The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America’s War in Afghanistan

by Hastings, Michael

  McChrystal asks to get Karzai on the line.

  A McChrystal staffer makes the call to the director of protocol at Karzai’s palace. General McChrystal wants to speak with President Karzai, the staffer explains.

  “He can’t,” answers the Karzai aide. “President Karzai is taking a nap. He has a cold.”

  You don’t understand, the McChrystal staffer insists. It’s about the operation in Marja. It’s the largest operation that has been launched in years in Afghanistan. It’s important to speak with Karzai now.

  “No, that’s not possible. He has a cold.”

  No one wants to wake Karzai up, says Charlie Flynn.

  “They are like ‘Inshallah,’ ” says Flynn, using the Arabic phrase for “God willing.” Meaning it may or may not happen.

  What is this cold? What is this cold? Is Karzai actually sick? Or is he high as a kite? One veteran Kabul journalist believes Karzai is a “two pipe a day man.” U.S. officials who work with Karzai think he’s a manic depressive and the dope may fuel his paranoia. How is it that when there’s a massive military operation about to be launched in his country, the largest since the U.S. invasion, he’s spending the day in bed?

  McChrystal’s team refers to Karzai as “the man with a funny hat.” Karzai is known in the West for his stylish tribal outfits, specifically his collection of headgear. His most notable accessory is the karakul— a V-shaped hat made from the pelts of newborn sheep. His getups have earned him plaudits from American fashion designers—Tom Ford once called him the “chicest man on the planet.” McChrystal’s staff have a different view of his style. They come up with a nickname for his favorite cap: “the Gray Wolf’s Vagina.”

  Karzai is a strange dude with a long history with the Americans. In the eighties, he was one of America’s allies in aiding the mujahideen to fight against the Soviets. He’s from a wealthy Pashtun family, the Popalzai tribe. He has deep roots in the United States as well: His half brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, ran an Afghan restaurant in Chicago during the early nineties before returning to Kandahar to become a key player in the nationwide drug ring, according to U.S. officials. His other cousins and uncles have U.S. business interests as well; they own a restaurant in Baltimore called Helmand. Another brother is a biochemistry professor in New York. Karzai, though, never lived in the United States. He spends his time in Pakistan during the Taliban regime. After the attacks on September 11, the Americans turn to Karzai to liberate Kandahar. He’s almost killed, and it’s an officer in the CIA (who is currently the CIA’s station chief in Kabul, a rough-and-tumble redneck nicknamed Spider) whom Karzai credits with saving his life. (It’s Spider who will have the best relationship with Karzai during Obama’s tenure, not Eikenberry or the generals.) Karzai is chosen at the Bonn conference in Germany in 2001 to become Afghan’s interim president—he wins the first election in 2005, then the second in 2009, both with massive amounts of fraud.

  During the Bush years—which Eikenberry says Karzai looks back on fondly as the “Golden Age”—Karzai develops a personal relationship with the American president. That changes when Obama takes over. Eikenberry and Holbrooke think that if Karzai can circumvent the regular diplomatic process and go directly to the president, then they won’t be able to do their jobs. Obama agrees—and Karzai takes it as an insult. Relations further deteriorate after the fraudulent election, and Karzai starts to behave increasingly erratically, from an American perspective at least. He starts to make not so subtle threats. He appears with Iranian president (and current American enemy number one) Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in March. He takes cash by the bagful from the Iranians, too, delivered to his innermost circle of advisors. He makes a public threat to join the Taliban, a threat he’ll make repeatedly over the year ahead. He wants to ban security companies from Afghanistan.

  More important: He doesn’t agree with McChrystal’s counterinsurgency plan. He doesn’t want more foreign troops in the country. Never has, and never will. He makes that point explicitly to Ambassador Eikenberry in September 2009. His half brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, will take the critique even further: Not only is COIN a bad idea, but Afghans don’t even care about democracy, Ahmed Wali Karzai says. Those two views, joined together, essentially undermine any rationale for much of what the Americans are planning to do—which is set up some kind of democracy through a comprehensive counterinsurgency strategy. U.S. officials will eventually acknowledge that Karzai doesn’t want to do counterinsurgency and therefore makes a bad partner.

