In the Graveyard of Empires: America's War in Afghanistan (15 page)

In the early 1990s, the Saudi government’s decision to allow U.S. military forces on its soil following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait had been a major blow to the jihadists. In the late 1990s, Osama bin Laden’s statements began to legitimize violence against the United States. In August 1996, bin Laden issued the
Declaration of Jihad against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places.
This long-winded eleven-page tract was crammed with quotations from the Qur’an,
hadiths
of the Prophet, and references to Ibn Taymiyya. Then, in February 1998, bin Laden, Zawahiri, and others published a
fatwa
to kill Americans: “The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies—civilians and military—is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim.”
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The
fatwa
cited three main grievances against the United States. One was the presence of American troops in the Arabian Peninsula, the second was America’s intention to destroy the Muslim people of Iraq through sanctions, and the third was the U.S. goal of incapacitating the Arab states and propping
up Israel. Bin Laden accused the United States of plundering Muslim riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning U.S. bases into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples.

A Dangerous Alliance

Of particular concern to U.S. policymakers in the late 1990s was the growing collaboration between al Qa’ida and the Taliban. In response to bin Laden’s involvement in the August 1998 attacks against the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, the Clinton administration launched a series of cruise-missile strikes against al Qa’ida bases in eastern Afghanistan. But some classified U.S. assessments suggest that the attacks brought al Qa’ida and the Taliban closer together.
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One State Department cable reported: “Taliban leader Mullah Omar lashed out at the U.S., asserting that the Taliban will continue to provide a safe haven to bin Laden.”
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After all, bin Laden sometimes stayed at Mullah Omar’s residence in Kandahar.
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In July 1999, U.S. President Bill Clinton issued Executive Order 13129, which found that “the actions and policies of the Taliban in Afghanistan, in allowing territory under its control in Afghanistan to be used as a safe haven and base of operations for Usama bin Ladin and the Al-Qa’ida organization…constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.”
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The Taliban’s military structure included al Qa’ida members such as the elite Brigade 055, which consisted of foreign fighters.
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The Taliban’s alliance with al Qa’ida took a toll on its relations with several countries, especially Saudi Arabia, which had initially provided support to the Taliban through its intelligence service.
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Now that the United States had formally denounced al Qa’ida and, by extension, the Taliban, Saudi officials felt compelled to act. Bin Laden’s involvement in the August 1998 embassy attacks, as well as his derisive statements against Saudi officials, required an urgent response. On September 19, 1998, Saudi intelligence chief Prince
Turki al-Faisal met with with Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar. The meeting began with a brief discussion about the strain between the Taliban and Iran. Turki argued that the Taliban should take steps to defuse the tensions, then he turned to the main topic of the meeting: to ask the Taliban to surrender Osama bin Laden. Mullah Omar replied that the Taliban had no intention of surrendering bin Laden or any other Arabs to the Saudi government. Omar then questioned the legitimacy of a Saudi government that would allow U.S. troops to be stationed in the Persian Gulf. According to U.S. State Department accounts of the meeting, he then argued that “the Saudi government had no business interfering in Afghan matters since the whole Muslim ‘ummah’ (international community) was in the process of rising against [the Saudi government] because of its failed stewardship of the two holy sites.”
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Turki’s response was swift and forceful. He returned to Riyadh and cut off all Saudi ties with the Taliban. As a State Department cable explained, the Saudi government was even successful “in preventing private Saudi sources, including foundations, from dispersing money to the Taliban as they did in the past.”
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The Taliban-Saudi break angered a number of Taliban leaders, such as deputy leader Mullah Rabbani, who had pro-Saudi views. But neither the Saudis nor the Americans could derail al Qa’ida. In January 2001, eight months before the September 11 attacks, counterterrorism coordinator Richard Clarke wrote a classified memo to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice: “We urgently need…a Principals level review of the al Qida network.” He continued by pleading, “As we noted in our briefings for you, al Qida is not some narrow little terrorist issue that needs to be included in broader regional policy.” What was required, Clarke argued, was “a comprehensive multi-regional policy on al Qida.”
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Al Qa’ida had evolved from a myth to a reality. Indeed, its reputation had grown out of a fabrication that its early disciples had feverishly propagated across the Arab world. Arab jihadists, they claimed, played a critical role in defeating the Soviets in Afghanistan. “The USSR, a superpower with the largest land army in the world,” Zawa
hiri alleged, “was destroyed and the remnants of its troops fled Afghanistan before the eyes of the Muslim youths and as a result of their actions…Osama bin Laden has apprised me of the size of the popular Arab support for the Afghan mujahideen that amounted, according to his sources, to $200 million in the form of military aid alone in 10 years.”
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But this self-aggrandizement was unwarranted. Though it is a common theme in al Qa’ida lore, the contributions of Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and other Arabs were negligible to the Soviet defeat. Mohammad Yousaf, head of the ISI’s Afghanistan bureau that trained the mujahideen against the Soviets, doesn’t even discuss the Arab jihadists in his account of the Soviet defeat.
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As Lawrence Wright explained in his book
The Looming Tower,
“the presence of several thousand Arabs—and rarely more than a few hundred of them actually on the field of battle—made no real difference in the tide of affairs.”
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The Afghan mujahideen would have won with or without their help, thanks in large part to the astronomical amount of arms, money, and other assistance provided by the governments of Pakistan, the United States, and Saudi Arabia.
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In some respects, this al Qa’ida myth was probably irrelevant. What mattered was that some people—especially its own members—believed it. By 2001, al Qa’ida had evolved into a competent international terrorist organization that had conducted bold attacks against the United States in Tanzania, Kenya, and Yemen. Its goals were compatible with the Taliban’s ideology. Richard Clarke’s January 2001 memo to Condoleezza Rice asserted that al Qa’ida’s objective was to “replace moderate, modern, Western regimes in Muslim countries with theocracies modeled along the lines of the Taliban.”
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From its base in Afghanistan, al Qa’ida also planned the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.

