by Steve Coll
35. Karzai and Fahim wanted 250,000: Interview with McNeill.
36. Ibid.
37. “That really got the attention”: Former senior military officer who reviewed the attack at the time. False story: New York Times, June 13, 2002, quoting Rear Admiral Craig Quigley of Central Command and Colonel Roger King at Bagram saying that investigators had “ruled out” hostile fire as a cause of the incident.
Chapter Seven: Taliban for Karzai
1. Dog fighting: Chayes, The Punishment of Virtue, p. 67. Punched people when agitated, knife fight with Mullah Omar, “motherfucker”: Peter Maas, “Gul Agha Gets His Province Back, The New York Times Magazine, January 6, 2002. The F-word is not explicit, per Times style, but strongly implied. Both the Maas profile and the Chayes book are essential journalism about Kandahar after the Taliban.
2. Maloney, Enduring the Freedom, p. 189.
3. “A poor listener . . . weak administrator”: Kabul to Washington, May 22, 2008, WikiLeaks. Marriages, children, “because she had heard so many good things”: Kabul to Washington, January 20, 2009, WikiLeaks. Appeared with boy dressed as a female: Interview with a Western diplomat in Kabul.
4. Spin Boldak revenue, Sherzai’s monopolies: Giustozzi and Ullah, “The Inverted Cycle.” Cement plant: Chayes, The Punishment of Virtue, p. 162. $1.5 million a month: Rashid, Descent into Chaos, p. 136. Fifty-two of sixty: Giustozzi and Ullah, “The Inverted Cycle.”
5. Affidavit of Bashir Noorzai, U.S. v. Bashir Noorzai, United States District Court, Southern District of New York, 81 05 CR. 19, August 8, 2007.
6. Ibid.
7. “Many people take advantage . . . harm their rivals”: Transcripts of Noorzai’s interviews with American contractors, filed as court documents in U.S. v. Bashir Noorzai. In a bizarre sequence of events, two private contractors collecting intelligence for the Pentagon interviewed Noorzai and several of his associates over several days in Dubai in August 2004. They later persuaded Noorzai to travel on to New York the following year. Drug Enforcement Agency agents interviewed him further at a hotel while C.I.A. and F.B.I. personnel listened secretly in an adjoining room. The records of both conversations provide fascinating if fragmentary insights into the Taliban, Gul Agha Sherzai’s predatory regime, and American struggles in Kandahar after the Taliban’s fall. At the end of the final interviews, the D.E.A. arrested Noorzai on heroin trafficking charges. He was convicted at trial and sentenced to life in prison in 2009.
8. “Beat up . . . made him a hero”: Dubai transcripts, ibid.
9. All quotations, Norzai Affidavit and Dubai transcripts, ibid.
10. “Look, the Bonn Conference . . . how to do this”: Interview with the American official. “Convinced him”: Norzai Affidavit, Dubai transcripts.
11. The account of the C.I.A.’s negotiation with Mutawakil and Archibald’s presentation come from interviews with two former U.S. officials familiar with the episode, as do all of the quotations. Archibald declined to comment.
12. All quotations, ibid.
13. All quotations, Noorzai Affidavit.
14. Interview with a senior military officer then deployed in Afghanistan.
15. “CID Report of Investigation,” 0064-2004-CID369-69280-5C1N/5Y2E, October 25, 2004, accessed from American Civil Liberties Union database. The Army investigator concluded that he could neither prove nor disprove the specific detainee abuse allegations he had received.
16. Interview with Muñoz.
17. Windsor et al., Kandahar Tour, pp. 24–25.
18. Ibid., p. 25.
19. State Department cable, Kabul to Washington, April 18, 2003, WikiLeaks.
20. Rashid, Descent into Chaos, p. 250.
21. Interview with Paul Miller, a former C.I.A. analyst and director for Afghanistan at the National Security Council during the Bush administration. In 2008, Miller and a colleague searched their archives to create a chronology of National Security Council principals and deputies meetings held on Afghanistan during the Bush years.
Chapter Eight: The Enigma
1. Kayani in Hawaii: Interview with Shapiro. Fort Leavenworth thesis, National Defense University performance: Interviews with Dave Smith and other U.S. officials who studied Kayani’s career.
2. Interviews with U.S. officials who studied Kayani’s family connections. Kayani did not respond to requests for comment for this book.
