The Afghanistan Papers
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“We were always debating and discussing it”: Greentree interview, Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training.
just threw money at the opium problem: Mohammed Ehsan Zia interview, April 12, 2016, Lessons Learned Project, SIGAR.
“disregard what needed to be done”: Ibid.
“The only thing they are experts in is bureaucracy”: Ibid.
“that’s an optical illusion”: Rubin interview, February 17, 2017, SIGAR. In a December 2019 email to the author, Rubin added: “The main problem is that opium cultivation is a livelihood strategy for a significant part of the population in the poorest country in Asia and one of the poorest in the world. You can’t criminalize people’s livelihood strategies and expect them to support you. The global regime of criminalization of drugs cedes the production and sale of an addictive substance to organized crime and its protectors. The whole drug policy regime is a disaster, and we imported it into our Afghan policy.”
“When a country is at war, there is not much that can be achieved”: State Department official interview, June 29, 2015, Lessons Learned Project, SIGAR. Name redacted by SIGAR.
“The issue is political will”: Justice Department official interview, April 12, 2016, Lessons Learned Project, SIGAR. Name redacted by SIGAR.
“he had to be incompetent or pissed a lot of people off”: Senior U.S. official interview, June 10, 2016, Lessons Learned Project, SIGAR. Name redacted by SIGAR.
Ishaqzai had long operated under the protection of Ahmed Wali Karzai: Joseph Goldstein, “Bribery Frees a Drug Kingpin in Afghanistan, Where Cash Often Overrules Justice,” The New York Times, December 31, 2014.
He allegedly bribed multiple judges: Ibid.
“In the terror model you kill the leader”: Senior DEA official interview, November 3, 2016, Lessons Learned Project, SIGAR. Name redacted by SIGAR.
allowed him to take a side trip to New York to go sightseeing and shopping: James Risen, “Propping Up a Drug Lord, Then Arresting Him,” The New York Times, December 11, 2010.
When Khan’s defense lawyer raised those connections: Johnny Dwyer, “The U.S. Quietly Released Afghanistan’s ‘Biggest Drug Kingpin’ from Prison. Did He Cut a Deal?” The Intercept, May 1, 2018.
“We spent so much time swatting bad ideas down”: Former legal attaché interview, June 27, 2016, Lessons Learned Project, SIGAR. Name redacted by SIGAR.
some familiar-sounding ideas: State Department contractor interview, September 16, 2016, Lessons Learned Project, SIGAR. Name redacted by SIGAR.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: TALKING WITH THE TALIBAN
Her honeyed renditions of “Moon River”: David Harding, “Waiting for the Taliban,” Agence France-Presse, March 19, 2009.
The ascetic Afghans tolerated Anastasia each afternoon: Ibid.
the Taliban was “on the ropes”: Olson interview, U.S. Army Center of Military History.
“We never figured out”: Ibid.
“It was an interesting bit of spaghetti to untangle”: Gilchrist interview, U.S. Army Center of Military History.
because communists had used it: Ibid.
“if we don’t address it, the military won’t be able to”: Rubin interview, August 27, 2015, SIGAR. In a December 2019 email to the author, Rubin added: “During the 2009 policy review, we worked a lot to get the option of political negotiations with the Taliban (reconciliation, political settlement) on the table. Holbrooke said that those terms were too inflammatory. We finally settled on the term ‘threat reduction’ to describe a potential political track with the Taliban. The idea was that a political settlement by whatever name would lower the level of threat faced by the Afghan state and no longer require the totally unsustainable security forces that we were building. In the back of my mind was the certainty that one way or another somehow the U.S. was going to leave Afghanistan and we had to keep that in mind in everything we did.”
“we’ll be nice to people who surrender”: Rubin interview, February 17, 2017, SIGAR. In a December 2019 email to the author, Rubin added: “They were not hardliners in the Obama administration. They were the members of the permanent national security establishment, the so-called ‘deep state.’ I don’t use the term though because it implies a conspiracy, whereas it is just the normal inertia of a trillion-dollar bureaucracy.”
