88 Days to Kandahar: A CIA Diary (30 page)

Before leaving, I had a long chat with Greg and Jimmy. They would be responsible for the Afghan end of this venture, and had little idea what sort of tribal force Karzai would be able to organize when they went inside. We fully expected at that point that Hamid and his American team would be reinserting within three days. We were soon to be disabused. Once out, I didn’t realize how difficult it would be to get Karzai back in.

NOVEMBER 13, 2001

A
S THE TELEVIDEO FLICKERED
to life, I could see the accustomed players. At the head of the table, facing directly toward us, was George Tenet. Next to him was Jim Pavitt, the DDO. Down the left side of the table, as we viewed it, were the usual suspects from CTC, including Hank. On the right, opposite them, were my colleagues from the Near East Division, looking sullen and cowed. Among them was Gary Spitzel, the highly capable chief of the South Asia Task Force, whose role in Afghanistan had been thoroughly eclipsed by CTC/SO.

This conversation promised to be an important one, as Gul Agha’s preparations to reenter Afghanistan were approaching fruition and the conflict between Islamabad Station and CTC/SO was coming to a head. It was considered bad form to raise operational disagreements in front of the director; such issues were expected to be worked out at a lower level. With no checks and balances in the system, however, I was prepared to appeal directly to Tenet for decisions, without mentioning that these issues were in dispute. If CTC wanted to raise objections at the table, they would be free to do so.

Traditionally, the geographic divisions, and particularly the Near East and South Asia division, had controlled the bits of turf around the globe in which CTC sought to press its operations. The division’s field officers were the ones conducting these operations, after all, and
division management was able to provide guidance and a useful, moderating check on CTC’s at times myopic zeal. In the aftermath of 9/11, those breaks were swept away. The effort to drive al-Qa’ida out of Afghanistan was the preeminent national security challenge before the U.S. government, and Director Tenet was the leader of that effort. He wanted a centralized, streamlined headquarters mechanism to deal with the war, and it was natural that he should find it in the Counterterrorist Center.

In order to give it greater independence, and in virtue of the fact that it combined elements of both the Directorate of Operations and the Directorate of Intelligence (Analysis), CTC had from its founding in 1986 been designated as the DCI Counterterrorist Center, placing it under the authority of the director. As a practical matter, though, CTC had always been subordinate to the DDO, the head of the Clandestine Service. But with George Tenet leading the war effort, CTC suddenly became his, in fact as well as in theory. George was too well attuned to what was happening around him not to have at least some idea of the controversies being generated, but he had neither the time nor the inclination to sort out disputes within the Clandestine Service. He just wanted to see things done.

Weeks before, on October 18, headquarters had evinced scant enthusiasm when we first broached the idea that Gul Agha would enter Afghanistan via the Shin Naray Valley. If there had been any doubts along those lines, they were dispelled by CTC/SO’s cable of October 26, the one which had reviewed potential tribal candidates for direct CIA support, favoring several whose willingness and ability to confront the Taliban we knew to be highly suspect, and pointedly expressing reservations regarding Shirzai. Nonetheless, when I proposed on November 1 that we finance Gul Agha’s purchase of enough additional weapons to equip an entry force of 150 to 200 men, headquarters agreed. They also agreed the same day, reluctantly, to my proposal to seek the ISI’s help in facilitating the movement of an anti-Taliban tribal force across the border. This I had broached, in principle only, with General Ehsan on the night of November 4, the same night I briefed him on our extraction of Karzai. Ehsan was agreeable and did not press for any details of personalities
or places, which I had no intention of providing him at that stage in any case. I knew that I could trust Ehsan and General Jafar, but I also knew that the actual facilitation on the ground would inevitably involve lower-ranking members of their organization, any one or combination of whom could well be Taliban sympathizers. I did not want to give the pro-Taliban types the opportunity to sabotage our plans by telling them too much, too far in advance.

Convinced by our difficulty in arranging arms drops to Karzai that we should avoid reliance on air supply to the extent possible, I had also arranged with General Jafar to procure weapons—a mixture of AKs and RPG-7s—from Pakistan Army stocks, sufficient for 500 fighters whom we hoped would join the initial cross-border party. The weapons were on standby; I intended to use this meeting to get approval to pay for and deliver them.

