In late January, Saxby Chambliss was named the ranking Republican on the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee.
It is a committee that does much of its work behind closed doors flanked by armed guards. National secrets are the committee’s stock in trade. And the very first one handed to the new vice chairman, by CIA Director Leon Panetta, was a doozy:
Osama bin Laden, author of 9/11, was thought to be hiding behind the walls of a compound in a Pakistani city named after a 19th-century British general, James Abbott. (A pity his nickname wasn’t “Bud.”)
If, in fact, the man corralled within the Abbottabad compound was bin Laden. “They didn’t know back then. We were still doing surveillance work, to try to figure out that it was him,” Chambliss said. “But they had a pretty good idea that it was him.”
The Georgia senator was one of perhaps 16 people in Washington who were in on the possibilities of a secret CIA stakeout that stretched month after month. So you’ll forgive Chambliss a sigh of relief at being able to shed his covert burden.
“I’ve had briefings before but nothing at this level,” he said during a Thursday interview. “Obviously, it’s interesting and fascinating, but also pretty scary. It’s pretty heady stuff.”
With the death of bin Laden, every detail of the terrorist’s end became a treasure in Washington last week. And Chambliss was one of the major distributors.
When Chambliss mentioned that the first shot that Navy SEALs aimed at bin Laden’s head went wide — as the curious terrorist poked out a doorway, the detail made headlines.
“I hope they went in with the idea of killing him, not capturing him,” the senator said. “We needed to take this guy out, and I know that’s what the executive order said.”
When Chambliss mentioned to D.C. reporters that someone had shown him what appeared to have been a bloody post-SEALs photo of bin Laden — that, too, was worth some attention. But when the senator emphasized that the image he had seen was highly unofficial and of unproven parentage, the fact became less valuable.
On Tuesday, in a floor speech congratulating the men and women of the U.S. military and intelligence services, Chambliss declared that the raid was “probably one of the clearest examples of the extraordinary value of the information we have been able to gather from the CIA’s detention and interrogation program.”
Many interpreted Chambliss’ remarks as an endorsement of “enhanced” interrogation techniques conducted under the George W. Bush administration in prisons at secret locations. It was not, the Georgia senator said two days later.
Some of the information that was used to ultimately locate bin Laden indeed came from individuals who had been previously waterboarded, Chambliss said. “Whether that precipitated them giving the information or whether they were just sitting around with the interrogator at a later point, I don’t know,” he said.
Chambliss’ point was aimed more at behind-the-scenes Washington than at you or me. Under Bush, the questioning of detainees was conducted by the CIA. “Now the interrogation is controlled out of the White House,” he said.
Chambliss thinks the bin Laden raid is proof that the CIA is worthy of handling that authority again. “The fact that they pieced together a bit of information here, tied it to a bit of information that came from somewhere else — it is a fascinating weaving of the bits of evidence,” he said. “It was a great piece of intelligence work.”
The point is an important one for Chambliss because he sees the bin Laden raid as only a beginning. “I think what you are going to see happening is, there is going to be more covert actions on the part of CIA, as well as [the Defense Intelligence Agency], directed at the various groups of bad guys out there,” he said. “In particular, with respect to their leadership.”
Not unlike Israel has done.
For example, Chambliss said, U.S. combat troops will at some point be removed from Iraq. The CIA will remain. “And if al-Qaida raises its head, then they’re going to be prepared to deal with it, probably in a covert way,” he said.
“Because that seems to be the way the war on terrorism is evolving,” Chambliss said. “You try to cut off the head of the snake and hope that it filters down.”
One more point worth making: Political strategists last week circulated facts and figures showing that it is possible, even likely, that Republicans will seize control of the U.S. Senate in 2012.
In which case, Chambliss is likely to become the next chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, with more secrets headed his way.
