7

A NEW KIND OF WAR

SOUDA BAY, CRETE
SEPTEMBER 11, 2001

The narrow road from the air base into Hania circled Souda Bay, descending through olive groves and terraced vineyards. We entered a village of whitewashed houses with orange tile roofs.

I stretched my legs in my seat. Beside me in the Navy sedan, Cathy was dozing; jet lag was an occupational hazard. We’d be in Pakistan tomorrow, but for now I was looking forward to enjoying this rest stop in the Aegean sun, treating the flight crew to a seafood dinner, and storing up some sleep.

I had used most of the ten-hour flight from Andrews Air Force Base in Washington to Greece to plow through the paperwork my executive officer, Navy Captain Van Mauney, had culled since leaving Tampa the previous day.

There had been one disturbing intelligence report. General Ahmad Shah Massoud, leader of the Afghan Northern Alliance anti-Taliban opposition, was dead—fatally wounded at his headquarters near the border with Uzbekistan when two Arab assassins posing as journalists exploded a suicide bomb hidden in their video camera. This had the signature of an al Qaeda operation. I wasn’t surprised. Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar had a lot to gain by weakening the Northern Alliance.

I only wished that the news of the assassination had reached me in Washington before my meeting on September 10 with General Mahmoud Ahmed of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate. Our conversation had been that of one professional officer to another—a “frank and open” discussion, as the diplomats say. Polite, in other words, but bare-knuckled. Pakistan needed parts for their American-made F-16 fighter-bombers, C-130 transports, and P-3 naval reconnaissance planes. We needed solid intelligence on al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden—information we could use to build targets. With Secretary Rumsfeld’s blessing, and DCI George Tenet’s encouragement, I had informed General Mahmoud that cooperation was a two-way street. He got the message, and promised to brief President Musharraf on the content of our meeting.

Now, having landed in Crete, Cathy and I unpacked overnight bags in our suite at the Kydon Hotel, overlooking the medieval Venetian port, and then headed to the market across the street to buy the “fixings”—as they say in Midland—for an afternoon snack.

Fish vendors chanted their catches under the echoing concrete dome as we strolled into the shop of our friend Spiros Marsellos. He grinned broadly as he recognized us.

“Kalo’ste,” he proclaimed. “Welcome back to Crete.”

Spiros knew what we’d come for: the best collection of olives in Greece. Dipping into big plastic barrels, he offered us samples of glistening purple-black Kalamata olives, and the larger green Volos variety. We left his shop with a plastic sack heavy with quarter-liter containers. Next we bought a wedge of German Ementhaler cheese and a dark crusty loaf of local mavro peasant bread. What we didn’t eat for lunch we’d share with the crew on the next day’s flight.

I had a shower, shared the picnic with Cathy, and stretched out for a nap. It wasn’t hard to fall asleep.

 

THE POUNDING ON THE HOTEL-ROOM DOOR BROUGHT ME WIDE awake in less than a second. Sitting up, I instinctively checked my watch. Just after 4:00 P.M. Something was wrong; our wake-up wasn’t scheduled until five.

“General Franks…” It was Van Mauney.

I opened the door.

“Sir,” he said, his face pale. “You’d better check the TV. An airplane just crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center in New York.”

I pulled on my clothes as Cathy found the remote and turned on the television. “Osama bin Laden,” I said, striding out the door. “I’m going to the COMM room.”

Our communications center down the hall had several civilian phone lines and a large television tuned to CNN International. The room was filled with my staff. We watched silently as the channel flashed videotape replays of the burning skyscraper. The commentary was understandably chaotic, and often contradictory; it was difficult to distinguish live images from tape. But then the wide screen snapped into a telephoto shot of a second jet slamming into the southern tower.

As I watched the flames and roiling black smoke, a colorful graphic appeared on the bottom of the screen: “America Under Attack.”

“Osama bin Laden,” I said. Son of a bitch!

My fists clenched, but then the habits of a combat soldier returned. I was filled with cold rage, but externally calm. Now I understood the reason for Massoud’s assassination. Having anticipated American retaliation in Afghanistan, bin Laden had taken preemptive action to cripple the Northern Alliance.

Slowly, I accepted the new reality: this terrorist, who had already killed hundreds of American diplomats, service members, and innocent foreign civilians, had just executed his most successful attack against my country, right on American soil. An unexpected insight flashed across my mind: Bin Laden is no coward. He’s a deadly adversary, a worthy, bold commander of dedicated and capable forces.

The phone line to CENTCOM headquarters in Tampa rang. It was Rifle DeLong. We could talk on this nonsecure line while my communications people scrambled to set up an encrypted link.

“General,” Mike said, “a SITREP. Washington reports that the aircraft were both hijacked, one from Logan Airport in Boston.”

“I understand, Rifle,” I said. “Stand up our Crisis Action Team (CAT) if you haven’t done so already. Establish contact with the Joint Staff CAT in the Pentagon. Contact our embassies and the senior U.S. military officers in each of the AOR countries….”

After my years as a commander—and fourteen months as CINC—these initial orders were almost automatic. But I was fighting complex emotions and ricocheting thoughts. A highly organized enemy had delivered a fierce attack on America. New York was the cultural, economic, and financial heart of our nation. And a chunk of the city was burning.

By now President George Bush was on the screen speaking from a school in Florida, where he had been showcasing his education policy. The nation, he said, had suffered an “apparent terrorist attack.”

