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The Terrorist Watch: Inside the Desperate Race to Stop the Next Attack
 
 
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The Terrorist Watch: Inside the Desperate Race to Stop the Next Attack [Hardcover]

Ronald Kessler (Author)
3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)


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Book Description

November 13, 2007
“You make a mistake, there are dead people.”
—FBI Special Agent Art Cummings, head of international counterterrorism operations

Drawing on unprecedented access to FBI and CIA counterterrorism operatives, New York Times bestselling author Ronald Kessler presents the chilling story of terrorists’ relentless efforts to mount another devastating attack on the United States and of the heroic efforts being made to stop those plots.

Kessler takes you inside the war rooms of this battle—from the newly created National Counterterrorism Center to FBI headquarters, from the CIA to the National Security Agency, from the Pentagon to the Oval Office—to explain why we have gone so long since 9/11 without a successful attack and to reveal the many close calls we never hear about. The race to stop the terrorists, Kessler shows, is more desperate than ever.

Based on exclusive interviews with FBI Director Robert Mueller, CIA Director Michael Hayden, White House Counterterrorism Chief Fran Townsend, and dozens of key intelligence operatives at all levels, The Terrorist Watch:

• tells the previously unreported story of how the United States helped thwart the 2006 London terrorist plot, broke up terrorist cells in Canada, and prevented numerous other attacks
• reveals how the CIA and FBI have rolled up more than 5,000 terrorists worldwide since 9/11
• provides a stunning insider’s account from the FBI agent
who spent eight months debriefing Saddam Hussein after his capture
• pinpoints press leaks that have resulted in CIA agents’ deaths, caused foreign countries to stop cooperating on key investigations, and even tipped off Osama bin Laden to U.S. surveillance
• destroys numerous media myths, such as the canard that the FBI and CIA still don’t cooperate on investigations
• discloses the truth about the number of U.S. mosques where imans preach jihad
• shows how the intelligence community has radically changed its mission—and how the media have misled the public about those changes

Never before has a journalist gained such access to the FBI, the CIA, the National Counterterrorism Center, and the other agencies that are doing the unheralded work of finding and capturing terrorists.

Ronald Kessler’s you-are-there narrative tells the real story of the war on terror and will transform the way you view the greatest problem of our age.


Editorial Reviews

Review

“A powerful and brave book. Kessler makes it clear that if we win this war, it will be because of the FBI and CIA professionals who have protected America since 9/11. If we lose the war, it will be because of distortions by the mainstream media, those who leak operational secrets to them, and politicians who undermine those who are trying to protect us.”
—R. James Woolsey, former director of Central Intelligence

“Ronald Kessler vividly tells the important story of the extraordinary efforts of those Americans who stand on guard protecting our nation in the war against Islamist extremism.”
—Senator Joseph Lieberman, chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee

“Ron Kessler is unique in his ability and willingness to tell the unvarnished truth about what it will take to protect America from the next major terrorist attack. This is a book which every informed and responsible American should read.”
—Robert Grenier, former director of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center

“Ron Kessler destroys myths about the war on terror and provides an unprecedented inside look at how the FBI and CIA go about the tough task of defeating terrorism and preserving our freedom.”
—William H. Webster, former director of Central Intelligence and former director of the FBI

About the Author

Ronald Kessler is the New York Times bestselling author of sixteen nonfiction books, including The Bureau: The Secret History of the FBI; Inside the CIA; Inside the White House; A Matter of Character; and Laura Bush: An Intimate Portrait of the First Lady. A former Washington Post and Wall Street Journal investigative reporter, Kessler has won sixteen journalism awards, including two George Polk Awards. He is chief Washington correspondent of NewsMax.com. Kessler lives in Potomac, Maryland, with his wife, Pamela. His website is www.RonaldKessler.com.

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 272 pages
  • Publisher: Crown Forum; 1 edition (November 13, 2007)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0307382133
  • ISBN-13: 978-0307382139
  • Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
  • Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #946,506 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Ronald Kessler is the New York Times bestselling author of nineteen non-fiction books about the Secret Service, FBI, and CIA.

Kessler began his career as a journalist in 1964 on the Worcester Telegram, followed by three years as an investigative reporter and editorial writer with the Boston Herald. In 1968, he joined the Wall Street Journal as a reporter in the New York bureau. He became an investigative reporter with the Washington Post in 1970 and continued as a staff writer until 1985.

