by Bob Graham
“So I come back to the ‘core value’: It’s all about Pakistan. If our operations in Afghanistan contribute to salvaging Pakistan, the answer is maybe.”
“Is that because of the Paks’ military doctrine?”
“Yes, but with a reverse spin.”
Tony rose, moving to the side of Talbott’s desk. He studied the worn acrylic map of Central Asia the ambassador kept on his desk. Tony had spent much of his professional life analyzing the tense relations between Pakistan and India. Pakistan has less than a fifth of the population, is a third the size of its eastern neighbor, and is only 350 kilometers from east to west. Ever since there was a Pakistani state its military leadership has prepared for an Indian ground attack. Central to its avoidance of being overwhelmed by India’s vastly larger army is the concept of strategic depth. If and when an Indian assault were to begin, Pakistan’s military would fall back to the west, behind the Toba Kakar Range and make its stand in Afghanistan. That necessitates a relationship with whoever is running Afghanistan and an understanding that it would acquiesce in such an occupation of its territory.
Since 1998, the strategy had been augmented by a firm resolve to use the first-strike option of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.
“What do you mean by ‘reverse spin’?” Tony asked.
“If Afghanistan falls to the Taliban or anyone else, Pakistan will either embrace the winner and turn its back on us, or if it feels its relations with the victor are such that Afghanistan is not a secure fallback, attempt to dissuade any invasion by India by ratcheting up the threats of a first-strike nuclear attack.” Talbott drew a long breath before concluding, “Or both.”
He stepped back, sunlight illuminating the detail in his tweed jacket, then took a seat on the corner of the same desk his great-grandfather had used when he was secretary of war under President Wilson. He handed a communiqué to Tony. “If you want some rain on an otherwise sunny day, here’s this morning’s cable from Kabul. It puts numbers to the linkage between massive increases in Afghan poppy production and the arms it finances for the Taliban. This cable reports that in the last year, Afghanistan grew more poppies for opium than any year in history. Tony, this is the cancer that could kill whatever support is left for this war. We’ve got to figure out a way to convince our people.”
Tony listened with knowing attentiveness. He had been there.
During his first full winter in Afghanistan, his unit of four Americans and two Afghans had been deployed to Kunduz, in the northeastern sector of the country. Long before the Silk Road became a trade route from Europe to Asia, Kunduz served as an exchange point for slaves, weapons, and goods, both legal and illicit. Tony and Amal were assigned to monitor one of Kunduz’s southern neighborhoods.
The bittersweet odor of freshly cut poppies permeated the street. Amal cleared his nostrils with a muted sneeze and cloud of frozen air. “My friend, do you know what is on the other side of that wall?”
“I’m not sure. I’ve smelled my share of pot and coca in Hialeah, but that’s new.”
“For the Taliban. They store the poppies here until the roads are open and they can take it over the hills to Tajikistan and on to Russia and Europe. Back down that same road comes the ammo the poppies buy.”
In the shadows of the early nightfall at this high plain and latitude, Tony circled the two-story, mud-covered concrete structure. He noted a single entrance. Two soldiers in worn Taliban uniforms guarded semitrailer-sized wooden doors on the south wall. Tony likened this to an out-of-position opponent on the tennis court and reacted accordingly.
With Amal, he retreated to the rabbit warren of side-street huts. It was there they had hidden their motorbikes with Negil, a sympathizer to the Northern Alliance cause and their designated advisor on all things Kunduz. Tony secured four empty water canteens from the bikes’ saddlebags and, applying a technique he had learned in the streets of Hialeah, sucked at his bike’s gas intake until he had started a flow sufficient to fill them. Prepared, the three waited for the moonless night to descend.
This time with Amal and Negil, Tony again circled the building until he came upon the guard station. One man leaned against the wall while the other sat, snoring, on the muddy sidewalk. From across the street, Negil kept a sharp eye for intruders. With a thumb up, he signaled the way was clear. Neither guard was aware they were in danger until Amal had driven his knife deep into the chest wall of the leaner and Tony had almost beheaded the snorer before removing the chain of keys from his belt.
They opened the lock and one of the doors. With Negil’s help, they dragged both bodies into the open space behind the doors.
Tony flipped on his flashlight. From a central corridor he noted rows of canvas bags emitting the distinctive stench of poppy, which penetrated the four-hundred-square-meter enclosure. With their canisters, Tony and Amal sprinkled fuel throughout the warehouse. Negil followed, igniting with his plastic cigarette lighter what was initially a stuttering flame. As the last drop of gasoline was drained, the empty cans were tossed on top of the heap, and the three closed the doors behind them, the beginnings of a conflagration were in place.
Tony and Amal exchanged the traditional Pashtun kisses with Negil and mounted their bikes for a return to the Taloqan base camp. They could smell and see the tower of fire and smoke ascending into the black sky.
Tony refocused his attention on Talbott. He admired what the ambassador stood for. Talbott was a pragmatist in a State Department politicized by ideologues. He represented judgment and experience with the world as it is, not how some theoretician thinks it should be. Tony looked up. “Mr. Ambassador, are we ready to commit more troops?”
