88 Days to Kandahar: A CIA Diary

by Grenier, Robert L.

  As for Mahmud himself, having been quickly named the new Director-General of the ISI after the October coup, he became thoroughly immersed in investigating the financial “crimes” of the Sharif family and their political cronies, and had not found time to meet with me until early December 1999. During that initial meeting, he had shown no great enthusiasm for intelligence cooperation with the CIA. I would immediately embark on a sustained effort to win Mahmud over, but that process had hardly begun when Milam and I ventured to Army House.

  This did not mean that Musharraf was incapable of ordering Mahmud to take action. He could if he chose. But given the huge number of challenges with which the newly launched dictator had to deal in his effort to thoroughly reform the Pakistani political system and prepare it for “true democracy,” it seemed clear to me that he would not undertake the sustained effort necessary to get Mahmud to take action against his will unless he perceived a compelling reason to do so. However potent Milam’s implied threat had appeared to me, it was obvious from Musharraf’s reaction that he did not perceive it that way. To him, a clash with the United States over al-Qa’ida was some vaguely hypothetical future possibility; hardly something to dwell upon when he had many more present and immediate crises to deal with. One could see that the warning from Milam hardly registered with the self-styled “Chief Executive” at all.

  As we rode together back to Islamabad, I tried to be as upbeat as I could. It was becoming apparent to me, though, that if I wanted Mahmud’s cooperation, winning it was going to require a great deal more effort from me.

  Chapter 5

  * * *

  ROMANCING THE TALIBAN

  JANUARY 2001

  I WAS WAITING IMPATIENTLY IN front of Ambassador Milam’s residence, trying to suppress my natural urge to pace: it looks undignified, and I wanted to make an appropriate impression on our arriving guest. Lowland Pakistani winters are mild by most standards, but this night was cold and damp, and I hadn’t bothered with a coat.

  Arrangements for the visit had been made by an embassy contact, a Houston-based Afghan-American by the name of “Akbar.” Twenty years in the intelligence business had taught me to be distrustful of Akbar and his ilk; rogue regimes always attract opportunists, operators looking to develop unsavory contacts with an eye for the main chance. Still, whatever one might think of his character, Akbar had shown he could deliver; and the package he was delivering that night was the deputy foreign minister of the Taliban, Mullah Abdul Jalil Akhund—known widely as “Mullah Jalil.”

  Akbar himself was something of a phenomenon. For all that he was a Pashtun, he was the last person you would expect to have effective relations with the Taliban. He was a heavy drinker and a smoker, where no real talib would tolerate either. In a country where beardless men risked being arrested on sight, he remained defiantly smooth-cheeked. True, he had the protection of both Mullah Jalil and his boss, Taliban foreign minister Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil; but in a country run by narrow-minded religious obscurantists and awash in religious police, it was a marvel that he could operate the way he did. His audacity was perhaps his greatest ally: anyone so willing to openly flout the rules must be powerful indeed.

  His appeal was simple. He had apparently convinced Jalil and a handful of others that if ever international sanctions could be lifted, he would be the man to bring them the commercial rewards they sought. Thus he was desperate to find some way past the bin Laden roadblock, and he had curried multiple contacts within the U.S. government in hopes of brokering an understanding with the Taliban.

  This could hardly be called a clandestine contact. It was being held, after all, in the ambassador’s residence on the high-profile American Embassy compound in Islamabad, surrounded by high walls and guarded by Pakistanis. We had gone to some pains, however, to keep the meeting discreet: Akbar was conveying Mullah Jalil in his own vehicle, rather than an official Taliban car. Where the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, would normally have been expected to participate, he had pointedly not been informed of this meeting. And where all guests normally were screened at the gate, I had made special arrangements to ensure that the passenger in the backseat of Akbar’s rented Toyota Land Cruiser would remain unmolested behind darkened windows. Milam had taken the further precaution of dismissing his staff early for the evening.

  The man who emerged from the SUV was no more than five foot seven. He had a round, childlike face, notwithstanding the standard full, untrimmed beard. He was dressed conventionally for a talib, in a dark gray, winter-weight shalwar khameez and sleeveless black vest, which he wore over a thick nut brown woolen sweater. The uniform was completed by the usual rough brown woolen blanket, which he wrapped about him like a cape, and a black Kandahari pugaree, whose long loose end draped down in front of his left shoulder. He wore this turban pushed back on his head, revealing a close-cropped widow’s peak.

  A seeming majority of Afghan males of Jalil’s age and background had been shot up in the previous two decades of war, and the deputy foreign minister was no exception: he walked with a pronounced limp, favoring his right leg. It was only after he took his place to the ambassador’s left, with his crossed legs pulled up beneath him on the settee, and began slowly rubbing his aching right ankle, that I noticed two discordant details. On the floor beneath the couch were a pair of black Reeboks in place of the usual sandals, and tucked into his breast pocket was a very expensive Mont Blanc pen—both, no doubt, gifts from the redoubtable Akbar.