THE MORNING OF September 11, 2001, began like many others for Zalmay Khalilzad, who was serving as a special assistant to President George W. Bush at the National Security Council. He was sitting in a meeting run by National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice in the White House Situation Room when the first hijacked plane flew into the north tower of the World Trade Center, tearing a gaping hole in the building and setting it afire. “There was a TV screen hanging in a corner of the room,” he told
The New Yorker.
“When the first plane hit, we had a sense that, oh, maybe it had lost its way. As soon as the second plane hit, the meeting was called to an end and she rushed away. We went outside the White House to Pennsylvania Avenue and waited awhile till we got the all-clear sign. While we were out, there had been all sorts of rumors and reports, that Capitol Hill had been hit, and the Pentagon, obviously, had been hit. Then we started to look at the intelligence. I started looking at Afghanistan, tracing al Qa’ida.”
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The September 11 attacks opened another chapter in Afghanistan’s age of insurgency. Unbeknownst to most Americans, however, the struggle for Afghanistan had already begun. On September 9, 2001, two al Qa’ida terrorists, Dahmane Abd al-Sattar and Bouraoui el-Ouaer, had assassinated Northern Alliance military commander Ahmed Shah Massoud in Afghanistan. Posing as Belgian journalists, they had been granted an interview with Massoud in his bungalow
near the Tajikistan border. After setting up their equipment, Bouraoui detonated explosives concealed in his camera, riddling Massoud with shrapnel. Massoud died shortly thereafter, along with one of his assistants, Muhammad Asim Suhail, weakening the already frail Northern Alliance.

U.S. policymakers planning the response to the September 11 attacks a few days later, which they named Operation Enduring Freedom, realized the gravity of this action: the charismatic military commander they most needed to overthrow the Taliban was dead. The situation required an unconventional approach, and the CIA and the Pentagon scrambled to make plans.
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History Begins Today

One of the first challenges, however, was securing Pakistan’s cooperation. Pakistan’s strategic location next to Afghanistan and its government’s involvement there since the Soviet invasion made it a key player. But the newly appointed U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, Wendy Chamberlin, had arrived in Pakistan “expecting to spend most of [her] time dealing with a humanitarian crisis unfolding in the region.” A severe drought and famine in Afghanistan had caused refugees to flee to Pakistan, which was perhaps the most important domestic issue that summer.
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But the September 11 attacks changed everything.

A few weeks before the attacks, Chamberlin had a private dinner with President Pervez Musharraf at the house of Mahmud Ali Durrani, who would later become the Pakistani ambassador to the United States. “My vision of the country hinges on increasing foreign investment in Pakistan and economic growth,” Musharraf told Chamberlin. “But,” he continued, “the level of domestic terrorism is currently too high,” making it difficult to bring in outside capital. Musharraf also told her: “Pakistan needs strategic depth in Afghanistan to ensure that there is a friendly regime on Pakistan’s western border.”
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The timing was ironic. In less than a month, the United States would ask Musharraf to overthrow the very Taliban government that the ISI had pains
takingly supported for nearly a decade, which meant putting his “strategic depth” in jeopardy.

