56 better than one in ten: 9/11 Commission Report, op. cit., p. 336.
56 military options for Iraq: Feith op. cit., p. 218. Also on September 17, Bush sent a 12 page memorandum to the CIA Director authorizing him to detain terrorists and set up a secret detention program for them outside the United States. United Nations Human Rights Council, “Joint study on global practices in relation to secret detention in the context of countering terrorism of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism.” January 26, 2010, p. 51. http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/
docs/13session/A-HRC-13-42.doc.
57 “I want bin Laden’s head”: Schroen op. cit., p. 38.
57 eighty million Americans: Stanley A. Reshon, “Presidential Address,” Political Psychology, 2005, p. 592.
57 “a lengthy campaign”: George W. Bush, Address to a Joint Session of Congress, Washington, D.C., September 20, 2001, http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/
news/releases/2001/09/20010920-8.html. For a good account of the writing of the speech see Bob Woodward and Dan Balz, “A Presidency Defined in One Speech,” Washington Post, February 1, 2002.
57 “They hate our freedoms”: George W. Bush, Address to a Joint Session of Congress, September 20, 2001, Washington, D.C. http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/
news/releases/2001/09/20010920-8.html.
57 largely silent about American freedoms: In a review of 24 authentic statements made by bin Laden from 1994 to 2004, 72% of the content of the speeches referred to supposed Western or Jewish aggression against or exploitation of Muslims, while only 1% criticized the American way of life or culture, James L. Payne, Independent Review 2008: http://www.independent.org/publications/
tir/article.asp?a=689.
58 What went unsaid: While the United States imports much of its energy from Mexico, Canada, and Venezuela, it is the Gulf countries’ enormous oil reserves that allows them to set prices in the world’s oil market.
58 “The first, the supreme”: Carl von Clausewitz, On War (1832).
59 Authorization of the Use of Military Force: U.S. Congress. House of Representatives and Senate. Authorization of the use of Military Force. 107th Congress, 1st session. S.J. Res. 23. Washington, GPO: 2001.
59 “combat by all means”: United Nations, Security Council, SECURITY COUNCIL CONDEMNS, ‘IN STRONGEST TERMS’, TERRORIST ATTACKS ON UNITED STATES, Unanimously Adopting Resolution 1368 (2001), Council Calls on All States to Bring Perpetrators to Justice. September 12, 2001. http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/
2001/SC7143.doc.htm.
59 invoked Article 5: Toby Harden et al, “Nato: massacre an attack on all members,” Telegraph (UK), September 13, 2001. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/world news/1340439/
Nato-massacre-an-attack-on-all-members.html.
59 massive American airpower: Woodward op. cit. 2002; some three hundred U.S. Special Forces soldiers: Hank Crumpton, speech at Center for Strategic and International Studies, January 14, 2008. http://csis.org/files/media/csis/
press/080114_smart_crumpton.pdf.
59 on the afternoon of September 26: Schroen op. cit., p. 78; Gary Schroen, PBS Frontline, “The Dark Side,” January 20, 2006. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/
darkside/interviews/schroen.html
59 surprise appearance: Osama bin Laden, “Statement,” October 7, 2001. Aired on Al Jazeera.
60 linked up with: Schroen op. cit., p. 194.
60 “death ray”: PBS Frontline, “Campaign Against Terror,” May 7, 2002. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/
campaign/interviews/595.html.
60 But the American press: R. W. Apple., Jr. “A military quagmire remembered: Afghanistan as Vietnam,” New York Times, October 31, 2001.
60 “figured they were going to beat us”: Gary Berntsen, interview by author, October 27, 2009, Washington, D.C.
60 “The more the merrier”: Gary Berntsen, interview.
61 A couple of weeks: Osama bin Laden (Lawrence) op. cit., p. 106; Transcript of bin Laden’s October [2002] interview with Al Jazeera’s Taysir Allouni, translated by CNN, February 5, 2002. http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/
south/02/05/binladen.transcript/index.html.
61 “America claims”: For reasons that Al Jazeera has never convincingly elucidated, the network did not air this interview for a year. At one point Al Jazeera explained that the decision not to broadcast the interview was because it wasn’t newsworthy, an explanation which was, to put it politely, ludicrous. If bin Laden had simply read from the phone book during the interview it would have still been news, as this was bin Laden’s only post-9/11 television interview. In fact, the Al Jazeera interview was both wide-ranging and newsworthy; which only came to light three months later when CNN broadcast the interview without Al Jazeera’s permission.
