by Steve Coll
5. “Doubtful”: Ibid., p. 214. Crumpton: Author’s interview. Taliban edict: Taliban Sources Project, “Mirwais Rahmani His Excellency Amir ul-Mumineen’s Order.”
6. Strick van Linschoten and Kuehn, An Enemy We Created, p. 226. “There was less . . . attack”: Zaeef, My Life with the Taliban, p. 149. “Where is the evidence . . . supporting the criminal”: Author’s interview with Zaeef. “Just an excuse”: Interview with Rahmani in 2010, in Kabul. He was assassinated in 2012. Taliban editorial of September 23: Taliban Sources Project, “Mirwais Rahmani Editorial: Does America Believe in Negotiations?” “They believed that power . . . defy the world”: Author’s interview with the former Taliban official.
7. This account of the classified Predator operation that was believed to target Mullah Mohammad Omar on October 7 is drawn primarily from interviews with more than half a dozen participants, including Scott Swanson, the Predator pilot that night, and David Deptula, an Air Force general who watched the operation in Saudi Arabia and kept contemporaneous notes. In his excellent book Predator, the defense journalist Richard Whittle published a groundbreaking account of the operation. The investigative reporter Seymour Hersh broke the first news of the operation soon after it occurred, in The New Yorker. This chapter adds several new facts and perspectives, including an account of C.I.A. participation in the decision making, new details about the sequence of events, and details about Central Command decision making in Tampa. For an authoritative account of the September 17 Memorandum of Notification, see Rizzo, Company Man, pp. 172–74. Through a spokesman, Franks declined to comment beyond the account provided in his memoir, American Soldier.
8. Interviews with participants, ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.
11. Franks, American Soldier, p. 293.
12. Deptula’s notes, shared in an interview.
13. All quotations, author’s interview.
14. Ibid.
15. “Will persuade . . .”: Deptula’s notes. All other quotations, author’s interviews. All but one of the participating officers interviewed agreed that the Hellfire killed several presumed guerrillas. The other officer believed there had been no casualties, only that the empty truck was destroyed.
16. Rumsfeld: “Working Paper, October 22, 2001, 1:19 PM,” declassified and released by the National Security Archive, George Washington University. Rumsfeld composed the note after Seymour Hersh broke news of the failed operation. Rumsfeld appears to have wanted to make a contemporaneous record of his own actions. Of Franks, he wrote, “I have a feeling he may not have given me the whole story.”
17. Gardez, no significant Taliban leadership casualties: From interviews with participants.
18. “Our best human source . . . no response”: Grenier, 88 Days to Kandahar, p. 185. Zaeef, My Life with the Taliban, p. 161.
19. “It is very strange . . . Afghan bravery”: Franco in Giustozz, Decoding the Taliban, p. 272.
20. Author’s interviews with former Taliban office holders and Linschoten and Kuehn, An Enemy We Created, p. 225.
21. Interviews with C.T.C. officers.
22. Ibid.
23. Ibid.
24. Tenet, At the Center of the Storm, p. 263. “Deception indicated”: Grenier, 88 Days to Kandahar, p. 177.
25. “Where are the maps?”: Author’s interview. “The fact was . . . British maps”: Rumsfeld, Known and Unknown, pp. 369–70.
26. Woodward, Bush at War, pp. 75–78, describes the “Going to War” slide package and its contents. The account here also relies on interviews with participants.
27. September 26: Schroen, First In, p. 78. “Given the nature of our world”: “Working Paper, October 17, 2001, 11:25 AM,” declassified and released, National Security Archive, George Washington University. “Windowless room”: Crumpton, The Art of Intelligence, p. 175. Assignments: Interviews with former C.T.C. officers.
28. “We were all angry”: Interview with Worthington. “When the hearings and the retribution”: Interview with Black.
29. Schroen, First In, pp. 166–67. Schroen refers to Wood only as “Chris.” The airstrip: Author’s interviews and Schroen, First In, p. 145. All quotations, Schroen, ibid. Dialogue with Global Response Center: Schroen, ibid.
30. Episode with “Lucky”: Author’s interviews.
31. The description of Prado’s work and the scene in the Situation Room is primarily from interviews with several people familiar with his proposal, his team, and the meeting. To my knowledge, the first published account of the presentation in the Situation Room and Cheney’s approval was by the intelligence reporter and author Mark Mazzetti, in his book The Way of the Knife, p. 10.
