by Eric Blehm
The news segment concluded with Harris saying that “there is a lot of confusion” at the Pentagon regarding Karzai’s current location. “There is no disagreement, however, about the importance of Karzai’s mission, called pivotal to the success of the war.”
In fact, there was plenty of disagreement as to Karzai’s importance.
On November 8, CIA Director George Tenet—who had been receiving daily updates from Casper—reported to Rumsfeld, Powell, and other principal White House advisers that Karzai’s tangible following was not as robust as they had originally thought. “We don’t have anything working in the south,” he said, “and we have nothing to put on the table.” 2
That same day, in Pakistan, Amerine’s split team was close to finalizing a plan for infiltrating the south. In the Air Force mess hall, Amerine sat down to eat breakfast with Mag, who pulled a Wall Street Journal editorial from newspapers piled at the end of the table.
“Check this out,” he said, handing the article to Amerine.
In the editorial, “The Tragedy of Abdul Haq: How the CIA Betrayed an Afghan Freedom-fighter,” Robert McFarlane—national security adviser to President Reagan from 1983 to 1985—wrote a scathing account of CIA dysfunction and lack of foresight in Afghanistan, outlining what had happened to Abdul Haq: “Even the best force in the world will fail without solid intelligence. The CIA cannot provide it; it has utterly failed to do its job. But the military can. By working together, the Pashtun commanders and our special operations forces can win in Afghanistan.”3
Amerine had been unaware of this parallel between Haq and Karzai, both of whom had asked the CIA for support and had been denied meaningful backing. Barraged by such negative press after Haq’s death, the CIA had gone to great lengths to rescue Karzai—the only anti-Taliban Pashtun attempting to stir up resistance in the south—when he’d called for assistance. Had Karzai been the first to call for help, Amerine and his men might be planning a mission with Haq now, and it would be Karzai’s name in the obituaries.
Back in the safe house, Karzai showed Amerine, Mag, and Alex a short list of villages he and the tribal leaders were considering as their base of operations; all of them were east of Tarin Kowt and hugged the Helmand River where it ran through a valley alongside formidable mountains.
“Almost two years ago,” Karzai said, “I met with Massoud* in the Hindu Kush mountains to discuss a southern rebellion against the Taliban. He advised me to find someplace in the south that would be like his Panjshir Valley in the north. This was one of the areas that Massoud agreed would be appropriate.”
“We’ll look at these carefully,” said Amerine. Having a plan that bore Massoud’s fingerprints was a good omen. It also increased his respect for Karzai: He had been planning this southern rebellion for far longer than Amerine had imagined.
Alex and Mag headed off to the operations center in the hangar to check out the locations on “Big Mama,” the Air Force’s powerful computer system that turned high-resolution satellite imagery into three-dimensional maps, allowing them to “fly” the terrain within Afghanistan, not unlike a flight simulator.
“I think we’ve found our base,” Mag informed Amerine that afternoon when he stopped by Big Mama.
Sitting in front of the massive screen, Amerine zeroed in on the point where Helmand, Kandahar, and Uruzgan provinces meet. In the mountains just north of this intersection he swooped over the easily identifiable Kajaki Reservoir, a massive body of water created by the Kajaki Dam, built in 1953 by American engineers on the Helmand River for irrigation and hydroelectricity. He followed the river downstream eight miles to War Jan, a mountain town of approximately 1,500 Pashtun that was 3,600 feet above sea level and set in a deep, water-carved canyon that protected it on two sides. The canyon bottom was a fertile river valley wide enough for low-altitude air supply drops and helicopter landing zones. The most likely attack routes, along the river, were easily monitored and very defendable. And according to Karzai, the nearby villages were friendly to his cause. Amerine made sure there was a viable escape-and-evasion plan in case they needed to retreat from War Jan, then called Casper over from the safe house to show him the plan.
“Skipper,” said Casper, “that’s a big town to hold in the middle of Taliban country.”
