In the Graveyard of Empires: America's War in Afghanistan (55 page)

17.
ABC News/BBC/ARD Poll,
Afghanistan—Where Things Stand
(Kabul: ABC News/BBC/ARD Poll, December 2007), p. 12.

18.
White House,
President Bush Participates in Joint Press Availability with President Karzai of Afghanistan
(Washington, DC: White House Office of the Press Secretary, August 6, 2007).

19.
Afghanistan National Security Council,
National Threat Assessment 2004
(Kabul: Afghanistan National Security Council, April 2004), p. 3.

20.
Afghanistan National Security Council,
National Threat Assessment 2005
(Kabul: Afghanistan National Security Council, September 2005), p. 4.

21.
Afghanistan National Security Council,
The National Security Policy: The
Islamic Republic of Afghanistan
(Kabul: Afghanistan National Security Council), p. 10.

22.
General Michael V. Hayden,
The Current Situation in Iraq and Afghanistan
(Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency, 2006), p. 2. The document, which was unclassified, was given to the Senate Armed Services Committee in November 2006.

23.
Lieutenant General Michael D. Maples,
The Current Situation in Iraq and Afghanistan
(Washington, DC: Defense Intelligence Agency, 2006), p. 6. The document, which was unclassified, was given to the Senate Armed Services Committee in November 2006.

24.
United Nations Department of Safety and Security,
Half-Year Review of the Security Situation in Afghanistan
(Kabul: United Nations, August 2007), p. 1.

25.
Author interview with Ambassador Ronald Neumann, September 7, 2007.

26.
Author interview with Lieutenant General David Barno, September 4, 2007.

27.
Author interview with U.S. intelligence operative, March 8, 2009.

28.
Jim Landers, “U.S. Should Double Afghan Aid in Elections’ Wake, Envoy Says,”
Dallas Morning News
, October 29, 2005.

29.
See, for example, White House,
Request for Fiscal Year 2006 Supplemental Appropriations
(Washington, DC: White House, February 16, 2006), p. 63. The State Department was given $43 million for unanticipated requirements in Afghanistan, including $11 million for the subsidy cost of 100 percent debt reduction for Afghanistan. And $32 million went for power-sector projects. This included aid for the replacement of crucial emergency generating equipment, and critical early stage components of the Northeast Transmission Project, a $500 million effort, which was funded primarily by other bilateral and multilateral donors.

30.
Author interview with Ambassador Ronald Neumann, September 7, 2007.

31.
L. Paul Bremer III,
My Year in Iraq: The Struggle to Build a Future of Hope
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006), p. 114.

32.
Memo from Ambassador L. Paul Bremer to Secretary Rumsfeld, “Moving Faster: A Problem or Two,” July 7, 2003.

33.
John Hamre, Memorandum for the Secretary of Defense and the Administrator, Coalition Provisional Authority, “Preliminary Observations Based on My Recent Visit to Baghdad,” June 2003.

34.
Commander British Forces,
Counterinsurgency in Helmand: Task Force Operational Design,
January 2008, p. 5.

35.
Andrew Feickert,
U.S. and Coalition Military Operations in Afghanistan: Issues for Congress
(Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, June 9, 2006), pp. 4–5.

36.
Warren Chin, “British Counter-Insurgency in Afghanistan,”
Defense & Security Analysis,
vol. 23, no. 2, June 2007, pp. 201–25; Andrew Feickert,
U.S.
and Coalition Military Operations in Afghanistan: Issues for Congress
(Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, December 11, 2006), p. 3.

37.
Richard K. Kolb, “We Are Fighting Evil’: Canadians in Afghanistan,”
VFW Magazine,
March 2007, p. 26.

38.
Adnan R. Khan, “I’m Here to Fight: Canadian Troops in Kandahar,”
Maclean’s,
April 5, 2006.

39.
Author interviews with Canadian soldiers, Kandahar, Afghanistan, January 13–17, 2007.

40.
United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan,
A Review of the Taliban and Fellow Travelers as a Movement: Concept Paper Updating PAG Joint Assessment of June 2006
(Kabul: United Nations, August 2007), p. 9.

