Ghost Wars (112 page)

30. Interview with a Sudanese official.

31. "Sudan is not a good . . ." is from "Hunting bin Laden,"
Frontline,
March 21, 2000. The information from the Sudanese official is from the author's interview. This account tracks with multiple published accounts, including some drawing on Afghan sources in Jalalabad where the flights landed.

32. Badeeb Orbit interview, early 2002. Turki confirmed Badeeb's account of the Qatar stopover in an interview with the author, August 2, 2002. Turki blamed Qatar's decision on the tiny emirate's history of nipping at the heels of its larger Saudi neighbor. For the conclusion of American investigators, see National Commission staff statement no. 5, p. 4, and the final report, p.63.

33. Interviews with U.S. officials involved.

34. Robert Fisk,
The Independent,
July 10, 1996.

35. This account of the failed attempt to arrest Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in Qatar is drawn mainly from the interviews with U.S. officials. See also the Joint Inquiry Committee's final report, pp. 310-13 and the National Commission's staff statement no. 5, pp. 2-3. For how Mohammed was assigned within CTC, see the commission's final report, p. 276. James Risen and David Johnston published an excellent account of the episode in
The New York Times,
March 8, 2003. The quotations from Freeh's letter are from their account.

36. Kathy Gannon, Associated Press, July 11, 1996. Sudan's government formally reported to the United Nations on June 3, 1996, that bin Laden had left that country for Afghanistan. Initial press reports from Pakistan quoted Pakistani intelligence and religious party leaders as saying that bin Laden's arrival in Afghanistan had been facilitated in part by his former allies from the anti-Soviet jihad, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and the Islamist political party Jamaat-e-Islami.

37. Interview with Kenneth Katzman, Congressional Research Service terrorism analyst, August 27, 2002,Washington,D.C. (GW).

38. United Press International, June 7, 1996.

39. Ahmed Rashid,
Taliban: Militant Islam,
Oil, and Fundamentalism in Central Asia,
pp. 41-42; Barnett R. Rubin,
The Fragmentation
of Afghanistan,
p. xv; Michael Griffin,
Reaping the Whirlwind,
p. 65.

40. Quotations from Raphel's meetings and Simons's cables from "A/S Raphel Discusses Afghanistan," declassified cable, April 22, 1996, released by the National Security Archive. Massoud's perspective is from interviews with aides to Massoud.

41. "Has become a conduit for drugs" is from Robin Raphel's testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs, June 6, 1996. "Concerned that economic opportunities" and "will be very good" are from Rashid,
Taliban,
pp. 45 and 166. Raphel's comment to a Russian counterpart from State Department cable of May 13, 1996, declassified and released by the National Security Archive.

42. Life expectancy is from Benjamin and Simon,
Age of Sacred Terror,
p. 135. That Afghanistan was 173 is from Raphel, Senate Subcommittee testimony, June 6, 1996.

43. Interview with Benazir Bhutto, May 5, 2002, Dubai, United Arab Emirates (GW). That all the while Bhutto continued to lie: In meetings in Islamabad in the spring of 1996 with one of their strongest supporters in the U.S. Congress, Senator Hank Brown, Bhutto and her aides denied providing any aid to the Taliban. On June 26, 1996, Bhutto's ambassador to the United States, Maleeha Lodhi, testified at a congressional hearing: "Pakistan, let me state emphatically, does not provide arms or ammunition to any faction."

44. Interview with Simons, August 19, 2002.

45. Interviews with U.S. officials. Steve Le- Vine of
Newsweek
first reported publicly on bin Laden's large payments to the Taliban, on October 13, 1997. National Commission investigators describe bin Laden's 1996 financial problems in staff statement no. 15, although they provide no assessment of any payments to the Taliban. Given his $1 million allowance for more than ten years, $3 million would not be an exorbitant sum for bin Laden even in tight times. But it is not clear what contributions he made, if any, or where they came from.

46. Peter L. Bergen,
Holy War, Inc.,
p. 28. Benjamin and Simon,
Age of Sacred Terror,
p. 134.

47. The Massoud quotes and tactical details are from Davis, "How the Taliban Became a Military Force," in William Maley, ed.,
Fundamentalism
Reborn,
pp. 65-67. Ahmed Rashid writes in the same volume, p. 87, on the role of Pakistani intelligence during this period: "The ISI played a leading role in helping the Taliban's capture of Jalalabad and Kabul, first by helping subvert the Jalalabad
Shura
and offering its members sanctuary in Pakistan, and then allowing the Taliban to reinforce their assault on Kabul by fresh troops drawn from Afghan refugee camps on the border."

