Bush At War

by Bob Woodward

  Bush took a classified version for himself that had photos, brief biographies and personality sketches of the 22 men. When he returned to his desk in the Oval Office, he slipped the list of names and faces into a drawer, ready at hand, his own personal scorecard for the war.

  STEVE HADLEY EXPRESSED his concern to Rice about the situation in Afghanistan. "I don't think we're really on top of this. At least I'm not on top of it the way I want to be. I've got it laid on. The deputies and I are going to go out to the CIA and sit down with George and his people."

  Rice went with them to Langley later that Thursday. Tenet and some of his people tossed out a number of observations:

  Iran and Russia had both supported the Northern Alliance with millions of dollars over the years. Iran was probably the biggest contributor, providing money to support thousands of Alliance troops. Both countries were still active with the Alliance. They seemed okay with the U.S. and CIA dealing with the Alliance, but there was no coordinated message.

  Iran has a big influence on Ismail Khan - the Shiite Tajik warlord who controlled territory around Herat in western Afghanistan, near the border with Iran.

  The tribes all wanted U.S. air support, ammunition and food if they were going to move against the Taliban and al Qaeda, but the tribes wanted to move by themselves.

  Afghanistan is stable only in a decentralized structure. It was not a modern state with a strong central government and might not have one in the future.

  Everybody, each tribe and warlord, has to have a seat at the table in Kabul in a future government.

  Because the situation was so fluid and many of the tribal leaders in southern Afghanistan maintained ties to the Taliban, Tenet still was not prepared to send paramilitary teams into the south. It simply was not secure. Nor was there a definable front line as there was in the north.

  Intelligence and an introduction to some Pashtuns had been requested from the new Pakistani intelligence chief, according to one of the CIA briefers.

  "We need to run special operations in the south, we need to strip Taliban of their fighting force. We need to get the Pashtuns to play with us, and we need to calm the Paks down," Tenet summed up.

  A new government or administration of Kabul had to be even-handed with all factions and tribes, the agency experts stressed and stressed again. The symbolism of ethnic Tajiks and Uzbeks - the bulk of the Northern Alliance - in Kabul would be a real problem for the Pakistanis and the Pashtuns.

  "Do you have to defeat the Taliban?" Rice asked.

  Yes, otherwise it would remain a rallying point for the terrorist elements.

  "We had a counterterrorism strategy, now we need a political strategy," Tenet said. "We need to tell the southern tribes what the political scenario is. We need the vision. We need to make it clear that we're there for the long term."

  As to what might be achieved by winter, Tenet and his experts offered a four-part answer: 1. Take over the north. 2. Get resupplied from Uzbekistan. 3. Have Kabul under the structure they discussed. 4. Create a safe passage for supplies into the south via Paktia, which shares a 150-mile border with Pakistan.

  The U.S. could have the Pakistanis communicate the political strategy to the Pashtuns. Anti-Taliban forces could drive south, pin the enemy down, encircle and hit them. Continue to strike targets, the CIA analysts recommended. It would be easier to find some targets in winter given the high-tech advantage U.S. forces had. By cutting down the mobility of the enemy and localizing them, they might even be able to induce some more defections.

  The CIA briefers repeated how important it would be to offer incentives to the Pashtuns to withdraw support from the Taliban. What would the message be? "Withdraw and get fed. If you don't withdraw, you don't get fed," one said. It was a highly questionable proposition. If the situation in the south turned dire, the U.S. could be accused of abetting famine - the use of organized starvation as a political tool, compromising the American moral high ground.

  It would eventually become clear this would not be necessary. The south had adequate food. The serious food shortages were in and around Northern Alliance-controlled areas.

  AT 5 P.M. the deputies' committee focused on the kinds of threats the U.S. faced, and what they could do now to deal with them. A mounting concern was the possibility of a radiological weapon, but the more they talked the more it was clear it wasn't really something they could prepare for. The likelihood, the impact - psychologically and physically - were big unknowns, in part because to their knowledge no such device had ever been detonated. It was only a concept, as worrying as that might be. Of course, hijacking a passenger airliner and using it as a missile had, until recently, seemed improbable.

