In the Graveyard of Empires: America's War in Afghanistan

NOTES

Introduction

1. Central Intelligence Agency, CIA World Factbook 2007 (Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency, 2006).

2. Edward Walsh, “Staff Sgt. Robert J. Paul Killed Sept. 8 in Afghanistan,” The Oregonian, September 12, 2006, p. B1.

3. Cecilia Rasmussen, “Army Reserve Sgt. 1st Class Merideth Howard, 52, Alameda, Killed in Blast,” Los Angeles Times, October 1, 2006, p. 14.

4. Alexander Downer, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Australia, Address to the 61st Session of the United Nations General Assembly, September 21, 2006 (New York: Australian Mission to the United Nations, 2006).

5. President Karzai Calls the Terrorist Attack on the Funeral Ceremony of Hakim Taniwal an Animosity Against Islam and the People of Afghanistan (Kabul: Office of the President, Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, September 11, 2006).

6. President George W. Bush, Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People, United States Capitol, Washington, DC, September 20, 2001 (Washington, DC: White House Press Office, 2001).

7. David M. Walker, Global War on Terrorism: Observations on Funding, Costs, and Future Commitments (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2006), p. 7.

8. Central Intelligence Agency, CIA World Factbook 2007 (Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency, 2006). Figures were in purchasing-power parity. Only 27 out of 229 countries had a gross domestic product over $430 billion.

9. Transcript of Combatant Status Review Tribunal Hearing for ISN 10024 (Khalid Sheikh Muhammad), March 10, 2007, U.S. Naval Base Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, pp. 17–18.

10. On the overthrow of the Taliban regime, see Gary Schroen, First In: An Insider’s Account of How the CIA Spearheaded the War on Terror in Afghanistan (New York: Ballantine Books, 2005); Stephen Biddle, Afghanistan and the Future of Warfare: Implications for Army and Defense Policy (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, November 2002); Gary Berntsen and Ralph Pezzullo, Jawbreaker: The Attack on Bin Laden and Al Qa’ida (New York: Crown Publishers, 2005); Bob Woodward, Bush at War (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2002).

11. Henry A. Crumpton, “Intelligence and War: Afghanistan 2001–2002,” Jennifer E. Sims and Burton Gerber, eds., Transforming U.S. Intelligence (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2005), p. 177.

12. Berntsen and Pezzullo, Jawbreaker, p. 312.

13. On the definition of insurgency, see Central Intelligence Agency, Guide to the Analysis of Insurgency (Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency, n.d.), p. 2; Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, Joint Publication 1–02 (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Defense, 2001), p. 266.

14. I use insurgency as roughly synonymous with what is often called civil war, which can be defined as “armed conflict that pits the government and national army of an internationally recognized state against one or more armed opposition groups able to mount effective resistance against the state.” Michael W. Doyle and Nicholas Sambanis, Making War and Building Peace (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006), p. 31. Also see, for example, Stathis N. Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil War (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 5; James D. Fearon and David D. Laitin, “Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War,” American Political Science Review, vol. 97, no. 1, February 2003, pp. 75–90.

15. RAND-MIPT Terrorism Incident Database. Following are the yearly figures on insurgent-initiated attacks in Afghanistan: 2002 (65 attacks); 2003 (148 attacks); 2004 (146 attacks); 2005 (207 attacks); 2006 (353 attacks). Following are the fatalities during the same period: 2002 (79 deaths); 2003 (133 deaths); 2004 (230 deaths); 2005 (288 deaths); 2006 (755 deaths). A comparison of the RAND-MIPT data with U.S. and European government data shows that the RAND-MIPT data significantly understate the number of attacks and deaths, since most improvised-explosive-device and armed attacks were never reported in the press. Nevertheless, the trend in the RAND-MIPT data is consistent with U.S. and European government data.

16. Pamela Constable, “Gates Visits Kabul, Cites Rise in Cross-Border Attacks,” Washington Post, January 17, 2007, p. A10.

17. The data come from Admiral Michael Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. See, for example, Ed Johnson, “Gates Wants NATO to Reorganize Afghanistan Mission,” Bloomberg News, December 12, 2007.

18. Sarah Chayes, The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban (New York: Penguin Press, 2006), pp. 105–6.

19. Amrullah Saleh, Strategy of Insurgents and Terrorists in Afghanistan (Kabul, Afghanistan: National Directorate of Security, 2006), p. 4.

20. Rudyard Kipling, Rudyard Kipling’s Verse: Inclusive Edition, 1885–1926 (New York: Doubleday, 1931), p. 479.

21. Winston S. Churchill, The Story of the Malakand Field Force: An Episode of Frontier War, 2nd ed. (London: Longmans, Green, 1901), p. 274.

22. Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000), p. 13; Barnett R. Rubin, The Search for Peace in Afghanistan: From Buffer State to Failed State (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995), p. 7; Lester Grau, ed., The Bear Went Over the Mountain: Soviet Combat Tactics in Afghanistan (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 1996), p. xix.

23. Ann Scott Tyson, “British Troops, Taliban in a Tug of War over Afghan Province,” Washington Post, March 30, 2008, p. A1.

24. General Tommy Franks, American Soldier (New York: Regan Books, 2004), p. 324.

25. Author interview with senior U.S. cabinet official, January 15, 2008.

26. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Afghanistan Opium Survey 2007: Executive Summary (Kabul: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2007), p. iv.

27. For other variants of the weak-state argument, see Antonio Giustozzi, Koran, Kalashnikov, and Laptop: The Neo-Taliban Insurgency in Afghanistan (London: Hurst & Company, 2007), pp. 7, 15–21.

28. Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom (New York: Anchor Books, 2000), p. 11.

29. James Michener, Caravans (New York: Fawcett Crest, 1963), p. 7.

30. See, for example, Saleh, Strategy of Insurgents and Terrorists in Afghanistan; Afghanistan National Security Council, National Threat Assessment (Kabul: Afghanistan National Security Council, 2005); Afghanistan Ministry of Defense, The National Military Strategy (Kabul: Afghanistan Ministry of Defense, October 2005).

31. George Crile, Charlie Wilson’s War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2003), p. 4.

32. Mohammad Yousaf and Mark Adkin, Afghanistan—The Bear Trap: The Defeat of a Superpower (Havertown, PA: Casemate, 1992), p. 1.

Chapter One

1. Stephen Tanner, Afghanistan: A Military History from Alexander the Great to the Fall of the Taliban (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2002), pp. 17–18.

2. Quintus Curtius Rufus, History of Alexander, book 2, vol. 6, translated by John C. Rolfe (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1946), pp. 25–29.

3. Rufus, History of Alexander, book 2, vol. 6, p. 29.

4. Rufus, History of Alexander, book 2, vol. 7, p. 147. Also see, for example, Lewis V. Cummings, Alexander the Great (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1940), pp. 280–81.

5. Eric Newby, A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush (London: Martin Secker, 1958), p. 243.

6. See, for example, Frank L. Holt, Into the Land of Bones: Alexander the Great in Afghanistan (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2005).

7. Marco Polo, The Travels of Marco Polo, translated by Ronald Latham (New York: Penguin Books, 1958), p. 77.

8. Sir George Lawrence, Reminiscences of Forty-Three Years in India (Lahore, Pakistan: Sang-e-Meel Publications, 1981), pp. 308–9. The appendix includes a copy of William Brydon’s account, provided on arrival in Jalalabad in 1842.

9. Holt, Into the Land of Bones, p. 4.

10. Holt, Into the Land of Bones, pp. 4–5.

11. Author interview with Ambassador Ronald Neumann, April 16, 2008.

12. Rory Stewart, The Places in Between (Orlando, FL: Harcourt, 2006).

13. Marco Polo, Travels of Marco Polo, p. 80.

14. Author interview with Ambassador Ronald Neumann, March 25, 2008.

15. Henry Kissinger, Memorandum for the President, “Private Conversations with the King and Prime Minister of Afghanistan,” January 26, 1970. Released by the National Security Archive.

16. U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Research Study, “Afghanistan: Both Government and Political System Face Trial,” March 30, 1973. Also see U.S. Embassy Kabul to Department of State, Airgram A-90, “King Zahir’s Experiment: Some End-of-Tour Observaions,” August 1, 1970. Released by the National Security Archive.

17. U.S. Embassy Kabul to Department of State, Cable 4745, August 2, 1971, “Audience with King Zahir.” Released by the National Security Archive.

18. U.S. Embassy Kabul to Department of State, Airgram A-77, “Afghanistan’s Clerical Unrest: A Tentative Assessment,” June 24, 1970. Released by the National Security Archive.

19. Ambassador Ronald Neumann, Airgram A-90, “King Zahir’s Experiment: Some End-of-Tour Observations,” August 1, 1970. Released by the National Security Archive.

20. U.S. Embassy Kabul to Department of State, Cable 1806, March 21, 1972, “Afghanistan—Political Uncertainties.” Released by the National Security Archive.

21. Department of State to U.S. Embassy Kabul, Cable 74767, April 29, 1972, Political Situation.” Also see, for example, Memorandum from Robert A. Flaten, NEA/PAB (Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, Office for Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh), to Bruce Laingen, Office Director, NEA/ PAB, “Afghan Politics—the Creeping Crisis,” May 21, 1972. Released by the National Security Archive.

22. The KGB in Afghanistan—Geographical Volume 1, Vasili Mitrokhin Archive. Released by the Cold War International History Project.

23. U.S. Embassy Kabul to Department of State, Cable 4728, “King Zaher Travel to London for Medical Therapy,” June 26, 1973. Released by the National Security Archive.

24. Memorandum, Harold H. Saunders and Henry A. Appelbaum, National Security Council Staff, to Dr. Kissinger, “Coup in Afghanistan,” July 17, 1973. Released by the National Security Archive.

25. Author interview with Graham Fuller, August 19, 2008.

26. Decree of the Secretariat of the CC CPSU—An Appeal to the Leaders of the PDPA Groups “Parcham” and “Khalq,” January 8, 1974; CC CPSU Information for the Leaders of the Progressive Afghan Political Organizations “Parcham” and “Khalq” Concerning the Results of the Visit of Mohammed Daud to the USSR, June 21, 1974. Released by the Cold War International History Project.

27. Barnett R. Rubin, The Fragmentation of Afghanistan: State Formation and Collapse in the International System, 2nd ed. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002), p. 115.

28. The Delivery of Special Equipment to the DRA, CC CPSU Politburo meeting, April 21, 1978. Released by the Cold War International History Project.

29. Author interview with Graham Fuller, August 19, 2008.

30. Quoted in David B. Edwards, Before Taliban: Genealogies of the Afghan Jihad (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002), p. 36.

31. Alexander Lyakhovskiy, Plamya Afgana (Moscow: Iskon, 1999). Released by the Cold War International History Project.

32. Eric Pace, “Babrak Karmal, Afghanistan’s Ex-President, Dies at 67,” New York Times, December 6, 1996.

33. Anatoly Dobrynin, In Confidence: Moscow’s Ambassador to America’s Six Cold War Presidents (1962–1986) (New York: Times Books, 1995), p. 435.

34. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Power and Principle: Memoirs of the National Security Adviser, 1977–1981 (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1983), p. 413.

35. CC CPSU Politburo Session March 17–18, 1979, Deterioration of Conditions in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and Possible Responses from Our Side. Released by the National Security Archive.

36. Transcript of Telephone Conversation between Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin and Afghan Prime Minister Nur Mohammad Taraki, March 18, 1979; Conversation of the chief of the Soviet military advisory group in Afghanistan, Lt. Gen. Gorelov, with H. Amin, August 11, 1979. Released by the Cold War International History Project.

37. Transcript of A. N. Kosygin-A. A. Gromyko-D. F. Ustinov-B. N. Ponomarev-N. M. Taraki Conversation on March 20, 1979. Released by the National Security Archive.

38. CPSU CC Politburo Decision and Instruction to Soviet Ambassador in Afghanistan, May 24, 1979. Released by the Cold War International History Project.

39. Excerpt from Politburo meeting, March 18, 1979. Released by the Cold War International History Project.

40. Tanner, Afghanistan, pp. 231–32.

41. Andropov-Gromyko-Ustinov-Ponomarev Report to CC CPSU on the Situation in Afghanistan, June 28, 1979. Released by the Cold War International History Project.

42. On the Soviet Union’s dossier on Amin, see Alexander Lyakhovskiy, Plamya Afgana.

43. Andropov-Gromyko-Ustinov-Ponomarev Report to the CC CPSU on the Situation in Afghanistan, October 29, 1979. Released by the National Security Archive.

44. Dobrynin, In Confidence, p. 436. Personal Memorandum from Andropov to Brezhnev, December 1, 1979. Released by the Cold War International History Project.

45. Author interview with Graham Fuller, August 19, 2008.

46. Alexander Lyakhovskiy’s account of the meeting from Alexander Lyakhovskiy, The Tragedy and Valor of the Afghani (Moscow: GPI Iskon, 1995), pp. 109–12. Released by the Cold War International History Project. Lyakhovskiy was a major general in the Russian Army. During the war in Afghanistan, he served as assistant to the commander of the Operative Group of the USSR Defense Ministry.

47. Georgy Kornienko’s Account of the Politburo Decision to Send Soviet Troops into Afghanistan, from Georgy M. Kornienko, The Cold War: Testimony of a Participant (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya, 1994). Released by the National Security Archive.

48. Lyakhovskiy, The Tragedy and Valor of the Afghani, pp. 109–12.

49. Georgy Kornienko’s Account of the Politburo Decision to Send Soviet Troops into Afghanistan.

50. On growing concerns of Islam in Afghanistan, see Soviet Communication to the Hungarian Leadership on the Situation in Afghanistan, March 28, 1979. Released by the Cold War International History Project.

51. Directive No. 312/12/001 of December 24, 1979, signed by Ustinov and Ogarkov, December 24, 1979. U.S. President Jimmy Carter sent a letter to Brezhnev arguing that the Afghan government—especially Amin—had not requested Soviet assistance. On Brezhnev’s response, see Reply to an appeal of President Carter about the issue of Afghanistan through the direct communications channel (Excerpt from the Minutes of the CC CPSU Politburo Meeting, December 29, 1979). Released by the Cold War International History Project.

52. Dobrynin, In Confidence, p. 440.

53. Ibid., p. 439.

54. Author interview with Ambassador Ronald Neumann, April 16, 2008.

55. Tanner, Afghanistan, pp. 235–36.

56. Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB (New York: Basic Books, 1999), p. 11. Also see, for example, USSR Ministry of Defense and General Staff Operations Groups in the DRA. Released by the Cold War International History Project.

57. Tanner, Afghanistan, p. 237.

58. Brzezinski, Power and Principle, p. 427.

59. Robert M. Gates, From the Shadows: The Ultimate Insider’s Story of Five Presidents and How They Won the Cold War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), pp. 143–45.

60. Gates, From the Shadows, pp. 145–46.

61. Brzezinski, Power and Principle, p. 427.

62. Gates, From the Shadows, pp. 147–48.

63. Rubin, Fragmentation of Afghanistan, pp. 104–5.

64. Ibid., p. 121.

Chapter Two

1. Jon Lee Anderson, “American Viceroy: Zalmay Khalilzad’s Mission,” The New Yorker, December 19, 2005, p. 60.

2. See, for example, Albert Wohlstetter, “The Delicate Balance of Terror,” Foreign Affairs, vol. 37, no. 2, January 1959. A slightly different version of the article was published by RAND as P-1472 in December 1958.

