88 Days to Kandahar: A CIA Diary

by Grenier, Robert L.

  SEPTEMBER 18, 2001

  Everything, they say, is relative. Though someone else may think my current circumstances bad, to me they will seem very good if yesterday’s situation was much worse. A bad situation will seem all the worse if my prior circumstances were particularly good. According to General Mahmud, this theory of existential relativity very much applied to the Kandahar of September 17, 2001.

  News of the assassination of Ahmad Shah Masood on September 9, just two days before 9/11, had been received with elation among the Taliban leadership. The death of the illustrious leader of the Northern Alliance, they were sure, would bring them final victory in the civil war, and enable them to consolidate their hold over all of Afghanistan. When Mahmud and his delegation of Afghan specialists from the ISI and the Foreign Ministry arrived, though, they found their hosts in a very different mood, and one all the more gloomy for their recent euphoria.

  Mullah Omar, in particular, seemed completely out of sorts. He put off afternoon prayers to meet with the Pakistanis—something unprecedented in Mahmud’s long history with him. He was full of petulant, and sometimes irrational, questions: Why hadn’t the Americans eliminated bin Laden before his arrival in Afghanistan? Now he was in the Taliban’s lap, and what could they do about it? If the Americans had a problem with al-Qa’ida, why were they also pursuing the Taliban? Was it because the Taliban was Islamic? Besides, the 9/11 attacks had been far too sophisticated for al-Qa’ida; they couldn’t possibly have done it. And irrespective of that, the Americans certainly had nothing to fear from bin Laden in future: he was “tethered to a nail,” incapable of doing anything.

  Mahmud, in his telling, had been brutally frank with the Taliban leader during their four-hour meeting. He described what he had seen of the Americans’ furious reaction to the attacks in vivid terms. Their resolve to eliminate the threat from al-Qa’ida, once and for all, was absolute. Omar’s pleas for bin Laden’s innocence, he said, no longer mattered. The United States was committed to eliminating both bin Laden and the Afghan sanctuary; if the Taliban would not do so, the Americans would attempt to do so themselves. The Taliban, he said, would have to weigh the alternatives in the balance: one man versus 25 million Afghans.

  In the end, the “Commander of the Faithful” had been ambivalent. On one hand, Omar was characteristically fatalistic, in the way fundamentalists are: “If war comes, it is the will of God.” He agreed to send a trusted emissary to meet with bin Laden and to seek his voluntary departure, but did so without enthusiasm and with the caveat that bin Laden, now in hiding, would be difficult to find.

  On the other hand, Mahmud found one great reason to be encouraged. Omar had decided to convene a consultative council of several hundred Ulema, or Islamic scholars, from throughout Afghanistan to advise him on the correct course to pursue toward bin Laden. Properly managed, this so-called “Supreme Council of the Islamic Clergy” could provide the Afghan leader the religious cover he needed to do what was politically necessary. They were expected to meet on September 19.

  Finally, Mahmud wanted to create the opportunity, at least, for direct discussions between Omar and a U.S. emissary. Had the one-eyed cleric ever met with an infidel? Would he meet with such an emissary if offered the chance? The answer to both questions was yes, but Omar underscored that he would meet with an American only in secret, and only if given iron-clad assurances that no word of such a meeting would appear in the press.

  Mullah Jalil, of course, had been included among the handful of participants in the meeting. As soon as it broke up and Omar went off to pray, he seized on the opportunity to help nudge events in the right direction: He brought Mahmud immediately to meet with Nur Muhammad Saqeb, chief justice of the Taliban Supreme Court, who would preside over the upcoming council of Ulema. He wanted to be sure Saqeb was aware of what was at stake.

  Chapter 10

  * * *

  CHARTING THE COURSE

  SEPTEMBER 24, 2001

  THE LARGE SCREEN CONTAINED two grainy, flickering boxes. I leaned forward on my threadbare office couch, squinting to make out the images in each. In one, I could see General Tommy Franks, the four-star combatant commander of the Central Command (CENTCOM), seated behind what appeared to be a long table of blond wood, flanked by two or three aides. In the other, a lone technician at CIA Headquarters stared mutely back at me.

