The Only Thing Worth Dying For (25 page)

In the past week, Dobbins had made contact with envoys from all of Afghanistan’s neighboring countries, as well as Turkey. The Turkish emissary was the first to suggest, on November 14, that Hamid Karzai might be a good candidate to head the new Afghan government; the day after, a representative from Pakistan also suggested that Karzai would be an acceptable choice. Before Dobbins had been named envoy, he’d never heard of Hamid Karzai, but now he was heartened that the name had come up twice—and without prompting.
**

The pilot of the jet invited Dr. Abdullah and Dobbins to join him on the flight deck for a view of Afghanistan’s majestic Hindu Kush mountain range. Away from the other passengers, the two spoke privately for nearly two hours, the doctor giving Dobbins a crash course in Northern Alliance politics, personalities, and the challenges he would face. Abdullah also surprised Dobbins when he suggested that Afghanistan’s next leader should be a Pashtun from outside the Northern Alliance but
not
the aging King Zahir Shah.

“We need more than a figurehead,” said Abdullah. “We need someone who will be able to deal with the terrible challenges Afghanistan now faces.”

“Do you have anyone in mind?” asked Dobbins.

Without hesitation, Abdullah replied, “Hamid Karzai.”

It was more than forty-eight hours since the battle, and the Taliban still had not retaliated against Tarin Kowt. Amerine had authorized the bombing of one more convoy of six trucks, but these small, probing efforts appeared to be the extent of Taliban intrusions into Uruzgan Province.

ODA 574 used this time to receive another weapons drop, to set up an early warning system of security checkpoints on all routes coming into the town, and to “nest,” a process ingrained from basic training. Assign a soldier a tent, a bunk, or a three-by-seven-foot section of dirt in a mud-walled compound in Afghanistan, and he or she will make it a home. The men had turned their central courtyard into an open-air living/dining room, using boxes of MREs, ammo, and other supplies as furniture. Each evening, a young Afghan man prepared a stew of potatoes, onions, goat or mutton, and a cube of the animal’s fat, boiled in a cauldron over an open fire, and served it to the Americans with rice and flat bread. The team had seen locals foraging through the garbage for their half-eaten MRE packages, and they understood the significance of these simple but hearty meals.

Frequently, the men converged in the courtyard, sipping away Ken’s stores of coffee. On occasion, Karzai would join them, as he did
on the morning of the 19th when he asked Amerine: “What is next? What of Kandahar?”

“What of vehicles and men?” Amerine said. “And translators?”

Before they could discuss the topic, Karzai’s phone rang, and he stepped away from the team to answer. “I’m sorry,” he said to Amerine when he returned. “May we discuss this later?”

“What of Kandahar?” said Dan after Karzai had left. “Hamid doesn’t look tough, but he’s got the spirit. You watch, he’s gonna be running this joint before he’s finished.”

After an hour, Amerine decided to follow up with Karzai, who was, as usual, in a large circle of Afghans, sipping tea.

“Jason,” he said, as Amerine entered the room. “Come, sit. I was just going to send for you. I would like you to meet this gentleman.” Karzai gestured to a darkly tanned and deeply wrinkled man of perhaps fifty sitting beside him. “He walked here from his village in Kandahar Province—a two-day walk—after learning of our victory. He came to meet you.”

“Me?” said Amerine.

“Well, word has traveled, and he came to meet the U.S. military commander here in the south.”

“I’m honored.”

Karzai said a few words to the man, who nodded fervently with a wide smile, which contradicted eyes that looked as though they were about to brim with tears.

“This man would like you to know that seven of his children were killed in their home by an American bomb three weeks ago.”
*
Karzai translated while the man stared into Amerine’s eyes. “There was a Taliban command post nearby, but it had been abandoned.”

“I’m sorry,” Amerine said. “I’m very, very sorry.”

“He does not want you to be sorry,” said Karzai. “He says that he would not mind losing the rest of his children, provided you liberate Afghanistan.”

Amerine found it difficult to maintain eye contact with the man. He wasn’t one to hand out promises, but he was positive that the Taliban government would be defeated. “Please tell him that his children did not die in vain. We will remove the Taliban from power.”