32. Bush, Decision Points, p. 184. Crumpton, The Art of Intelligence, p. 213.
Chapter Five: Catastrophic Success
1. “Clean up”: Interview with Dave Smith. “It’s in Pakistan’s interest”: From contemporary records.
2. Ibid.
3. Interview with a European security officer assigned to Kabul during this period. Mahmud Ahmed insisted: Correspondence from Mahmud.
4. All quotations are from contemporary records.
5. Interviews with two Pakistani officials involved in the mission to Washington. See also Rashid, Descent into Chaos, p. 79. Blair made no mention of this episode in his memoir, but he was in Washington on November 7 and met Bush. In a press appearance describing what he discussed with Bush, he did not mention any effort at negotiations.
6. “Aggressive philistinism”: Grenier, 88 Days to Kandahar, p. 183.
7. “Felt strongly . . . more difficult”: Ibid., p. 207. The essential conflict between Grenier and Schroen was first described in Woodward, Bush at War. The account here is informed by the memoirs of several participants as well as interviews with more than six participants.
8. “new, more moderate leadership . . . military one”: Schroen, First In, p. 163. Schroen is apparently summarizing a contemporaneous cable from Islamabad.
9. “Taliban Bob”: Interview with a colleague of Crumpton’s. “Taken the side of . . . the southern question”: Crumpton, The Art of Intelligence, p. 194.
10. “Pakistani drum song”: Schroen, First In, p. 146. “a blueprint for failure . . . post-Taliban period”: ibid., pp. 163–64. Watching on the balcony, “This is all the U.S. Air Force can do?”: Interview with Schroen.
11. Kathy Gannon, Khaqzar’s account of the Taliban meeting: Gannon, I Is for Infidel, pp. 106–7. Schroen, First In, pp. 343–44. Gary Berntsen, Schroen’s successor leading the C.I.A. team in northern Afghanistan, held the meeting.
12. For a well-informed profile of Karzai’s early life and family origins, see Rashid, Descent into Chaos. The author has interviewed Karzai twice individually and in groups on other occasions. The Central Asian Survey article is in the author’s files. Although it is a relatively brief essay, it captures Karzai’s preoccupations and his long commitment to Afghanistan’s royal and tribal traditions amid various forms of ideological competition.
13. Karzai’s arrest: Coll, Ghost Wars, p. 286. “Advice . . . nervous”: Interview with a former Afghan officeholder involved.
14. Author’s interview with the diplomat.
15. “I believed in the Taliban . . . I.S.I.”: Rashid, Descent into Chaos, p. 14. Karzai wrote in correspondence that he “never met with Mullah Omar.”
16. The portrait of Vogle is drawn from interviews with half a dozen colleagues who worked closely with him. References to his career can be found in several books, including those by Crumpton and Grenier, who refer to him only as “Greg.” In Berntsen’s Jawbreaker he appears as “Craig.” In the journalist Eric Blehm’s account of Hamid Karzai’s 2001 guerrilla campaign, The Only Thing Worth Dying For, he appears as “Casper.”
17. Crumpton, The Art of Intelligence, p. 143. Grenier, 88 Days to Kandahar, p. 139.
18. The
quotations here are from interviews with people familiar with Karzai’s entry that fall. Grenier, ibid., pp. 145–46, provides a similar account.
19. Ibid., p. 146.
20. “Beyond scandal”: Ibid., p. 190. “A lot of reconnaissance”: Interview with Crumpton. About Grenier’s criticism, Crumpton added, “I couldn’t disagree more. . . . Our concern for their welfare was justified. We went as soon as we could. They were under fire when they were landing. . . . The timing was just about right.” “Everyone in the U.S. government”: Grenier, ibid., p. 194.
21. “Exploiting the absenteeism . . . few heavy weapons”: Giustozzi and Ullah, “The Inverted Cycle.” Abdul Latif’s cook murdered him by poisoning: The New York Times, January 6, 2002. Rumors that he was a double agent: Chayes, The Punishment of Virtue, p. 67.
22. “That they were making a serious mistake”: Grenier, 88 Days to Kandahar, p. 216. “Posed to the Taliban . . . hazy at best”: Ibid., p. 228.
23. Blehm, The Only Thing Worth Dying For, p. 129.
24. Interview with Dobbins. “We thought, If he’s a Pashtun . . .”: Interview with a senior Northern Alliance leader. See also Dobbins, After the Taliban.