61 “We practice the good terrorism”: Allouni, op. cit.
61 “did not intend to kill”: Allouni op. cit.
61 summoned to Kabul in early November 2001 to treat Mohammed Atef: Bootie Cosgrove-Mather, “Osama’s doc says he was healthy,” Associated Press, November 27, 2002. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/
2002/11/27/attack/main531070.shtml.
61 “I didn’t see anything abnormal”: author interview with Ahmed Zaidan, Islamabad, Pakistan, July 2004.
61 “good health”: Bakr Atyani, phone interview, Islamabad, Pakistan, August 22, 2005.
61 “were just lined”: Bobby, SGT 1st Class, PBS Frontline, “Campaign Against Terror” http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/
shows/campaign/interviews/534.html.
62 “The people were overjoyed”: Peter Jouvenal, interview London, UK, August 23, 2005. p. 323 in Bergen 2006.
62 A few days later: Atef was killed sometime between November 14 and November 16, 2001. GlobalSecurity.org, http://www.globalsecurity.org/
security/profiles/mohammed_atef.htm.
62 married his son Muhammad to Atef’s daughter: Daniel Klaidman, “Bin Laden’s poetry of terror,” Newsweek, March 26, 2001.
62 a blow to the organization: Feroz Ali Abbasi, Guantánamo Bay Prison Memoirs, 2002–2004; worked around the clock: Author interview with U.S. intelligence officials, Washington, D.C., June 6, 2003.
62 “sow some dissension”: Robert Grenier, interview by author, Washington, D.C., February 19, 2010.
62 October 2: Tenet op. cit., pp. 182–183, and interview with Robert Grenier in Washington, D.C. February 19, 2009.
63 a number of Afghanistan’s monarchs: Karzai comes from the same tribe, the Popalzai, as the former Afghan king, Mohammad Zahir Shah. BBC, “Hamid Karzai: shrewd statesman,” June 14, 2002. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/
2043606.stm.
63 a bitter enemy: “Hamid Karzai: a profile,” September 21, 2006. CBC, http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/
afghanistan/karzai.html.
63 “Those people”: Grenier interview.
63 over the Afghan border: Hamid Karzai, PBS Frontline, “Campaign Against Terror,” May 7, 2002. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/
campaign/interviews/karzai.html.
63 “Tell your people to light fires”: Hamid Karzai, interview by PBS Frontline, “Campaign Against Terror,” May 7, 2002.
63 food and weapons: Tenet op. cit., p. 219.
63 returned to Afghanistan: Tenet op. cit., p. 220.
64 “We were going to build”: Jason Amerine, New America Foundation, Washington, D.C., January 19, 2010.
64 containing up to 500 Taliban: U.S. Army, “The U.S. Army in Afghanistan, Operation Enduring Freedom: October 2001–March 2002,” CMH Pub 70-83-1.
64 excused himself: Jason Amerine, PBS Frontline, “Campaign Against Terror.” http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/
campaign/ground/tarinkowt.html.
64 “The intense bombardment”: Vahid Mojdeh, Afghanistan Under Five Years of Taliban Sovereignty
, translated by Sepideh Khalili and Saeed Gangi (Kabul, 2001).
64 “The Taliban are coming”: Amerine, New America Foundation, op. cit. and Jason Amerine, PBS Frontline, “Campaign Against Terror.”
65 “Karzai was the lynchpin”: Hank Crumpton, interview by author, November 6, 2009, Washington, D.C.
65 the fall of Kabul: For example, see Tony Karon, “What they’re saying about the fall of Kabul,” TIME, November 16, 2001. http://www.time.com/time/nation/
article/0.8599,184766.00.html.
65 gathering the large force: Jason Amerine, PBS Frontline, “Campaign Against Terror.” http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/
campaign/ground/tarinkowt.html.
65 James Dobbins: James Dobbins, After the Taliban: Nation Building in Afghanistan (Dulles, VA: Potomac Books, Inc, 2008) pp. 2–4; Dobbins op. cit., pp. 49–51.
66 various Afghan factions: Karzai op. cit.
66 Iranian officials: Ahmed Rashid, Descent into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia (New York: Viking Adult, 2008), p. 104.
66 “this was before the Bush administration”: James Dobbins, interview by author, Washington, D.C., November 6, 2009.
66 satellite phone: Rashid op. cit., p. 95.
