5

You'll Have To Overcome The Inherent Arrogance Of The President

On John's next visit with the president, he was there to back up another analyst. He wasn't even expected to speak. Kind of like the CIA equivalent of those guys that stand in the back during rap battles and make "oh shit" faces after the really good lines.

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"That morning, I was not supposed to brief him -- someone else was briefing him on a different topic, and Bush turned to me and said he wanted an update right then and there." This update was on Muqtada Al-Sadr, who was no longer chilling out in Iran, but now controlled one of the most potent militias in Baghdad.

"I didn't have a lot of time to prepare one, but I told him what I thought." At that time, the standard thinking was that Al-Sadr was your run-of-the-mill extremist militia leader: "I knew that throughout the intelligence community ... they didn't like Sadr, they thought he was a nutcase ..."

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4

Insane Political Complexity Is Boiled Down Into Quick Soundbites

John spent months in Iraq, and years more of his life learning about it. During his two briefings with the president, he had to condense an entire library's worth of history, intelligence data, and personal experience into a few sentences.

"You just go with your bottom line up front ..." John explained. "I mean, especially with a guy like Bush. I was told by people who'd already done this [that] you've got about 30 seconds before he starts asking questions. Maybe not even 30 ... and then he likes to start asking questions, and they come all sides ..."

Here's what John managed to get out before the president's questions during his first briefing: "I said, 'Mr. President, Al-Sadr has been having a rough time in Iran, and we think that could impact the lethality of the movement ...'"

And then it was Q&A time. John got off roughly one sentence of his planned remarks. It seems insane, but when you consider how many fucks the president has to give about how many things every day, it couldn't be any other way.

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And our current president may force the CIA to take "brevity" to a whole new level. He's already complained about the length of his President's Daily Brief (an intel report the CIA compiles for every president). And he's taken fewer of them at this point in his administration than any of his predecessors. How does John think today's CIA will need to communicate with 45?

"I don't think we've ever quite had a president like this. I think it's going to be one of the more challenging times for the agency. The president doesn't like to read a great deal, from what I hear in the media ... but I think he is capable of taking in information, I think he likes it visually ... I think he might like what he reads presented very small, kind of like tweets. If they are handing him written product, it's probably very short. And that may change over time, you never know. And it also may mean that others, other policymakers ... are going to get briefed up a great deal more."

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3

You Have To Combat The Overwhelming Desire To Tell The President What He Wants To Hear

President Bush clearly expressed a desire to have Al-Sadr killed or otherwise removed from power. John thought that was a bad idea. Saddam Hussein had executed Al-Sadr's dad, and his father's martyrdom was a huge part of why Al-Sadr was so popular. If we killed Al-Sadr, one of his kids might take his place and gain even more clout. Plus, y'know, trying to kill people doesn't always work out for us.

When John pointed this out, it did not go over well. President Bush, Yale graduate, mocked him as an "elitist" ivory tower intellectual. Then Bush's posse stepped in -- "I felt like I was talking to a bunch of yahoos," John generously put it -- and they fought to protect the president from sinister things like "nuance."

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"When there was disagreement between myself and the president, almost the entire group of advisers who were there, and they were all there -- it was Condoleeza Rice, Steven Hadley ... the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, the DNI, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates -- they all kinda circled the wagons around the president, and I became the enemy. They were going to try to repudiate what I was saying. And I thought to myself, 'This is bizarre.' It was sorta like shoot the messenger at this point. And I remember thinking, 'How does this guy function surrounded by people who are filtering news to him in order to show the president how loyal they are?'"

John was clearly frustrated by this. But he also kinda understood it. "There also is this weird dynamic ... where you get in proximity to the president of the United States, and you're there to tell him something, there is a strong, strong impulse to want to give him good news. It's just natural, y'know? You realize it's a tough job, and it's going to benefit you if he walks away with a smile on his face. And you have to fight that at all costs."

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2

Sometimes The President's Attention Is Enough

On his first day in office, the president visited the CIA to speak in front of a wall listing the names of dead operatives and ... bragged about his electoral win. The press coverage of this was not universally positive. But John thinks the president's visit probably went over really well with a lot of CIA people, just because he showed up and paid attention to them. Remember, the CIA hasn't exactly been in any president's good book since the whole "weapons of mass destruction" thing.

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1

What The President Needs To Hear Right Now

After John's disastrous second briefing with George W. Bush, he returned to the CIA feeling "radioactive." He felt like everyone was a little scared to be around him. But he also received missives from Mike Morell, the president's CIA briefer, basically saying, "That was tough, but you did the right thing by telling the president how you felt. Kudos."

I asked John what he'd do if he were briefing 45, particularly in those first 30 seconds before the questions started or he became distracted by today's Twitter feud.

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"I would tell him that Iraq is representative of a number of Middle Eastern countries that are on the edge of failing, and it represents a broader trend in the region ... if you want to solve Iraq, you're going to have to solve Iran as well. You need to come up with a policy on Iran. You decide what policy is, the CIA doesn't, but our country has not really had a policy on Iran since 1978, and we've just been in this position of opposition, every now and then with bouts of cooperation ... You have to come to some sort of realization that either you want to work with these people, that ignoring these people is not based on reality, or that you are going to go the other way, and you need to come up with some very creative methods to contain their influence, knowing that doing so is going to create some frictions."

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John would want to stress to the president that, while the military's a real good way to solve certain problems, it can only be part of any solution we have in Iraq and Iran. "Those solutions are political in nature. They have a military component, but you have to have a political solution as well. One of the things I think is so very important, and I would say this to the president immediately, is that just using your military to solve problems ... look where it has gotten us."

What kind of tragic fucking idiot wouldn't listen to advice like that?

John Nixon wrote a book, Debriefing The President, about his interrogation of Saddam Hussein. It's really good, y'all.

Robert Evans has a completely non-political book about how prostitution, drugs and general debauchery built human civilization. You can buy A Brief History Of Vice now!

Also check out 8 Things I Learned As An American Governor In Occupied Iraq and Here's What Soldiers Fighting ISIS Asked Us To Tell You.

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