Synopses & Reviews
How has President Obama waged the global war on terror? With one hand tied behind his back—and the other dealing death sentences to hundreds of individuals around the world
Based on hundreds of interviews with men and women throughout the White House and the national security establishment, Kill or Capture is the most revealing and important book yet about the Obama presidency. Bringing readers inside the Oval Office, the Situation Room, the CIA, and other “sensitive compartmentalized information facilities” (SCIFFs), Dan Klaidman offers a startling new portrait of our forty-fourth president. While President Obama allows his “team of rivals” to battle endlessly—to the point of White House shouting matches, Oval Office end runs, and constant confusion about the presidents inclinations—the president has quietly transformed into one of the most lethal and involved “deciders” in our history. He has personally reviewed countless targets of drone strikes, approving or vetoing killings on a case-by-case basis. He has overseen a transformation from warfare to “lawfare,” whereby lawyers throughout the administration are setting military policy, reviewing operations, and vetting the decisions of the top brass. He has intentionally placed limits on his own power, saying such things as, “You never know whether Mitt Romney is going to be president four years from now. I have to think about how someone like Mitt Romney would use that power.”
The toll on his staff and cabinet secretaries has been extraordinary. Attorney General Eric Holder wanted to quit in 2010, only to be told by Valerie Jarrett that he simply could not. Many of the idealists who came to Washington in hopes of rolling back the policies of the Bush administration have accomplished little aside from banging their heads against walls, and have departed in defeat. The political operatives who refer to themselves as “Tammany Hall”—including Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod, and their successors—have made life extremely difficult in the West Wing.
Kill or Capture reveals the two faces of President Obama: the constitutional lawyer-in-chief, and the cold-blooded killer.
Review
"A good book to read if you want an answer to the question, 'What happened?' That is, what happened to the idealistic Obama of the 2008 campaign who was going to shut down Guantánamo, end indefinite detention, try terrorist suspects in civilian courts, take civil liberties more seriously, and end the rabid secrecy of the Bush era? How did he turn into the guy who not only didn't do any of that stuff, but became a drone-obsessed killing machine in the process?"
—Kevin Drum, Mother Jones
"Divulge(s) the details of top-level deliberations—details that were almost certainly known only to the administration's inner circle. Likely to be the most thorough accounts of America's recent national-security efforts that we shall receive before the November election."
—The Wall Street Journal
Synopsis
From one of the most respected investigative journalists in Washington, pulling from unparalleled sources, comes this revelatory look at the Obama administration's internal workings, showing the fractures, competing cliques, and, ultimately, the deepest divides within the president's own mind as he has struggled to define national security policy differently than his predecessor.
Synopsis
Is Barack Obama an idealist or a ruthless pragmatist? He vowed to close Guantánamo, put an end to coercive interrogation and military tribunals, and restore American principles of justice, yet in his first term he has backtracked on each of these promises, ramping up the secret war of drone strikes and covert operations. Behind the scenes, wrenching debates between hawks and doves—those who would kill versus those who would capture—have repeatedly tested the very core of the president’s identity.
Top investigative reporter Dan Klaidman has spoken to dozens of sources to piece together a riveting Washington story packed with revelations. As the president’s inner circle debated secret programs, new legal frontiers, and the disjuncture between principles and down-and-dirty politics, Obama vacillated, sometimes lashed out, and spoke in lofty tones while approving a mounting toll of assassinations and kinetic-war operations. Klaidman’s fly-on-the-wall reporting reveals who has his ear, how key national security decisions are really made, and whether or not President Obama has lived up to the promise of candidate Obama. Readers making up their minds about him during the 2012 election year will turn to Kill or Capture to decide.
Synopsis
From
Kill or Capture:
“What emerged in early 2009 was an unusual alliance that would serve to guide Obama through the shadow wars: Hoss Cartwright would join John Brennan in advising the president about terrorist targets, the three forming a kind of holy trinity of targeted killings.
