88 Days to Kandahar: A CIA Diary (43 page)

“Yes, yes!” several shouted. As soon as the battle was over, the townsfolk had come out to bury the dead, and the women had decorated their graves with prayer flags to honor them as
shouhada
: martyrs. “Now you see what we’re up against,” the political agent noted, with a wry smile.

In the years since, of course, I have seen the reports that bin Laden himself was with the fighters at Tora Bora, and somehow escaped from the area. It was a confused and chaotic period, with decent intelligence very hard to come by. As we consider the reliability of the fragmentary reports of bin Laden’s presence at Tora Bora, it’s worth remembering some of the other wild stories given credence at the time—tales of vast, multistory al-Qa’ida cave complexes, complete with a hotel and massive storage areas, connected with elevators, no less—all of which turned out to be fantasy.

Perhaps the most compelling evidence of bin Laden’s presence at Tora Bora came from CIA and SF personnel at the scene, who were directing airstrikes and marshaling the efforts of local Afghan militias against the militants. On two occasions, reportedly, bin Laden’s voice was heard over the radio, alternately exhorting his men and apologizing to them for having led them into their hopeless predicament. I have no reason to disbelieve these reports; but even if we take them at
face value, it is still not clear whether bin Laden would have been co-located with the militants under bombardment, or just close by. There have been a small number of reports attributed to militants present at Tora Bora, supposedly confirming bin Laden’s presence. None strikes me as definitive. Taken together, the available evidence leads me to believe that bin Laden most likely was present at the battle of Tora Bora, but that he was not reliant upon the fighters trapped there for his security. He had independent arrangements for his own departure.

Some claim that bin Laden’s escape, if such it was, was proof of his cowardice. I do not agree. I do believe, however, that Osama bin Laden was sufficiently convinced of his own importance to believe that his survival was vital to the future of his movement, certainly more than that of any of his men, whom he could not save in any case. I think he realized that he had a greater chance of survival if he were traveling with a very small group, rather than with a more easily detectable band of fighters. My suspicion—and it is only that—is that if he fled Tora Bora, he would have moved farther east through the mountains, crossing the Pakistani frontier into the Tirah Valley, in the Khyber Agency, just east of Kurram. Tirah Valley in those days was the ultimate “no-go” area, a place where the inhabitants were so fiercely jealous of their autonomy as to forbid any roads to be built, lest they serve as a conduit for government influence. There was certainly no means of intercepting bin Laden there. Once safely in Pakistan, given even a modicum of support, he could have gone virtually anywhere undetected.

It is still a point of contention whether a vigorous U.S. troop deployment at Tora Bora might have resulted in bin Laden’s capture. Gary Berntsen, the CIA leader on the scene, has long made this claim, stating that if his requests for a modest number of troops had been granted, bin Laden would surely have been killed or captured. I am skeptical. It seems to me that any one of the many deep ravines on the north side of the Safed Koh could easily have swallowed up a whole battalion of troops; the modest numbers requested by Berntsen, and which otherwise might have been available, would have been inadequate to the task.

One tactic that might have succeeded in interdicting a greater number
of those fleeing Tora Bora would have been to airlift U.S. Rangers up into the high passes on the crest of the Safed Koh. Success in capturing al-Qa’ida members fleeing through those passes would still not have been assured by any means, but an armed U.S. presence in those natural channels might have made a difference.

I was not present at any of the meetings where troop requests were discussed and, reportedly, rejected. Having had considerable contact with the military, though, my strong suspicion is that Berntsen’s requests were rebuffed because they ran contrary to the prevailing doctrine that had been agreed for the conduct of the war. This was to be an Afghan campaign, with the United States merely acting in support. For U.S. troops suddenly to have been in the lead at Tora Bora would have been a sharp departure from established practice. It may well be that in this case, too slavish and literal-minded an adherence to an otherwise sensible doctrine had serious negative consequences. That’s often the problem with doctrine.

Still, I strongly suspect that even effective American action to block the southerly passes into the Kurram Agency would not have resulted in bin Laden’s capture, if indeed my theory about his escape into the Tirah Valley is correct. We will simply never know: the one man who could tell us is now dead.