  "I'M DOING A press conference tonight," Bush reminded at the start of the Thursday, October 11, morning NSC meeting. "I'm going to reframe the conflict, set the expectations at the right level." He was brimming with confidence. "It's going to be a long conflict, we've got to have a deliberate, intense and well-thought-out strategy. I'm going to call on the patience of the American people. We're going to go after the hosts and the parasites. It's a broader war. If we don't get UBL, it doesn't mean it's a failure."

  Powell said the Organization of the Islamic Conference had released a strong statement condemning the terrorist acts against the U.S. The OIC communiqué, released the day before, said the acts were in direct contravention of the teachings of the divine religions and of all moral and human values. The president said he was going to use some language from the OIC statement in his answers that night.

  "The OIC statement suggests that the coalition is holding together," Powell said.

  On humanitarian aid, he continued, "We're getting some trucks in from Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Iran. Remember that most of the food is distributed by NGOs. That's the distribution network. We need to get them coordinated, and coordinated with CENTCOM." With Afghanistan a combat zone, military oversight was important to keeping the aid program orderly and safe.

  Rumsfeld gave his daily report on operations. "We did 75 strikes in Afghanistan yesterday. We're looking for emerging targets. We got 31 of their 68 aircraft; we can't find their helos; we got nine of their 15 transports. We looked at their drug labs and heroin storage and we didn't hit it because of collateral damage."

  These were the detailed damage assessments that were guarded in most cases with TOP SECRET/CODEWORD classification - the highest possible. An authoritative leak would be a major setback. They could imagine the headlines: "U.S. Destroys Only 31 of 68 Taliban Aircraft; Can't Find Helos; Spares Drug Labs, Fearing Collateral Damage."

  AFTER THE NSC meeting, the president's motorcade made the short drive across the Potomac to the Pentagon for a memorial service on the one-month anniversary. Bush addressed a crowd of 15,000 that had assembled on a grassy parade ground by the building's River entrance, which was shrouded in black.

  "We have come here to pay our respects to 125 men and women who died in the service of America," the president said. "We also remember passengers on a hijacked plane - those men and women, boys and girls who fell into the hands of evildoers."

  Rumsfeld spoke about the friends, family and co-workers they had lost. "They died because - in words of justification offered by their attackers - they were Americans," Rumsfeld said.

  Likening the terrorists to the vanquished totalitarian regimes of the 20th century which sought to rule and oppress, Rumsfeld said, "The will to power, the urge to dominion over others . . . makes the terrorist a believer not in the theology of God, but the theology of self and in the whispered words of temptation: 'Ye shall be as gods.'

  "In targeting this place, then, and those who worked here, the attackers, the evildoers correctly sensed that the opposite of all they were, and stood for, resided here."

  After the speeches, oversized television screens scrolled the names of the dead as "Amazing Grace" was played. Rumsfeld was finally overtaken, tears in his eyes.

  AT 3:30 P.M., the principals gathered in the White House Si
tuation Room.

  The anniversary was on everyone's mind. Tenet posed the question, "What are our objectives?" and then commenced a lengthy answer.

  "We'd like the Taliban to collapse as a military entity." Second, they wanted the Northern Alliance in control of the territory in the north, linking up to the Tajik and Uzbek borders.

  "UBL killed, captured or on the run," he added, stating the objective so loosely that it had already been achieved. "But we need to raise all boats at once. The north is a little farther along, no reason to go south of Kabul."

  The earlier CIA briefing was still on Rice's mind: even if they had wanted to work the south, there wasn't much they could do. Much of Tenet's summary was a rehash. It showed how little was really moving.

  "The Pashtuns are anti-Northern Alliance - they could be anti-Taliban. They're not anti-U.S.," Tenet said. In other words their allegiances were negotiable - just like everybody else's in Afghanistan. "They only want to control their shura," referring to an Islamic principle of self-governance. "We need to give something more than 'Go kill Arabs.' Have to incentivize them.

