88 Days to Kandahar: A CIA Diary (62 page)

(26) Inspecting the Saidgi border crossing in North Waziristan in April 2002. In the aftermath of U.S. Operation Anaconda at Shahi Kot, Afghanistan, American concern over al-Qa’ida fighters fleeing into Pakistan was at its height.

(27) My Frontier Corps escort on a visit to the headquarters of the South Waziristan Scouts at Wana, South Waziristan Agency, in April 2002. I was responding to reports of “thousands” of al-Qa’ida militants in the area.

(28) The defile at Shahur Tangi, South Waziristan, site of the famous ambush of a British-Indian Army convoy by the Mehsud Tribe, in 1937. Little has changed since.

(29) A parting memento from our ISI colleagues at the “Clubhouse,” presented to me in June 2002. ISI was responsible for apprehending many dozens of al-Qa’ida militants, and would capture many more—contributing a substantial part of the detainee population at Guantánamo.

(30) Front and back views of the medal I had struck to present to all visiting temporary staff who aided our efforts during my tenure in Pakistan. The medal was loosely modeled after the Afghanistan Campaign Medal of the Second Anglo-Afghan War of 1878–80.

(31) With Maj. Gen. David Petraeus, commander of the 101st Airborne Division, and deputy national security advisor Robert Blackwill at a meeting with Petraeus’s brigade commanders in Mosul, Iraq, late November 2003. Blackwill and I were assessing the rising insurgency, and what could be done about it.

(32) A view of the Tigris River from Saddam Hussein’s compound at Tikrit, his hometown. The compound was headquarters to the 4th Infantry Division, commanded by Gen. Raymond Odierno. Blackwill and I visited Odierno as part of our in-country assessment of the Iraq War in November 2003.

To those whose important contributions to this book are catalogued and acknowledged in the Author’s Note, I must add a number of others.

First, I owe a great debt of gratitude to David McCormick of McCormick and Williams, who saw potential in a single
New York Times
op-ed and who pursued me with a patience and persistence without which the long-term aspiration represented by this book might have remained permanently unrealized.

I am similarly grateful to Webster Younce, then of Simon & Schuster, who first decided to take a chance on an untried author.

To the entire team at Simon & Schuster I owe much. The legendary Alice Mayhew, muse to many eminent writers, must have wondered frequently how she could have been saddled with me. This book would never have achieved its current form but for her guidance. Jonathan Cox and Stuart Roberts were both patient and efficient in guiding me through the publication process. Ann Adelman, my copy editor, was nothing short of brilliant.

Lists of acknowledgments always include ritual recognition for the forbearance of the author’s all-suffering family. In this case, though, neither the degree of my family’s forbearance nor the extent of my thanks can be adequately expressed.

Special thanks go to Daniel Markey of the Council on Foreign Relations, every inch the scholar and intellectual that I am not, who was so generous with his time in making sure that I did not do violence to the truth in the historical sequences of this book. Any lapses, needless to say, are mine.

And finally, I would be remiss if I did not extend thanks to “C,” who cannot be identified even in alias, but whose long-ago, offhand comment convinced me that this book simply had to be written.

1
. Courtesy of the author.

2
. Official CIA Photo.

3
. Photo © 2014 Matt Laur.

4
. Courtesy of the author.

5
. Courtesy of the author.

6
. Official CIA Photo.

7
. Photo © 2014 Matt Laur.

8
. Courtesy of the author.

9
. Courtesy of the author.

10
. Courtesy of the author.

11
. Courtesy of the author.

12
. Photo © 2014 Matt Laur.

13
. Courtesy of the author.

14
. Courtesy of the author.

15
. Courtesy of the author.

16
. Courtesy of the author.

17
. Courtesy of the author.

18
. Courtesy of the author.

19
. Courtesy of the author.

20
. Courtesy of the author.

21
. Courtesy of the author.

22
. Courtesy of the author.

23
. Courtesy of the author.

24
. Courtesy of the author.

25
. Courtesy of the author.

26
. Courtesy of the author.

27
. Courtesy of the author.

28
. Courtesy of the author.

29
. Photo © 2014 Matt Laur.

30
. Photo © 2014 Matt Laur.

31
. Courtesy of the author.

32
. Courtesy of the author.

© BOB CULLEN PHOTOGRAPHY

Robert Grenier
is a highly decorated twenty-seven-year veteran of CIA’s Clandestine Service. He played central leadership roles in the greatest national security challenges of his generation—as CIA station chief for Pakistan and Afghanistan during 9/11, as CIA mission manager during the invasion of Iraq, and as the head of CIA’s global counterterrorism operations. Today he is chairman of ERG Partners, a strategic and financial advisory firm. A noted lecturer and television commentator, he is also a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of the board of the CIA Officers’ Memorial Foundation. When not sailing, he resides with his family in the Washington, D.C., area.

MEET THE AUTHORS, WATCH VIDEOS AND MORE AT

SimonandSchuster.com

authors.simonandschuster.com/Robert-L-Grenier