Philip Mudd

A former top CIA executive captures the incredible pressure, bravery, and uncertainty of an agency pushed to the brink.

The CIA in the Post-9/11 World

Black Site

A forefront government analyst and secret intelligence commentator draws on his personal expertise in the area of high-stakes decision-making to outline a groundbreaking approach to effective problem-solving.

High-Efficiency Analytic Decision Making and the Art of Solving Complex Problems Quickly

The Head Game

A bold account of one of the most controversial and haunting initiatives in American history, Black Site tells the full story of the post-9/11 counterterrorism world at the CIA. When the towers fell on September 11, 2001, nowhere were the reverberations more powerfully felt than at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Almost overnight, the intelligence organization evolved into a warfighting intelligence service, constructing what was known internally as “the Program”: a web of top-secret detention facilities intended to help prevent future attacks on American soil and around the world. With Black Site, former deputy director of the CIA Counterterrorist Center Philip Mudd presents a full, never-before-told story of this now-controversial program, directly addressing how far America went to pursue al-Qa’ida and prevent another catastrophe. Heated debates about torture were later ignited in 2014 after the US Senate published a report of the Program, detailing the CIA’s use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” to draw information from detainees. The report, Mudd posits, did not fully address key questions: How did the officials actually come to their decisions? What happened at the detention facilities—known as “Black Sites”—on a day-to-day basis? What did they look like? How were prisoners transported there? And how did the officers feel about what they were doing? Black Site seeks answers to these questions and more, first by examining pre-9/11 Langley, when the CIA was tasked with collecting, disseminating, and analyzing information related to overseas events. Mudd argues that September 12, 2001, marked an operational revolution, as officials suddenly felt the weight of protecting a nation from a second wave of attacks inside the United States. Re-creating the incredibly tense atmosphere of the time, Mudd reveals that many officials felt an unshakable personal responsibility to thwart another attack. Based on interviews from dozens of officials—many of whom have never spoken out before— Black Site illuminates how the Agency quickly stepped into the process of organizing a full-blown interrogation program. Mudd offers a deeper understanding of how the enhanced interrogation techniques were developed and how intelligence professionals prepared to talk to the world’s most hardened terrorists. With careful detail, he takes us through the process of each legally approved technique, including waterboarding. As compelling as it is revelatory, Black Site shows us the tragedy and triumph of the CIA during its most difficult days.

Black Site: The CIA in the Post-9/11 World

Michael J. Sulick

Robert M. Clark

Douglas L. Wheeler

James B. Bruce

John F. Sullivan

Thomas Fingar

Stewart A. Baker

Rose Mary Sheldon

Michael Fredholm

Edward F. Mickolus

Elbridge Colby

Stefania Paladini

Michael S. Goodman

Jan Goldman

Gary E. Weir

Edward Mozley Roche

Mark M. Lowenthal

David L. Charney

Peter C. Oleson

Joshua M. Bart

Eleni C. Braat

Ronald L. Burgess, Jr.

Stephen H. Campbell

Jonathan D. Clemente

José Medina González Dávila

Lawrence D. Dietz

Robert E. Dupré

Huw Dylan

Rowena Rege Fischer

Jennifer H. Fisher

Carl W. Ford, Jr.

Arthur E. Gerringer

Tobias T. Gibson

Edward J. Glantz

Karl O. Haigler

Philippe Hayez

Jan P. Herring

G. Philip Hughes

John Alan Irvin

Stéphane J. Lefebvre

Jeremy Jez Littlewood

N. John MacGaffin, 3rd

Stephen Patrick Marrin

Hedwige Regnault de Maulmin

Robert A. McDonald

John J. McGonagle, Jr.

Robert A. Mirabello

William M. Nolte

Robert A. Norton

Mirielle M. Petitjean

Samuel Eugene Poteat

Douglas R. Price

Robert W. Pringle

Frederick W. Rustmann, Jr.

Ernesto J. Sanchez

John R. Sano

Florian Schaurer

Robert Anthony Smith

Thomas R. Spencer, Jr.

William C. Spracher

James E. Steiner

Jan Störger

Mark E. Stout

Adam D. M. Svendsen

Michelle K. Van Cleave

Carl Anthony Wege

Jon A. Wiant

The goal of the Guide to the Study of Intelligence is to help instructors teach about the field of intelligence. This includes... undergraduate and graduate professors of History, Political Science, International Relations, Security Studies, and related topics, especially those with no or limited professional experience in the field. The assumption is that none of the... instructors is an expert in the topic of intelligence. Even those who are former practitioners are likely to have only a limited knowledge of the very broad field of intelligence, as most spend their careers in one or two agencies at most and may have focused only on collection or analysis of intelligence or support to those activities."In each of the articles the intent is to identify the important learning points for students and the materials that an instructor can use to teach. This includes books, articles, and websites..."

AFIO's Guide to the Study of Intelligence

On September 11, 2001, as Central Intelligence Agency analyst Philip Mudd rushed out of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next to the White House, he could not anticipate how far the terror unleashed that day would change the world of intelligence and his life as a CIA officer. For the previous fifteen years, his role had been to interpret raw intelligence and report his findings to national security decision makers. But within weeks of the 9/11 attacks, he would be on a military aircraft, flying over the Hindu Kush mountains, en route to Afghanistan as part of the U.S. government's effort to support the fledging government there after U.S. forces had toppled the Taliban. Later, Mudd would be appointed deputy director of the CIA's rapidly expanding Counterterrorist Center and then senior intelligence adviser at the FBI. A first-person account of Mudd's role in two organizations that changed dramatically after 9/11, Takedown sheds light on the inner workings of the intelligence community during the global counterterror campaign. Here Mudd tells how the Al Qaeda threat looked to CIA and FBI professionals as the focus shifted from a core Al Qaeda leadership to the rise of Al Qaeda-affiliated groups and homegrown violent extremism from Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. As a participant in and a witness to key strategic initiatives—including the hunt for Osama bin Laden and efforts to displace the Taliban—Mudd offers an insider's perspective on the relationships between the White House, the State Department, and national security agencies before and after the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. Through telling vignettes, Mudd reveals how intelligence analysts understood and evaluated potential dangers and communicated them to political leaders. Takedown is a gripping narrative of tracking terrorism during what may be the most exhilarating but trying times the American intelligence community has ever experienced.

Inside the Hunt for Al Qaeda

Takedown

Philip Mudd

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