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25. Author’s interview.
26. One of the largest ever: United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, “Afghanistan Opium Survey, 2008.” According to the U.N., opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan set a new record in 2014, at more than 550,000 acres.
Chapter Sixteen: Murder and the Deep State
1. All quotations from interviews with Smith, correspondence with Mahmud.
2. Ibid. Mahmud confirmed the conversation. He wrote, in correspondence, “The views and assessments I shared with my contemporaries in the C.I.A., Pentagon or other American officers were based on dispassionate professional analyses. However, time and events since 9/11 have proven that my advice . . . was not inconsistent with saner voices in the U.S. Indeed, the interest of my own country was always central and paramount. War in our neighborhood was to be avoided if it could. I made all efforts to attain this to the very end. Here is another line from Ben-Hur: ‘Where there is greatness—great government or power—even great feelings or compassion—error also is great.’ So it is with the U.S. But the real test of greatness lies in having the moral courage to recognize the error and having the moral capacity to rectify it.”
3. “A machine that operates”: Author’s interview with Fatima Bhutto in 2007. “A symbol of reform . . .”: Rice, No Higher Honor, p. 609.
4. Rice, ibid. January 2007: Bhutto, from a manuscript that became the posthumous memoir Reconciliation, provided to the author in early 2008 by her longtime adviser Mark Siegel.
5. Author’s interview. These and some other passages about Bhutto’s murder first appeared in “Time Bomb,” The New Yorker, January 28, 2008.
6. Ibid.
7. All quotations from the slide deck, which is in the author’s files.
8. Taliban warnings: Schofield, Inside the Pakistan Army, p. 176. Hyat: State Department Cable, Islamabad to Washington, June 22, 2007, WikiLeaks.
9. Author’s interview with Musharraf.
10. Schofield, Inside the Pakistan Army, p. 177, captures some of the internal debates in the Army command. Ghazi: Author’s interview, in early 2008.
11. Ghazi interview, ibid.
12. Interview with Lavoy in December 2014.
13. “Safe haven”: “The Terrorist Threat to the Homeland.” “‘Hideouts’ would be a better description”: Musharraf to Senator Dick Durbin, August 7, 2007, as described in State Department cable, Islamabad to Washington, August 11, 2007, WikiLeaks. “How can we navigate . . . ?”: From an interview with Lavoy in December 2014.
14. The New York Times, October 17, 2007.
15. The author flew to Karachi on Bhutto’s plane; the quotations are from the author’s interview with her after the initial suicide bombing attack on her procession.
16. “Would go to any length”: Ibid. Patterson: State Department cable, Islamabad to Washington, October 23, 2007, WikiLeaks.
17. Ibid.
18. Meeting between Bhutto and Taj: “Report of the United Nations Commission of Inquiry into the Facts and Circumstances of the Assassination of Former Pakistani Prime Minister Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto.”
19. Author’s interview with Karzai, early 2008.
20. Interview with Rehman; U.N. investigation report.
21. The Washington Post, January 4, 2008.
22. The conversation between Patterson and Zardari took place on January 25, 2008, on the eve of the Pakistani election. State Department cable, Islamabad to Washington, January 28, 2008, WikiLeaks.
Chapter Seventeen: Hard Data
1. The account of the District Assessments here comes from interviews with seven Bush administration officials who worked with the maps and debated their findings and implications during 2007 and 2008. Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Graeme Smith are among the journalists who have previously reported on the maps’ existence. Schinella took charge of the project in 2009.
2. All quotations from interviews with Cohen and Gordon.
3. Interview with Miller and officials who worked on the maps.
4. Rex Douglass’s thesis at Princeton: “Why Not Divide and Conquer? Targeted Bargaining and Violence in Civil War,” September 2012, page 184. Also, interviews with Milam and Bruce Kinsey, a foreign service officer who rated hamlets in the field. Eliminating “V” and blending hamlet scores: Correspondence with David Elliott.
5. Elliott, The Vietnamese War, p. 857.
6. Author’s interviews with officials who used the maps in 2007 and later. It was common in my experience for non-C.I.A. sources to describe the agency’s analysts as negative about U.S. prospects in Afghanistan after 2006. Former C.I.A. officials offered little disagreement with that description. They said the agency’s pessimistic analysis was factual.