48. Ibid.

49. Najibullah's translation and comment are from
The Guardian,
October 12, 1996, and from an interview with a U.N. official who visited Najibullah.

50. Griffin,
Reaping the Whirlwind,
p. 3.

51. Quotations ibid., pp. 6-7.

52. Nancy Hatch Dupree, "Afghan Women Under the Taliban," in Maley, ed.,
Fundamentalism
Reborn,
p. 156, citing United Nations human rights reporting.

53. All quotations are from "Dealing with the Taliban in Kabul," a State Department cable from Washington to Islamabad and other embassies, September 28, 1996, declassified and released by the National Security Archive.

54. Simons's remarks from "Ambassador Meets the Taliban," State Department cable of November 12, 1996, declassified and released by the National Security Archive. Simons also discussed the meeting in an interview. Christopher's letter and Raphel-Karzai from "U.S. Engagement with the Taliban on Osama bin Laden," State Department memo declassified and released by the National Security Archive.

55. Rashid,
Taliban,
p. 178, and Richard MacKenzie, "The United States and the Taliban," in Maley, ed.,
Fundamentalism Reborn,
p. 91.

CHAPTER 19: "WE'RE KEEPING THESE STINGERS"

1. Schroen's trip to Kabul and his discussions with Massoud are described in detail in the Prologue.

2. Interviews with U.S. officials.

3. Interviews with U.S., Pakistani, Saudi, and Afghan intelligence officials involved with the Stinger program.

4. Interviews with U.S. officials.

5. "The U.S. does not support,"
Agence
France Presse,
October 24, 1996. "Impossible to justify" is from Dupree, in William Maley, ed.,
Fundamentalism Reborn,
p. 149.

6. "Fanatically neutral" is from
The New
York Times,
October 23, 1996.

7.
The Washington Post,
October 7, 1996.

8. This account of Schroen's visit to Kandahar is from interviews with U.S. officials.

9. "We're keeping these Stingers" is from an interview with Gary Schroen, May 7, 2002, Washington D.C. (SC).

10. Peter L. Bergen,
Holy War, Inc.,
p. 93. Michael Griffin,
Reaping the Whirlwind,
p. 137. Quotations are from Vernon Loeb,
The Washington
Post,
August 23, 1998.

11. Bergen,
Holy War, Inc.,
pp. 1-23. Loeb,
The Washington Post,
August 23, 1998.

12. The Prince Turki quotations are from
Nightline,
December 10, 2001. "Mistaken policy or accident of history-take your pick," the Saudi foreign minister Saud al- Faisal, Turki's brother, said in an interview with
The Washington Post
during the same period. "The stability of Afghanistan seemed a bigger concern than the presence of bin Laden. . . . When the Taliban received him, they indicated he would be absolutely prevented from taking any actions. We had unequivocal promises." During this same period the Clinton White House was struggling to win cooperation from the Saudis for investigations of Iranian involvement in the terrorist bombing of June 1996 at Khobar Towers in eastern Saudi Arabia. But the Saudis, under the initiative of Crown Prince Abdullah, were in the midst of trying to construct a negotiated rapprochement with newly elected Iranian president Mohammad Khatami. The Saudis did not want the Americans to destroy this détente by prosecuting Iranian operatives involved in the bombing or launching retaliatory military strikes against Iran. Sandy Berger met repeatedly with Prince Bandar to try to win Saudi cooperation, but later he described the talks as a Saudi "ritual of evasion."

13. Interviews with Charlie Santos, August 19 and 23, 2002, New York City (GW). Also interview with Marty Miller, September 23, 2002, Austin, Texas (SC and GW), and interviews with U.S., Pakistani, and Afghan officials who traveled through Kandahar during this period.

14. Ibid. Also, interview with Thomas Goutierre, September 18, 2002, Omaha, Nebraska (GW). A center run by Goutierre at the University of Nebraska was retained by Unocal to train Pashtuns in Kandahar as oil pipeline workers in order to show the Taliban the potential economic benefits of the pipeline.

