by Dalton Fury
As assault troop Sergeant Major Jim and I listened to the comments, we shot each other curious looks: Can you believe this shit?
Bottom line, it was not perfect, and nobody ever said it had to be. We couldn’t rewrite the script to our liking.
Bin Laden was up in Tora Bora waiting for us, and we had no problem obliging him, regardless of the strategic or operational limitations.
Still, I didn’t leave that briefing with a warm and fuzzy feeling.
Only a few minutes after the briefing broke up, Dailey approached Jim, Ski, and me. He still wore that look of concern, but then he paused, focused, and very general-like gave us all the command guidance we had ever really needed.
“Fellas, kill bin Laden. . .and bring back proof!”
That was more like it.
At midday on the fifth of December, we loaded several MC-130 Talon II aircraft for our four-and-a-half-hour journey into Afghanistan. In addition to several dozen operators, each aircraft contained two pickup trucks strapped to the floor and loaded down with supplies and combat gear. I took up a seat on the passenger side of a white Toyota that still smelled showroom new.
I plugged in a laptop computer so it was powered by the vehicle battery and called up the FalconView software. On the screen, I began sorting through layers of satellite imagery and maps, including a Russian-made 1:50,000 of Afghanistan.
A cable snaked out of the truck window to a circular GPS antenna behind one of the aircraft’s window blackout screens. That linked us with several airborne satellites that gave life to a tiny royal blue airplane icon that represented our plane. That little image crept over the map on my screen as our aircraft crossed the Arabian Sea.
We hugged the Pakistan border just east of Iran and bent around the southern and eastern side of Afghanistan. Somewhere above the Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan, the pilots banked hard to the west and we entered Afghan airspace, heading toward Kabul.
Bart, the squadron operations sergeant who had given us the first word on the September 11 attacks, was there to meet us on the runway at Bagram. He led us to an old, bombed-out rectangular building, our new home away from home, where we dropped our gear. To keep the frigid air away, the advance party had boarded up the windows in the hard clay walls, acquired kerosene space heaters, and covered the cold concrete floor almost wall to wall with crimson red carpet.
The building, and one just like it sitting roughly forty meters away, was among the very few where the land mines had been cleared outside. Only enough space had been cleared to allow us to walk around the perimeter by staying close to the buildings and to pull up a few pickup trucks in the front.
Within thirty minutes, we were summoned to the Joint Intelligence Agency Task Force building a couple of hundred yards down the street. With land mines in our thoughts, we walked to the building, which was a little larger, a little warmer and had more divided rooms. This was the austere home of the Fusion Cell, the relatively new designation given to an ad hoc faction of professionals charged with collating, analyzing, and making heads or tails out of the various intelligence collected by multiple means; hence the name Fusion. Their task was daunting, even for such a talented bunch of men and women, and it did not take long for some jokers to add a prefix to the name, changing it to the Confusion Cell.
Gus Murdock had beaten us into town from the ISB, and was in charge of joint advance special forces operations, as part of the Fusion Cell. After some quick handshakes and dirty jokes, we sat down to get our former squadron commander’s take on our next move. The news was not good. Gus said the intelligence community was estimating that between fifteen hundred to three thousand enemy forces were currently inside the Tora Bora Mountains.
That was when we started to realize Delta was being asked to do something clearly outside our Mission Essential Task List. We were quite certain that Delta had never before been tasked to tether their combat operations to a tribal opposition group. Moreover, we were to conduct military operations while relying on indigenous security and guides, local quickreaction forces in lieu of Americans, and do so with an extremely untimely and weather-dependent casualty evacuation support plan. It was most un-Delta like. General Dailey’s vagueness began to make sense.
The CIA had passed word while we were still in the air that Gen. Hazret Ali, the head of the Eastern Alliance, was ready to receive us immediately over in the border city of Jalalabad. We were looking forward to it, because we had zero information about the Afghan warlord with whom we were to link, other than the basics of his biography. Ali, a Sunni Muslim, had come from the Pashai tribe in Nangarhar Province, and distinguished himself as a field commander in the war against the Soviets. Beyond that, we knew zilch.
