The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America’s War in Afghanistan (56 page)
Read The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America’s War in Afghanistan Online
Authors: Michael Hastings
Page 335
:
Secretary of War
: Noah Shachtman, “Take Back the Pentagon,”
Wired
, October 2009.
CHAPTER 45. ONCE UPON A TIME IN KANDAHARPage 335
:…
“should have their head examined”
: Remarks delivered by Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, West Point, NY, Friday, February 25, 2011.
Page 336
:
The motel in Kandahar was like a foreign language version of a Days Inn
: Author’s notes, Kandahar, Afghanistan, December 2010.
Page 337
:…
four billion dollars of opium a year
: G. Peters,
Seeds of Terror: How Heroin Is Bankrolling
(New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2009), pp. 11, 319.
Page 337
:
AWK was also on the CIA’s payroll
: Dexter Filkins, Mark Mazzetti, and James Risen, “Brother of Afghan Leader Said to Be Paid by C.I.A.,”
The New York Times
, October 27, 2009.
Page 337
:…
“was really nervous, he thought he was going to get arrested”
: Author interview with General Michael Flynn, ISAF Headquarters, Kabul, Afghanistan, April 30, 2011.
Page 338
:…
from eighteen districts to more than sixty
: Michael Hastings, “King David’s War,”
Rolling Stone
, February 2, 2011.
Page 338
:… “
unscramble the egg”
: Ibid.
CHAPTER 46. KING DAVID’S WARPage 339
:
“It’s safe”
: Author notes, Kabul, Afghanistan, December 2010.
Page 344
:…
asks more questions
: Author interview with senior military official, February 2011.
Page 344
:…
“makes him almost giggly”
: Ibid.
Page 345
:
“If you say the wrong thing”
: Ibid.
Page 345
:
“He brings up Iraq”
: Author interview with Afghan official, Kabul, Afghanistan, December 2010.
Page 345
:…
“twenty-one times in fifteen minutes”
: Author interview with senior U.S. administration official, Kabul, Afghanistan, December 2010.
Page 345
:
Petraeus was
born in Cornwall, New York
: Alexa James, “Gen. Petraeus Pays Visit to His Old High School in Cornwall,”
Times Herald-Record
, September 9, 2009.
Page 346
:…
“looked more concerned”
: D. McGregor,
Warrior’s Rage: The Great Tank Battle of ’73
(Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2009), p. 21.
Page 346
:
…
senior advisor
: L. Robinson, “How Afghanistan Ends,”
Small Wars Journal
, December 2, 2010.
Page 346
:
“Can you believe it took us thirty years to get our Combat Infantry Badges?”
: Author interview with military official.
Page 347
:
Without Eaton’s permission
…
Petraeus sends his men in to move all of Eaton’s stuff
: Ibid.
Page 347
:…
earned him the nickname General Betray-Us
: Author interview with military officials.
Page 348
:
Petraeus writes an op-ed for
The Washington Post: David Petraeus, “Battling for Iraq,”
The
Washington Post
, September 26, 2004.
Page 348
:…
more than twenty thousand troops
: President George W. Bush’s Address to the Nation, White House, January 10, 2007.
Page 348
:
A full-page advertisement in
The New York Times
calling him General Betray-Us
: Clark Hoyt, “Betraying Its Own Best Interests,”
The New York Times
, September 23, 2007.
Page 349
:…
“the face of the war in Iraq”
: Interview with a military official, Washington, DC, January 2011.
Page 349
:
P
ETRAEUS’S
M
IRACLE
: David Ignatius, “Petraeus’s Miracle,”
The
Washington Post
, September 17, 2008.
Page 349
:…
“near miracle worker”
: John Berry and Evan Thomas, “Obama’s Vietnam,”
Newsweek
, February 9, 2009.
Page 349
:…
up to $825 on eBay
: Michael Hastings, “King David’s War,”
Rolling Stone
, February 2, 2011.
CHAPTER 47. TOURISM, NOT TERRORISMPage 349
:…
seven thousand pizzas
: Eileen O. Daday, “Soldiers to Get ‘a Slice of Home’ for Super Bowl,”
Chicago Daily Herald
, January 31, 2011.
Page 350
:
“In November and October, I didn’t leave my house”
: Author notes.
Page 350
: .
. . at least one high-level assassination
: Michael Hastings, “King David’s War,”
Rolling Stone
, February 2, 2011.
Page 351
:
The Taliban admitted that the NATO offensive
: Ibid.
Page 351
:
Sources in the Taliban told me that many insurgents had just left
: Ibid.
Page 351
:
“This has been the worst year”
: Author interview with Ghulam Hayder Hamidi, Kandahar, Afghanistan, December 2010.
Page 352
:
“There’s talk of transition”
: Michael Hastings, “King David’s War,”
Rolling Stone
, February 2, 2011.
Page 352
:
“Gul Agha Sherzai, why are you not writing that he is corrupt?”
: Author interview with Ghulam Hayder Hamidi, Kandahar, Afghanistan, December 2010.
Page 352
:
“People involved in drugs and drug dealing”
: Author interview with Hajji Agha Lalai, Afghanistan, December 2010.
Page 352
:
. . . “hasn’t lost their power”
: Author interview with Ghulam Hayder Hamidi, Kandahar, Afghanistan, December 2010.
CHAPTER 48. PETRAEUS DOES BODY COUNTSPage 353
:
“Better? I didn’t say better”
: Author interview with Ahmad Berkazai, Kandahar, Afghanistan, December 2010.