  I didn’t know it yet, but the war plan which George Tenet had solicited from me the day before, and which I had submitted in such haste for his Sunday morning discussions at Camp David, had just been approved by the president and the War Cabinet that morning, a Monday. Now it was Monday afternoon on the east coast of the United States. No one had bothered to fill me in on much of what was happening back there. It was all moving too fast. All I knew was that I was to dial in for a SVTC (secure video teleconference) with Tenet, who was at CIA Headqarters, and with General Franks, at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa.

  The SVTC facility had been installed in Islamabad Station almost two years before, one of only a handful of overseas stations to have it at the time. Consisting simply of a large, wall-mounted screen, a remote-activated swiveling camera, and a separate audio link which, thankfully, could be muted, the system was far from perfect. The satellite-fed images were often grainy and indistinct, and the fact that both sound and video images had to be encrypted and then decrypted in each direction made for an unsettling transmission delay, often putting voices and pictures out of sync. Indeed, for much of the previous two years, the equipment had sat unused in my office. But during crisis situations—the Pakistani military coup of October 12, 1999, for example, or the multiple rocket attacks on U.S. and UN installations in Islamabad precisely a month later—the system had proved invaluable for what I liked to refer to as “feeding the Beast.”

  The Washington bureaucracy, whatever the agency or department, has its own structure and its own rhythm. These are fairly predictable. When a crisis occurs, however, the system and everyone in it seemingly goes crazy. I say “seemingly” because if you’ve lived in that world, as I have, you lose a normal layperson’s perspective on what, by any objective standard, is irrational behavior. You understand why the bureaucracy behaves as it does and therefore, if you are clever, how to manipulate it.

  Senior officials in Washington crave one thing: the illusion of control. Oh, yes, they get to issue policy pronouncements, and over time, they can nudge the ship of government roughly a few degrees in this direction or that. But for the most part, they are far removed from the actual work that is being done in their agencies, and they have little idea how it actually happens. Those at the tactical end must react to events on the ground and rapidly solve whatever problems come up, often with little or no time to seek guidance from higher-ups, and secure in the knowledge that whatever guidance they get is most likely to be useless anyway. Those in the upper reaches generally don’t know the questions that have arisen, let alone the answers, and for the most part it doesn’t matter: they attend their rounds of meetings and talk confidently to one another as though their actions had relevance. I know, because I’ve done the same.

  Senior officials are not entirely stupid, however. They sense their impotence, and the way they compensate for it is by demanding information from those below them. It’s rather like being a passenger in an airplane. You may be bouncing around violently in the clouds, ignorant of where you are in relation to the ground, and feeling distinctly nervous. Once you break through the cloud cover, however, and can see where you are, you feel much better: You feel suddenly in control of the situation. In fact, you have no more influence over your fate than you did before. What you do have is the illusion of control.

  When a crisis hits, though, and events have been jolted out of their usual comforting rhythm, the inherent insecurity of the bureaucracy goes into overdrive. Those at the top demand to know what is happening and what is being done about it, and they turn to the midlevel bureaucrats for answers. The midlevel folks turn to the low-level folks, an
d if they don’t know the answers, they blame the incompetence of the guys in the field. The hapless field types, meanwhile, who actually have to deal with the crisis and are completely preoccupied with the work at hand, often become even less communicative than usual, precisely when their input is demanded most. Their good work may eventually come to light, but by then it is likely to be too late, for all the elements that collectively make up the Beast, driven by a fear of looking incompetent themselves and forced to fill the void of their ignorance, will have permanently tarred the tactical people as ill-prepared idiots who have done little or nothing, and who have attempted to mask their incompetence with silence.