  One would think this would give the United States pause. It doesn’t.

  McChrystal’s strategy, of course, relies on a credible Afghan government and credible Afghan leadership. It relies on getting Karzai on board. He is clearly not on board. If he’s not behaving the way we want him to behave, U.S. military officials tell me, we’ll figure out a way to gently force him to behave in the way we want him to behave. We’ll turn Karzai into a war president. Today that means getting Karzai to wake up.

  On Friday, February 12, McChrystal sees a moment to make this happen. Let Karzai give the order to charge. But he’s napping. This does not sit well with McChrystal.

  McChrystal decides to go over to the palace to wake up Karzai himself. He convoys over, joined by Minister Wardak and other Afghan officials. He goes into the parlor of the president’s residence. They wait for thirty minutes. Karzai finally appears.

  “He looked like he’d been in bed all day,” Charlie Flynn says.

  McChrystal explains to Karzai: Mr. President, we need your permission to do this. This is your insurgency, he tells him, but I’m your general.

  Karzai responds: This is the first time in eight years anyone has asked me for my permission to launch a military operation.

  They meet for forty-five minutes.

  McChrystal leaves the meeting excited, seeing it as a triumph, a “watershed moment,” according to Charlie Flynn, that “history will look back on.”

  Karzai “goes back to bed,” says Flynn. “But he’s got to be kind of thinking in bed, I’m kind of responsible for this.”

  McChrystal is asked to check in with his own commander in chief. President Obama wants to talk to him before the Marja invasion. A video teleconference is arranged.

  After the call with Obama, McChrystal isn’t impressed—what he thought was going to be a man-to-man phone call ends up having dozens of other officials along to listen in. McChrystal finds the move somewhat cynical—something, he tells me, Obama’s political advisors must have cooked up to make it seem like he’s engaged in the war. Someone must have reminded him that “hey, this is the biggest military operation you’ve ever launched as president,” as one of his staffers tells me. Casey reads his boss closely: “I think he still wished it was a little more candid,” he tells me, wanting Obama to have spoken more directly about the importance of the mission.

  The operation in Marja goes off. Twenty-five Americans are killed in the first three months. In May, McChrystal will describe it as “a bleeding ulcer.” The White House will view it as a failure. The phrase “government in a box” is roundly mocked. Says Afghan expert Andrew Wilder from Tufts University, “We’ve been there nine years and the best they can come up with is ‘government in a box’?” A joke goes around: Yes, Afghanistan does have a government in a box. That box is Kabul.

  33 AN E-MAIL EXCHANGE:

  COME WALK IN OUR BOOTS

  FEBRUARY TO MARCH 2010, ZHARI AND KABUL

  On February 27, 2010, at 6:27 P.M., twenty-five-year-old Staff Sergeant Israel Arroyo sends an e-mail to General Stanley McChrystal.

  SUBJECT: SOLDIER’S CONCERN

  Dear Sir,

  …I am in TF 1-12, down in the zhari district and would like to ask you to come down and visit and if possible to go out on mission/patrol with us but without your PSD [private security detail]. I am writing because it was said you don’t care about the troops and have made it harder to defend ourselves…

  I also understand your restraint tactic. But if you l
ook at the light infantry soldiers of today [we] have no place here. We have lost many soldiers in this area and don’t want to lose any more. With the new R.O.E. [rules of engagement] it is telling the men that they should not shoot even if they are threatened with death. Sir, it may not be the way you intended it to be, but that is how all of the soldiers here took it. Knowing that you get things sugarcoated I am not one to do so. I have the most respect for you, and do not mean to cause trouble but I told my soldiers that there is more to this and just to go with the flow.

  SSG Arroyo

  Four hours later, Staff Sergeant Israel Arroyo receives a response from General Stanley McChrystal.

  SUBJECT: RE: SOLDIER’S CONCERN

  SSG Arroyo,

  I will come to your location and go out with you. Will work my schedule to make it as soon as practical. I’m saddened by the accusation that I don’t care about soldiers as it is something I suspect any soldier takes both personally and professionally—at least I do. But I know perceptions depend upon your perspective at the time, and I respect that every soldier’s view is his own.