3. University of Chicago, “Ambassador Zalmay M. Khalilzad, PhD ’79: President Bush’s choice to become the next United States Ambassador to the United Nations,” Alumni in the News, 2007.

4. Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996), pp. 246–48; National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report (New York: W. W. Norton, 2004), pp. 63–67; 371–74; Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000), pp. 48, 54; SIPRI Yearbook 1991: World Armaments and Disarmament (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 199.

5. Central Intelligence Agency, Directorate of Intelligence, “The Costs of Soviet Involvement in Afghanistan,” February 1987, p. 5. Released by the National Security Archive.

6. Rashid, Taliban, p. 13; Barnett R. Rubin, The Search for Peace in Afghanistan: From Buffer State to Failed State (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995), p. 7; Lester Grau, ed., The Bear Went Over the Mountain: Soviet Combat Tactics in Afghanistan (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 1996), p. xix; Mohammad Yousaf and Mark Adkin, Afghanistan—The Bear Trap: The Defeat of a Superpower (Havertown, PA: Casemate, 2001), pp. 215–16.

7. Joseph Brodsky, Sochineniia Iosifa Brodskogo (Sankt-Peterburg: Pushkinskii fond, 1997), pp. 118–19.

8. Cynthia L. Haven, ed., Joseph Brodsky: Conversations (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi), p. 97.

9. Barnett R. Rubin, The Fragmentation of Afghanistan: State Formation and Collapse in the International System, 2nd ed. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002), pp. 122–23.

10. Central Intelligence Agency, National Foreign Assessment Center, “Afghanistan: Ethnic Diversity and Dissidence,” March 1, 1980. Released by the National Security Archive.

11. Defense Intelligence Agency, Directorate for Research, “The Economic Impact of Soviet Involvement in Afghanistan,” May 1983. Released by the National Security Archive.

12. Rubin, Fragmentation of Afghanistan, p. 130.

13. Central Intelligence Agency, Directorate of Intelligence, “The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan: Five Years After,” May 1985, p. 9. Released by the National Security Archive.

14. Yousaf and Adkin, Afghanistan—The Bear Trap, p. 58. On the desertion estimates, see page 57.

15. Stephen Tanner, Afghanistan: A Military History from Alexander the Great to the Fall of the Taliban (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2002), p. 244.

16. Defense Intelligence Agency, Directorate for Research, “Afghan Resistance,” November 5, 1982. Released by the National Security Archive. Also see Session of CC CPSU Politburo, November 13, 1986. Released by the Cold War International History Project.

17. Yousaf and Adkin, Afghanistan—The Bear Trap, p. 48.

18. Tanner, Afghanistan, p. 239.

19. Pravda Correspondent Schedrov’s Letter to the CC CPSU on the Situation in Afghanistan, November 12, 1981. Released by the National Security Archive.

20. Report of Military Leaders to D. F. Ustinov, May 10, 1981. Released by the Cold War International History Project.

21. Tanner, Afghanistan, p. 248.

22. On a Soviet analysis of Massoud, see, for example, Dossiers of Rebel Field Commanders. Released by the Cold War International History Project.

23. Sebastian Junger, Fire (New York: W. W. Norton, 2001), p. 199.

24. On the lethality of the Mi-24s during the Soviet War, see Central Intelligence Agency, Directorate of Intelligence, “The Costs of Soviet Involvement in Afghanistan,” February 1987, p. 4. Released by the National Security Archive. Also see Yousaf and Adkin, Afghanistan—The Bear Trap, pp. 177–78.

25. Tanner, Afghanistan, p. 255; Robert M. Gates, From the Shadows: The Ultimate Insider’s Story of Five Presidents and How They Won the Cold War (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996), p. 348.

26. Central Intelligence Agency, Directorate of Intelligence, “The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan: Five Years After,” May 1985, p. 2. Released by the National Security Archive.

27. Sir Morrice James, Pakistan Chronicle (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 25.

28. Yousaf and Adkin, Afghanistan—The Bear Trap, p. 113.

29. Sean P. Witchell, “Pakistan’s ISI: The Invisible Government,” International Journal of Intelligence and Counter-Intelligence, vol. 16, no. 1, Spring 2003, pp. 374–88.

30. Alexander Lyakhovskiy, Plamya Afgana (Moscow: Iskon, 1999). Released by the Cold War International History Project.

31. Yousaf and Adkin, Afghanistan—The Bear Trap, p. 40.

32. On the importance of Islamic fundamentalism, see, for example: “Some Ideas About Foreign Policy Results of the 1970s (Points)” of Academician O. Bogomolov of the Institute of the Economy of the World Socialist System, sent to the CC CPSU and the KGB, January 20, 1980. Released by the Cold War International History Project.

33. Yousaf and Adkin, Afghanistan—The Bear Trap, p. 117.

34. Milt Bearden and James Risen, The Main Enemy: The Inside Story of the CIA’s Final Showdown with the KGB (New York: Random House, 2003), pp. 236, 283.

35. Quoted in Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 (New York: Penguin Press, 2004), p. 120.

36. See, for example, Bearden and Risen, The Main Enemy, pp. 236, 281–82.

37. Thomas H. Johnson, “Financing Afghan Terrorism: Thugs, Drugs, and Creative Movement of Money,” in Jeanne K. Giraldo and Harold A. Trinkunas, Terrorism Financing and State Responses: A Comparative Perspective (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007), p. 107.

38. On Soviet information on Hekmatyar, see Dossiers of Alliance-7 Rebel Leaders. Released by the Cold War International History Project.

39. Author interview with Graham Fuller, August 19, 2008.

40. Quoted in Coll, Ghost Wars, p. 119.

41. See, for example, Olivier Roy, Islam and Resistance in Afghanistan, 2nd ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986), p. 128.

42. Coll, Ghost Wars, p. 17.

43. Yousaf and Adkin, Afghanistan—The Bear Trap, p. 1.

44. Grau, ed., The Bear Went Over the Mountain; Grau, Artillery and Counterinsurgency: The Soviet Experience in Afghanistan (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Foreign Military Studies Office, 1997).

45. Pierre Allan and Albert A. Stahel, “Tribal Guerrilla Warfare Against a Colonial Power,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, vol. 27, December 1983, pp. 590–617.

46. Central Intelligence Agency, Directorate of Intelligence, “The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan: Five Years After,” May 1985. Released by the National Security Archive.

47. See, for example, Andropov’s comments that the situation in Afghanistan is “stabilizing now,” in CC CPSU Politburo Transcript, February 7, 1980. Released by the Cold War International History Project.

48. Anatoly Chernyaev’s Notes from the Politburo of the CC CPSU Session of October 17, 1985. Released by the National Security Archive.

49. Session of CC CPSU Politburo, November 13, 1986. Released by the Cold War International History Project.

50. Ibid.

51. Colonel Tsagolov’s Letter to USSR Minister of Defense Dmitry Yazov on the Situation in Afghanistan, August 13, 1987. Released by the National Security Archive.

52. Minutes of the Politburo of the CC CPSU Session of February 23–26, 1987. Released by the National Security Archive.

53. Tanner, Afghanistan, p. 266.

54. Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World (New York: Basic Books, 2005), p. 408.

55. Agreements on the Settlement of the Situation Relating to Afghanistan (Geneva Accords), April 14, 1988.

56. Rashid, Taliban, p. 13; Rubin, Search for Peace in Afghanistan, p. 7; Grau, ed., The Bear Went Over the Mountain, p. xix.

57. Central Intelligence Agency, Directorate of Intelligence, “The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan: Five Years After,” May 1985. Released by the National Security Archive.

58. Rashid, Taliban, p. 18; Rubin, Fragmentation of Afghanistan, p. 20; Henry S. Bradsher, Afghanistan and the Soviet Union (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1985), pp. 24–25.

59. George Crile, Charlie Wilson’s War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2003), p. 262.

60. Gates, From the Shadows, pp. 251, 319–21, 348–49. Also see Crile, Charlie Wilson’s War.

61. Yousaf and Adkin, Afghanistan—The Bear Trap, pp. 78–112; Gates, From the Shadows, p. 349.

62. Gates, From the Shadows, pp. 349–50.

63. Yousaf and Adkin, Afghanistan—The Bear Trap, p. 184.

64. Anderson, “American Viceroy: Zalmay Khalilzad’s Mission,” p. 61.

65. Huntington, Clash of Civilizations, pp. 246–48; National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report (New York: W. W. Norton, 2004), pp. 63–67, 371–74; Rashid, Taliban, pp. 48, 54; SIPRI Yearbook 1991: World Armaments and Disarmament (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 199.

66. Session of CC CPSU Politburo, January 28, 1980; Gromyko-Andropov-Ustinov-Ponomarev Report to CC CPSU on the Situation in Afghanistan, January 27, 1980. Released by the Cold War International History Project.

67. Report by Soviet Defense Minister Ustinov to CPSU CC on “Foreign Interference” in Afghanistan, January 2, 1980. Also see Information from the CC CPSU to Erich Honecker, June 21, 1980; Report of Military Leaders to D. F. Ustinov, May 10, 1981. Released by the Cold War International History Project.

68. Intelligence Note Concerning Actions by the US in Aiding the Afghanistan Rebel Fighters, September 1, 1980; A Report by Soviet Military Intelligence, September 1, 1981. Released by the Cold War International History Project.

69. Excerpt from KGB USSR and General Staff Report of December 1982. Released by the National Security Archive.

70. Session of CC CPSU Politburo, November 13, 1986. Released by the Cold War International History Project.

Chapter Three

1. Robert M. Gates, From the Shadows: The Ultimate Insider’s Story of Five Presidents and How They Won the Cold War (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996), p. 431.

2. Author interview with Ambassador Robert Oakley, February 1, 2008.

3. Defense Intelligence Agency, Defense Intelligence Appraisal, “Afghanistan: Soviet Withdrawal Scenario,” May 9, 1988. Released by the National Security Archive.

4. Central Intelligence Agency, Special National Intelligence Estimate 11/37/88, “USSR: Withdrawal from Afghanistan,” March 1988, p. 1. Also see, for example, Central Intelligence Agency, Special National Intelligence Estimate 37–89, “Afghanistan: The War in Perspective,” November 1989. Released by the National Security Archive.

5. Zalmay Khalilzad, “Ending the Afghan War,” Washington Post, January 7, 1990, p. B4.

6. CPSU CC Politburo Decision of January 24, 1989, With Attached Report of January 23, 1989. Released by the Cold War International History Project.

7. Barnett R. Rubin, The Fragmentation of Afghanistan: State Formation and Collapse in the International System, 2nd ed. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002), p. 179.

8. Rubin, Fragmentation of Afghanistan, p. 165.

9. Stephen Tanner, Afghanistan: A Military History from Alexander the Great to the Fall of the Taliban (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2002), pp. 272–73.

10. Zalmay Khalilzad, Prospects for the Afghan Interim Government (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1991), pp. v, vi.

11. “Profile: General Rashid Dostum,” BBC News, September 25, 2001.

12. On the 1988 Geneva Accords, which failed to establish peace in Afghanistan, see Barnett R. Rubin, The Search for Peace in Afghanistan: From Buffer State to Failed State (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995).

13. U.S. Embassy (Islamabad), Cable, “Afghanistan: [Excised] Briefs Ambassador on his Activities. Pleads for Greater Activism by U.N.,” August 27, 1997. Released by the National Security Archive.

14. Quoted in Neamatollah Nojumi, “The Rise and Fall of the Taliban,” in Robert D. Crews and Amin Tarzi, eds., The Taliban and the Crisis of Afghanistan (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), p. 99.

15. Human Rights Watch, Human Rights Watch World Report 1993 (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1993).

16. U.S. Department of State, Cable, “Discussing Afghan Policy with the Pakistanis,” December 22, 1995. Released by the National Security Archive.

17. Ibid.; U.S. Embassy (Islamabad), Cable, “Afghanistan and Sectarian Violence Contribute to a Souring of Pakistan’s Relations with Iran,” March 13, 1997. Released by the National Security Archive.

18. U.S. Embassy (Islamabad), Cable, “Afghanistan and Sectarian Violence Contribute to a Souring of Pakistan’s Relations with Iran,” March 13, 1997. Released by the National Security Archive.

19. U.S. Embassy (Islamabad), Cable, “Afghanistan: Taliban Seem to Have Less Funds and Supplies This Year, But the Problem Does Not Appear to Be that Acute,” February 17, 1999. Released by the National Security Archive.

20. U.S. Embassy (Islamabad), Cable, “Afghanistan: Russian Embassy Official Claims Iran Interfering more than Pakistan,” November 30, 1995. Released by the National Security Archive.

21. U.S. Intelligence Assessment, [date and title unknown] Mori DocID: 800277, U.S. Central Command. Released by the National Security Archive.

22. U.S. Department of State, Cable, “Discussing Afghan Policy with the Pakistanis,” December 22, 1995. Released by the National Security Archive.

23. Ibid.

24. U.S. Department of State, Cable, “A/S Raphel’s October 4 Meeting with Assef All on Afghanistan,” October 13, 1995. Released by the National Security Archive.

25. U.S. Department of State, Cable, “Discussing Afghan Policy with the Pakistanis,” December 22, 1995. Released by the National Security Archive.

26. Khalilzad, Prospects for the Afghan Interim Government, p. 2.

27. Author interview with Ambassador Robert Oakley, February 1, 2008.

28. Quoted in Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 (New York: Penguin Press, 2004), p. 239.

29. Author interview with Ambassador Robert Oakley, February 1, 2008.

30. Peter R. Blood, ed., Afghanistan: A Country Study (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2001).

31. Rubin, Search for Peace in Afghanistan.

32. Mountstuart Elphinstone, An Account of the Kingdom of Caubul and Its Dependencies in Persia, Tartary, and India (Graz, Austria: Akademische Druck, 1969), p. 434.

33. Zalmay Khalilzad, “Afghanistan: Time to Reengage,” Washington Post, October 7, 1996, p. A21.

Chapter Four

1. Central Intelligence Agency, Biography of Mohammad Omar, December 21, 1998. Released by the National Security Archive.

2. Gilles Kepel, Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), p. 54.

3. Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000), p. 20.

4. Ayman al-Zawahiri, Knights Under the Prophet’s Banner, translated by Laura Mansfield (Old Tappan, NJ: TLG Publications, 2002), p. 130.

5. Ayman al-Zawahiri, “Supporting the Palestinians,” Statement released June 2006.

6. Osama bin Laden, “Message to the Peoples of Europe,” Released November 2007.

7. Olivier Roy, Islam and Resistance in Afghanistan, 2nd ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 57; Kepel, Jihad, p. 58.

8. S. V. R. Nasr, The Vanguard of the Islamic Revolution: The Jamaat-i Islami of Pakistan (London: I. B. Tauris, 1994), p. 7. Also see, for example, Syed Abul Ala Maudoodi, A Short History of the Revivalist Movement in Islam (Lahore, Pakistan: Islamic Publications, 1972); Sayyid Abūlā’lá Maudūdī, Al-Jihād fī al-Islām (Dihlī: Markazī Maktabah-yi Islāmī, 1988).

9. Mariam Abou Zahab and Olivier Roy, Islamist Networks: The Afghan-Pakistan Connection, translated by John King (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), pp. 22–23.

10. Kepel, Jihad, pp. 224–25.

11. S. V. R. Nasr, “Islamic Opposition to the Islamic State: The Jama’at-i Islami 1977–1988,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, vol. 25, no. 2, May 1993, p. 267; Kepel, Jihad, pp. 100–1.

