The Afghanistan Papers
Page 31
“In hindsight the worst decision was to centralize power”: European Union official interview, February 4, 2015, Lessons Learned Project, SIGAR. Name redacted by SIGAR.
“it was thought that we needed a president right away”: Senior German official interview, February 2, 2015, Lessons Learned Project, SIGAR. Name redacted by SIGAR.
“You’d think they’ve never worked overseas”: Senior U.S. official interview, October 18, 2016, Lessons Learned Project, SIGAR. Name redacted by SIGAR.
“our policy was to create a strong central government, which was idiotic”: Senior U.S. diplomat interview, July 10, 2015, Lessons Learned Project, SIGAR. Name redacted by SIGAR.
“a floating pool of tribes and warlords”: Boucher interview, SIGAR.
“they’re remote people”: Col. Terry Sellers interview, February 21, 2007, U.S. Army Center of Military History, Washington, D.C.
his unit handed out posters of Karzai: Col. David Paschal interview, July 18, 2006, Operational Leadership Experiences project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
“We did it the exact opposite in Afghanistan”: Ibid.
“The Afghans think Americans have money coming out of their butts”: Thomas Clinton interview, Combat Studies Institute.
“They have a very long history of being loyal”: Lt. Col. Todd Guggisberg interview, July 17, 2006, Operational Leadership Experiences project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
“It reminds me of a Monty Python movie”: Ibid.
CHAPTER FOUR: AFGHANISTAN BECOMES AN AFTERTHOUGHT
“We used to laugh”: Lt. Col. Mark Schmidt interview, February 10, 2009, Operational Leadership Experiences project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
“There was still a lot of combat action going on”: Col. Thomas Snukis interview, March 1, 2007, U.S. Army Center of Military History, Washington, D.C.
“Washington had probably lost a little bit of interest”: Col. Tucker Mansager interview, April 20, 2007, U.S. Army Center of Military History, Washington, D.C.
“invade only one country at a time”: Dobbins interview, SIGAR.
“If you look at the Clinton administration”: Ibid.
“The president wants to see you in Crawford”: Franks interview, Miller Center.
“So this idea of people taking their eye off the ball”: Ibid.
“the Bush administration had already concluded Afghanistan was done”: Philip Zelikow interview, July 28, 2010, George W. Bush Oral History Project, Miller Center, University of Virginia.
“nuisance bandits up in the mountains”: Finn interview, SIGAR.
“Before we left, my soldiers wanted to know”: Maj. Gregory Trahan interview, February 5, 2007, Operational Leadership Experiences project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
“that just pulled all the focus”: Maj. Phil Bergeron interview, December 8, 2010, Operational Leadership Experiences project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
“Either materially or politically, it all seemed to be about Iraq”: U.S. official interview, October 21, 2014, Lessons Learned Project, SIGAR. Name redacted by SIGAR.
“The whole effort in Afghanistan was in a bit of a sideways drift”: Lt. Gen. David Barno interview, November 21, 2006, U.S. Army Center of Military History, Washington, D.C.
he occupied a half-trailer: Ibid.
“The Army was unhelpful, to be generous”: Ibid.
“people who were kind of at the end of the pipeline”: Ibid.
“We had no U.S. military doctrine whatsoever at that point”: Ibid.
a provocative question: Donald Rumsfeld memo to Gen. Dick Myers, Paul Wolfowitz, Gen. Pete Pace and Doug Feith, October 16, 2003, the National Security Archive, George Washington University.
“it will be a long, hard slog”: Ibid.
“Given the stakes involved, we must remain committed”: Zalmay Khalilzad, “Afghanistan’s Milestone,” The Washington Post, January 6, 2004.
twenty people had teamed up to write Khalilzad’s column: Thomas Hutson interview, April 23, 2004, Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training.
“I said, ‘check with my grandson’ ”: Ibid.
“The two secretaries would kind of get nipping at each other’s shorts”: Pace interview, Miller Center.
Condoleezza Rice would have to step into the fray: Ibid.
Though the defense secretary kept it a secret: Ibid.
“When you see leadership that is divisive and caustic”: Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute interview, August 3, 2015, George W. Bush Oral History Project, Miller Center, University of Virginia.
couldn’t stand Rumsfeld at first: Franks interview, Miller Center.
“Don Rumsfeld is not the easiest guy in the world”: Ibid.
the defense secretary’s renewed interest ignited panic: Maj. Gen. Peter Gilchrist interview, January 24, 2007, U.S. Army Center of Military History, Washington, D.C.
“This was a real cultural shock for me”: Ibid.
“very contentious, painful, difficult and tribulating”: Barno interview, U.S. Army Center of Military History.
“The secretary was beating us up”: Mansager interview, U.S. Army Center of Military History.
CHAPTER FIVE: RAISING AN ARMY FROM THE ASHES
they could earn about $2.50 a day: Paul Watson, “Losing Its Few Good Men; Many of those who signed up to be trained for Afghanistan’s fledgling army have quit, saying the pay isn’t worth the risk,” Los Angeles Times, November 27, 2003.
riddled with potholes: Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry interview, November 27, 2006, Operational Leadership Experiences project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
On 9/11, he narrowly escaped death: “Pentagon 9/11,” Defense Studies Series, Historical Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense, 2007.
the hardscrabble scene reminded him of the suffering: Eikenberry interview, Combat Studies Institute.