7. The meeting is recounted by Waltz, Warrior Diplomat, pp. 204–5, from notes he took. McNeill said quotations attributed to him were not correct, but that the essence of what Waltz reported was accurate, that is, that he defended the war’s progress against pessimistic C.I.A. forecasts. In correspondence, Gates endorsed Waltz’s account. The account here draws upon Waltz’s quotations of Gates and McNeill’s memory of his argument.
8. State Department cable, Kabul to Washington, March 28, 2007, WikiLeaks. This Provincial Reconstruction Team survey appears to have been a twice-annual assessment exercise of local political, economic, and security conditions.
9. Ibid.
10. State Department cable, Kabul to Washington, July 10, 2007, WikiLeaks.
11. Ibid.
12. Smith, The Dogs Are Eating Them Now, p. 204.
13. All quotations, interview with Cohen.
14. Interviews with multiple American, Afghan, and European officials.
15. Author’s interview.
16. Interviews with two participants.
17. Ibid.
18. Karzai and Miliband: Miliband, The Sunday Telegraph, February 10, 2008. Karzai, Rice, and Miliband: Rice, No Higher Honor, p. 617.
19. Chicago Tribune, February 8, 2008.
20. All quotations, author’s interview with a participant. Rice and Wood did not respond to requests for comment.
21. All quotations, interview with Hagel, confirmed by Kate Bedingfield, an aide to Biden, and David Wade, an aide to Kerry.
22. All quotations, interview with Hagel, with additions from Bedingfield and Wade, ibid. The New York Times, February 8, 2009, first reported the essence of the episode. In correspondence, Karzai remembered a different, similar dinner with Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Joe Lieberman, at which McCain, not Kerry, assured him that they would get through the emerging sources of tension. McCain, Graham, and Lieberman did visit Afghanistan in December 2008, six weeks before the trio led by Kerry. Both visits probably included tense exchanges, given Karzai’s doubts about the United States.
Chapter Eighteen: Tough Love
1. Brown and Rassler, Fountainhead of Jihad, pp. 151–52.
2. British conclusion: Interviews with U.S. and British officials involved. Trained by Lashkar: Brown and Rassler, Fountainhead of Jihad, p. 152.
3. Interviews with U.S. officials involved.
4. Timing of Kappes visit, Archibald: Interviews with U.S. and Pakistani officials familiar with the trip.
5. All quotations from author’s interviews.
6. Akhtar and Taj: State Department cable, Islamabad to Washington, October 8, 2008, WikiLeaks. “He was just a bag man”: Author’s interview.
7. Principals Committee and National Security Council: Paul Miller notes. C.I.A. proposals: Author’s interviews with officials, confirming several previous accounts by journalists, including Woodward, Obama’s Wars, Mazzetti, The Way of the Knife, and Schmitt and Shanker, Counterstrike. Expanded target list: Waltz, Warrior Diplomat, p. 319.
8. Vogle in Kabul, his views: Author’s interviews with N.A.T.O. officials. National Security Council meeting: Schmitt and Shanker,
Counterstrike, pp. 101–2. “We’re going to stop . . . had enough”: Woodward, Obama’s Wars, pp. 4–5.
9. Waltz, Warrior Diplomat, p. 318.
10. Interview with Gordon. Summary of the outlooks of Kappes, Lavoy, and Wood from author’s interviews with multiple U.S. officials working on Pakistan.
11. Interviews with multiple U.S. and Pakistani officials involved.
12. www.cbsnews.com/news/obama-tours-afghan-war-zone.
13. The author attended Occidental College two years ahead of Obama and maintained a friendship with Chandoo afterward.
14. Notes of conversation between Saleh and U.S. Major General David Rodriguez, March 8, 2008, War Logs, WikiLeaks.
15. All quotations from the lunch meeting from State Department cable, Kabul to Washington, July 24, 2008, WikiLeaks.
16. “Al Qaeda Annual Messaging Volume and Runtime, 2002–29 June 2013.” IntelCenter is a counterterrorism analysis company that analyzes open media and other sources.
17. “Timeline of Communications from Mustafa Abu al-Yazid.” SITE is a counterterrorism analysis company headquartered outside Washington.
18. All quotations from GEO’s translation of the interview, posted by GEO on YouTube, www.youtube.com/watch?v=37GvqPxwFyc.