As Rifle and I spoke, CNN broadcast the collapse of the southern tower of the World Trade Center. I was hypnotized by the mushroom of smoke, debris, and dust. “All those people,” I said softly.

“Another item, Sir,” announced Rifle, the unflappable Marine. “We just got word that a Predator flying in the OSW zone has been shot down by the Iraqis.”

“Roger,” I acknowledged, slipping that fact into its proper mental slot. “Prepare a kinetic response option.” No matter what was happening in New York, Saddam Hussein and his military had to understand that they would not be permitted to take advantage of the situation.

I then got a message from Major General Sy Johnson, who commanded our military liaison mission in Saudi Arabia. General Ali bin Muhayya, Chief of the Saudi Arabia General Staff, had just cancelled a visit I had scheduled with him next week during my return leg from Pakistan. Another mental note: Osama bin Laden was a Saudi. The Royal Family’s attitude toward their homegrown terrorists had vacillated for years between toleration and extermination. Now they were openly apprehensive about publicly associating with the American military.

I called Mike DeLong again with another order. “Rifle, contact the U.S. Special Operations Command and the 6th Air Mobility Wing at MacDill immediately. Have them go to Force Protection Level Delta.” If multiple terrorist cells were operating on this Tuesday, CENTCOM headquarters and MacDill Air Force Base would be obvious targets, and I wanted our people and facilities protected.

A few minutes later, Rifle telephoned again. “A third aircraft, Sir. It just struck the Pentagon. A wide-body full of fuel, like the other ones. It’s on the west side, and there’s lots of damage.”

How many more? I thought.

Even as Rifle spoke, CNN displayed the familiar gray façade of the Pentagon boiling with dark smoke and orange flame.

“The National Military Command Center in the Pentagon is still manned,” Rifle announced. “But communications are difficult.”

“Roger,” I acknowledged, my thoughts jumping ahead.

This much I knew already: America would respond militarily. That response would be aimed at al Qaeda. And it would be launched in Afghanistan. CENTCOM’s commander and senior officers would have no time to grieve. This was not just another terrorist outrage: These attacks were an obvious act of war. And the first battles of that war would be fought in my area of responsibility.

“Rifle, find out as soon as possible the status of our TLAM shooters. How many missiles will be available to be launched into Afghanistan in twenty-four hours? How many in forty-eight hours?”

“Aye, aye, Sir,” Mike said. “Incidentally, the FAA has closed all U.S. airspace, grounded every flight. And Secretary Rumsfeld has ordered Threat Con Delta for all deployed military forces.”

I acknowledged the information. Delta was ordered only when attack was imminent—or had already occurred.

The television coverage continued in an uninterrupted nightmare. A section of the Pentagon roof collapsed. Moments later came jittery telephoto shots of smoke rising from a green pasture southeast of Pittsburgh, where a fourth hijacked airliner, United Airlines Flight 93, had slammed into the earth, killing all on board.

I could no longer work on this phone. I needed secure satellite voice and data links. My communicators said it would take about an hour to lead the fiber-optic cables from the hotel roof, where they had set up the satellite antennas, down the outside of the building to the Comm room.

“Son of a bitch,” I said. “I’ll work on the roof.”

I sat hunched in a plastic chair on the gritty concrete roof of the Kydon Hotel speaking over an encrypted satellite link to the CENTCOM staff in Florida. Referring to notes, I directed Gene Renuart to begin strike targeting for Afghanistan. We had struggled—with incomplete intelligence—to identify al Qaeda training camps, barracks, command-and-control facilities, communications centers, and support complexes. And we had built target sets for key Taliban installations, air defense sites, and early warning radars. The time had come when that effort would pay off.

Next, I directed the staff to coordinate with Vice Admiral Willie Moore to ensure that our ships in the region canceled all port calls and immediately put to sea. The image of the USS Cole smoldering in Aden harbor still haunted me.

With the afternoon sun cooling and the shadows stretching down from the nearby hills, I crossed the immediate-action tasks off my list one by one. As I worked beside the satellite antennas, Van Mauney and my aide, Marine Lt. Colonel Jeff Haynes, sat nearby, managing the telephones, receiving and delivering information and orders. After the initial shock of the television images, everyone had assumed an attitude of cool, dedicated professionalism. I dictated immediate instructions to every senior American military representative in the region to acknowledge receipt of the order to move to Threat Con Delta. Al Qaeda might still be planning to strike more American targets—especially isolated military units—and I didn’t want our commanders caught off guard in the event they hadn’t yet received the order from the Pentagon.

As dusk fell on the roof, I heard a strange sound, more like an electronic chime than anything animate. It was the sunset call of the owls of Athena, the tiny birds with huge eyes whose image first appeared on Greek coins 2500 years ago. Those little owls had sent their haunting call across Aegean hills during centuries of peace and war. Now they announced the arrival of nightfall, on the first day of a war that might well last for decades.

I sat back in the creaking plastic chair and eased my shoulders. The calf muscle of my right leg was twitching and stiffening up, a reminder of a hot December night in Binh Phuoc some thirty-four years earlier.

“Rifle,” I told my deputy, “I’m planning to head back to Tampa as soon as I can.”

“U.S. airspace is closed, Sir,” he answered.

My aircraft crew confirmed this. It would be impossible to file a flight plan. I considered continuing the trip to meet President Musharraf in Pakistan. If ever there was a time for some arm-twisting, it was now. Musharraf had spoken of international help in dealing with the Taliban when we’d met in January. Well, there would be plenty of American help forthcoming if he joined us in this fight. And with his corner of the world now in the crosshairs of the American military, he would have to declare what side he was on pretty damn fast.

