306 six-month review: Mark Mazzetti and William Glaberson, “Obama issues directive to shut down Guantánamo,” New York Times, January 21, 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/22/U.S./
politics/22gitmo.html.
307 Sixty had already been cleared for release: Richard Lister, “What next for Guantánamo inmates?” BBC News, January 23, 2009, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7846203.stm; “flown to the island nation of Bermuda”: Erik Eckholm, “Out of Guantánamo, Uighurs bask in Bermuda,” New York Times, June 14, 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/15
/world/americas/15uighur.html.
307 some one hundred Yemenis: Adam Levine, “U.S. may hand over Yemeni detainees at Gitmo to Saudis,” CNN.com, March 13, 2009, http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/03/13/
Guantánamo.saudis.yemen/index.html.
307 two jailbreaks: Ahmed Al-Haj, “U.S., Yemenis meet about Guantánamo detainees,” ABC News/Associated Press, July 3, 2008. http://abcnews.go.com/International/
wireStory?id=5301764.
307 released in November 2007: Robert Worth, “Freed by the U.S., Saudi becomes al Qaeda chief,” New York Times, January 22, 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/23/world/middleeast
/23yemen.html.
307 became the deputy leader: Worth op. cit.
307 chart his changing character: Rajiv Chandrasekaran, “From captive to suicide bomber,” Washington Post, February 22, 2009. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/
2009/02/21/AR2009022101234.html.
307 “hostile, hardened individual”: Chandrasekaran op. cit.
307 Pentagon fact sheet: The list, entitled “Former Guantánamo Detainee Terrorism Trends,” is available from http://abcnews.go.com/images/Politics/
Guantánamo_recidivism_list_090526.pdf as of January 6, 2010.
308 “One in seven”: Dick Cheney, Washington, D.C., May 21, 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/07/
opinion/07pubed.html
308 the true rate: Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann, “Who really returned to the battlefield?” New America Foundation, July 20, 2009. http://counterterrorism.
newamerica.net/publications/
policy/Guantánamo_who_really_
returned_battlefield.
308 some fifty: Peter Finn, “Justice task force recommends about 50 Guantánamo detainees be held indefinitely,” Washington Post, January 22, 2010.
308 Obama backed away: Jane Mayer, “The trial,” New Yorker, February 15, 2010.
308 ended in 2003: Michael V. Hayden, hearing of the House of Representatives Select Committee on Intelligence, “Worldwide threats,” February 7, 2008, Washington, D.C.
308 dramatically increased: Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann, The New America Foundation, “The Year of the Drone,” February 24, 2010, www.newamerica.net/drones.
Chapter 19
309 “The Taliban regime”: Agence France Presse, “Cheney declares death of Taliban as alliance mops up in Afghanistan,” March 13, 2002.
309 “[The Taliban] have a”: Admiral Mike Mullen, House of Representatives, Hearing of the Foreign Affairs Committee, “U.S. strategy in Afghanistan,” Washington, D.C., December 2, 2009.
309 “central front”: Barack Obama, Remarks to State Department Employees, Washington, D.C., January 22, 2009.
309 Obama announced: Obama 2009 op. cit.
310 Just as Holbrooke: Richard Oppel, “Obama’s special envoy arrives in Afghanistan,” New York Times, February 12, 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/13/world/
asia/13afghan.html?emc=eta1.
310 threat assessment map: Afghan National Security Forces/United Nations maps, April 2009, described in Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann, “More troops needed for Afghan war,” CNN.com, August 4, 2009. http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/08/04/
bergen.afghanistan/index.html.
310 “take over in one hour”: Author interview with former senior Afghan cabinet member, September 2006, Kabul.
310 U.S. military slide: Afghanistan: Security Incidents CENTCOM slide as of October 4, 2009. Author collection.
310 “inner shura”: Maj. Gen. Michael Flynn, ISAF briefing slides December 2009, Peter Bergen, “U.S. intelligence briefing: Taliban increasingly effective,” CNN.com, January 25, 2010. http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/01/25/
afghanistan.taliban/index.html.
311 “going around and around in circles”: Dinner participant, interview by author; “this dinner is over”: Dexter Filkins, “Former favorite, Karzai slips in U.S. eyes,” New York Times, February 8, 2009.