Y
OU HAD TO GIVE
the brigadier his due, though whether he was courageous or merely stubborn, it was hard to tell. The villa we were touring seemed perfect for our purposes. Located on a quiet, leafy, residential street in Islamabad, it was shielded from view by high walls and tall, dense shrubbery. Inside the stout metal gate there was room in the tiled courtyard for several automobiles, so visitors would not have to park in the street and be exposed to the curiosity of neighbors. On the upper floor was a large kitchen and dining area, as well as a comfortable parlor for casual meetings, with several bedrooms for officers resting from watch duty. Below, on the ground floor, there were spaces for work areas, copy machines, faxes, and the like, as well as a formal briefing room and several small rooms for interviewing detainees.

General Jafar was insisting that the villa be ready within ten days, and the brigadier charged with supporting him was holding just as firm: This would not be possible, he said. But the glowering general was adamant. He walked through each element of the project. Why couldn’t this be done right away, or that? What would be necessary to get a particular project done immediately? More money, more people, what? Dubbed the counterterrorism “Czar” by General Mahmud in September, during that sunny Sunday meeting with me and Wendy Chamberlin, Jafar was in no mood for delay.

Ten days later, our joint intelligence center was up and running. Quickly dubbed the “Clubhouse” by the Pakistanis, it was staffed by them twenty-four hours a day, and became the venue for daily meetings with my officers. The division of labor quickly became clear:
CIA’s global intelligence system would develop and provide leads to al-Qa’ida-connected people and locations, and the ISI would conduct investigations on the ground to confirm whether the leads were valid, taking action jointly with us when they were. Infamous al-Qa’ida facilitators whom we had been tracking for years suddenly went to ground, or fled. Safe locations used for sheltering al-Qa’ida trainees transiting to or from Afghanistan were shut down. Every week or so, General Jafar and I would take our places in the front row of the Clubhouse briefing room, flanked by our respective officers, while Brigadier Adnan reviewed the latest statistics and summarized ongoing operations.

“To date,” he would say for example, “we have received one hundred thirty-six inquiries from CIA. One hundred twenty-three have been processed and assigned for investigation. Eighty-one have been resolved. Forty-two are pending resolution.” And on it would go, day by day, week by week. We would never reveal the sources of our information, of course, whether it came from human “assets,” or technical intercepts of global communications, or from some allied service on the other side of the planet; but all this information would flow into Islamabad Station, where it was processed, analyzed, and pieced together into coherent investigative leads by targeting officers “forward-deployed” from CTC, and then funneled through the Clubhouse for follow-up by the ISI.

Our system of cooperation rested on a tacit suspension of the usual rules between representatives of sovereign governments. Under normal circumstances, the first reaction one would expect from the Pakistanis would be to inquire just how it was that
we
knew so much about what was happening in
their
country. But the exigencies of the situation did not permit this: the Pakistanis had professed that they would work with us to root out al-Qa’ida, and would not do anything that might call their commitment into question. To them, all that mattered was whether the information we provided was accurate. Our Pakistani friends would not ask where the information came from, and we would not tell. This was bound to lead to recriminations eventually, but that would come later; now was not the time.

A regular participant in the daily séances was Jenny Keenan, the
FBI special agent assigned as the assistant legal attaché, or ALAT, in Islamabad. Diminutive and fit, with cropped brown hair, piercing blue eyes, and a streetwise manner, Jenny was initially a source of startled wonder to our Pakistani colleagues, who didn’t know quite what to make of an assertive young woman poking brazenly into their operations. Her knowledge and energy quickly won them over.

Her boss, Chris Reimann, the FBI legal attaché, had been assigned to Islamabad at the same time as I, and had already become a great friend. Large and jovial, he was the sort of person one couldn’t help but like, and he quickly cut a wide social swath among both Pakistanis and foreigners in the capital city. Chris just wanted to see the right things get done. If he came across a lead of little potential use to himself, or one his tiny office didn’t have the resources to deal with, he would turn it over to me. His ecumenism was often not appreciated by FBI Headquarters, and he sometimes paid a price for it: we would have to conspire together to keep unhelpful information on his activities from making its way to the J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington.