“Not really,” replied Amerine. “Hamid is saying the people who live in the immediate vicinity are friendly to our cause. The terrain is compelling. It’s perfect.”
“I think we’re going to need more men. At least a platoon of Rangers.”
The comment reminded Amerine of Roy Scheider’s line in the movie Jaws: “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.” It also ran against the tenets of unconventional warfare.
“We don’t want a bigger footprint,” he said. “We’ll be fine.”
Twenty-four hours later, Amerine checked the team’s secure e-mail account and learned from an intelligence report that in the north, more than 4,000 Northern Alliance troops in concert with approximately thirty U.S. Special Forces soldiers had conducted a massive assault on the country’s fourth-largest city, Mazar-e-Sharif, home to 300,000 Uzbek and Tajik Afghans. They had run thousands of Taliban out of the city.
The next e-mail was from Mulholland’s staff at Task Force Dagger, who informed Amerine that the CIA team working with Karzai had requested a Ranger platoon to be added to the mission. “Request was denied,” read the message.
Why the hell is Casper pulling this shit? thought Amerine.
The message continued: “However, the commander does not want your team to infiltrate unless Karzai can assure you he has at least 300 fighters.”
Amerine had been trained to make decisions based on his analysis of what was happening on the ground and, if need be, without consulting higher command. This Special Forces philosophy and the term “Operational Detachment” (fully operational even when detached from leadership) had been born of necessity during World War II, when teams were unable to communicate with their superiors.
In 2001, even with modern communication technology, most ODA captains felt that the spirit of this operational independence remained, although a gray area existed as to how far a captain could take it.
Special Forces captains have been known to bristle at orders handed down from higher command, not because of a problem with authority but because they know more about what is going on from the intelligence they have gathered themselves: the battlefields surveyed, the working relationships forged with indigenous fighters and leaders, and the instincts honed while immersed in a mission.
Amerine knew that Karzai did not have three hundred men, but having spent almost a week with him and his most loyal tribal leaders, he believed his claim that the Pashtun populace was behind him—but only if Karzai returned to Afghanistan with American soldiers. Karzai needed ODA 574 on the ground in order to rally support; Mulholland now required demonstrated support in order to green-light ODA 574’s infiltration. Though frustrating, this new order, Amerine assumed, was issued with the best of intentions: the safety of his team.
For the rest of the day, Amerine contemplated Mulholland’s order. He was envious of his fellow captains working with thousands of hardened Northern Alliance soldiers in the north, while Karzai was having a hard time guaranteeing a couple hundred guerrillas. Then again, Amerine was confident that the man he was allying with was not a violent, unscrupulous warlord. Nearly all the Northern Alliance generals had been accused of human rights violations, but Karzai had no blood on his hands.
The victory at Mazar-e-Sharif was a good indication that the Northern Alliance, with the support of the U.S. military, would continue south, reclaiming Uzbek, Tajik, Hazara, and other ethnic-minority territory from the Taliban. If the Northern Alliance were to attack the Pashtun tribal belt, civil war was inevitable. The ensuing lawlessness would create a ripe environment for the next Taliban—and a haven for the next al-Qaeda.
ODA 574 had to infiltrate with Karzai; the consequences of abandoning him, Amerine decided, were too dire. No
w, he thought, is the time to help Hamid rally the Pashtun—before the Northern Alliance moves into the southern provinces. But to do that, he would have to work around an apparently overly cautious CIA officer and convince his own 5th Group commander that it was necessary.
That evening Amerine wrote in his journal, “It’s a fucked-up war when you are more worried about fighting your chain of command than the actual enemy.”