12. Jamal Malik, Colonialization of Islam: Dissolution of Traditional Institutions in Pakistan (New Delhi: Vanguard Books, 1996).

13. Zahab and Roy, Islamist Networks, pp. 22–23.

14. Rashid, Taliban, p. 17.

15. Ibid., pp. 22–23.

16. Zahab and Roy, Islamist Networks, p. 13.

17. U.S. Embassy (Islamabad), Cable, “Afghanistan and Sectarian Violence Contribute to a Souring of Pakistan’s Relations with Iran,” March 13, 1997. Released by the National Security Archive.

18. U.S. Embassy (Islamabad), Cable, “Afghanistan: [Excised] Describes Pakistan’s Current Thinking,” March 9, 1998. Released by the National Security Archive.

19. Abdulkader Sinno, “Explaining the Taliban’s Ability to Mobilize the Pashtuns,” in Robert D. Crews and Amin Tarzi, eds., The Taliban and the Crisis of Afghanistan (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), pp. 59–89.

20. Jason Burke, Al-Qa’ida: Casting a Shadow of Terror (London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 2003), p. III.

21. Decree Announced by the General Presidency of Amr Bil Maroof Wa Nahi An al-Munkar, Religious Police, Kabul, November 1996.

22. U.S. Embassy (Islamabad), Cable, “Scenesetter for Your Visit to Islamabad: Afghan Angle,” January 16, 1997. Released by the National Security Archive. The document was a background note for an upcoming visit of Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia Robin Raphel. The cable summarizes the political and military state of affairs in Afghanistan.

23. Zalmay Khalilzad and Daniel Byman, “Afghanistan: The Consolidation of a Rogue State,” Washington Quarterly, vol. 23, no. 1, Winter 2000, p. 65.

24. Decree Announced by General Presidency of Amr Bil Maruf, Religious Police, Kabul, December 1996.

25. Privy Council Office (PCO) [Ottawa, Canada] [Released by the U.S. National Security Agency], “IAC Intelligence Assessment—IA 7/96,” “Afghanistan: Taliban’s Challenges, Regional Concerns, October 18, 1996.” Released by the National Security Archive.

26. Rashid, Taliban, pp. 68–76.

27. Quoted in Rashid, Taliban, p. 50.

28. Ibid., pp. 119–20.

29. Quoted in Ahmed Rashid, Descent into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation-Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia (New York: Viking, 2008), p. 317.

30. U.S. Department of State, Cable, “Osama bin Laden: Taliban Spokesman Seeks New Proposal for Resolving bin Laden Problem,” November 28, 1998. Released by the National Security Archive.

31. U.S. Embassy (Islamabad), Cable, “Scenesetter for Your Visit to Islamabad: Afghan Angle,” January 16, 1997. Released by the National Security Archive.

32. U.S. Department of State, Cable, “Discussing Afghan Policy with the Pakistanis,” December 22, 1995. Released by the National Security Archive.

33. U.S. Embassy (Islamabad), Cable, “Afghanistan: Pakistanis to Regulate Wheat and Fuel Trade to Gain Leverage Over Taliban,” August 13, 1997; U.S. Embassy (Islamabad), Cable, “Scenesetter for Your Visit to Islamabad: Afghan Angle,” January 16, 1997; U.S. Embassy (Islamabad), Cable, “Afghanistan: [Excised] Briefs Ambassador on his Activities. Pleads for Greater Activism by U.N.” August 27, 1997. Released by the National Security Archive.

34. U.S. Embassy (Islamabad), Cable, “Bad News on Pak Afghan Policy: GOP Support for the Taliban Appears to Be Getting Stronger,” July 1, 1998. Released by the National Security Archive.

35. U.S. Department of State, From Ron McMullen (Afghanistan Desk), “Developments in Afghanistan,” December 5, 1994. Released by the National Security Archive.

36. U.S. Embassy (Islamabad), Cable, “Afghanistan: [Excised] Criticizes GOP’s Afghan Policy; Says It Is Letting Policy Drift,” June 16, 1998. Released by the National Security Archive.

37. From [Excised] to DIA, Washington, DC, Cable, “Pakistan Interservice Intelligence/Pakistan (PK) Directorate Supplying the Taliban Forces,” October 22, 1996. Released by the National Security Archive.

38. Ibid.; U.S. Consulate (Peshawar), Cable, “Afghan-Pak Border Relations at Torkham Tense,” October 2, 1996. Released by the National Security Archive.

39. Declan Walsh, “As Taliban Insurgency Gains Strength and Sophistication, Suspicion Falls on Pakistan,” The Guardian, November 13, 2006.

40. Zahab and Roy, Islamist Networks, pp. 55–56.

41. U.S. Department of State, Cable, From Ron McMullen (Afghanistan Desk), “Developments in Afghanistan,” December 5, 1994. Released by the National Security Archive.

42. U.S. Department of State, Action Cable from Karl F. Inderfurth to Embassy, Islamabad, “Pakistan Support for Taliban,” September 26, 2000. Released by the National Security Archive.

43. From [Excised] to DIA, Washington, DC, “IIR [Excised] Pakistan Involvement in Afghanistan,” November 7, 1996. Released by the National Security Archive.

44. U.S. Embassy (Islamabad), Cable, “Bad News on Pak Afghan Policy: GOP Support for the Taliban Appears to Be Getting Stronger,” July 1, 1998. Released by the National Security Archive.

45. US Mission to the UN (USUN New York), Cable, “Letter of GOP Permrep to SYG on Afghanistan,” November 1, 1995; U.S. Embassy (Islamabad), Cable, “Afghanistan: Taliban Seem to Have Less Funds and Supplies This Year, But the Problem Does Not Appear to Be that Acute,” February 17, 1999; U.S. Embassy (Islamabad), Cable, “In Bilateral Focussed [sic] on Afghanistan, GOP Reviews Pak/Iran Effort; A/S Inderfurth Expresses U.S. Concerns About the Taliban,” July 23, 1998. Released by the National Security Archive.

46. U.S. Embassy (Islamabad), Cable, “Afghanistan: Foreign Secretary Mulls over Afghanistan,” October 10, 1996. Released by the National Security Archive.

47. The report indicated that the ISI provided at least $30,000—and possibly as much as $60,000—per month to Harakat ul-Ansar. Central Intelligence Agency, “Harakat ul-Ansar: Increasing Threat to Western and Pakistani Interests,” August 1996. Also see, for example, U.S. Embassy (Islamabad), Cable, “Afghanistan: British Journalist Visits Site of Training Camps; HUA Activity Alleged,” November 26, 1996; U.S. Embassy (Islamabad), Cable, To Assistant Secretary of State Robin Raphel, “Scenesetter for Your Visit to Islamabad: Afghan Angle,” January 16, 1997. Released by the National Security Archive.

48. Ali A. Jalali, “Afghanistan: The Anatomy of an Ongoing Conflict,” Parameters, vol. XXXI, no. 1, Spring 2001, pp. 86–89.

49. U.S. Embassy (Islamabad), Cable, To Assistant Secretary of State Robin Raphel, “Scenesetter for Your Visit to Islamabad: Afghan Angle,” January 16, 1997. Released by the National Security Archive.

50. Rashid, Taliban, p. 1.

51. Quoted in Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 (New York: Penguin Press, 2004), p. 521.

52. Memorandum from Richard A. Clarke to Condoleezza Rice, Subject: Presidential Policy Initiative / Review—The Al-Qida Network, January 25, 2001. Released by the National Security Archive.

53. See, for example, Coll, Ghost Wars, pp. 520–21.

54. U.S. Department of State, Cable, “Osama bin Laden: Taliban Spokesman Seeks New Proposal for Resolving bin Laden Problem,” November 28, 1998. Released by the National Security Archive.

55. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report (New York: W. W. Norton, 2004); Coll, Ghost Wars, pp. 327–44, 363–65, 379–86,400–15.

Chapter Five

1. See, for example, Neil MacFarquhar, “Tapes Offer a Look Beneath the Surface of Bin Laden and Al Qaeda,” New York Times, September 11, 2008.

2. Ayman al-Zawahiri, Knights Under the Prophet’s Banner, translated by Laura Mansfield (Old Tappan, NJ: TLG Publications, 2002), p. 23.

3. Ibid., p. 38.

4. Gilles Kepel, Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), pp. 61–80.

5. Chris Suellentrop, “Abdullah Azzam: The Godfather of Jihad,” Slate, April 16, 2002.

6. Quoted in Kepel, Jihad, p. 145.

7. Abdullah Anas, The Birth of the Afghan Arabs (London: Dar al-Saqi, 2002), p. 36; Mohammed Salah, Narratives of the Jihad Years: The Journey of the Arab Afghans (Cairo, 2001), pp. 43–62, 65–84.

8. Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office), vol. 16, no. 4, January 28, 1980, pp. 194–96.

9. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Power and Principle: Memoirs of the National Security Adviser, 1977–1981 (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1983), p. 485.

10. On the differences between defensive and offensive jihad, see Alfred Morabia, Le gihâd dans l’islam médiéval: Le combat sacré des origines au douzième siècle (Paris: Albin Michel, 1993); Rudolf Peters, Islam and Colonialism: The Doctrine of Jihad in Modern History (The Hague: Mouton, 1979); Ramadan al-Bouti, Le jihad en islam: Comment le comprendre? Comment le pratiquer? (Damascus: Dar el-Fikr, 1996).

11. Mariam Abou Zahab and Olivier Roy, Islamist Networks: The Afghan-Pakistan Connection, translated by John King (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), pp. 14–15.

12. Imtiaz Hussein, “Usama Prepares a List of Arab Martyrs of Afghan Jihad,” The Frontier Post, May 13, 2000.

13. Basil Mohammed, Al-Ansar al-Arab fi Afghanistan (Jeddah: House of Learning, 1991), p. 241.

14. Peter Bergen, The Osama bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of Al Qa’ida’s Leader (New York: Free Press, 2006); Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (New York: Knopf, 2006), p. 133.

15. The quotes are from the exhibit of “Tareekh Osama” (Osama’s history), document presented in United States of America v. Enaam M. Arnaout, United States District Court, Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

16. Quoted in Wright, The Looming Tower, p. 157.

17. U.S. Department of State Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), Intelligence Assessment, “Bin Ladin’s Jihad: Political Context,” August 28, 1998. Released by the National Security Archive.

18. Kepel, Jihad, pp. 213–14.

19. Ibid., pp. 159–84, 237–53, 254–75.

20. Central Intelligence Agency, Usama bin Ladin: Islamic Extremist Financier, 1996. Released by the National Security Archive.

21. Central Intelligence Agency, “Harakat ul-Ansar: Increasing Threat to Western and Pakistani Interests,” August 1996. Released by the National Security Archive.

22. Zahab and Roy, Islamist Networks, pp. 51–52.

23. On conflict between the Taliban and al Qa’ida, see U.S. Embassy (Islamabad), Cable, “TFX01: SITREP 5: Pakistan/Afghanistan Reaction to U.S. Air Strikes,” August 24, 1998. Released by the National Security Archive. Also see Fawaz A. Gerges, The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 83.

24. Gerges, The Far Enemy, pp. 38–40; Zahab and Roy, Islamist Networks, pp. 48–52.

25. U.S. Department of State, Cable, “Message to the Taliban on Bin Laden,” August 23, 1998. Also see, for example, U.S. Embassy (Islamabad), Cable, “Usama Bin Ladin: Bin Ladin Uses Recent Interviews to Assert Right to WMD, and to Threaten U.S. and U.K. Over Iraq,” December 28, 1998. Released by the National Security Archive.

26. Laura Mansfield, His Own Words: A Translation of the Writings of Dr. Ayman al Zawahiri (Old Tappan, NJ: TLG Publications, 2002), pp. 314–15.

27. Gerges, The Far Enemy.

28. “UK’s Arabic Paper Interviews bin Laden’s Former ‘Bodyguard,’” BBC Monitoring International Reports, March 30, 2005. “Interview of Bin Ladin’s Former Body Guard, Abu Jandal,” Al-Quds al-Arabi (London), August 25, 2005.

29. Alan Cullison stumbled upon several al Qa’ida computers in Kabul shortly after the overthrow of the Taliban regime. Alan Cullison, “Inside al-Qa’ida’s Hard Drive,” Atlantic Monthly, vol. 294, no. 2, September 2004, p. 67.

30. Sayyid Qutb, Ma’alim fi-l-Tariq [Milestones] (Karachi: International Islamic Publishers, 1981).

31. The Qur’an, 5:50.

32. On Qutb’s work, see Gilles Kepel, The Prophet and Pharaoh: Muslim Extremism in Egypt (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985); Olivier Carré, Mystique et politique (Paris: Presses de la FNSP et Cerf, 1984); Ibrahim M. Abu Rabi, Intellectual Origins of Islamic Resurgence in the Muslim Arab World (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1996).

33. See, for example, Qutb, Ma’alimfi-1-Tariq, p. 57.

34. See, for example, Kepel, Jihad, pp. 25–27.

35. Coll, Ghost Wars, p. 113.

36. Qutb, Ma’alim fi-1-Tariq.

37. The Qur’an, 5:50.

38. Ayman al-Zawahiri, Knights Under the Prophet’s Banner, translated by Laura Mansfield (Old Tappan, NJ: TLG Publications, 2002), p. 61.

39. Osama Rushdi, “How Did the Ideology of the ‘Jihad Group’ Evolve?” Al Hayat, January 30, 2002; Gerges, The Far Enemy, p. 97.

40. Gerges, The Far Enemy, p. i.

41. On the establishment of a caliphate, see, for example, Abu Bakr Naji, The Management of Savagery: The Most Critical Stage Through Which the Umma Will Pass, translated and published by the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard Universit Ma 23 2006.

42. Zawahiri, Knights Under the Prophet’s Banner, p. 201.

43. Mansfield, In His Own Words, p. 47.

44. ABC Television News interview, “Terror Suspect: An Interview with Osama bin Laden,” December 22, 1998 (conducted in Afghanistan by ABC News producer Rahimullah Yousafsai).

45. See, for example, Wright, The Looming Tower, p. 48; Gerges, The Far Enemy, pp. 3–4.

46. United States of America v. Zacarias Moussaoui, Transcript of Jury Trial Before the Honorable Leonie M. Brinkema, United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria, VA, March 6, 2006.

47. The Qur’an, 4:29–30.

48. On paradise, see, for example, The Qur’an, 56:12–39.

49. See, for example, Memorandum from the Rendon Group to J5 CENTCOM Strategic Effects, “Polling Results—Afghanistan Omnibus May 2007,” June 15, 2007.

50. Mohammed el-Shafey, “Al-Zawahiri’s Secret Papers,” Part 6, Al-Sharq al-Awsat, December 18, 2002.

51. Zawahiri, Knights Under the Prophet’s Banner, p. 200.

52. Sayyid Qutb, “Letter to Tewfig al-Hakeem,” in al-Khaledi, Amrika min al-dahkhil, p. 39.

53. Zawahiri argued: “Jerusalem will not be liberated unless the battle for Egypt and Algeria is won and unless Egypt is liberated.” See, for example, Montasser al-Zayat, Ayman Zawahiri as I Knew Him (Cairo, 2002), pp. 113–36; Salah, Narratives of the Jihad Years, chapter 5.

54. Zawahiri, Knights Under the Prophet’s Banner, p. 199.

55. Osama bin Laden, video clip released in September 2007.

56. Abdullah Azzam, Defense of Muslim Lands: The Most Important Personal Duty (Amman, Jordan: Modern Mission Librar, 2005), chapter 1.

