War on terror

SPECIAL ANALYSIS: Charles Faddis On, Time Is Of The Essence To Prevent Global Chaos And Conflict

In the summer of 2002, I was sitting in the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan on the Iranian border. I was the leader of an eight man CIA team which had been sent into Iraq to locate and acquire intelligence on a suspect terrorist weapon of mass destruction (WMD) manufacturing facility under the control of a Muslim extremist group called Ansar Al Islam and Al Qaeda operatives.

Over the course of several weeks, my team acquired chapter and verse on the facility, and the operatives associated with it. Avoiding detection, we mapped the enemy’s positions down to pinpoint accuracy, transmitted hundreds of pages of intelligence back to Washington, and then put together a detailed proposal for an immediate strike on the facility.

We were in the right place at the right time. We had the advantage of surprise. With one quick blow, we could have ended this growing threat to our national security. But our request for an immediate strike was denied.