The man stood, and with him, Amerine and Karzai. After saying a few words in Pashto, he bowed his head and left the room.

“What will he do now?” asked Amerine.

“He is returning home.”

“Can you offer him a ride? Somebody driving that direction?”

“I did,” said Karzai. “He said he preferred to walk. I believe he is fearful that a vehicle might be attacked. Or bombed.”

Seating himself again, Amerine broached the topic he had come to discuss. “You asked about Kandahar earlier.”

“Getting fighters is not going to be a problem,” said Karzai. “The difficulty will be feeding them. We cannot maintain a large garrison here. I have to keep the fighters dispersed until the right time, so they can be fed by their own villages.”

“Having large numbers of tribal fighters from outside Tarin Kowt would probably wear out our welcome pretty fast.”

“Would you rather move on Kandahar with a force of a thousand undisciplined men or several hundred of our best fighters?” asked Karzai.

“We need discipline to avoid alienating your supporters,” Amerine said. “But a few hundred men will not be able to take Kandahar.”

“I believe Kandahar will be surrendered to us,” said Karzai. “We just need to get our army to the outskirts of the city so we can talk to the Taliban leadership face-to-face.”

Amerine’s gut told him the quickest move was the best move. This was the time to make a run for Kandahar—before the Taliban realized how disorganized Karzai’s forces really were and could retaliate.

“How quickly can you get your men assembled?” he asked.

“I will try to get them here so we can leave by November 28, or sooner.”

In the meantime, U.S. planes would continue to monitor and protect friendly villages and bomb enemy convoys. Karzai and Amerine agreed that the Taliban would wise up and begin to travel in smaller groups. They would be better able to blend in with the populace, but these smaller forces would also be easier to defeat on the way to Kandahar.

Over the next nine days, Karzai would collaborate with local chiefs and cherry-pick the best fighters (such as Bari Gul and his nineteen men) until he had three hundred good men. Karzai also needed to purchase vehicles, something that wouldn’t be difficult with CIA cash. Once these guerrillas were organized, ODA 574 would mold them into some semblance of a military battalion that would then move toward Kandahar in a convoy.

The team had realistic expectations. This would not be organized, mechanized-maneuver warfare—they would have no armored vehicles, not even Humvees; just station wagons, minivans, and Toyota trucks. The mob of guerrillas they would be attempting to harness would most likely behave more like a herd of wild horses, with the Green Berets just trying to hang on. But with air cover and a little luck, they would be able to ride hard, shrouded in the dust storm of Karzai’s perceived power.

What seemed a reckless move was perhaps the safest way to victory. Who would think anyone was crazy enough to march on the thousands of Taliban waiting in Kandahar with just three hundred men?

CHAPTER EIGHT

Madness

There’s a great deal of talk about loyalty from the bottom to the top. Loyalty from the top down is even more necessary and is much less prevalent. One of the most frequently noted characteristics of great men who have remained great is loyalty to their subordinates.

—General George S. Patton Jr.

The truck carrying Mike, Brent, Bari Gul, and a couple of his men was parked in a cloud of hashish smoke wafting from a security checkpoint seven miles outside Tarin Kowt. It was late morning on November 20.

While some of their teammates were content to hole up in the compound, Mike and Brent couldn’t sit still. The two weapons sergeants were obsessed with ODA 574’s security—nobody placed much confidence in the local forces that the team had positioned in concentric layers of security, from their compound to miles outside town. With Alex, Dan, and Wes monitoring the reconnaissance aircrafts’ nonstop “pinging” of the countryside, a large force wasn’t likely to sneak up on them. Still, Mike and Brent were eager to do something other than sit on their rears and drink coffee.

At this checkpoint, close to Tarin Kowt Pass, they discovered a single Afghan sitting on an old Soviet ammo crate, so stoned on hashish that he didn’t seem to notice them until they were getting out of their trucks. Out of the Afghan’s reach, a few AK-47s and a couple of RPG launchers were leaning against the checkpoint barricade.

Through their translator, Mike and Brent learned from the man that the other guards had gone into town for some food. Bari Gul stood back and observed, displaying his dissatisfaction with a grimace as Mike questioned the Afghan. “What if the Taliban come?” he asked, pointing toward the road. “How will you warn the town?”

