American Cipher

by Matt Farwell

  heavily redacted portion: Chidanand Rajghatta, “Pakistan’s ISI Funded Deadly Attack on CIA Camp in Afghanistan: US National Security Archive,” Times of India, April 14, 2016, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/Pakistans-ISI-funded-deadly-attack-on-CIA-camp-in-Afghanistan-US-National-Security-Archive/articleshow/51819428.cms.

  Pakistani intelligence was represented: “Pakistani Agents ‘Funding and Training Afghan Taliban,’” BBC News, June 13, 2010, https://bbc.com/news/10302946.

  General Flynn’s staff updated: Noah Shachtman, “‘Afghan Insurgency Can Sustain Itself Indefinitely’: Top U.S. Intel Officer,” Wired, January 1, 2010, http://wired.com/2010/01/afghan-insurgency-can-sustain-itself-indefinitely-top-us-intel-officer.

  David Petraeus’s 1987 Princeton: Rachel Dry, “Petraeus on Vietnam’s Legacy,” Washington Post, January 14, 2007, http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/12/AR2007011201955.html.

  H. R. McMaster’s 1997 book: H. R. McMaster, Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam (New York: HarperCollins, 1997).

  largest man-made nonnuclear: Senior Airman Emily Kenney, “Beirut Bombing: Reflections from Lebanon,” Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico, October 21, 2016, https://www.holloman.af.mil/Article-Display/Article/982634/beirut-bombing-reflections-from-lebanon/.

  Sixty-three people were killed: Jane Mayer, “Ronald Reagan’s Benghazi,” TheNewYorker.com, May 5, 2014.

  Flynn sent it to: Major General Michael T. Flynn, USA; Captain Matt Pottinger, USMC; Paul D. Bachelor, DIA; Fixing Intel: A Blueprint for Making Intelligence Relevant in Afghanistan, Center for a New American Security, January 2010.

  President Obama had vowed: “Transcript of Obama Speech on Afghanistan,” CNN, December 2, 2009, http://cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/12/01/obama.afghanistan.speech.transcript/index.html.

  “Flynn was a guy”: Interview with CIA Operations Officer B.

  “the insurgency fights”: Matthew P. Hoh, resignation letter to Ambassador Nancy J. Powell, director general of the Foreign Service, September 10, 2009, https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/hp/ssi/wpc/ResignationLetter.pdf.

  on the path to quagmire: Woodward, Obama’s Wars, p. 248.

  This sorry state of affairs: Ibid.

  didn’t have enough troops: Ibid.

  A CENTCOM investigation: Adverse Information Summary, CENTCOM AR 15–6 Investigation into Major General Michael T. Flynn, Investigations of Senior Official Directorate, Department of Defense Inspector General (DoDIG), http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/documents/national/read-the-military-investigation-into-michael-flynn-trumps-national-security-adviser/2246.

  Flynn had disclosed sensitive information: Craig Whitlock and Greg Miller, “Trump’s National Security Adviser Shared Secrets without Permission, Files Show,” Washington Post, Deccember 14, 2016, http://washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trumps-national-security-adviser-shared-secrets-without-permission-files-show/2016/12/13/72669740-c146-11e6-9578-0054287507db_story.html?utm_term=.b4c9bdf59543.

  McChrystal was fired: Michael Hastings, “The Runaway General,” Rolling Stone, June 2010, https://rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/the-runaway-general-the-profile-that-brought-down-mcchrystal-192609. Also see: Helene Cooper and David E. Sanger, “Obama Says Afghan Policy Won’t Change After Dismissal,” New York Times, June 23, 2010, https://nytimes.com/2010/06/24/us/politics/24mcchrystal.html.

  Mike Flynn remained: Dana Priest and Greg Miller, “He Was One of the Most Respected Intel Officers of His Generation. Now He’s Leading ‘Lock Her Up’ Chants,” Washington Post, August 15, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nearly-the-entire-national-security-establishment-has-rejected-trumpexcept-for-this-man/2016/08/15/d5072d96-5e4b-11e6-8e45-477372e89d78_story.html?utm_term=.3c8017a8fab2.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN: MEANS OF ESCAPE

  He had done it twice: Dahl 15-6 interview, August 6, 2014.

  free for less than fifteen: Bergdahl courtroom statement, Fort Bragg, North Carolina, October 30, 2017.

  the next three months: Bowe Bergdahl personal statement, March 25, 2015.

  Is Obama gay?: Serial podcast, Season 2, Episode 3, “Escaping.”

  the man twirled the hose: Terrence Russell testimony, Article 32 preliminary hearing, Fort Sam Houston, September 18, 2015.

  kneeled on Bergdahl’s chest: Interview with Terrence Russell, January 2018.

  fed him elbow noodles: Bowe Bergdahl interview conducted by Sean Langan, December 2016.

  cut away the dead flesh: Bergdahl statement, Fort Bragg Courthouse, October 30, 2017.