25. Blehm, The Only Thing Worth Dying For, p. 296.
26. Rumsfeld, attendance at Naqibullah’s meeting, Rubin, unpublished draft paper. Sherzai and Karzai: Chayes, The Punishment of Virtue, p. 60.
27. “Sadly, in terms of our policy . . . ”: Interview with Crumpton. “Had been so discredited”: Interview with Dobbins.
28. The Guardian, October 7, 2001.
29. Franks, American Soldier, p. 315.
30. “Drank . . . functional illiterate”: Berntsen, Jawbreaker, pp. 28–29. Student of Schroen’s, Farsi, terrorism operations: Interviews with former colleagues. “Grab-them-by-the-neck”: Jawbreaker, p. 31. November 26 or 27, “Let’s kill this baby”: Interview with Berntsen.
31. Cheney: “Tora Bora Revisited: A Report to Members of the Committee on Foreign Relations,” United States Senate, November 30, 2009. “Is there any way . . . miss their escape”: Crumpton, The Art of Intelligence, p. 258.
32. “Almost screamed . . . what we have”: Crumpton, ibid., pp. 259–60.
33. Bush, Decision Points, p. 202.
34. “I don’t give . . . Screw that!”: “Tora Bora Revisited.”
35. Ibid.
36. DeLong: “Tora Bora Revisited.” Edwards: Naylor, Not a Good Day to Die, p. 18.
37. “As though someone . . . get Bin Laden”: Berntsen, Jawbreaker, pp. 297–98. “Done a magnificent . . . strong station chief”: Crumpton, The Art of Intelligence, p. 261. “Sudden success . . .”: Correspondence from Crumpton. “Pretty angry . . . performance”: Interview with Berntsen. In correspondence, Crumpton provided a full account of his decision: “Gary was a brilliant and heroic commander, perfect for capturing Kabul and pursuing [Al Qaeda] leadership . . . and would have been a good [chief of station] . . . but I wanted the best so I made a change and selected Rich. If I may use an imperfect World War II analogy, George Marshall did not want Patton doing a job better suited for Eisenhower.” The timing of the decision “was driven/dictated by our very success!” The Delta-C.I.A. team forward at Tora Bora killed “hundreds of enemy” and although the operation was “blemished by the failure to capture UBL,” that was a function of military and national decision making, Crumpton wrote. He also noted, “Gary was a bluntly honest, profane and passionate battlefield leader but I never once heard a protest about this. . . . I was the commander and he was a rock-solid officer who followed orders. Simple.”
38. “A pretty good determination”: PBS Frontline, www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/campaign/interviews/franks.html. Daily memo, “The back door was open”: Interview with Allen.
39. Bin Laden’s will: Translation from “Tora Bora Revisited,” ibid. Interview with Allen.
40. Central Command said it couldn’t do it: Interview with Chamberlin. DeLong confirmed this later: “We didn’t have the lift,” he told Senate investigators. “Tora Bora Revisited.”
41. “Tora Bora Revisited.”
42. Cheney and Hadley: Bush, Decision Points, p. 189. Pentagon warning: Ibid., p. 197. The other risks Bush recalled being forecast before the war began included “mass starvation” in Afghanistan, “an outbreak of civil war” there, and “an uprising by Muslims around the world.”
43. Conetta: “Operation Enduring Freedom.” Crumpton: The Art of Intelligence, p. 260. Crawford: “Civilian Death and Injury in Afghanistan, 2001–2011,” http://costsofwar.org/sites/default/files/CrawfordAfghanistanCasualties.pdf. Dostum: John Barry, “The Death Convoy of Afghanistan,” Newsweek, April 25, 2002. Ayoob Erfani, a representative of Dostum, said that “Dostum did not know what happened until a year later. . . . He was with [American] Special Forces in Kunduz. . . . He never ordered it. He never saw it. The commanders in the field, they [made] a decision to transfer” the prisoners.
44. BBC News, December 22, 2001.
Chapter Six: Small Change
1. The description of Kabul Station from that period is from interviews with people who worked there or visited. Naylor, Not a Good Day to Die, has a good description, and reports on the bomb dropped in 1997, p. 8.
2. Naylor, ibid., p. 21.
3. Wood was operations chief, thirty to forty case officers: Interviews with former officials familiar with Kabul Station.
