All In (51 page)

“All we were repeating during the subsequent policy review”:
Military official, interview by author, Kabul, Afghanistan, October 5, 2010.

restating what Mullen had told the Senate:
Woodward,
Obama's Wars,
158.

Like McChrystal and Mullen:
General Stanley McChrystal, interview by author, Arlington, Virginia, November 19, 2010; Admiral Mike Mullen, interview by author, Washington, D.C., August 31, 2010.

“This approach is not fully resourced”:
Woodward,
Obama's Wars,
387.

“‘They knock you down every chance they get'”:
Woodward,
Obama's Wars,
362.

“fucking with the wrong guy”:
Steve Luxenberg, “Obama Battles with Advisers Over Afghan Exit Plan Detailed in Woodward Book,”
Washington Post,
September 22, 2010.

He later surmised . . . that it was a field-grade officer:
General David H. Petraeus, e-mail message to author, January 26, 2011.

A headline . . . triggered a counterattack:
Carlotta Gall, “Coalition Routs Taliban in Southern Afghanistan,”
New York Times,
October 21, 2010.

A story line emerged that Petraeus was moving away:
In mid-October 2010, three columnists wrote about a shift in the strategic effort in Afghanistan under General Petraeus: Fred Kaplan, “A New Plan for Afghanistan: Less Counterinsurgency, More Killing and Capturing,”
Slate,
Slate.com,
October 13, 2010; David Ignatius, “Petraeus Rewrites the Playbook in Afghanistan,”
Washington Post
, October 19, 2010; and Joe Klein, “Afghanistan: A New Balance,”
Swampland
blog, Time.com, October 18, 2010, http://swampland.time.com/2010/10/18/afghanistan-a-new-balance.

“That's rare in a general officer”:
General Jack Keane, interview by Charlie Rose,
Charlie Rose,
PBS, October 19, 2010.

“In fact, the better date to think about is the end of 2014”:
Warren P. Strobel, “Happy Veterans Day,”
Nukes & Spooks
blog, November 11, 2010, http://blogs.mcclatchydc.com/nationalsecurity/2010/11/index.html.

Graham said that “2014 is the right date”:
Lindsey Graham, interview by Christiane Amanpour, “This Week with Christiane Amanpour,” ABC, November 14, 2010.

Triggered by an interview Karzai gave:
Joshua Partlow, “Karzai Wants U.S. to Reduce Military Operations in Afghanistan,”
Washington Post,
November 14, 2010.

CHAPTER 6: CLEAR, HOLD AND BUILD

“Out here we're fighting the Taliban”:
James Kitfield, “Robert Gates, David Petraeus: Partners in War,”
The National Journal,
December 9, 2010.

“We literally got every single thing”:
Major Fernando Lujan, e-mail message to author, December 20, 2010.

Karzai reported in mid-January:
Taimoor Shah and Rod Nordland, “Afghan Panel and U.S. Dispute War's Toll on Property,”
New York Times,
January 13, 2011.

Petraeus ordered up a “constant drumbeat”:
General David H. Petraeus, morning stand-up briefing, January 12, 2011.

revisited Flynn's decision in October:
Joshua Foust, “The Unforgivable Horror of Village Razing,”
Registan.net,
January 13, 2011, www.registan.net/index.php/2011/01/13/the-unforgivable-horror-of-village-razing.

the inaccurate
Daily Mail
story:
Pendlebury and Wiseman, “Dicing Death.”

He argued that bombing villages:
Joshua Foust, “The Battalion Commander Debates the Blogger (II): Foust Responds to Flynn,” Tom Ricks,
The Best Defense
blog, January 21, 2011, http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/01/21/the_battalion_commander_debates_the_blogger_ii_foust_responds_to_flynn.

“‘We're doing the Taliban's work for them'”:
Aikins, “The Master of Spin Boldak.”

CHAPTER 7: LINES OF OPERATION

“Counterinsurgency is that kind of fight”:
Major Fernando Lujan, e-mail message to author, January 7, 2011.

“I've got plenty of stragic thinkers”:
J. D. Stevens, e-mail message to author, March 8, 2011.

