One Hundred Victories
Read One Hundred Victories Online
Authors: Linda Robinson
Tags: #Special Ops and the Future of American Warfare
Tell Me How This Ends:
General David Petraeus and the
Search for a Way Out of Iraq
Masters of Chaos:
The Secret History of the Special Forces
"To win one hundred vistories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill."
—SUN TZU
CAST OF CHARACTERS
(Listed in order of appearance. Military ranks are current as of July 2013.)
INTRODUCTION
Maj. Gen. Christopher Haas
—
CFSOCC-A commander, 2011–2012
Bismullah Khan Mohammedi
—
Tajik leader, minister of interior, minister of defense
Col. Mark Schwartz
—
CJSOTF-A commander 2011–2012
CHAPTER 1: HITTING TARGETS
Maj. Gen. Edward Reeder
—
CFSOCC-A commander, 2009–2010
Lt. Col. Brad Moses
—
CJSOTF-A operations officer
Col. Pat Mahaney
—
battalion and deputy CFSOCC-A commander
Maj. Christopher Castelli
—
company commander
CHAPTER 2: INTO THE VILLAGES
Maj. Gen. Scott Miller
—
CFSOCC-A commander, 2010–2011
Command Sgt. Maj. J. R. Stigall
—
CFSOCC-A command sergeant major
Capt. Geno Paluso (Navy)
—
CFSOCC-A chief of staff
Brig. Gen. Don Bolduc
—
CJSOTF-A and deputy SOJTF-A commander
CHAPTER 3: THE TALIBAN’S HOME
Col. Chris Riga
—
Special Operations Task Force South commander, 2010–2011
Brig. Gen. Abdul Raziq
—
Afghan police general in Kandahar
CPT Dan Hayes and ODA 3314
—
team in Maiwand, 2010–2011
Jan Mohammed
—
Afghan Local Police commander in Maiwand
Maj. Scott White
—
company commander at Camp Simmons
Col. Bill Carty
—
Special Operations Task Force South commander, 2011–2012
CHAPTER 4: PAKTIKA
Maj. Mike Hutchinson and ODA 3325
—
team in Paktika, 2010–2011
Commander Aziz
—
Afghan Special Squad leader in Paktika
CHAPTER 5: ON THE BORDER
Cpt. Matt and ODA 3316
—
team in Kunar, 2011
Nur Mohammed
—
Afghan Local Police commander in Kunar
Maj. Eddie Jimenez
—
company commander at Camp Dyer
Lt. Col. Bob Wilson
—
Special Operations Task Force East commander, 2011–2012
CW2 Mike and ODA 3313
—
American team partnered with Afghan 1st Commando Kandak
CHAPTER 6: THE BURDENS OF COMMAND
Gen. John Allen—ISAF commander
Col. Heinz Dinter
—
CFSOCC-A operations officer, 2011–2012
Capt. Wes Spence (Navy)
—
CFSOCC-A chief of staff, 2011–2012
Cdr. Alec McKenzie
—
CFSOCC-A staff officer in charge of ALP program
CHAPTER 7: ON THE SAME TEAM
…
OR NOT
CPT Brad Hansell and ODA 7233
—
team in Maiwand, 2012
Captain Najibullah
—
Afghan Special Forces team leader
Lt. Col. Richard Navarro
—
Special Operations Task Force South commander, 2012
Command Sgt. Maj. Brian Rarey
—
SOTF-S battalion sergeant major
Maj. Angel Martinez
—
company commander at Camp Simmons
Sgt. Maj. J. R. Jones
—
company sergeant major at Camp Simmons
CHAPTER 8: SEALS DO FOREIGN INTERNAL DEFENSE, TOO
Cdr. J.R. Anderson
—
Special Operations Task Force Southeast commander, 2011
Commander Mike Hayes
—
Special Operations Task Force Southeast commander, 2012
Abdul Samad
—
Taliban leader
Lt. Marshall
—
SEAL platoon leader partnered with Afghan 8th Commando Kandak
Lt. Col. Ahmadullah Popal
—
8th Commando Kandak commander
CHAPTER 9: GOOD ENOUGH?
CPT Jason Russell and ODA 1114
—
team in Paktika, 2012–2013
CPT Jae Kim and ODA 1411
—
team in Paktika, 2012–2013
CHAPTER 10: HIGHWAY ONE
CPT Terrence Jackson and ODA 1326
—
team in Ghazni
Lt. Col. Chris Fox
—
Special Operations Task Force East commander, 2012–2013
Maj. John Bishop
—
SOTF-E operations officer
CHAPTER 11: WILL THE VALLEY HOLD?