57. Quoted in Bergen, The Osama bin Laden I Know, p. 35.

58. Zawahiri, Knights Under the Prophet’s Banner, p. 128.

59. Ibid., p. 111.

60. Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996), pp. 209–18.

61. Ayman al-Zawahiri, AlWalaa wa al Baraa, obtained by Al Hayat, January 14, 2003.

62. Zawahiri, Knights Under the Prophet’s Banner, p. 113.

63. Ibid., p. 111.

64. The text is the second fatwa originally published on February 23, 1998, to declare a holy war, or jihad, against the West and Israel. It was signed by Osama bin Laden, head of al Qa’ida; Ayman al-Zawahiri, head of al-Jihad; Rifa’i Ahmad Taha, leader of the Egyptian Islamic Group; Sheikh Mir Hamzah, secretary of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan; and Fazlur Rehman, leader of the Jihad Movement in Bangladesh.

65. See, for example, Sandia National Laboratories, U.S. Department of Energy, Dr. Gary W. Richter, Osama bin Laden: A Case Study, December 6, 1999. Released by the National Security Archive.

66. U.S. Embassy (Islamabad), Cable, “TFXX01: Afghanistan: Reaction to U.S. Strikes Follows Predictable Lines: Taliban Angry, Their Opponents Support U.S.,” August 21, 1998.

67. U.S. Embassy (Islamabad), Cable, “Afghanistan: Reported Activities of Extremist Arabs and Pakistanis Since August 20 U.S. Strike on Khost Terrorist Camps,” September 9, 1998. Released by the National Security Archive.

68. Executive Order 13129 of July 4, 1999, Blocking Property and Prohibiting Transactions With the Taliban.

69. Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (New Haven CT: Yale University Press, 2000),. 98–100.

70. On Saudi Arabia’s historical role in Afghanistan, see National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report (New York: W. W. Norton, 2004), pp. 371–74.

71. U.S. Embassy (Islamabad), Cable, “Afghanistan: Tensions Reportedly Mount Within Taliban as Ties With Saudi Arabia Deteriorate Over Bin Ladin,” September 28, 1998. Released by the National Security Archive.

72. U.S. Embassy (Islamabad), Cable, “Afghanistan: Taliban Seem to Have Less Funds and Supplies This Year, But the Problem Does Not Appear to Be that Acute,” February 17, 1999. Released by the National Security Archive.

73. Memorandum from Richard A. Clarke to Condoleezza Rice, Subject: Presidential Policy Initiative / Review—The Al-Qida Network, January 25, 2001. Released by the National Security Archive.

74. Zawahiri, Knights Under the Prophet’s Banner, pp. 38–39.

75. Mohammad Yousaf and Mark Adkin, Afghanistan—The Bear Trap: The Defeat of a Superpower (Havertown, PA: Casemate, 2001).

76. Wright, The Looming Tower, p. 110. Gilles Kepel also argues that “the Arabs seem to have played only a minor part in fighting the Red Army. Their feats of arms were largely perpetrated after the Soviet withdrawal in February 1989 and were highly controversial.” Kepel, Jihad, p. 147. And Fawaz Gerges notes: “There exists no evidence pointing to any vital role played by foreign veterans in the Afghan victory over the Russians.” Gerges, The Far Enemy, pp. 83–84.

77. See, for example, ABC reporter John Miller’s interview with bin Laden in May 1998, a little over two months before the U.S. Embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya. Part of the transcript was played at the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, who was arrested in August 2001, shortly before the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States. United States of America v. Zacarias Moussaoui, Transcript of Jury Trial Before the Honorable Leonie M. Brinkema, United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria, VA, March 6, 2006.

78. Memorandum from Richard A. Clarke to Condoleezza Rice, January 25, 2001.

Chapter Six

1. Jon Lee Anderson, “American Viceroy: Zalmay Khalilzad’s Mission,” The New Yorker, December 19, 2005, p. 63.

2. On the overthrow of the Taliban regime, see Gary Schroen, First In: An Insider’s Account of How the CIA Spearheaded the War on Terror in Afghanistan (New York: Ballantine Books, 2005); Stephen Biddle, Afghanistan and the Future of Warfare: Implications for Army and Defense Policy (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, November 2002); Gary Berntsen and Ralph Pezzullo, Jawbreaker: The Attack on Bin Laden and Al Qa’ida (New York: Crown Publishers, 2005); Bob Woodward, Bush at War (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2002).

3. Author interview with Ambassador Wendy Chamberlin, August 27, 2008.

4. Ibid.

5. Transcript of Martin Smith interview with Richard Armitage, July 20, 2006. I received a copy of the transcript from Frontline.

6. Woodward, Bush at War, p. 47.

7. Author interview with Ambassador Wendy Chamberlin, August 27, 2008. W

8. Woodward, Bush at War, p. 59.

9. Author interview with Ambassador Wendy Chamberlin, August 27, 2008.

10. Ibid.

11. Woodward, Bush at War, p. 51.

12. George Tenet, At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA (New York: HarperCollins, 2007), p. 207.

13. Douglas J. Feith, War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism (New York: HarperCollins, 2008), pp. 75–76.

14. Schroen, First In, p. 28.

15. Andrew J. Birtle, Afghan War Chronology (Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History Information Paper, March 22, 2002), pp. 2–3.

16. Biddle, Afghanistan and the Future of Warfare, pp. 8–10.

17. Michael DeLong and Noah Lukeman, Inside CENTCOM: The Unvarnished Truth about the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 2004), p. 46.

18. U.S. Army Military History Institute: Tape 032602p, CPT M. int.; Tape 032802p, CPT D. int. This information comes from deposits at the U.S. Army Military History Institute’s archive at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. See also Dale Andrade, The Battle for Mazar-e-Sharif, October—November 2001 (Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History Information Paper, March 1, 2002), pp. 2–3. Roadbound Taliban and al Qa’ida reserves moving from Sholgerah were decimated by American air interdiction as they moved south to reinforce the defenses of Bai Beche and Ac’capruk, then as they fled north toward Mazar after November 5. See U.S. Army Military History Institute: Memorandum for the Record, COL J. int., July 2002; Tape 032602p, CPT M. int.

19. Biddle, Afghanistan and the Future of Warfare, p. 10.

20. Ibid., p. 9.

21. Ahmed Rashid, Descent into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia (New York: Viking, 2008), pp. 3–6.

22. U.S. Army Military History Institute: Tape 032802a, MAJ D. int.; Tape 032802p, MAJ C. int.; Tape 032602a, CPT H. et al. int. Also see John Car-land, The Campaign Against Kandahar (Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History Information Paper, March 4, 2002), pp. 2–5.

23. U.S. Army Military History Institute: Tape 032602p, CPT M. int.

24. United Nations Security Council Resolution 1383, December 6, 2001, S/RES/1383 (2001).

25. On Operation Anaconda, see Operation Anaconda: An Air Power Perspective (Washington, DC: Headquarters United States Air Force AF/XOL, February 2005); Paul L. Hastert, “Operation Anaconda: Perception Meets Reality in the Hills of Afghanistan,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, vol. 28, pp. 11–20; Sean Naylor, Not a Good Day to Die: The Untold Story of Operation Anaconda (New York: Berkley Books, 2005).

26. Author interview with Ambassador Wendy Chamberlin, August 27, 2008.

27. Author interview with Robert Grenier, November 6, 2007.

28. Author interview with Lieutenant Colonel Ed O’Connell (ret.), July 8, 2007.

29. Pervez Musharraf, In the Line of Fire: A Memoir (New York: Free Press, 2006), p. 217.

30. Philip Smucker, Al Qa’ida’s Great Escape: The Military and the Media on Terror’s Trail (Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 2004); Berntsen and Pezzullo, Jawbreaker, pp. 255–64; Mary Anne Weaver, “Lost at Tora Bora,” New York Times, September 11, 2005.

31. Weaver, “Lost at Tora Bora.”

32. Author interview with U.S. intelligence operative who was in the vicinity of Tora Bora at the time, March 6, 2009. Berntsen and Pezzullo, Jawbreaker, pp. 314–15.

33. Brigadier Muhammad Ijaz Chaudry, “Pakistan’s Counterterrorism Strategy,” Paper presented at National Defense University, Washington, DC, July 27, 2007, p. 12.

34. Berntsen and Pezzullo, Jawbreaker, pp. 307–8.

35. Author interview with Robert Grenier, November 6, 2007.

36. European Union and UNAMA, Discussion of Taliban and Insurgency (Kabul: European Union and UNAMA, April 30, 2007), p. 1.

37. Stephen T. Hosmer, The Army’s Role in Counterinsurgency and Insurgency (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1990), pp. 30–3I; Daniel Byman et al., Trends in Outside Support for Insurgent Movements (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2001); Byman, Deadly Connections: States that Sponsor Terrorism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005).

38. Data are from the Population Census Organization, Statistics Division, Ministry of Economic Affairs and Statistics, Government of Pakistan, 2007. The Population Census Organization estimated that 15.42 percent of a total population of 160,612,500 had Pashto as their mother tongue.

39. David Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice (St. Petersburg, FL: Hailer Publishing, 1964), pp. 23–24.

40. James D. Fearon and David D. Laitin, “Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War,” American Political Science Review, vol. 97, no. 1, February 2003, pp. 75–90; Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice, pp. 35–37.

41. Agreement between His Highness Amir Abdur Rahman Khan G.C.S.I., Amir of Afghanistan and its Dependencies on the one part and Sir Henry Mortimer Durand K.C.I.C.S.I., Foreign Secretary to the Government of India representing the Government of India, on the other part. Signed in Kabul, Afghanistan, on November 12, 1893.

42. Ralph Peters, “Blood Borders: How a Better Middle East Would Look,” Armed Forces Journal, June 2006.

43. Author interview with senior Afghanistan government official, Kabul, Afghanistan, September 2006.

44. Pakistani officials frequently denied this assertion. As one Pakistani senator noted in testimony before Pakistan’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee: “Pakistan has arrested over 500 Taliban this year from Quetta and 400 of them have been handed over to Afghans.” Pakistan Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Pakistan-Afghanistan Relations, Report 13 (Islamabad: Pakistan Senate Foreign Relations Committee, March 2007), p. 38.

45. Author interview with Ambassador Wendy Chamberlin, August 27, 2008.

46. Author interview with Richard Armitage, October 17, 2007.

47. Author interview with Robert Grenier, November 6, 2007.

48. Joint Paper by the Government of Afghanistan, UNAMA, CFC-A, ISAF, Canada, Netherlands, UK, and U.S. Governments, Assessment of Factors Contributing to Insecurity in Afghanistan (Kabul: Government of Afghanistan, 2006), p. 1.

49. See, for example, “Al Jazeera Airs Hikmatyar Video,” Al Jazeera TV, May 4, 2006.

50. Amrullah Saleh, Strategy of Insurgents and Terrorists in Afghanistan (Kabul: National Directorate of Security, 2006), p. 2.

51. European Union and UNAMA, Discussion of Taliban and Insurgency, p. 2.

52. Mahomed Ali Jinnah, Quaid-i-Azam Mahomed Ali Jinnah: Speeches as Governor-General of Pakistan, 1947–1948 (Karachi: Pakistan Publications, 1960), p. 133.

53. Dossiers of Rebel Field Commanders, date unknown. Released by the Cold War International History Project.

54. Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 (New York: Penguin Press, 2004), pp. 201–3.

55. Milt Bearden and James Risen, The Main Enemy: The Inside Story of the CIA’s Final Showdown with the KGB (New York: Random House, 2003), p. 289.

56. On Pakistan raids against Haqqani, see Iqbal Khattak, “40 Militants Killed in North Waziristan,” Daily Times (Pakistan), September 30, 2005; “Pakistani Law Enforcers Intensify Hunt for Haqqani,” Pajhwok Afghan News, March 7, 2006. On Haqqani’s historical role, also see Charles Dunbar, “Afghanistan in 1986: The Balance Endures,” Asian Survey, vol. 27, no. 2, pp. 127–42.

57. Coll, Ghost Wars, pp. 131, 167, 202.

58. European Union and UNAMA, Discussion of Taliban and Insurgency, p. 2

59. Rahimullah Yousufzai interview with Sirajuddin Haqqani, July 2008.

60. John D. Negroponte, Annual Threat Assessment of the Director of Natio Intelligence for the Senate Armed Services Committee, Statement to Senate Armed Services Committee, February 28, 2006.

61. “Al Jazeera Reveals New Al Qa’ida Leader,” Washington Times, May 25, 2007, p. 17.

62. Mariam Abou Zahab, “Changing Patterns of Social and Political Life Among the Tribal Pashtuns in Pakistan,” Paper presented at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA, September 2006.

63. On Ismail, see “Taliban Claim Shooting Down U.S. Helicopter,” The News (Islamabad), June 29, 2005. On Wana, see Intikhab Amir, “Whose Writ Is It Anyway?” The Herald (Pakistan), April 2006, pp. 80–82.

64. On al Qa’ida in the tribal areas, see Musharraf, In the Line of Fire, pp. 264–81.

65. U.S. Department of State, Afghanistan, Autumn 2006: A Campaign at a Crossroads (Washington, DC: Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, U.S. Department of State, 2006), p. 2. Unclassified document.

66. Antonio Giustozzi, Koran, Kalashnikov, and Laptop: The Neo-Taliban Insurgency in Afghanistan (London: Hurst & Company, 2007), p. 13.

67. Quoted in Selig S. Harrison, “Ethnicity and the Political Stalemate in Pakistan,” in Ali Banuazizi and Myron Weiner, eds., The State, Religion, and Ethnic Politics (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1986), p. 285.

68. Statement of Karen P. Tandy, Administrator, U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, Testimony before the House Armed Services Committee, Washington, DC, June 28, 2006.

Chapter Seven

1. Author interview with Richard Armitage, October 17, 2007.

2. Author interview with Colin Powell, January 15, 2008.

3. David Rohde and David E. Sanger, “How the ‘Good War’ in Afghanistan Went Bad,” New York Times, August 12, 2007, p. A1.

4. Author interview with Ambassador James Dobbins, October 4, 2007.

5. See, for example, Vernon Loeb, “Franks Supports an Afghan Army,” Washington Post, February 26, 2002, p. A16; Tim Friend, “U.S. Hints It Will Back More Peacekeepers,” USA Today, February 25, 2002, p. IA.

6. Agreement on Provisional Arrangements in Afghanistan Pending the ReEstablishment of Permanent Government Institutions, Annex I, Paragraph 3. The agreement, commonly referred to as the Bonn Agreement, was signed on December 5, 2001.

7. United Nations, Daily Press Briefing by the Office of the Spokesman for the Secretary-General (New York: United Nations, February 6, 2002). Also see, for example, William M. Reilly, “Brahimi: Expand, Extend Afghan Force,” United Press International, February 6, 2002.

8. Author interview with Ambassador James Dobbins, October 4, 2007.

9. Author interview with Richard Armitage, October 17, 2007; author interview with Douglas Feith, November 4, 2008.

10. Author interview with senior U.S. administration official, Washington, DC, January 15, 2008.

11. Douglas J. Feith, War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism (New York: HarperCollins, 2008), pp. 1012.

12. In the October 11, 2000, debate between George W. Bush and Al Gore, Bush noted: “I don’t think our troops ought to be used for what’s called nation-building. I think our troops ought to be used to fight and win wars.” See Commission on Presidential Debates, Debate Transcript: The Second Gore-Bush Presidential Debate, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, October 11, 2000.

