Ghost Wars

by Steve Coll

  20. That the agreement with the Saudis to match funding dollar for dollar was reached in July is from the unpublished original manuscript of Robert Gates’s memoir, p. 13/31. That Bandar used to hold on to the funds and that CIA officers speculated he was doing so to earn the interest is from interviews with three U.S. officials with direct knowledge. Hart, the Islamabad station chief from 1981 to 1984, said in interviews that the Saudis were frequently late in paying their bills, although he did not comment on Bandar’s role.

  21. Badeeb quotes are from the Orbit interview. Yousaf ‘s quote is from Yousaf, Silent Soldier, p. 88.

  22. The account of the Taif conference and Badeeb’s encounters with the mujahedin leaders and with Sayyaf is from the author’s interview with Badeeb, February 1, 2002, and so is the following account of the relationship between GID and Saudi charities.

  23. That Turki sometimes controlled where the charity funds could be directed is from an interview with Turki and with other Saudi officials. The Badeeb quote is from the author’s interview, February 1, 2002.

  24. Peter L. Bergen, Holy War, pp. 41-48, provides a carefully sourced account of the bin Laden family’s origins and business success.

  25. Interview with Turki, August 2, 2002. That Faisal set up a trust to ensure the safe passage of the bin Laden firm to the older sons is also from that interview.

  26. Bergen, Holy War, pp. 47-48. Bin Laden’s allowance is reported in National Commission staff statement no. 15, p. 3-4.

  27. Author’s interview with Badeeb, February 1, 2002.

  28. The Badeeb quote is from the author’s interview, February 1, 2002.

  29. Interviews with U.S. officials.

  30. See, for instance, the testimony of Cofer Black, director of the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center between 1999 and 2002, September 26, 2002, to Congress’s Joint Inquiry into the September 11 attacks. “We had no relationship with him [bin Laden] but we watched a 22-year-old rich kid from a prominent Saudi family change from frontline mujahedin fighter to a financier for road construction and hospitals.” CIA Director George Tenet testified under oath on October 17, 2002, that during the 1980s, “While we knew of him, we have no record of any direct U.S. government contact with bin Laden at that time.”

  31. “I loved Osama …” and “He was not an extremist at all …” are Badeeb quotes from the Orbit interviews.

  32. Ibid.

  33. Quotations are from Turki’s speech in Washington, D.C., February 3, 2002. He provided this version of his interactions with bin Laden during the 1980s in several other interviews as well.

  34. Badeeb, Orbit interviews. (See p. 609, note 1.) It was during the first day’s Orbit interview that Badeeb talked most openly and expansively about his relationship with bin Laden and about bin Laden’s relationship with the Saudi government. At the the start of the second day’s session, Badeeb interrupted his interviewer to volunteer a “clarification” that bin Laden was not a Saudi intelligence agent and that Badeeb met with him “only in my capacity as his former teacher.” The sequence raises the possibility that Saudi government officials saw or heard about the first part of the interview, were displeased, and asked Badeeb to issue this “clarification.”

  CHAPTER 5: “DON’T MAKE IT OUR WAR”

  1. Contents of briefing to Reagan from Robert Gates’s unpublished original manuscript, p. 23/33.

  2. Interviews with former CIA officials. Also Mohammad Yousaf and Mark Adkin, The Bear Trap, pp. 193-95.

  3. That McMahon wondered about the purpose of the covert war, Bob Woodward, Veil, p. 104. The Twetten quote is from Kirsten Lundberg, Philip Zelikow, and Ernest May, “Politics of a Covert Action,” p. 12. The Directorate of Intelligence assessment is from “Afghanistan: The Revolution After Four Years,” CIA, Directorate of Intelligence, July 1982; declassified July 1999; released by the National Security Archive.

  4. “The longest midlife crisis in history” is from George Crile, Charlie Wilson’s War, p. 39. The book provides detailed and colorful accounts, mainly from Wilson and CIA officer Gust Avrakatos, of Wilson’s role in the Soviet-Afghan conflict, which Crile regards as decisive. The book also describes in profane and painful detail Wilson’s alcoholism, womanizing, self-infatuation, and extravagant, sometimes bullying global travel. The quotes from former Miss Northern Hemisphere are on p. 223.

  5. The congressional resolution is quoted in Lundberg, Zelikow, and May, “Politics of a Covert Action,” p. 20. “The U.S. had nothing …” is from Crile, Charlie Wilson’s War, p. 262.

  6. There have been multiple accounts of William Casey’s covert dealings with the Catholic Church during the 1980s. Some of his efforts in Central America were described in testimony at Clair George’s criminal trial arising from the Iran-Contra scandal. About the CIA and the Church in Poland see Carl Bernstein and Marco Politi, His Holiness .

