The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America’s War in Afghanistan (51 page)
Read The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America’s War in Afghanistan Online
Authors: Michael Hastings
Page 15
:
“If we don’t get Zarqawi, we will be failures”
: Author interview with military official, April 2010.
Page 16
:
…
enough of a fingerprint
: Department of Defense, Press Availability with Secretary Rumsfeld en Route from Brussels to Washington, DC, June 8, 2006.
Page 16
:
President George W. Bush
publicly thanked McChrystal
: Federal News Service, Joint Media Availability with President George W. Bush and Danish Prime Minister Anders Rasmussen, Camp David, Maryland, June 9, 2006.
CHAPTER 4. “INTIMIDATED BY THE CROWD”Page 16
:
“Michael is writing the article for
Rolling Stone
”
: Author notes, April 2010.
Page 18
:
…
“the highly classified conversations”
: Author phone interview with military official, Washington, DC, April 2010.
Page 18
:
…
“coming to kiss the ring”
: Ibid.
Page 18
: …
“intimidated by the crowd”
: Author interview with senior military official, April 2010.
Page 19
: …
“like a Democrat who thinks he’s walking into a room full of Republicans”
: Ibid.
Page 19
:
A CBS sports announcer
: “Golf Analyst Feherty Sorry for Pelosi Joke in Dallas Magazine,” Associated Press, May 10, 2009.
Page 20
:…
pushing a story that Obama snubbed
: Ron Claiborne, “Anatomy of an Attack: How McCain Hit Obama,” ABC News, July 27, 2008.
Page 20
:
At the embassy, he gives a talk
: Abigail Hauslohner, “Obama’s Trip: Substance or Drive-By?”
Time,
July 21, 2008.
Page 20
:
“He didn’t want to take pictures with any more soldiers”
: Author interview with State Department officials, U.S. Embassy Baghdad, January 2010.
Page 21
:
Truman can’t run for reelection
: David McCullough,
Truman
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993), p. 913.
Page 22
: …
Obama orders up his own review
: David Ignatius, “Shaping a War on Two Fronts,”
The Washington Post
, February 22, 2009.
Page 22
:
He says he’s sending seventeen thousand troops
: Helene Cooper, “Putting Stamp on Afghan War, Obama Will Send 17,000 Troops,”
The New York Times
, February 17, 2009.
Page 22
: …
upping the number of drone strikes
: New America Foundation, “Year of the Drone,”
http://counterterrorism.newamerica.net/drones
.
Page 22
:
He doesn’t think Afghanistan can support too many more American troops
: Federal News Service, “Special Defense Department Briefing, General David McKiernan, Commander, U.S. Forces Afghanistan and NATO’s International Security Assistance Force,” Pentagon Briefing Room, Arlington, Virginia, February 18, 2009.
CHAPTER 5. ARC DE TRIOMPHEPage 23
:
McKiernan… is not going to press
: Author interview with military officials, Washington, DC, October 2010.
Page 24
:
“We’ll follow them”
: Author notes, April 2010.
Page 25
: …
a few wouldn’t fight after a snowfall
: Kenneth Katzman, “Afghanistan: Post-Taliban Governance, Security, and U.S. Policy,” Congressional Research Service, September 22, 2011.
Page 27
:
He was of Irish descent
: Author interview with General Michael Flynn, May 2010.
Page 28
: …
spending $4.7 billion in a single year
: “Pentagon Sets Sights on Public Opinion,” Associated Press, February 5, 2009.
Page 29
: …
a bunch of “crazy monkeys”
: Michael Yon Facebook posting, April 15, 2010, 4:14
P.M
.
CHAPTER 6. “A VIOLENT ACT”Page 30
:
“Let’s do it”
: Author interview with General Stanley McChrystal, Paris, April 15, 2010.
Page 33
:
In January, General David McKiernan receives an e-mail from the White House
: Author interview with U.S. military official, Washington, DC, March 2011.
Page 33
: …
poppy eradication
: Fisnik Abrashi, “Afghanistan Will Break Opium Growth Record, U.S. Ambassador Says,” Associated Press, July 17, 2007.
Page 33
:
…
engaging in “deviant actions”
: Project for Government Oversight, Letter to Hillary Clinton, September 1, 2009.
Page 33
:
…
vodka butt shots
: Ibid.; D. Schulman, “Animal House in Afghanistan,”
Mother Jones
, September 1, 2009.
Page 34
:
Eikenberry is a three-star general
: Political Transcript Wire, Sen. John
Kerry Holds a Hearing on the Nomination of Karl Eikenberry to be Ambassador to Afghanistan, March 30, 2009.
Page 34
:
…
almost killed him, he recalls
: James Gonser, “Reinforced Glass May Have Saved Ex-Hawai’i General,”
Honolulu Advertiser
, September 20, 2001.
Page 34
:…
with master’s degrees
: Karl Eikenberry biography on webpage of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University.
Page 35
: …
McKiernan speaks to Obama only twice
: Author interview with senior military official, March 2011.
Page 35
: …
briefs
…
Mullen
…
and Gates in a video teleconference
: Ibid.
Page 36
:
Gates takes the decision to the White House in April
: Rajiv Chandrasekaran, “Pentagon Worries Led to Command Change; McKiernan’s Ouster Reflected New Realities in Afghanistan,”
The Washington Post
, August 17, 2009.
Page 37
: …
Gates is asked at a press conference
: CQ Transcriptions, Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates Holds a Defense Department News Briefing, May 11, 2009.