Colonel Pete in Karshi Khanabad had continued to play a useful intermediary role for us with the Fifth Special Forces Group. The Special Forces, concerned lest they be caught unawares and then whipsawed by changes in plan as they had been with Karzai, had asked Pete for full background information on Gul Agha, which we were happy to provide. It was becoming obvious to me that the Special Forces were chafing to get more ODAs into the south, and growing frustrated with what they perceived as high-handedness and arbitrariness on the part of CIA Headquarters. Kept informed by “Captain Greg” and a wizened, canny, tobacco-chewing Special Forces enlisted man of almost legendary experience, Chief Warrant Officer (CW3) Poteet, who had also been assigned to our station team, Fifth Group was keen to get into the fight with Shirzai.

Although General Franks’s formal campaign plan specified at this stage that Special Forces could only operate in Afghanistan on a CIA lead—thus giving the agency effective veto power over whom the Special Forces could join up with in Afghanistan and when—I was pleased to forge independent links with the Green Berets, and to develop them as allies. The wisdom in doing so was reinforced two days later, on November 12, just before the video teleconference, when we received a treacly cable from CTC/SO, earnestly professing their interest in supporting
Gul Agha with a CIA/SF team, but making what I regarded as a series of suspicious excuses as to why this might prove difficult in the end. The reasons would shortly become clear.

Now, however, Tenet opened the videoconference by asking me for an overview of the situation. I began by noting the recent successes of the Northern Alliance, which had taken Mazar-e Sharif and was launching a major attack toward Kabul. I confined my assessment of these events to their likely impact on Taliban strategy and morale, leaving aside the wider political implications. I had long been concerned about the impact among the Pashtuns of a Northern Alliance seizure of Kabul. I feared they would see it as a U.S.-facilitated power grab, which would undermine their support for the anti-Taliban uprising, such as it was, in the south.

Weeks earlier, almost immediately after Gary Schroen’s arrival in the Panjshir Valley at the head of the “Jawbreaker” team, he and I had begun sparring in cable traffic over how to manage our support for the northerners and the ends to which that support should aim. Having compared the situation of the Northern Alliance to that of the Israelis during the First Gulf War of 1990, I felt strongly that a seizure of Kabul by the Tajiks and Uzbeks would make an eventual political settlement with the Pashtuns far more difficult. I had long had great respect for Schroen, an older, Farsi-speaking Near-East Division officer under whom I had previously served, and one with deep knowledge of Afghanistan. Although we disagreed on this and other issues, I fully understood and empathized with his position. With Ahmad Shah Mahsood assassinated, he had to forge a relationship of trust with General Fahim, the new commander of the Northern Alliance, and his key subordinate commanders, and to demonstrate that our professed support for them was genuine. Armies are blunt instruments at best, and Afghan armies perhaps especially so. With the failure of our efforts to overthrow Mullah Omar from within, we would need the Northern Alliance to fix the Taliban forces in place in the north while we organized a revolt against their southern capital, lest those forces re-coalesce in the south. To expect that we could successfully induce the leaders of the Northern Alliance to calibrate their efforts so as
to achieve our objectives without achieving theirs was just unrealistic, and an unfair burden to place on Gary. I came to understand that; and in any case, by November 13, this had become a policy issue for Washington to deal with, not us, and a point of contention between Tommy Franks and General Fahim. There was nothing more I could contribute on that score.

Continuing my briefing for Tenet, I shifted attention to the southwest, where Karim Brahvi had returned to Nimruz. I spoke carefully, knowing that CTC/SO would seize on this development in hopes of reinforcing Brahvi’s Lilliputian efforts at the expense of others. I noted that the ex-governor’s armed return to Zaranj, the capital of Nimruz, had precipitated the flight of the local Taliban—“all half-dozen of them,” I said. I could see Spitzel, the South Asia Task Force chief, burst out in a loud guffaw before he brought a hand to his mouth to suppress it. Tenet and the others continued to gaze ahead, stony-faced.