  The experienced field person understands all this, and if wise, will turn the dynamic to his or her advantage. In those days, whenever a crisis event occurred, I always directed that a comprehensive Situation Report be issued immediately and followed up at regular intervals. That let people up the line know what was going on. As to what was being done about it, our job being intelligence collection, we would quickly issue an exhaustively detailed Collection Plan, informing headquarters of the posture of each of our sources, what tasking was being given to each one, when we expected them to report in, and the elements of the crisis they could be relied upon to cover.

  This would overjoy the low-level people at the branch and group levels, because they could confidently brief their division chiefs as to what “we” were doing about the crisis. The division chiefs could then brief the deputy director for operations—the DDO—and his various acolytes, the associate deputy directors and other hangers-on, who could in turn brief the director and his deputy and other assorted satraps, all of whom could then pride themselves on how well this Swiss watch of an organization was operating under their tutelage. They, in turn, could preen, with seeming nonchalance, before their fellow agency heads and the White House about how they had everything in hand.

  Of course, all this good feeling in Washington doesn’t address the crisis; indeed, the effort expended by those in the field to feed the Beast has actually been a drag on their ability to do the real work. The entire exercise will have had the critical effect, however, of keeping the Beast happy, perhaps even motivating it to share some small credit with the lowly field hands, at least as an afterthought, and in any case permitting the latter to survive another day.

  The usefulness of the video teleconference in this whole scheme was inestimable, particularly in an environment that demanded information on an ever more immediate basis. Cables, after all, took time to write. But by quickly gathering the right audience in Washington for an SVTC, and with a little drama and flair, you could answer all the immediate questions and gain some time to follow up with formal written reports.

  Now, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, when we were in a permanent crisis mode and the Beast was literally insatiable, the SVTC paid for itself almost daily.

  As I mulled over all of this, I could see Director Tenet enter, and then just as quickly depart the headquarters screen. The director, the SVTC technician assured us, would be back with us presently. I had the distinct impression, however, that Tenet did not want to participate in this particular confab, and as General Franks grew restless, I could begin to see why. Speaking to no one in particular, the general launched off on a sort of monologue.

  “Don’t exactly know why I’m here,” he began in a flat Texas drawl. “The Secretary said I should come up with a plan. I came up with a plan. Thought it was a pretty good plan. Briefed it to the President three days ago. The President liked it. Then this morning, the Chairman comes to me, and he says, ‘Forget your plan. Right now the only plan is George Tenet’s plan.’ Says I have to see George Tenet to find out what the plan is.”

  This was my first real exposure to General Franks. He was tall and lanky, with a gray buzz cut, an angular face, and canny, intelligent eyes that crinkled at the corners. He was delivering this little speech in a wry, laconic tone. He didn’t seem all that angry, but it didn’t take a genius to see he was not pleased. This was clearly someone who liked to hide behind a folksy, self-deprecating manner—at least with people he couldn’t control. Thankfully, I fell in that category. My initial impression, confirmed later on, was that while this might be someone who was easy to underestimate, underestimating him would be a big mistake.

  “ ’Course, what do I know?” he continued. “It just seems to me like one of the things we learned in Vietnam was that if you have civilians micromanaging your bombing campaign, that’s a big mistake. That’s what we had in Vietnam. Didn’t seem to me like it turned out too well.” The general seemed to stop himself for a moment. I got the impression the phrase “civilian control of the military” might have popped into his head. “ ’Course,” he added, “it’s fine for them to set out the big picture, the big strategy. But when they start tellin’ us, ‘You gotta put a bomb on the corner of Doo-Wa-Diddy Street,’ it just seems to me like that’s goin’ too far.”

  Suddenly, George appeared back in the conference room, where the general no doubt could see him on the screen. His voice trailed away: “ ’Course, what the hell did I know? I was just some dumb grunt standin’ in a rice paddy somewhere.”

