THE DARK SIDE:

The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Became a War on American Ideals

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WHAT THE CIA DOESN'T WANT YOU TO KNOW
The Sunday after September 11, 2001 Vice President Dick Cheney sat down
for an interview with Tim Russert on "Meet the Press." In that much
quoted interview, Cheney gave a memorable description of how the
administration viewed the continuing threat and how it planned to
respond:

"We'll have to work sort of the dark side, if you will. We've got
to spend time in the shadows in the intelligence world. A lot of what
needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any
discussion, using sources and methods that are available to our
intelligence agencies if we are going to be successful. That's the
world these folks operate in. And, uh, so it's going to be vital for
us to use any means at our disposal basically, to achieve our
objectives."

Since 2001 New Yorker reporter Jane Mayer has been investigating and
reporting on what the dark side really means. For the first time, she
pieces together the full story of how Cheney, and a handful of
extraordinarily powerful, but almost unknown lawyers including his Chief
of Staff David Addington, took command of the war on terrorism. They
seized on the mood of national fear to institute a top secret, covert
program that twisted or ignored 221 years of constitutional history. She
chronicles the behind-the-scenes meetings in the White House, Justice
Department and CIA, and shows how the decisions taken behind closed
doors in Washington spiraled out around the world, often with unintended
consequences, violated the Constitution, and dramatically hindered the
pursuit of Al Qaeda.

Here are some of the revelations:
• The single minded campaign, born in the office of the Vice
President, to legalize torture and expand the President's powers as
"Commander-in-Chief" to the point of unchecked authority with the
ability to violate virtually any law.
• The first full account of the secret Red Cross report describing the
detailed allegations of torture made by the CIA's top fourteen terror
suspects — all of whom are currently held in Guantanamo Bay -- and the
Red Cross's warning to the United States government that this
treatment unequivocally constituted "torture," exposing Bush
Administration officials to prosecution for war crimes.
• The personal reasons that drove Dick Cheney to so many undisclosed
locations post-9/11 ¬ including his fear that he had personally been
exposed to Anthrax.
• Details about the scores of innocent people the United States
Government has abused ¬including the inside story of a mistaken CIA
"rendition," and the revelation that the CIA is investigating a
half-dozen more such erroneous kidnappings.
• The unorthodox CIA psychologists who advocated the use of Cold War
KGB methods intended to obtain false confessions, and the near complete
lack of actionable intelligence gained from these un-American
techniques.
• The viral spread of legally dubious torture techniques from an
obscure U.S. military training program, known as "SERE," throughout
the U.S. war on terror.
• Previously unpublished, shocking details showing what the CIA did to
detainees to make them talk and new revelations about the growing doubts
and fights within the intelligence agency over these harrowing tactics.
• The fear of criminal charges that drove the CIA to destroy
interrogation videotapes ¬ and what the tapes may have shown.
• Vice President Cheney's intimidation of the U.S. Attorney General
Alberto Gonzales, who admitted he disagreed with the torture program,
but couldn't fight back.
• The stories of the brave dissenters, many of who were lifelong
conservatives, inside the administration, as well as the military
officers and FBI agents, who openly challenged the legality of these
practices and lost their jobs in the process. Two top Justice Department
officials critical of the White House became so fearful; they conversed
in codes, in case their phones were tapped.
• The mounting of a secret internal rebellion aimed at closing
Guantanamo.
• The admission by Cofer Black, the former head of the CIA's
Counterterrorist Center, that he expected to be indicted some day for
the program they ran.
• The striking declaration by Condoleezza Rice's former counselor,
Phillip Zelikow, that the Bush Administration's descent into torture
will be seen as abhorrently as Franklin Roosevelt's internment of the
Japanese during World War Two.

About the Author:
Jane Mayer is the co-author of two best-selling narrative non-fiction
books, LANDSLIDE: THE UNMAKING OF THE PRESIDENT, 1984-1988, and STRANGE
JUSTICE: THE SELLING OF CLARENCE THOMAS, the latter of which was a
finalist for the National Book Award. She is a Washington-based staff
writer for The New Yorker, specializing in political and investigative
reporting. Before that, she was a senior writer and front page editor
for The Wall Street Journal, as well as the Journal's first female White
House correspondent.

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