The
Post
said that neither Petraeus's exact language:
Joshua Partlow, “Petraeus's Comments on Coalition Attack Reportedly Offend Karzai Government,”
Washington Post,
February 21, 2011.

“Welcome to the neighborhood”:
General David H. Petraeus, interview by author, Kabul, Afghanistan, May 17, 2011.

“Although they resulted in large scale property damage”:
Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission,
Afghanistan Annual Report 2010: Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict,
United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, March 2011.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, it would take:
Atkinson,
In the Company of Soldiers,
p. 167.

He wasn't casualty averse:
Ibid, p. 237.

The effect of the overall de-Baathification program:
Dr. Donald P. Wright and Colonel Timothy R. Reese,
On Point II: Transition to the New Campaign: The United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom May 2003–January 2005
(Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2008).

“change the culture of the Afghan military”:
Major Fernando Lujan, e-mail message to author, March 5, 2011.

Gates said he thought the United States:
Robert Burns, “U.S. Negotiating Security Deal with Afghans,”
The Guardian
, March 7, 2011.

“You're talking about people who have seen far worse”:
Karen Parrish, “Task Force Works with Afghan Local Police,”
Department of Defense Releases, March 9, 2011.

The
Times
described the interview with Petraeus:
Carlotta Gall, “Petraeus Says Coalition Has Stymied Taliban in Much of Afghanistan,”
New York Times,
March 9, 2011.

CHAPTER 8: WASHINGTON AND BACK

Foreign Policy
published an article:
Thomas Johnson and Matthew DuPee, “Transition to Nowhere: the Limits of ‘Afghanization,'”
Foreign Policy,
March 22, 2011.

CHAPTER 9: HIGH STAKES

“But it shows that it certainly will fail”:
Douglas A. Ollivant, “Afghanistan Has Three Wars at Once. Let's Fight the Right One,”
Washington Post
, May 22, 2011.

476 prisoners escaping through a tunnel:
Department of Defense, Pentagon briefing, Federal News Service, February 10, 2011.

CHAPTER 10: TRANSITION

The Title 50 authority for this operation:
Matthew Dahl, American Bar Association Standing Committee on Law and National Security panel discussion on “The Bin Laden Operation—The Legal Framework,” May 26, 2011.

by the spring of 2011, 95 percent:
Defense Department report issued on April 29, 2011, “Report on Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan and United States Plan for Sustaining the Afghanistan National Security Forces.”

“The U.S. military will continue to hunt down terrorists”:
Douglas A. Ollivant, “Let's Stop Civilizing Afghanistan,”
Washington Post,
May 22, 2011.

CHAPTER 11: DRAWDOWN

The workweek began with a media report:
Leslie H. Gelb, “Obama's Secret Afghan Exit Formula,”
The Daily Beast
blog, June 11, 2011.

Gates and Clinton reluctantly had:
Thom Shanker, “Warning Against Wars Like Iraq and Afghanistan,”
New York Times,
February 25, 2011.

Petraeus strongly believed that “military leaders”:
General David H. Petraeus, interview by author, Washington, D.C., September 2, 2011.

CHAPTER 12: MASK OF COMMAND

“It is very hard, but it is doable”:
Carlotta Gall, “Petraeus Confident As He Leaves Afghanistan,”
New York Times
, July 10, 2011.

They performed creditably and courageously:
General David H. Petraeus, Defense Department briefing, Federal News Service, July 12, 2011.

In a poem published a few years ago, a British trooper:
John Bailey, “The Volunteer.” Reprinted with permission. Accessed at http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/Afghanistan_War_Poetry.html.

CHAPTER 13: STILL ALL IN

enemy-initiated attacks for the period June–August 2011:
“Enemy-Initiated Attacks Nationwide Monthly Year-Over-Year Change,” Afghan Mission Network Combined Information Data Network Exchange (CIDNE) Database. Data as of September 29, 2011. See appendix for more information.

The command had not seen this sustained year-on-year level:
Ibid.

Attacks continued to increase in the east:
“Enemy-Initiated Attacks Nationwide Monthly Year-Over-Year Change by Regional Command (January 2008–August 2011),” Afghan Mission Network Combined Information Data Network Exchange (CIDNE) Database. Data as of September 29, 2011. See appendix for more information.