  Bergdahl would spend: Bergdahl personal statement, March 25, 2015.

  at least nine locations: JPRA report, October 23, 2014, p. 3.

  The women would spit: Ibid., p. 4.

  One school-age boy: Bowe Bergdahl interview conducted by Sean Langan, December 2016.

  “It was usually about a week”: Ibid.

  The perpetual light was worse: Ibid.

  when Bergdahl motioned: Ibid.

  Into his cell walls: JPRA report, October 23, 2014, p. 6.

  His illnesses had become: Bergdahl statement, Fort Bragg Courthouse, October 30, 2017.

  he would die there: Bergdahl personal statement, March 25, 2015.

  he had dug four or five feet: Bergdahl statement, Fort Bragg Courthouse, October 30, 2017.

  “You can’t go insane”: JPRA report, p. 5.

  “In so many ways”: Bowe Bergdahl interview conducted by Sean Langan, December 2016.

  He hid the key: Bergdahl statement, Fort Bragg Courthouse, October 30, 2017.

  “I said to myself”: Bowe Bergdahl interview conducted by Sean Langan, December 2016.

  He began preparing: Bergdahl statement, Fort Bragg Courthouse, October 30, 2017.

  Bergdahl walked through a night: Serial podcast, Season 2, Episode 3, “Escaping.”

  For the next eight nights: JPRA report, p. 7.

  he heard the drones: Serial podcast, ibid.

  a lone Taliban emerge: Bergdahl statement, Fort Bragg Courthouse, October 30, 2017.

  “specifically built for me”: Ibid.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN: PAWNS

  the practice of negotiating, paying: Tom Eisinger, “Pirates: An Early Test for the New Country,” National Archives and Records Administration, https://prologue.blogs.archives.gov/2015/07/12/pirates-an-early-test-for-the-new-country; Jack Kenny, “Bane of the Barbary Pirates,” New American, https://thenewamerican.com/culture/history/item/4709-bane-of-the-barbary-pirates.

  thousands of skeletons were found: Ebenezer Fox, The Adventures of Ebenezer Fox, in the Revolutionary War (Boston: Charles Fox, 1838), p. 139; Benedict Cosgrove, “The Grisly History of Brooklyn’s Revolutionary War Martyrs,” Smithsonian.com, March 13, 2017, https:// smithsonianmag.com/history/grisly-history-brooklyns-revolutionary-war-martyrs-180962508/.

  These young noblemen: David Hume, The History of England from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution in 1688 (London: Jones & Co., 1825), p. 384.

  Prisoners, hostages, and detainees: Sibylle Scheipers, ed. Prisoners in War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 3.

  4,714 were held as POWs: Records of American Prisoners of War During the Korean War, created 1950–1953, documenting the period 1950–1953—Record Group 319 National Archives, https://aad.archives.gov/aad/fielded-search.jsp?dt=240&tf=F.

  More than a third died: “North Korea and the Korean War 1951–1953 Peace and POWs,” Wide Angle, PBS, August 5, 2004, https://pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/uncategorized/north-korea-and-the-korean-war-1951–1953-peace-and-pows/1365.

  moved en masse to Pyongyang: “Treatment of US Prisoners of War,” Central Intelligence Agency Report October 19, 1950 CREST Document Number CIA-RDP82–00457R006100150010–1, https://cia.gov/library/readingroom/document/cia-rdp82-00457r00610
0150010-1.

  about Communist brainwashing: “Suggested Guidance for Public Aspects of U.S. Position on Korean Prisoner of War Talks,” Psychological Strategy Board, Washington 25, D, C.PSB D.41 April 3, 1953 April 3, 1953 CREST DOCUMENT Number CIA-RDP80R01731R003200100001–9, https://cia.gov/library/readingroom/document/cia-rdp80r01731r003200100001-9.

  fuses lit by masters in Pyongyang: “North Korea and the Korean Wars,” Wide Angle.

  the code of conduct itself: Lawrence E. Hinkle, “Notes on The Physical State of the Prisoner of War as It May Affect Brain Function,” Bureau of Social Science Research Inc., January 1963.

  “We were bombing”: John Wilkens, “Defiant Vietnam POWs, Defiant Wives at Home,” San Diego Union Tribune, August 25, 2016, www.sandiegouniontribune.com/military/sdut-vietnam-war-pows-2015jan10-story.html.

  been “brainwashed” by American generals: Bart Barnes, “George Romney Dies at 88,” Washington Post, July 27, 1995.

  threatened American retaliation: Michael J. Allen, Until the Last Man Comes Home: POWs, MIAs, and the Unending Vietnam War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009), p. 16.