66 “I wasn’t aware of the significance of it”: Karzai op. cit. Shut out of the Bonn conference were any representatives of the Taliban. This would have serious long term consequences for Afghanistan: “In effect, they are a political party. But they’re a political party that Bonn shut out, so no wonder they formed an insurgency,” pointed out a senior American official involved in Afghan policy.
66 urge him to start moving: David Fox, PBS Frontline, “Campaign Against Terror,” 2002; http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/
pages/frontline/shows/
campaign/interviews/fox.html.
67 fallen 2 kilometers short: “Bodies of two Green Berets arrive in Germany,” CNN.com, December 6, 2001. http://archives.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/central/
12/06/ret.bombing.casualties/index.html
67 recalls saying “OK”: Karzai, op. cit. and Eric Blehm, The Only Thing Worth Dying For (Harper: New York, 2010), p. 297.
67 more than two hundred vehicles: Christopher Buchanan, “Reporter’s Notebook: the Karzai Interview,” PBS “Campaign Against Terror,” May 7, 2002. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/
frontline/shows/campaign/etc/notebook.html.
Chapter 5
68 “So let me be a martyr”: Osama bin Laden (Lawrence) op. cit., page xxiii.
68 Jalalabad: Bergen, 2004, and author visits to the Jalalabad compound between 2003 and 2006.
69 more than six months to build: interview by author with Hutaifa Azzam, Amman, Jordan, September 13, 2005.
69 From bin Laden’s house: Author observations, Tora Bora, January 2005.
69 “I really feel secure”: Abdel Bari Atwan, interview by author, London, UK, June 2005.
69 “My brothers and I”: Omar bin Laden, Najwa bin Laden, Jean Sasson, Growing Up Bin Laden (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2009), p. 73.
70 chief bodyguard: Ali Soufan, FBI special agent, interview with author, Manhattan, New York, December 17, 2009.
70 during the month of Ramadan: “Moroccan security source views danger of Moroccans released from Guantánamo,” Al Sharq al Awsat, August 20, 2004.
70 Around the same time: Tim Weiner, “Bin Laden reported spotted in fortified camp in Afghan east,” New York Times, November 25, 2001.
70 Berntsen had arrived in Kabul: Gary Berntsen, interview by author, Washington, D.C., October, 27, 2009.
70 arrived uneventfully in Jalalabad: Gary Berntsen, email to author, November 24, 2009.
70 “We spent five weeks”: Faiza Saleh Ambah, “Out of Guantánamo and Bitter Toward Bin Laden,” Washington Post, March 24, 2008.
70 decided to split into two groups of four: interview with Berntsen.
71 an elaborate graphic: “Bin Laden’s Mountain Fortress,” The Times of London, November 29, 2001. Available at http://www.edwardjayepstein.com/
nether_fictoid3.htm.
71 even the larger ones: author observations Tora Bora, January 2005.
71 Shortly after 9/11: Dalton Fury, Kill Bin Laden: A Delta Force Commander’s Account of the Hunt for the World’s Most Wanted Man (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2008), page xvi and page 92.
71 There Khan was introduced to: Interview by author with Dalton Fury, telephone, December 19, 2008.
71 the small American and allied force: Fury op. cit., p. xx, and email from Fury to author, December 8, 2009.
72 1,110 precision-guided: Fury, op. cit., p. 289.
72 Muhammad Musa: Muhammad Musa, interview by author, Jalalabad, Afghanistan, June, 2003.
72 briefed Bush and Cheney: Ron Suskind, The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America’s Pursuit of its Enemies since 9/11 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007), p. 58; Crumpton interview.
72 Tenet remembers: George Tenet, At the Center of the Storm (New York: Harper Collins, 2007), p. 227.
73 By the evening of December 3: Gary Berntsen and Ralph Pezzullo, Jawbreaker: The attack on bin Laden and al-Qaeda: A personal account by the CIA’s key field commander (New York Crown, 2005), p. 299, and author interview with Gary Berntsen, October 27, 2009, Washington, D.C.
73 “I remember the message”: Author interview with Hank Crumpton, Washington, D.C., November 6, 2009.
73 General Franks explained his reasoning: Email to author from General Tommy Franks, November, 24 2009.
74 Franks also said: General Franks told PBS’ Frontline: “I think it was a pretty good determination, to provide support to that operation, and to work with the Pakistanis along the Pakistani border to bring it to conclusion.” “Campaign Against Terror,” June 12, 2002 http://www.pbs.org/
wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/
campaign/interviews/franks.html.