I downplayed any predictions of success for Gul Agha, whose forces were already moving, and whose entry into Afghanistan was set for dawn of the following day. We would soon see whether his predictions of support inside were accurate, I said. But if even remotely accurate, we should be prepared immediately to reinforce success. I mentioned the plan under way to provide truckloads of Pakistani weapons to Shirzai’s fighters.

“Good idea,” said George.

I added that once those fighters had demonstrated willingness to employ their weapons against the Taliban, we should quickly dispatch a joint CIA-SF team to join them, rather than diverting such scarce resources to the distant wasteland of Nimruz. Again, the director agreed. I thought I could detect a bit of fidgeting on the CTC side of the table; but no one raised an objection. I was prepared to take yes for an answer.

NOVEMBER 14, 2001

T
HE LONG, RECTANGULAR ROOM
was somber. Its occupants clung to the periphery, leaving an open space in the middle. All eyes were focused on a tall, rangy, dark-haired young man. “Jim,” Isfandiar’s case officer, sat next to a credenza along the far wall, on top of which a half-dozen sat phones were spaced at regular intervals. The only sound was Jim’s shallow breathing. He had just been speaking urgently in Dari with a minor warlord, a street thug really, in Gardez, the seat of Paktia Province, 60 miles south of Kabul.

Our fears over the fate of the eight Shelter Now prisoners had grown steadily over the previous two weeks since the Taliban had abruptly changed their conditions of detention, virtually on the eve of a planned JSOC rescue attempt. Those fears greatly increased as the Northern Alliance finally broke through Taliban lines on the Shomali Plains and made a pell-mell advance on Kabul. We had had a good window on the status of the SNI eight during most of their confinement; but as the Taliban evacuated Kabul in panic, they were suddenly, and entirely, lost to our view. Now, just as suddenly, they had reappeared.

The warlord had told Jim he would be willing, for a consideration, to allow his eight guests to travel to the local airfield, as requested. But it would take time. There were at least two other tribal leaders who controlled territory between his area and the airport. They would have to be negotiated with. It would take time, he repeated. The conversation ended abruptly.

For Jim, JSOC liason officer Marco, and David Donohue, the consul-general,
it had already been a long day. Early that morning, David received a call from the office of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Islamabad. Afghan colleagues in Ghazni, they said, had called to tell them that Georg Taubman, leader of the eight SNI employees, was with them at the Red Cross office there. David had rushed to report the exciting news to Jim and Marco. After quickly consulting with the JSOC forward control base in Oman, Marco thought they could get rescue helicopters in to Ghazni that night, after dark. They settled on 11:30
PM
as the target for a pickup.

David hurried to ICRC to speak on a sat phone with Georg, who in turn summoned the two American women, Dayna and Heather. He told them to be prepared to link up with their rescuers at eleven thirty; further instructions would follow.

Meanwhile, Jim got in touch with Isfandiar. When the Afghan source had learned on November 13 that the SNI detainees had been gathered up by their captors the night before to join the Taliban’s southward exodus from Kabul, the loyal agent had set off in his car in hopes of somehow locating them. He found the Kabul-Kandahar highway choked with vehicles and armed men fleeing the Northern Alliance’s advance on the capital. When Jim reached him early on the morning of the 14th, Isfandiar was sitting forlornly in Wardak, having spent the night by the side of the road. A group of fighters had stopped him and stolen his car; thankfully, he had somehow managed to keep his sat phone hidden.

“Get to the ICRC office in Ghazni right away!” Jim commanded, sending his agent off again to the south, this time hitchhiking. When several hours later Jim again heard Isfandiar’s voice, the young man sounded scared.

“I am in the ICRC office with Georg and the local commander.” There had been a general uprising in Ghazni on the 13th, forcing the Taliban to flee. Now the town was chaotic, alternating between joyful euphoria and armed tension. Various small-caliber warlords were staking out their turf in the absence of any clear authority. “The men here are very suspicious of me,” Isfandiar continued, a slight quaver in his voice. “They want to know where I got the satellite phone.”