Anthony Summers - The Eleventh Day

36 “The mission”:Ron Suskind, The One Percent Doctrine , NY: Simon & Schuster, 2006, 21.

37 British commandos:The British contingent was from the Special Boat Service, or SBS, similar to the better known SAS—Special Air Service—but drawn largely from the ranks of the Royal Marines. Though specializing in amphibious operations, the unit also operates overland. British and American special units have long collaborated. As for the overall number of operatives initially sent into Afghanistan, the authors have used the figure given by the commander of the Delta Force unit on the ground. Perhaps referring to a total at a somewhat later stage of the operation, Bob Woodward referred in his book Bush at War to a larger figure: “about 110 CIA officers and 316 Special Forces personnel” (SBS: “The Special Boat Service,” www.hmforces.co.uk, “British Special Forces Member Killed in Afghanistan,” Guardian [U.K.], 7/2/10, Alastair Finlan, “The [Arrested] Development of UK Special Forces and the Global War on Terror,” Review of International Studies , Vol. 35, 2009; overall number: Dalton Fury, Kill bin Laden , NY: St. Martin’s, 2008, xix, Woodward, Bush at War , 314).

38 “This is why”:Schroen, 33;

39 “Tell them”:Gary Berntsen & Ralph Pezzullo, Jawbreaker , NY: Three Rivers, 2005, 289.

40 Dalton Fury:“Dalton Fury” is the pen name the major used as author of a 2008 book on the operation against bin Laden. While protecting his identity, the media have accepted his authenticity (Fury, 200; major media: e.g., 60 Minutes , CBS, 10/5/08);

41 “A cloudy”:Fury, xx;

42 $100 bills/“Money”:Schroen, 29,38, 88, 93–;

43 duffel bags:Fury, 105;

44 defeat:Tommy Franks with Malcolm McConnell, American Soldier , NY: Regan, 2004, 322;

45 “God has”:ed. Lawrence, 104;

46 “great, long-term”:Bergen, OBL I Know , 316;

47 “safe and sound”:ibid., 322;

48 poor intelligence:Berntsen & Pezzullo, 156, 108;

49 Atef:Hamid Mir, “How Osama Has Survived,” www.rediff.com, 9/11/07, bin Ladens & Sasson, 271;

50 OBL Jalalabad: Christian Science Monitor , 3/4/02, Berntsen & Pezzullo, 239, Sunday Times (London), 1/15/09, John Miller & Michael Stone with Chris Mitchell, The Cell , NY: Hyperion, 2002, 319, Corbin, 262–;

51 “Black Widow”: Newsweek , 12/10/01, BBC News, 9/27/08;

52 Towr Ghar:Fury, 107, “The Caves & Graves of Tora Bora,” www.legionmagazine.com, 9/1/03;

53 “purpose-built”: The Independent (U.K.), 11/27/01 & see “The Lair of Bin Laden,” www.edwardjepstein.com;

54 no electricity/water:bin Ladens & Sasson, 185–;

55 schoolhouse:Berntsen & Pezzullo, 253, Fury, 108;

56 Afghan generals:e.g., Berntsen & Pezzullo, 272, 275, 280–, Fury, 114–, 124, 129–, 257;

57 negotiating:Berntsen & Pezzullo, 289–, NYT , 9/11/05, Fury, 216–, 234, 244;

58 OBL largesse/sons:Fury, 209, 108;

59 “flawed”:Fury, 99, Berntsen & Pezzullo, 213–;

60 reluctance:Berntsen & Pezzullo, 277–, 290, 295, 305–, 309, 314, “In the Footsteps of Bin Laden,” CNN, 8/23/06;

61 airpower:e.g., Berntsen & Pezzullo, 270, 274–, Fury, 170–, 192;

62 Marine:Berntsen & Pezzullo, 34–, 283–;

63 “tall”:ibid., 291;

64 6′4″:“Most Wanted Terrorists,” www.fbi.gov;

65 BLU-82:description at www.globalsecurity.org, Berntsen & Pezzullo, 291, Fury, 127;

66 Used on plains:Berntsen & Pezzullo, 137–;

67 delivered:ibid., 295–, Fury, 149–;

68 BLU-82:described at www.fas.org, Michael O’Hanlon, “A Flawed Masterpiece,” Foreign Affairs , 3/02;

69 “too hot”/“hideous”:“Tora Bora Revisited: How We Failed to Get Bin Laden and Why It Matters Today,” Report, U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2009, 7;

70 movement orders:Fury, 230.

