The Foreign Service Journal, March 2014

34 MARCH 2014 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL a credible threat from a Somali quasi-humanitarian group called al-Haramain. I was also told that the intel side of the Washington interagency community wanted to let things unfold to see where the leads would go. I reported this back to State, along with mea- sures we were taking, but got no response. When I learned that the arms the group was waiting for were allegedly on their way, I asked the Kenyan government to break up the organization. [Kenyan President Daniel Arap] Moi per- sonally assured me they would comply. Some of the members of al-Haramain were deported and life went on. Then I got word of a threat from the Lord’s Resistance Army, a rebel group in northern Uganda. Again, we advised Washington and, again, we got nothing back. Meanwhile we continued to do everything we considered reasonable and cautious. I remember that in early 1998 a delegation of counterterror- ist types visited. I met with them in the secure conference room, and when they ended with the pro-forma “Is there anything we can do for you?” I angrily declared they could answer the god- damn mail! The cursing was intentional because I wanted them to see how frustrated and annoyed I was. When I returned to Washington on consultations in Decem- ber 1997, I was told point-blank by the AF Executive Office to stop sending cables because people were getting very irritated with me. That really pushed up my blood pressure. Later, in the spring of 1998, for the first time in my career I was not asked for input into the “Needs Improvement” section of my performance evaluation. That’s always a sign! When I read the criticism that “she tends to overload the bureaucratic circuits,” I knew exactly what it referred to. Yes, the cables had been read. They just weren’t appreciated. In the years since the bombing, I’ve learned just how much I did not know about U.S. national security and law enforcement efforts against al-Qaida. The information was highly compart- mentalized, on a “need to know” basis, and clearly Washington did not think the U.S. ambassador needed to know. n When they ended with the pro-forma “Is there anything we can do for you?” I angrily declared they could answer the goddamnmail! –Prudence Bushnell