  7. Interview with a former CIA official. See also Woodward, Veil, p. 130.

  8. The quote from Mrs. Casey is from Joseph E. Persico, Casey: From the OSS to the CIA, p. 26. The pre-CIA biographical material in this chapter draws heavily on Persico’s strong work, which itself drew on access to Casey’s papers and extensive interviews with his family and CIA colleagues. Also helpful was Casey’s own scattered accounts of his war experiences and political outlook in Scouting the Future, an extensive collection of Casey’s public speeches compiled by Herbert E. Meyer.

  9. “Goosing ship builders” is from Persico, Casey, p. 51, and “ex-polo players” is on p. 56.

  10. “Never had I been in contact,” ibid., p. 57.

  11. Ibid., pp. 68-69.

  12. Fifty-eight teams, Persico, ibid., p. 79. Success rate and “We probably saved” and “for the first time,” ibid., p. 83. See also Casey’s speech of September 19, 1986, in Casey, Scouting the Future, pp. 218-27.

  13. “Had been permitted to run down” is from Robert M. Gates, From the Shadows, p. 210. The vodka martini scene and “He would demand something,” ibid., p. 198.

  14. “The Mumbling Guy” is from the author’s interview with Ahmed Badeeb, February 1, 2002, Jedda, Saudi Arabia (SC). The Reagan note to Bush is from Persico, Casey, p. 228. The Buckley quote, ibid., p. 571. “I can tell you” is from a speech on June 29, 1984, in Casey, Scouting the Future, p. 289.

  15. “As a legacy” is from Casey’s speech of May 21, 1982, in Casey, Scouting the Future, p. 11. “The primary battlefield” is from his speech of July 30, 1986, ibid., p. 26. “The isthmus” and “the oil fields” is from his speech of October 27, 1986, ibid., p. 35.

  16. The Mein Kampf comparison is from Casey’s speech of May 1, 1985, in Casey, Scouting the Future, p. 183. “That two can play the same game” is from his speech of October 27, 1986, ibid., p. 36. “Far fewer people” is from his speech of September 19, 1986, ibid., p. 299. “Afghan freedom fighters” is from his speech of October 23, 1981, ibid., pp. 119-20.

  17. “Realistic counter-strategy” is from Casey’s speech of October 29, 1983, ibid., pp. 119-20. p. 144. His discussions with Ames about communism and traditional religion are from his speech of May 1, 1985, ibid., pp. 186-87.

  18. Casey and King Khalid, Persico, Casey, pp. 310-11. Casey and oil, interviews with former CIA officers and U.S. officials.

  19. “Is completely involved” is from Yousaf, Silent Soldier, pp. 80-81. The $7,000 carpet is from Persico, Casey, p. 507. He reported the gift and passed the carpet to the U.S. government.

  20. Persico, Casey, p. 226.

  21. Casey and Zia, and Zia’s red template, are from Charles G. Cogan, “Partners in Time,“World Policy Journal, p. 79. “Moral duty” is from Gates, From the Shadows, p. 252. The CIA map produced for Casey is from Gates’s unpublished manuscript, pp. 18/63-65.

  22. Persico, Casey, p. 313.

  23. Interviews with Howard Hart, November 12, 26, and 27, 2001 (SC). His account is corroborated by several other sources, including Yousaf.

  24. Memo quotation is from Gates’s manuscript, pp. 23/37-38.

  25.
Interviews with former CIA officials.

  26. Gates, From the Shadows, p. 320.

  27. Funding numbers and December 6 memo quotations from Gates’s manuscript, pp. 23/37-38.

  28. That Casey insisted on seeing the border camps is from the author’s 1992 interviews with Yousaf. “Kabul must burn!” is from the same interviews. What Casey and Akhtar wore is from a photograph taken during the visit and published in Yousaf, Silent Soldier.

  29. Gates’s manuscript, pp. 13/6-11.

  30. The May 1984 lecture report is quoted in CIA, Directorate of Intelligence, “The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan: Five Years After,” May 1985, released by the National Security Archive. That U.S. diplomats traveled to Central Asia is from an interview with Edmund McWilliams, January 15, 2002, Washington, D.C. (SC). McWilliams was a political officer in the Moscow embassy during this period and traveled to Central Asia several times.

  31. Interviews with Yousaf, 1992. Also Yousaf and Adkin, Bear Trap, pp. 189-95.

  32. Yousaf ‘s recollections from the author’s 1992 interviews. The Gates quotations are from Gates’s manuscript, pp. 26/13-14.