41.
Captain Edward Stewart,
Op MEDUSA—A Summary
(London, Ontario: The Royal Canadian Regiment, 2007). Captain Stewart was the forward public affairs officer for Operation Medusa, from the Task Force 306 Battle Group.

42.
Board of Inquiry Minutes of Proceedings, Convened by LGen J. C. M. Gauthier, Commander CEFCOM, 22 September 2006, A-10A Friendly Fire Incident 4 September 2006, Panjwayi District, Afghanistan, p. 14.

43.
Author interviews with Canadian soldiers, Kandahar, Afghanistan, January 13–17, 2007.

44.
Captain Edward Stewart,
Op MEDUSA—A Summary.

45.
Board of Inquiry Minutes of Proceedings, p. 14; Captain Edward Stewart,
Op MEDUSA—A Summary.

46.
Author interviews with Canadian soldiers, Kandahar, Afghanistan, January 13–17, 2007.

47.
Board of Inquiry Minutes of Proceedings, p. 14.

48.
Alex Dobrota and Omar El Akkad, “Friendly Fire Claims Former Olympic Athlete,”
Globe and Mail
(Canada), September 5, 2006.

49.
Board of Inquiry Minutes of Proceedings.

50.
Captain Edward Stewart,
Op MEDUSA—A Summary.

51.
Captain Edward Stewart,
Op MEDUSA—A Summary.

52.
Patrick Dickson and Sandra Jontz, “Discovering What Makes a Hero,”
Stars and Stripes,
June 14, 2005.

53.
Inspector General, United States Department of Defense,
Review of Matters Related to the Death of Corporal Patrick Tillman, U.S. Army
(Washington, DC: United States Department of Defense, March 2007).

54.
United States House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,
Misleading Information from the Battlefield: The Tillman and Lynch Episodes
(Washington, DC: United States House of Representatives, July 2008), pp. 5, 49. Also see Mary Tillman with Narda Zacchino,
Boots on the Ground by Dusk: My Tribute to Pat Tillman
(New York: Modern Times, 2008).

55.
Author interviews with Canadian soldiers, Kandahar, Afghanistan, January 13–17, 2007.

56.
Captain Edward Stewart,
Op MEDUSA—A Summary
.

57.
Captain Edward Stewart,
Op MEDUSA—A Summary.

58.
Author interviews with Canadian soldiers, Kandahar, Afghanistan, January 13–17, 2007.

59.
General James L. Jones,
Allied Command Operations,
slide 6.

60.
Letter from Brad Adams, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia Division, to NATO Secretary General, Subject: Summit in Latvia, October 30, 2006.

61.
Author interview with Lieutenant Colonel Simon Hetherington, commanding officer of the Canadian Forces Provincial Reconstruction Team in Kandahar, Kandahar, Afghanistan, January 16, 2007.

62.
Michael Smith, “British Troops in Secret Truce with the Taliban,”
The Times
(London), October 1, 2006.

63.
United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan,
UNAMA Assessment of the Effects of the Musa Qala Agreement
(Kabul: United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, January 2007), p. 2.

64.
Author interview with senior White House official, Washington, DC, November 28, 2007. Also see, for example, Karen DeYoung, “U.S. Notes Limited Progress in Afghan War,”
Washington Post,
November 25, 2007, p. A1.

65.
Julian E. Barnes, “U.S. Military Says Iraq Is the Priority,”
Los Angeles Times,
December 12, 2007.

66.
Author interviews with senior U.S. Marine Corps officials, Washington, DC, December 10, 2007.

67.
Thom Shanker, “Gates Decides Against Marines’ Offer to Leave Iraq for Afghanistan,”
New York Times,
December 6, 2007, p. A16.

Chapter Thirteen

1.
PBS
Frontline,
“The Return of the Taliban,” Written, produced, and reported by Martin Smith. Airdate: October 3, 2006.