“she couldn’t sell making a bargain with the Taliban”: Rubin interview, December 2, 2015, SIGAR. In a December 2019 email to the author, Rubin added: “[Hillary Clinton] had little or no faith that it would succeed. She understood the logic behind it, but did not see why she should take a political risk for something that would probably fail. Obama too did not want to take this political risk.”
it rarely followed through: Maj. Ulf Rota interview, September 12, 2011, Operational Leadership Experiences project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
“ ‘I hereby renounce evil al-Qaeda, blah blah blah’ ”: Ibid.
“It doesn’t matter how smart you are”: Brown interview, Combat Studies Institute.
“Miraculously six bodies get coughed up”: Ibid.
“Hamid Karzai was just incensed”: Crocker interview, January 11, 2016, SIGAR.
“on balance probably unhelpful”: Dobbins interview, SIGAR.
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Index
A note about the index: The pages referenced in this index refer to the page numbers in the print edition. Clicking on a page number will take you to the ebook location that corresponds to the beginning of that page in the print edition. For a comprehensive list of locations of any word or phrase, use your reading system’s search function.
ABC News, 99
Abeyawardena, Charles, 64–65
Abu Ghraib prison, 54
Afghan army. See also Afghan security forces building up, 229
compared with Taliban, 98
as facsimile of the U.S. military, 57
problems with, 221–222
reasons for serving in, 64–65
soldiers deserting from, 219
training, 33, 55–57, 60–63
warlord’s loyalists in, 126
weapons, 61, 62
Western designs for bases and barracks for, 63–64
Afghan government. See also Afghan security forces; Karzai, Hamid constitution, 26, 36, 50–51, 185, 265
corruption and, 123–124, 185–186, 189–190
dependence on the U.S., 36
Kabul Bank and, 190–191, 193
negotiations with Taliban, 235–236, 272–273
opium production/trade and, 131, 132, 258, 259–260
territories compared by, 247–248
war crimes in the 1990s by, 115–116
warlords and, 119–120, 121, 122
weakness in, 98
Afghan High Peace Council, 269
Afghanistan civil war, 26, 115, 116, 118
cultural awareness/training about, 69–72
elections. See election(s), in Afghanistan
governance plan for, 13
nation-building. See nation-building
U.S. officials’ lack of knowledge about, 20–21, 27, 66
Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), 150. See also Afghan security forces
Afghan police force, 33, 98. See also Afghan security forces Afghan Local Police, 224–225
Afghan National Police (ANP), 65–66, 213, 218
Germany and, 33
ineffectiveness of, 223–224
insider attacks, 213–214, 217
poppy production and, 132
responsibilities, 218
Rumsfeld’s report on, 65
training of, 59, 65–66
Afghans. See also civilians at Bonn, Germany conference, 25–26
cooking by, 63–64
cultural disconnect with Americans, 73–74
identifying with Taliban, 151
life expectancy, 204, 227–228
role in 9/11 attacks, 19–20
Afghan security forces, xv. See also Afghan army; Afghan police force casualties of, 247
compared with the Taliban, 209
corruption, 209, 222–223
deaths, 219, 247
imaginary personnel, 218–219
ineffectiveness of, 221–225
insider attacks by, 213–218, 232–233
Lessons Learned interviews on, 57, 59, 63, 219–220, 223, 224–225
McCaffrey’s honest assessment of, 98
misleading information about, 56–57, 94, 155, 210, 220–221
“non-combat” roles of U.S. troops and, 229–230
quality of recruits, 219
responsibility for country’s security, 229, 230–231, 275
size/growth of, 218–219
training, 57–60, 65, 214, 219–220
U.S. spending on, 56, 58–59