Maj. Kent Solheim
—
company commander at Camp Dyer
ODA 3131
—
team in Kunar, 2012–2013
Asim Gul, Wazir and Gudjer
—
ALP commanders in Kunar
Maj. Ben Hauser
—
company commander at Camp Dyer
Col. Tony Fletcher
—
CJSOTF-A commander, 2012–2013
CHAPTER 12: THE ENDGAME
Maj. Gen. Tony Thomas
—
SOJTF-A commander, 2012–2013
Brig. Gen. Sean Swindell
—
NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan deputy commander
Gen. Sher Mohammed Karimi
—
chief of Afghan army general staff
INTRODUCTION
“YOU’LL HAVE TO KILL
A LOT OF MEN LIKE MY FATHER”
Chris Haas was one of the first Americans to arrive in Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. A shaved-bald special forces officer with a hoarse voice and a love of cigars, Haas is easygoing but essentially private, careful and skeptical while maintaining an outward affability. He bowed his head before each meal, but did not speak of religion. His reserve contrasted with the effusive warmth of his Texan wife, Betty, whose smiling picture he tacked to the bulletin board by his desk.
Haas flew in on October 26, 2001, on one of the first helicopters that made it over the Hindu Kush following 9/11. At the time he was a lieutenant colonel, and he would be in command of the first four special forces teams to soldier through the winter weather and link up with Northern Alliance militia leaders. He would work side by side with CIA veterans of the Afghan-Soviet war of the 1980s, who would r.5eforge their ties with the Northern Alliance, dispensing suitcases of cash for Afghan salaries, equipment, and fuel. The three who arrived first were Agency pros and a pleasure to work with, qualities not shared by some of the whippersnappers the CIA would later send out. They included “Doc,” who had been a special forces medic before joining the CIA; Gary Schroen, a former field officer; and Gary Berntsen, a former CIA station chief.
Haas’s most important duty was serving as liaison to the Northern Alliance leadership, the Tajik-led militia that had been fighting the Taliban for years and was the only armed group with the ability to topple the regime and oust its Al Qaeda allies. The “G chief,” or guerrilla leader, was Bismullah Khan Mohammedi, a wily, determined Northern Alliance leader who was highly beholden to his Tajik faction, the second largest of the groups making up Afghanistan’s ethnic mosaic. As he grilled Haas in his headquarters at Jabal Saraj, he sought to put his would-be patron on the defensive. “Are you ready to lose men? There will be fighting,” he said to Haas and his operations officer, Mark Schwartz. “Is the United States going to abandon us again?” he continued, referring to the abrupt end of America’s interest in Afghanistan after the Soviet departure in 1989. Haas knew it was a test. Bismullah Khan—or BK, as he would come to be known in the years ahead, when he went on to become Afghanistan’s army chief of staff, interior minister, and then defense minister—was trying to level the playing field. The Northern Alliance certainly wanted American help, and it desperately needed the firepower that Haas had at his disposal. But BK wanted to stay in the driver’s seat. The Northern Alliance wanted American help in order to throw out the Taliban and take control of the country.
From his training, Haas knew that managing this relationship was crucial. He could not change BK or his group’s objectives, but he could not become captive to them either. Over the weeks and months ahead, he and BK became friendly, but Haas never gave in. “Haas would call him on that righteous talk,” Schwartz later recalled. “He would talk to him straight.”
The basic objective—toppling the Taliban and getting Osama bin Laden—was clear, but the details were complex. Haas was to strengthen the Northern Alliance militia while simultaneously restraining it from sweeping south to capture Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, and wreaking vengeance on the Pashtuns—who formed the largest of Afghanistan’s ethnic groups. He was to stall the alliance until a multiethnic power-sharing agreement had been forged in Bonn and a leader had been chosen. Meanwhile, he was to keep tabs on feuds among the various militia leaders of the north as well as among the Pashtun factions jockeying for control over Kandahar, the second largest city in the country after Kabul.
During his eventful first tour in Afghanistan, Haas experienced firsthand the difficulties and limitations of warfare with guerrilla allies, first in the drive to capture Kabul, which was complete by November 2001, and then in the December pursuit of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda fighters as they fled into the Tora Bora mountain stronghold, bound for Pakistan. At Tora Bora, special operations teams joined up with Pashtuns from eastern Afghanistan who proved dubious allies, as some of them sold safe passage or turned a blind eye as Al Qaeda slipped through the 14,000-foot peaks and across the border.