2.
See, for example, Murray Gell-Mann,
The Quark and the Jaguar
(New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1994); John Holland,
Hidden Order
(Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1995); Kevin Dooley, “A Complex Adaptive Systems Model of Organization Change,”
Nonlinear Dynamics, Psychology, and Life Science,
vol. 1, no. 1, 1997, pp. 69–97.

3.
Author interview with Commander Larry Legree, June 10, 2008.

4.
Joby Warrick, “CIA Places Blame for Bhutto Assassination,”
Washington Post,
January 18, 2008, p. A1.

5.
Author interview with U.S. intelligence officer, Bagram, Afghanistan, March 8, 2008.

6.
On cooperation among insurgents, see Barnett R. Rubin,
Afghanistan and the International Community: Implementing the Afghanistan Compact
(New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 2006); “Afghan Taliban Say No Talks Held with U.S., No Differences with Hekmatyar,”
Karachi Islam,
February 24, 2005, pp. 1, 6; “Pajhwok News Describes Video of Afghan Beheading by ‘Masked Arabs,’ Taliban,”
Pajhwok Afghan News,
October 9, 2005; “Spokesman Says Taliban ‘Fully Organized,’
Daily Ausaf
(Islamabad), June 23, 2005, pp. 1, 6; “UK Source in Afghanistan Says al Qa’ida Attacks Boost Fear of Taliban Resurgence,”
The Guardian,
June 20, 2005; “Taliban Military Chief Threatens to Kill U.S. Captives, Views Recent Attacks, Al-Qa’ida,” Interview with Al Jazeera TV, July 18, 2005.

7.
David Galula,
Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice
(St. Petersburg, FL: Hailer Publishing, 2005), pp. 11–12, 78–79.

8.
On terrorism and learning, see Brian A. Jackson,
Aptitude for Destruction, Vol. 1: Organizational Learning in Terrorist Groups and Its Implications for Combating Terrorism
(Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2005); Jackson,
Aptitude for Destruction, Vol. 2: Case Studies of Organizational Learning in Five Terrorist Groups
(Santa Monica, CA: RAND: 2005).

9.
United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan,
A Review of the Taliban and Fellow Travelers as a Movement: Concept Paper Updating PAG Joint Assessment of June 2006
(Kabul: United Nations, August 2007), p. 3.

10.
United States Marine Corps,
After Action Report on Operations in Afghanistan
(Camp Lejeune, NC: United States Marine Corps, August 2004);
Operation Enduring Freedom: Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures
(Fort Leavenworth, KS: U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, December 2003); United Nations Department of Safety and Security,
Half-Year Review of the Security Situation in Afghanistan
(Kabul: United Nations, August 2007).

11.
Amnesty International,
Amnesty International Contacts Taliban Spokesperson, Urges Release of Hostages
(New York: Amnesty International, August 2, 2007).

12.
See, for example, Action Memo from Steven Casteel (Senior Adviser to the Iraq Ministry of Interior) to L. Paul Bremer (Administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority), Ransom Payments for Hostages, April 21, 2004. According to the memo, the Japanese government paid $750,000 per hostage for the release of three Japanese hostages captured on April 8, 2004, near Fallujah, and the French government paid $600,000 for the release of journalist Alexandre Jordanov.

13.
Letter from L. Paul Bremer (Administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority) to Foreign Embassies in Iraq, Ransom Payments for Hostages, April 21, 2004.

14.
See, for example, Ian Fisher, “Italy Paid Ransom for Journalist, It Confirms,”
International Herald Tribune,
March 22, 2007, p. 1; Peter Kiefer, “Italian Leader Faces New Attack on Prisoner Swap After Reported Death of Jour
nalist’s Aide,”
New York Times,
April 10, 2007, p. A12; Massoud Ansari, “Taliban Funds Blitz on British Troops with Hostage Cash,”
The Sunday Telegraph
(London), October 14, 2007; Saeed Ali Achakzai, “Korea Pays Taliban $24m for Hostages,”
The Sunday Mail
(Australia), September 2, 2007, p. 46.