Kessler's latest book is "The Secrets of the FBI." His previous book was "In the President's Secret Service: Behind the Scenes with Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents They Protect." USA Today described the book as a "fascinating exposé...high-energy read...amusing, saucy, often disturbing anecdotes about the VIPs the Secret Service has protected and still protects.....[accounts come] directly from current and retired agents (most identified by name, to Kessler's credit)....Balancing the sordid tales are the kinder stories of presidential humanity...[Kessler is a] respected journalist and former Washington Post reporter....an insightful and entertaining story." Kessler and the book were featured on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

Kessler has won seventeen journalism awards, including two George Polk awards--for national reporting and for community service. Kessler has also won the American Political Science Association's Public Affairs Reporting Award, the Associated Press' Sevellon Brown Memorial Award, the Robert Novak Journalist of the Year Award, and Washingtonian magazine's Washingtonian of the Year award. He is listed in Who's Who in America.

Ron Kessler lives with his wife Pamela Kessler in the Washington, D.C. area. Also an author and former Washington Post reporter, Pam Kessler wrote "Undercover Washington: Where Famous Spies Lived, Worked and Loved." His daughter Rachel Kessler, a public relations executive, and son Greg Kessler, an artist, live in New York.

 

Customer Reviews

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Average Customer Review
3.8 out of 5 stars (25 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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44 of 49 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars The Chapter on Saddam, November 28, 2007
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This review is from: The Terrorist Watch: Inside the Desperate Race to Stop the Next Attack (Hardcover)
This is a remarkable work on the activity of the US intelligence community. Of special interest to some readers, such as myself, is the chapter on the debriefing of late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein while in American custody at Baghdad's International Airport. Kessler writes that a GS 14 FBI agent of Lebanese stock, George Piro, was assigned to debrief Saddam. Instead of doing so directly, Piro decided that he should first observe Saddam to map out his behavior so that he can later tell whether the late dictator was telling the truth or not. Saddam first took Piro as the chief of the guards and Piro did not correct Saddam's impression. Instead, he ordered that most of Saddam's needs be answered. As friendship developed between the two men, Piro was able to win Saddam's trust and ultimately debrief him smoothly. Of the stories Saddam told Piro was how he conceived of himself as the successor of great Iraqi rulers such as Hammurabi and Nebuchadnezzar. Saddam also told Piro that Iraq had no chemical weapons after 1991, but gave such an impression to keep its rival Iran on its toes. Saddam was apparently not impressed by his two sons, but said that one does not get to choose his children. The chapter is interesting, however, brief. Perhaps in the future, once Saddam's hundreds of pages of debriefing, as Kessler reported, would be declassified, they would give historians and scholars the chance to rewrite Iraq's modern history in a more accurate manner.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent evaluation of counterterrorism efforts, July 9, 2008
This review is from: The Terrorist Watch: Inside the Desperate Race to Stop the Next Attack (Hardcover)
Kessler takes the reader into the world of counterterrorism and paints a realistic picture of today's world. I learned a lot about the Joint Terrorism Task Force and the National Counterterrorism Center.

The book contains the good, the bad, and the ugly of the evolution of the U.S.'s effort to counter Islamic terrorism.

The bad begins on page 12 when Robert Muller gave Bob Dies a list of software he would require upon becoming Director of the FBI--Microsoft Office for example. Dies informed him that none of it would work on the FBI's current (ancient) computers. It seems the current director, Louis Freeh did not like computers and never used them. This is but one example of what had gone wrong in the 1990s. The FBI was unable to process information and could not communicate with each other or other agencies.

The ugly is "the wall" created by Richard Scruggs in a 1995 memo. Instead of realizing Scruggs was an ill-informed idiot, Deputy AG Jamie Gorelick and the AG, Janet Reno approved Scruggs memo.

The remainder of the book is devoted to the good, how things have improved. The wall has been torn down and the CIA, FBI and other agencies are communicating.

Before making any type of judgment on how well, or how poorly, the U.S. is doing in combating terrorism, read this book.

FBI Special Agent Piro's eight months interview with Saddam Hussain is worth the price of the book. Saddam confirmed that he had fooled his generals, Iran, and the West into thinking he had WMDs. He did not think the U.S. would invade, and his fear was Iran--and it should be ours too.
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6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Started strong, ended weak., February 1, 2008
By 
Shawn W. O'Connell "Shawnie" (Madison, WI United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: The Terrorist Watch: Inside the Desperate Race to Stop the Next Attack (Hardcover)
I really liked the first half of this book as it covered the nuts and bolts of the war on terror but the author's academic integrity slips more and more as the book goes on as he rails against media disclosures that hamper the efforts of those that are tasked to keep America safe. It is ironic that an author who is upset about anti-terrorist efforts being hampered by media disclosures about tactics and strategies would in fact write a book about these very strategies and go on to describe the security encountered at government facilities he visits that are terrorist targets. I should have known not to expect too much from a former journalist who describes his former colleagues' trustworthiness by saying "Polls show that journalists are trusted about as much as used car salesman and politicians(Kessler 214)."
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