74 Fury recommended: Fury op cit., p. 76.
74 al-Qaeda would not expect an attack: Interview by author with Dalton Fury, telephone, December 19, 2008.
74 “for this most important mission”: Fury op. cit., p. 209.
74 a motley crew: Jane Corbin, Al-Qaeda: In Search of the Terror Network that Threatens the World (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003), p. 296; author observations; “Hajji Zahir”: Mary Anne Weaver, “Lost at Tora Bora,” New York Times Magazine, September 11, 2005; U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, “Tora Bora revisited,” p. 11. Philip Smucker, “How bin Laden got away; A day-by-day account of how Osama bin Laden eluded the world’s most powerful military machine,” Christian Science Monitor, March 4, 2002. And see also the account in U.S. Special Operations Command History (6th edition, 2008) p. 97. http://www.socom.mil/SOCOMHome/
Documents/history6thedition.pdf.
74 direct laser beams: Fury op. cit., p. 76.
74 “the latest intelligence”: U.S. Special Operations Command History, op. cit., p. 98.
74 locals were reluctant to give: from U.S. official on ground at Tora Bora, interview by author.
75 flying pennants: Author observations, Tora Bora, summer 2003.
75 The al-Qaeda leader sat: “In the Footsteps of bin Laden,” CNN documentary, August 23, 2006. http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/
presents/bin.laden/.
75 would have had additional resonance: Lacey op. cit., p. 322. Lacey explains that the story of the Battle of Badr is still cherished by Saudis today.
75 snow was falling steadily: weather observations from a personal log kept by a Delta operator on the ground at Tora Bora. Email to author August 6, 2009.
75 seven hundred thousand pounds of ordnance: Tenet op. cit., p. 226.
75 Abu Jaafar al-Kuwaiti recalled: The statement was posted to Al Neda, al-Qaeda’s Web site at the time, on September 11, 2002.
75 “I was out of medicine”: Andrew Selsky, “Yemeni says bin Laden was at Tora Bora” Associated Press, September 7, 2007.
75 “day and ni
ght”: Osama bin Laden, “Message to our Brothers in Iraq,” Al Jazeera, February 11, 2003 (translated by ABC News).
75 a U.S. bomber dropped: Fury op. cit., p. 149.
76 Berntsen remembers: author interview, Gary Berntsen Washington, D.C., October, 27, 2009.
76 “were awakened”: The statement was posted to Al Neda, al-Qaeda’s Web site at the time, on September 11, 2002.
76 bin Laden had dreamed about a scorpion: “Global Islamic Media Front publishes profile of usama bin Ladin’s personal habits,” September 21, 2007. OSC Summary of Jihadist Websites, October 17, 2007, accessed via World News Connection, Dialog File Number 985 Accession Number 251901321.
76 intercept from Tora Bora: Fury op. cit., p 173.
76 Afghan soldiers said: U.S. Special Operations Command History op. cit., p. 99.
76 Later that evening: Fury op. cit., p. 175, and Fury telephone interview with author on December 8, 2008.
76 a ferocious firefight: Fury op. cit., p. 175.
76 made the decision to bail: Dalton Fury, 60 Minutes, October 5, 2008. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/10/02/
60minutes/main4494937.shtml and interview by author, December 18, 2008.
77 “They talked on the radio”: Muhammad Musa, interview by author, Jalalabad, Afghanistan, June, 2003.
77 Strung out on a ridge: Email from Dalton Fury, December 10, 2009.
77 “Essentially I used”: Berntsen interview op. cit.
77 U.S. forces only observed: Interview by author with Dalton Fury, telephone, December 8, 2009.
77 “The time is now”: Fury email to author, December 8, 2009.
78 One member of Berntsen’s team: Berntsen interview.
78 Hubayshi remains bitter: Robert Lacey, Inside the Kingdom: Kings, Clerics, Modernists, Terrorists, and the Struggle for Saudi Arabia (New York: Viking Press, 2009), p. 253.
78 according to an interpreter: Interview by author, Tora Bora battle participant.
78 confirmed by the various American radio intercepts: Interview by author, Tora Bora battle participant.
78 especially sacred day: Koranic verses from the Night of Power chapter: “The Night of Al-Qadr is better than a thousand months.” [97:3] “The Angels and the spirit descend thereon by the leave of their Lord with every command.” [97:4].
The Longest War Page 49