4. Interviews with Afghan, American, and European officials familiar with the Omega Team operations.
5. Ibid.
6. Author’s interview.
7. “It’s a little like Star Wars”: Interview with a former intelligence official involved. “The big question”: Interview with Hurley.
8. “the last battle . . . people I talked to”: Naylor, Not a Good Day to Die, p. 40. “We had estimates”: Interview with Hurley. “Lost a couple . . . how many”: Interview with the former intelligence official, ibid.
9. Rehearsals: Interview with Hagenbeck. Also, Naylor, Not a Good Day to Die, p. 60.
10. Jalalabad, Peshawar, Kandahar: Bush, Decision Points, p. 202. Tajik vendor: Interview with a former intelligence official involved. Imagery analysis of Pakistani regions: Interview with Allen. Members of Bin Laden’s close protection party: Maloney, Enduring the Freedom, p. 65. The exhumation: The New York Times, May 8, 2002.
11. “Just to make sure”: Interview with a colleague of Rodriguez.
12. All quotations, interviews with Krongard.
13. Ibid. After authorizing Prince to provide support to Kabul Station, Krongard said he had nothing more to do with Blackwater business while at C.I.A.
14. Gem shows, Concorde: Author’s interviews. A former senior American intelligence official quoted Arif as saying he had flown the Concorde more than a dozen times, an estimate cited by a former Afghan intelligence figure as well. In an e-mail, Arif said there was but one instance, out of necessity: “I was supposed to attend a meeting in Paris [at] a specific time and date. . . . Due to the importance of the meeting I was forced to fly by [Concorde] to Paris. That was the only time.”
15. From interviews with American and Afghan intelligence officials. Arif’s Dari memoir, 9 wa 11 Siptambir, has a different but overlapping account of his travel to the United States during this period. Suspicions subsided, “Everyone knew . . .”: Interview with the colleague.
16. Background of the Afghan intelligence service: Interviews with four Afghan intelligence officials who served in different periods and a European security officer who studied the service.
17. All quotations, $15 million, hundreds of intelligence officers: Author’s interviews with Afghan intelligence officials.
18. All quotations, e-mail from Arif.
19. Author’s interview.
20. Amy Belasco, “Troop Levels in the Afghan and Iraq Wars.” The number rose later in the year, according to military planners.
21. Todd Marzano, “Criticisms Associated with Operation Anaconda.” About the lack of unity of command, Hagenbeck said in an interview that General Tommy Franks, his superior at Central Command, “didn’t think it would be an issue, but it was.” Through a spokesman, Franks declined to comment for this book.
22. Interview with Hagenbeck. Naylor, Not a Good Day to Die, p. 375.
23. U.S. Special Forces initially entered the shuttered embassy. The career foreign service officer Ryan Crocker arrived as the first chargé d’affaires. This description of the embassy’s condition in late winter is mainly from interviews with Sedney and Finn.
24. Interview with Sedney.
25. “Laughable”: Zakheim, A Vulcan’s Tale, p. 168. “We are not fielding . . . mission clearly”: Ibid., p. 129. “You get what you pay for”: Interview with Finn.
26. Champagne quotations: Rubin, Afghanistan from the Cold War Through the War on Terror, p. 21. Zakheim, A Vulcan’s Tale, pp. 168–70.
27. “What in retrospect . . . thirty-five thousand dollars”: Interview with Sedney. Conditions at the Intercontinental, “There was optimism . . . bring peace” and Kabul University: Fayez, An Undesirable Element, p. 65. Bactrian gold objects: The New York Times, December 5, 2006.
28. Author’s interview with a Western diplomat. “Very respectful”: Correspondence from Karzai.
29. “I am calling you . . . very sensitive”: Interview with Khalilzad. Karzai kept a car: Interview with Sedney. “The king . . . everybody what to do”: Interview with Finn.
30. All quotations, interview with Finn.
31. Interview with Sedney.
32. Rumsfeld-Blee: Interview with a former official present at the meeting. Author’s interview. “Do two things,” no written campaign plan, no guidance about the A.N.A.’s ultimate size: Interview with McNeill.
33. Bush, Decision Points, p. 207.
34. “Don’t build Bondstells”: Interview with McNeill. “Anything here . . . not staying long”: Interview with McChrystal. “Mafia-owned bar”: McChrystal, My Share of the Task, p. 77.