The Longest War (67 page)

61
“We practice the good terrorism”
: Allouni, op. cit.

61
“did not intend to kill”
: Allouni op. cit.

61
summoned to Kabul in early November 2001 to treat Mohammed Atef
: Bootie Cosgrove-Mather, “Osama’s doc says he was healthy,”
Associated Press
, November 27, 2002.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/
2002/11/27/attack/main531070.shtml
.

61
“I didn’t see anything abnormal”
: author interview with Ahmed Zaidan, Islamabad, Pakistan, July 2004.

61
“good health”
: Bakr Atyani, phone interview, Islamabad, Pakistan, August 22, 2005.

61
“were just lined”
: Bobby, SGT 1st Class, PBS Frontline, “Campaign Against Terror”
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/
shows/campaign/interviews/534.html
.

62
“The people were overjoyed”
: Peter Jouvenal, interview London, UK, August 23, 2005. p. 323 in Bergen 2006.

62
A few days later
: Atef was killed sometime between November 14 and November 16, 2001. GlobalSecurity.org,
http://www.globalsecurity.org/
security/profiles/mohammed_atef.htm
.

62
married his son Muhammad to Atef’s daughter
: Daniel Klaidman, “Bin Laden’s poetry of terror,” Newsweek, March 26, 2001.

62
a blow to the organization
: Feroz Ali Abbasi, Guantánamo Bay Prison Memoirs, 2002–2004; worked around the clock: Author interview with U.S. intelligence officials, Washington, D.C., June 6, 2003.

62
“sow some dissension”
: Robert Grenier, interview by author, Washington, D.C., February 19, 2010.

62
October 2
: Tenet op. cit., pp. 182–183, and interview with Robert Grenier in Washington, D.C. February 19, 2009.

63
a number of Afghanistan’s monarchs
: Karzai comes from the same tribe, the Popalzai, as the former Afghan king, Mohammad Zahir Shah. BBC, “Hamid Karzai: shrewd statesman,” June 14, 2002.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/
2043606.stm
.

63
a bitter enemy
: “Hamid Karzai: a profile,” September 21, 2006. CBC,
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/
afghanistan/karzai.html
.

63
“Those people”
: Grenier interview.

63
over the Afghan border
: Hamid Karzai, PBS Frontline, “Campaign Against Terror,” May 7, 2002.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/
campaign/interviews/karzai.html
.

63
“Tell your people to light fires”
: Hamid Karzai, interview by PBS Frontline, “Campaign Against Terror,” May 7, 2002.

63
food and weapons
: Tenet op. cit., p. 219.

63
returned to Afghanistan
: Tenet op. cit., p. 220.

64
“We were going to build”
: Jason Amerine, New America Foundation, Washington, D.C., January 19, 2010.

64
containing up to 500 Taliban
: U.S. Army, “The U.S. Army in Afghanistan, Operation Enduring Freedom: October 2001–March 2002,” CMH Pub 70-83-1.

64
excused himself
: Jason Amerine, PBS Frontline, “Campaign Against Terror.”
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/
campaign/ground/tarinkowt.html
.

64
“The intense bombardment”
: Vahid Mojdeh,
Afghanistan Under Five Years of Taliban Sovereignty
, translated by Sepideh Khalili and Saeed Gangi (Kabul, 2001).

64
“The Taliban are coming”
: Amerine, New America Foundation, op. cit. and Jason Amerine, PBS Frontline, “Campaign Against Terror.”

65
“Karzai was the lynchpin”
: Hank Crumpton, interview by author, November 6, 2009, Washington, D.C.

65
the fall of Kabul
: For example, see Tony Karon, “What they’re saying about the fall of Kabul,” TIME, November 16, 2001.
http://www.time.com/time/nation/
article/0.8599,184766.00.html
.

65
gathering the large force
: Jason Amerine, PBS Frontline, “Campaign Against Terror.”
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/
campaign/ground/tarinkowt.html
.

65
James Dobbins
: James Dobbins,
After the Taliban: Nation Building in Afghanistan
(Dulles, VA: Potomac Books, Inc, 2008) pp. 2–4; Dobbins op. cit., pp. 49–51.

66
various Afghan factions
: Karzai op. cit.

