Counterstrike: The Untold Story of America's Secret Campaign Against Al Qaeda (43 page)

Tellis, Ashley J.
Pakistan and the War on Terror: Conflicted Goals, Compromised Performance.
Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2008.

Thiessen, Marc.
Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama Is Inviting the Next Attack
. Washington: Regnery Publishing, 2010.

Trinkuas, Harold, and Jeanne Giraldo.
Terrorism Financing and State Responses: A Comparative Perspective.
Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007.

Woodward, Bob.
Obama’s Wars.
New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010.

_________.
The War Within
. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008.

Wright, Lawrence.
The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11.
New York: Vintage, 2007.

Zuhur, Sherifa.
Precision in the Global War on Terror: Inciting Muslims Through the War of Ideas
. Carlisle, Pa.: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2008.

JOURNAL ARTICLES AND REPORTS

Byman, Daniel. “Remaking Alliances for the War on Terrorism.”
Journal of Strategic Studies
29, no. 5 (October 2006): 767–811.

Carpenter, J. Scott, and Matthew Levitt, Steven Simon, and Juan Zarate. “Fighting the Ideological Battle: The Missing Link in U.S. Strategy to Counter Violent Extremism.” A Washington Institute Strategic Report, 2010.

D’Souza, Shanthie. “U.S.-Pakistan Counter-Terrorism Cooperation: Dynamics and Challenges.”
Strategic Analyses
(July–September 2006): 525–61.

Fair, C. Christine, and Peter Chalk. “United States Internal Security Assistance to Pakistan.”
Small Wars and Insurgencies
17, no. 3 (September 2006): 333–55.

Farrall, Leah. “The Evolution of Command and Control.”
Jane’s Strategic Advisory Services
(November 2009): 16–20.

Gregory, Shaun. “The ISI and the War on Terrorism.”
Studies in Conflict & Terrorism
30, no. 12 (2007): 1013–31.

Kronstadt, K. Alan. “Direct Overt U.S. Aid and Military Reimbursements to Pakistan, FY2002–FY2011.” Congressional Research Service, June 7, 2010.

Markey, Daniel. “Pakistani Partnerships with the United States: An Assessment.”
The National Bureau of Asian Research
, November 2009.

_________. “Securing Pakistan’s Tribal Belt.” Council on Foreign Relations, August 2008.

Sims, Jennifer E. “Foreign Intelligence Liaison: Devils, Deals and Details.”
International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence
19 (2006): 195–217.

Task Force on Confronting the Ideology of Radical Extremism.
Rewriting the Narrative: An Integrated Strategy for Counterradicalization
. Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2009.

Trager, Robert F., and Dessislava P. Zagorcheva. “Deterring Terrorism: It Can Be Done.”
International Security
30, no. 3 (Winter 2005/6): 87–123.

Winchell, Sean P. “Pakistan’s ISI: The Invisible Government.”
International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence
16 (2003): 374–88.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

It remains our greatest professional honor to be correspondents for the
New York Times
covering national security issues, and it was a privilege to be allowed to report and write
Counterstrike
for Times Books and Henry Holt and Company.

For their support and encouragement throughout this process, we express most heartfelt thanks to Bill Keller, the executive editor of the
New York Times
; Jill Abramson, the managing editor; and Dean Baquet, the assistant managing editor who is our Washington bureau chief. Appreciation also is owed to the other editors in the Washington bureau: Len Apcar, Rebecca Corbett, Jack Cushman, Susan Keller, and Dick Stevenson.

We are fortunate to be part of a national security team that covers the news like no other and usually keeps a sense of balance—and even a sense of humor during the most intense news crises. We thank our colleagues, comrades, and friends: Peter Baker, Elisabeth Bumiller, Helene Cooper, Michael Gordon, Mark Landler, Eric Lichtblau, Mark Mazzetti, Steven Lee Myers, James Risen, David Sanger, Charlie Savage, Scott Shane, and Ginger Thompson. John Markoff in San Francisco was a reporting partner on a range of stories on cyberwar, and Jane Perlez in Islamabad was deeply involved in our Pakistan reporting, as were Ismail Khan, Pir Zubair Shah, and Salman Masood. Andrew Lehren repeatedly performed his magic in unlocking the secrets of the WikiLeaks cables.

Paul Golob, the editorial director of Times Books, taught us how to begin transferring our skills at daily newspaper reporting to long-form, nonfiction narrative. He wielded the red pen with precision, wisdom, and patience throughout our work. Thanks, too, to Jim Wade for helping us wrestle our first full draft into shape. Alex Ward played a vital role as our ambassador between the newspaper and the publishing house. And we offer a special word of gratitude to our friend and agent, Bonnie Nadell, a tireless advocate on our behalf.

The Center for a New American Security in Washington allowed each of us to spend ninety days as a “writer in residence” to work on
Counterstrike
in an environment of intellectual challenge; it is a place where many of the sharpest thinkers on national security hang their hat or pass through for coffee and lunch. A special thanks to Nathaniel C. Fick, John A. Nagl, and Shannon O’Reilly for their encouragement and advice at critical stages of our work. We offer a special word of gratitude for the Herculean efforts of Matt Irvine, our research assistant at CNAS, who tended to the detail work and was a vital member of the team in shaping the content throughout. Maile Yeats was also a great help conducting some of the early research.