3. All quotations, interview with Smith.
4. Disneyland, “a very smart, intelligent guy”: Interview with Smith.
5. Grenier, 88 Days to Kandahar, p. 290. Grenier’s estimate of the number arrested is the most authoritative I have been able to identify. Eventually, Pakistani arrests of Arab and other foreign fighters in 2002 and 2003 may have totaled several hundred.
6. Ibid., p. 318.
7. All quotations, interview with Shapiro.
8. Ibid.
9. All quotations, interview with Crumpton.
10. Interview with McLaughlin.
11. All quotations, interviews with Smith.
12. Ibid.
13. The family biographical details and dates here are from Vahid Brown and Don Rassler’s authoritative book about the Haqqanis, Fountainhead of Jihad, pp. 28–45. The book draws substantially on translations of Haqqani publications. “His background . . . his personality”: Interview with Rocketi.
14. Twelve thousand tons: Yousaf, The Bear Trap.
15. Brown and Rassler, op.cit. Case officer operating under nonofficial cover: Interview with a former U.S. official involved in the program.
16. CARE schools: Brown and Rassler, Fountainhead of Jihad, p. 108.
17. Ibid., p. 123.
18. All quotations, author’s interviews.
19. All quotations, interview with McChrystal.
20. Author’s interviews. C.I.A. Document: “C.I.A. Comments on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Report on the Rendition, Detention, and Interrogation Program,” June 27, 2013, Conclusion 1, p. 3. The document refers to the episode in several partially redacted sentences: “The case of Ibrahim Haqqani is also instructive. The U.S. Military captured him in Afghanistan on 4 May 2003 and brought him to [redacted]. Following review at Headquarters and subsequent direction, [redacted] Station transferred him to [redacted] custody after eight days while working out approvals and logistics for subsequent transfer to U.S. Military custody . . . because Headquarters judged that he did not merit detention by the C.I.A.” The redacted words appear to be Bagram, Kabul, and N.D.S., respectively.
Chapter Nine: “His Rules Were Different Than Our Rules”
1. The description of operations on the forward bases is from the author’s interviews with multiple individuals who served there or visited. All quotations from an interview with an experienced participant. Mukhalafeen: Akbar and Burton, Come Back to Afghanistan, p. 186. Akbar’s account of Abdul Wali’s death and the quotations attributed to him in this chapter are mainly drawn from his testimony at the trial of U.S. v. David A. Passaro, United States District Court, Eastern District of North Carolina, 5: 04-CR-211-1, which also provides a valuable, on-the-record portrait of the Omega Teams and their environment at the time. Akbar’s 2005 memoir with Susan Burton also provides valuable texture.
2. Base description, “Third World cesspool”: Trial testimony of Brian Halstead, U.S. v. David A. Passaro, ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Zamanat, all quotations, trial testimony of Hyder Akbar, U.S. v. David A. Passaro.
6. Ibid.
7. Eighty-five percent of C.I.A. interrogators were contractors: “Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Detention and Interrogation Program,” p. 12. Out-of-shape Sylvester Stallone, Jones left after ten or fifteen minutes: Hyder Akbar trial testimony, ibid.
8. “Is there anything . . . tell the truth”: Akbar, ibid.
9
. “His rules . . . permanent injury”: Trial testimony of Matthew Johnson, U.S. v. David Passaro.
10. “Got a chair . . . get worse”: Ibid.
11. Memorandum of Notification did not mention detention, all cable and memoranda quotations, S.S.C.I., “Committee Study,” pp. 11–12.
12. There are numerous published accounts of the C.I.A.’s Rendition, Detention and Interrogation Program before and after 2001. Benjamin and Simon, The Age of Sacred Terror and The Next Attack provide the perspective of two influential counterterrorism advisers during the Clinton administration.
13. “We couldn’t control . . . questions,” and about seventy prisoners during the Clinton years: Rodriguez, Hard Measures, pp. 51–53.