Afghan warlords, 115–127 Afghan government and, 119–120, 121, 122
corruption and, 122–123
Dostum, Abdul Rashid, 115–122, 171
Fahim Khan, Mohammed Qasim, 125–127, 171, 191
Karzai, Hamid and, 120–121, 122, 125–126, 171, 176
opium industry and, 124–125, 126
Taliban and, 117
Tora Bora campaign, 23–25, 46, 70, 273
U.S. government and, 115, 116–117, 118, 119, 122
war crimes by, 115–116
Af-Pak border, 79–81
airfields, 12–13. See also Kandahar Air Field
airstrikes, 9, 177, 246 against al-Qaeda in Tora Bora, 23–24
civilian casualties and, 150, 177–178, 246
date of first, 6
against Islamic State, 229, 235
Obama’s restrictions on, 246
on opium labs, 253–254
on Tora Bora, 23
under Trump, 246–247
Akhundzada, Sher Mohammad, 124–125
alcohol consumption, 26, 106–107, 263
al-Iraqi, Abdul Hadi, 80
Allen, John, 210, 215
Alliot-Marie, Michèle, 137–138
al-Qaeda. See also bin Laden, Osama airstrikes against in Tora Bora, 23–24
death of key leaders, 200–201
difficulties in identifying, 18–19
in early part of war, 3–4
Islamic State offshoot, 229
McChrystal report and, 151
mission and objectives for war in Afghanistan, 6, 7–8, 20
Pakistan and, 20, 80–81, 82, 83, 147
reconciliation program, 267–268
September 11th terrorist attacks and, xii
Shkin ambush and, 80–81
Taliban/Afghanistan and, 19–20, 26, 267, 269
threat of, after bin Laden’s death, 200–201, 235, 244
Tora Bora bombing campaign, 23–24
U.S.’s lack of knowledge about, 19
in war strategy of McChrystal, 151
ambassadors, 48. See also Crocker, Ryan; Eikenberry, Karl; Finn, Robert; Khalilzad, Zalmay; Neumann, Ronald; U.S. embassy (Kabul)
American embassy. See U.S. embassy (Kabul)
American Enterprise Institute, 50, 108
Anderson, Christian, 70, 75
Andresky, Nikolai, 71–72
anti-Taliban warlords. See Northern Alliance
Arabic language/script, 69, 70
Ashton, Adam, 216–217
Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, xvii
Augustine, Eugene, 124
Azizabad attack, 177–178
bacha bazi, 75
Baghdad, Iraq, 46, 48, 175
Bagram Air Base, 11–12, 24, 29, 154 casualties at, 232, 234
Combined Forces Command, 48
Dostum, Abdul Rashid and, 121
emergency landing in snowstorm (February 2008), 93
growth of, 12
>
psy-ops team, 68–69
shower installed at, 11–12
suicide bombing at, 91–92, 93
U.S. personnel burning copies of the Koran at, 215
Baker, Lance, 13
Bales, Robert, 203
Balkans, the, 31, 45, 51
banks, 183, 190–195
Baradar, Mullah Abdul Ghani, 272
Baran, Safiullah, 165
Barno, David, 48–49, 53, 56, 73, 85, 136
Bates, John, 62, 133
beards, 21, 22, 74
Bedoy, Genaro, 213
Berendsen, Anton, 60
Bergdahl, Bowe, 270–271
Bergeron, Phil, 47
Berthold, Gert, 187, 189
Bickford, John, 99–100
Biden, Joseph, 93, 156, 180, 274–275
Binalshibh, Ramzi, 82
bin Laden, Osama Afghanistan/Taliban and, 19–20, 151, 267
al-Qaeda and, 235
Biden on hunting down, 274, 275
death of, 199–200
in hiding, 4, 15, 23, 85
hunt for, 11
in Pakistan, 85
plan to lure U.S. in an unwinnable conflict, 201–202
Tora Bora campaign, 23–25, 46, 273
video of, 48
Boesen, Stephen, 109–110
Boissonneau, Andrew, 225
Bolten, Joshua, 104
Bonn Agreement, 26, 36, 45
Bonn conference, 13, 25–28, 35, 83, 172, 265
Bosnia, 38, 45, 46, 249
Boucher, Richard, xv, 7–8, 32, 37, 123–124, 140, 230
Brahimi, Lakhdar, 27
bribery, 184, 185, 186, 187, 189
British officials, 136, 139, 175, 257
British troops, 51, 101, 105–106, 126, 133, 148
Browne, Desmond, 108
Brown, Matthew, 255, 268
Bunch, Lance, 253–254
Burgess, Ronald, 209
Burley, William, 74
Burns, Nicholas, 107
Bush, George W. (administration) on Afghan security forces, 218
Afghan warlords and, 117, 119, 122, 125
efforts to negotiate with Taliban, 264–265
General McNeill and, 15