The fall of Mazar-e-Sharif was good news for Operation Enduring Freedom, but it increased the urgency of the work of James Dobbins, a former U.S. ambassador who had been appointed envoy to the Afghan resistance only ten days before. He had built his reputation as a diplomat specializing in crisis management and “state-building” in Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo. The State Department had told him that in Afghanistan, the military operation was gaining momentum but “the political track was not keeping pace.” While the Taliban regime would certainly be defeated, Dobbins later wrote, there was “no clear idea of what group could be put in its place or how to do it.”4
Dobbins had identified three key milestones essential to stabilizing Afghanistan after the war. First, all six of Afghanistan’s neighboring countries would have to agree on the successor to the Taliban and the interim government. Second, Dobbins needed to identify Pashtun leaders who were untainted by association with the Taliban and remained popular in the Pashtun tribal belt. Third, he must convince the Northern Alliance leadership, which represented minority ethnic groups, to share power with this figure.
In Dobbins’s estimation, the Northern Alliance and the supporters of former king Zahir Shah* were the two most significant opposition groups in Afghanistan, but he was having trouble bringing them together for a meeting. The leaders of the Northern Alliance were in no hurry to share power with Afghan émigrés who controlled no forces on the ground—they were too busy winning a war.
During their customary stroll that night, Amerine informed Karzai that the infiltration was scheduled for November 14—five days away and the darkest night in the current lunar cycle. They reconvened for tea afterward in the safe house meeting room, where Amerine told Karzai of his dilemma: Mulholland’s order that he not infiltrate until a force of three hundred Afghans was ready to join them.
“The support is there,” Karzai insisted. “The people will join us. They will rise up.”
“I know this, but…”
“Then we will make our own way back into Afghanistan,” Karzai said, uncharacteristically interrupting Amerine.
“No, Hamid,” said Amerine. “What can we do now to bolster your numbers?”
“I should return to Uruzgan immediately with the tribal leaders. I have been absent too long already.”
“I don’t believe that would be a good idea,” Amerine said. “We need you here.”
“Then I will discuss this with the tribal leaders,” said Karzai, who stood and left the room.
He returned an hour later. “They are ready,” Karzai said. “Bari Gul is already packed and waiting at the door. They will go to Uruzgan while I remain here to complete the plan. They will have your three hundred men.”
Karzai held Amerine’s eye without a blink or a twitch to reveal any misgivings. This man would make a hell of a poker player, thought Amerine.
The plan had always called for the tribal leaders to return to Afghanistan in advance of Karzai and the American infiltration, but not this far in advance: The longer these Afghans were on the ground, the greater the chance that the infiltration plan might be leaked or accidentally disclosed to a Taliban spy or sympathizer. But now they needed this additional time to rally more recruits. Amerine coordinated with Casper and Hadley on the spot, arranging to insert the tribal leaders back inside Afghanistan the following night.
“In the meantime,” Amerine told Karzai, “you should sit down with Alex and identify any villages in need of humanitarian aid. He can coordinate the airdrops. If you can contact the leaders, let them know that you personally requested the aid.”
On November 10, Amerine’s split team at J-Bad went “Christmas shopping” for the insurgency. The U.S. military and the CIA had settled on Russian weaponry in large part because the AK-47 was the iconic weapon of the Mujahideen, originally supplied by the United States in great numbers during “Charlie Wilson’s War,”* when the CIA could not afford to be linked to the weapons it supplied to Afghan freedom fighters during their insurgency against the Soviets. Many Afghans had lovingly maintained the rifles, adorning them with engravings and bright paint and passing them along to their sons.
The weapons list read: 300 AK-47s; 150,000 rounds of ammunition; 300 ammo pouches; 5 PKM Russian machine guns with 200,000 rounds; 100 rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs). As the weapons sergeants finalized what would be their first lethal weapons airdrop once ODA 574 was in War Jan, Wes received a message from Task Force Dagger.
He found Amerine at the hangar, flying the terrain on Big Mama in preparation for that night’s mission to deposit the tribal leaders back in the Uruzgan Mountains. “Task Force Dagger is sending the rest of the team over,” Wes said.
“Good news,” Amerine said. He assumed Mulholland or Rosengard decided that training three hundred guerrillas warranted a full-strength ODA 574, and though Amerine looked forward to seeing the rest of his men, he was certain that all was not forgiven for having ditched them at K2.