  33. Interviews with officials at all three agencies during 1992.

  34. Gates, From the Shadows, p. 199.

  35. Interviews with U.S. officials. “Not authorize … which we did” is from a written communication to the author from Piekney, July 6, 2003.

  CHAPTER 6: “WHO IS THIS MASSOUD?”

  1. The account of Massoud’s childhood and family life is based primarily on a lengthy series of interviews in Kabul in May 2002 with Yahya Massoud, Ahmed Shah’s older brother by two years (GW). Yahya also provided a daylong tour of the Panjshir Valley during which he narrated his family’s history in the region and discussed his brother’s tactics for defending the valley from the Soviets. Throughout the 1980s, Yahya served in Ahmed Shah Massoud’s army as an adviser and as a liaison between Massoud and the British intelligence service, MI6. There is a brief account of the young Massoud’s war games in Sebastian Junger’s 2001 book, Fire, which contains an essay on Massoud titled “The Lion in Winter,” p. 213.

  2. Interview with Ahmed Wali Massoud, May 7, 2002, Kabul, Afghanistan (GW).

  3. Barnett R. Rubin, The Fragmentation of Afghanistan, pp. 83, 218, and 221.

  4. Interview with Zia Mojadedi, May 14, 2002, Kabul, Afghanistan (GW). Mojadedi was an agriculture professor during the 1960s and 1970s at Kabul University. In 1969, future Afghan leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar was among his students. Mojadedi recalls that his student was “highly volatile.” For a detailed discussion of the growing chasm between the Islamists and the communists during the 1960s and 1970s in Afghanistan-and particularly at Kabul University-see Rubin, Fragmentation of Afghanistan, pp. 81-105.

  5. Olivier Roy, Afghanistan: From Holy War to Civil War, p. 38.

  6. This account of the origins of the Muslim Brotherhood and the group’s early history is drawn in part from Mary Anne Weaver, A Portrait of Egypt, pp. 26-29, and Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, The Age of Sacred Terror, pp. 57-59.

  7. Ayman al-Zawahiri, Knights Under the Prophet’s Banner. Extracts from this book manuscript were published by Al-Sharq al-Awsat; FBIS translation, December 2001. Yasser Arafat was drawn to the Muslim Brotherhood while serving as a young lieutenant in the Egyptian army; he was arrested twice for Brotherhood activities. Later he turned toward secular leftist politics.

  8. Benjamin and Simon, Age of Sacred Terror, p. 65.

  9. Weaver, Portrait of Egypt, pp. 28-29.

  10. Rubin, Fragmentation of Afghanistan, p. 83.

  11. Interview with Ali Ashgar Payman, May 7, 2002,Kabul, Afghanistan (GW). Payman, a deputy planning minister in the interim government of 2002, was a contemporary of Hekmatyar’s at Kabul University.

  12. Michael Griffin, Reaping the Whirlwind, pp. 17-18.

  13. Rubin, Fragmentation of Afghanistan, pp. 103-4.

  14. There are accounts of Massoud’s 1978 return to Afghanistan in William Branigin’s October 18, 1983, dispatch from the Panjshir for The Washington Post and in Jon Lee Anderson’s The Lion’s Grave, pp. 218-19.

  15. That the Soviets didn’t initially intend to use their own troops against the mujahedin is from “The Tragedy and Valor of the Afghani,” Moscow, GPI, “Iskon,” 1995, pp. 176-77, translated by Svetlana Savranskaya, National Security Archive.

  16. Edward Girardet, The Christian Science Monitor, September 23, 1981. Girardet was the first Western journalist to provide a detailed account of Massoud’s war in the Panjshir.

  17. Vasiliy Mitrokhin, “The KGB in Afghanistan,” p. 134.

  18. Sebastian Junger, Fire, p. 201.

  19. William Dowell, Time, July 5, 1982. On his way into Afghanistan from Pakistan, Dowell was escorted by a group of Massoud’s men. At one point, the mujahedin passed within a few feet of an Afghan army fort. To Dowell’s astonishment, instead of opening fire, the soldiers inside the fort waved and smiled.

  20. Girardet, Christian Science Monitor, September 24, 1981.

  21. Rubin, Fragmentation of Afghanistan, pp. 234-37, describes Massoud’s military and civil organization in the Panjshir, especially as it compared to Hekmatyar’s organization in Pakistan. The quotations are from Roy, Afghanistan, pp. 63-64.