On September 11, just hours after the attacks, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage met with the head of the ISI, Lieutenant General Mahmoud Ahmed, who was visiting Washington. Armitage delivered a stern message: Pakistan’s leaders had to choose between the United States or the terrorists; there was no middle ground. “No American will want to have anything to do with Pakistan in our moment of peril if you’re not with us,” Armitage told him. “It’s black or white.” When Ahmed began to waver, pleading that Armitage had to understand history, Armitage cut him off. “No,” he replied, “the history begins today.”
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Armitage is an imposing figure. Barrel-chested, with broad shoulders and a thick neck, he had recently told President Bush he was still bench-pressing “330/6,” which meant six repetitions of 330 pounds each. It was down from a few years earlier, he remarked, when he had been bench-pressing 440 pounds.
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On September 12, Ambassador Chamberlin received State Department instructions to see President Musharraf in Islamabad and ask him a simple question: “Are you with us or against us?” The meeting, which took place the next day in one of Musharraf’s Islamabad offices, was tense. America was reeling from the terrorist attacks, and President Bush wanted a quick answer from Musharraf. After an hour, there had been little progress. Musharraf was waffling in his commitment to the United States, so Chamberlin resorted to a bit of drama. Sitting close to him, she half turned away and looked down at the floor in a display of exasperation. “What’s wrong, Wendy?” he asked. “Frankly, General Musharraf,” she responded, “you are not giving me the answer I need to give my president.” Almost without hesitation, Musharraf then replied, “We’ll support you unstintingly.”
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They agreed to discuss further details on September 15. Chamberlin presented a series of discussion points, such as stopping al Qa’ida operatives at the Pakistan border; providing blanket U.S. overflight and landing rights in Pakistan; ensuring U.S. access to Pakistani military bases; providing intelligence and immigration
information; and cutting off all fuel shipments to the Taliban. A final request was bound to be controversial, as Secretary of State Colin Powell professed to Armitage: “Should the evidence strongly implicate Osama bin Laden and the al Qa’ida network in Afghanistan and should Afghanistan and the Taliban continue to harbor him and his network, Pakistan will break diplomatic relations with the Taliban government, end support for the Taliban and assist us in the aforementioned ways to destroy Osama bin Laden and his al Qa’ida network.”
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Musharraf had his own negotiating points. “He wanted us to pressure the Indians to resolve the Kashmir dispute in favor of Pakistan,” noted Chamberlin. “Even without instructions from Washington, I said no immediately, explaining to Musharraf that this was about the terrorists who attacked America on our soil and not about Kashmir.”
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He also asked that U.S. aircraft not use bases in India for their operations in Afghanistan, to which Chamberlin agreed. Musharraf clearly was interested in using his bargaining position to gain leverage over India. In the end, Musharraf agreed to most of America’s requests, though he refused to allow blanket U.S. overflight and landing rights, or access to many of Pakistan’s naval ports and air bases. And the United States agreed to many of Musharraf’s requests. U.S. aircraft could not fly over Pakistani nuclear facilities, the United States could not launch attacks in Afghanistan from Pakistani soil, and the United States would provide economic assistance to Pakistan.

Musharraf’s support was pivotal for America’s initial success in Afghanistan. “Pakistan was very cooperative,” Chamberlin stated. “Their support was critical.”
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Jawbreaker

With Pakistan’s collaboration ensured, the United States could now turn more assuredly to planning combat operations in Afghanistan. On September 13, CIA Director George Tenet had briefed President George W. Bush on the agency’s plan for conducting operations in
Afghanistan. He and his counterterrorism chief, Cofer Black, outlined for Bush a strategy that merged CIA paramilitary teams, U.S. Special Operations Forces, and airpower into an elaborate and lethal package to bring down the Taliban regime.

“Mr. President,” Black noted at the briefing, staring intently at Bush, “we can do this. No doubt in my mind. We do this the way that we’ve outlined it, we’ll set this thing up so it’s an unfair fight for the U.S. military.”

“But you’ve got to understand,” he continued, choosing his words carefully, “people are going to die.”
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Two days later, at Camp David, Tenet explained that the plan “stressed one thing: we would be the insurgents. Working closely with military Special Forces, CIA teams would be the ones using speed and agility to dislodge an emplaced foe.”
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General Tommy Franks, head of U.S. Central Command, also began working on war plans. On September 20, 2001, Franks arrived at the Pentagon from Tampa, Florida, to brief Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff on his plan for invading Afghanistan. Wolfowitz outlined his views in a classified September 23 paper for Rumsfeld entitled “Using Special Forces on ‘Our Side’ of the Line.” He argued that U.S. Army Special Forces should be used on the ground with Northern Alliance forces to help direct U.S. air attacks, gather intelligence, and help deliver humanitarian aid where needed. Wolfowitz, well aware of the Soviet experience in Afghanistan in the 1980s, was concerned that the United States would fall into the same trap.
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The thinking was that the blending of U.S. and Afghan forces would limit American exposure in Afghanistan.