15.
“Taliban Military Chief Threatens to Kill U.S. Captives.”

16.
Lester Grau, ed.,
The Bear Went Over the Mountain: Soviet Combat Tactics in Afghanistan (Washington
, DC: National Defense University Press, 1996);
Grau, Artillery and Counterinsurgency: The Soviet Experience in Afghanistan
(Fort Leavenworth, KS: Foreign Military Studies Office, 1997); U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command,
Operation Enduring Freedom: Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures
(Fort Leavenworth, KS: U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, December 2003).

17.
Statement of Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry, Commander, Combined Forces Command—Afghanistan, Testimony before the House Armed Services Committee, Washington, DC, June 28, 2006; Memorandum from General Barry R. McCaffrey (ret.) to Colonel Mike Meese and Colonel Cindy Jebb, United States Military Academy, “Trip to Afghanistan and Pakistan,” June 2006, p. 4;
Operation Enduring Freedom: Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures; Opposing Militant Forces: Elections Scenario
(Kabul: ISAF, 2005).

18.
“The Rule of Allah,” Video by Al Qa’ida in Afghanistan, produced in 2006; “Taliban Execute Afghan Woman on Charges of Spying for U.S. Military,”
Afghan Islamic Press,
August 10, 2005; “Afghan Taliban Report Execution of Two People on Charges of Spying for U.S.,”
Afghan Islamic Press,
July 12, 2005.

19.
Taliban Says Responsible for Pro-Karzai Cleric’s Killing, Warns Others,”
The News
(Islamabad), May 30, 2005; “Taliban Claim Responsibility for Killing Afghan Cleric,” Kabul Tolo Television, May 29, 2005. Also see the killings of other clerics, such as Mawlawi Muhammad Khan, Mawlawi Muhammad Gol, and Mawlawi Nur Ahmad in “Pro-Karzai’ Cleric Killed by Bomb in Mosque in Khost Province,”
Pajhwok Afghan News,
October 14, 2005; “Karzai Condemns Murder of Clerics,”
Pajhwok Afghan News,
October 18, 2005. Also see Antonio Giustozzi,
Koran, Kalashnikov, and Laptop: The Neo-Taliban Insurgency in Afghanistan
(London: Hurst & Company, 2007), p. 46.

20.
“Taliban Threatens Teachers, Students in Southern Afghan Province,” Pajhwok
Afghan News,
January 3, 2006. Also see “Gunmen Set Fire to Schools in Ghazni, Kandahar Provinces,”
Pajhwok Afghan News,
December 24, 2005.

21.
Afghan Islamic Press interview with Mofti Latifollah Hakimi, August 30, 2005.

22.
Olivier Roy,
Islam and Resistance in Afghanistan,
2nd ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990); Ahmed Rashid,
Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000); William Maley, ed.,
Fundamentalism Reborn? Afghanistan and the Taliban
(New York: New York University Press, 2001).

23.
Commander British Forces,
Counterinsurgency in Helmand: Task Force Operational Design,
January 2008.

24.
Estimates of insurgents are notoriously difficult for two reasons. First, it is difficult to count the number of insurgents, since they hide in urban and rural areas to evade foreign and domestic intelligence and security forces. Second, the number of insurgents is often fluid. Some are full-time fighters but many are not. In addition, there is a significant logistics, financial, and political support network for insurgent groups, making it virtually impossible to reliably estimate the total number of guerrillas and their support base. These reasons make it more difficult to estimate the number of insurgents than to estimate the size of state military forces. On the Taliban numbers, the author interviewed U.S., European, and Afghan officials on numerous occasions throughout 2004, 2005, and 2006.

25.
United Nations,
A Review of the Taliban and Fellow Travelers as a Movement: Concept Paper Updating PAG Joint Assessment of June 2006
(Kabul: United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, August 2007), p. 3.

26.
Amrullah Saleh,
Strategy of Insurgents and Terrorists in Afghanistan
(Kabul: National Directorate of Security, 2006), p. 2.

