The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America’s War in Afghanistan (54 page)
Read The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America’s War in Afghanistan Online
Authors: Michael Hastings
Page 217
:…
ran into the hotel, detonated a suicide bomb, and killed seven
: “Attack on Luxury Hotel Kills Seven,” Associated Press, January 15, 2008.
CHAPTER 32. PRESIDENT KARZAI HAS A COLDPage 225
: The Washington Post
would describe the video
’s
”powerful poignancy”
: Sarah Kaufman, “U.S. Soldiers in Afghanistan Make a Telephone Connection with Hit Video Remake,”
The Washington Post
, May 1, 2010.
Page 227
:
“We have to be careful not to believe our own bullshit”
: Richard Wolffe,
Revival
(New York: Crown, 2011), p. 294.
Page 227
:…
there’s a ninety-minute window to make the decision
: Author interviews with senior military officials. April 2010.
Page 228
:
“They are like ‘Inshallah’ ”
: Author interview with Colonel Charles Flynn, April 2010.
Page 228
:…
the “chicest man on the planet”
: Judy Hevrdejs, “Hamid Karzai: The World’s Most Stylish Man,”
Chicago Tribune
, January 31, 2002.
Page 228
:…
“the Gray Wolf’s Vagina”
: Author notes, April 2010.
Page 229
:
Karzai looks back on fondly as the “Golden Age”
: U.S. State Department cable, July 16, 2009.
Page 229
:
That changes when Obama takes over
: Ahmed Rashid, “How Obama Lost Karzai,”
Foreign Policy
, March/April 2011.
CHAPTER 33. AN E-MAIL EXCHANGE: COME WALK IN OUR BOOTSPage 231
:…
describe it as “a bleeding ulcer”
: Dion Nissenbaum, “McChrystal Calls Marjah ‘Bleeding Ulcer,’ ” McClatchy Newspapers, May 24, 2010.
CHAPTER 34. A BOY BORN IN 1987Page 232
:
On February 27, 2010, at 6:27
P.M.
: E-mails obtained by author.
Page 235
:
One night this month, he calls home
: Author interview with Julie Ingram, June 2011.
CHAPTER 35. WHERE IS ISRAEL ARROYO?Page 239
:
I was asked to see if you would attend a memorial
: E-mail obtained by author.
CHAPTER 36. INGRAM’S HOUSEPage 240
:
My Afghan security guard dropped me off
: Author notes, April 28, 2010.
CHAPTER 37. AN ARMY OF NONEPage 254
:
The twenty-two-ton MRAP bounced up and down along
: Author notes, April 28, 2010.
Page 267
:
. . . arrives in late 2009 at Camp Eggers
: “New NATO Command in Kabul Focuses on Afghan Training,” American Forces Press Service, November 23, 2009.
Page 267
:
It’s an $11.6 billion a year operation
: Michael Hastings, “Another Runaway General,”
Rolling Stone
, February 2010.
Page 267
:
Caldwell is a three-star general from a military family
: Gregg K. Kalesako, “Caldwells and Army Go Back a Long Way,”
Honolulu Star-Bulletin
, September 9, 2001.
Page 268
:…
“a nice guy”
: Author interview with a military official, Washington, DC, February 2011.
Page 268
:…
“can really finance its own reconstruction”
: Transcript of House Committee on Appropriations: Subcommittee on Defense Hearing on FY 2004 Defense Appropriations, March 27, 2003.
Page 268
:…
he holds meetings with top columnists
: Julie Bosman, “Secret Meeting Included Journalists,”
The New York Times
, October 9, 2006.
Page 268
:
“The lessons I’ve learned by just
watching [Wolfowitz]”
: American Forces Press Service, July 22, 2003.
Page 268
:
. . . commanders on the ground in Iraq tell Caldwell Iraq is in a “civil war”
: Author interview with senior military official, February 2011.
Page 268
:
. . . says that the United States had no role in the execution
: Press conference attended by author in Baghdad, Iraq, January 3, 2007.
Page 268
:
He renames press briefings “media roundtables”
: Scott Johnson with Michael Hastings, “We’re Losing the Infowars,”
Newsweek
, January 14, 2007.
Page 269
:
. . . “information engagement”
: Department of Defense Bloggers Roundtable with Lieutenant General William Caldwell, Commanding General, U.S. Army Combined Arms Center and Fort Leavenworth, February 26, 2008.
Page 269
:
In 2009, he also tried to rewrite
: Michael Hastings, “Another Runaway General,”
Rolling Stone,
February 2010.
Page 269
:
“It eliminated the [media] gate keeper”
: “Iraq Social Media Experience Sparks Training for Leaders,” U.S. Department of Defense, American Forces Press Service, July 30, 2009.
Page 269
:
“A You-who?” he asks the staffer who brings up the idea
: Ibid.
Page 269
:
. . . “was in the top 10 of all YouTube sites”
: Ibid.
Page 269
:
“Public affairs is there to inform”
: Department of Defense Bloggers Roundtable with Lieutenant General William Caldwell, Commanding General, U.S. Army Combined Arms Center and Fort Leavenworth, February 26, 2008.
Page 270
:…
“just wasn’t working”
: “Fixing the Unfixable,”
The Economist
, August 19, 2010.
Page 270
:
Only
20 percent of new recruits can read
: Transcript of Lieutenant General William Caldwell, NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan and Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan Commanding General, News Briefing, August 23, 2010.
