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written by one of our top CIA agents on the ground running the CIA guys in Afghanistan during and before the war.
Super interesting.
Here are some tid-bits I remember...
There were incredibly few Americans there. The CIA guys were in groups of 2-6 with the different Northern Alliance groups. It's amazing how much those few guys accomplished.
Once they got to Kabul, the Northern Alliance pretty much stopped. None of them had the least bit of interest in moving into the Pashtun areas to the south or to Kandahar. All of the sudden the CIA guys were starting completely over trying to put together a southern alliance to keep the fight going to Kandahar. That's where Karzai was brought in, and it was a big setback when that other guy (Khan?) went into the south from Pakistan and was captured and killed by the Taliban. He was supposed to be the guy the south rallied behind, but he went in on his own.
There were some western church workers who were held captive, and they were a real pain in this guy's ass as he had to make their rescue a priority tying up the few resources he had. They eventually bribed a Taliban commander for their freedom. They had been in contact with him for weeks and he had promised them he'd protect them if he could, though when things broke down it became a bigger problem.
It was at this point that they started hearing reports of the Al Quaida guys moving from Kandahar toward the mountains. The CIA guy sent a 2 man team after them in a jeep.
A mountain tribe took the two guys up the mountains on a mule train and from a perch high on a mountain gave the CIA guys binoculors and said look over there. They saw a large cave complex - base camp with hundreds or maybe thousands of Al-Quaida guys coming to and fro. There were even jeeps and trucks. The team called into the author of this book and he ordered every air asset within reach to bomb the camp. The author doesn't say it, but to me he made a real blunder by ordering an attack. He should have told the mule team to watch the camp until they had time to surround the large mountainous area.
Instead, hundreds of bad guys were killed and a running battle started that lasted three days over the passes into Pakistan. Airpower attacked again and again. One Al-Quaida was found dead with his radio still on and tuned to the command network. A few times they heard a voice that they're pretty sure was Osama.
The CIA commander started screaming for American troops to block the passes, but this one guy had five priorities going at the same time, trying to catch Osama in the mountains, trying to organize a southern alliance to chase the Taliban out of Kandahar, trying to get some American troops into Kabul because the northern alliance troops who said they wouldn't enter the capital did and a Civil War was likely between them, trying to get the mountain border tribes to switch sides, and trying to free the captive western church workers.
There were US Rangers that could have been parachuted into the passes from Diego Garcia, and that's what the author wanted, but the idea was turned down as too dangerous. "Dangerous," the author fumed. "Too dangerous for the Rangers?" The problem was the Rangers would end up spread all over the mountains with many broken ankles, and no way to get them resupplied working with mountain tribes of very dubious loyalty. The altitude or weather made helicopters not practical up there.
When the author made it into the area he met a tribal leader who was blocking one exit from the mountains. The tribal leader told him they may have fought before as just three weeks ago his men were in northern Afghanistan fighting for the Taliban. That was who was stopping Osama from leaving to Pakistan.
Osama eventually slipped through into the mountains in Pakistan.
It's a great read of an amazing war.
Basically it's a story of a war that was organized way too fast, way before we or the world was ready for it. To me the biggest blunder was attacking the camp as soon as they found it. I would have sent the Rangers regardless of risk as the reward was so high. It very well could have been a disaster though as the Rangers could have been chewed to bits in unfamiliar terrain in ones and twos, and it's very possible the tribes could have joined the Al Quaida guys in hunting down the Rangers and killing them or taking them hostage. Still, I would have tried it.
The author battled continuously against the CIA in Washington claiming they made assignments to help guys' careers rather than picking the best guys. Getting language speakers was incredibly difficult. One guy the author found was rejected because he wasn't college educated, though he was a Pashtun who had once gone to CIA school, though he hadn't finished.
A warning. The author hates President Clinton and his CIA director so be prepared for that at the beginning of the book. He claims that during the 90's he was sent into Afghanistan on incredibly dangerous missions, spent weeks hiding through the mountains, found Osama, called in strikes and they weren't approved so never happened. It made him fume that they would risk his life for a mission they weren't willing to pull the trigger on in the end.
It's an interesting read, but it's been a year or more since I've read it.
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