14. Prado and S.E.R.E.: Interviews with former intelligence officials. Jessen could not be reached for comment and an attorney of record said he was “not able” to pass requests for comment. The S.S.C.I. “Committee Study,” p. 21, wrote of Mitchell and Jessen, “Neither psychologist had experience as an interrogator, nor did either have specialized knowledge of Al Qaeda, a background in terrorism or any relevant regional cultural or linguistic experience.” In an interview, Mitchell disputed this characterization, saying that he had extensive experience of interrogations at Fort Bragg and received daily intelligence briefings on Al Qaeda after consulting for the C.I.A. in 2001. “My background was in resisting interrogations,” Mitchell said. He had also taken “courses in law enforcement.” The paper by Jessen and Mitchell is “Recognizing and Developing Countermeasures to Al Qaeda Resistance to Interrogation Techniques: A Resistance Training Perspective.” A heavily redacted version was entered as evidence in Salim v. Mitchell, CV-15-0286, United States District Court, Eastern District of Washington. In court filings, Jessen and Mitchell denied that they “committed torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, non-consensual human experimentation and/or war crimes.” The lawsuit ended in an undisclosed settlement in August 2017. Origins of learned helplessness hypothesis: The New Yorker, January 14, 2015.
15. Intercepts, task force: Rodriguez, Hard Measures, pp. 44–45.
16. PowerPoint presentation, all quotations: S.S.C.I. “Committee Study,” p. 22.
17. Tenet briefed Rice and Hadley, who in turn briefed Bush: Interviews with senior officials involved.
18. Proposed conditions for Zubaydah: Ibid., p. 26. “Tremendous influence”: Ibid., p. 27. Mitchell later defended: Interview with Mitchell.
19. All quotations, “Committee Study,” p. 28.
20. “I did not volunteer . . . all the time”: Interview with Black. How some saw his departure: Interviews with former intelligence officials.
21. “To many insiders . . . Middle East hand”: Rodriguez, Hard Measures, p. 78. “A very biased and unfair”: Ibid., p. 28. Funny, sent others to Capitol Hill briefings: Mudd, Takedown, pp. 105–6.
22. “Political correctness”: Rodriguez, Hard Measures, p. 11. “We were under . . . the essence”: Ibid., p. 62. Prado: Interviews with participants.
23. “More aggressive” and “thirty days”: “Committee Study,” p. 62. Mitchell’s list, “The thing that is rumored . . . had no idea”: Interview with Mitchell.
24. Interviews with former F.B.I. and intelligence officials. “The torture memos”: http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB127/02.08.01.pdf.
25. “A hysteria. . . . the consensus”: Author’s interview. “We were flying blind . . . what they were doing”: Author’s interview. Gates: Schmitt and Shanker, Counterstrike, p. 230.
26. Interview with Rodriguez. “Were blacked out . . . human waste”: “Committee Study,” p. 49.
27. “Has issues”: Ibid., p. 50. “Sleep deprivation . . . rough treatment,” Jessen recommended, Rahman’s death: Ibid., p. 54. Jessen has denied any responsibility for Rahman’s death.
28. “Many of the same . . . Rahman’s death”: Ibid., p. 55.
29. According to Mitchell, “We asked for permission to stop using [enhanced interrogation techniques], especially the waterboard. To our surprise, however, headquarters ordered us to continue waterboarding him. . . . At one point Bruce [Jessen] and I pushed back hard and threatened to quit. . . . The officers we were dealing with—mid-level C.T.C. officials—really pissed us off by saying, ‘You’ve lost your spines.’ They insisted that if we didn’t keep waterboarding . . . and another attack happened in the United States, it would be ‘your fault.’” Mitchell, Enhanced Interrogation, pp. 72–73. Discovery in a lawsuit filed by the A.C.L.U. against Mitchell and Jessen produced a C.I.A. cable from August 28, 2002, in which C.I.A. personnel at the prison, referring to pressure from ALEC to continue waterboarding, argued, “It is our assessment that if we proceed again to the waterboard, on a general threat question with nothing concrete to focus on, we will risk losing even minimal cooperation afterwards.” Rodriguez said in an interview that the reason C.T.C. pressed for more waterboarding was that its analysts possessed “a bunch of videotapes” prerecorded by Abu Zubaydah to “celebrate yet another attack on the U.S.” and they felt he was not forthcoming about planning for additional attacks. Eventually, the C.I.A. agreed that Zubaydah was “compliant” and stopped waterboarding him.
30. Tenet, Muller, Rodriguez quotations: Ibid., p. 57.
31. Tenet’s December 2002 cable: Trial testimony of Marilyn Dorn, U.S. v. David A. Passaro. “Feasible”: S.S.C.I. “Committee Study,” p. 63.