But I also wanted to get back to Tampa. So I told Rifle to let Hugh Shelton know that I would wait six hours before deciding which direction to fly.

Next, I had a conference call with Rifle and Gene Renuart. “Okay,” I said. “Here’s what we’ve got. Only al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden have the capability to launch an operation of this magnitude. Gene, I want you and Jeff Kimmons to concentrate on fine-tuning the target sets in Afghanistan.” I thought a moment. “What’s the latest casualty estimate?”

“The media is talking anywhere from six to ten thousand dead in New York alone,” Rifle DeLong answered, keeping emotion from his voice. “They’re revising it down, but it’s going to be bad.”

“Several hundred missing at the Pentagon, Sir,” Gene added. “Somewhere around eighty confirmed dead so far.”

“Let’s build the target sets based on five assumptions,” I said. “First, the attack on America was delivered by al Qaeda operating out of Afghanistan. Second, the people who planned and ordered the strike are located in Afghanistan. Third, there will be a national decision to strike. Fourth, the reason for our action will be legally undisputed, which means we will build a coalition of cooperative nations. And fifth, we will receive either acquiescence or cooperation from all the regional leaders to hit Afghanistan.”

“Roger that, Sir,” Gene added.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s get to work.”

Van Mauney brought me the classified status report on Tomahawk missiles I’d requested earlier. We would have 80 TLAMs in the shoot baskets in the Arabian Sea within twenty-four hours, and up to 200 within forty-eight hours. As I read the report, submerged Los Angeles–class attack submarines and Burke Class destroyers were speeding toward the Straits of Hormuz at flank speed.

It was dark now. The breeze had stopped completely. Athena’s owls peeped and chirped, and I worked through the final items on my immediate action list.

Those practical steps had helped me keep my thoughts in line. But it had not been easy. My mind was bouncing back and forth at high speed. What was our exact troop strength in the region? Their readiness status? How many operational groups could al Qaeda put in the field? Had I done enough to protect our forces? Had any of my friends been killed in the Pentagon?

I had no doubt that we were going to war. And it would be a war like none ever fought. There would be a national decision to put troops on the ground, and America now deployed military technology that hadn’t even been imagined when I’d been with the 1st Cavalry troops in Desert Storm, just a decade before. The wish lists of the Louisiana Maneuvers Task Force were now operational hardware. Weapons would not be a problem. But was I up to the challenge of being the senior combatant commander in this new kind of war?

Sitting back in the hard plastic chair on the hotel roof, I reflected on that talk I’d given to the CENTCOM intelligence staff the previous Friday. America was in deep shock, reeling from the images of airliners smashing into buildings and those proud towers collapsing like flaming tinsel. Would my fellow citizens now be persuaded to abandon their hard-won individual freedoms to earn a bit more security in a clearly insecure world?

As I stood up, another thought struck me. Today is like Pearl Harbor. The world was one way before today, and will never be that way again. We stand at a crease in history.

 

LATER THAT EVENING, WITH EXHAUSTION SETTING IN AND nothing left to do but wait for clearance to fly, Cathy and I took the aircrew to dinner; the members of our traveling staff stayed behind, chained to their phones and computers. We walked through the quiet waterfront to the lamp-lit, sandstone-block courtyard of the Mylos Taverna. As we filed to our corner table, the normally effusive chatter of the Greek patrons dropped to a whisper. I scanned the nearby tables; faces everywhere were drawn with sadness. Yiannis, our usually smiling waiter, approached silently and shook my hand as if at a funeral.

“Everyone is so sorry, General,” the man said.

 

WELL AFTER MIDNIGHT, RIFLE DELONG REPORTED ON THE situation in the Pentagon. “Secretary Rumsfeld stayed in the building and helped evacuate some of the casualties,” he said. “The crisis plan calls for DepSecDef to be moved to an alternate command facility, Site R, along with key members of the national leadership. I believe they’re in place now.” Rumsfeld still at the Pentagon, Paul Wolfowitz at Site R, I thought.

I closed my eyes and nodded. Moving to Site R was part of America’s plan to respond to impending nuclear attack. What the hell have we come to?

As the night passed, Rifle updated me on the readiness of our forces, the locations of our aircraft carrier battle groups, and the “Global Power” timelines for missions by B-2 Stealth bombers flying from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri.

I had received an intelligence alert that as many as thirty additional terrorist strikes were possible worldwide. But there had been no more attacks…so far. Maybe this was because we’d buttoned up, sealing our vulnerabilities by going to Threat Con Delta.

By now, CNN was running tape of President Bush flying back to Andrews and landing in Marine One on the White House lawn. The immediate crisis was over: The President was back in the Oval Office, the Secretary of Defense was in the wounded Pentagon. America was putting on her “game face.” I was proud of my country.

 

THE NEXT MORNING, THE FLIGHT CREW RECEIVED GREEK AIR traffic control permission to take off from Crete and head west. We didn’t have clearance to enter U.S. airspace, but I was confident it would come.

Ninety minutes later, as we crossed the Western Mediterranean, I spoke by secure phone to Hugh Shelton.

“Tom,” he said. “Everybody in Washington, from the President on down, is leaning forward on this.”

“We’re looking at serious operations against al Qaeda and Afghanistan?” I asked.