13. Todd Purdum, “Bush Offers Afghanistan U.S. Help for Training of Milit and Police,” New York Times, January 29, 2002, p. A13. On opposition fr Pentagon officials, see Bill Gertz, “Rumsfeld Takes Dim View of U.S. Pea keeping Role,” Washington Times, February 27, 2002, p. A8; Loeb, “Fras Supports an Afghan Army.”

14. Press Briefing by Ari Fleischer (Washington, DC: White House Office of the Press Secretary, February 25, 2002).

15. Author interview with Ambassador James Dobbins, October 4, 2007. See Michael Gordon, “A Nation Challenged: Policy Divisions,” New York Times, February 21, 2002, p. Ai. On the divisions between the State and Defense Departments, also see Ben Barber, “U.S. Considers Force Expansion,” Washington Times, February 22, 2002, p. A13; Alan Sipress, “White House May Support Peacekeeping Force Growth,” Washington Post, February 28, 2002, p. A16.

16. Author interview with Ambassador James Dobbins, October 4, 2007.

17. Author interview with Richard Armitage, October 17, 2007.

18. The account of the NSC meeting was courtesy of the author’s interview with Ambassador James Dobbins, October 4, 2007.

19. On the Marshall Plan, see, for example, Melvyn A. Leffler, A Preponderance of Power: National Security, The Truman Administration, and the Cold War (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1992), pp. 157–65, 173, 178; John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of Postwar American National Security Policy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), pp. 54–88; Gaddis, We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 37–43; Marc Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace: The Making of the European Settlement, 1945–1963 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999), pp. 62–63, 74.

20. George W. Bush, Speech at Virginia Military Institute, Lexington, Virginia (Washington, DC: White House Office of the Press Secretary, April 17, 2002).

21. Author interview with Ambassador Said Jawad, October 5, 2007. In early 2002, Jawad had returned to Afghanistan to serve as President Karzai’s press secretary, chief of staff, and director of the Office of International Relations before becoming the ambassador to the United States.

22. Author interview with Ambassador James Dobbins, September 21, 2004; Richard Clarke, Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror (New York: Free Press, 2004); Afghanistan Stabilization and Reconstruction: A Status Report, Hearing Before the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, S. Hrg. 108–460, January 27, 2004, pp. 14, 17–18; Seymour M. Hersh, “The Other War: Why Bush’s Afghanistan Problem Won’t Go Away,” The New Yorker, April 12, 2004; Report of the Secretary-General on the Situation in Afghanistan and Its Implications for International Peace and Security, UN doc A/56/875-S/2002/278, para. 98.

23. General Tommy Franks with Malcolm McConnell, American Soldier (New York: Regan Books, 2004), p. 324.

24. Ibid.

25. Author interview with Daoud Yaqub, January 2, 2008.

26. United Nations, Daily Press Briefing by the Office of the Spokesman for the Secretary-General (New York: United Nations, February 6, 2002).

27. Barry Posen, “The Security Dilemma and Ethnic Conflict,” in Michael E. Brown, ed., Ethnic Conflict and International Security (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993); Stephen Stedman, “Spoiler Problems in Peace Processes,” International Security, vol. 22, no. 2, Fall 1997, pp. 5–53; Rui de Figueiredo and Barry Weingast, “The Rationality of Fear: Political Opportunism and Ethnic Conflict,” in Barbara Walter and Jack Snyder, eds., Civil Wars, Insecurity, and Intervention (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), pp. 261–302; Michael W. Doyle and Nicholas Sambanis, “International Peacebuilding: A Theoretical and Quantitative Analysis,” American Political Science Review, vol. 94, no. 4, December 2000, p. 780.

28. Robert M. Perito, Where Is the Lone Ranger When We Need Him? America’s Search for a Postconflict Stability Force (Washington, DC: U.S. Institute of Peace, 2004); Perito, The American Experience with Police in Peace Operations (Clementsport, Canada: The Canadian Peacekeeping Press, 2002); Robert B. Oakley, Michael J. Dziedzic, and Eliot M. Goldberg, Policing the New World Disorder: Peace Operations and Public Security (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 1998).

29. James T. Quinlivan, “Force Requirements in Security Operations,” Parameters, vol. 25, no. 4, Winter 1995–96, pp. 59–69; James Dobbins, America’s Role in Nation-Building: From Germany to Iraq (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2003); Dobbins, The UN’s Role in Nation-Building: From the Congo to Iraq (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2005).

30. James Dobbins, Seth G. Jones et al., Europe’s Role in Nation-Building: From the Balkans to the Congo (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2008).

31. Dobbins, America’s Role in Nation-Building; Dobbins, The UN’s Role in Nation-Building.

32. Vincenzo Coppola, “Briefing on the Multinational Specialized Unit,” Paper presented at the U.S. Army Peacekeeping Institute, Carlisle Barracks, PA, June 16, 1999; Paolo Valpolini, “The Role of Police-Military Units in Peacekeeping,” Jane’s Europe News, July/August 1999.

33. Author interview with Colonel Domenico Libertini, commander of the Multinational Specialized Unit, Pristina, Kosovo, April 2007. Also see Multinational Specialized Unit, MSU Concept (Pristina, Kosovo: Multinational Specialized Unit, 2007).

34. These numbers include local police, sheriff, primary state, special jurisdiction, constable/marshal, and federal. Department of Justice, Law Enforcement Statistics (Washington, DC: Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2004).

35. The CIA comes with significant historical baggage in working with foreign police. By the early 1970s, the U.S. Congress became deeply concerned that U.S. assistance to police abroad frequently strengthened the recipient government’s capacity for repression. Congress was particularly concerned about the role of the CIA, which trained foreign police in countersubversion, counterguerrilla, and intelligence-gathering techniques. Consequently, Congress in 1974 adopted Section 660 of the Foreign Assistance Act, which prohibited the United States from providing internal-security assistance to foreign governments. In addition, the CIA does not have a viable policing arm. The CIA’s Special Activities Division is primarily a paramilitary organization—not a policing one. See, for example, Seth G. Jones et al., Securing Tyrants or Fostering Reform? U.S. Internal Security Assistance to Repressive and Transitioning Regimes (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2006), pp. 9–22.

36. Dobbins, Europe’s Role in Nation-Building.

37. William I. Zartman, Collapsed States: The Disintegration and Restoration of Legitimate Authority (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1995), pp. 267–73; Doyle and Sambanis, “International Peacebuilding.”

38. Seth G. Jones, Jeremy Wilson, Andrew Rathmell, and Jack Riley, Establishing Law and Order After Conflict (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2005); Dobbins, America’s Role in Nation-Building; Dobbins, The UN’s Role in Nation-Building.

39. Author interview with Ambassador James Dobbins, September 21, 2004; Hersh, “The Other War.”

40. Dobbins, Europe’s Role in Nation-Building.

41. Author interview with Dov Zakheim, January 30, 2008.

42. Ibid.

43. Author interview with senior White House official, Washington, DC, January 15, 2008.

44. Letter from Rangin Dadfar Spanta to Adamantios Vassilakis, Permanent Representative of Greece to the United Nations, September 20, 2006.

45. Colin L. Powell, “U.S. Forces: Challenges Ahead,” Foreign Affairs, vol. 72, no. 5, Winter 1992/93, pp. 32–45. On the Weinberger Doctrine, see Caspar W. Weinberger, Fighting for Peace: Seven Critical Years in the Pentagon (New York: Warner Books, 1990); Thomas R. Dubois, “The Weinberger Doctrine and the Liberation of Kuwait,” Parameters, vol. XXI, no. 4 (Winter 1991–1992), pp. 24–38. The Weinberger Doctrine and the Powell Doctrine are named after Caspar Weinberger, Ronald Reagan’s secretary of defense, and Colin Powell, most recently George W. Bush’s first secretary of state.

46. Powell, “U.S. Forces,” p. 40.

47. Speech by Caspar Weinberger, “The Uses of Military Power,” November 28, 1984, Reprinted in Defense Issues, January 1985, p. 35.

48. Seth G. Jones, “Averting Failure in Afghanistan,” Survival, vol. 48, no. 1, Spring 2006, pp. 111–28.

49. Interview with Major General Craig P. Weston, Chief, Office of Military Cooperation-Afghanistan, June 23, 2004, Kabul, Afghanistan.

50. Author interview with Richard Armitage, October 17, 2007.

51. Feith, War and Decision, pp. 14–15.

52. Ibid., pp. 51–52.

53. Author interview with senior U.S. official present at the September 2001 Camp David meetings, Washington, DC, January 15, 2008. Also see, for example, Bob Woodward, Bush at War (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2002), pp. 74–92.

54. Author interview with senior U.S. official present at the September 2001 Camp David meetings, Washington, DC, January 15, 2008.

55. See, for example, Michael R. Gordon and General Bernard E. Trainor, Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq (New York: Pantheon Books, 2006), pp. 21–23.

56. Author interview with Lieutenant Colonel Edward O’Connell (ret.), October 4, 2007.

57. Author interview with Richard Armitage, October 17, 2007.

58. Gary C. Schroen, First In: An Insider’s Account of How the CIA Spearheaded the War on Terror in Afghanistan (New York: Ballantine Books, 2005), p. 360.

59. See, for example, Seymour Hersh, Chain of Command (New York: HarperCollins, 2004), p. 188; George Packer, The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006), p. 45.

60. Author interview with Robert Grenier, November 6, 2007.

61. Author interview with Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry, October 27, 2007.

62. Author interview with Dov Zakheim, January 30, 2008.

63. Sarah Chayes, The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban (New York: Penguin Press, 2006), p. 155.

64. Ahmed Rashid, “Afghanistan: Progress Since the Taliban,” Asian Affairs, vol. 37, no. I, March 2006, p. 33.

65. L. Paul Bremer III, My Year in Iraq: The Struggle to Build a Future of Hope (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006), p. 143.

66. Letter from Jeb Mason to Ambassador Bremer, Talking Points: Progress in the War on Terror, September 17, 2003.

67. Ali Jalali, “The Future of Afghanistan,” Parameters, vol. 36, no. 1, Spring 2006, p. 5.

68. Andrew M. Roe, “To Create a Stable Afghanistan,” Military Review, November-December 2005, p. 21.

69. David L. Buffaloe, Conventional Forces in Low-Intensity Conflict: The 82d Airborne in Firebase Shkin, Landpower Essay 04–2 (Arlington, VA: Association of the United States Army, 2004), p. 12.

70. On a firsthand account of the Battle for Deh Chopan, see Michael McInerney, “The Battle for Deh Chopan, Part 1,” Soldier of Fortune, August 2004; McInerney, “The Battle for Deh Chopan, Part 2,” Soldier of Fortune, September 2004.

71. Anne Evans et al., A Guide to Government in Afghanistan (Washington, DC: World Bank Publications, 2004), p. 14.

72. On warlords and Afghanistan, see Roe, “To Create a Stable Afghanistan,” pp. 20–26; Government of Afghanistan, Security Sector Reform: Disbandment of Illegal Armed Groups Programme (DIAG) and Disarmament, Demobilisation, and Reintegration Programme (DDR) (Kabul: Government of Afghanistan, October 2005); Mark Sedra, Challenging the Warlord Culture: Security Sector Reform in Post-Taliban Afghanistan (Bonn: Bonn International Center for Conversion, 2002).

73. Several warlords were reassigned as provincial governors, including Sher Muhammad Akhundzada of Helmand (2005), Ismail Khan of Herat (2004), Gul Agha of Kandahar (2004), Haji Din Muhammad of Nangarhar, Muhammad Ibrahim of Ghor (2004), Gul Ahmad of Badghis (2003), and Syed Amin of Badakshan (2003).

74. Combined Forces Command—Afghanistan and Altai Consulting, Afghan National Development Poll (Kabul: Combined Forces Command, 2005).

75. Afghanistan National Security Council, National Threat Assessment (Kabul: Afghanistan National Security Council, 2005), p. 4. Also see Afghanistan Ministry of Defense, The National Military Strategy (Kabul: Afghanistan Ministry of Defense, October 2005).

76. Evans et al., A Guide to Government in Afghanistan, p. 14.

77. Feith, War and Decision, p. 123.

78. Lester Grau, ed., The Bear Went Over the Mountain: Soviet Combat Tactics in Afghanistan (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 1996), p. 201.

79. Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 (New York: Penguin Books, 2004), pp. 131, 167, 202.

80. Ibid., p. 89.

81. Francesc Vendrell, EUSR Vendrell’s Valedictory Report (Kabul: European Union, 2008).

Chapter Eight

1. Author interview with Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, February 22, 2008.

2. Mountstuart Elphinstone, An Account of the Kingdom of Caubul and Its Dependencies in Persia, Tartary, and India (Graz, Austria: Akademische Druck, 1969), p. 489.

3. Radek Sikorski, “The Devil You Know,” Newsweek, August 9, 2004, p. 31.

4. Author interview with Ambassador James Dobbins, July 27, 2007.

5. Ibid.

6. United Nations Security Council Resolution 1383, December 6, 2001, S/RES/1383 (2001).

7. “Agreement on Provisional Arrangements in Afghanistan Pending the Reestablishment of Permanent Government Institutions,” December 2001, Annex II.

8. Ahmed Rashid, Descent into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia (New York: Viking, 2008), p. 184.

9. Author interview with Daoud Yaqub, January 2, 2008.

10. David Rohde and David E. Sanger, “How the ‘Good War’ in Afghanistan Went Bad,” New York Times, August 12, 2007, p. A1.

11. Author interview with Lieutenant General David Barno, September 4, 2007.

12. Author interview with Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, February 22, 2008; Statement of Zalmay Khalilzad Before the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, October 29, 2003.

13. Author interview with Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, February 22, 2008.

14. Statement of Zalmay Khalilzad Before the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, October 29, 2003.

15. Author interview with Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, February 22, 2008.

16. Ali Ahmad Jalali and Lester W. Grau, The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan War (Quantico, VA: U.S. Marine Corps, Studies and Analysis Division, 1995).

17. Ali A. Jalali, “Rebuilding Afghanistan’s National Army,” Parameters, vol. 32, no. 3, Autumn 2002, p. 79.

18. Author interview with Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, February 22, 2008.

19. Author interview with Lieutenant General David Barno, September 4, 2007.

20. Michael O’Hanlon and Adriana Lins de Albuquerque, Afghanistan Index: Tracking Variables of Reconstruction and Security in Post-Taliban Afghanistan (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, September 15, 2005).

21. Author interview with Lieutenant General David Barno, January 17, 2008.

22. Lieutenant General David W. Barno, “Fighting ‘The Other War’: Counter-insurgency Strategy in Afghanistan, 2003–2005,” Military Review, September-October 2007, p. 36.

23. Memorandum from Donald L. Evans to the President, Subject: “Recent Visit to Baghdad, Iraq, and Kabul, Afghanistan,” October 24, 2003. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld subsequently wrote a memo to Evans noting that “your report to the President on your visit to Iraq and Afghanistan was excellent. Thanks so much for going. I appreciate it a great deal. Thanks also for letting other folks know what you found.” Letter from Donald Rumsfeld to the Honorable Donald L. Evans, October 29, 2003.

24. Author interview with Lieutenant General David Barno, September 4, 2007.

25. George W. Bush, State of the Union Address (Washington, DC: White House, 2004).

26. Author interview with Lieutenant General David Barno, January 17, 2008.

27. See, for example, International Crisis Group, Countering Afghanistan’s Insurgency: No Quick Fixes (Kabul: International Crisis Group, 2006).

