Sting of the Drone (35 page)

Authors: Richard A Clarke

During the winter, I tried to get the Air Force to arm the Predator with missiles. They had thought about it, but had no plans to try it for several years. With the help of USAF General John Jumper, we compressed that timeline into a few months. Predator, armed with Hellfire missiles, worked well in the experimental flights. We then sought approval from the new Bush administration to deploy this armed Predator to get bin Ladin. Once again, the CIA and the Pentagon opposed the mission. I pressed for a decision to override them again, but National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice delayed a decision for months.

Finally, on September 4, 2001, the Principals’ Committee met in the White House Situation Room. CIA Director George Tenet and the DOD leadership both spoke out against the use of armed Predators to get bin Ladin and the al Qaeda leadership. They were not overruled.

A week later we were attacked.

On September 12, 2001, CIA proposed deploying armed Predators to attack al Qaeda in Afghanistan. On November 14, 2001, in Afghanistan, Mohammed Atef, the head of al Qaeda’s military forces, became the first person to be killed by a Predator. Since then the United States has killed at least two thousand people in five countries using armed drones. And the killing continues.

ALSO BY RICHARD A. CLARKE

NONFICTION

Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror

Your Government Failed You: Breaking the Cycle of National Security Disasters

Cyber War: The Next Threat to National Security and What to Do About It

FICTION

The Scorpion’s Gate

Breakpoint

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

RICHARD A. CLARKE served for thirty years in the United States government, including an unprecedented ten continuous years as a White House official, assisting three consecutive presidents. In the White House he was Special Assistant to the President for Global Affairs, Special Advisor to the President for Cyberspace, and National Coordinator for Security and Counter-terrorism. Prior to his White House years, he served as a diplomat, including as Assistant Secretary of State, and held other positions in the State Department and the Pentagon.

Since leaving government in 2003, Mr. Clarke has served as an on-air consultant for ABC News for ten years, taught at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government for five years, managed a consulting firm, chaired the Board of Governors of the Middle East Institute, and written six books, both fiction and nonfiction, including the national number one bestseller
Against All Enemies
and
Cyber War: The Next Threat to National Security and What to Do About It
.

Learn more at
www.RichardAClarke.net
.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS.

An imprint of St. Martin’s Press.

STING OF THE DRONE.
Copyright © 2014 by RAC Enterprises. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

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Cover design by James Iacobelli

Cover photograph © U.S. Air Force; Edited version by Science Faction / Getty Images

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

Clarke, Richard A. (Richard Alan), 1951–

Sting of the drone / Richard A. Clarke.—First edition.

pages cm

ISBN 978-1-250-04797-7 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-1-4668-4827-6 (e-book)

1. Drone aircraft—Fiction. 2. Suspense fiction. I. Title.

PS3603.L377S75 2014