“Count on it, Tom.”

By the time we were over Spain, the Pentagon had cleared Spar 06 all the way to Tampa. I worked steadily at my desk, wargaming with my onboard staff and the senior leadership at CENTCOM. I was interrupted by several phone calls. The first was from His Majesty King Abdullah of Jordan, a close ally and a personal friend. “You can depend on Jordan to stand by America,” he said.

“That means a lot right now, Sir.”

Another call was from Sheik Salman bin Hamid al Khalifa, the Crown Prince of Bahrain and commander of his nation’s military. “Bahrain is with you,” he said. Our engagement efforts over the previous fourteen months were obviously paying off. These Gulf States would stand by America in the period ahead.

I was still running on coffee and adrenaline, but I knew I’d need some sleep soon. As I sat back stretching in my seat, Cathy entered the compartment, returning from the galley with a Diet Coke. While there she’d spoken to one of the communications NCOs; almost in passing, he mentioned that we had the sky to ourselves. “All the radio frequencies are silent. There’s no traffic over the Atlantic.”

The cumulative shock of the past sixteen hours had suddenly struck Cathy hard, turning that brief comment into the stark image of a world viciously swept clear of peaceful commerce. She, too, had felt the crease in history.

 

WE LANDED AT MACDILL JUST AFTER 1500 HOURS ON Wednesday, September 12. I’d had a total of four hours of sleep in the past thirty, but there were many long days—and nights— ahead.

As we left the plane, I spoke to Jeff Haynes. “Please make sure the enlisted aides get that bed into my office. I’m going to be bunking at the headquarters for a while.”

Cathy watched silently as I spoke. Our marriage had lasted through almost thirty-three years and two wars. This would be our third. She knew my work habits well and never complained.

We hugged. “Make sure to eat and get some sleep when you can,” she said.

“You bet, Dear.” I tried to sound convincing. She knew better.

I was still in sport clothes from the plane trip. On the short drive to CENTCOM headquarters, though, I noticed Air Force security police wearing desert camouflage uniforms, Kevlar vests, and helmets— and armed with M-4 automatic carbines and handguns.

A squad of airmen near the largest hangar piled green sandbags in a chest-high horseshoe checkpoint. As we passed, I saw that their black M-60 machine gun was loaded with a belt of ammunition. Sandbags and machine guns, a hint of mildew in the humid breeze: The uniforms and helmets were different, but the weapons were the same. This could have been a flight line in Vietnam during the Tet Offensive.

This time, though, the war had been brought to American soil.

 

FOR THE CENTCOM STAFF AND ME, THE TEN DAYS AND NIGHTS between Tuesday, September 11, and Friday, September 21, 2001, were a time of intense focus—and fatigue, and caffeine overload. Some days seemed never to end; some nights passed in a fast-forward blur. In a way this was like combat, but without the noise, the sense of imminent danger, or that strange after-contact elation.

But I do have very vivid recollections of the time.

At headquarters that first afternoon, I changed into DCUs and met first with Rifle DeLong and my Chief of Staff, Army Colonel Michael Hayes. Michael was a solid professional, a man I’d known since 1981 in Germany. I couldn’t ask for better people beside me than Rifle and Michael Hayes… and I knew it.

Scanning a stack of classified documents that had been laid out on my desk in order of urgency, I noted that the Crisis Action Team had been going around the clock since the crisis began. “The whole staff is going to be working long hours,” I said. “I want to make sure people don’t burn out. This isn’t just another passing crisis. We’re in this for the long haul.”

Michael made a quick note. “Yes, Sir. Understood.”

“Will you want to see the directors this afternoon?” Rifle asked.

“Give me ten minutes,” I said, looking at the messages on my blotter.

As they left, I looked at the easel to the right of my desk, a tactical map of Afghanistan. The map of Iraq, where CENTCOM was engaging Saddam Hussein’s air defenses in the no-fly zones, occupied another easel on the left side of the desk.

Taking a swig of hot coffee, I picked up the Red Switch telephone behind my desk; with its Top Secret encryption and point-to-point programming capability, it would be an important link to the Pentagon and the White House in the coming weeks. I touched a single button on the phone, and Hugh Shelton answered immediately.

“The President is determined to act, Tom,” Hugh said. “And Secretary Rumsfeld wants military options for Afghanistan.”

“When does he want them?”

“People in the White House and the Building are moving ahead at full bore. How soon can you provide a full range of operational concepts?”

A full range. No more token retaliation. No more million-dollar TLAMs into empty tents. No more pinpricks.

I paused before answering. All the unified combatant commands were required to “build” and maintain complex plans to meet a wide variety of contingencies. U.S. Pacific Command for example, had several detailed OPLANs on the shelf to respond to aggression from North Korea. Scores of analogous plans existed in Southern Command and European Command.

And in CENTCOM we had more than a dozen contingency blueprints, laying out precise plans for hostage situations, evacuating embassies, opening the Strait of Hormuz, and intervening should the Iraqis cross certain “Red Lines.” We had al Qaeda and Taliban target sets in Afghanistan and plans to strike those targets with TLAMs and manned bombers.

But CENTCOM had not developed a plan for conventional ground operations in Afghanistan. Nor had diplomatic arrangements for basing, staging, overflight and access been made with Afghanistan’s neighbors. There simply had been no stomach in Washington for sustained face-to-face combat in this remote, primitive, landlocked country halfway around the world—no stomach since at least 1993.