27.
Mariam Abou Zahab and Olivier Roy,
Islamist Networks: The Afghan-Pakistan Connection,
translated by John King (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), p. 13.

28.
Al Jazeera interview with Mullah Dadullah, February 2006. Also see, for example, “Taliban Spokesman Condemns Afghan Parliament as ‘Illegitimate,’” Sherberghan Aina Television, December 19, 2005.

29.
“Spokesman Rejects Afghan Government’s Amnesty Offer for Taliban Leader,”
Afghan Islamic Press,
May 9, 2005.

30.
See, for example, “Al Jazeera Airs Hikmatyar Video,” Al Jazeera TV, May 4, 2006.

31.
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, May 2007, recorded DVD response to Agence France Presse questions. Also see, for example, Sardar Ahmad, “Afghan Insurgency Here for a Long Time: Rebel Leader,” Agence France Presse, May 6, 2007.

32.
Parts of the video clip were released in such Pakistan newspapers as
Dawn.
See, for example, “US Can’t Stay for Long in Afghanistan: Hekmatyar,”
Dawn
(Pakistan), February 22, 2007.

33.
The video clip was released in 2003. See, for example, Aileen McCabe, “Attack Seen as ‘Payback’ for Drug Raid,”
National Post
(Canada), January 28, 2004, p. A2. Hekmatyar’s comments were regularly anti-American. In an address to U.S. President George W. Bush, he noted: “You must have realized that attacking Afghanistan and Iraq was a historic mistake. You do not have any other option but to take out your forces from Iraq and Afghanistan and give the Iraqis and Afghans the right to live their own way.” Zarar Khan, “Afghan Warlord Splits with Taliban, Hints at Talks with Karzai Government,” Associated Press, March 8, 2007.

34.
Roy,
Islam and Resistance in Afghanistan,
pp. 77–78.

35.
Gilles Kepel,
Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), pp. 141–43.

36.
Author interview with Ambassador Said Jawad, August 24, 2007.

37.
United Nations,
A Review of the Taliban and Fellow Travelers as a Movement: Concept Paper Updating PAG Joint Assessment of June 2006
(Kabul: United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, August 2007), p. 4.

38.
Author interview with Robert Grenier, November 6, 2007

39.
See, for example, Zahab and Roy,
Islamist Networks,
p. 1.

40.
The term
salafi jihadist
initially began to occur in the literature of the Islamic Armed Group in Algeria. See, for example, Alain Grignard, “La lit-térature politique du GIA, des origines à Djamal Zitoun—Esquisse d’une analyse,” in F. Dassetto, ed.,
Facettes de l’Islam belge
(Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium: Academia-Bruylant, 2001).

41.
Video clip of Abu Laith al-Libi, released in September 2007.

42.
Zahab and Roy,
Islamist Networks,
p. 14

43.
See, for example, Thomas H. Johnson, “The Taliban Insurgency and an Analysis of Shabnamah (Night Letters),”
Small Wars and Insurgencies,
vol. 18, no. 3, September 2007, pp. 317–44.

44.
“Taliban Military Chief Threatens to Kill U.S. Captives.”

45.
Saleh,
Strategy of Insurgents and Terrorists in Afghanistan,
p. 8.

46.
“Religious Scholars Call on Taliban to Abandon Violence,”
Pajhwok News Agency,
July 28, 2005.

47.
“Taliban Claim Killing of Pro-Government Religious Scholars in Helmand,”
Afghan Islamic Press,
July 13, 2005.

48.
The Asia Foundation,
Voter Education Planning Survey: Afghanistan 2004 National Elections
(Kabul: The Asia Foundation, 2004); pp. 107–8.

49.
Author interview with Ambassador Ronald Neumann, September 7, 2007.

Chapter Fourteen

1.
The North Atlantic Treaty, Washington, DC, April 4, 1949.

2.
Eric V. Larson, “U.S. Air Force Roles Reach Beyond Securing the Skies,”
RAND Review,
vol. 26, no. 2, Summer 2002.