311 “ten different answers”: Tony Blinken, interview by author, Washington, D.C., December 18, 2009.
311 had helped to pull Pakistan and India back: Bruce Riedel, “American diplomacy and the 1999 Kargil Summit at Blair House,” Center for the Advanced Study of India, 2002.
311 “Hi, Bruce, it’s Barack”: Bruce Riedel, interview by author, Washington, D.C., November 23, 2009.
312 “closely linked; not a monolith”: Bruce Riedel interview op. cit.
312 Pashtun ethic group: 42 percent of Afghans are Pashtun. CIA World Factbook, Afghanistan, 2009. https://www.cia.gov/library/p
ublications/the-world-factbook
/geos/af.html.
312 “not going to recruit”: Riedel interview op. cit.
313 Afghan army and police: Stephen Hadley, “How Obama’s surge in Afghanistan can stabilize the region,” Washington Post, December 11, 2009; 10,000: Riedel interview op. cit.; 12,000: Blinken op. cit. and Douglas Lute, interview by author, January 8, 2010, Washington, D.C.
313 strong outlier: Riedel interview.
313 “killer argument against”: Riedel interview.
313 “does not want to be the Hubert Humphrey”: Riedel interview.
313 twenty-five thousand Taliban full-time fighters, “quadrupled in size”: Adam Entous, “Taliban growth weighs on Obama strategy review,” Reuters, October 9, 2009. http://uk.reuters.com/article/
idUKN09496447.
314 every four days: This section draws on Peter Bergen, “Winning the good war,” Washington Monthly, July/August 2009, http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/
2009/0907.bergen.html.
314 holding pattern: Riedel interview.
314 21,000 more: Richard Wolf, “Obama: Afghanistan a ‘joint problem,’” USA Today, April 3, 2009. http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/
2009-04-03-obama-town-
hall-meeting_N.htm.
314 “I want to see the impact”: Senior U.S. national security official, interview by author, Washington, D.C.
314 “There’s no guarantee”: Riedel interview op. cit.
315 Recommendation number one: White House, “White Paper of the Interagency Policy Group’s Report on U.S. Policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan,” March 27, 2009. http://www.whitehouse.gov/assets/
documents/afghanistan_
pakistan_white_paper_final.pdf.
315 some additional four thousand trainers: Ann Scott Tyson, “Military wants more troops for Afghan war,” Washington Post, April 2, 2009. http://www.washington-post.com/wp-dyn/content/
article/2009/04/01/AR2009040102652.html.
315 voted against: Perry Bacon Jr., “House passes war funds as 51 Democrats dissent,” Washington Post, May 15, 2009, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/
2009/05/14/AR2009051403480.html.
315 move to turn off the money spigot: “U.S. House committee approves Iraq, Afghanistan war funding,” Voice of America, May 7, 2009, http://www.voanews.com/english/
2009-05-07-voa49.cfm.
315 the war was a mistake: Tom Vanden Brook, “Poll: more view Afghan war as a mistake,” USA Today, March 16, 2009, http://www.usatoday.com/news
/world/2009-03-16-poll_N.htm.
315 57 percent: CNN Opinion Research Poll, August 28–31, 2009. http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn
/2009/images/09/01/rel12a.pdf.
315 a cover story: Evan Thomas and John Barry, “Obama�
�s Vietnam,” Newsweek, February 9, 2009, http://www.newsweek.com/id/182650
315 “Fearing another Quagmire”: Helene Cooper, “Fearing another quagmire in Afghanistan,” New York Times, January 24, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/weekinreview
/25cooper.html; “isn’t worth fighting”: Rory Stewart, “The good war isn’t worth fighting,” New York Times, November 22, 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/23/
opinion/23stewart.html.
316 have won military victories: Peter Bergen, “Graveyard myths,” New York Times, March 28, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/28/
opinion/28bergen.html.
316 2005 poll by ABC/BBC: ABC News Poll: Life in Afghanistan, December 7, 2005, http://abcnews.go.com/images/Politics/
998a1Afghanistan.pdf.
316 less than one in five Iraqis: ABC News Poll: Iraq—Where Things Stand, December 12, 2005, http://abcnews.go.com/images/Politics/
1000a1IraqWhereThingsStand.pdf.