From Hugh Shelton’s tone, it was clear that this was about to change. America’s military was going to war in a country where twenty-some years earlier the Soviet Union had invested 620,000 men over the course of eleven years, at a cost of more than 15,000 killed and almost 55,000 wounded.

I knew Don Rumsfeld would want a far different type of operation. In the previous eight months, I had learned a great deal about Rumsfeld’s mind. He might just be a good Secretary of War. There were so many problems inherent in waging war in remote, landlocked, mountainous Afghanistan that any workable plan would have to transcend conventional thinking. Rumsfeld had little time for what he saw as stale solutions to challenging new problems. He liked to brainstorm. And he responded well to imaginative concepts. For years I had worked on innovation and building tactical flexibility. Now it was time to see if those efforts would pay off.

It helped to know that the President was determined to act. America was through with half measures and pinpricks; we were at war.

“Hugh, we will have conceptual options by tomorrow. My assumption is that America will do nothing unless we intend to do something. You will not receive from me a wrist-slap plan that launches jets and missiles and hopes for a good outcome.”

“Understand and agree, Tom.”

“It’ll take a week to ten days for a complete proposed course of action,” I continued. “In the meantime, we should begin ship, aircraft, and troop staging to set conditions to, One: destroy al Qaeda in Afghanistan; and Two: remove the Taliban regime. And those should be the key mission tasks.”

“Concur,” Hugh said. “Time is critical.”

We were both thinking about the intelligence warnings of potential new terrorist attacks. It might be a matter of striking back before we were hit again. Time was indeed crucial.

I replaced the red phone in its cradle and thought for a moment, about the new kind of threat America was facing, and new kind of war we were about to wage.

Commanders and scholars have always spoken of the art of waging war. Yet any war involves confronting certain basic hard, cold facts—the science of war. Gaining the fullest possible understanding of the enemy’s strengths, capabilities, and intentions. Giving adequate consideration to the terrain on which combat will take place. Evaluating transportation requirements, and the support of forces in adequate numbers—in this case halfway around the world. Choosing the correct mix of units to fulfill the mission—the aspect of military planning known as “correlation of forces,” which entails comparing friendly and enemy weapons and capabilities. All these elements lend themselves to modeling, to the strict judgments of empirical analysis.

All this science would have to be explained to Don Rumsfeld, the National Security team, and ultimately to George W. Bush. And then we would discuss the art of war—the value of maneuver speed, mass of force, economy of effort, risk, timing, endstate… and exit strategy.

The plan I would present would include both art and science. We would not repeat the mistakes of the Soviets. We would destroy the al Qaeda network in Afghanistan. And we would remove the Taliban from power. As my dad would have said, “Lots of work to do…and not long to do it.”

 

LATE ON THE AFTERNOON OF SEPTEMBER 12, CENTCOM’S SENIOR staff, including the heads of the directorates, filed into my office. There was none of the usual premeeting banter.

As I looked into their faces, I was grateful for the quality of the team that sat with me that September afternoon.

DeLong was a brilliant, complete officer, tempered in combat as a young man flying Marine helicopters during heavy fighting in Vietnam; later he assisted in the chaotic evacuation of Saigon. Like most of my senior officers, he had commanded warfighting units. “Rifle” was a well-earned nickname.

Gene Renuart, J-3 Director for Operations, had earned his commission through Officer Training School and later commanded a squadron of A-10 Warthog ground-attack jets in the Gulf War. In the 1990s he became the commanding general of Joint Task Force Southwest Asia, which patrolled the Southern No-Fly Zone in Iraq. The assignment gave him valuable experience—not only with airpower but also with multinational coalitions, which would be an asset in the months ahead.

My J-4 Director for Logistics was Army Major General Denny Jackson. If we launched a sustained effort in the remote regions of Southwest Asia, the challenge of supplying tens of thousands of tons of materiel, jet fuel, munitions, food, tents, field hospitals, generators—and also meeting the Humanitarian Assistance (HA) needs of millions of refugees—would be his responsibility. Denny was an imaginative, nimble logistician, a fan of private-sector innovations. In fact, he’d already borrowed techniques from Amazon.com’s CEO Jeff Bezos to build a cutting-edge, computerized distribution system for our forces deployed in the region.

The J-2 Director for Intelligence, Army Brigadier General Jeff Kimmons, was an expert in strategic and battlefield reconnaissance. He had a Special Operations background, which I knew would prove invaluable in the weeks ahead. And he was among the military’s most experienced hands-on operators of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), including the Predator and the new Air Force long-range jet, the Global Hawk. Jeff was skilled at managing human intelligence sources, which helped explain his frustration with the nonspecific and dated intelligence reports we had received on al Qaeda.

Our J-5 Director for Political-Military Affairs was Navy Rear Admiral Jay “Rabbit” Campbell, a savvy professional whose negotiating skills would prove critical in working with the State Department and our regional ambassadors in arranging required basing, staging, and overflight in the countries bordering Afghanistan.

My new senior CIA officer, Pat Hailey, was one of several reliable intelligence links CENTCOM had developed to other U.S. government agencies, allies, and international organizations. During the chaos surrounding a catastrophe, a certain amount of wheel-spinning and flailing inevitably occurs. And in this crisis, the dust was literally still settling. In such a situation, the organization with extensive connections, both vertically and horizontally, could exert unusual leverage. Pat Hailey had those connections, and I intended to use them.