19. August 28: Paul Miller notes. Civilian victims: Bajwa, Inside Waziristan, pp. 111–12.
20. “Good . . . into confidence”: State Department cable, Islamabad to Washington, September 3, 2008, WikiLeaks. Kayani statement: Reuters, September 11, 2008. Headlines: Islamabad to Washington, September 12, 2008, WikiLeaks.
21. Cryptologist: “Honor the Fallen,” Military Times, http://thefallen.militarytimes.com/navy-cryptologic-technician-3rd-class-matthew-j-obryant/3741174.
22. Interviews with U.S. and Pakistani officials involved. Also, Islamabad to Washington, October 8, 2008, WikiLeaks.
23. Islamabad to Washington, January 3, 2009, WikiLeaks.
24. Childhood: Los Angeles Times, July 30, 2007. Author’s interviews.
25. In addition to interviews, this account draws on “Admiral Mike Mullen,” Harvard Business Review, June 2012.
26. Interviews with multiple U.S. and Pakistani officials familiar with Mullen’s assessment of I.S.I. and his discussions with Kayani that year.
27. Kayani’s list, first meeting with Mullen: Interviews with U.S. and Pakistani officials involved. See also Islamabad to Washington, February 11, 2008, and March 24, 2008, WikiLeaks, which document some aspects of Kayani’s requests. At a March 4 meeting, Mullen told Kayani that “a U.S. SIGINT team had completed its initial assessment of Pakistan’s requirements and that they intended to propose options to assist them in developing a solution.”
28. “Fundamentals . . . not a U.S. war”: All quotations from author’s interviews with Pakistani and U.S. officials involved in the discussions.
29. All quotations, ibid.
30. Ibid.
31. Ibid.
Chapter Nineteen: Terror and the Deep State
1. Pasha’s biography is primarily from interviews with senior Pakistani military officers and civilian officials familiar with his career, as well as from interviews with Americans who worked with him. A State Department cable, Islamabad to Washington, October 8, 2008, WikiLeaks, confirms several details.
2. Interview with a Pakistani familiar with the conversation.
3. Schofield, Inside the Pakistan Army, p. 79.
4. Interviews with Pakistani military officers and officials familiar with Pasha’s thinking, as well as Americans who worked with Pasha.
5. What Pasha believed: Author’s interviews, ibid. Extreme nationalist: Interview with an American official who worked closely on Pakistan during this period.
6. “I want my kids . . .” and “Of course we have links . . . what we say”: Interview with a U.S. diplomat. Pasha came to understand: Interviews with Pakistani military officers and officials familiar with his thinking.
7. American and N.A.T.O. fatalities by year: icasualties.org. I.E.D. attacks: “IED Metrics for Afghanistan, January 2004–September 2010,” Cordesman, et al. Center for Strategic and International Studies, November 2010.
8. Interview with Kilcullen.
9. Interviews with Miller and Wood.
10. From interviews with more than half a dozen former Bush administration officials involved with the Afghanistan policy review.
11. Ibid.
12. Dialogue with Lessard, impressions of trip: Interviews with participants, including Cohen, Gordon, and Long.
13. “Bleed out” time: Interview with Long. “No one in this room”: Waltz, Warrior Diplomat, p. 215, from his handwritten notes. Hadley to Lute, September 17, sixteen sessions, forty hours, Room 445: Interviews with multiple participants.
14. Interviews with participants.
15. Cable, U.S. Mission N.A.T.O. to Washington, December 4, 2008, WikiLeaks.
16. Interviews with British intelligence and Foreign Office officials involved.
17. All quotations, interview with Cohen.
18. All quotations summarizing the estimate’s findings from December 4, 2008, cable from Brussels.
19. Ibid.
20. About forty pages, “The United States is not losing . . .”: Interviews with multiple participants in the review, including Cohen.
21. “Detail of Attacks by NATO Forces/Predators in FATA,” F.A.T.A. Secretariat, obtained and released by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism. The bureau conducted field interviews and reviews of Pakistani media to supplement the F.A.T.A. records, which appear to be the most authoritative single open source available, but which are also incomplete and based on uncertain reporting methodology.
22. Interview with a pilot at Creech, and other officers closely involved with the program.
23. “Strike policy,” briefings, Bashir: State Department cable, Islamabad to Washington, November 20, 2008, WikiLeaks.