Chris understood that he and I had different roles: mine was gathering intelligence, and his was seeing bad guys, specifically those indicted in the United States, put in jail. We put aside the rivalries that too frequently mar relations between the FBI and CIA. In the years before 9/11, it was nearly unimaginable, at least to me and my CIA colleagues, that the information we were gathering on al-Qa’ida would ever see the inside of a U.S. courtroom. Our job was to track al-Qa’ida and to try to disrupt them so that they couldn’t repeat the success they had enjoyed against the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es-Salaam in 1998. Our information generally did not meet a legal standard. But as much as Chris was helping me to succeed, I wanted him to succeed, and so I was more than willing to see to it that whatever information we acquired would also be put to use to build legal cases against the militants we were pursuing.

In pre-9/11 days, when Pakistani cooperation was an unrealized dream, my station was gathering intelligence entirely on its own. Whenever we met with sources close to terrorists, we took elaborate precautions to protect our officers, fearing that on any given day one of
these sources might be “turned” by al-Qa’ida to work against us. But in each of those so-called “high-threat” meetings, if a source turned over a terrorist’s passport, or an al-Qa’ida document, or some other object which could be used as evidence, my case officer would motion for the source to turn the item over to an FBI special agent standing by, usually Mike Dorris, Jenny’s predecessor.

For the FBI to be able to use an item as evidence in a court of law, it has to have a clear “chain of custody.” Once received, the item cannot leave the FBI’s control. FBI would keep the original or, when the original had to be returned to the source, it would make a duly certified copy. That way, both our needs would be met. It wasn’t always smooth or pretty. My own officers sometimes didn’t understand why they had to jump through hoops to preserve an FBI chain of custody that would probably never be used. There were inevitably annoyances, misunderstandings, and occasional hard feelings. But I made it clear to them this was how things were going to be, and Chris and I would consult to make sure irritants were smoothed over and everyone behaved.

The habit of cooperation we created stood us in good stead after 9/11 and the establishment of the Clubhouse, when al-Qa’ida evidence gathering became a wholesale business. Now, rather than just Chris and Jenny, there was a parade of FBI special agents and others from the law enforcement world who cycled through Islamabad to work with us. The division of labor remained clear. We provided the intelligence, the Pakistanis provided the on-ground investigations and the muscle, and the FBI catalogued and established a clear chain for the mountains of evidence all this activity generated as it was sent off for analysis in Washington.

Through it all, Jafar and I remained in near-constant touch. On a typical day I would be awakened at 7:30 or 7:45
AM
by a phone call from the deep-voiced general, having typically gone to bed at 3:00
AM
. We would always observe the same ritual.

“Bob,” he would intone, reacting to the sleep in my voice, and smug at having been at the office since before six, “I wish I had your job.”

“General,” I would respond, “you’re welcome to it.” We would then get down to business. Having read as a boy how Winston Churchill
began his days as wartime prime minister by working from bed, I flattered myself that I shared one thing in common with the great man. Later in the day, Jafar and I would speak on the phone two or three times more, frequently conducting a face-to-face meeting at ISI Headquarters as well.

I think Jafar took it personally when I asked, and President Musharraf agreed, that the station could meet directly with those responsible for on-ground investigations.

“I thought things were going pretty well,” Jafar said, a hint of petulance in his voice. He enjoyed being at the center of the action.

“They are,” I said, “but your president asked if there were anything at all we could do to improve our cooperation. I couldn’t very well say no, could I? It’s obvious that dealing directly with the investigators will make our operations faster and more efficient.” He couldn’t disagree. Bringing the investigators into our orbit didn’t diminish the importance or the frequency of my contacts with Jafar, but it definitely brought a new dynamic to bear on CIA’s cooperation with ISI, just as the recent exodus from Tora Bora was about to bring the work of the two services to a new stage.