316 same poll taken in Afghanistan in 2009: ABC/BBC Poll: Life in Afghanistan, February 9, 2009, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/05_02_09
afghan_poll_2009.pdf.
316 continued to approve: 62 percent of Afghans surveyed in December 2009 supported the presence of NATO forces in Afghanistan. ABC/BBC Poll: Life in Afghanistan, December 11-23, 2009, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/
11_01_10_afghanpoll.pdf.
316 In 2008 more than two thousand Afghan civilians died: United Nations, “Number of Afghan civilian deaths in 2008 highest since Taliban ouster, says UN,” February 17, 2009, http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=29918&
Cr=Afghan&Cr1=civilian+rights;
316 less than a fourth: According to the Iraq Body Count database, more than 9,200 civilians were killed in 2008 in Iraq. http://www.iraqbodycount
.org/database/.
316 more than three thousand civilians were dying every month: Iraq Body Count database, between July 2006 and July 2007, http://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/.
317 closed the U.S. Embassy: The Embassy was closed on January 30, 1989. Embassy of the United States—Kabul, Afghanistan, “About the Embassy.” http://kabul. usembassy.gov/
about_the_embassy.html.
317 zeroed out aid: Roy Gutman, How We Missed the Story: Osama bin Laden, the Taliban, and the Hijacking of Afghanistan (Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2008), p. 55.
317 puny size of the Afghan Army: Ann Scott Tyson, “More recruits, U.S. arms planned for Afghan military,” Washington Post, December 5, 2007, http://www.washingtonpost.com
/wp-dyn/content/article
/2007/12/04/AR2007120402086.html.
318 “It was a very close-hold”: David Petraeus interview with author, Washington, D.C., December 18, 20009.
318 was retiring on May 11: Ann Scott Tyson, “Top U.S. commander in Afghanistan is fired,” Washington Post, May 12, 2009, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/
2009/05/11/AR2009051101864_pf.html.
318 “the bottom fell out”: Riedel interview.
318 “if we’d said no?”: Stephen Biddle, interview by author, November 9, 2009, Washington, D.C.
319 “what shocked me”: Andrew Exum, interview by author, Washington, D.C., December 9, 2009.
319 “centrality of Kandahar”: Fred Kagan, interview by author, Washington, D.C., November 17, 2009.
319 “discover that the Taliban controlled Kandahar”: Fred Kagan, interview by author.
319 where ten thousand Marines: Richard Oppel, “U.S. Marines try to retake Afghan valley from Taliban,” New York Times, July 1, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/02/
world/asia/02afghan.html.
319 “ten thousand fucking Marines”: White House official, interview by author.
320 had already signed off: David Kilcullen, interview by author, Washington, D.C., January 19, 2010.
320 Nearly 60 percent: Bergen and Tiedemann, July 2009, op. cit.
320 “on their arse, literally”: senior U.S. Marine officer, interview by author, September 10, 2009, Helmand, Afghanistan.
320 During the summer of 2009: Author observations, Nawa, Helmand, Afghanistan, summer of 2009.
320 80 percent of the U.S. casualties in Helmand: Michael Flynn, ISAF intelligence briefing, cited in Peter Bergen, “U.S. intelligence briefing: Taliban increasingly effective,” CNN.com, January 25, 2010.
320 The assessment: COMISAF’s Initial Assessment, Memo from Gen. Stanley McChrystal to Robert Gates, August 30, 2009, obtained by the Washington Post, September 21, 2009, http://www.washingtonpost.com/
wp-dyn/content/article/
2009/09/21/AR2009092100110.html.
321 “McChrystal: More Forces or ‘Mission Failure’”: Bob Woodward, “McChrystal: More Forces or ‘Mission Failure,” Washington Post, September 21, 2009. http://www.washingtonpost.com
/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/
09/20/AR200 9092002920.html.
321 multiple and credible: Sabrina Tavernise and Abdul Waheed Wafa, “U.N. Official Acknowledges ‘Widespread Fraud’ in Afghan Election,” New York Times, October 11, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/12/world/
asia/12afghan.html.
321 “supposing no one gets fifty percent”: Richard Holbrooke, interview by author, February 3, 2010, Washington, D.C.
321 almost a quarter: “Audit finds almost a quarter of Afghan vote is fraudulent,” New York Times, October 20, 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/
interactive/2009/10/20/world/
asia/1020-afghan-recount-analysis.html.