24. Reported victims of Bannu strike, headline: Ibid. Zardari: Islamabad to Washington, November 15, 2008, WikiLeaks.
25. All quotations from the final National Security Council meeting, which appears from contemporaneous notes to have taken place on November 20 or November 22, are from Waltz, Warrior Diplomat, pp. 220–23, from Waltz’s handwritten notes taken at the meeting.
26. Bush, Decision Points, p. 218.
27. Translated dialogue: Government Exhibit TR 11/27/2008, United States of America v. Tahawwur Hussain Rana, 09 CR 830, United States District Court, Northern District of Illinois. Sajid’s background: “Interrogation Report of David Coleman Headley.”
28. Two Lashkar camps: Briefing of then Pakistani interior minister Rehman Malik to U.S. embassy Islamabad, State Department cable, Islamabad to Washington, February 6, 2009. “To fight harder” and “pinprick”: “Government’s Santiago Proffer,” U.S. v. Rana. The proffer is the prosecution’s most authoritative summary of Headley’s cooperative testimony about his role in the Mumbai conspiracy. Lakhvi profile: Indian investigation documents, 2010, author’s files.
29. Intercepts, all quotations: Author’s interviews with individuals familiar with the reports. Also, a State Department cable, Islamabad to Washington, December 5, 2008, makes several references to “UK intelligence” about the attacks that was “passed to I.S.I.”
30. Quotations from the author’s interviews with participants.
31. Islamabad to Washington, November 30, 2008, WikiLeaks. The cable describes a meeting among Feierstein, Kayani, Pasha, and the “Acting RAO,” or Regional Affairs Officer, a common light cover title for the C.I.A. station chief.
32. Puppet of I.S.I. and Dehradun: “Interrogation Report of David Coleman Headley.” $30,000, “Spotting and assessing . . .”: “Government’s Santiago Proffer,” op.cit.
33. 100,000 militants, 128 I.S.I. camps: Contemporaneous notes from a briefing in Washington. “Broo
m” and “strike at my enemies”: Islamabad to Washington, December 1, 2008. Hoped it was a shock to the system: Interview with an American official who worked with Pasha.
34. Intelligence study: Author’s interviews.
35. Feinstein, “Tribute to John D. Bennett.”
36. State Department cable, “Follow-Up on Mumbai Information Sharing,” Islamabad to Washington, January 8, 2009, WikiLeaks. I have inferred Bennett’s participation. The January 8 cable has dropped earlier references in cable traffic to the “Acting RAO,” and describes the “RAO,” or Regional Affairs Officer, as having “passed to I.S.I. the three dossiers.” Bennett rotated into Islamabad as station chief around this period and served into mid-2009, according to interviews with individuals familiar with his tour. “Fighting the I.S.I.”: Interview with Cohen.
37. Bush, Decision Points, p. 186.
38. “The Taliban? Legitimate?”: Interview with a senior Bush administration official familiar with the meeting. Karzai meeting: Bush, Decision Points, pp. 219–20. “You were right”: From notes of the contemporaneous account of an aide to Karzai.
Chapter Twenty: The New Big Dogs
1. Biden’s furniture, “What do I need to put into Afghanistan now”: Contemporaneous notes from a dinner at Biden’s residence, February 19, 2009, which the author attended.
2. All quotations, State Department cable, Islamabad to Washington, February 6, 2009, WikiLeaks.
3. “New contract”: State Department cable, Kabul to Washington, January 20, 2009, WikiLeaks. “Mr. President . . . the drug problem”: From contemporary records describing the conversation. “Mr. Vice President . . . the United States”: Author’s interview with an Afghan present at the meeting, confirmed in correspondence by Karzai. “The Taliban is your problem”: Interview with Kai Eide, then U.N. representative to Afghanistan, who met with Karzai after Biden departed.
4. “Expect more”: CNN, January 28, 2009. “Are you with me . . . to the mountains”: Contemporary records of a conversation with an Afghan cabinet minister present. In correspondence, Karzai denied that he said, “I will declare jihad and go to the mountains,” but accepted the attribution from contemporary records that he had said “The U.S. can leave.” “Is not listening to us”: Ibid., from a separate conversation with a different aide. Ben Rhodes, a senior communications adviser to President Obama and later deputy national security adviser, said that Sherzai was not explicitly invited to the inauguration. “We didn’t have an invite list of foreign leaders. They just come and play it as they wish.”