Page 354
:
In late October, Petraeus meets with President Karzai
: Rajiv Chandrasekaran, “As U.S. Assesses Mission, Karzai Is a Question Mark,”
The
Washington Post
, December 13, 2010.
Page 354
:
“The time has come”
: Excerpts from Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s interview with
The Washington Post
, November 14, 2011.
Page 355
:
“Karzai pushes, he pushes back”
: Author interview with White House official.
Page 355
:
Karzai refuses to go on the plane with him
: Michael Hastings, “King David’s War,”
Rolling Stone
, February 2, 2011.
Page 355
:
In February, there’s a civilian casualty incident
: Joshua Partlow, “Petraeus’s Comments on Coalition Attack Reportedly Offend Karzai Government,”
The
Washington Post
, February 22, 2011.
Page 355
:
NATO pushes back
: Joshua Partlow and Habib Zahori, “Afghan Officials
Allege That 65 Civilians Were Killed in U.S. Military Operation,”
The Washington Post
, February 20, 2011.
Page 355
:
“I was dizzy”
: Joshua Partlow, “Petraeus’s Comments on Coalition Attack Reportedly Offend Karzai Government,”
The Washington Post
, February 22, 2011.
Page 356
:
Petraeus says it’s not a “sure thing”
: Kate McCarty, “Exclusive: Gen. Petraeus Not ‘Sure’ Victory in Afghanistan by 2014,” ABC News, December 6, 2010.
Page 356
:
He drastically ups the number of airstrikes
: Michael Hastings, “King David’s War,”
Rolling Stone
, February 2, 2011.
Page 356
:
He… triples the number of night raids
: Ibid.
Page 357
:
Petraeus signs off on the total leveling
: Tom Ricks, “Travels with Paula (I): A Time to Build,” Foreign Policy’s The Best Defense blog, January 13, 2011.
Page 357
:
“Taliban infested”
: Ibid.
Page 357
:…
“fit of theatrics”
: Ibid.
Page 358
:…
a former U.S. ambassador came just short
: Joshua Miller, “Former Top Diplomat Says Eikenberry Must Go,” ABC News, December 5, 2010.
Page 358
:
“Since when did a diplomat”
: Jonathan Alter and Christopher Dickey, “Richard Holbrooke’s Lonely Mission: The Late Diplomat Never Lost His Passion for Peacemaking, But It Turned Out That Some of His Toughest Adversaries Were on His Own Side,”
Newsweek
, January 24, 2011.
Page 358
:
On December 16, President Obama gives a speech
: Statement by President Barack Obama on the Afghanistan-Pakistan Annual Review, White House, December 16, 2010.
Page 358
:
We aren’t “nation-building”
: Ibid.
Page 358
:
. . . “a graceful exit”
: Dexter Filkins, “Petraeus Opposes a Rapid Pullout in Afghanistan,”
The New York Times
, August 15, 2010.
Page 358
:…
“criminal oligarchy of politically connected businessman”
: International Crisis Group Report, The Insurgency in Afghanistan’s Heartland, June 27, 2011, p. 1.
CHAPTER 49. THE NEW AFGHANISTANPage 359
:
Petraeus explains that violence
: Matthew Green, interview transcript: “Gen. David Petraeus,”
Financial Times
, February 7, 2011.
Page 360
:
“The Americans built this road”
: Author notes, December 9, 2010.
Page 360
:
An American spy balloon
: Ibid.
Page 361
:
“General Petraeus and I have very similar opinions”
: Author interview with Abdul Razzik, Spin Boldak, Afghanistan, December 9, 2010.
Page 361
:
“We don’t take prisoners”
: Ibid.
Page 362
:
“How can we have peace talks
: Ibid.
Page 362
:
. . . “just a three-star”
: Ibid.
Page 362
:
In 1995, his uncle was killed
: Ibid.
Page 362
:
“Iran and Pakistan are our enemies”
: Ibid.
Page 363
:
In 2002, he was named chief of the border police
: Ibid.
Page 363
:
“People began to say he was here to kill”
: Anand Gopal, New America Foundation Counterterrorism Strategy Initiative Policy Paper, The Battle for Afghanistan: Militancy and Conflict in Kandahar, November 2010.
Page 363
:
Razzik’s men stopped sixteen civilians
: Michael Hastings, “King David’s War,”
Rolling Stone
, February 2, 2011.
Page 363
:
Razzik was briefly suspended
: Ibid.
Page 363
:
“In Afghanistan an ordinary person”
: Human Rights Watch, “NATO/Afghanistan: Abusive Partners Undermine Transition Plan,” November 18, 2010.
Page 364
:
On February 4, 2010
: Wikileaks State Department cable, “New Civ-Mil Effort to Influence Behavior of Criminal and Corrupt Afghan Officials,” February 17, 2010.
Page 364
–365:
“Americans are always choosing stupid friends here”
: Author interview with Izzatullah Wasifi, Kabul, Afghanistan, December 2010.
Page 365
:
Ambassador Eikenberry posed for a photo op
: Michael Hastings, “King David’s War,”
Rolling Stone
, February 2, 2011.
Page 365
:
In August, Razzik received even more funding
: Ibid.
Page 365
:
“Sometimes I travel in the American helicopters”
: Author interview with Abdul Razzik, Spin Boldak, Afghanistan, December 9, 2010.