15. Bin Laden's death threat against Brown is from an interview with former senator Hank Brown, February 5, 2003, by telephone (GW). In August 1996, Brown visited Kandahar on a multistop trip to Afghanistan designed to stir interest in peace talks. In Kandahar he met with senior Taliban officials. The Taliban had captured and imprisoned several Russian pilots who were running arms to Massoud's government. Brown, a former Navy pilot in Vietnam, visited with the prisoners. They asked Brown to pass along to the Taliban a request that they be permitted to run the engines on their plane once a month so that it would be in condition to fly if they were ever released. Brown did pass along the request, and a few weeks later the Taliban took their prisoners to the airport to check the engines on their plane. The Russians overpowered their guards, hopped into their plane, and flew away. The Taliban angrily blamed Brown for this fiasco. That the United States did not seriously begin to plan covert action to capture or kill bin Laden until the end of 1997 is from interviews with multiple U.S. officials. From their perspective at the White House, Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon acknowledge in
The
Age of Sacred Terror
that there was little sense of urgency about bin Laden among counterterrorism planners there until December 1997. The sense remained that bin Laden was a financier of Islamist extremists, not a major terrorist operator himself.

16. Ahmed Rashid,
Taliban: Militant Islam,
Oil, and Fundamentalism in Central Asia,
pp. 201-2.

17. Ibid., p. 54, quoting Omar's interview with Rahimullah Yousufzai in the Pakistani English-language newspaper
The News
.

18. Reuters, April 10, 1997.

19. "Massoud felt cheated" is from an interview with Haroun Amin, September 9, 2002, Washington, D.C. (GW).

20. "He never thought for a second" is from an interview with Ahmed Wali Massoud, May 7, 2002, Kabul, Afghanistan (GW).

21. Massoud's trusted intelligence aide Engineer Arif was dispatched to sell gems in Las Vegas at one point, according to a U.S. official who met with him on the visit. "Day by day" is from an interview with Mohammed Neem, May 27, 2002, Kabul, Afghanistan (GW).

22. "No way" is from an interview with Daoud Mir, July 31 and August 8, 2002, Washington, D.C. (GW). "He could have an understanding" is from the author's interview with Mohiden Mehdi, May 27, 2002, Kabul, Afghanistan (GW). The earlier quotations from State Department reports about Pakistani aid to the Taliban are from declassified cables released by the National Security Archive.

23. Interview with a senior intelligence aide to Massoud.

24. The account of this trip is drawn from the interviews with U.S. officials and with aides to Massoud.

25. Quotations ibid. In recounting the history of their secret contacts with Massoud during the late 1990s, U.S. officials tend to emphasize the role of counterterrorism in the early meetings more than Massoud's aides do. Abdullah, then Massoud's foreign policy adviser, said in an interview that in 1997 "the discussions on terrorism had not really started." While there were general talks with the CIA about bin Laden, "what I can say is that it started with this narrow thing, Stingers. But it gradually developed." The Americans, on the other hand, saw the Stinger recovery program as a way to supplement Massoud's income and strengthen his military potential, and as a way to develop trust and regular communication for intelligence reporting about bin Laden.

26. Interview with Neem, May 27, 2002, and with other aides to Massoud, including several senior intelligence officers.

27. The Rashid quotation is from "Pakistan and the Taliban," in Maley, ed.,
Fundamentalism
Reborn,
p. 88. Rashid continues: "Pakistan's strategy towards the Taliban was characterized as much by drift as by determination. Islamabad's policy was as much driven by corruption, infighting and inefficiency as it was a concerted attempt to push forward a Pashtun agenda in Afghanistan."

28. Interview with Mushahid Hussain, May 21, 2002, Islamabad, Pakistan (SC).

29. "They asked that we recognize" and "had no clue of how to run a country" are from Badeeb's interview with Orbit, early 2002, translated by the Language Doctors, Inc., Washington, D.C. "They are very religious people" is from the author's interview with Ahmed Badeeb, February 1, 2002, Jedda, Saudi Arabia (SC). "So as to fill the obvious vacuum" is from Badeeb's interview with Orbit.

30. Interview with Yar Mohabbat, September 20, 2002, St. Louis, Missouri (GW).

31. Ibid.

32. Ibid., and an interview with a congressional aide who toured the embassy during this period.

33. Ibid., and interviews with State Department officials. Rick Inderfurth, then the newly arrived assistant secretary of state for South Asia, recalled satisfaction over the State Department's ability to prevent the Taliban from taking control of the embassy, which might have increased their influence. The only way to prevent the Taliban takeover, Inderfurth argued, was to shut the embassy altogether.