28. ABC News/BBC/ARD Poll, Afghanistan—Where Things Stand (Kabul: ABC News/BBC/ARD Poll, December 2007), p. 6.

29. Frank Newport, Bush Job Approval at 28%, Lowest of His Administration (Washington, DC: Gallup, April 11, 2008). The poll included Bush’s job-approval average each year from 2001 to 2008.

30. Info Memo from Ronald Neumann to the Administrator, Subject: Highlights of the June 24th MCNS Meeting, June 24, 2004.

31. E-mail from Paul Bremer to Jaymie Durnan, Subject: Message for SecDef, June 30, 2003.

32. Coalition Provisional Authority, Summary: Bomb-Making Tips, Mukhabarat Habits, Views from the Street, July 15, 2003.

33. E-mail from Paul Bremer to Jaymie Durnan, Subject: Message for SecDef, June 30, 2003.

34. Brief on Iraq Security and Military Issues, NSC Meeting, July 1, 2003.

35. Coalition Provisional Authority, Security Update for Ambassador Bremer, July 18, 2003.

36. Office of Research, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Department of State, Iraqis Offer Dim Evaluation of Reconstruction Effort Thus Far, August 22, 2003.

37. Iraqi Impressions of Coalition Forces and the Security Situation in Iraq: Office of Research Survey Results from 7 Cities in Iraq & Preliminary Results from Gallup Baghdad Survey, September 30, 2003.

38. Memo from James Ellery to Ambassador Bremer, Subject: Read Ahead for Ambassador Bremer: Infrastructure Security Strategy, January 11, 2004.

39. Infrastructure Security Planning Group, Infrastructure Security Strategy, January 12, 2004.

40. Info Memo from Bill Miller to the Administrator, Subject: Security Town Hall, March 18, 2004. Also see Memorandum from L. Paul Bremer to Regional and Governorate Coordinators, Subject: Safety and Security, March 19, 2004.

41. Memo from L. Paul Bremer to Hon. Chris Shays, April 16, 2004; Memo from L. Paul Bremer to Hon. Brian Baird, April 1, 2004; Memo from L. Paul Bremer to Hon. Jim Kolbe, April 1, 2004.

42. Some have argued that the insurgency began in earnest in June 2004. But Taliban offensive operations two years earlier suggest that it was in the spring of 2002. Colonel Walter M. Herd et al., One Valley at a Time (Fort Bragg, NC: Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force-Afghanistan, 2005), p. 121.

43. “Country Risk Assessment: Afghanistan,” Jane’s Intelligence Review, vol. 16, no. 5, May 2004, pp. 38–41; Michael Bhatia, Kevin Lanigan, and Philip Wilkinson, Minimal Investments, Minimal Results: The Failure of Security Policy in Afghanistan (Kabul: Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, June 2004), pp. 1–8; Anthony Davis, “Afghan Security Deteriorates as Taliban Regroup,” Jane’s Intelligence Review, vol. 15, no. 5, May 2003, pp. 10–15.

44. ANSO Security Situation Summary, Weekly Report 039, September 24–30, 2004, p. 15.

45. Carlotta Gall, “21 Killed in Afghanistan Attacks Directed at Provincial Governor,” New York Times, August 15, 2004; ANSO Security Situation Summary, Weekly Report 039, September 24–30, 2004, p. 7; ANSO Security Situation Summary, Weekly Report 036, September 3–9, 2004, p. 5; ANSO Security Situation Summary, Weekly Report 038, September 17–23, 2004, PP. 7–8.

46. Author interview with Daoud Yaqub, January 2, 2008.

47. Author interview with Lieutenant General David Barno, January 17, 2008.

48. Memo from Donald Rumsfeld to General Dick Myers, Paul Wolfowitz, General Pete Pace, and Doug Feith, Subject: Global War on Terrorism, October 16, 2003.

49. On Afghan numbers, see Seth G. Jones et al., Establishing Law and Order After Conflict (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2005), pp. 89–91.

50. The Asia Foundation, Voter Education Planning Survey: Afghanistan 2004 National Elections (Kabul: The Asia Foundation, 2004), p. 106.

51. International Republican Institute, Afghanistan: Election Day Survey, October 9, 2004, slide 13.

52. Arno J. Mayer, The Furies: Violence and Terror in the French and Russian Revolutions (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000), p. 323.

Chapter Nine

1. Mao Tse-tung, On Guerrilla Warfare, translated by Samuel B. Griffith II (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1961), p. 93.

2. William Cullen Bryant, Poems (Philadelphia: Henry Altemus, 1895), p. 79.

3. On the definition of insurgency, see Central Intelligence Agency, Guide to the Analysis of Insurgency (Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency, n.d.), p. 2; Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, Joint Publication 102 (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Defense, 2001), p. 266.

4. David Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice (St. Petersburg, FL: Hailer Publishing, 1964), p. 3.

5. Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, Joint Publication 1–02, defines unconventional warfare as: “A broad spectrum of military and paramilitary operations, normally of long duration, predominantly conducted through, with, or by indigenous or surrogate forces who are organized, trained, equipped, supported, and directed in varying degrees by an external source. It includes, but is not limited to, guerrilla warfare, subversion, sabotage, intelligence activities, and unconventional assisted recovery.” U.S. Department of Defense, Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, Joint Publication 102 (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Defense, 2001), p. 574.

6. Roger Trinquier, Modern Warfare: A French View of Counterinsurgency, translated by Daniel Lee (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2006), p. 6.

7. Daniel Siegel and Joy Hackel, “El Salvador: Counterinsurgency Revisited,” in Michael T. Klare and Peter Kornbluh, eds., Low-Intensity Warfare: Counter-insurgency, Proinsurgency, and Antiterrorism in the Eighties (New York: Pantheon Books, 1988), p. 119.

8. Bruce Hoffman, Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in Iraq (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2004); U.S. Marine Corps, Small Wars Manual (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1940); Julian Paget, Counter-Insurgency Campaigning (London: Faber and Faber, 1967); Charles Simpson, Inside the Green Berets: The First Thirty Years (Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1982); Robert J. Wilensky, Military Medicine to Win Hearts and Minds: Aid to Civilians in the Vietnam War (Lubbock, TX: Texas Tech University Press, 2004).

9. Daniel Byman, Understanding Proto-Insurgencies (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2007), p. 1.

10. Trinquier, Modern Warfare, p. 8; Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice, pp. 7–8.

11. Kimberly Marten Zisk, Enforcing the Peace: Learning from the Imperial Past (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004); Amitai Etzioni, “A Self-Restrained Approach to Nation-Building by Foreign Powers,” International Affairs, vol. 80, no. 1 (2004); Etzioni, From Empire to Community: A New Approach to International Relations (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004); Stephen T. Hosmer, The Army’s Role in Counterinsurgency and Insurgency (Santa Monica, Calif,: RAND Corporation, R-3947-A, 1990), pp. 30–31.

12. Seth G. Jones, Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2008). On time, also see Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare, p. 10.

13. David M. Edelstein, “Occupational Hazards: Why Military Occupations Succeed or Fail,” International Security, vol. 29, no. 1 (Summer 2004), p. 51.

14. See, for example, James D. Fearon and David D. Laitin, “Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War,” American Political Science Review, vol. 97, no. 1, February 2003, pp. 83, 85; Paul Collier, Anke Hoeffler, and Nicholas Sambanis, “The Collier-Hoeffler Model of Civil War Onset and the Case Study Project Research Design,” in Paul Collier and Nicholas Sambanis, eds., Understanding Civil War, Vol. 2: Europe, Central Asia, and Other Regions (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2005), pp. 1–34; Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare, pp. 37–38.

15. Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare, p. 38.

16. Ann Hironaka, Neverending Wars: The International Community, Weak States, and the Perpetuation of Civil War (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005); Fearon and Laitin, “Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War,” pp. 75–90. On the importance of building institutions, see Roland Paris, At War’s End: Building Peace After Civil Conflict (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004).

17. Stathis N. Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil War (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 218.

18. Nelson Manrique, “The War for the Central Sierra,” in Steve J. Stern, ed., Shining and Other Paths: War and Society in Peru, 1980–1995 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1998), p. 204.

19. Jeffrey Race, War Comes to Long An: Revolutionary Conflict in a Vietnamese Province (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1973), p. 199.

20. Richard Berman, Revolutionary Organization: Institution-Building within the People’s Liberation Armed Forces (Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath, 1974), pp. 4–-5

21. Adrian H. Jones and Andrew R. Molnar, Internal Defense against Insurgency: Six Cases (Washington, DC: Center for Research in Social Systems, 1966), p. 47.

22. Max Weber, “Politics as a Vocation,” in H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, eds., From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1958), p. 78.

23. Jane Stromseth, David Wippman, and Rosa Brooks, Can Might Make Rights? Building the Rule of Law After Military Interventions (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 137–140.

24. William R. Easterly, The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists’ Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001); Robert E. Klitgaard, Institutional Adjustment and Adjusting to Institutions (Washington, DC: World Bank, 1995); Nicolas van de Walle, African Economies and the Politics of Permanent Crisis, 1979–1999 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001); Judith Tendler, Good Government in the Tropics (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997).

25. Mohammed Ayoob, “State Making, State Breaking, and State Failure,” in Chester Crocker, Fen Osler Hampson, and Pamela Aall, eds., Turbulent Peace: The Challenges of Managing International Conflict (Washington, DC: U.S. Institute of Peace Press, 2001), p. 130.

26. Hironaka, Neverending Wars, pp. 42–46.

27. Stromseth, Wippman, and Brooks, Can Might Make Rights? pp. 137–40; Francis Fukuyama, State-Building: Governance and World Order in the 21st Century (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004), pp. 92–118; Ayoob, “State Making, State Breaking, and State Failure.”

28. Fearon and Laitin, “Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War,” pp. 75–76.

29. Hironaka, Neverending Wars, p. 45.

30. See, for example, Jeffrey Herbst, “Responding to State Failure in Africa,” International Security, vol. 2I, no. 3, Winter 1996/1997, pp. 120–44.

31. David D. Laitin and Said S. Samatar, Somalia: Nation in Search of a State (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1987); I. M. Lewis, A Modern History of Somalia: Nation and State in the Horn of Africa (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1988); Michael W. Doyle and Nicholas Sambanis, Making War and Building Peace (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006), pp. 145–61.

32. Patrick Brogan, World Conflicts (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 1998), p. 99.

33. Hussein M. Adam, “Somalia: A Terrible Beauty Being Born?” in I. William Zartman, ed., Collapsed States: The Disintegration and Restoration of Legitimate Authority (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1995), p. 78.

34. Richard J. Kessler, Rebellion and Repression in the Philippines (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989), p. 140.

35. William Chapman, Inside the Philippine Revolution (New York: W. W. Norton, 1987).

36. Samir Makdisi and Richard Sadaka, “The Lebanese Civil War, 1975–1990,” in Collier and Sambanis, eds., Understanding Civil War, Vol. 2, pp. 59–85.

37. Michael Clodfelter, Warfare and Armed Conflicts: A Statistical Reference (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1992).

38. Thomas A. Marks, Maoist Insurgency since Vietnam (Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 1996), p. 261.

39. Crawford Young, Politics in the Congo: Decolonization and Independence (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1965), p. 56.

40. William Minter, Apartheid’s Contras (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Zed Books, 1994); Leonid L. Fituni, “The Collapse of the Socialist State: Angola and the Soviet Union,” in I. William Zartman, ed., Collapsed States, pp. 143–56.

41. Mwangi S. Kimenyi and Njuguna S. Ndung’u, “Sporadic Ethnic Violence: Why Has Kenya Not Experienced a Full-Blown Civil War?” in Paul Collier and Nicholas Sambanis, eds., Understanding Civil War, Vol. 1: Africa (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2005), pp. 123–56.

42. See, for example, Stephen Saideman, The Ties That Divide: Ethnic Politics, Foreign Policy, and International Conflict (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001); Saideman, “Explaining the International Relations of Secessionist Conflicts,” International Organization, vol. 51, no. 4, 1997, pp. 721–53; Tatu Vanhanen, “Domestic Ethnic Conflict and Ethnic Nepotism: A Comparative Analysis,” Journal of Peace Research, vol. 36, no. 1, 1999, pp. 55–73; Chaim Kaufmann, “Possible and Impossible Solutions to Ethnic Civil Wars,” International Security, vol. 20, no. 4, Spring 1996, pp. 136–75.

43. Donald L. Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985).

44. Kaufmann, “Possible and Impossible Solutions to Ethnic Civil Wars,” pp. 136–75.

45. There is no definitive assessment of ethnic breakdowns in Afghanistan, since there has been no census since 1979. Even the 1979 census was partial and incomplete. For estimates, see, for example, Central Intelligence Agency, The World Factbook 2007 (Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency, 2006).

46. On Pashtuns and the Taliban, see Olivier Roy, Islam and Resistance in Afghanistan, 2nd ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990); Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000); William Maley, ed., Fundamentalism Reborn? Afghanistan and the Taliban (New York: New York University Press, 2001).

47. Gary Berntsen and Ralph Pezzullo, Jawbreaker: The Attack on Bin Laden and Al Qa’ida (New York: Crown Publishers, 2005), p. 219.

48. Thomas H. Johnson and M. Chris Mason, “Understanding the Taliban and Insurgency in Afghanistan,” Orbis, vol. 51, no. 1, Winter 2007, p. 86. Also see Thomas H. Johnson, “Afghanistan’s Post-Taliban Transition: The State of State-Building After War,” Central Asian Survey, vol. 25, nos. 1–2, March-June 2006, pp. 1–26.

49. Johnson, “Afghanistan’s Post-Taliban Transition,” pp. 7, 14.

50. The election results are from Afghanistan’s Joint Electoral Management Body.

51. nternational Republican Institute, Afghanistan: Election Day Survey (Washington, DC: International Republican Institute, October 9, 2004).

52. U.S. State Department, Afghanistan: Closer to One Nation than a House Divided (Washington, DC: Office of Research, U.S. Department of State, January 29, 2007), pp. 1, 3.

53. Memorandum from the Rendon Group to J5 CENTCOM Strategic Effects, “Polling Results—Afghanistan Omnibus May 2007,” June 15, 2007.

54. Asia Foundation, Voter Education Planning Survey: Afghanistan 2004 National Elections (San Francisco: Asia Foundation, 2004).

55. Asia Foundation, A Survey of the Afghan People: Afghanistan in 2006 (San Francisco: Asia Foundation, 2006).

56. Author interview with Ambassador James Dobbins, July 11, 2007.

57. S. Frederick Starr, “Sovereignty and Legitimacy in Afghan Nation-Building,” in Francis Fukuyama, ed., Beyond Afghanistan and Iraq (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006), pp. 107–24; Starr, U.S. Afghanistan Policy: It’s Working (Washington, DC: Central Asia—Caucasus Institute, Johns Hopkins University, 2004).

58. On ideology and insurgency, see, for example, Michael F. Brown and Eduardo Fernández, War of Shadows: The Struggle for Utopia in the Peruvian Amazon (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), p. 98.

59. Military Teachings: For the Preparation of Mujahideen, n.d. The Taliban manual was leaked to the press in 2007. See, for example, Isambard Wilkinson, “How To Be A Jihadi: Taliban’s Training Secrets,” Daily Telegraph (London), August 16,2007.