My link to the State Department was my Political Adviser or POLAD, Ambassador Marty Cheshes. A seasoned Foreign Service officer with experience in East Africa and the Middle East, Marty sat squarely with me in the leadership circle. I knew I’d be drawing heavily on him as we prepared to go to war. Although I had made eleven trips to the region and had visited with many key leaders, we still had a lot of work ahead to establish working alliances with the countries surrounding landlocked Afghanistan.

“I’ve just been on the phone with General Shelton,” I told my team. “President Bush has ordered the Secretary to prepare a robust response to yesterday’s attacks.” The faces surrounding me were somber, but focused and determined.

I had commanded Army units from howitzer battery up through field-army; now I was commanding a massive multiservice organization. I’d also worked for enough thoughtful and effective leaders to learn that it’s essential in the early stages of a crisis for the person in charge to make his vision clear. If you know what the boss wants, you work more efficiently.

“Obviously, America will retaliate,” I said, and then paused to let that message take hold. “The question is how and when. I told Hugh Shelton that it’s better to do nothing if we don’t intend to respond forcefully. The United States has suffered the worst attack since World War II. We’re way beyond the point of token reprisal. I’m confident that this President intends to fight terrorism in a serious way. I expect to destroy al Qaeda in Afghanistan, and remove the Taliban from power. They coexist ideologically and physically.”

I went to the map. “So I’m assuming that CENTCOM will be required to conduct major combat operations in Afghanistan, staging and basing in Central and Southwest Asia. The Secretary wants to know how we intend to conduct the operation. We have a complicated plan to build. But we don’t have a lot of time. I told Hugh Shelton I’d deliver a complete recommendation in a week to ten days.”

As the meeting ended, I was confident that these good men all understood the task we faced. They also knew the meaning of hard work—and how much it would be needed in the days and nights ahead.

“You’re all professionals,” I said. “I’m glad each of you is on this team.”

 

IT WAS LATE NIGHT, MAYBE EARLY MORNING. I’D GRABBED A NAP earlier and eaten a cold Whopper from Burger King. Now I was on my second pot of coffee.

When several of the directors returned to my office to continue our discussion, they looked as tired as I felt. I directed their gaze toward the map of Afghanistan, swinging an unlit cigar in an oval to indicate the borders.

“No doubt about it, guys—this son of a bitch is definitely landlocked. We can’t make use of the Marines’ amphibious capabilities. Whatever the final shape of the operation, it’ll depend on airlift. Can we count on overflight rights for the duration? And where do we stage? Where do we base?” I pointed toward Iran on Afghanistan’s western border. “The mullahs aren’t about to let us in. In the north, maybe we can strike a deal with President Karimov in Uzbekistan. Maybe even with the Turkmenbashi.” Saparmurad Niyazov, the President of Turkmenistan, was known as the Turkmenbashi, “the father of all Turkmen.” Niyazov was a mercurial, sometimes brutal despot, but he recognized and respected power.

“Uzbekistan, of course, will be vital to the operation. The Northern Alliance is right up on their border. But President Karimov is sitting on the fence. We need bases on his territory, especially here— Karshi-Khanabad. But we’ve got to convince him we’ll stay the course once we go in.”

During two meetings in the previous year with President Islam Karimov, I had learned several important things: He was worried about the increasingly savage Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), a homegrown terrorist group that fought alongside al Qaeda and the Taliban against the Northern Alliance. And he feared Russian intervention should war flare up in the region. He and I had discussed the possible use of the old Soviet air base at Karshi-Khanabad—K-2, as it was known—but only in general terms. Of course, that was before 9/11; now, with the stakes having gone up, so had K-2’s value, and Karimov knew it. But the Uzbekistani President was mindful of America’s failed efforts in Somalia. And he wasn’t convinced that the United States was serious about its commitment to Central Asia.

“I think we can work out our issues with Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan,” I added. “Pakistan is another matter. President Musharraf likes and respects us, but he’s got a heavy-duty Islamic extremist population to deal with. And I can’t see conducting operations inside Afghanistan without basing, staging, and overflight support from the Paks.”

Gene Renuart nodded. “Overshoot rights, too, Boss. Anyway you cut the plan, we’re going to use a lot of TLAMs. We’ll have to have Pakistani permission, or at least acquiescence, because all those birds will be flying across a couple hundred miles of their territory inbound to the targets.”

Another call came in from the Chairman, and our floating meeting broke again.

 

LATER, AFTER A SHOWER AND A CHANGE INTO A FRESH UNIFORM, I went down the hall to see Marty Cheshes. As we chatted, he jotted notes on a yellow pad. One road to solving our basing and staging problems, I knew, would run through Colin Powell at State. When Powell called, presidents and prime ministers picked up the phone.

Another path of negotiation would run from me, directly to the heads of state, ministers of defense, and military leaders I knew best.

“I’ve got calls and e-mails in to all the appropriate bureaus at State,” Marty said. “The Secretary has already let people know this is a priority issue.”

 

OUTSIDE MY OFFICE, IT WAS ANOTHER BRIGHT, HOT FLORIDA morning. Inside it was cool, the blinds drawn against the glare. Was it Thursday or Friday? I’d lost track. The key directors were back.

“To summarize,” I told them, “the long poles of this operation will be access and sustainment. Any operation we conduct in Afghanistan will be dependent on airlift…thousands of tons a day.”

Denny Jackson, my logistician, nodded pleasantly; he didn’t seem troubled by the challenge.

