Foxtrot in Kandahar

by Duane Evans

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  In Kabul we met with the Chief of Station and other CIA officers who were working day and night to manage multiple high-priority programs. In most cases these programs were adequately funded so money was not a problem, but insufficient or mismatched staffing was. While there was adequate support and administrative staff, non-managerial level operations officers who ran agents to collect intelligence or worked with the budding Afghan intelligence service made up only a relatively small percentage of the station, and they were stretched thin. In the months ahead, particularly in the lead up to, and after, the invasion of Iraq, having the right number and mix of officers in Afghanistan would continue to be a challenge as priority went to staffing the Iraq effort.

  Our second stop was Kandahar, and I was looking forward to returning there. One reason was to see how it had changed, but equally important was that I would see my former Afghan comrade in arms, Gul Agha Shirzai. He was still the governor of Kandahar province, and I wanted to at last personally thank him for his key role in driving al-Qa’ida and the Taliban out of the city.

  We arrived at the U.S. military-controlled Kandahar airport on a small agency aircraft. As we approached for landing I looked out to the southeast across the monotone desert landscape to try and spot the village of Takhteh-Pol that had served as Foxtrot team’s base during the siege of the airport. My effort was in vain and I felt a sense of disappointment not to be able to see it again. The feeling surprised me and I realized then that the dusty outpost and the events that had transpired there had carved out a special place in my heart and memory.

  Once we were on the ground, it was a surreal experience to stand on the tarmac seeing the familiar surrounding terrain, knowing that less than a year earlier the airport had been in the hands of al-Qa’ida, and U.S. bombs called in by Hank and ODA-583 were falling on a near continuous basis in and around the facility. Although those events had not occurred that long ago, the differences in circumstances from then and now made it seem as if it had happened in another lifetime.

  On the second evening after our arrival, Mike and I dined with Shirzai at his residence. The venue was a far cry from the parachute-shrouded mud structure I had dined in on that that first night in the Shin Naray Valley back in November 2001. Shirzai looked more fit than I remembered him, but the appearance may just have been the effect of his having clean clothes and a more neatly trimmed beard and hair from when I last saw him. He seemed very much at ease, and from all indications he was comfortable in his role as governor, this despite his having narrowly survived an assassination attempt a few months before.

  Shirzai had kept the guest list small with only one or two other Afghans present. Through an interpreter we reminisced about the campaign to capture Kandahar and how things had changed since then. Noting the Glock pistols Mike and I were carrying, Shirzai commented that he hoped the next time we came to Kandahar we would not need to come armed. As the dinner came to a close, Shirzai said that because I had left Afghanistan before he could say goodbye he had never been able to properly thank me. I told him it was myself and the rest of the American people who owed him and his men the thanks, explaining that if it had not been for them al-Qa’ida might still be occupying southern Afghanistan—either that or a lot of American soldiers would have been put at risk to do the same job his fighters had done. After saying our goodbyes and giving each other a farewell embrace, Shirzai gave a short command to a houseboy who quickly rolled up two Afghan carpets that were on the hallway floor. Shirzai took them and presented them to us, saying, “No one comes to Afghanistan and leaves without a carpet.” The carpets were nothing fancy, just simple tribal kilims, and used ones at that, but it was a gift I have always treasured.

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  We returned to Kabul but had one final destination remaining on our itinerary before returning to the U.S. The town of Asadabad, located in the northeastern part of the country in the province of Nuristan, adjacent to the Pakistan border, was at least as dangerous as Kandahar—perhaps more so, and CIA maintained a small base in the area. One evening after drawing M-4 rifles and armored vests, Mike and I traveled by armored suburban to Kabul airport, and along with some other Agency officers boarded an Mi–8 helicopter. It was the first time I had ever flown in a Russian-made aircraft, and I was a bit apprehensive; however, as it turned out, I liked the helicopter. Instead of lifting off directly into the air, it trundled down the runway on a triad of little, fat tires and then after gaining some speed gently lifted off. Prior to reaching Asadabad we landed at another location, and the officers who had boarded with us got off the aircraft. We took on some fuel, and as rain began to fall we lifted off again and continued on to a small landing strip near the base.

  The base was co-located with a sizeable U.S. military force consisting of Army Rangers, Special Forces soldiers, and soldiers of the 82nd Airborne. The CIA contingent was small, however, with only four or five officers assigned. At our orientation briefing, I was impressed with the progress the officers had made in learning about and documenting the Pashtun tribal presence in the region, including details about the key personalities—basic but important information not previously known. Most of the knowledge gained had come from direct interaction with the local population during trips throughout the area that were taken at great risk given that Taliban insurgents were active there.

  Another topic of the briefing concerned an operation planned for the very next morning. Its goal was to capture four suspected al-Qa’ida members who, according to base sources, were hiding in a village about 30 kilometers away, up the Pech River Valley. The base had been trying to launch the operation for almost two weeks with the participation of elements of the co-located U.S. military forces. Much to the base’s frustration, however, and despite repeated attempts by their military partners, the military headquarters in Kabul would not approve their operations plan. Apparently the problem lay in the air support annex to the plan, which their headquarters found wanting. Proposed refinements had gone back and forth between the military unit and its headquarters, but still the annex was deemed “unsat” and permission for the military units to be involved in the capture operation continued to be denied.