But the CIA in Jalalabad, Team Jawbreaker Juliet, said Ali was ready to help, and that was good enough for us. Anyway, we had been told the Afghans must appear to be a part of any action. We did not think that was any big deal, but it sure became one.
We were to drive down from FOB Yukon to Kabul, link up with a few advance force operators and CIA folks, and receive a quick intelligence dump. From there we would proceed under the escort of a dozen or so CIA-funded mujahideen over to Jalalabad, where the Afghan warlord kept his headquarters.
Gus told us it was all set and we needed to move out soon. While I briefed Jim and the boys on the situation, Sergeant Major Ironhead, and reconnaissance troop Sergeant Major Bryan, code-named B-Monkey, our communicator Bernie, and Shag, a Pashto speaker, loaded two trucks. Jim elected to stay behind to coordinate things and oversee preparations to eventually move the rest of the boys forward once the details were worked out with the CIA and General Ali. We figured it would be a day or two at most.
We were under strict instructions that we could only “borrow” the linguist Shag for a few days and would have to send him back to Bagram very soon. Somehow, once we reached the shadows of Tora Bora, we forgot that order.
After packing, we went back inside to try to get warm while we waited to leave. We were too amped up to sleep, so we just sat on some cardboard boxes, tapped our feet on the floor to keep our blood flowing, huddled close to take advantage of one another’s body heat, and crossed our arms to cut the chill.
Bernie, our communicator, who was checking his laptop computer, called out with a hoot. “Hey, Dalton! You just got promoted!”
Higher headquarters back at the ISB had become nervous because I, the senior man representing the task force in this important meeting with General Ali, was only an army major. After all, in the American military, a general officer does not typically deal with lowly majors, and having someone of such menial rank handling the delicate high-level meeting might suggest to the Eastern Alliance and its venerated commander that we were not serious.
To alleviate the problem, they authorized me to masquerade as a lieutenant colonel for this particular mission, as if being one step higher on the ladder would make a difference.
Just like that, while sitting in a cold, cold room, I became make-believe Lt. Col. Dalton Fury: No promotion ceremony, no extra pay, no fanfare, just 100 percent unofficial. In fact, the only thing I got was a lot of sharp wisecracks from the boys around me.
The phony promotion was totally unnecessary. Field marshal, lieutenant colonel, major, or Private Gomer Pyle would have made no difference to General Ali, as long as whoever it was didn’t impede the cash and arms flowing in from the good ole United States of America.
In fact, if anything would have helped me impress General Ali, it would have been a thicker beard.
But our thoughts soon returned to what lay ahead and the unforgiving enemy that controlled the treacherous terrain where we would be fighting. We would be outnumbered, and intelligence analysts were saying that our new Afghan allies did not think anybody, including us, could win in the Tora Bora Mountains against the al Qaeda fighters who had been part of the massive guerrilla uprising that had already faced, and beaten, another superpower, the Soviet Union.
Ironhead, cool as
ever, spoke the squadron motto: “Molon Labe.”
That was the challenge given by the Spartan king Leonidas at Thermopylae when Persian king Xerxes I offered to allow the outnumbered Spartans to surrender, if they would just drop their weapons. The defiant term means—Come and get them!
* The political will to use Special Operations Forces prior to 9/11 is well documented in a January 2004 edition of the Weekly Standard. In an article titled “Showstoppers,” author Richard Shultz provides nine reasons why US officials never sent our Special Operations Forces after al Qaeda before 9/11. See http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/613twavk.asp.
* Authors David Tucker and Christopher Lamb in their book, United States Special Operations Forces, discuss this Way Ahead meeting.
* Former CIA official Gary Shroen, in his book First In, discusses the Delta advance party sent to Afghanistan to develop rescue plans for the Shelter Now International hostages.
* Author Derek Leebaert, in his book To Dare and to Conquer, discusses these capability exercises performed by Delta for visiting VIPs.