32. E-mail home: Trial testimony of “Steven Jones,” U.S. v. David A. Passaro.
33. Trial testimony of Kevin Gatten, U.S. v. David A. Passaro.
34. All quotations, ibid.
35. Ibid.
36. Ibid.
37. Ibid.
38. All “Jones” quotations from his trial testimony.
39. All quotations, Passaro’s account: Akbar and Burton, Come Back to Afghanistan, p. 194.
40. Ibid., pp. 196–98.
Chapter Ten: Mr. Big
1. Interviews with Khalilzad. See also Khalilzad, The Envoy, pp. 26–35.
2. Didn’t get along with Rumsfeld: Interview with Khalilzad. Rumsfeld: Known and Unknown, p. 683.
3. All quotations are from interviews with Khalilzad and nine other former Kabul embassy officials, as well as military officers then in Afghanistan, N.S.C. staff in Washington, and officials at the U.S. embassy in Islamabad. See also Khalilzad, The Envoy, pp. 176–89. “Sad and angry”: Ibid., p. 175. “Great politician”: Ibid., p. 180. “You have your politics”: Interview with a former White House official who attended videoconferences between Bush and Karzai.
4. Interview with Harriman.
5. Interview with Barno.
6. Interview with McGowan. McGowan said she recalled being told that security personnel “went back to the scene later.” Khalilzad wrote later that after hearing about the incident, he and Barno “decided to put into place new rules to make the protective detail less apt to ride roughshod over civilians.” A State Department official said, “As a matter of security, we do not comment on motorcade procedures.”
7. USA Today, November 27, 2003.
8. “Always ended”: Interview with Khalilzad. “None of us . . .”: Interview with McGowan.
9. DynCorp: Interview with Katherine Brown, an aide to Khalilzad. After “consultation”: Correspondence from Karzai. Reading cables: Interviews with U.S. officials familiar with the episodes. In correspondence, Karzai denied that Khalilzad ever attended cabinet meetings.
10. “Are unfair . . . organizational corruption” and $6.5 million, plus support for operations: E-mail from Arif.
11. Salaries frozen: Interview with a senior Afghan intelligence official involved. Schroen: First In, p. 357.
12. Interview with Khalilzad.
13. E-mail from Arif. Interview with Saleh.
14. Interview with Saleh.
15. Interview with Barno.
16. Interview with Khali
lzad.
17. Ibid., see also Khalilzad, The Envoy, pp. 201–3. A Dostum representative said, “Obviously, he does not deny he drinks. But drinking and then calling President Karzai, of course, he denies. He doesn’t drink anymore. . . . He has diabetes, high blood pressure. But yes, he loves drinking.” As to the account about the B-1, the representative said that Dostum never felt threatened, did not believe the Americans tried to intimidate him, and was pleased that the demands he made about local politics were eventually agreed to by Karzai.
18. All quotations, interview with Khalilzad.
19. All quotations, interview with Barno.
20. Interview with Longhi. E-mail from Khalilzad. Also, Lawrence Longhi v. Khaled Monawar, Superior Court of New Jersey, Morris County, L-2619-09. In response to a request for comment, Monawar wrote an e-mail referring to the public court records “as the best place” for an account of the matter and declined further comment.
21. “Discussions took place . . . resources project”: Affidavit of Larry Longhi, Longhi v. Monawar. “A great idea”: Chronology prepared by Longhi, author’s files. An attorney for Michael Baker Corp. wrote, “It is my client’s policy not to comment on litigation. All that I will say is that Michael Baker has always maintained that Mr. Longhi’s claims against it are without merit. That position is supported by the court’s entry of a summary judgment order dismissing Mr. Longhi’s lawsuit against my client.”
22. “Who Is Afgamco?”: copy of slide in author’s files. “Mr. Big”: E-mail records shared by Longhi.
Chapter Eleven: Ambassador vs. Ambassador
1. Taliban circular: Interview with a senior military officer who studied the document at the time. The prevailing view at the embassy: Interview with Sedney.
2. Interview with Barno.
3. All quotations, author’s interviews, except “double game,” Khalilzad, The Envoy, p. 183.
4. Interviews with Powell.
5. Interview with Khalilzad.
6. Interview with Musharraf, with thanks to David Bradley, who arranged the session, which was also attended by other journalists.
