[ED NOTE from Cipher Brief CEO Suzanne Kelly: I met Nada Bakos, the author of The Targeter: My Life in the CIA, Hunting Terrorists and Challenging the White House, nearly a decade ago. We had a mutual friend, whom Bakos refers to only as ‘Katherine’ in the book and the three of us had gotten together several times, mostly over wine, to talk about our lives, which often led to conversations about their own (non-classified) experiences as women in the CIA. I became close friends with Katherine, and today, count her as one of my most-trusted friends – the kind you can tell anything to and know they may laugh outrageously at you – but will never judge.
One of the things the three of us talked a lot about back then was how absurd it seemed that there weren’t more stories of what women do at CIA. As a journalist, I didn’t fully understand the commitment and sacrifice that many of them made in the course of fulfilling their own personal need to contribute to something bigger than themselves while balancing that with their desire to have families and raise children. The death of Jennifer Matthews, a mother of three, at Khost in Afghanistan in 2009 served as a wake-up call to me. Though I never met her, she was a personal friend to many of the women at CIA and had made the ultimate sacrifice for something she believed in. It jolted in me a sense that more women needed to share their experiences in ways that provided a new, more accurate narrative of how the country’s most-famous intelligence agency accomplishes its mission. I’d sadly lost contact with Bakos for a few years but was thrilled to re-connect and interview her about her new book. Bakos was a member of CIA’s Analytic team leading up to and during the Iraq war. It was a team that included several key women. Bakos was eventually asked to serve as Chief Targeting Officer in pursuit of one of the most-deadly terrorist leaders, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. I’m so glad Bakos decided to tell her story and hope that hers, along with others, will inspire more women to follow their passions.]
Kelly: What inspired you to write this book?
Bakos: Even having the confidence to think that I had something to say started with you and the person I refer to as ‘Katherine’ in the book. That was really it. Prior to that, it probably would have never dawned on me that this was a viable thing. I really didn’t think that my story alone would be all that interesting, and I thought if I include Katherine's story as well, then it's interesting. Shortly after the three of us talked about it, I realized that this hamster wheel of counter terrorism seems unending and there was a litany of men talking about their experiences, but not a lot of female voices, women who had worked these issues just as hard. I wrote the book because I want to see more women in national security. I want them to choose to go into national security and realize that this is not superhero worship, it's real work and its real people, just like everything else. I want women to know that yes, they are qualified to do it. If I can get in and do it, so can they.
Kelly: You talk a lot about your personal story in this book and what the journey was like for you. It was a little bit unexpected to hear this kind of detail. Here you are, this 30-year-old woman, living in Montana. How did you go from living that life to moving to D.C. and working for the CIA?
Bakos: I always wanted to live overseas, and I never found a private sector job that would really fulfill that role for me. So I focused on the government. I found an opening that I was qualified for and went for it. I've had that goal since I was in high school. And it didn't matter how, I just wanted to do it.
Kelly: And your initial role working as an analyst for the CIA turned into something new after 9/11, with you taking on the role of a targeting officer. Tell us a little bit about what that job encompasses. What does a targeting officer do?
Bakos: When I started out working as a targeting officer, there were already people fulfilling these roles, but I don't think it had been formally called anything. I'm not sure when the designation started. Most of it was really on the operations side. Eventually, the analyst side created their own targeting analyst role, but from the operations side, it meant working alongside all the operations managers and folks who do the traditional operations work, but in counter terrorism, you're focused on and partnering with action arms, which is typically in a conflict area, military. The role was a hybrid between being an analyst and being a case officer. You had to understand both worlds, to a certain extent, along with military objectives and legal limitations. So your job is to really understand, holistically, from an operations perspective, every lever that you can use.
Kelly: Let's talk about Zarqawi. When did he first come into your life?
Bakos: The agency had been following him since at least pre and post 9-11. So, they understood who he was, that he was just a non-entity except for the stuff he'd been doing inside of Jordan. As far as the bigger overall Al-Qaeda picture, he wasn't even a part of that, really. He was this tangential person who was trying to formulate his own network. So after 9-11, the agency started paying more attention to him because he started galvanizing more support from across different regions. He was pulling it from the caucuses, from the Levant, and was gathering a much more global network. He was really talking more about chemical and biological stuff at the time and was focused on developing at least a rudimentary capability. By the time I got into the Iraq team, he was part of that analysis and discussion, because he had to have been to northern Iraq post 9-11. And obviously with the intent ... with the drums of war beating, to actually stay there and start using his network against the U.S. military.
Kelly: So, he got his name on a list.
Bakos: He did. Because initially, he was the only tangential connection to any relevant global jihadists inside of Iraq. Even though he wasn't working with the regime and had recently shown up since 9-11.
Kelly: Is it accurate to say that your primary job became finding him?
Bakos: As a targeting officer, my job became trying to figure out how to dismantle him and his network. When it came to Al-Qaeda central, you’re looking at the entire organization because you're trying to find some of the vulnerable points, and you're also looking for the points that are causing the most damage. He was radicalizing Iraqis, he was killing Iraqi civilians, just to foment chaos. So by the time I moved into the operations side, I was so focused and living every day with the central question of what he was doing every day. Sometimes it felt like I was living along side him, because my day was constantly trying to figure out his next target, his next approach, our next insertion point. I was constantly ruminating and thinking about the end goal.
Kelly: But you then left that role before he was killed and you eventually left the Agency. Why did you decide to leave? And what did it feel like when you heard Zarqawi had been killed?