* In Cobra II, authors Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor recount the meeting between representatives of the CIA, Vice President Cheney, and President Bush.
* See article on “Targeted Killings” published by The Foundation for Defense of Democracies. See http://www.defenddemocracy.org/publications/publications_show.htm?doc_id=218872.
5
Running Guns
Welcome to the Hotel Tora Bora
Such a lovely place
Such a lovely race
Plenty of room at the Hotel Tora Bora
Any time of year, you’re in danger here
—PARODY OF “HOTEL CALIFORNIA,” BY JAY - C
We drove our pickups down the safe lane to the Joint Intelligence building to meet the escort that would lead us through the mined airfield perimeter and then some thirty miles to the south before handing us off to a second escort near the outskirts of Kabul.
Parked and waiting was an ominous-looking, dark, two-door sedan with a couple of men wrapped in Afghan clothing sitting in the front seat. I peered into the driver’s window to make sure my eyes were not playing tricks.
You have got to be shittin’ me. We were not sure who our guides were supposed to be, but I was shocked to find Doc and the Judge. I must be still sleeping, in the middle of a bizarre dream. Had to be, because no way in hell can these men be our guides.
Two former Delta Force staff members: one was the Unit lawyer and the other the Unit psychologist. “How’s it goin’, Dalton? Good to see you. Ready to roll?” Both officers had left the Unit months earlier, following Brigadier General Gary Harrell to his new assignment at CENTCOM.
“Uh, yeah, good to see you guys, too,” I stumbled, trying to conceal my surprise. Both were well known in the Unit, and totally trusted, but they just seemed a bit out of character, a lawyer and a psychologist suddenly appearing in their Afghan duds and in a car, out here in the middle of nowhere, when we thought they were back in Florida. “We’re ready when you are. Give me one of your radios and lead the way,” I said.
We pulled out of FOB Yukon several hours before dawn broke. Besides the headlights of our three vehicles, only the stars gave off any light and an eerie, thick darkness shrouded the land. The tops of the towering mountains to the north were not visible, but we could feel their presence.
Sergeant Major Ironhead drove while I rode shotgun in the lead Toyota, and Bryan drove the trailing truck, along with Bernie and Shag. The long ride gave me some time to consider the man behind the wheel. I was a thirty-seven-year-old army major masquerading as a lieutenant colonel, riding through the Afghan night next to a man who was one of the most talented, trustworthy and skilled noncommissioned officers to ever walk the halls of the Delta compound.
The squadron sergeant major was a good-humored, well-read, humble, and courteous former Ranger who was loved and respected by us all. Now in his early forties, he had spent fifteen years as a Delta operator, stood an inch over six feet tall and had a confident gait. He played by the rules—after they had passed his commonsense test.
Ironhead loved running the high grassy mounds that separated one shooting range from another in the Delta compound, for beneath his calm and polite demeanor hid a masochistic demon of discomfort. No tight silk shorts and fancy lightweight and expensive running shoes for this guy. No, when Ironhead stepped out of the back of the building, he didn’t bother to change out of his boots, or flight suit, or battle dress uniform. He would stop by the team room only to grab his protective mask and put on his body armor so the tough run would be even harder. Ironhead had a much higher tolerance for inconvenience than the rest of us.
His choice of hairstyle was typical. He wore a close-cropped flattop haircut which was now hidden beneath his brown Afghan wool hat. It was practical. Peacetime counterterrorist operations were one thing, but long hair in ground combat made little sense to him.
Months later, after Tora Bora, he chose to return to the Rangers as a battalion command sergeant major. In the early days of the invasion of Iraq, he went on a Ranger raid at a place called Haditha Dam. After taking the five-kilometer-long objective with only a single company of men, some of the young Rangers asked Ironhead when they would be getting some backup support.
“Listen, you’re on a classic Ranger mission.” he sharply reminded them. “You’re deep behind enemy lines, seizing a target that’s way too big for a company of men, and being told to hold until relieved.”
That was all that was needed. The Rangers yelled “Hooah” and went back to work, even though they were on the receiving end of several 155mm artillery barrages that lasted for hours.