Wes continued to hover.
“Something else?” asked Amerine.
“Yes, sir. The guys, we wanted to have a little powwow with you about tonight, when you get a chance.”
Wes left, and a civilian entered the room. “She’s a beauty, isn’t she?” the man said to Amerine, looking at Big Mama over his shoulder. “Really purrs.”
“Yep,” said Amerine, who presumed that the man was CIA and had the clearance to be there. “Well, I just wanted to introduce myself,” the man said, handing Amerine a business card. “I’m making sure everything is working for you guys. But give me a call if your command at Fort Campbell wants to drop in on something like this. I can fly out, give you a demo.”
Amerine glanced at the card before throwing it in the trash. Unbelievable, he thought. Here he was, getting ready to go to war at a high-security, supposedly secret base, and he had gotten pitched by a civilian software salesman.
Mag was waiting for Amerine when he walked into the safe house late that afternoon.
“Sir, about tonight. I’m ready. Bring me along.”
“No, Mag. I’m going on this one alone.”
“You’re not going to take me? You’re not gonna take your pit bull?”
Amerine laughed.
“Sir, you gotta stay back,” Mag said as they entered the team’s room. “Something happens to you, you get shot down, they’ll scrub the mission.”
“One of us should go with you,” added Mike, who was waiting just inside the door.
“Is that what this is all about?” Amerine looked around at the rest of his split team. “This isn’t about me getting my feet wet first,” he said. “This is about showing good faith, an officer going in with other officers. Hamid isn’t too happy that we don’t have weapons for them yet. These guys are his officers—the highest-ranked leaders he’s got. Casper’s going, the aircrews, and the guerrillas. There’s no more room. It will be in and out.”
The men were quiet. At last Mike said, “Sir, we could give the guerrillas some of our frag grenades. So they’ve got something to fight with.”
“Good idea. Can you put together what we can spare?”
“Roger that,” said Mike.
Every member of the split team—Alex, Ken, Wes, Mag, Mike—looked concerned about their captain. Or maybe they were just tired: Sleep was minimal and stress levels were high.
“All will be well,” Amerine told them. “I’m going to start prepping to leave. Mag, get the rest of the guys situated when they arrive. I’ll brief them first thing in the morning.”
Casper entered the room as Mike was delivering the sack of fragm
entation grenades to Amerine.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, skipper,” said Casper, eyeing the weapons.
“We’re dropping our guerrillas into a location where they could get into trouble,” said Amerine. “They’re my men, they deserve a fighting chance, and they are crucial to the completion of the mission.”
“That’s fine, just don’t hand them out before the flight.”
“Does he think they’re gonna go suicidal?” asked Mike after Casper left. “Blow up the helicopter?”
“I’m not sure what he’s thinking,” Amerine said. The CIA team seemed solid, and ODA 574 respected them, having heard about some of their previous missions. But Casper’s comment about the grenades and his request for a Ranger platoon, made behind Amerine’s back, worried the captain. Casper would have little authority in the ground force campaign once they were in Afghanistan, but here in Pakistan, he seemed to have enough pull to get the mission canceled. It was imperative that Amerine keep the peace until they were in-country.
Amerine, Casper, and Karzai’s seven tribal leaders boarded an AFSOC Pave Low helicopter shortly after nightfall. Watching Casper closely, Amerine thought the spook seemed edgy, his eyes more alert and his mannerisms more deliberate as they flew to a barren airstrip flanked by flat grids of farmland less than fifty miles east of the Afghan border.
There they loaded onto two Black Hawks, sleek helicopters that flew low and fast on a northern heading into Afghanistan. Amerine smiled at the tribal leaders, and they responded in kind; toothy grins were their only visible features in the darkness. “Welcome to Afghanistan,” said the air mission commander once they entered Afghan airspace.
Amerine knew he should have been excited, but he dreaded leaving these men, whom he now considered his guerrillas, in the desert at night while he returned to safety in Pakistan. If the mission was called off, he feared he would never see them again.