  “a day for an appeal”: Congressional Record, Senate, January 2, 1971, Volume 116, Part 33, p. 44541 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office).

  “Americans in South Vietnam”: “Richard Nixon: The President’s News Conference—February 17, 1971,” the American Presidency Project, http://presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=3309.

  “I hope you can survive”: Joseph Lelyveld, “Dear President Nixon, The Last 24 Hours Has Again Been Another Day of Pure Hell for Americans in Prison Camps, Cells, Cages in Southeast Asia,” New York Times, October 3, 1971, https://nytimes.com/1971/10/03/archives/dear-president-nixon-the-last-24-hours-has-again-been-another-day-o.html.

  five million remembrance bracelets: Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, The Vietnam War, Florentine Films and WETA, Washington, D.C., September 2017.

  “I don’t believe the Vietcong”: Ibid.

  “We have to hope”: Sky Albrecht email.

  “If nothing else”: Interview with Roy Breshears, March 2016.

  Bowe’s maternal grandfather: Interview with Bob and Jani Bergdahl, April 2012.

  Bob suspected that his son: Ibid.

  how little had changed: Ibid.

  Obama replied, coolly: Ibid.

  Bob didn’t need a classified briefing: Ibid.

  “My son is a Marine”: Interview with Susan Page, April 2018.

  In February, the Dutch: Reed Stevenson and Aaron Gray-Block, “Dutch Government Falls over Afghan Troop Mission,” Reuters, February 20, 2010, https://independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/dutch-government-falls-over-afghan-troop-mission-1905407.html.

  first major NATO ally: Nicholas Kulish, “Dutch Government Collapses Over Its Stance on Troops for Afghanistan,” New York Times, February 21, 2010, https://nytimes.com/2010/02/21/world/europe/21dutch.html.

  botched February 12 night mission: Jerome Starkey et al., “U.S.-Led Forces in Afghanistan Are Committing Atrocities, Lying, and Getting Away with It,” Nieman Watchdog, March 22, 2010, www.niemanwatchdog.org/index.cfm?backgroundid=440&fuseaction=background.view.

  killing them all: Richard A. Oppel Jr., “U.S. Admits Role in February Killing of Afghan Women,” New York Times, April 5, 2010, https://nytimes.com/2010/04/05/world/asia/05afghan.html?ref=world.

  an American atrocity: Scott Horton, “The Trouble with Embeds,” Harper’s Magazine, “No Comment,” March 24, 2010, https://harpers.org/blog/2010/03/the-trouble-with-embeds.

  Obama’s surge had sent: UN News, “World Must Act Now to Reverse Worsening Situation in Afghanistan—Ban,” UN News, January 4, 2010, https://news.un.org/en/story/2010/01/325772-world-must-act-now-reverse-worsening-situation-afghanistan-ban.

  “lose this fucking war”: General Stanley McChrystal, My Share of the Task (New York: Portfolio/Penguin, 2013), p. 310.

  Bob and Mullen had graduated: Interview with Bob and Jani Bergdahl, April 2012.

  “There were many times”: Interview with Michael Mullen, February 2018.

  For Mattis, it was growing up: Dexter Filkins, “James Mattis, A Warrior in Washington,” New Yorker, May 29, 2017.

  Mattis hung it: Interviews with Bob and Jani Bergdahl, July–August 2018.

  “until we hear from Bowe”: Interview with Bob and Jani Bergdahl, April 2012.

  first proof-of-life video: Associated Press, “Taliban Release Video of Captured US Soldier,” YouTube, 1:14, April 7, 2010, www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHfSHVwJVFA.

  Karzai made a bold call: Julian Borger and Ian Black, “UN-Taliban Peace Talks Spur Karzai to Action,” Guardian, January 28, 2010, https://theguardian.com/world/2010/jan/28/afghanistan-un-peace-talks-taliban.

  “Just as the infidels are one”: Bill Roggio, “An Interview with Mullah Sangeen,” FDD’s Long War Journal, September 17, 2009, https://longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/09/an_interview_with_mullah_sange.php.

  (The White House was not aware): Interview with senior White House official, June 2018.

  “Greetings and peace”: Images of both letters were provided to author.

  the party was using him: Interviews with Bob and Jani Bergdahl, July–August 2018.

  ISAF airstrikes had killed: Bill Roggio, “Senior Taliban Commander Killed in Kandahar,” FDD’s Long War Journal, May 31, 2010, https://longwarjournal.org/archives/2010/05/senior_taliban_comma_1.php.

  Security ahead of the June 2 event: Jonathon Burch, “Kabul Readies Security Ahead of Peace Jirga,” Reuters, May 31, 2010, https://in.reuters.com/article/idINIndia-48929820100531.

  rocket attack issued: Kristen Chick, “Afghanistan Taliban Attack Hamid Karzai’s ‘Peace Jirga,’” Christian Science Monitor, June 2, 2010, https://csmonitor.com/World/terrorism-security/2010/0602/Afghanistan-Taliban-attack-Hamid-Karzai-s-peace-jirga.