  Fearing that the suspected al-Qa’ida members might cross the border into Pakistan in the next few days, the base had reluctantly decided to undertake the operation without the participation of the U.S. military and instead would use a local Afghan force that was trained and supervised by the CIA officers.

  The next morning, hours before the sun came up, the raid force, consisting of 12 Afghans, 3 base officers, and me, formed up in a column of 4-wheel drive pickup trucks. Despite my protests that I was just a “rear area headquarters guy,” I was assigned the “place of honor” in the convoy—the front passenger seat of the lead pickup. The truck was driven by a hard-as-nails looking Afghan who was the team leader for the Afghan contingent. I was told he was a highly experienced fighter who over the years had been shot on multiple occasions during various gun battles. The knowledge that, in addition to being in the lead vehicle, I was sitting next to a bullet magnet was not reassuring.

  In the early morning darkness we pulled out of the base perimeter and made our way to a dirt road that ran along the Pech River, now swollen from the heavy rain that fell the night before. As the base receded in the distance the fact that we were undertaking this mission alone, leaving behind some of the most elite soldiers in the U.S. Army, simply because of bureaucratic difficulties in getting an operations plan approved, did not sit well with me or the other officers. The situation exemplified on a small scale what was happening in Afghanistan as the U.S. military and civilian presence grew, and along with it the bureaucracy and process. Initiative, responsiveness, and flexibility were correspondingly reduced, and mission effectiveness suffered. This would not have happened in 2001.

  Our movement along the river was slow due to the generally poor condition of the road. Occasionally we would come to a roadblock guarded by Afghan militias. A
fter a brief chat with the Afghan team leader, the guards would wave us through while eying us curiously as we passed. After a few hours of driving we came to the village where we were to ford the river. By this point the sun had risen above the steep mountains that lined each side of the valley, but there was still a sharp chill in the air as we dismounted the vehicles. The Afghans, supervised by the base officers, talked to the local villagers to see if they had any new information about Arabs in the area. The villagers told us that they had heard rumors that there were Arabs in the village where we were headed, but could offer no additional information.

  After our talk with the villagers we walked down to the river to survey the crossing point. The water level was well above normal and the current was exceedingly swift. There was no way we could safely make a crossing there. The next crossing point wasn’t for many miles, and we suspected it would also be impassable. Reluctantly the officer in charge decided to abort the mission, and we returned to the base.

  Although the mission had been unsuccessful, I had enjoyed the outing down the picturesque Pech River Valley. It had been a mini-adventure for me, and I had seen some beautiful country. I wondered what would have happened if we had reached the village undetected where the suspected al-Qa’ida members were. We had a good tactical plan right out of the U.S. Army Ranger manual on how to approach undetected, and if necessary, assault the village to capture the al-Qa’ida members. How that plan would have worked out would forever remain a mystery.

  The next day the base received a new mission objective. This time the target was a local Afghan timber dealer. The base wanted to talk to him because he was reported to be providing support to the Taliban. I joined the same contingent of base officers and Afghans on the drive to a narrow valley north of Asadabad where the timber dealer lived and owned a business. Upon arrival we dismounted the pickups and took up protected positions around the small compound while an Afghan and one of the base officers approached the front door and knocked. The timber dealer was not home, but the house servant didn’t object when asked if we could come in and look around. Several of us went into the house and walked through each of its rooms looking for weapons or anything that might be of intelligence interest. The only thing we found was an old AK-47. As it was not unusual for Afghans to keep a gun in their homes, we did not confiscate it and left it where it was found.

  On our return to base, my CIA colleagues wanted me to see the town of Asadabad, so we stopped in the central area of town and walked down a main street lined with shopping stalls and street vendors. At one food stall, which the base officers recommended, we stopped and purchased a local fried delicacy. By this point, a crowd of curious Afghans had begun to form around us. The Afghan team leader, concerned with our security, immediately began to shout and push the Afghans away. When one Afghan, an old man, did not move quickly enough, the team leader forcefully jabbed him in the chest with the end of the barrel of his AK-47, sending the man sprawling to the ground. I knew the blow had to hurt, and I felt badly that our presence had provoked the circumstances that led to the incident. The old Afghan got his retribution, however, although he never knew it. Within a few hours of eating the delicacy I would suffer the worst case of Montezuma’s—or more appropriately, “Mohammad’s”—revenge that I have ever experienced. It could have been worse, however. A few months after I returned to Headquarters I learned that the “bullet magnet” Afghan team leader had been shot and killed in an inter-tribal dispute.

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  My trip to Afghanistan had met my objectives. I felt I had a better understanding of the station’s situation and the changed operational and inter-agency dynamics brought about by the much larger U.S. official presence there. The days of CIA teams partnered with small U.S. military elements roaming the countryside and operating in a near autonomous fashion were gone.