Page 38
:
“McKiernan was on the wrong team”
: Author interview with senior military official, May 2009.
Page 39
:
Privately, McKiernan will tell
: Author interview with senior military official, March 2011.
Page 39
: …
“of course that’s what Petraeus would say”
: Author interview with Pentagon official, April 2010.
Page 39
: …
a “dirty” move
: Author interview with military official, May 2009.
Page 39
:…
a chance to “reset”
: Author interview with military official, April 2010.
CHAPTER 7. ON THEPage 39
:
“Gates was the mastermind”
: Author interview with military official, April 2010.
X
CHAPTER 8. THE A-TEAMPage 40
: …
handle the Sync Matrix
: Author interview with Lieutenant Commander Dave Silverman, April 2010.
Page 45
: …
Charlie Flynn is sitting at his desk
: Author interview with Colonel Charles Flynn, April 16, 2010.
Page 47
: …
Casey Welch walks into his grandmother’s house
: Author interview with Major Casey Welch, April 17, 2010.
Page 48
:
It’s crazy, says Pitta
: Author interview with Lieutenant Commander John Pitna, May 2010.
Page 48
:
“Cardinal Richelieu”
: S. Weinberger, “McChrystal Gaffe Spotlights New Breed of Media Advisor,” Aol News, June 23, 2010.
http://www.aolnews.com/2010/06/23/mcchrystal-gaffe-spotlights-new-breed-of-media-adviser
.
Page 49
: …
“one of the general’s old army drinking buddies”
: G. Porter, “Switch to Petraeus Betrays War Crisis,”
Asia Times
online, June 25, 2010.
CHAPTER 9. “BITE ME”Page 49
:
“I’ve always seen myself as a bit of a martini”
: Author interview with Sir Graeme Lamb, May 2010.
CHAPTER 10. THE PHOTO OPPage 52
:
The staff gathered in room 314
: Author notes, April 16, 2010.
Page 55
:
At four thirty
P.M.
on May 19, 2009
: “The POTUS Tracker,”
The Washington Post
online, Obama Meets with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, May 19, 2009, 4:30
P.M
., Oval Office, White House.
Page 55
: …
Stan McChrystal walks into the Oval Office
: “Obama to Meet with New U.S. Commander for Afghanistan,”
The New York Times
Caucus Blog, May 18, 2009.
Page 55
:
When the music stops in Washington, it’s McChrystal
: Author interview with General Stanley McChrystal, April 18, 2010.
Page 56
:
That’s what he’d told the National Security Council
: Author interview with military officials, April 2010.
Page 56
:
McChrystal’s team knows that detainee abuse is going to come up
: Author interview with military officials, April 2010.
Page 56
:
A Human Rights Watch report
: Human Rights Watch, “‘No Blood, No Foul’: Soldiers’ Accounts of Detainee Abuse in Iraq,”
Human Rights Watch
, July 2006.
Page 56
: The New York Times
reported that soldiers there
: Eric Schmitt and Carolyn Marshall, “In Secret Unit’s ‘Black Room,’ a Grim Portrait of U.S. Abuse,”
The New York Times
, March 19, 2006.
Page 56
:
An investigation by Vice Admiral Lowell Jacoby
: Human Rights Watch, “‘No Blood, No Foul’: Soldiers’ Accounts of Detainee Abuse in Iraq,”
Human Rights Watch
, July 2006.
Page 57
:
An interrogator who was there
: Ibid.
Page 57
:
McChrystal’s team has a preemptive strike
: Spencer Ackerman, “McChrystal Paints Bleak Picture of Afghanistan War,”
The Washington Independent
, June 2, 2009.
Page 57
:
The Tillman thing
… : Jake Tapper, “Pat Tillman’s Mom Wants General Stanley McChrystal Removed from Chairing White House Initiative,” ABC News, April 14, 2011.
Page 57
:
His mother, Mary Tillman, sends a letter
: Mary Tillman, “Pat Tillman’s Mother on Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal: I Told You So,”
Los Angeles Times
, August 8, 2010.
Page 57
:…
participated in a “falsified homicide investigation”
:
http://articles.nydailynews.com/2010-06-24/news/27067978_1_pat-tillman-mary-tillman -friendly-fire
.
Page 57
:
One of the interrogators from Iraq won’t shut up
: Spencer Ackerman, “Former Interrogator Presses for McChrystal’s Stance on Abuse,”
The Washington Independent
, June 2, 2009.
Page 58
:
He gets only one question about Camp Nama—from Senator Carl Levin
: Transcript of U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services Hearing, Washington, DC, June 2, 2009.
Page 58
:
He’s got a line prepared on Tillman
: Ibid.
Page 58
:
The headlines from the confirmation
: Anne Mulrine, “McChrystal Not Sure If More U.S. Forces Needed in Afghanistan,”
U.S. News & World Report
, June 2, 2009.
CHAPTER 11. TOTALLY SHIT-FACEDPage 58
:
McChrystal gets unanimous confirmation
: “Full Senate Approves McChrystal’s Confirmation,” Associated Press, June 10, 2009.
Page 59
:
A man I’ll call C.
: Author notes, April 16, 2010.
CHAPTER 12. “DEAD SILENCE”Page 63
:
After dinner, the gang headed to Kitty O’Shea’s
: Author notes, April 16, 2010.
Page 67
:
On June 12, Charlie Flynn takes a bus
: Author interview with Colonel Charles Flynn, April 16, 2010.