“This administration may have less than six months to go, and its primary—maybe only—objective is to avoid defeat in Iraq on its watch. That’s why we went back in.
“The commandant of the Marine Corps has been urging that his troops be withdrawn from Iraq; the ‘take and hold’ strategy which we have reinstituted there is incompatible with Marine Corps doctrine. The general wants his troops redeployed to Afghanistan where the marines can do what marines are trained to do: fight the enemy in the field.
“The commandant is right that our strategy in Iraq has become a political tactic to establish some semblance of the stability that has eluded us ever since we took out Saddam, at least until the election here is over. He was told by the civilian politicians at the Pentagon not ‘No,’ but ‘Hell no.’”
Talbott leaned back into the leather chair. “Maybe the Congress will light a fire. As with the condemned man and the gallows, nothing so fixes the mind of a politician as the prospect of being booted by the voters. They are going to be on the line in November, and I don’t think they want a Central Asian crisis on their hands.”
He turned his chair to face the window, as if contemplating the late-morning rain cloud. Tony waited for any further comments or instructions, then excused himself and walked to his cubbyhole.
He continued his review of the cable traffic from Afghanistan and returned two calls from the CIA station in Kabul. The chief of station was a veteran of Central Asia, Randy Crest. They had first met in 2002 when Tony traveled to the Khyber Pass border region with Senators Billington and Stoner. Crest was running a covert operation out of Peshawar into Afghanistan. After two days with Crest, Billington told Tony he was as close to James Bond as any CIA agent he had ever met.
Crest now captured the situation as plainly as Tony had ever heard it. “Ramos, we are in deep shit,” he shouted into a distorted and crackling encrypted telephone line. “The Taliban kicked off the spring with a few small actions. Now they’re rolling us. Most of their bloody work is to the south, where we’re the weakest. We just don’t have the numbers to cover the country, and with a few exceptions the NATOs won’t take their asses to where they might get them blown off. We might get lucky and hold on until the winter, but I doubt it. And where the hell are the marines? Sitting in Fallujah playing policeman again. Shit.”
Th
e phone rang. It was Ms. Wilkens. “Mr. Ramos, Mr. Talbott wants you in his office immediately.”
With only the most cursory recognition of Tony’s presence, Talbott handed him three cables from Kabul, then turned back to poring over the plastic map, his attention focused on the southern region of Afghanistan, pockmarked with the swirls and slashes of a grease pen.
Tony scanned the cables. A full-scale attack had been launched against Kandahar.
Our general doesn’t think he can hold. The U.S. Army units east of Kandahar have retreated to establish a defensive perimeter around the city center. A battalion of Canadian infantry left its position on the northern outskirts of the city and is reporting seventeen dead and over fifty wounded. Due to heavy rain, air support was limited and unreliable. Afghanistan president Karzai issued a call for NATO reinforcements.
Slumped in his chair, Tony watched a Fox News special bulletin on one of the four television monitors on Talbott’s west wall. Interrupted at a White House black-tie dinner for the president of Argentina, the U.S. president expressed his extreme distress, but reiterated that the United States would not contribute to the additional forces requested by President Karzai. “The primary responsibility of the United States is to bring stability and democracy to Iraq,” he said. “To accomplish those objectives the United States cannot redeploy soldiers or marines from there to Afghanistan. I call on our NATO allies to respond with additional troops, and not under the limitations on engagement that have hindered the effectiveness of those national units and contributed to the possible loss of Kandahar.”
The ambassador’s face was ashen. “Tony, the southern provinces are lost. Unless we immediately—I mean tonight—begin the transition of troops from Iraq to what is left of Afghanistan, it will all be gone.”
“But, Mr. Ambassador, the president just announced on television there will be no more U.S. troops.”
“I know. Somehow he must be persuaded he cannot take the consequences of defeat. Our only chance is the secretary. Prepare the best case you can. I’ll give it to her to present to the president tonight. If anyone can get to him, it’s her.”
JULY 24–25
Washington, D.C.
The secretary of state sent a typewritten note through her assistant that it would be quite impossible for her to meet with Ambassador Talbott. In her precise hand she had postscripted that the president had already announced his position on the fall of Kandahar and that she considered it to be wise and appropriate and would not attempt to intervene.
As he packed his briefcase in preparation for ending the day, seven hours later than he started the process, Tony was irate. She doesn’t deserve to be hanging with the likes of Thomas Jefferson and George Marshall. If she truly believes the president is wise, she’s a fool. If it’s just for pretense, she is a disgrace. If she knows it is a continuation of one of the worst national security decisions in the nation’s history, she is traitorous for not saying so and resigning.
It was well after 2:00 a.m. when Tony parked his Mustang in an alley lot behind his Capitol Hill townhouse. He had lived on the Hill since leaving the tour, and three years later had bought this two-story, twenty-foot-wide house on Seventh Street. He normally showered before sleep, but tonight he was too tired. He dropped his suit pants and coat and tie on the wooden barrel chair next to the bed and slipped under the sheets. He slept naked. His head was on the pillow when the BlackBerry rang.