The Afghan smiled, walked over to his AK-47, and fired a burst of rounds into the air.

“Gotcha,” said Mike.

“We gotta get these guys radios,” Brent said.

“And get them to lay off the weed,” said Mike.

Back in the compound, Mag and Charlie had just finished the CIA’s first interrogation of the mission: a young Taliban who had deserted outside Kandahar. Charlie had given Mag, who was a fairly new intelligence sergeant, the job of making the deserter feel at ease—smiling a lot, offering water—while the spook asked questions about enemy movements and the locations of key al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders.

Now, in the warmth of the afternoon, Mag noticed he was beginning to smell like “yeti.” Grabbing a bucket of water, he stripped down to his boxers in the sunniest corner of the courtyard. As he soaped up, the man he’d helped interrogate walked over to the other side of the bucket and began to take his clothes off.

“Whoa, hold on there,” said Mag. “Interrogation’s over.” The Afghan continued to strip. “Only one bucket of water here, amigo,” Mag said.

Now naked, the man sat down cross-legged on the concrete, reached into the water with a cup, and started bathing, grinning up at Mag as if he were an older brother.

“Looks like you’ve got yourself a little buddy,” Ronnie hollered from his seat on a box of water bottles in the living room. “Maybe he’ll scrub your back, big fella.”

Mag casually waved his middle finger in Ronnie’s direction.

Amerine was also in the courtyard, writing in his journal and enjoying this camaraderie between his men before he had to return to Karzai’s side. He glanced up when Dan emerged from the command post carrying his laptop, which he handed to Amerine.

A message had just arrived from Task Force Dagger. Amerine read
it, then slowly wrote one word in his journal: “Madness.” He looked at the Green Berets around him: men who had saved a town; men who had done everything right by their country and by their mission; men who, by doctrine and by damn, did not need to be babysat. He could not recall a single instance in the history of Special Forces when a
battalion headquarters
had joined an ODA on the field of battle. Now Colonel Mulholland was doing just that, sending a fifteen-man battalion headquarters staff, called a C-team—which normally commanded three company B-teams who themselves oversaw six A-teams each—to co-locate with ODA 574.

Fifteen headquarters guys to oversee a team of eleven?
thought Amerine. He envisioned senior officers tripping over each other, fighting for a way into the war, and shook his head in disgust. Madness.

The two pickup trucks Amerine had in his possession were barely enough to move his team, Karzai, and the CIA—if they ditched all their equipment. Bringing in the C-team meant they would all have to stay and fight and die if the Taliban was able to overrun Tarin Kowt’s pitiful defenses.

He hoped Task Force Dagger would pay close attention to his return message:

Acknowledge intent to infiltrate 15-man battalion HQ SOCCE [Special Operations Command and Control Element]. Request delay of infiltration for the following reasons: 1) ODA does not possess sufficient vehicles to transport ODA/CIA and additional PAX [passengers] from SOCCE. 2) Tarin Kowt defense is precarious. As per previous SITREPs, Karzai’s usable forces number fewer than 100 and counterattack is likely. In the event of retreat, we would not be able to transport all personnel. 3) ODA 574 is doctrinally capable of conducting operations without additional personnel at this time. 4) Karzai does not want any more Americans on the ground because it might jeopardize his credibility among the tribal leaders whom he is negotiating with. ODA 574 requests delay until additional vehicles are acquired and defenses better established and Karzai’s credibility is further established.
¹

Mag was looking over Dan’s shoulder when the response from Task Force Dagger came in a few minutes later: “…SOCCE will infiltrate as planned.”

“The captain is taking care of this situation just fine,” said Mag. “We don’t need the brass in here—they’re just going to get in the way.”

The men of ODA 574 were unaware that Colonel Mulholland had been pressured by his superiors to get higher-ranked officers on the ground in Afghanistan. On October 23, only three days into the ground campaign, General Franks had received a phone call from Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld.

“Are you sure those Special Forces teams have senior-enough officers in command?” Rumsfeld had asked him. “It seems to me the Northern Alliance generals won’t really listen to young captains and majors.”