60. Trinquier, Modern Warfare, p. 43; Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare, p. 31.

61. As David Galula argues: “[C]onventional operations by themselves have at best no more effect than a fly swatter. Some guerrillas are bound to be caught, but new recruits will replace them as fast as they are lost.” Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare, p. 72.

62. Stromseth, Wippman, and Brooks, Can Might Make Rights? pp. 137–40.

Chapter Ten

1. Gary C. Schroen, First In: An Insider’s Account of How the CIA Spearheaded the War on Terror in Afghanistan (New York: Ballantine Books, 2005), p. 358.

2. Amrullah Saleh, Strategy of Insurgents and Terrorists in Afghanistan (Kabul, Afghanistan: National Directorate of Security, May 2006).

3. German Federal Ministry of the Interior (2004), p. 6; Asian Development Bank and World Bank, Afghanistan: Preliminary Needs Assessment for Recovery and Reconstruction (Kabul: Asian Development Bank and World Bank, January 2002), p. 7.

4. German Federal Foreign Office and Federal Ministry of the Interior, Assistance in Rebuilding the Police Force (Bonn: Federal Foreign Office and Federal Ministry of the Interior, 2004), p. 6.

5. Author interview with Jochen Rieso, Training Branch, German Project for Support of the Police in Afghanistan, June 27, 2004.

6. Author interview with senior U.S. official, White House, September 2004. This view was corroborated by multiple interviews with U.S. officials in Washington and Afghanistan in 2004 and 2005.

7. German Federal Foreign Office and Federal Ministry of the Interior, Assistance in Rebuilding the Police Force, p. 3.

8. Letter from Donald Rumsfeld to Jerry Bremer and General John Abizaid (cc to General Dick Myers, Paul Wolfowitz, and Doug Feith), Assistance from Germany, September 29, 2003.

9. Author interviews with members of DynCorp International, Kabul and Gardez, June 2004 and November 2005.

10. Author interview with Interior Minister Ali Jalali, September 4, 2007.

11. Author interview with Lieutenant General David Barno, September 4, 2007.

12. Author interviews with senior U.S. Defense Department official involved in the discussions, August 21 and October 4, 2007.

13. Author interview with Nora Bensahel, May 7, 2008.

14. Author interview with Major General Robert Durbin, January 3, 2008.

15. Central Intelligence Agency, CIA World Factbook 2007 (Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency, 2006). The list included small, poor countries such as East Timor, Djibouti, and Liberia.

16. Author interview with Major General Robert Durbin, January 3, 2008.

17. Author interview with U.S. Army general, Washington, DC, January 10, 2008.

18. Author interviews with members of the Office of Security Cooperation—Afghanistan, Kabul, December 2005.

19. Offices of Inspector General of the Departments of State and Defense, Interagency Assessment of Afghanistan Police Training and Readiness (Washington, DC: Offices of Inspector General of the Departments of State and Defense, 2006), p. 1.

20. Colonel Rick Adams, Police Reform Directorate: Overview—Current Operations and Strategic Initiatives (Kabul: Combined Security Transition Command—Afghanistan, 2006), slide 6.

21. Author interview with Minister Ali Jalali, September 4, 2007; author interviews with Shahmahmood Miakhel, August 29 and September 14, 2007.

22. Author interview with Minister Ali Jalali, September 4, 2007.

23. Atos Consulting, Afghanistan Stabilisation Programme: Summary Project Completion Report (Kabul, Afghanistan: Atos Consulting, May 2007).

24. Combined Security Transition Command—Afghanistan, RC South-ANP Efforts to Increase Security (Kabul: Combined Security Transition Command—Afghanistan, 2006), p. 2.

25. General Barry R. McCaffrey (ret.), Trip to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Memorandum from General McCaffrey to Colonel Mike Meese and Colonel Cindy Jebb, United States Military Academy, June 2006; McCaffrey, Trip to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Memorandum from General McCaffrey to Colonel Mike Meese and Colonel Cindy Jebb, United States Military Academy, February 2007.

26. Combined Security Transition Command—Afghanistan, Better Distribution of Afghan Uniformed Police-Close the Gap” (Kabul: Combined Security Transition Command—Afghanistan, 2006), slide 9.

27. Quoted in Chris Sands, “Bring Back Taliban to End Police Corruption, Say Afghan Truckers,” The Independent (London), May 10, 2007.

28. Author interviews with U.S. and German police officials, Afghanistan, 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007.

29. Author interview with Minister Ali Jalali, September 4, 2007; author interviews with Shahmahmood Miakhel, August 29 and September 14, 2007.

30. Colonel Rick Adams, Police Reform Directorate: Overview—Current Operations and Strategic Initiatives (Kabul: Combined Security Transition Command—Afghanistan, 2006), slide 16.

31. Transitional Islamic Government of Afghanistan, Securing Afghanistan’s Future: Accomplishments and the Strategic Path Forward, National Police and Law Enforcement (Kabul: Transitional Islamic Government of Afghanistan, January 2004), p. 10.

32. Author interviews with U.S. State and Defense Department officials, 2004, 2005, and 2006.

33. Author interviews with Office of Security Cooperation—Afghanistan officials, Kabul, Afghanistan, November and December 2005.

34. Afghan National Police Program (Kabul: Ministry of Interior, 2005); Barnett R. Rubin, Afghanistan’s Uncertain Transition from Turmoil to Normalcy (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 2006); U.S. Government Accountability Office, Afghanistan Security: Efforts to Establish Army and Police Have Made Progress, but Future Plans Need to Be Better Defined (Washington, DC: GAO, 2005).

35. Government of Germany, Doha II Conference on Border Management in Afghanistan: A Regional Approach (Berlin: Government of Germany, 2006). Also see U.S. Department of State, Border Management Initiative: Information Brief (Kabul: Afghanistan Reconstruction Group, U.S. Department of State, 2005).

36. Ali Jalali, “The Future of Afghanistan,” Parameters, vol. 36, no. 1, Spring 2006, p. 10.

37. Afghan Non-Governmental Organization Security Office, Security Incident—Armed Clash: ANP Was Disarmed (Kabul: Afghan Non-Governmental Organization Security Office, March 2006).

38. Combined Security Transition Command—Afghanistan, Better Distribution of Afghan Uniformed Police-“Close the Gap” (Kabul: Combined Security Transition Command—Afghanistan, 2006), slide 17.

39. Author interview with Lieutenant General David Barno, September 4, 2007.

40. Author interviews with U.S. State Department and Defense Department officials involved in police training, Afghanistan, 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007.

41. Author interview with Ambassador Ronald Neumann, September 7, 2007.

42. Author correspondence with Ambassador Ronald Neumann, October 29, 2008. On policing during counterinsurgency and stability operations, see Robert B. Oakley, Michael J. Dziedzic, and Eliot M. Goldberg, eds., Policing the New World Disorder: Peace Operations and Public Security (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 1998); Seth G. Jones, Jeremy M. Wilson, Andrew Rathmell, and K. Jack Riley, Establishing Law and Order After Conflict (Washington, DC: RAND, 2005); Robert M. Perito, Where Is the Lone Ranger When We Need Him? America’s Search for a Postconflict Stability Force (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 2004); David H. Bayley, Democratizing the Police Abroad: What to Do and How to Do It (Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice, June 2001).

43. Author interview with Richard Armitage, October 17, 2007.

44. Author interview with Minister Ali Jalali, September 4, 2007.

45. Author interview with Ambassador Ronald Neumann, September 7, 2007.

46. Author interview with Major General Robert Durbin, January 3, 2008.

47. Author interview with Ambassador Ronald Neumann, September 7, 2007.

48. Author correspondence with Ambassador Ronald Neumann, October 29, 2008.

49. Author interview with Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry, October 27, 2007.

50. The author visited the Office of Military Cooperation—Afghanistan in 2004 and the Office of Security Cooperation—Afghanistan in 2005, as well as regional training centers, to assess the U.S. and Coalition efforts to rebuild the Afghan National Army and the Afghan National Police. On training of the ANA, also see Anja Manuel and P. W. Singer, “A New Model Afghan Army,” Foreign Affairs, vol. 81, no. 4, July/August 2002, pp. 44–59; Luke Hill, “NATO to Quit Bosnia, Debates U.S. Proposals,” Jane’s Defence Weekly, vol. 40, no. 23, December 10, 2003, p. 6.

51. Anthony Davis, “Kabul’s Security Dilemma,” Jane’s Defence Weekly, vol. 37, no. 24, June 1 2, 2002, pp. 26–27; Mark Sedra, Challenging the Warlord Culture: Security Sector Reform in Post-Taliban Afghanistan (Bonn, Germany: Bonn International Center for Conversion, 2002), pp. 28–30.

52. Author interview with Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry, October 27, 2007.

53. Ibid.

54. Attrition was caused by a number of factors, such as low pay rates and apparent misunderstandings between ANA recruits and the U.S. military. For example, some Afghan soldiers believed they would be taken to the United States for training. On attrition rates, see Securing Afghanistan’s Future: Accomplishments and the Strategic Path Forward, National Army (Kabul: Ministry of Defense, 2004); Capitol Hill Monthly Update, Afghanistan (Washington, DC: United States Department of State, June 2004); Rebuilding Afghanistan (Washington, DC: The White House, 2004). Also, author interviews with U.S. Department of Defense officials, May 2006.

55. Author interview with U.S. Army general involved in police and army training in Afghanistan, January 3, 2008.

56. Author interview with Minister of Defense Abdul Rahim Wardak, November 13, 2008.

57. Author interview with Daoud Yaqub, January 2, 2008.

58. “Fighting in Afghanistan Leaves 40 Insurgents Dead,” American Forces Press Service, June 22, 2005.

59. “Coalition Launches ‘Operation Mountain Lion’ in Afghanistan,” American Forces Press Service, April 12, 2006.

60. U.S. Air Force F-15Es, A-10s, and B-52s provided close air support to troops on the ground engaged in rooting out insurgent sanctuaries and support networks. Royal Air Force GR-7s also provided close air support to Coalition troops in contact with enemy forces. U.S. Air Force Global Hawk and Predator aircraft provided intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, while KC-135 and KC-10 aircraft provided refueling support.

61. Neil Chandler and Billy Labrum, “Apache Apocalypse,” Sunday Star (UK), March 16, 2008.

62. Major Robert W. Redding, “19th SF Group Utilizes MCA Missions to Train Afghan National Army Battalions,” Special Warfare, vol. 17, February 2005, pp. 22–27.

63. Afghanistan: Managing Public Finances for Development (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2005), p. 24.

64. General Barry R. McCaffrey (ret.), Trip to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Memorandum from General McCaffrey to Colonel Mike Meese and Colonel Cindy Jebb, United States Military Academy, June 2006.

65. National Ground Intelligence Center, Afghanistan: Anti-Coalition Militia (ACM) Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (Charlottesville, VA: U.S. Army, National Ground Intelligence Center, 2004).

66. Amrullah Saleh, Strategy of Insurgents and Terrorists in Afghanistan (Kabul, Afghanistan: National Directorate of Security, 2006), p. 8.

67. Presidential Office of National Security, National Threat Assessment 2004 (Kabul: Presidential Office of National Security, April 2004), p. 5.

68. Author interview with Ambassador Said Jawad, August 24, 2007.

69. Combined Forces Command—Afghanistan, Afghan National Development Poll (Kabul: Combined Forces Command—Afghanistan, 2005), p. 46.

70. International Security Assistance Force, Nationwide Research and Survey on Illegal State Opposing Armed Groups (ISOAGS): Qualitative and Quantitative Surveys (Kabul: International Security Assistance Force, 2006), p. 120.

Chapter Eleven

1. Lieutenant General David W. Barno, Counter-Insurgency Strategy (Kabul, Afghanistan: Combined Forces Command—Afghanistan, 2005), slide 14.

2. World Bank, Afghanistan—State Building, Sustaining Growth, and Reducing Poverty (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2005), p. 153.

3. Author interview with Ambassador Ronald Neumann, April 16, 2008.

4. Ibid.

5. The Asia Foundation, Voter Education Planning Survey: Afghanistan 2004 National Elections (Kabul: The Asia Foundation, July 2004), p. 105.

6. The question posed to Afghans was: “What is the biggest problem in your local area?” I combined the similar issues of unemployment, poverty, and poor economy into one category. See The Asia Foundation, Afghanistan in 2006: A Survey of the Afghan People (Kabul: The Asia Foundation, 2006), p. 97.

7. U.S. Department of State, In Their Own Words: Afghan Views of the U.S., Karzai and the Taliban (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, 2006), slides 13 and 16.

8. World Bank, Afghanistan: State Building, p. xxvi.

9. Anne Evans et al., eds., A Guide to Government in Afghanistan (Kabul: World Bank, and Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, 2004), p. 145.

10. World Bank, Afghanistan: State Building, p. 83.

11. Ibid., p. 86.

12. Ibid., pp. 133–34.

13. Other countries also exported electricity to Afghanistan. In May 2003, Tajikistan resumed supplying electricity to the northern Afghanistan province of Kunduz, although power supplies were expected to halt in October 2003. Iran also supplies electricity to Afghanistan, in some areas directly adjacent to the Afghan-Iranian border in Herat, Farah, and Nimroz Provinces. See, for example, U.S. Department of Energy, Afghanistan Fact Sheet 2004 (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Energy, 2004); U.S. Department of Energy, Afghanistan Fact Sheet 2006 (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Energy, 2006).

14. Author interview with Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, September 14, 2007.

15. Andrew S. Natsios, “The Nine Principles of Reconstruction and Development,” Parameters, vol. 35, no. 3, Autumn 2005, pp. 4–20.

16. Ron Synovitz, “Afghanistan: Workers Still Await Security Clearance to Repair Kajaki Dam,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, June 12, 2007.

17. Author interview with Michelle Parker, August 15, 2007. She had previously managed the USAID Jalalabad Field Office, where she served as the USAID representative in Nangarhar and Laghman Provinces and as the development lead in the Jalalabad Provincial Reconstruction Team from 2004 to 2006.

18. Author correspondence with Ambassador Ronald Neumann, October 29, 2008.

19. Author interview with Michelle Parker, August 15, 2007.

20. Author interview with senior official, Canadian International Development Agency, Kandahar, Afghanistan, January 14, 2007.

21. Combined Forces Command—Afghanistan, ANSF Operational Primacy Process Planning Group (Kabul, Afghanistan: Combined Forces Command—Afghanistan, June 2006), slide 16.

22. Combined Forces Command—Afghanistan, Update to LTG Eikenberry: ANSF Operational Primacy Process Planning Group IPR #3 (Kabul, Afghanistan: Combined Forces Command—Afghanistan, July 15, 2006), slide 10.

23. Joint Center for Operational Analysis, Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Afghanistan: An Interagency Assessment (Suffolk, VA: U.S. Department of Defense, Joint Center for Operational Analysis, 2006), p. 12.

24. Author interviews with senior U.S. Defense Department official with knowledge of the assessment, August 21 and October 4, 2007.

25. Denis D. Gray, “Afghan Village ‘On the Fence,’” Washington Times, April 30, 2007, p. 12.

26. United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, UNAMA Assessment of the Effects of the Musa Qala Agreement (Kabul: United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, January 2007), p. 3.

27. Author interview with Michael Semple, September 14, 2007.

28. Author interviews with Shahmahmood Miakhel, and August 29 and September 14, 2007.

29. Author interviews with Royal Canadian Mounted Police and U.S. police trainers, Kandahar, Afghanistan, September 18, 2007.