“Oh crap,” he muttered. “Ramos here. Who’s there?”
“Tony, this is Laura. I’m calling from London. I hope I didn’t wake you.”
“No, Laura, I’m always up at three in the morning. It’s my favorite time of day.”
Laura laughed, “And I trust I’m your favorite kind of woman?”
Turning on his right side, Tony slipped the question. “That’s a little weightier than I’m able to handle at this hour. But I sure as hell hope you’ve got something important to talk about.”
Still cheery, Laura continued, “I’ve been working on a plan and I need some advice.”
“It couldn’t wait till morning; my morning?”
“When I get an idea, I like to get right at it.”
Tony sighed. “Well, now that we’re all awake, what’ve you got?”
“You know what my father thought of the Saudis and 9/11. I’ve got an idea.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You said I needed to get inside the palace, right?”
“I also said it was going to be tough to do.”
“Well, last night I was at the Saudi embassy, so I’ve made that much progress. One of the political attachés mentioned the king would be celebrating his eighty-fifth birthday in December. Putting on my best femme fatale mask, I suggested it would be ‘marvelous’ if I could announce this to the world with his portrait in Vanity Fair.”
“Laura,” Tony said as he stood. “I know I suggested back in Tallahassee that you go undercover. But I want you to understand the ground rules. The Saudis are ultrasexists. And this could be dangerous as hell. If their fingerprints are on your dad’s murder, they’ll go to any lengths to keep it under wraps.”
“Tony, you’ve told me that before. And—and remember it was your idea about getting inside the palace. I think I can do it, with a reasonable chance of success.”
“But you have to consider the consequences of failure; they’re not pretty.”
“I’ve been in tight situations before, same as you.”
“Probably not quite the same,” Tony said.
“Look, Tony, we have a job to do. Do you want to complete my father’s mission or don’t you?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then this is not the time for you to—what was it Thatcher used to say?—go wobbly.”
Tony had no response.
JULY 25–26
Washington, D.C.
Tony slept past his 6:30 alarm. While eating his breakfast of Smart Start cereal with banana and skim milk, he looked again at the contents of the two envelopes given to him by Mrs. Billington and contemplated the logistics.
Riyadh and Kuala Lumpur would require almost round-the-world travel. San Diego was just across the continent. Tony was feeling the hormones of competitive tennis; he wanted the game to start. He figured it would take ten days to do the Riyadh and Kuala Lumpur legs, but San Diego—that could be a weekend. Maybe, if things didn’t collapse any further in Afghanistan, he could get an OK for a one-night trip.
As upbeat as Talbott had been on Thursday morning, his haggard, unshaven face, rumpled pants, and discarded jacket bespoke a man who’d spent the night at his desk.
“Tony,” he said, “I’ve given it one more shot with the secretary. Her schedule people say she’ll be at the Argentine embassy until noon and then a luncheon with her party’s senators. She wouldn’t budge.”
“Mr. Ambassador, maybe we should see if any of the folks on the Hill want a real-time assessment of the situation.”
Talbott raised his eyebrows. “That’s already been taken care of. The president’s national security advisor has been dispatched to tell them the only thing to do is to cajole the Europeans to send more of their troops into the meat grinder, and now let’s talk about our victories in Iran and the ones since we got back into Iraq.”
“If there is anything else I can do, I’ll be at my desk monitoring the cable traffic.” There was another matter Tony wished to mention, but judged this was not the time.
The following morning, he asked Talbott if the situation in Afghanistan was subdued by the second week in August, could he be approved for a weekend trip to San Diego. Talbott responded as if he wanted to be on the same flight. “You’ve earned it,” he said.
Back in his office, passing the time until it was nine on the West Coast, Tony reread the relevant portion of John Billington’s memo.
San Diego: Of the various places the hijackers lived before 9/11, we know the most about Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, the two who lived
from early February of 2000 until the end of that year in the suburb of Lemon Grove. Information on them is central to understanding the full role of the Saudi government and entities in the run-up to 9/11.
Teresa McKenzie, an investigative reporter for the San Diego Union-Tribune, has written extensively and insightfully on the nexus between the FBI, the hijackers, and the infrastructure of Saudi confederates in San Diego. She was one of the few able to do what our inquiry and the 9/11 Commission were denied: talk directly with the most important figure still living in the United States, Samrat Nasir.
Samrat Nasir, age eighty-one, is a retired professor of nuclear physics, an Indian by birth, and a Muslim. For much of 2000 he was a paid asset of the FBI and the landlord of al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar.
When he figured she’d be in her office, Tony called Teresa McKenzie. She answered on the fourth ring. “This is Terri McKenzie, Union-Tribune.”
“Ms. McKenzie, my name is Tony Ramos. I’m with the State Department and in 2002 was detailed to Senator Billington’s staff investigating 9/11. He asked me to call you.”
“Wasn’t he killed?”
“Yes, a hit and run; probably intentional. Senator Billington prepared background materials for me, and your name was at the top of the list.”
“I’m flattered, I think. What kind of a list?”