“Everyone was having some pretty rough nights”: Ibid.
He named it Task Force Phoenix: Ibid.
“a highly professional, multi-ethnic force”: “Talking Points—Afghanistan Progress,” October 8, 2004, Office of Public Affairs, U.S. Department of Defense.
“We got the [Afghan forces] we deserve”: Lute interview, SIGAR.
the troops did a lot of talking with their hands: Master Sgt. Michael Threatt interview, September 20, 2006, Operational Leadership Experiences project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
“there’s going to be a thing there called a helicopter”: Maj. Bradd Schultz interview, August 6, 2012, Operational Leadership Experiences project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
“Tides? What are tides?”: Maj. Brian Doyle interview, March 13, 2008, Operational Leadership Experiences project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
“ludicrously modest”: Gates interview, Miller Center.
“We kept changing guys who were in charge”: Ibid.
blasted as “crazy”: Donald Rumsfeld memo to Gen. Richard Myers, January 28, 2002, the National Security Archive, George Washington University.
“We are spending a fortune every day”: Donald Rumsfeld memo to Colin Powell, April 8, 2002, the National Security Archive, George Washington University.
“naturally sympathetic”: Colin Powell memo to Donald Rumsfeld, April 16, 2002, the National Security Archive, George Washington University.
the single biggest expense: Quarterly Report to the United States Congress, October 30, 2020, SIGAR.
“The way it gets resolved”: Strmecki interview, SIGAR.
held the training program “hostage”: Khalilzad interview, SIGAR.
“Now we’re talking about God knows what”: Ibid.
“You wouldn’t invent how to do infantry operations”: Strmecki interview, SIGAR.
“Our inability to keep up”: Eikenberry interview, Combat Studies Institute
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“You’re in country and like, ‘What do we do now?’ ”: Staff Sgt. Anton Berendsen interview, February 8, 2015, Operational Leadership Experiences project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
he tripled the number of enlisted recruits: Maj. Rick Rabe interview, May 18, 2007, Operational Leadership Experiences project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
“You couldn’t fail basic training”: Ibid.
“these guys couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn”: Maj. Christopher Plummer interview, June 6, 2006, Operational Leadership Experiences project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
Afghan soldiers often wasted all their ammunition: Maj. Gerd Schroeder interview, April 20, 2007, Operational Leadership Experiences project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
“ ‘Okay, Mr. Afghan Soldier, shoot that watermelon’ ”: Ibid.
“Before that they had no comprehension of marksmanship at all”: Ibid.
when bullets started to fly: Lt. Col. Michael Slusher interview, February 16, 2007, Operational Leadership Experiences project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
“They go out and they run right into the fire”: Ibid.
“crack outfit”: Maj. John Bates interview, March 5, 2007, Operational Leadership Experiences project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
“We actually wrote their names on the weapons”: Ibid.
“the sole of the boots come completely off”: Ibid.
“It was all either full gas or full brake”: Command Master Sgt. Jeff Janke interview, February 16, 2007, Operational Leadership Experiences project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
they practiced turns on an oval dirt track: Maj. Dan Williamson interview, December 7, 2007, Operational Leadership Experiences project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
“These guys were a menace to society”: Ibid.
mistook urinals as drinking fountains: U.S. military official interview, October 28, 2016, Lessons Learned Project, SIGAR. Name redacted by SIGAR.
“the commodes were being broken”: Maj. Kevin Lovell interview, August 24, 2007, Operational Leadership Experiences project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
“a little bit less hubris”: Ibid.
“They stand there in their bare feet and they use a giant spoon”: Maj. Matthew Little interview, May 15, 2008, Operational Leadership Experiences project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
“The entire kitchen would fill up with smoke”: Ibid.
“just have it wash downstream”: Ibid.
he decided to ask low-ranking Afghan soldiers: Maj. Charles Abeyawardena interview, July 26, 2012, Operational Leadership Experiences project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
“They were going to go back and grow opium or marijuana”: Ibid.
“the police will show up and rob your house a second time”: Maj. Del Saam interview, August 20, 2009, Operational Leadership Experiences project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
“ANP Horror Stories”: Donald Rumsfeld memo to Condoleezza Rice, February 23, 2005, National Security Archive, George Washington University.
“written in as graceful and noninflammatory a way as is humanly possible”: Ibid.
“ ‘Give me some goats or sheep or we’ll have you shot on sight’ ”: Saam interview, Combat Studies Institute.
“They have a hard time picturing what we’re trying to do”: Ibid.
CHAPTER SIX: ISLAM FOR DUMMIES
“I felt like a dork”: Maj. Louis Frias interview, September 16, 2008, Operational Leadership Experiences project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
The idea came from a soldier Frias met in the chow hall: Ibid.
“soccer is such a big thing”: Ibid.
“the wise old man would come in”: Ibid.
the kids provided “good feedback”: Ibid.
