Michael D'Andrea

Last updated
Michael D'Andrea
Portrait of Michael D'Andrea (circa 1969).jpg
Portrait of Micheal D'Andrea (circa 1969)
Central Intelligence Agency
Iran Mission Center
Director
In office
2017–2021

Michael D'Andrea (born 1954) is a retired Central Intelligence Agency officer who played an instrumental role in American counterterrorism efforts during the War on Terror. He served nine years as director of Counterterrorism Center (CTC), and held a major role in the manhunt for Osama bin Laden. [1] His 42-year career has been described as among the most consequential in the recent history of the CIA, and he has been called the most lethal leader in the U.S. government for his tenure. [2] He is widely credited with revolutionizing the CIA's terrorist-hunting efforts, and vastly expanding the program of targeted killings by drone strike used heavily against Al-Qaeda. [2] [1] "If he was a combatant commander, he would have been sitting in the gallery for the State of the Union, he would have had all the accolades, and then some, that David Petraeus ever had," said one former senior CIA official. "He ran that war." [2]

Contents

In 2017 D'Andrea was appointed to head the agency's Iran Mission Center, one of the earliest moves in what became the 'maximum pressure' strategy of the Trump administration against Iran. [1] In January 2020, there were unverified reports of his death in a plane crash in Afghanistan, which turned out to be false. In 2021, the CIA acknowledged his forced retirement after a renewal of his mandatory retirement waiver was denied. Director of the CIA William J. Burns noted the "remarkable impact" of his career. [3]

Early life and education

D'Andrea was raised in Northern Virginia. [1] His family has ties to the CIA that span two generations. [4] He met his wife while working overseas with the Central Intelligence Agency, and converted to Islam in order to marry her. [1] [5] His wife, Faridah Currimjee D'Andrea is a daughter of a wealthy Muslim family from Mauritius with Gujarati origins. [6] She serves as a senior director of Currimjee Group, a business conglomerate owned by her family with holdings including print media, telecommunications, real estate, tourism, financial services and energy. [7] [8]

Career

D'Andrea joined the CIA in 1979, and he was considered an underperformer at "The Farm", the CIA's training center at Camp Peary, Virginia. [9] He reportedly began his overseas career in Africa, and he was listed as a foreign service officer at the Embassy of the United States in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. [9] [10] D'Andrea served as chief of station in Cairo, Egypt and later in Baghdad, Iraq. [9] [11]

Global War on Terrorism

D'Andrea is credited with an instrumental role in the War on Terror, with The New York Times concluding "perhaps no single CIA official is more responsible for weakening Al Qaeda". [1] Prior to the attacks he was reportedly one of the CIA officials who failed to track one of the hijackers, Nawaf al-Hazmi. [11] Following 9/11 D'Andrea was deeply involved [1] in the CIA's detention and interrogation programs, and his operatives also oversaw the interrogations of Abu Zubaydah, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, which were criticized in the unclassified executive summary of a 2014 United States Senate report. [1] [12] He also targeted affiliate terror groups, and was reportedly involved in the assassination of Hezbollah member Imad Mughniyah in Damascus, Syria. [1]

He initially became head of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center in 2006, replacing Robert Grenier. [13] During his nine-year tenure, he presided over hundreds of American drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen, including so-called "signature strikes", advocating for the program to the United States Congress. [1] [12] According to former U.S. officials, with D’Andrea at the helm, the CIA's counterterrorism center functioned like a continuous, rolling decapitation operation for al-Qaida leadership. [2]

He later received blame for the Camp Chapman attack in Khost, Afghanistan, when seven CIA officers were killed by a suicide bomb detonated by a triple agent allegedly backed by Pakistan's ISI. [9] [11] The bomber, Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, an Al Qaeda affiliate recruited by Jordanian Intelligence, had been invited to Camp Chapman after claiming to have information related to senior al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. Al-Balawi was not searched as a sign of respect because of his perceived value as someone who could infiltrate the ranks of senior al-Qaeda leaders.

D'Andrea later directed the analysis of competing hypotheses as to who, besides Osama bin Laden, could be in the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan where Bin Laden was later found and killed. [14]

In 2015, leadership of the drone program was passed to Chris Wood, following bureaucratic reshuffling by Director John Brennan, who some report clashed with D'Andrea repeatedly. [2] [12] [15]

Iran mission

After leaving the drone program and CTC, and failure to secure the position of deputy director of Operations, D'Andrea accepted what was widely seen to be a demotion, reviewing ongoing operations in an oversight role. New opportunities emerged when the Trump administration renewed a focus on Iran. From 2017 to his forced retirement in 2021, D'Andrea served as leader of the CIA's Iran Mission Center, which was expanded during the hard line approach to Iran adopted by the Trump administration. [1] It was also alleged that D'Andrea was involved in the operation that killed Iranian General Qasem Soleimani. [16] [17] At D'Andrea's retirement in 2021, the CIA discontinued the Iran Mission Center, folding it back into the broader Near East Mission Center in early 2022. [2]

