The Longest War
Authors: Peter L. Bergen
Also by Peter L. Bergen
The Osama bin Laden I Know
Holy War, Inc.
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Copyright © 2011 by Peter Bergen
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First Free Press hardcover edition January 2011
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bergen, Peter L.
The longest war : the enduring conflict between America and al-Qaeda / Peter L.
Bergen.—1st Free Press hbk. ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. War on Terrorism, 2001–2009. 2. Terrorism—United States—Prevention.
3. Terrorism—Prevention. 4. Iraq War, 2003- 5. Qaida (Organization) I. Title.
HV6432.B46 2011
909.83’1—dc22 2010015268
ISBN 978-0-7432-7893-5
ISBN 978-1-4391-6059-6 (ebook)
For Tresha with all my love.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
—Attributed to Plato
Chapter 6: The Destruction of the Base
Chapter 7: The Gloves Came Off
Chapter 8: Home Front: The First Bush Term
Chapter 9: Building the Case for War with Iraq
Chapter 11: Almost Losing the War the United States Thought It Had Won
Chapter 13: Al-Qaeda’s Quixotic Quest for Weapons of Mass Destruction
Chapter 14: The United States of Jihad
Chapter 15: Pakistan: The New Base
Chapter 16: The Fall of Al-Qaeda in Iraq and the Rise of an Iraqi State
Chapter 18: The End of the “War on Terror”?
2. Iraq and the wider Middle East
3. Major attacks by al-Qaeda or those inspired by its ideas around the world since 9/11
Afghanistan and Pakistan
Iraq and the wider Middle East
T
he goal of this book is to tell a history of the “war on terror” in one volume. The organizing principle of this history is to examine not only the actions and strategies of the United States and its key allies, but also those of al-Qaeda and its allies, such as the Taliban. Most histories of the war on terror have been written largely from the American perspective, while this book folds into the narrative the perspective of al-Qaeda and allied jihadist groups. Just as histories of World War II told only from the point of view of Franklin Roosevelt would make little sense, so do we benefit from a better understanding of Osama bin Laden and his followers.
This is not, of course, to suggest a moral equivalence between al-Qaeda and the United States. Yet as we look back it is clear that each side has made a set of symbiotic strategic errors that has helped the other. Luckily, those of the United States have not been as profound as al-Qaeda’s, although they certainly have been significant—from ceding the moral high ground with Guantánamo and coercive interrogations; to invading Iraq, which gave a new lease on life to the jihadist movement; to almost losing the Afghan War.
Yet al-Qaeda has made even more profound strategic errors. The attack on September 11, 2001, itself caused the collapse of the Taliban regime and the destruction of al-Qaeda’s safe haven in Afghanistan, where it had once ruled
with impunity as a kind of shadow government within the Taliban regime. Later, in Iraq, al-Qaeda’s ruthless campaign of terror obliterated the support it had first enjoyed there, and so also severely damaged its “brand” around the Muslim world.
This book is first a narrative history of the “war on terror,” based upon a synthesis of all the available open-source materials, together with my own interviewing and reporting during the course of more than a dozen visits to Afghanistan and Pakistan and other reporting trips to countries that have played a role in the narrative, such as Iraq, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Indonesia, Russia, Uzbekistan, the United Kingdom, and Italy. During those trips I have interviewed people from all sides of this war including: failed suicide bombers; leading Western counterterrorism and national security officials; members of the Taliban; the family and friends of Osama bin Laden; top American military officers; victims of American “extraordinary renditions” who have been taken by CIA officials to countries where they were then tortured; leading members of al-Qaeda, including bin Laden, and former militants who have turned against bin Laden’s terrorist organization.