A CIA team led by Gary Schroen, appropriately code-named Jawbreaker, landed in the Panjshir Valley in northeastern Afghanistan on September 26, 2001, only two weeks after the attacks on the United States. The team was part of the agency’s Special Activities Division, the paramilitary arm of the CIA. At the time, it had no more than a few
hundred officers with both classic intelligence and special operations backgrounds. Schroen and his team were soon joined on the ground by several U.S. Special Operations Forces A-teams, including operational detachment alpha (ODA) 555, known as “Triple Nickel.” These forces worked with local Afghan commanders and provided arms, equipment, and military advice, as well as coordinated U.S. airstrikes.

They also provided money to buy—or at least rent—the loyalty of local commanders and their militia forces. Schroen once frankly acknowledged, “Money is the lubricant that makes things happen in Afghanistan.”
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Overthrow of the Taliban Regime

The U.S. bombing campaign began the night of October 7, 2001. The initial objective was to destroy the Taliban’s limited air-defense and communications infrastructure. American and British Special Operations teams had been conducting scouting missions in Afghanistan. Some of the first major combat actions of the war occurred in the mountains near Mazar-e-Sharif, as the teams working with Northern Alliance Generals Abdul Rashid Dostum and Atta Muhammad fought their way north up the Dar-ye Suf and Balkh River Valleys toward the northern city.
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The terrain and conditions were unlike anything the Americans had ever seen. They found themselves traversing steep mountain paths next to thousand-foot precipices. Since even four-wheel-drive vehicles couldn’t effectively maneuver on the winding mountain trails, military and intelligence forces used Afghan horses to haul their equipment. Many of the Americans had never been on a horse before. Because of the sheer drop-offs, they were told to keep one foot out of the stirrups so that if the horse stumbled, they would fall onto the trail as the horse slid off the cliff. In especially steep areas, U.S. forces were prepared to shoot any stumbling horse before it could drag its rider to his death.
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Mike DeLong, deputy commander
of U.S. Central Command, captured the novelty of the situation appropriately, if a bit sarcastically:

The first forays against the Taliban were in northern Afghanistan because Tajik and Uzbek opposition to the Pashtun regime was strongest there. Dostum’s forces took the village of Bishqab on October 21. Engagements followed at Cobaki on October 22, Chapchal on October 23, and Oimetan on October 25. On November 5, Dostum’s cavalry overran Taliban forces occupying old Soviet-built defensive posts in the hamlet of Bai Beche. Atta Muhammad’s forces then captured Ac’capruk on the Balkh River, finally opening the door for a rapid advance to Mazar-e-Sharif, which fell to Atta Muhammad’s and Dostum’s forces on November 10, 2001.
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The fall of Mazar-e-Sharif unhinged the Taliban position in northern Afghanistan. Taliban defenders near Bamiyan in central Afghanistan briefly resisted before surrendering on November 11, and Kabul fell without a fight on November 13. The Taliban collapse was remarkable. Only two months after the September 11 attacks, the most strategically important city in Afghanistan—Kabul—had been conquered.

American and Afghan forces then encircled a force of some 5,000 Taliban and al Qa’ida survivors in the city of Kunduz; following a twelve-day siege, they surrendered on November 26.
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With the fall of Kabul and Kunduz, attention shifted to the Taliban’s stronghold of
Kandahar in the south. Special Operations Forces in support of Hamid Karzai advanced on Kandahar City from the north. Born in Kandahar in 1957, Karzai was the fourth of eight children. His father, Abdul Ahad Karzai, served as chief of the Popalzai tribe until he was assassinated in 1999 by “agents of the Taliban.” Karzai’s childhood was rather unremarkable. He went to high school in Kabul and attended graduate school in India before joining the mujahideen during the Soviet War. He spent the Taliban years in Pakistan, but several weeks before the September 11 attacks he had received an ultimatum from the ISI to leave the country by September 30. As chief of the Popalzai tribe, centered on Kandahar Province, Karzai brought with him the support of one of Afghanistan’s most powerful southern tribes. And he was catapulted to prominence for his actions in the U.S.-led Coalition.
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