66
Iranian officials
: Ahmed Rashid,
Descent into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia
(New York: Viking Adult, 2008), p. 104.

66
“this was before the Bush administration”
: James Dobbins, interview by author, Washington, D.C., November 6, 2009.

66
satellite phone
: Rashid op. cit., p. 95.

66
“I wasn’t aware of the significance of it”
: Karzai op. cit. Shut out of the Bonn conference
were any representatives of the Taliban. This would have serious long term consequences for Afghanistan: “In effect, they are a political party. But they’re a political party that Bonn shut out, so no wonder they formed an insurgency,” pointed out a senior American official involved in Afghan policy.

66
urge him to start moving
: David Fox, PBS Frontline, “Campaign Against Terror,” 2002;
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/
pages/frontline/shows/
campaign/interviews/fox.html
.

67
fallen 2 kilometers short
: “Bodies of two Green Berets arrive in Germany,” CNN.com, December 6, 2001.
http://archives.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/central/
12/06/ret.bombing.casualties/index.html

67
recalls saying “OK”
: Karzai, op. cit. and Eric Blehm,
The Only Thing Worth Dying For
(Harper: New York, 2010), p. 297.

67
more than two hundred vehicles
: Christopher Buchanan, “Reporter’s Notebook: the Karzai Interview,” PBS “Campaign Against Terror,” May 7, 2002.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/
frontline/shows/campaign/etc/notebook.html
.

68
“So let me be a martyr”
: Osama bin Laden (Lawrence) op. cit., page xxiii.

68
Jalalabad
: Bergen, 2004, and author visits to the Jalalabad compound between 2003 and 2006.

69
more than six months to build
: interview by author with Hutaifa Azzam, Amman, Jordan, September 13, 2005.

69
From bin Laden’s house
: Author observations, Tora Bora, January 2005.

69
“I really feel secure”
: Abdel Bari Atwan, interview by author, London, UK, June 2005.

69
“My brothers and I”
: Omar bin Laden, Najwa bin Laden, Jean Sasson,
Growing Up Bin Laden
(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2009), p. 73.

70
chief bodyguard
: Ali Soufan, FBI special agent, interview with author, Manhattan, New York, December 17, 2009.

70
during the month of Ramadan
: “Moroccan security source views danger of Moroccans released from Guantánamo,”
Al Sharq al Awsat
, August 20, 2004.

70
Around the same time
: Tim Weiner, “Bin Laden reported spotted in fortified camp in Afghan east,”
New York Times
, November 25, 2001.

70
Berntsen had arrived in Kabul
: Gary Berntsen, interview by author, Washington, D.C., October, 27, 2009.

70
arrived uneventfully in Jalalabad
: Gary Berntsen, email to author, November 24, 2009.

70
“We spent five weeks”
: Faiza Saleh Ambah, “Out of Guantánamo and Bitter Toward Bin Laden,”
Washington Post
, March 24, 2008.

70
decided to split into two groups of four
: interview with Berntsen.

71
an elaborate graphic
: “Bin Laden’s Mountain Fortress,”
The Times
of London, November 29, 2001. Available at
http://www.edwardjayepstein.com/
nether_fictoid3.htm
.

71
even the larger ones
: author observations Tora Bora, January 2005.

71
Shortly after 9/11
: Dalton Fury,
Kill Bin Laden: A Delta Force Commander’s Account of the Hunt for the World’s Most Wanted Man
(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2008), page xvi and page 92.

71
There Khan was introduced to
: Interview by author with Dalton Fury, telephone, December 19, 2008.

71
the small American and allied force
: Fury op. cit., p. xx, and email from Fury to author, December 8, 2009.

72
1,110 precision-guided
: Fury, op. cit., p. 289.

72
Muhammad Musa
: Muhammad Musa, interview by author, Jalalabad, Afghanistan, June, 2003.

72
briefed Bush and Cheney
: Ron Suskind,
The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America’s Pursuit of its Enemies since 9/11
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007), p. 58; Crumpton interview.

72
Tenet remembers
: George Tenet,
At the Center of the Storm
(New York: Harper Collins, 2007), p. 227.

73
By the evening of December 3
: Gary Berntsen and Ralph Pezzullo,
Jawbreaker: The attack on bin Laden and al-Qaeda: A personal account by the CIA’s key field commander
(New York Crown, 2005), p. 299, and author interview with Gary Berntsen, October 27, 2009, Washington, D.C.