  When State Department officers hold a ritual discussion with a foreign counterpart in which neither side departs from standard, previously reported positions, they will often describe the contact in shorthand, citing “an exchange along familiar lines.” For the most part, the phrase would have applied here, if the meeting itself had not been so novel. Milam took the lead, laying out the U.S. demand that bin Laden be turned over to American justice. Jalil countered by inviting the U.S. government to present its evidence; if the Taliban found it compelling, he said, it could try bin Laden in its own Islamic courts. Milam explained, in turn, that the procedures in a Taliban court would not meet the requirements of U.S. or international justice. Round and round they went for some time. Akbar translated, though it was clear that Jalil’s understanding of English was sufficient to require only occasional assistance. My presence at such an exchange was unusual, but Milam had felt that Jalil’s willingness to meet outside the usual diplomatic channels suggested a flexibility that I would be in the best position to exploit.

  Mullah Jalil, unlike most of the Taliban leadership, had been extensively educated outside of Quranic schools, and I had expected to see in him some signs of genuine sophistication. What I saw in his eyes was a sort of rude cunning. Although his words conformed to Taliban orthodoxy, one had the distinct impression, enhanced by Akbar’s presence, that this was one talib with whom we might be able to deal.

  We took a break from discussions, and I escorted both Akbar and Jalil to the front foyer. Akbar, craving a cigarette, dashed outside. As soon as the front door closed behind him, Jalil, who clearly knew my CIA affiliation, turned to me. “We must stay in touch,” he said, inclining his head toward the front door, “but he must not know.” I agreed that Akbar was not to be trusted. But how could we meet? Jalil said that he was staying with Zaeef, the Taliban ambassador in Islamabad, and that without Akbar’s help, he could not escape his official entourage to meet alone. I knew he had no secure means to call me from Kandahar: there was no cellular system in Afghanistan, and the few available landlines were run through the Pakistani exchanges at Peshawar and Quetta, specifically designated for official Taliban government use. All, of course, were subject to official Pakistani monitoring.

  “If you had a satellite phone,” I asked, “could you call me without anyone knowing?” He could, he said, but it would be difficult and risky to hide the device. If he were seen to have acquired a sat phone solely for his own use, it would generate suspicion. “But if I will bring it for the othe
rs to use also, I can speak with you alone.”

  “So much the better,” I thought. Yet how to get a sat phone to him in Afghanistan? Akbar represented the only readily apparent means available. But Jalil feared that his Afghan-American friend would avoid providing any means of independent contact that might diminish his own role as intermediary. “Leave that part to me,” I told him, just as Akbar reentered the house.

  When at length the evening’s diplomatic discussion ended and the two were sent on their way, I was left to ponder what this unexpected opportunity with Jalil might represent. Depending on his motives, which did not seem entirely altruistic, it could mean an opportunity to recruit Mullah Jalil as a senior “penetration” of the Taliban, and the chance to use him to influence Taliban policy regarding bin Laden covertly; or it might all prove an elaborate effort on the cleric’s part to manipulate me in pursuit of a combination of personal and Taliban ends—hardly inconsistent with Jalil’s apparent character. Yet again, it might represent a combination of both. Whatever the case, this was precisely the sort of game I was eager to play. I was already hard at work trying to develop indirect means of forcing a change in Taliban policy toward bin Laden and the Afghan Arabs. Mullah Jalil might provide a far more direct means of doing so. Before the winter was out, the game would be on in earnest.

  Chapter 6

  * * *

  THE WAR THAT NEVER WAS

  MARCH 23, 2001

  THE WINDOWLESS CONFERENCE ROOM was somber, its periphery bathed in shadows. Only the polished wood table that split its middle could be seen clearly. As I approached from my place at the back wall, I had a dramatic sense of emerging into the light. I instinctively decided to use my best rhetorical flourish first: I said nothing, and instead paused to survey the audience slowly. Seated on the far side of the table, in the middle, was the newly elected president, George W. Bush. On either side of him were members of the White House staff: to his right, national security advisor Condoleezza Rice and chief of staff Andrew Card; to his left, deputy national security advisor Stephen Hadley and the vice president’s chief of staff, Lewis “Scooter” Libby. Far to the president’s right sat George Tenet. On my side of the table, their backs to me, were the other assembled senior leaders of the Central Intelligence Agency.

  The pause had its intended effect. All on the other side of the table looked up from their notepads. After several long seconds, I turned squarely toward the president. “Mr. President, as your station chief in Islamabad. . . .” I heavily emphasized your, which slightly startled him, and the president, whose manner had previously been jocular, suddenly turned serious. He looked at me intently. George Tenet, too, looked up quickly, and fixed me with a lingering stare. I couldn’t tell if he liked the gambit—he no doubt considered me his station chief—but I definitely had his attention.

  Though this visit was the president’s first to CIA, it had the warm feel of a homecoming. The CIA Headquarters building, after all, had recently been named for Bush’s father, the former president and former CIA director. It was obvious from the start of his administration that this president had been imbued, perhaps through paternal influence, with a fundamental respect and appreciation for the CIA, which we all felt had been lacking under Clinton, who had seldom met with his director of Central Intelligence. George Tenet, on the other hand, and at Bush’s insistence, was providing the president’s daily intelligence briefing in person and, despite originally having been a Democratic appointee, seemed likely to stay on for the long term. He had clearly struck up a warm personal relationship with the chief executive. I was one of three overseas station chiefs who had been included to add some operational color to our first formal headquarters briefing of the new president.