“And we’re also facing a potential humanitarian disaster that we must prevent from the onset of the operation. A large segment of the more than 26 million Afghans depends on nongovernmental organizations for their daily bread, not to mention blankets, fuel for the winter, and seeds for the spring planting. But NGOs don’t usually stick around during combat.” I looked toward Denny. “We’re probably going to have to figure out a way to supply several million internally displaced people with their basic needs by air until the military situation stabilizes.”

I stood up, stretched my stiff leg. “Terrain,” I said. “Look at this place. You’ve got summits in the Hindu Kush over twenty thousand feet, ridges in these long east-west ranges topping out above twelve thousand, and most of the passes are anywhere from nine to eleven thousand feet. What’s that going to do to helicopter operations?”

Pat Hailey spoke up. “General, the people we have with the Northern Alliance report that flying helicopters in Afghanistan is nasty. And it’ll be snowing in the mountains and high valleys in a few weeks, which will complicate matters.”

“All right,” I said. “What kind of operation are we proposing? The President is going to want to go in there and clean house. What military options do we present him?”

Rifle DeLong answered. “Jeff and Gene have a list of good candidates for a solid TLAM strike. If the President wants to start kinetics immediately, we’ve got the targets.”

I read the list. We would use TLAMs to take down the enemy’s Integrated Air Defense System (IADS) to pave the way for conventional air strikes. The Taliban’s IADS was not robust, but they did have early warning radars and Soviet-built surface-to-air missile sites. And the TLAM missions would demoralize the enemy and degrade his combat capability, so al Qaeda training camps and Taliban barracks where significant numbers of troops were billeted were also valuable targets.

But the strikes we launched would have to be extremely accurate. Inadvertent civilian casualties—collateral damage, or CD—would be a major concern.

“When the kinetics start,” I said, “we don’t want to see a lot of dead non-combatants on CNN.”

“Or on al-Jazeera,” Rifle added.

“Roger that,” I said. Al-Jazeera, the Arabic language satellite channel based in Qatar, had helped transform al Qaeda and bin Laden into heroes on the Arab-Muslim “street.”

One of my weapons of choice in the initial strike would be the Block III Tomahawk land attack missile (TLAM), which could deliver a thousand-pound high explosive warhead on targets 1,500 miles away, with precision that would have been considered science fiction a decade earlier. The range and accuracy of the Block III would allow us to kill the enemy, and destroy his installations and equipment, without endangering large numbers of civilians. The missile’s guidance relied on computerized inertial navigation, terrain-following radar, and GPS satellite signals. When the Navy’s TLAM shooters assured me they could launch a half-ton warhead through a low, fast, evasive track, threading the needle of gorges and mountain passes, and then through a three-by-four foot window more than a thousand miles over the horizon, day or night, I knew it wasn’t bravado: It was the confidence that comes with twenty-first century engineering.

The United States had used Tomahawks in the Balkans, in Iraq, and in response to terrorist attacks. The weapon was impressively destructive, and equally effective in limiting civilian casualties.

“The Navy confirms that we have two hundred TLAMs in the shoot basket as of 0200 Zulu today,” Gene Renuart added.

“Yes—one option is a major league TLAM strike,” I said. “And a second is TLAMs initially, leading into—or simultaneous with— Global Power sorties.”

Our B-2 Stealth bomber capability was known as Global Power, because the huge bat-winged stealth aircraft could literally span the planet. Taking off from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri’s Ozark foothills, with multiple aerial refuelings the B-2 flew bombing missions anywhere in the world; their roundtrips sometimes lasted over forty hours. And the B-2s were invisible to radar. When they arrived at night over a target, they dropped precision joint direct attack munitions (JDAMs), GPS-guided one- or two-thousand pound bombs that invariably struck within a few feet of their programmed aiming point.

One advantage of Global Power was flexibility: The weapon systems officer aboard the aircraft could load precise target coordinates into the JDAMs using real time intelligence all the way to the target. For example, if a UAV transmitted images of enemy missile launchers being moved to escape incoming TLAMs, new target locations could be passed to the B-2s en route, and JDAMs could be programmed up to the last few minutes to strike the missile launchers.

A second option, then, would involve a massive TLAM launch, followed up with Global Power support. But Afghanistan was a huge, mountainous country, riddled with caves and strewn with camouflaged bunker complexes. There were thousands of rat holes, and only a finite number of JDAMs. And after the attacks of 9/11, it wasn’t likely that Mullah Omar or Osama bin Laden would be lounging around their headquarters, waiting for the bombs to land.

“One of those two options will be good prep for boots on the ground,” I told the directors. “But I want more than the usual-suspect options, the predictable mix of missiles and air strikes. The question is whose boots, and how many pairs.” I turned to Pat Hailey. “What can the Agency do for us? What’s the current status of the Northern Alliance and the other anti-Taliban forces?”

Ever thoughtful, Pat paused a moment. “As you know, we’ve had people with the Northern Alliance for years. Their reporting indicates that opposition troops have the potential to take on the Taliban and their al Qaeda allies… if the Alliance can pull itself together after Massoud’s assassination, and receives significant materiel support.” Pat ticked off items on his fingers: “Winter uniforms, arms and ammunition, radios, food, medicine, blankets …hay and oats for their horses, saddles, and probably a few helicopters.”

“They’re also going to need close air support,” Gene Renuart, the veteran ground attack pilot, commented.

“That means SOF teams with Air Force combat air controllers,” Rifle added.