Ironhead grabbed an SR-25 long-range rifle and made his way to a nearby water tower. Working as a sniper, the former Delta operator personally delivered dozens of Iraqi fighters to their maker. His performance that day won him a Silver Star, but did not surprise anyone who really knew him.
Then there was Bryan, who was driving the second truck. Like Ironhead, he had been around the unit for more than a decade, and absent an official troop commander, he was the ranking operator in the reconnaissance troop.
The master sergeant was a former Green Beret and a natural leader, one of the better pistol shots and long-gun shooters in the building, and a master climber. Bryan was calm and cool under pressure, and had a knack for dissecting a contentious issue completely before speaking out. Then he would pick out the decision that had been the least thought about by everybody else, but the one that would be collectively agreed upon as the best.
We had a great team going up the road.
Thirty minutes into the drive, the sun rose in the distance to expose a landscape straight out of the ninth century. High snow-covered peaks dominated the land to our west and north. Dry streambeds and deep wadis cut the vast rolling and rocky desert floor. Colored foothills featured uneven splotches of tan and gray, while green painted the countryside, and the dirty skeletons of burned or rusted Communist-era armored vehicles stood dead and abandoned. Long forgotten village ruins and adobe tan compounds completed the scene of desolation.
Rocks the size of softballs, painted red on one side and white on the other, lined the road edge to mark mine fields: Proceed no farther or risk blowing yourself to smithereens.
Halfway to Kabul we noticed an unexploded bomb just off the road, with its nose buried a foot or so in the ground and the fins sticking out. The dud looked fairly new, and no doubt had been delivered by an American bomber within the last couple of weeks and intended for some fleeing Taliban troops during the Northern Alliance’s big push on Kabul.
Our next escort waited in a lone vehicle parked to the side of the road. It was another old friend, Lt. Col. Mark Sutter, who had been commanding the Northern Advance Force Operations team, or NAFO. By the time Iraq rolled around, Sutter had succeeded Jake Ashley as squadron commander and was the best combat leader in Delta: fearless, out front, and possessing a
remarkable ability to audible away from a briefed plan to make quick and timely decisions in the thick fog of war.
After quick handshakes and some backslapping, we said goodbye to Doc and the Judge and followed Sutter on a fifteen-minute drive through the back streets of Kabul. We slowed to ease through an Afghan security checkpoint, then entered a parking lot behind a large guesthouse in the center of town. In the past few weeks, it had become the home of Jawbreaker, the CIA’s lead headquarters. From here, Sutter commanded and controlled, or “C2ed,” the advance force cell. It was the same building that the CIA had used during the 1980s to monitor and support the Afghan war against the Soviets.
It was instantly clear that security was very, very tight. Standing guard, wearing black North Face clothing and with a new AK-47 at the ready, was none other than His Majesty, Sir Billy Waugh. Now well into his silver years, Billy should have been rocking in his favorite chair watching the war unfold on television, but instead, he was standing smack-dab in the thick of things. . . again.
His reputation in the special operations and intelligence communities, including multiple tours in Vietnam, was the stuff of legend. Anyone up for an exciting ride should read his memoirs, Hunting the Jackal. Time and again, we were bumping into some of the best operators in the business, already on the ground over here, but Billy was special.
With his usual growl, he and Ironhead and Bryan immediately began swapping yarns from other third world shit holes, European urban sprawls, and the Sudan. Bryan had done some Delta work there in the early 1990s while Billy was undercover for the CIA, snapping photographs of bin Laden’s comings and goings in anticipation that the pictures might come in handy one day.
Luck is Billy’s ally, I thought. Stay close to him.
Inside the guesthouse, the first person I met was Gary Berntsen, the CIA’s point man in Kabul and the instigator of that fateful meeting around the Humvee at Task Force Dagger. On this cold December morning, Gary was upbeat, slapping backs like a proud sandlot football coach, obviously eager to get things moving. He offered us his complete support. “Anything you need,” he said.