  Tenet started off in an energetic, upbeat manner. “General,” he said. “I want to introduce you to my station chief in Islamabad.” That formality out of the way, he continued, “As you know, we’ve had some discussions here at the Principals’ level, and have agreed on a conceptual way forward in Afghanistan. At the suggestion of the Chairman and the Secretary, I wanted to walk you through our thinking, to ensure we’re all working from the same sheet as you put together your battle plan. Bob was instrumental in putting these thoughts together, and so I think it would be best for him to lay it out for you.”

  General Franks generously allowed as that would be all right. Shortly after I started in, George excused himself, never to reappear. I’m sure he was busy, but his actions spoke volumes: as far as he was concerned, the decision regarding the plan had been made; he saw no reason to waste time convincing General Franks to follow the orders he had already received from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and JCS chairman General Henry Shelton. Franks was doubtless going to be testy about receiving “guidance” from CIA, and I think George was just as happy to let me face the music on my own. I was faintly amused by all this; it was the boss’s prerogative, after all, and I saw no problem in dealing with the general. I was not subject to his command, and that made all the difference.

  In the event, our discussion went very well. General Franks strongly shared the view that Afghans should be in the lead in ground combat, with U.S. forces—especially air forces—in support. He felt that the target sequencing we laid out, focusing initially on “political” targets, also made perfect sense, and could be fully accommodated in the context of the forces and rules of engagement he was going to employ. I acknowledged that although we would want to hold off from immediately striking deployed Taliban units to the extent possible at the outset of hostilities, I also understood that it would be necessary under U.S. military doctrine to attack Taliban air defenses in the first wave, so as to eliminate threats to U.S. aircraft. I reassured the general that we were not recommending that even low-level elements in the Taliban get a pass for long. If we couldn’t get traction, in George Tenet’s phrase, in generating fissures within the Taliban leadership very quickly, indeed in a matter of days, U.S. forces would have carte blanche to hit any legitimate military targets that could be identified.

  All in all, General Franks seemed pleased. We were providing him with the “what”—the intent—of the strategy, and leaving the “how” to him—with just one exception. We spent some time discussing the psychology of the Taliban, and I stressed the importance, particularly in the early stages of the air campaign, of striking our political targets with overwhelming force, as an object lesson to others not yet on the target list. However devastating our initial attacks, I said, they were unlikely to be as bad as the Taliban leader
ship imagined. I could see the general straighten up in apparent umbrage at that, but at first he said nothing. Briefly reviewing some of the high-profile political targets we had recommended for strikes at the very outset of the campaign—to include bin Laden’s primary residence compound at the Tarnak Qila, just southeast of Kandahar; the main al-Qa’ida training center at Garmabak; and Mullah Omar’s residential compound just to the west of the Taliban capital—I underscored the importance of reinforcing, not alleviating, the fear which currently was our greatest ally.

  “If we give them reason to believe they can withstand the air campaign,” I said, “they will quickly conclude that they can outlast, and ultimately defeat us, just like they did the Soviets.” Any of the sequential political targets we hit, I stressed, must be destroyed utterly—and that went especially for Mullah Omar’s compound.

  This brought General Franks into full cry: “It’ll be a smokin’ hole!” he howled.

  Chapter 11

  * * *

  PERFIDIOUS ALBION

  SEPTEMBER 30, 2001

  I AM AN ANGLOPHILE,” my cable began. In fact, I had been an admirer of the British since boyhood, and my inclination in that direction had only been strengthened by my CIA experience. Winston Churchill once described the United States as “an imperial power—in the best sense of the word: That is, they define their interests broadly.” At the time, he saw the United States as a junior partner in the business of global dominion. Now, clearly, the situation is reversed. Although their power and their place in the world have vastly shrunk, to me the British remain admirable in part because they continue to see their interests in broad, “imperial” terms. Practically alone among our allies, they are willing to take on responsibility in the world, and not merely to pursue their interests as narrowly defined. I believe it is this common view of our responsibilities, even more than our shared history and heritage, which stands at the center of the “special relationship,” and which is responsible for the extraordinarily close ties between CIA and the British.