Bakos: I was still at the agency when I heard he was killed. I was working in National Resources Division by then and I had just taken a different role three months prior to that. Everyone else had rotated out. I was one of the last people standing. I was a mess. It was probably time. I really thought that we would be successful against Zarqawi because he had stayed inside of Iraq. I figured this was an eventual demise for him because it's pretty hard to maintain that constant vigilance. Odds were that we were going to catch up to him.
I was relieved that it did happen, because I figured it would take some oxygen out of the violence. And it did, for a while. But he had caused so much damage, and radicalized so many people by then. I was happy to see at least one violent person removed from the situation, but knew that this was in no way near the end of anything.
Kelly: And why did you decide to leave the agency?
Bakos: Mainly because my husband wasn't portable and there wasn’t a clearly defined role for me to take back home. Honestly, it just made no sense for my husband to figure out how to move every two years when I wasn’t sure I would love what I was doing. That just wasn't going to happen in his career.
Kelly: You get pretty personal in the book talking about marriage, and before that dating and what that was like while trying to handle all of the things happening in your professional life. We've seen very memorable portrayals of women in these roles, like the role of Carrie Mathison in Homeland. How many of these portrayals have you watched over the years and how many times have you thought, there are maybe bits and pieces of reality in them, and maybe a lot of Hollywood?
Bakos: Almost all of the women I see portrayed as spies are almost always certifiably insane.
Kelly: Do you have to be certifiably insane to be a woman in the CIA?
Bakos: I don't think so. I think I ended up that way, but I don't think I started that way.
Kelly: Tell me more about what you hope this book will do. It used to be that the operations side of the Agency was very male dominated. And there have been lots of changes and a controversial restructuring that has the Analysis and Operations sides working more directly together. And since Gina Haspel has become the first female CIA Director, we’ve seen her promoting women into senior roles. How important is that?
Bakos: So important. I was so excited to see a lot of the changes because I think that ultimately if you don’t have a diverse outlook in your leadership, you will never have a diverse workforce. It was about time, especially on the operations side. I was so excited and happy and relieved to see it.
Kelly: What’s next for you? Are you interested in a movie deal for the book?
Bakos: I would like to be able to retire someday, yes. It would be great to get a movie or TV deal so I can retire and pay for my kids' college. I have zero interest in watching anything about myself, just so you know.
Kelly: No offense, but that’s such a girl thing to say.
Bakos: I know, right? I really just want young women to feel like they're qualified to do this. If you have the drive and the interest, I want every young woman out there who wants to do this to apply. You will never know unless you try.
Kelly: So many women and men go through similar experiences while they're working for the government. And they leave, and women just don’t seem to feel as comfortable talking about their experiences. Why is that, do you think?
Bakos: Well, I think actually this speaks to almost every single industry. Women are constantly apologizing for their expertise, constantly apologizing because they weren't senior enough so they don't feel like they can talk. I think women are just much more reticent to call themselves an expert. I still wouldn’t do it. I have all of these hang ups and then some. But I finally decided, look, this is where I'm comfortable. This is the role that I have carved out for myself, and that I understand how to speak to. And I understand my limitations and what I don't know, and that's enough for me. And I feel comfortable doing that. So, I think, you don't have to bluster and feel like you need to be an expert on everything. We all have something to say, given our experience. It doesn't matter if you were in senior level positions, because as we all know, there weren't a lot of women in those senior level positions. Experience is relevant, on the ground or at the higher levels.
Kelly: If you could choose three people who you really want to read your book, who would they be?
Bakos: One of them already wrote a lovely blurb for it, and that is John McLaughlin. He is my hero, which he kind of knows, because I've gushed over him on Twitter and in person. I would like Amy Poehler to read it.
Kelly: Why Amy Poehler? She does comedy.
Bakos: She does comedy, but she has this fantastic website, amysmartgirls, and it's really trying to help promote girls in STEM. I just think adding some of national security stuff to that would be great.
And gosh. Well, this one's sappy. My mom. She passed away in 2015. Before she died, she said to me, "I'm almost kind of glad I'm not going to be here when this book is published. I'm afraid of what you're going to say about me." I was like, "Mom."
Kelly: And your Mom knew that you had been diagnosed with PTSD, which we haven’t really talked about and I know is important to you.
Bakos: Yeah. I was diagnosed with it about a year before my mom died, and I was a disaster. I think it's better now, but that was just never a discussion at the agency. The fact that it was even a possibility that you could experience it. I felt like, "Oh, I wasn't a soldier. How come I would have this?" I want that to be part of an every day discussion at the agency, I want them to be focused on making sure that they have a healthy work force and not demonize people if they need help.
Kelly: What were some of the things that led you to suspect you had PTSD?
Bakos: I am really good at not taking care of myself, so it wasn't until I hit complete rock bottom that I did anything about it. When I couldn't leave the house, couldn't function, couldn't do things for anybody in my family, I had no choice but to go get help.
Kelly: What did it feel like to you?
Bakos: It was panic and anxiety attacks constantly. I felt claustrophobic everywhere. And it wasn't until I started reading and talking to military veterans that I understood that these are common signs. That constant vigilance idea has been around for a really long time. I understand how people would just want to numb themselves because I just wanted to sleep a lot. It's worse than depression, for sure. It's much more intense.
Kelly: And you recognized it, and you got help?
Bakos: Yes.
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