321 first meeting of his war cabinet: Sunlen Miller, “A Look at the President’s Meetings on Afghanistan and Pakistan,” ABC News, November 10, 2009, http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/
2009/11/a-look-at-the-presidents-meetings-on-afghanistan
-and-pakistan.html
322 eight years ago to the day: See chapter 4 for an account of that meeting.
322 “exploded like a piñata”: senior administration official, interview by author.
322 “resourcing is thirty to one: senior administration official, interview by author.
322 long pushed for legislation: Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act, Fact Sheet: Biden-Lugar Pakistan Legislation, July 15, 2008, http://lugar.senate.gov/record.
cfm?id=300696.
323 On October 1: Sunlen op. cit.; gave a speech: Gen. Stanley McChrystal, Address, International Institute for Strategic Studies, London, UK, October 1, 2009, www.iiss.org/EasySiteWeb/GatewayLink.
aspx?alId=31537.
323 third Afghan review meeting: Sunlen op. cit; “sounds kind of reasonable”: Participant, interview by author, Washington, D.C.
323 There was another: Sunlen op. cit.; “throwaways”: senior military officer, interview by author.
324 “we’ll know if this is working”: White House official, interview by author, Washington, D.C.
324 “Where are those fuckers?”: White House official, interview by author, Washington, D.C.
324 $55 billion: Amy Belasco, “The cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and other global war on terror operations since 9/11,” Congressional Research Service, September 28, 2009, Table 1; “saying versions of”: White House official, interview by author, Washington, D.C.; could ill afford: White House official, interview by author.
324 only two of its 105 units: Government Accountability Office, “Afghanistan Security: Further Congressional action may be needed to ensure completion of a detailed plan to develop and sustain capable Afghan National Security Forces,” June 2008.
325 “There was a whole debate”: White House official, interview by author.
325 “a bit of a rush job”: National security official, interview by author.
325 “political capital was included”: political appointee, interview by author.
325 “There was a point”: national security official, interview by author.
325 “not in the cards”: national security offic
ial, interview by author, Washington, D.C.
326 “Several folks argued”: White House official, interview by author.
326 “bitten off more than we needed to chew”: White House official, interview by author.
326 “OK, here’s what I’ve taken”: White House official, interview by author.
326 “stop dithering”: Dick Cheney, Center for Security Policy, October 22, 2009, Washington, D.C. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/
feedarticle/8767329.
326 fifty-nine had died: ICasualties.org, Fatalities by year and month, U.S., Operation Enduring Freedom. http://www.icasualties.org/
OEF/ByMonth.aspx.
326 visited Dover Air Force Base; 18 American servicemen: Jeff Zeleny, “Obama visits air base to honor returning dead,” New York Times, October 29, 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/30/U.S./
30obama.html.
326 president was silent: Kenneth T. Walsh, “Critics say Obama lacks emotion,” U.S. News and World Report, December 24, 2009.
327 “He admitted”: National security official, interview by author.
327 “Option 2A”: Peter Baker, “How Obama came to plan for ‘surge’ in Afghanistan,” New York Times, December 5, 2009.
327 “I don’t know how”: Anne Kornblut, Scott Wilson, Karen DeYoung, “Obama pressed for faster surge,” Washington Post, December 6, 2009.
327 “Wait a second, Stan”: interview by author, White House official.
327 came up with a compromise: interview by author, White House official.
327 “Obama, at the end of the day”: National security official, interview by author.
328 49 percent of the vote: Afghanistan Independent Elections Commission, Final Certified Presidential Results, October 21, 2009, http://www.iec.org.af/results/
leadingCandidate.html.
328 Karzai refused to do this: John Kerry, interview by author, Washington, D.C., December 7, 2009.
328 “it would turn him”: Holbrooke interview.
328 “I think we were able”: Kerry interview.
328 standing down on November 1: BBC News, “Abdullah pulls out of Afghan vote,” November 1, 2009. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi
/south_asia/8336388.stm.
328 “not an adequate strategic partner”: Gen. Karl Eikenberry, “COIN strategy: civilian concerns,” November 6, 2009, published by the New York Times, http://documents.nytimes.com/eikenberry-s-memos-on-the-
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