  "The Northern Alliance is not monolithic. They could easily fragment. They could go against each other, you know, fall apart, fall to fighting. We need to be evenhanded in our aid.

  "We have an Iranian dimension in the west and a Russian influence in the north," Tenet said of the Northern Alliance. The American CIA, formerly a junior partner among the Alliance's outside supporters, was now trying to buy the entire operation and control it as senior partner.

  He said they had put their fate in the hands of the Afghan tribals, who were going to act at a time, place and pace of their own choosing. They had their own issues, endgames, ambitions and internal power plays. It was a mercenary force - not under U.S. command. That was the price of admission when it was decided at the front end that the tribals were going to do the bulk of the ground fighting and not the U.S. military.

  As for the Northern Alliance factions who were holding fast to U.S. requests, Tenet said, "When the CINC releases them, we want them to take Taloqan, cut off al Qaeda, take Mazar-e Sharif, close the gap in Baghlan" - a key city on the road from Kabul north to Konduz - "and trap al Qaeda in the north."

  Jawbreaker had been inside Afghanistan for two weeks. The next CIA paramilitary team would come in from Uzbekistan with Special Forces and would join the Northern Alliance leader General Abdurrashid Dostum south of Mazar. There was a team of U.S. military Special Forces in Uzbekistan now, ready to deploy in the next couple of days to Ismail Khan, who was holding near Herat, 80 miles from the Iranian border.

  "The CINC and CIA are joined at the hip. The people on the ground are working targets for the CINC," Rumsfeld said.

  "Are they armed adequately?" Rice asked, referring to the Northern Alliance. Someone responded that they had small arms in the theater.

  "We don't want to take Kabul. Our priority ought to be Mazar-e Sharif," Powell said. If Mazar were taken, it was only 40 miles from Uzbekistan. That would make it possible to open a land bridge between Afghanistan and Uzbekistan, a continuous overland route by which military and humanitarian supplies could flow. Air-dropping humanitarian aid was expensive and inefficient. The diplomatic challenge of ameliorating all the factions was going to require more thought, more time. "Do the bridge. Don't take Kabul."

  On Kabul, "Let the U.N. administer it or maybe the OIC administer it. Make a center for humanitarian assistance, and make it the site for the loya jirga" - the traditional meeting of Afghan tribal leaders from across the country. Powell had a grand, even extravagant vision for the city's future. "This is Kabul, the international city, symbol of a united Afghanistan," he said. "Have a U.N. mandate plus third country forces ruling Kabul." Powell knew that Bush was loath to use U.S. troops for nation building.

  "How would the Northern Alliance feel if you turn Kabul over to the Pashtuns?" Cheney asked.

  "We'll turn it over to Brahimi and the U.N.," Powell responded. Lakhdar Brahimi was the U.N. special representative for Afghanistan.

  "Can we show enough of this plan that we've outlined here before the Northern Alliance are in Kabul and alienate the Pashtuns?" someone asked. It was a critical question.

  A CIA operations specialist who was attending, and still worked undercover, suggested, "If we can get the Pashtuns to sign on to this plan, Russia will go along."

  How about Iran?

  They would want some kind of role, he said.

  There was the matter of the king. Should they use him, and how? The CIA man said that having him as a nominal head of government would not work, but he could convene the loya jirga and act as figurehead.

  There was discussion of how much they needed someone in Afghanistan with the stature of the assassinated Massoud. He could have reined in any Alliance move to take Kabul. He could have been a great asset as they tried to work out a post-Taliban solution.

  Powell was still skeptical. "Can they take Kabul?"

  Yes, the CIA man said. "We're pretty confident they can get to Kabul in the near term." He reported positively on two southern provinces where there were CIA-paid assets. "We're working with them out of Islamabad. It's an administrative break with the Taliban. We don't know if they'll let us put people in there.