In the coming months and years, Brennan and Cartwright would find themselves pulling the president out of state dinners or tracking him down on a secure phone to discuss a proposed strike. Obama could be known to muster a little gallows humor when Cartwright or Brennan showed up at the Oval Office unannounced. “Uh-oh, this cant be good,” he would say, arching an eyebrow. One of Brennans least favorite duties was pulling Obama away from family time with his wife and daughters for these grim calls . . . The three men were making life-and-death decisions, picking targets, rejecting or accepting names put forward by the military, feeling their way through a new kind of war—Obamas war.”
Synopsis
How has President Obama waged the war on terror? With one hand tied behind his back—and the other dealing death sentences to suspected terrorists around the world.
Based on hundreds of interviews with men and women throughout the White House and the national security establishment, Kill or Capture is the most revealing and important book yet about the Obama presidency. Bringing readers into the Oval Office, the Situation Room, the CIA, and other “sensitive compartmentalized information facilities” of the war on terror, Daniel Klaidman offers a startling new portrait of our forty-fourth president, a president struggling to balance high-minded idealism with hard-headed politics. As his inner circle engaged in wrenching debates, even shouting matches, Obama vacillated, alternately lashing out and speaking in lofty tones, and he intentionally placed limits on his own power, saying, "I have to think about how Mitt Romney would use that power."
Yet at the same time, Obama transformed himself into one of the most decisive and lethal commanders of America's shadow wars. Working primarily with two key advisers, he personally reviewed countless targeted killings, approving or vetoing strikes on a case-by-case basis. ("I want Awlaki," he told one of his aides. "Don't let up on him.")
Klaidman has done something that few journalists have been able to do: capture the human dimensions of national security decision-making—the doubts, frustrations, and raw emotions that come with life-and-death choices. Attorney General Eric Holder became so tired of endless warfare with the White House that he seriously considered quitting. The Pentagon’s top lawyer admits, "If I were Catholic, I'd have to go to confession." And as for the man at the top, Klaidman reveals a deeply split personality: on the one hand, America’s lawyer in chief; on the other, a steely nerved commander of a killing machine.
Synopsis
“[An] important book.” — Steve Coll,
The New Yorker “Klaidman . . . [was] clearly given extraordinary access to key players in the administration . . . Provide[s] scintillating details.” —
Washington PostHow has President Obama waged the war on terror? As lawyer-in-chief, he promised to close the Guantánamo Bay detention camp and engaged his inner circle in wrenching debates over the price of liberty and security. As commander-in-chief, he has become a decisive and lethal warrior, dealing out drone strikes and death sentences to suspected terrorists around the world. Daniel Klaidman reveals Obama’s struggle to balance high-minded idealism and hard-headed politics as it plays out behind closed doors from the Oval Office and the Justice Department to the Situation Room and the CIA. Based on hundreds of interviews with men and women throughout the White House and the national security establishment, Kill or Capture is a startling new portrait of our forty-fourth president.
“A fascinating book . . . Lays bare the human dimension of the wrenching national security decisions that have to be made.” — Tina Brown, NPR
About the Author
Daniel Klaidman worked for
Newsweek from 1996 to 2011, serving for five years as Managing Editor and ultimately as co-Editor, before the magazine was sold. He previously served as the magazines Washington Bureau Chief for four years; Jerusalem Bureau Chief for one year; and a Washington Correspondent for four years. He was responsible for breaking a number of stories about the Obama administration, the Bush administration, and the war on terror.
For eight years before joining Newsweek, Klaidman was a senior reporter for Legal Times, where he broke the story of the Clintons legal defense fund and obtained the secret Justice Department report on Ruby Ridge that revealed much about the FBI cover-up.
Table of Contents
Cast of Characters ix
A Note on Sources xiii
Prologue 1
The Promise 13
Where the Fuck Is bin Laden? 37
Torture Debates and Murder Boards 65
Escape from Gitmo 93
Kill or Capture 117
How Not to Try a Terrorist 145
The Christmas Gift 173
From Warfare to Lawfare 199
“The President Is Anguished” 225
Textbook 241
Epilogue 267
Acknowledgments 273
Index 277