  We haven’t changed the ROE—they still absolutely protect the right and responsibility of every soldier to defend themselves—and their comrades with whatever means is necessary.

  But I do ask all of us to also view the fight in its wider context. In its widest sense, the reality of this effort is that the outcome will not be decided by conventional military math where killing the enemy accumulates until they are defeated. This fight will be won by the side who convinces the Afghan people to support them. That sounds less military than we might like—but it’s the stark reality of this situation. If we want to win, the path is thru winning the support of the population—there’s no other route.

  V/R

  Stan

  Within forty-eight hours of the e-mail exchange, McChrystal descends on a small combat outpost called JFM. He goes on a four-kilometer patrol in the most dangerous area of the country. It is an unprecedented risk for a four-star general to take. He forgets his cap behind at the base. An officer at the nearby forward operating base wonders if he should give it back. The officer ends up keeping it as a memento.

  34 A BOY BORN IN 1987

  APRIL 2010, NEWPORT, MICHIGAN; DOVER, DELAWARE; ZHARI; AND KANDAHAR

  On April 13, 2010, Corporal Michael Ingram Jr. logs onto his Facebook account. Like his friend SSG Arroyo, he’s at combat outpost JFM in Zhari, near Kandahar. He writes this line on his wall:

  “Come on fellas hold it together … Almost home.”

  A few weeks earlier, he calls home to speak with his father, Michael Ingram Sr. He calls him Pops. Pops calls him Mikie. He has to pay for the long distance call. It annoys him—why should soldiers have to pay for long distance calls home? It’s what he ends up spending his combat pay on. He mostly communicates with his family on Facebook. He talks to his dad every few weeks or so. In the last couple of days he’s called him three or four times. He feels the fighting is heating up.

  Mikie tells his dad that he can’t wait to get home. He has one month left. The tour started badly last summer. They lost two guys in an attack in August. Mikie carried one of the bodies, just a torso, onto the stretcher. Last month, he pulled a muscle working out in the gym. It’s a serious enough injury that they want to send him off the front lines for treatment. He refuses—he doesn’t want to leave his squad.

  Mikie doesn’t mention this tonight. He talks life. He’s dating a girl, and it’s getting serious. He wants to start a family. He wants to get married. He’s ready to take life more seriously. He’s going to Las Vegas and Graceland when he gets home. But he swears he’s going to try to save his money, too. They talk for twenty minutes. He tells his father before hanging up, “It’s getting pretty bad over here.” His father says, “You’ll be home soon.” Mikie says, “I don’t know.”

  Mikie posts another message on Facebook. “I love my family… lil bro… lil sis… can’t wait until I’m out of the army.”

  On the evening of Saturday, April 17, Michael Ingram Sr., a self-employed painting contractor, and his wife, Julie, are hanging out with friends in Britton, Michigan. It’s about an hour from their home in Newport. They’ve got the barbecue going and are having fun riding four-wheelers. It’s been a nice afternoon.

  Julie’s phone rings at six thirty P.M. It’s her son, Kyle, twenty-one years old. He’s screaming.

  “The guys in green are here for Pops, the guys in green are here for Pops!”

  She doesn’t believe it. No, you’re wrong. Her son says they won’t tell him anything. She tells her son to tell the men that they’ll be home around nine thirty. She hangs up.

  Julie looks down at her Motorola phone. It’s new. She just got it that morning. She has no contacts saved in it. She has no numbers to text or call. She looks around the yard and sees her husband. She doesn’t say anything. She thinks: He has three hours of happiness left. She can’t tell him. She can’t believe it. She doesn’t say anything.

  At around eight P.M., they leave their friends’ place and drive back to their home on Pointe aux Peaux Road. It’s a three-bedroom, two-bathroom ranch with a porch out back. They get back at nine fifteen. Julie puts the grandbaby to bed. Julie follows her husband into the backyard. They want to make a bonfire.

  Fifteen minutes left.

  Julie goes up on the porch. It’s nine thirty.

  Julie sees a turquoise Ford F-150 parked at the end of the street. Her son said they were driving that car. That was the color: turquoise. Her son isn’t home—he didn’t want to be there.

  Two figures step out of the F-150. She sees them coming. Her husband hasn’t noticed them yet.

  “Hello, hello,” a man calls out.