73
“I remember the message”
: Author interview with Hank Crumpton, Washington, D.C., November 6, 2009.

73
General Franks explained his reasoning
: Email to author from General Tommy Franks, November, 24 2009.

74
Franks also said
: General Franks told PBS’
Frontline
: “I think it was a pretty good determination, to provide support to that operation, and to work with the Pakistanis along the Pakistani border to bring it to conclusion.” “Campaign Against Terror,” June 12, 2002
http://www.pbs.org/
wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/
campaign/interviews/franks.html
.

74
Fury recommended
: Fury op cit., p. 76.

74
al-Qaeda would not expect an attack
: Interview by author with Dalton Fury, telephone, December 19, 2008.

74
“for this most important mission”
: Fury op. cit., p. 209.

74
a motley crew
: Jane Corbin,
Al-Qaeda: In Search of the Terror Network that Threatens the World
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003), p. 296; author observations; “Hajji Zahir”: Mary Anne Weaver, “Lost at Tora Bora,”
New York Times Magazine
, September 11, 2005; U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, “Tora Bora revisited,” p. 11. Philip Smucker, “How bin Laden got away; A day-by-day account of how Osama bin Laden eluded the world’s most powerful military machine,”
Christian Science Monitor
, March 4, 2002. And see also the account in U.S. Special Operations Command History (6th edition, 2008) p. 97.
http://www.socom.mil/SOCOMHome/
Documents/history6thedition.pdf
.

74
direct laser beams
: Fury op. cit., p. 76.

74
“the latest intelligence”
: U.S. Special Operations Command History, op. cit., p. 98.

74
locals were reluctant to give
: from U.S. official on ground at Tora Bora, interview by author.

75
flying pennants
: Author observations, Tora Bora, summer 2003.

75
The al-Qaeda leader sat
: “In the Footsteps of bin Laden,” CNN documentary, August 23, 2006.
http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/
presents/bin.laden/
.

75
would have had additional resonance
: Lacey op. cit., p. 322. Lacey explains that the story of the Battle of Badr is still cherished by Saudis today.

75
snow was falling steadily
: weather observations from a personal log kept by a Delta operator on the ground at Tora Bora. Email to author August 6, 2009.

75
seven hundred thousand pounds of ordnance
: Tenet op. cit., p. 226.

75
Abu Jaafar al-Kuwaiti recalled
: The statement was posted to Al Neda, al-Qaeda’s Web site at the time, on September 11, 2002.

75
“I was out of medicine”
: Andrew Selsky, “Yemeni says bin Laden was at Tora Bora” Associated Press, September 7, 2007.

75
“day and night”
: Osama bin Laden, “Message to our Brothers in Iraq,” Al Jazeera, February 11, 2003 (translated by ABC News).

75
a U.S. bomber dropped
: Fury op. cit., p. 149.

76
Berntsen remembers
: author interview, Gary Berntsen Washington, D.C., October, 27, 2009.

76
“were awakened”
: The statement was posted to Al Neda, al-Qaeda’s Web site at the time, on September 11, 2002.

76
bin Laden had dreamed about a scorpion
: “Global Islamic Media Front publishes profile of usama bin Ladin’s personal habits,” September 21, 2007. OSC Summary of Jihadist Websites, October 17, 2007, accessed via World News Connection, Dialog File Number 985 Accession Number 251901321.

76
intercept from Tora Bora
: Fury op. cit., p 173.

76
Afghan soldiers said
: U.S. Special Operations Command History op. cit., p. 99.

76
Later that evening
: Fury op. cit., p. 175, and Fury telephone interview with author on December 8, 2008.

76
a ferocious firefight
: Fury op. cit., p. 175.

76
made the decision to bail
: Dalton Fury,
60 Minutes
, October 5, 2008.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/10/02/
60minutes/main4494937.shtml
and interview by author, December 18, 2008.

77
“They talked on the radio”
: Muhammad Musa, interview by author, Jalalabad, Afghanistan, June, 2003.

77
Strung out on a ridge
: Email from Dalton Fury, December 10, 2009.