Unmasking

Stemming from his career in the clandestine service, D'Andrea was described using a number of aliases. During his time at the CTC, many reporters referred to him only by the first name of his cover identity "Roger", which was considered unusual for an official not posted overseas. [5] [9] [11] His personal quirks garnered attention from the media, attracting a mythic legend. A chain smoking workaholic and Muslim convert whose job entailed targeting Muslim extremists, other nicknames attributed to D'Andrea by colleagues and reporters include "Ayatollah Mike", "the Prince of Darkness", [18] "the Dark Prince", [1] and "the Undertaker." [19] In Kathryn Bigelow's 2012 film Zero Dark Thirty , a fictionalized CIA officer based on D'Andrea is known simply as "The Wolf".

D’Andrea's biography and quirks became part of his legend: the soft-spoken, professorial figure notorious for keeping all the lights dimmed in his office; the chain smoker who would spend hours exercising on the elliptical, drinking Mountain Dew; and the middle-aged convert to Islam who ran a lethal campaign targeting Muslim religious extremists.

Despite years in a prominent CIA assignment, D'Andrea's real name did not become public until a 2015 profile by Mark Mazzetti of The New York Times , [12] one month after leaving the role of CTC director. [20] His outing by the paper while still an active undercover officer of the CIA prompted backlash from many former intelligence officers, particularly after Iranian state media published photos of D'Andrea and his wife the following day. [21] [22] In an opinion piece in the Washington Post, conservative author Marc A. Thiessen said that Iran often targeted Americans it considered enemies, such as with the murder of Bill Buckley, the Beirut station chief kidnapped, tortured, and executed by Islamic Jihad in 1985. [23] Mazzetti defended his decision, contending he was compelled to act after a January 2015 signature strike in the southern Pakistani region of Waziristan, which led to the collateral deaths of aid workers Warren Weinstein and Giovanni Lo Porto. The strike was authorized by D'Andrea and CIA leadership independent of White House oversight, and also killed American-born al Qaeda commanders Adam Yahiye Gadahn and Ahmed Farouq, who were the intended targets. [11]

D'Andrea was the inspiration for the character of "The Wolf" in Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty . [5] [11]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Special Activities Center</span> Unit of the American Central Intelligence Agency

The Special Activities Center (SAC) is a division of the United States Central Intelligence Agency responsible for covert and paramilitary operations. The unit was named Special Activities Division (SAD) prior to 2015. Within SAC there are two separate groups: SAC/SOG for tactical paramilitary operations and SAC/PAG for covert political action.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cofer Black</span> US intelligence officer and diplomat (born 1950)

Joseph Cofer Black is an American former CIA officer who served as director of the Counterterrorism Center in the years surrounding the September 11th attacks, and was later appointed Ambassador-at-Large and Coordinator for Counterterrorism at the State Department by President George W. Bush, serving until his resignation in 2004. Prior to his roles combatting terrorism, Black served across the globe in a variety of roles with the Directorate of Operations at the CIA.

On 13 January 2006 the Central Intelligence Agency fired missiles into the Pakistani village of Damadola in the Bajaur tribal area, near the Afghan border, killing at least 18 people. United States officials later admitted that no al-Qaeda leaders perished in the strike and that only local villagers were killed. The attack purportedly targeted Ayman al-Zawahiri, second-in-command of al-Qaeda after Osama bin Laden, who was thought to be in the village.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jose Rodriguez (intelligence officer)</span> American spy

Jose A. Rodriguez Jr. is an American former intelligence officer who served as Director of the National Clandestine Service of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). He was the final CIA deputy director for operations (DDO) before that position was expanded to D/NCS in December 2004. Rodriguez was a central figure in the 2005 CIA interrogation videotapes destruction, leading to The New York Times Editorial Board and Human Rights Watch to call for his prosecution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Brennan (CIA officer)</span> Director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 2013 to 2017

John Owen Brennan is a former American intelligence officer who served as the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from March 2013 to January 2017. He served as chief counterterrorism advisor to U.S. President Barack Obama, with the title Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, and Assistant to the President. Previously, he advised Obama on foreign policy and intelligence issues during the 2008 election campaign and presidential transition.

Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, born Jamal Ibrahim Ashtiwi al Misrati, was reported by the US State Department to be a senior member of al-Qaeda and a member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group and Ansar al-Sunna. His name may be rendered in English as Atiyah Abdur-rahman or Atiyah Abdul-Rahman or in other ways. After his death he was described in Foreign Policy as a renaissance man for "combining both strategic and ideological savvy".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bin Laden Issue Station</span> CIA unit tracking Osama bin Laden (1996–2005)

The Bin Laden Issue Station, also known as Alec Station, was a standalone unit of the Central Intelligence Agency in operation from 1996 to 2005 dedicated to tracking Osama bin Laden and his associates, both before and after the 9/11 attacks. It was headed initially by CIA analyst Michael Scheuer and later by Richard Blee and others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Counterterrorism Mission Center</span> Central Intelligence Agency unit founded 1986

The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's Mission Center forCounterterrorism is a division of the CIA's Directorate of Operations, established in 1986. It was renamed during an agency restructuring in 2015 and is distinct from the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), which is a separate entity. The most recent publicly known Assistant Director for Counterterrorism Mission Center was Chris Wood who led the organization from 2015 to 2017.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">International counter-terrorism activities of the CIA</span>

After the Central Intelligence Agency lost its role as the coordinator of the entire United States Intelligence Community (IC), special coordinating structures were created by each president to fit his administrative style and the perceived level of threat from terrorists during his term.

This is a list of activities ostensibly carried out by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) within Pakistan. It has been alleged by such authors as Ahmed Rashid that the CIA and ISI have been waging a clandestine war. The Afghan Taliban—with whom the United States was officially in conflict—was headquartered in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas during the war and according to some reports is largely funded by the ISI. The Pakistani government denies this.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bill Roggio</span> American military commentator

Bill Roggio is an American commentator on military affairs, and the managing editor of The Long War Journal. Prior to leading a team of online commentators, Roggio published the online weblog The Fourth Rail. Roggio was an active duty soldier in the United States Army in the 1990s.

Between 2004 and 2018, the United States government attacked thousands of targets in northwest Pakistan using unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) operated by the United States Air Force under the operational control of the Central Intelligence Agency's Special Activities Division. Most of these attacks were on targets in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas along the Afghan border in northwest Pakistan. These strikes began during the administration of United States President George W. Bush, and increased substantially under his successor Barack Obama. Some in the media referred to the attacks as a "drone war". The George W. Bush administration officially denied the extent of its policy; in May 2013, the Obama administration acknowledged for the first time that four US citizens had been killed in the strikes. In December 2013, the National Assembly of Pakistan unanimously approved a resolution against US drone strikes in Pakistan, calling them a violation of "the charter of the United Nations, international laws and humanitarian norms."

The Camp Chapman attack was a suicide attack by Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi against the Central Intelligence Agency facility inside Forward Operating Base Chapman on December 30, 2009. One of the main tasks of the CIA personnel stationed at the base was to provide intelligence supporting drone attacks in Pakistan. Seven American CIA officers and contractors, an officer of Jordan's intelligence service, and an Afghan working for the CIA were killed when al-Balawi detonated a bomb sewn into a vest he was wearing. Six other American CIA officers were wounded. The bombing was the most lethal attack against the CIA in more than 25 years.

Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi was a Jordanian doctor and a triple agent suicide bomber loyal to Islamist extremists who carried out the Camp Chapman attack, a suicide attack against a CIA base near Khost, Afghanistan on 30 December 2009.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Forward Operating Base Chapman</span> US Armed Forces base in Khost province, Afghanistan (2001-13)

Forward Operating Base Chapman, also known as Camp Chapman, was a United States Armed Forces Forward Operating Base located at the site of a former Afghan Army installation and was situated in Khost province, Afghanistan, on an airstrip 2 miles east of Khost.

Abdullah Said al-Libi was described as being an al Qaeda operational leader in Pakistan. He is reported to have previously served in the Libyan military. He led an al-Qaeda paramilitary force. Said al-Libi was killed in a drone strike on 17 December 2009 in North Waziristan. In April 2009 he had released a statement where he identified himself as the leader of al Qaeda's efforts to take control of Khorasan - an ancient Islamic province that included Afghanistan, Pakistan, and some neighboring areas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Disposition Matrix</span> Database of information for tracking, capturing, or killing suspected enemies of the United States

The Disposition Matrix, informally known as a kill list, is a database of information for tracking, capturing, rendering, or killing suspected enemies of the United States. Developed by the Obama administration beginning in 2010, it goes beyond existing kill lists and is intended to become a permanent fixture of U.S. policy. The process determining the criteria for killing is not public and was heavily shaped by National Counterterrorism Director and former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director John O. Brennan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Drone strikes in Yemen</span> United States drone strikes in Yemen

United States drone strikes in Yemen started after the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, when the US military attacked the Islamist militant presence in Yemen, in particular Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula using drone warfare.