71 “victory or death”/“Father”:According to Delta Force leader Fury, bin Laden was overheard saying in desperation, “arm your women and children against the infidel!” His lead bodyguard Abu Jandal has recalled that “all bin Laden’s wives knew how to handle weapons. They had taken a military course while al Qaeda was in the Sudan.” It seems unlikely, though, that the terrorist leader would have expected young children to take part in the battle (Fury, 233, Nasser al-Bahri [Abu Jandal] with Georges Malbrunot, Dans l’Ombre de Ben Laden , Neuilly-sur-Seine, France: Michel Lafon, 2010, 199).

72 Dec. 13/listened to a voice:The CIA’s Gary Berntsen dated this last intercept as having occurred not on December 13 but the 15th. Fury suggested that bin Laden was overheard once more, a day or so later. What he said, Fury wrote, came over as “more of a sermon than issuing orders” (Fury, 233–, 236–, Berntsen & Pezzullo, 307).

73 devastation:Fury, 270, 272, Berntsen & Pezzullo, 296;

74 not a trace/​“punched”/​rubble/​Exhumations:Fury, 286, 282, Newsweek , 10/31/08;

75 “real war”:Fury, 293;

76 “We need”:Berntsen & Pezzullo, 290;

77 Dailey:Berntsen & Pezzullo, e.g., 307, 276;

78 “We have not said”:DOD press conference, 11/8/01, www.defense.gov, & see Franks with McConnell, 388;

79 skirted discussion:ibid.

80 As recently as 2009:In testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee, and on the PBS program Frontline , Franks suggested that the drive to “get into Tora Bora” came from the Afghan commanders. A decision was made, he said, to support the Afghan operation and to “work with the Pakistanis along the Pakistani border.” He declared himself “satisfied with the decision process.” CIA’s Gary Berntsen has responded by writing that Franks was “either badly misinformed or blinded by the fog of war.” Berntsen had made it clear in his reports, he said, that the Afghans were less than keen to attack Tora Bora. General Franks, meanwhile, has also said he had concerns as to the amount of time it would have taken to get U.S. troops into the mountains. He has pointed out, too, most recently in 2009, that relying principally on Afghan ground forces in the field had worked in overthrowing the Taliban (“get into”/“work with”: int. Tommy Franks for Frontline , www.pbs.org; “satisfied”: Testimony of Tommy Franks, U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, 7/31/02, www.access.gpo.gov; Berntsen: Berntsen & Pezzullo, 290–; concerns: New Republic , 12/22/09).

81 “conflicting”: New Republic , 12/22/09 & see NYT , 10/19/04, MFR 04021460, 4/9/04. General Michael DeLong, who had been Franks’s deputy at CentCom, wrote in his September 2004 memoir that bin Laden “was definitely there when we hit the caves.” Then, after Franks had expressed doubt in an October 19 article, he abruptly reversed himself. “Most people fail to realize,” DeLong wrote in a November 1 article in The Wall Street Journal , “that it is quite possible that bin Laden was never in Tora Bora to begin with.” There was a report the same month—citing what Taliban sources had purportedly said at the time—that bin Laden had been “nowhere near Tora Bora” but had sent a decoy there to deceive U.S. intelligence. If the Taliban did make such a claim, there is no good reason to credit it. If bin Laden was indeed at Tora Bora, the claim was as likely disinformation designed to take pressure off. (For what it is worth, bin Laden himself in a 2003 audiotape spoke of the Tora Bora battle as though he was present.) The intelligence cited by Berntsen and Fury as to bin Laden having been at Tora Bora, on the other hand—information from human sources coupled with voice recognition of intercepted radio conversations—remains persuasive (“was definitely”: U.S. Senate, Tora Bora Revisited , 8; “Most people”: WSJ , 11/1/04 & see MFR 04021460 4/9/04, CF; “nowhere near”: CounterPunch , 11/1/04—citing Kabir Mohabbat; bin Laden: ed. Lawrence, 18–).