  Back at Headquarters, unsurprisingly I found that not much had changed in my absence. On the political front, in the apparent interest of creating an effective central government in Afghanistan, many U.S. politicians and members of the media were continuing their calls to curtail U.S. support to Afghan militias and their leaders. These calls had begun almost immediately after the fall of the Taliban government. The Afghan leaders in question, often derisively referred to as “warlords” in the press, were the same ones on whom we had relied to act as surrogate ground forces to take on the Taliban and al-Qa’ida in 2001. In the wake of the overthrow of the Taliban government and in the absence of an effective Afghan Army, these leaders and their militias were stabilizing forces in Afghanistan, but this fact seemed to be lost on those calling for their immediate disbandment.

  Also lost, or perhaps never acquired, was the understanding that real political and military power in Afghanistan resided at the local or regional level. Historically, this had always been true, and there was no reason to believe it would change just because the Taliban was no longer in charge and a U.S.–backed Afghan government was in power instead. Certainly, there was a role for the central government to play, as it had in Afghanistan’s past, but the idea that we could quickly or easily impose a centralized, federal-style system of government on Afghanistan was a naïve and unsound one. Yet the drumbeat for disengagement from regional powerbrokers remained, and ultimately CIA did disengage completely or partially from many of the leaders with whom we had worked closely in 2001. The consequence was that with a declining ability for the CIA or other U.S. agencies to leverage and influence events at the regional level, a political and security vacuum began to develop. The Taliban has been seeking to refill that vacuum ever since.

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  My experience in and with Afghanistan has taught me that it is largely a primitive country, one whose culture does not mesh well with the modern world and democratic, liberal institutions. I believe a close analogy to the Afghanistan situation in relation to U.S. involvement can be found in America’s history in the 1700’s and 1800’s when the country’s westward continental expansion brought a modern industrialized nation up against what were essentially stone-age, tribal societies that had little conception of what lay beyond their homelands. This lack of understanding applied not only to geography but also to political concepts like nation-states, customs such as land ownership, or peace treaties written on paper. There was an equal lack of understanding of the Native American culture on the part of the U.S. government.

  Given this great divide in culture, history, and industrial development, the U.S. government’s interface with the Native American tribes was a disaster, with almost all of the consequences of that disaster occurring on the Native American side. The lack of knowledge and understanding of the American tribes certainly insured this result, with the effects carrying through to the present day. Similarly, our lack of an in-depth understanding of Afghan culture and history make it difficult for us to achieve the positive results we would like to see in seeking a stable Afghanistan for the long-term. Sadly, even when we as a government do understand the Afghan culture, we often seem incapable or unwilling to accept it for what it is, or factor that understanding into our policies and practices.

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  After 24 years of CIA service I retired in 2007 just two weeks after becoming eligible. I did so for a combination of reasons. One of those was because of the extraordinary experience I had in the fall of 2001 when I saw firsthand how people, a government, and a nation could come together and work unselfishly for the common good. In this regard, I knew that my experience with Foxtrot team and my journey to Kandahar, although born out of tragedy, would be the high point of my career, and it was something the likes of which I would never experience again. It was not going to get any better than that, nor be repeated in my professional career. It was time to move on.

  Postscript 2017

  In THE ENSUING 15 plus years since Kandahar fell, seemingly much has transpired in Afghanistan. Hamid Karzai, the soft-spoken Afghan I met that dark night at the airbase in Pakistan in November 2001, has taken his place in his
tory, after serving for over 12 years as the leader of the country. During his tenure a new constitution was put in place, and a relatively large Western-trained, centrally-controlled military was established. Today, far more children are attending school than ever before, and the overall health of Afghanistan’s people is significantly better as measured in life expectancy. From the U.S. national security perspective, the original, and in fact the only, objective at the outset of the U.S. intervention—ridding Afghanistan of al-Qa’ida—has been achieved, and was achieved quickly and early in what nonetheless has become America’s longest war. These are no doubt positive developments of which the Afghans and the thousands of foreigners, military and civilian, who have helped to make them a reality, should be proud.

  These accomplishments of course did not come without costs, both human and material, and it is not only fair but also right to ask, “Was it worth it?” The death of CIA officer Mike Spann in Mazar-e-Sharif in November 2001 was only the first American casualty in Afghanistan. His death was soon to be followed by the deaths of other courageous Americans as well as soldiers and civilians from allied nations. It began with a trickle of deaths perhaps, especially in those early years from 2001 to 2004, when around 158 Americans died. But even a trickle if it continues long enough can fill a bucket, and enough buckets can fill a barrel, and so it goes and has gone in Afghanistan. From 2005 to 2013, another approximately 2,857 Americans died. From 2014 to 2016, as the U.S. military drawdown first announced by President Obama in 2011 began in earnest, casualties precipitously declined with another 116 Americans losing their lives. Small numbers perhaps, especially when compared to the conflicts in Vietnam and Korea, where in both cases the U.S. death toll reached scores of thousands. Even so, those numbers represent lost lives and much suffering for the affected families and friends.