John Christopher Wood is a retired operations officer of the Central Intelligence Agency. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, he was part of the initial team of seven CIA officers that entered Afghanistan in pursuit of al-Qa'ida and the Taliban just 15 days after the attacks. Later he held prominent positions, including Kabul station chief and director of the Counterterrorism Mission Center (CTMC).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Killing of Ayman al-Zawahiri</span> 2022 U.S. drone strike on the leader of al-Qaeda

On July 31, 2022, Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of the Salafi jihadist group al-Qaeda, was killed by a United States drone strike in Kabul, Afghanistan.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Rosenberg, Matthew; Goldman, Adam (June 2, 2017). "C.I.A. Names New Iran Chief in a Sign of Trump's Hard Line". The New York Times . Archived from the original on June 2, 2017.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Dorfman, Zach (October 19, 2021). "'The grim reaper for the enemy': CIA's 'legendary' Iran chief forced to retire". Yahoo News . Retrieved 2021-10-20.
  3. ↑ Barnes, Julian E. (2021-10-07). "C.I.A. Reorganization to Place New Focus on China". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2021-10-20.
  4. ↑ L'homme de la Maison-Blanche : les mille et une vies d'Ayatollah Mike
  5. 1 2 3 Cook, John (March 26, 2015). "Why Won't the Post Name CIA Counterterrorism Chief Michael D'Andrea?". Gawker . Retrieved June 2, 2017.
  6. ↑ "CIA Agent Ayatollah Mike's Face Revealed: Iran's View". Iran's View. June 3, 2017. Retrieved June 12, 2017.
  7. ↑ "Home". currimjee.com.
  8. ↑ "watch out for friday". 2018-03-01. Retrieved 2023-02-08.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 Miller, Greg (March 24, 2012). "At CIA, a convert to Islam leads the terrorism hunt". The Washington Post . Retrieved November 13, 2012.
  10. ↑ Key Officers of Foreign Service Posts: Guide for Business Representatives. DIANE Publishing Company. 1998. p. 113. ISBN   9780788148682. RAO: Michael A. D'Andrea
  11. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Schou, Nicholas (June 28, 2017). "Outing the CIA's 'Undertaker'". Newsweek . Archived from the original on June 2, 2017.
  12. 1 2 3 4 Mazzetti, Mark; Apuzzo, Matthew (April 25, 2015). "Deep Support in Washington for C.I.A.'s Drone Missions". The New York Times . Retrieved June 2, 2017.
  13. ↑ Cockburn, Andrew (2015). Kill Chain: The Rise of the High-Tech Assassins. Henry Holt and Company. ISBN   9780805099270.
  14. ↑ Zenko, Micah (2015). Red Team: How to Succeed By Thinking Like the Enemy. Basic Books. pp. 100–101. ISBN   9780465073955.
  15. ↑ Miller, Greg (June 16, 2016). "Why CIA drone strikes have plummeted". The Washington Post . "I suspect that has an awful lot to do with it," said a former senior U.S. official who was involved in CIA and Pentagon discussions about collaboration in Yemen, and described Michael D'Andrea, the former CTC chief, as an obstacle. D'Andrea was replaced by Chris Wood, a longtime CIA officer who is widely considered more collegial and willing to compromise with U.S. military officials.
  16. ↑ Tlis, Fatima (February 4, 2020). "Unsupported Claims that CIA’s Iran Chief Died in Afghan Crash" Polygraph.info.
  17. ↑ Bostock, Bill. "Iranian state TV used a photo of an actor from 'Zero Dark Thirty' to spread a wild theory that a senior CIA official was killed in a plane crash in Afghanistan". Business Insider. Retrieved 2020-04-17.
  18. ↑ Blout, Emily (2020-03-03). "Ayatollah Mike and the IRGC's growing credibility gap". Atlantic Council. Retrieved 2020-11-25.
  19. ↑ "CIA chief 'behind Soleimani's assassination' killed in downed plane in Afghanistan". Middle East Monitor. 2020-01-28. Retrieved 2020-11-25.
  20. ↑ Gidda, Mirren (2017-06-02). "Who is Michael D'Andrea, Trump's new Iran chief?". Newsweek. Retrieved 2020-11-25.
  21. ↑ "CIA Agent Ayatollah Mike's Face Revealed: Iran's View". Iran's View. 2017-06-03. Retrieved 2020-12-01.
  22. ↑ Balestrieri, Steve (2017-07-26). "The Public's Need to Know Doesn't Include Names of Covert Operatives". SOFREP. Retrieved 2020-12-01.
  23. ↑ Thiessen, Marc A. (2017-06-07). "Opinion | The New York Times recklessly exposes a CIA operative's identity". Washington Post. ISSN   0190-8286 . Retrieved 2020-12-01.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.