  22. Rubin, Fragmentation of Afghanistan, p. 220.

  23. United Press International, May 24, 1983.

  24. Interview with Brig. Gen. Syed Raza Ali (Ret.), ISI, May 20, 2002, Rawalpindi, Pakistan (SC). Raza worked in ISI’s Afghan bureau from the early 1980s through the Soviet withdrawal.

  25. Rubin, Fragmentation of Afghanistan, p. 232.

  26. Interview with an Arab journalist then in Peshawar.

  27. Interview with Graham Fuller, 1992.

  28. Interview with a U.S. official.

  29. Interview with William Piekney, January 14, 2002, Tysons Corner, Virginia (SC).

  30. Interview with Abdullah, May 8, 2002, Kabul, Afghanistan (GW).

  31. Ibid. The assassination attempt is from The Christian Science Monitor, May 2, 1984, and The Washington Post, May 2, 1984.

  32. Patricia I. Sethi, Newsweek, June 11, 1984.

  33. Edward Girardet, Christian Science Monitor, October 2, 1984.

  34. CIA, Directorate of Intelligence, “The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan: Five Years After,” Secret, May 1985.

  35. This summary of Massoud’s relations with the British and French is based on interviews with U.S. officials, Yahya Massoud (who handled the liaison with the British), May 2002, and Daoud Mir, who later served as Massoud’s representative in France. See also George Crile, Charlie Wilson’s War, pp. 199-200. Yahya Massoud reported regarding the British, “We had close contact. I can tell you that more than fourteen times I traveled back and forth to the U.K. seeking assistance. They assisted us very well. They gave us very special equipment. They gave us military training-not through Pakistan.” The quotations regarding “penis envy” and “trying to find some liberator character” are from an interview with a former CIA officer.

  36. Interview with Afghan ambassador to India Massoud Khalili, May 28, 2002, Kabul, Afghanistan (GW).

  37. “Playing their own game” is from the interview with Syed Raza Ali, May 20, 2002. That the CIA began unilateral supplies to Massoud in 1984 is from the author’s interview with former CIA Near East Division chief Thomas Twetten, March 18, 2002, Washington, D.C. (SC). Crile, Charlie Wilson’s War, p. 202, cites Afghan task force chief Avrakatos and also dates the beginning of CIA aid to late 1984.

  38. “He was never a problem” is from an interview with a U.S. official. “He cannot make a man stronger” is from an interview with Mohammed Yousaf, 1992.

  39. Girardet, Christian Science Monitor, October 2, 1984.

  CHAPTER 7: “THE TERRORISTS WILL OWN THE WORLD”

  1. The Anderson quote is from Kirsten Lundberg, Philip Zelikow, and Ernest May, “Politics of a Covert Action,” Kennedy School of Government Case Program. The account in this chapter about the internal delibe
rations surrounding NSDD-166 comes from this excellent case study as well as notes and transcripts from the author’s original reporting about the decision directive for The Washington Post in July 1992 and more recent interviews by the author with participants.

  2. Quotations in this and preceding paragraph are from Lundberg, Zelikow, and May, “Politics of a Covert Action.”

  3. NSDD-166 and its annex remain classified and have never been published. It remains unclear how specific the original authorizations in the annex were and how many of the new CIA practices evolved under interagency review after the decision directive was signed. In interviews conducted in 1992, Mohammed Yousaf dated the arrival of the first burst communications sets to late 1985. U.S. officials interviewed recently by the author authoritatively date the large-scale expansion of the CIA’s unilateral recruitment of paid reporting agents on Afghanistan to 1985. A smaller number of such agents had been on the payroll earlier, according to interviews, but after 1985 the ranks grew to the dozens, and monthly stipends began to swell. It is not clear whether this expansion of unilateral agents was explicitly set in motion by NSDD-166’s annex. As to the issue of shooting Soviets, Lundberg, Zelikow, and May, “Politics of a Covert Action,” reports that the decision directive “endorsed direct attacks on Soviet military officers,” p. 25. The author interviewed multiple participants who remember this issue being discussed at the CIA and by the interagency committee, but those interviews did not make clear whether the decision directive itself endorsed such targeted killings. The interviews underlying the Harvard case study do appear authoritative. George Crile’s account of the issue, narrated from the perspective of Avrakatos, does not make clear precisely what legal authorities governed his work.

  4. Lundberg, Zelikow, and May, “Politics of a Covert Action,” p. 52.

  5. Interviews with U.S. officials.

  6. Humphrey’s recommendation is from the author’s interviews in 1992 with multiple U.S. officials involved in the debate over supplying sniper rifles to the mujahedin.

  7. Joseph E. Persico, Casey: From the OSS to the CIA, pp. 428-29.