Page 270
:
One out of
four deserts
: Gareth Porter, “Afghan Army Turnover Rate Threatens U.S. Plans,”
IPS
, November 24, 2009.
Page 270
:
It isn’t until January 2011
: Rod Norland, “Afghans Plan to Stop Recruiting Children as Police,”
The New York Times,
January 29, 2011.
Page 270
:
. . . estimates that 54 percent of the Afghan army and police smoke hash regularly
: “Afghan Army’s Hashish-Smoking Troops,”
The Huffington Post
, December 22, 2009.
Page 270
:
. . . at least 60 percent of police in Helmand province were users
: Robert M. Perito, “United States Institute of Peace Special Report on Afghan Police,” August 2009.
Page 270
:
Almost every twelve days there is a murder
:
“
A Crisis of Trust and Cultural Incompatibility: A Red Team Study of Mutual Perceptions of Afghan
National Security Force Personnel and U.S. Soldiers in Understanding and Mitigating the Phenomena of ANSF-Committed Fratricide Murders,” May 12, 2011, p. 4.
Page 270
:
In one five-and-a-half-month period
: Ibid.
Page 270
:
… at least fifty-eight NATO soldiers have been killed
: Ibid.
Page 270
:…
leaked to
The Wall Street Journal: Dion Nissenbaum, “Report Sees Danger in Local Allies,”
The Wall Street Journal
, June 17, 2011.
Page 270
–271:
. . . a list of complaints about the Afghan soldiers
: “A Crisis of Trust and Cultural Incompatibility: A Red Team Study of Mutual Perceptions of Afghan National Security Force Personnel and U.S. Soldiers in Understanding and Mitigating the Phenomena of ANSF-Committed Fratricide Murders,” May 12, 2011, p. 3.
Page 271
:
The Afghan soldiers have a list of complaints
: A Crisis of Trust and Cultural Incompatibility: A Red Team Study of Mutual Perceptions of Afghan National Security Force Personnel and U.S. Soldiers in Understanding and Mitigating the Phenomena of ANSF-Committed Fratricide Murders, May 12, 2011, pp. 3 and 36.
Page 273
:
NATO has already spent more than $30 billion training the Afghan security forces
: Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) Quarterly Report to Congress, April 30, 2011, p. 53.
Page 274
:…
“take the lead”
: Transcript of Lieutenant General William Caldwell, NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan and Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan Commanding General, Defense Department News Briefing Via Teleconference, September 26, 2011.
Page 274
:
“You can’t expect a soldier to account for his weapon”
: Michael Evans, “Local Recruits Vanish,”
The Australian
, August 25, 2010.
Page 274
:…
“educate an entire generation of Afghans”
: Transcript of Lieutenant General William Caldwell, NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan and Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan Commanding General, News Briefing, August 23, 2010.
Page 274
:…
(nine hundred short)
: Transcript of Lieutenant General William Caldwell, NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan and Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan Commanding General Teleconference from Afghanistan, November 9, 2010.
Page 274
:…
(he needs to add seventy thousand more)
: Michael Hastings, “Another Runaway General,”
Rolling Stone
, February 2010.
Page 274
:…
$2 billion extra
: Michael Hastings, “Another Runaway General,”
Rolling Stone
, February 2010.
Page 274
:…
billions
: Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) Quarterly Report to Congress, April 30, 2011, p. 53.
Page 274
:
. . . to increase the forces by 56,000
: Transcript of Lieutenant General William Caldwell, NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan and Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan Commanding General, News Briefing, August 23, 2010.
CHAPTER 38. IN THE ARENAPage 274
:
. . . he’ll assign a team
: Michael Hastings, “Another Runaway General,”
Rolling Stone
, February 2010.
Page 276
:
Duncan’s office was on the second floor
: Author notes, April–May 2010.
Page 278
:
“like
Apollo 13
, heading out to the moon, with a bloody great hole”
: Author interview with Sir Graeme Lamb, May 2010.
CHAPTER 39. “I DIDN’T EVEN KNOW WE WERE FIGHTING THERE”Page 281
:
“You don’t mind if I eat this apple, do you?”
: Author interview with General Michael Flynn.
Page 284
:
Karzai is staying at the Willard InterContinental Hotel
: Author notes, May 2010.
Page 284
:
…
“long-term partner”
: Remarks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai in a moderated conversation, U.S. Institute of Peace, May 13, 2010.
Page 284
:
…
“friend”
: Remarks by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton at reception in honor of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, State Department, May 11, 2010.
Page 286
:
He’d come into the U.S. embassy
: Barack Obama,
The Audacity of Hope
(New York: Random House, 2006), p. 352.
Page 287
:
. . . he didn’t become president to have “civilian casualties”
: White House Office of the Press Secretary, Remarks by President Obama and President Karzai of Afghanistan in Joint Press Availability, May 12, 2010.
Page 287
:
. . . as a writer from
Harper’s Magazine: David Samuels, “Barack and Hamid’s Excellent Adventure,”
Harper’s Magazine
, August 2010.
CHAPTER 40. THE CONCLUDING CONVERSATIONS WITH DUNCAN BOOTHBY, GENERAL PETRAEUS FACE-PLANTS IN CONGRESS, AND THE STORY BREAKS WHILE I WATCH AMERICAN HELICOPTER PILOTS KILL INSURGENTSPage 289
:
. . . “hit every talking point they had given him”
: Author notes from W Hotel, May 12, 2010.
Page 291
:
I’d spent the week in Washington
: Author notes, May 2010.