  My approach was intimate. I wanted the president to feel that everything I and my station were doing, we were doing for him. My responsibilities, I said, included both Pakistan and all of Taliban-controlled Afghanistan—close to 90 percent of the country. I focused on Afghanistan. Since December 1999, I explained, we had departed from CIA’s previously myopic focus on bin Laden himself, and taken account of the fact that his al-Qa’ida followers and the foreign jihadists associated with them, whom we referred to collectively as the “Afghan Arabs,” had become a menacing force in their own right. They would pose a continuing terrorist threat to us and our allies, even if bin Laden were to die immediately of natural causes. And the key to their continued presence and growing power in Afghanistan, I stressed, was their sponsorship by the ruling Taliban.

  Therefore, in addition to tracking bin Laden’s daily movements about the country through tribal intelligence sources in hopes of effecting his capture, we had turned the full bore of our intelligence collection on the Taliban, with noteworthy success over the previous eighteen months. I listed in detail the key Taliban ministries, leadership structures, and al-Qa’ida training camps which had been penetrated. I explained our insights into intra-Taliban politics and intentions. Dr. Rice seemed particularly impressed. She nodded her head approvingly as she bent forward, taking notes.

  I described the tribal reporting networks we had put together, blanketing much of the country. These were built around what we referred to in the business as “principal agents,” or PAs, reporting sources who were tribal leaders or other socially prominent individuals, most of whom had been marginalized by the narrow, clerically dominated Taliban leadership. Trained and constantly vetted, they could report securely to us, usually via encrypted satellite communications. In turn, they maintained elaborate networks of informants, usually individuals bound to them through tribal or family loyalties. Through these networks, we could track the pulse of political, military, and social developments around the country, using the natural overlaps in coverage among them to confirm or deny information we were acquiring elsewhere, and to check on their reliability. Reports from these networks would trickle in to the principal agents, sometimes literally on camelback, and would be recorded, sorted, and amalgamated by the PAs for secure transmission to my station. Having filled the ten minutes I had been allotted, I wound up my segment of the briefing in time for the president and his team to file out for the next stop on their itinerary.

  As significant as anything I had briefed, however, was what I had chosen not to brief. When I intentionally maligned our previously “myopic” focus on bin Laden, I was referring to a covert action campaign initiated during the previous administration and pursued vigorously during my watch, and which one might have expected to be the centerpiece of my presentation. My station had been given secret “lethal” authorities under a Presidential Finding signed by Bill Clinton to pursue bin Laden. But those authorities did not amount to a license to kill. For nearly my whole career, CIA had been strictly governed by Executive Order 12333. Signed by President Reagan and having the full impact of law, E.O. 12333 barred the CIA from engaging in assassination. Afghans in our employ could attempt to capture bin Laden, and could defend themselves if bin Laden and his security entourage violently resisted. If the Saudi terrorist mastermind was killed in the process of resisting capture, that would be fine; but neither we nor our confederates could take any action whose intent was to kill bin Laden.

  Just a few months before my briefing of the president, a tribal network we had been using to monitor bin Laden had come to us with a proposal. They were familiar with the pattern of bin Laden’s movements, and although they could not predict with any degree of certainty precisely when the Saudi would move from one place to another, they knew the key road junctions he would inevitably traverse when approaching or departing the various locations he routinely visited. They proposed to bury a huge quantity of explosives beneath one or more of these junctions, and to set them off when his motorcade passed over. We had to tell them immediately to stand down, and to threaten a complete cutoff of support if they even entertained such a notion. If we’d done otherwise, we would all have risked prison.

  In effect, we were telling our tribals they could kill bin Laden if he resiste
d arrest, which he certainly would, but that nonetheless they could not set out to kill him. If that’s a bit difficult for a Western-educated sophisticate to wrap his head around, one can image how it must have sounded to an Afghan tribal. Simply blowing up bin Laden would have enabled our Afghan confederates to get away cleanly, with minimal risk. A firefight would not just have cost them casualties but would have made it almost inevitable that their tribe’s involvement would become known, inviting the full retribution of the Taliban and the Afghan Arabs on the heads of their families and clans. None of our Afghan friends engaged in monitoring bin Laden would tell us this, for fear of losing our support; but by March 2001 it was more than clear that while they were happy to track the Saudi terrorist, they would not take the risks that conformity with American law demanded to try to arrest him, no matter how much they protested to the contrary, and no matter what threats or inducements we employed. We had no choice but to continue trying, and I hoped to be proved wrong, but confidence was waning.

  On almost any given day, our Afghan tribal “assets” could tell us what town bin Laden and his traveling entourage were staying in. But experience had told us that they were most unlikely to develop information precise enough—concerning not just what town bin Laden was staying in, but what house and even what room he occupied—to overcome the U.S. government’s past objections to CIA-proposed cruise missile strikes.