This is the second part of this week’s interview with Nada Bakos regarding her career and the documentary “Manhunt” which focuses on the search and capture of Osama bin Laden.
Dorri Olds: What questions do you hear most often about working in the CIA?
Nada Bakos: People are so surprised by the woman angle, that women were involved in the initial hunt for Al Qaeda. I’m not sure why they’re surprised but they are.
Are you hoping for Hillary Clinton to run for president and win?
I am hoping in my lifetime there will be a woman president. There had better be.
Do you think that if more women were in government we would have fewer wars?
No, not necessarily. Throughout history we have seen many women who were just as benevolent as men. I do know that it is common sense to have both genders running the government. Women are fifty percent of the population and we have different concerns than men.
How long was the filming for “Manhunt”?
For my part it was a couple of days.
Did you enjoy the process?
I didn’t know how it all worked and I found it really interesting and the editor Joe Bini is amazing.
How was it seeing yourself on film?
The first time I saw “Manhunt” was when it premiered at Sundance in front of a crowd of 400 people. It was very emotional for me to see it and to be there with the audience.
Did you have any concerns about it?
I wanted to make sure I represented reality well. I think I did.
Do acts of torture as in “Zero Dark Thirty” really happen?
Let’s put it this way, nothing the agency does is okayed without lots of legal decisions. There’s the moral side and the legal side. All of the administration is always involved.
What if someone gets fed up and goes rogue, to handle things their way?
Then they get in trouble.
Do you have any answers for how we can battle terrorism?
Terrorism is a tactic and if the root causes of those acts remain unknown, we won’t have a full counterterrorism strategy. We cannot deal with the root causes of terrorism until we do that. Even inside the U.S. we need to understand more about why things happen before they do. What happened in Boston is a perfect example.
Did you deal directly with terrorists that were tortured?
I was not part of any interrogations directly and I thought that was completely overplayed in the movie “Zero Dark Thirty.” People have to understand that information comes from many different sources.
Do you mean information comes from people willing to rat out others for immunity?
Yes, that, and other foreign intelligence agencies that are supplying us with information. I get what they tried to do with “Zero Dark Thirty” and I think they did a good job. You can’t have a million people running around in a movie. It would be too hard to keep track of all of them. Katherine Bigelow did an amazing job and I’m surprised she didn’t get nominated for the Academy Award.
What do you see ahead of you for the next five years?
I’ve asked myself how I can best use my skills and apply them. I’m working on a book and developing an idea for a TV series based on my experiences.
Is the book a memoir?
I’m not sure yet. It will be about what it’s like inside the CIA.
Thanks so much. You’ve been great.