  Julie and Michael walk out to the front of the house. The two figures walk onto the driveway.

  The sensor light goes on. The light illuminates the driveway. Her husband sees one man and one woman wearing green.

  “We’re here to speak with Mr. Michael Ingram Senior,” the man says.

  Julie starts screaming. Michael Ingram Sr. tries to stay calm. The two officers try to keep them calm. The rest of the night: text messages to friends and family. Come over to the house. They don’t sleep, and when they do sleep it’s blackness—too tired for nightmares. It begins again in the morning when their eyes open.

  On Monday, the front-page story of the local newspaper: NEWPORT MAN KILLED IN AFGHANISTAN. The headline makes it more real—it’s in print, it’s now fact. The newspaper runs seven or eight more stories about Michael Ingram Jr. He wanted to become a police officer, he never gave his stepmom any trouble, he joined the Army in 2007. His friends remember him.

  Mikie likes music—Elvis, Buddy Holly, Sinatra. His favorite song is “Suspicious Minds.” If you heard Elvis in the gym, you knew Mikie was working out.

  He made the ultimate sacrifice and he would make the ultimate sacrifice again, his father says.

  The town erects a billboard with his picture on it: HEAVEN NEEDED A HERO, it reads.

  The obituary reads: “Sgt. Michael Keith Ingram, Jr. ‘Pookie’ born March 6, 1987–April 17, 2010. He died fighting for his country on April 17, 2010, in Afghanistan. Michael is survived by his mother, Patricia Kitts (Ronald C. Kitts); father, Michael Ingram ( Julie Ingram); brothers Jason R. Ingram and Kyle Ingram and sister, Chelsea A. Ingram; grandmother, Annie Ingram of Newport, MI; numerous aunts, uncles, and cousins. He was preceded in death by his grandfather, James Ingram.”

  Michael Ingram Sr. is looking through the couch for some reason. He finds a memory card for a computer. He gives it to Julie. Julie pops it in—it’s pictures and videos of Mikie in Afghanistan. The card must have fallen out of his pocket when he was home last. She watches and she can hear his voice again and that makes her cry.

  His father opens the safe in the house and takes out Mikie’s last letter. He wrote it before he deployed. He detailed what should happen when he dies. He wants lots of flowers at his funeral. H
e wants a nice tombstone. At home on leave for Christmas, Mikie opened the safe and revised it. He revised what should be written on his tombstone. He wants it to say Limitless. It’s the saying he has up in his room at JFM. His stepmom doesn’t really understand what it means, but she is going to put it on his headstone because that’s what he wanted. The headstone costs $16,000 and the funeral costs $40,000. We don’t care about the fucking money, says Julie, we want our boy back.

  It takes seven days for his body to arrive in Dover, Delaware. The flight is held up because of an ash cloud from a volcanic explosion in Iceland.

  From Dover, his casket is flown to Selfridge Air National Guard Base in Michigan. The casket is unloaded on April 24. It’s a cold and rainy day. An honor guard of sixty Vietnam veterans on motorcycles and the Michigan State Police escort a white hearse down I-75 South, a left onto M-125, a right onto Santure Road, pulling up to Merkle Funeral Service. Visiting hours twelve to eight P.M.

  He’s buried on April 30, 2010. It’s a beautiful day this time. His casket is placed in a black horse-drawn carriage. His sister sits next to the carriage driver. The procession from the church to St. Joseph Cemetery goes off without a hitch. The train tracks and a street are shut down for the procession. His father and stepmom sit side by side as the casket is lowered into the ground. His father is holding an American flag, folded up into a triangle. His father keeps clutching it to his chest, moving it around in his hands, his fingers digging into the flag.

  Back in Afghanistan, Sergeant Israel Arroyo logs into his e-mail account. He sends a message to McChrystal.

  Dear Sir,

  On 17 April 2010, I was asked to see if you would attend a memorial of a great soldier, CPL Michael Ingram. after he and I wrote to you last, he started to look up to you. So, I understand you busy but if you can make it? It would mean alot to his family and I. I am not sure if you remember us but you when on a dismounted patrol with he and I, in the Zhari distric. It will be on or around 21 22 april. thank you for your time in reading this.