  "We've got active assets in Logar and Nangahar Provinces." Nangahar Province, which hugged the Pakistani border, was the location of the Khyber Pass, a strategic gateway on the road from Jalalabad to Peshawar, Pakistan.

  "We need to accelerate this move toward autonomy," Tenet said. "We need to offer humanitarian aid. Even if they don't want to fight, we need them to break with the Taliban. We need to offer a vision to those southern tribes.

  "Some of them are into vision and some of them are into money," he said bluntly. "We need to administer to both." A vision about the greater good of Afghanistan was too abstract, heady and distant a prize for some tribesmen - but they understood and would gladly accept cash. The CIA was continuing to dispense millions. Tenet said the agency was arming many. Afghans responded to "weapons and a sense they're on the winning side."

  Card repeated Powell's question. "Can they take Kabul?"

  "They can at least get to the city," Tenet said.

  The CIA man added, "When the Northern Alliance gets to the outskirts of Kabul, the Taliban will go to the hills to the south." That was good news and a warning. No one asked if they had a plan to deal with fleeing thousands.

  "We need a vision of Kabul," Rice reiterated. "The vision for Kabul is important to avoid alienating the Pashtuns." Again they lamented the absence of Massoud, who had said he would have ruled Kabul from the outside with various tribes, including from the south. Fahim, the nominal replacement as head of the Northern Alliance, did not have his former commander's political skills.

  "Look, we don't have to take Kabul to show results by December 1st. We need to figure out Kabul, the Pashtuns, the Northern Alliance," Cheney said.

  "But the priority is in the north," Powell replied. "We need to talk about Kabul, tell them what the solution is, stop at the border, internationalize it, don't alienate the south, give the south a role in Kabul. That's more valuable that way than taking it. It gives me something to talk to the Paks about."

  With all the talk of taking or not taking Kabul, they were overlooking the important matter of how vulnerable the CIA and Special Forces teams were in the field without support. "It's dangerous, the teams may be betrayed," said Wayne Downing, a retired four-star general who had been commander of U.S. Special Operations and was now a deputy on the National Security Council staff. The whole situation could turn with the death or capture of 10 to 12 men.

  It was an uncomfortable truth and no one responded to it.

  "We need a rebuilding package," Powell said.

  "We need a political vision now," said Tenet.

  "This is about the Taliban," Cheney said, trying to steer the conversation back. "Do we have an equally vigorous program against al Qaeda?"

  There wa
s some discussion of what might constitute victories, but Rice quickly came back to political problems. "We need a strategy for Kandahar." Kandahar, population 225,000, was the spiritual home of the Taliban.

  The CIA man described the Taliban. "If they're hunkered down in Kandahar while the Northern Alliance is making progress in Kabul, that will incentivize the tribes to defect. And remember, in the higher elevations they may shut down, but in the lower levels we can still have activity."

  The CIA had received a cable from the chief of station in Islamabad that day. Based on multiple sources, including the new Pakistani intelligence chief, the cable said that the bombings had so far been a big political disappointment and were not dividing the Taliban. "Taliban leadership remains united and defiant around Mullah Omar, while tribal commanders sit firmly on the fence waiting to see who will prevail before committing themselves." In other words, splitting the Taliban was a fantasy. It was very sobering. Maybe the enemy was stronger than they had imagined.

  THE REPORTS OF threats were so intense that Tenet recommended that the FBI take the unusual step of issuing a national warning of possible terrorist attacks "over the next several days." He did it so forcefully that FBI Director Mueller had little choice but to act. The warning went out in the late afternoon: "Certain information, while not specific as to target, gives the government reason to believe that there may be additional terrorist attacks within the United States and against U.S. interests overseas over the next several days."

  If Mueller had failed to comply, and there had been a terrorist attack, he might never have been forgiven. But the warning lacked details because none of the credible intelligence had specifics such as time, place or method of attack. It was more the high number of intercepts and other intelligence reporting that triggered Tenet's reaction. Given what had happened on September 11, better to overreact than underreact.