30. Joint Paper by the Government of Afghanistan, UNAMA, CFC—A, ISAF, Canada, Netherlands, UK, and U.S. Governments, Assessment of Factors Contributing to Insecurity in Afghanistan (Kabul: Government of Afghanistan, 2006), p. 3.

31. United Nations, A Review of the Taliban and Fellow Travelers as a Movement: Concept Paper Updating PAG Joint Assessment of June 2006 (Kabul: United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, August 2007), pp. 5, 8.

32. Afghan Ministry of Defense, The National Military Strategy, 2005 (Kabul: Afghan Ministry of Defense, 2005), p. 3.

33. Statement of Lieutenant General Karl W. Eikenberry, Testimony Before the U.S. House Armed Services Committee, February 13, 2007, p. 5.

34. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Afghanistan Opium Survey 2008 (Vienna: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2008).

35. Author interview with Doug Wankel, director of the Office of Drug Control, Kabul, Afghanistan, November 23, 2005.

36. Ibid.

37. Jon Lee Anderson, “Letter from Afghanistan: The Taliban’s Opium War,” The New Yorker, July 9, 2007.

38. Interview with Doug Wankel, director of the Office of Drug Control, Kabul, Afghanistan, November 23, 2005.

39. Correspondence with former Afghan Minister of Interior Ali Jalali, September 5, 2006.

40. Coalition Provisional Authority and Interim Ministry of Interior, Talking Points: Drug-Trafficking Trends and Forecast for Iraq, Prepared for Ambassador L. Paul Bremer (Baghdad: Coalition Provisional Authority and Interim Ministry of Interior, July 17, 2003), p. 1.

41. Statement of Karen P. Tandy, Administrator, U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, Testimony Before the House Armed Services Committee, Washington, DC, June 28, 2006.

42. Author interview with intelligence officer, 82nd Airborne Division, Bagram, Afghanistan, March 7, 2008.

43. Author interview with Doug Wankel, January 11, 2007. Statement of Karen P. Tandy, Administrator, U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, Testimony Before the House Armed Services Committee, Washington, DC, June 28, 2006.

44. Thomas H. Johnson, “Financing Afghan Terrorism: Thugs, Drugs, and Creative Movement of Money,” in Jeanne K. Giraldo and Harold A. Trinkunas, Terrorism Financing and State Responses: A Comparative Perspective (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007), p. 98.

45. Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000), p. 118.

46. Author interview with Ambassador Said Jawad, August 24, 2007.

47. “U.S. Military Links Karzai Brother to Drugs,” ABC World News Tonight, June 22, 2006. Also see, for example, Ron Moreau and Sami Yousafzai, “A Harvest of Treachery,” Newsweek, January 9, 2006, p. 32.

48. James Risen, “Reports Link Karzai’s Brother to Afghanistan Heroin Trade,” New York Times, October 4, 2008, p. A1.

49. Author interview with two U.S. intelligence operatives, March 3, 2009.

50. Anthony Loyd, “Corruption, Bribes and Trafficking: A Cancer That Is Engulfing Afghanistan,” The Times (London), November 24, 2007, p. 55. On other accusations of corruption in the Afghan government, see, for example, Philip Smucker, “Afghan Opium Crop Booms: More People Doing Illicit Trade, Corruption Cited,” Washington Times, March 16, 2007, p. Ai 7.

51. Sakayi, “Hidden Hands for Damaging the Government,” Daily Afghanistan, February 25, 2007. It was reprinted in English by the BBC. See “Afghan Daily Says Government Under Attack from Within,” BBC Monitoring South Asia, February 26, 2007.

52. Author interview with Michelle Parker, August 15, 2007.

53. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Afghanistan: Opium Survey 2005 (Kabul and Vienna: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2005), p. 29.

54. Author interview with Doug Wankel, November 23, 2005; Afghanistan: Opium Survey 2005, p. iii.

55. Afghanistan: Opium Survey 2005, pp. iii-iv.

56. World Bank, Governance Matters 2008: Worldwide Governance Indicators, 1996–2007 (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2008).

57. Author interview with Deputy Minister of Justice Muhammad Qasim Hashimzai, June 26, 2004. Rama Mani, Ending Impunity and Building Justice in Afghanistan (Kabul: Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, 2003), p. 2.

58. Amrullah Saleh, Strategy of Insurgents and Terrorists in Afghanistan (Kabul, Afghanistan: National Directorate of Security, 2006), p. 15.

59. Asia Foundation, Afghanistan in 2006, pp. 14–16.

60. Stephen Weber et al., Afghan Public Opinion Amidst Rising Violence (College Park, MD: Program on International Policy Attitudes, University of Maryland, December 2006), p. 6.

61. U.S. Department of State, In Their Own Words, slides 11 and 12.

62. Presidential Office of National Security, National Threat Assessment 2004 (Kabul: Presidential Office of National Security, April 2004), p. 3.

63. Presidential Office of National Security, National Threat Assessment 2005 (Kabul: Presidential Office of National Security, April 2005), p. 5.

64. European Union and UNAMA, Discussion of Taliban and Insurgency (Kabul: European Union and UNAMA, April 30, 2007), p. 3.

65. Saleh, Strategy of Insurgents and Terrorists in Afghanistan, p.

66. Joint Paper by the Government of Afghanistan, UNAMA, CFC-A, ISAF, Canada, Netherlands, UK, and U.S. Governments, Assessment of Factors Contributing to Insecurity in Afghanistan (Kabul: Government of Afghanistan, 2006), p. 2.

67. Author interview with Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, September 14, 2007.

68. Author interview with Ambassador James Dobbins, May 7, 2008.

69. Loyd, “Corruption, Bribes and Trafficking,” p. 55.

70. Author interview with Ambassador Ronald Neumann, September 7, 2007.

71. Author interview with senior NDS officials, Kabul, Afghanistan, September 22, 2007. The purpose of the interview was to review NDS conclusions on support for the Taliban and other insurgent groups. We reviewed NDS conclusions based on detainee interviews and intelligence reports.

72. Somini Sengupta, “For Afghans, Voting May Be a Life-and-Death Decision,” New York Times, September 16, 2005, p. A10.

73. World Bank, Afghanistan: State Building, Sustaining Growth, and Reducing Poverty, 2004, p. 105.

74. European Union and UNAMA, Discussion of Taliban and Insurgency, p. 4.

Chapter Twelve

1. Author interview with Ambassador Ronald Neumann, April 16, 2008.

2. Author interview with Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry, October 27, 2007.

3. Author interview with Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, September 14, 2007.

4. Rowan Scarborough, “NATO Shrugs Off Afghan Violence,” Washington Times, March 7, 2006, p. A6.

5. General James L. Jones, USMC (Retired) and Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering, Co-Chairs, Afghanistan Study Group Report: Revitalizing Our Efforts, Rethinking Our Strategies (Washington, DC: The Center for the Study of the Presidency, January 2008), p. 7.

6. General Tommy Franks with Malcolm McConnell, American Soldier (New York: Regan Books, 2004), p. 277.

7. World Bank, Afghanistan At a Glance (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2007), p. 1.

8. International Monetary Fund, Islamic Republic of Afghanistan: Second Review Under the Three-Year Arrangement Under the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility—Staff Report (Washington, DC: International Monetary Fund, July 2007), p. 26.

9. World Bank, Afghanistan: Rehabilitating the Telecom Sector (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2006).

10. Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, Statement to the House Armed Services Committee, December 11, 2007.

11. Author interview with Abdul Salam Rocketi, September 4, 2006.

12. Pamela Constable, “Gates Visits Kabul, Cites Rise in Cross-Border Attacks,” Washington Post, January 17, 2007, p. A10.

13. The data come from Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. See, for example, Ed Johnson, “Gates Wants NATO to Reorganize Afghanistan Mission,” Bloomberg News, December 12, 2007.

14. Antonio Giustozzi, Koran, Kalashnikov, and Laptop: The Neo-Taliban Insurgency in Afghanistan (London: Hurst & Company, 2007), p. 102.

15. The Asia Foundation, Afghanistan in 2006: A Survey of the Afghan People (Kabul: Asia Foundation, 2006), p. 96. Data on regions are courtesy of the Asia Foundation.

16. Memorandum from the Rendon Group to J5 CENTCOM Strategic Effects, Polling Results—Afghanistan Omnibus May 2007, June 15, 2007.

17. ABC News/BBC/ARD Poll, Afghanistan—Where Things Stand (Kabul: ABC News/BBC/ARD Poll, December 2007), p. 12.

18. White House, President Bush Participates in Joint Press Availability with President Karzai of Afghanistan (Washington, DC: White House Office of the Press Secretary, August 6, 2007).

19. Afghanistan National Security Council, National Threat Assessment 2004 (Kabul: Afghanistan National Security Council, April 2004), p. 3.

20. Afghanistan National Security Council, National Threat Assessment 2005 (Kabul: Afghanistan National Security Council, September 2005), p. 4.

21. Afghanistan National Security Council, The National Security Policy: The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (Kabul: Afghanistan National Security Council), p. 10.

22. General Michael V. Hayden, The Current Situation in Iraq and Afghanistan (Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency, 2006), p. 2. The document, which was unclassified, was given to the Senate Armed Services Committee in November 2006.

23. Lieutenant General Michael D. Maples, The Current Situation in Iraq and Afghanistan (Washington, DC: Defense Intelligence Agency, 2006), p. 6. The document, which was unclassified, was given to the Senate Armed Services Committee in November 2006.

24. United Nations Department of Safety and Security, Half-Year Review of the Security Situation in Afghanistan (Kabul: United Nations, August 2007), p. 1.

25. Author interview with Ambassador Ronald Neumann, September 7, 2007.

26. Author interview with Lieutenant General David Barno, September 4, 2007.

27. Author interview with U.S. intelligence operative, March 8, 2009.

28. Jim Landers, “U.S. Should Double Afghan Aid in Elections’ Wake, Envoy Says,” Dallas Morning News, October 29, 2005.

29. See, for example, White House, Request for Fiscal Year 2006 Supplemental Appropriations (Washington, DC: White House, February 16, 2006), p. 63. The State Department was given $43 million for unanticipated requirements in Afghanistan, including $11 million for the subsidy cost of 100 percent debt reduction for Afghanistan. And $32 million went for power-sector projects. This included aid for the replacement of crucial emergency generating equipment, and critical early stage components of the Northeast Transmission Project, a $500 million effort, which was funded primarily by other bilateral and multilateral donors.

30. Author interview with Ambassador Ronald Neumann, September 7, 2007.

31. L. Paul Bremer III, My Year in Iraq: The Struggle to Build a Future of Hope (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006), p. 114.

32. Memo from Ambassador L. Paul Bremer to Secretary Rumsfeld, “Moving Faster: A Problem or Two,” July 7, 2003.

33. John Hamre, Memorandum for the Secretary of Defense and the Administrator, Coalition Provisional Authority, “Preliminary Observations Based on My Recent Visit to Baghdad,” June 2003.

34. Commander British Forces, Counterinsurgency in Helmand: Task Force Operational Design, January 2008, p. 5.

35. Andrew Feickert, U.S. and Coalition Military Operations in Afghanistan: Issues for Congress (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, June 9, 2006), pp. 4–5.

36. Warren Chin, “British Counter-Insurgency in Afghanistan,” Defense & Security Analysis, vol. 23, no. 2, June 2007, pp. 201–25; Andrew Feickert, U.S. and Coalition Military Operations in Afghanistan: Issues for Congress (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, December 11, 2006), p. 3.

37. Richard K. Kolb, “We Are Fighting Evil’: Canadians in Afghanistan,” VFW Magazine, March 2007, p. 26.

38. Adnan R. Khan, “I’m Here to Fight: Canadian Troops in Kandahar,” Maclean’s, April 5, 2006.

39. Author interviews with Canadian soldiers, Kandahar, Afghanistan, January 13–17, 2007.

40. United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, A Review of the Taliban and Fellow Travelers as a Movement: Concept Paper Updating PAG Joint Assessment of June 2006 (Kabul: United Nations, August 2007), p. 9.

41. Captain Edward Stewart, Op MEDUSA—A Summary (London, Ontario: The Royal Canadian Regiment, 2007). Captain Stewart was the forward public affairs officer for Operation Medusa, from the Task Force 306 Battle Group.

42. Board of Inquiry Minutes of Proceedings, Convened by LGen J. C. M. Gauthier, Commander CEFCOM, 22 September 2006, A-10A Friendly Fire Incident 4 September 2006, Panjwayi District, Afghanistan, p. 14.

43. Author interviews with Canadian soldiers, Kandahar, Afghanistan, January 13–17, 2007.

44. Captain Edward Stewart, Op MEDUSA—A Summary.

45. Board of Inquiry Minutes of Proceedings, p. 14; Captain Edward Stewart, Op MEDUSA—A Summary.

46. Author interviews with Canadian soldiers, Kandahar, Afghanistan, January 13–17, 2007.

47. Board of Inquiry Minutes of Proceedings, p. 14.

48. Alex Dobrota and Omar El Akkad, “Friendly Fire Claims Former Olympic Athlete,” Globe and Mail (Canada), September 5, 2006.

49. Board of Inquiry Minutes of Proceedings.

50. Captain Edward Stewart, Op MEDUSA—A Summary.

51. Captain Edward Stewart, Op MEDUSA—A Summary.

52. Patrick Dickson and Sandra Jontz, “Discovering What Makes a Hero,” Stars and Stripes, June 14, 2005.

53. Inspector General, United States Department of Defense, Review of Matters Related to the Death of Corporal Patrick Tillman, U.S. Army (Washington, DC: United States Department of Defense, March 2007).

54. United States House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Misleading Information from the Battlefield: The Tillman and Lynch Episodes (Washington, DC: United States House of Representatives, July 2008), pp. 5, 49. Also see Mary Tillman with Narda Zacchino, Boots on the Ground by Dusk: My Tribute to Pat Tillman (New York: Modern Times, 2008).

55. Author interviews with Canadian soldiers, Kandahar, Afghanistan, January 13–17, 2007.

56. Captain Edward Stewart, Op MEDUSA—A Summary.

57. Captain Edward Stewart, Op MEDUSA—A Summary.

58. Author interviews with Canadian soldiers, Kandahar, Afghanistan, January 13–17, 2007.

59. General James L. Jones, Allied Command Operations, slide 6.

60. Letter from Brad Adams, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia Division, to NATO Secretary General, Subject: Summit in Latvia, October 30, 2006.

61. Author interview with Lieutenant Colonel Simon Hetherington, commanding officer of the Canadian Forces Provincial Reconstruction Team in Kandahar, Kandahar, Afghanistan, January 16, 2007.

62. Michael Smith, “British Troops in Secret Truce with the Taliban,” The Times (London), October 1, 2006.

63. United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, UNAMA Assessment of the Effects of the Musa Qala Agreement (Kabul: United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, January 2007), p. 2.

64. Author interview with senior White House official, Washington, DC, November 28, 2007. Also see, for example, Karen DeYoung, “U.S. Notes Limited Progress in Afghan War,” Washington Post, November 25, 2007, p. A1.

65. Julian E. Barnes, “U.S. Military Says Iraq Is the Priority,” Los Angeles Times, December 12, 2007.

66. Author interviews with senior U.S. Marine Corps officials, Washington, DC, December 10, 2007.

67. Thom Shanker, “Gates Decides Against Marines’ Offer to Leave Iraq for Afghanistan,” New York Times, December 6, 2007, p. A16.