Scott D. Sagan of Stanford University and the Center for International Security and Cooperation gathered a panel of scholars and former senior government officials to review our manuscript and offer feedback in a daylong review that truly lived up to the name “murder board.” For their helpful criticism and commentary, we thank Scott and a gathering of scholars that included Martha Crenshaw, Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, Lynn Eden, James Fearon, Thomas Fingar, Michael Freedman, Elizabeth A. Gardner, and Stephen Krasner. Thanks to Jane Esberg for her organizational support of our visit. The many hours this group devoted to reading our manuscript and the daylong critique improved our book; any remaining shortcomings are our own.

We thank Geoff Morrell, Bryan Whitman, and Douglas B. Wilson in the office of the secretary of defense. We thank Captain John Kirby, Lieutenant Commander Ryan Perry, Commander Patrick McNally, Major Liz Aptekar, Major Rob Montgomery, and MC1 Chad J. McNeeley, as well as Colonel James Baker in the office of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. We also thank Major Clifford Gilmore in the office of the vice chairman.

A special thanks goes out to those in the government public affairs community who truly believe and act on the dictum that their job is maximum disclosure with minimum delay, all to better inform the American public about how its blood and treasure are spent in defense of the nation. In the Pentagon press office, we thank Colonel David Lapan and Captain Darryn James. A team of subject-matter specialists in the press office went far beyond the call of duty in arranging interviews, checking quotes, and confirming facts. We thank in particular Commander Robert Mehal, Tara Rigler, and Colonel Jonathan Withington for their help on a range of counterterrorism policy issues and their patience. For their help in researching Air Force intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance developments, we thank David Moniz, Lieutenant Colonel Todd Vician, and Margaret A. McGlinn.

A special thanks also to Don Black of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Carl Kropf of the National Counterterrorism Center, Mike Birmingham of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and George Little of the Central Intelligence Agency.

At the White House and the National Security Council, we are grateful for the assistance of Michael Hammer, Robert Jensen, Nicholas Shapiro, and Tommy Vietor. At the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Michael Kortan and Betsy Glick. At the Department of Homeland Security, Sean Smith. And at the State Department, P. J. Crowley and Rhonda Shore. At the Justice Department, Dean Boyd.

We received strong support across the military’s global combatant commands. At Special Operations Command, we thank Colonel Tim Nye, Major Wesley Ticer, and Ken McGraw; at Central Command, Rear Admiral Hal Pittman, Captain Jack Hanzlik, and Sally Donnelly; at Northern Command, Jamie Graybeal; at Strategic Command, Colonel Kathleen A. Cook, Lieutenant Commander Steve Curry, and Major John L. Morgan; and at Cyber Command, Colonel Rivers J. Johnson Jr.

A word of appreciation is owed to the men and women serving to protect U.S. national security interests at home and abroad, often in the line of fire. A large number of officers and noncommissioned officers afforded us logistical support during many reporting trips downrange to Iraq and Afghanistan and were constantly available by telephone and e-mail after we returned home safely. Our gratitude goes out to all. In Afghanistan, we thank Rear Admiral Gregory J. Smith and Colonel Erik O. Gunhus at the International Security Assistance Force, and Lieutenant Colonel Patrick R. Seiber of Regional Command East and the 101st Airborne Division. A special, if belated, thanks is offered to the officers and NCOs of Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force–Dagger, in particular the members of the 5th Special Forces Group who fought with the militia alongside Hamid Karzai and captured Kandahar in December 2001; they allowed a correspondent into their camp for a true education in the best practices of modern American military operations, lessons that have proved valuable a decade later. In Baghdad, Colonel Daniel Baggio and Lieutenant Colonel Scott Bleichwehl of Multinational Corps–Iraq proved the power of the embed in allowing correspondents to inform their readers about the war effort. And we thank Lieutenant Colonel Josslyn Aberle and Lieutenant Karen Hyland at Multinational Force–Iraq.

We also wish to thank West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center, including Director of Research Scott Helfstein and a dedicated team of experts whose wisdom and publications were extremely valuable in our work.

A great number of people have given us professional and intellectual support in ways too many to mention. Among them are Rear Admiral Stephen R. Pietropaoli (USN, Ret.) of National Defense University, Rear Admiral T. McCreary (USN, Ret.) of
military.com
,
Robert S. Litwak of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, John J. Hamre of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Kori A. Schake of the Hoover Institution, Bruce Hoffman of Georgetown University, Frank J. Cilluffo of George Washington University’s Homeland Security Policy Institute, Seth Jones of RAND, Michele L. Malvesti, Torie Clarke, Jim Garamone, and Price Floyd. Mark Knoller of CBS News provided important details about the limitations of Air Force One on 9/11.

A book like this simply is not possible without the cooperation and trust of a large number of government officials and military officers. Most of them requested that they not be named, so we extend a blanket thanks to all who helped throughout this process. If we have forgotten to mention any, please accept our apologies and know that we are sincerely grateful for your support for
Counterstrike
.

Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker

Washington, D.C.

June 1, 2011

INDEX

The index that appeared in the print version of this title does not match the pages in your eBook. Please use the search function on your eReading device to search for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below.

Abbottabad raid on bin Laden (2011)

Abdulmutallab, Umar Farouk

Abizaid, John

Abu Ali.
See
Harthi, Qaed Senyan al-

Abu Ghraib

Abu Sayyaf

Aden bank robbery

Afghanistan

Al Qaeda and

detainees in

financing networks and

information war and

9/11 and

Pakistan and

Soviet war in

Tora Bora gathering of 2007 and

Two + Seven plan and

U.S. war in

airborne surveillance

Air Force One

airlines

Alexander, Keith B.

Al Falluja Forum

Algeria

Alliance of Youth Movements

Al Qaeda.
See also specific affiliates, attacks, leaders, and safe havens

Abbottabad raid and