“Everybody wanted to have their say in it”: Ibid.
distributed more than 1,000 soccer balls: Maj. Gen. Jason Kamiya interview, January 23, 2007, U.S. Army Center of Military History, Washington, D.C.
he rolled out one of the soccer balls: Ibid.
“Our job in Afghanistan is not to train the next Afghan Olympic soccer team”: Ibid.
“an insult in any Muslim country”: Alastair Leithead, “Anger over ‘blasphemous balls,’ ” BBC News, August 26, 2007.
“Oh, Iraq, Afghanistan. It’s the same thing”: Maj. Daniel Lovett interview, March 19, 2010, Operational Leadership Experiences project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
“Our mission was all about cultural awareness”: Ibid.
tried to teach his class Arabic: Maj. James Reese interview, April 18, 2007, Operational Leadership Experiences project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
the pre-deployment tactical training was foolish: Maj. Christian Anderson interview, November 10, 2010, Operational Leadership Experiences project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
“Afghanistan has a lot of mountains, right?”: Ibid.
He had to sit through classes on surviving nuclear: Maj. Brent Novak interview, December 14, 2006, Operational Leadership Experiences project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
“ ‘Geez, are these kids flipping me off?’ ”: Ibid.
“We’d come in like gangbusters”: Maj. Rich Garey interview, December 5, 2007, Operational Leadership Experiences project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
he needed to work at the Afghans’ pace: Maj. Nikolai Andresky interview, September 27, 2007, Operational Leadership Experiences project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
“there wasn’t such a thing as a one-hour meeting in Afghanistan”: Ibid.
“Time to Americans is very important”: Maj. William Woodring interview, December 12, 2006, Operational Leadership Experiences project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
“Theirs is a culture of dishonesty and corruption”: Plummer interview, Combat Studies Institute.
“In the Islamic world, it’s either my way or death”: John Davis interview, November 21, 2008, Operational Leadership Experiences project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
“They’re just like any other religion in America”: Thomas Clinton interview, Combat Studies Institute.
“The embassy itself was a very, very small, very junior organization”: Barno interview, U.S. Army Center of Military History.
“we might as well have been aliens”: Maj. Clint Cox interview, November 8, 2006, Operational Leadership Experiences project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
“we look astonishingly like the stormtroopers from Star Wars”: Maj. Keller Durkin interview, March 3, 2008, Operational Leadership Experiences project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
“The kids looked at me like, ‘Oh my God. What is that?’ ”: Maj. Alvin Tilley interview, June 29, 2011, Operational Leadership Experiences project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
“you think you’re going to see Moses walking down the street”: Ibid.
it was common for young people to marry their first cousins: Maj. William Burley interview, January 31, 2007, Operational Leadership Experiences project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
“I hate to say it, but there was a lot of inbreeding”: Ibid.
“if you can grab the beard you can trust the guy”: Ibid.
“For an American male, walking through town holding the hand of another man?”: Maj. Christian Anderson interview, November 10, 2010, Operational Leadership Experiences project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
man-love Thursday came as a shock: Woodring interview, Combat Studies Institute.
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“You really have to put your feelings aside”: Ibid.
an Afghan man approached a baby-faced male American soldier: Maj. Randy James interview, October 8, 2008, Operational Leadership Experiences project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
“It didn’t get out of hand; nothing bad happened”: Ibid.
CHAPTER SEVEN: PLAYING BOTH SIDES
reading a book in his hooch: Trahan interview, Combat Studies Institute.
triple-strand concertina wire: Gregory Trahan testimony, U.S. v. Ibrahim Suleman Adnan Adam Harun Hausa, March 8, 2017, United States District Court, Eastern District of New York.
The captain put his book down: Trahan interview, Combat Studies Institute.
glimpsed the gunmen dressed in black: Ibid.
a patrol of about twenty U.S. soldiers and twenty allied fighters: Trahan testimony, U.S. v. Ibrahim Suleman Adnan Adam Harun Hausa.
“I was ready to pack it in”: Trahan interview, Combat Studies Institute.
the patrol climbed the winding dirt track: Trahan testimony, U.S. v. Ibrahim Suleman Adnan Adam Harun Hausa.
canteens of water, burlap bags and a cache of 107mm rockets: Trahan interview, Combat Studies Institute.
AK-47s, grenades and at least one heavy machine gun: Trahan testimony, U.S. v. Ibrahim Suleman Adnan Adam Harun Hausa.
other soldiers saw a red mist spray out: Sgt. First Class Conrad Reed testimony, U.S. v. Ibrahim Suleman Adnan Adam Harun Hausa, March 8, 2017, United States District Court, Eastern District of New York.
U.S. troops radioed for help and requested howitzer fire: Trahan interview, Combat Studies Institute.
“I think the Pakistanis thought we were shooting at them”: Ibid.
“the biggest challenge was getting timely, accurate intelligence”: Ibid.
he abandoned a pocket-sized Koran: press release, “Al Qaeda Operative Convicted of Multiple Terrorism Offenses Targeting Americans Overseas,” March 16, 2017, Department of Justice.