  “They are the sons”: Ernesto Londoño, “Suicide Bombers Try to Disrupt Start of Afghan Peace Meeting,” Washington Post, June 2, 2010, https://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/02/AR2010060200263.html?sid=ST2010060103567.

  Karzai accepted resignations: Alissa J. Rubin, “Afghan Leader Forces Out Top 2 Security Officials,” New York Times, June 6, 2010, https://nytimes.com/2010/06/07/world/asia/07afghan.html.

  “Mayor of Kabul”: Woodward, Obama’s Wars, p. 68.

  These were the people: Interviews with Bob and Jani Bergdahl, July–August 2018.

  “So we pray”: Author notes from June 2010 event.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN: THE NO-NEGOTIATIONS NEGOTIATIONS

  They gave Pelton: Interviews with Robert Young Pelton, 2015–2018.

  fully integrated Taliban collaborator: Interview with Miles Amoore, August 2015.

  “CAPTURED U.S. SOLDIER HAS JOINED”: Miles Amoore, “Captured U.S. Soldiers Has Joined Our Cause, Say Taliban,” Sunday Times, August 22, 2010.

  no coherent diplomatic policy: Peter Baker, “How Obama Came to Plan for ‘Surge’ in Afghanistan,” New York Times, Deccember 5, 2009.

  peace talks were never: Coll, Directorate S, p. 427.

  would be granted amnesty: Kate Clark, “Releasing the Guantanamo Five? 1: Biographies of the Prisoners,” Afghanistan Analysts Network, https://afghanistan-analysts.org/releasing-the-guantanamo-five-1-biographies-of-the-prisoners-first-posted-09-03-2012.

  aboard the USS Peleliu: Ben Fenton, “Taliban Chiefs Held on US Warship,” Telegraph, December 21, 2001, https://telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/1366019/Taliban-chiefs-held-on-US-warship.html.

  carried the first Marines: Katharine Q. Seelye, “A Nation Challenged: The Detention Camp: U.S. to Hold Taliban Detainees in ‘the Least Worst Place,’” New York Times, December 28, 2001, http://nytimes.com/2001/12/28/us/nation-challenged-detention-camp-us-hold-taliban-detainees-least-worst-place.html.

  sedated with rectal suppositories: The p
ractice of anal sedation was common for extraordinary rendition cases in the War on Terror. A full description can be found in James E. Pfander, Constitutional Torts and the War on Terror (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017).

  None had been charged: “Taliban to Surrender Kunduz,” Associated Press, November 22, 2001.

  open-air U.S. detention camp: Seelye, “A Nation Challenged.”

  Støre waited until December: Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Defense, “A Good Ally: Norway in Afghanistan 2001–2014,” Official Norwegian Reports NOU 2016: 8, June 6, 2016; English Edition February 2018.

  Norwegians soon accepted: Ibid.

  had met with former ISI directors: Memo from Barnett R. Rubin to Richard Holbrooke, “Schedule and Activities,” December 27, 2008.

  flew to Kabul to meet with: Interview with Barnett R. Rubin, September 2017.

  wrote a memoir: Nick Meo, “My Life with the Taliban by Abdul Salam Zaeef: Review,” Telegraph, January 24, 2010, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/7053973/My-Life-with-the-Taliban-by-Abdul-Salam-Zaeef-review.html.

  kind of moderate Taliban: The Guantanamo Docket, New York Times, https://nytimes.com/interactive/projects/guantanamo/detainees/306-abdul-salam-zaeef.

  fighting the war forever: Coll, Directorate S, p. 445.

  “Talk to them or arrest them?”: Interview with Barnett R. Rubin, September 2017.

  death of Mullah Awal Gul: Autopsy Report: Awal Gul, Guantanamo Bay (Natural) (Death Certificate Included), the Torture Database, www.thetorturedatabase.org/document/autopsy-report-awal-gul-guantanamo-bay-natural-death-certificate-included. The Pentagon said that Gul died of a heart attack following a workout on an elliptical machine, but Rubin wasn’t so sure. “Being in Guantanamo is not good for your health,” he said.

  fly to Dubai to meet: Interview with Barnett R. Rubin, September 2017.

  Mullah Omar wanted to talk: Coll, Directorate S, p. 420.

  in 1998, the young man had served: Rubin email, September 2018.

  Rubin told Holbrooke: Ibid.

  an Iranian double agent: Interview with Barnett R. Rubin, September 2017.

  Lieutenant General Douglas Lute: Helene Cooper, “War Czar for Bush to Keep His Job,” New York Times, January 13, 2009, thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/13/war-czar-for-bush-to-keep-his-job.