous night. The legal team must have thought the disagreement could be settled without presidential involvement. I told Andy to work with Ashcroft and White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales to solve the problem. In the meantime, I had to fly to Cleveland to deliver a speech on trade policy.
    When I got back, I checked in with Andy. Little progress had been made. The Justice Department was sticking to its objection. My lawyers weren’t budging, either. They were convinced the program was legal.
    “Where the hell is Ashcroft?” I asked.
    “He’s in the hospital,” Andy replied.
    That was news to me. I called John, who I discovered was recovering from emergency gallbladder surgery. I told him I was sending Andy and Al to talk to him about an urgent matter. They drove to the hospital with the TSP reauthorization order. When they got back, they told me Ashcroft hadn’t signed. The only way to allow the program to continue was to override the Justice Department’s objection. I didn’t like the idea, but I saw no other alternative. I signed an order keeping the TSP alive based on my authority as head of the executive branch.
    I went to bed irritated and had a feeling I didn’t know the full story. I intended to get it.

    “Mr. President, we’ve got a major problem,” Andy told me when I got to the Oval Office on the