“Okay,” I added. “We have a third option: SOF.”

Special Operations Forces, drawn from the CIA’s Special Activities Division (the Agency’s “Ground Force”), the Army’s Green Berets, and the Navy’s SEALs were trained to augment and lead guerrilla forces against conventional enemies. And among the critical new capabilities of the SOF were the highly skilled Air Force combat air controllers. These were tough NCOs who used satellite radios, GPS, and laser target designators to pinpoint enemy formations, fortifications, and vehicles for strike aircraft or heavy bombers dropping JDAMs. Years earlier, I had seen similar, but far less capable teams, working with Air Force Field Auxiliary units. Now, like many of our more technological innovations, the teams were “war-winners.”

And we would call on the special mission operators from JSOC at Fort Bragg to hunt down and eliminate terrorist leaders and “exploit” (search and analyze) suspected WMD sites.

Beefed up by Special Operations Forces and supported by American air power, we knew that the Northern Alliance and other tribal militias could destroy the numerically superior Taliban and al Qaeda. But the Northern Alliance fielded a total of only about 20,000 troops, armed and equipped between “poor” and “fair” on a scale of military effectiveness. The Taliban and al Qaeda had at least twice that many fighters, along with more tanks and APCs, more artillery, and more automatic weapons. This was not what strategists call a “favorable balance of forces.”

“And the Northern Alliance is in disarray,” Pat Hailey cautioned. “Since the assassination of Massoud, we have to start from scratch. We had a lot invested in Massoud—literally.”

And Osama bin Laden had destroyed that investment, I realized. He was indeed a cunning, imaginative enemy.

“All right,” I told the staff. “We’ve discussed three options. Here’s a fourth. Run the first three simultaneously, as the lead-in for the deployment of conventional American ground combat forces. First we see what the Northern Alliance, with our help, can do. Then we use larger formations if we have to.”

The men seated around the office listened intently. My proposal involved sending battalions and brigades of American soldiers and Marines into one of the most inhospitable countries in the world, to wage war against a zealous and intractable enemy. Many of al Qaeda and the Taliban’s troops had been fighting in that harsh terrain for years. A large number had served as mujahhedin in the long, bloody struggle that eventually ousted the Soviet Army. The implicit lesson of Afghanistan’s recent history was not to put large numbers of American troops on the ground to accomplish the mission—unless absolutely necessary.

Two things were certain: Each of the four options presented staging, basing, and overflight challenges, as well as complex terrain and weather issues. And each would require a detailed intelligence evaluation of the skill and determination of the enemy.

For years I’d studied the strategy and tactics of past wars. As my staff and I reviewed our options in September 2001, I could not think of a historical parallel for the military campaign under consideration. The operation represented a revolution in warfighting. We would introduce the most advanced military technology in the world—TLAMs, JDAMs, Stealth bombers, laser target designators, and satellite communications—onto one of the world’s most primitive battlefields. The Northern Alliance, with its tribal affiliates, a few broken-down Russian tanks and rickety transport helicopters, and thousands of horses, would move heavy weapons and munitions on the backs of donkeys and camels in a synchronized ballet, taking advantage of all that firepower and techno-sophistication. The Taliban and al Qaeda forces had twice as many troops as the Northern Alliance, and they were far better equipped. But I was confident that the balance of power was about to change.

I glanced at the digital clock behind my desk. It was almost noon. “Okay, brothers,” I told the staff. “Get your asses out of here and go to work. We’ve got serious time constraints. Oh, yeah, by the way, I don’t want that to affect the quality of your product.”

I grinned, then rose and returned to my desk. The staff filed out. For a few minutes I was alone with the faint hum of the air conditioning. Then Jeff Haynes entered with a fresh stack of messages. I poured another mug of black coffee and started reading.

 

AFTER A FEW DAYS, I REALIZED I NEEDED TO GET OUT OF THE office, to move around the building and talk to people. I didn’t intend to micromanage the planners, but I needed a firsthand sense of the progress they were making and the problems they faced.

One area of intense activity was the Sensitive Compartmented Intelligence Facility (SCIF), a maze of large and small windowless rooms behind a cipher-locked steel door, which opened in turn onto a checkpoint manned around the clock by an armed security guard. In the fluorescent lighting of the SCIF, the only way to tell night from day—or the day of the week, for that matter—was to look at one of the wall clocks, which blinked out the time in Tampa, Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s ever cocked an eyebrow upon learning that Afghanistan was thirty minutes out of sync with the rest of the world—thirty minutes and two thousand years.

During those early weeks of war planning, I conferred several times a day with Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, by secure telephone or video telephone conference (VTC). One advantage of the VTC was that we could consult and share intelligence imagery and sensitive planning graphics on a real-time basis.

One morning in the small J-2 conference room in the SCIF I was on a VTC, briefing the Secretary on high-value targets. Usually, these briefings were the occasion for a string of questions on the Secretary’s part. This time, however, Rumsfeld listened without interrupting, his face set in concentration.

“All right, General,” he said when I’d completed the brief. “Good progress. Keep it up.” From Don Rumsfeld, that was high praise indeed. The video screen clicked to black as the connection was cut. His growing confidence was gratifying: Though our detailed briefings would continue, the Secretary wasn’t breathing over my shoulder.

In this first week after 9/11, the country was outraged and impatient. People wanted America to strike back hard, and they didn’t want to wait. On the Internet, the anecdotal evidence was already emerging. Among the images I saw in those first couple of weeks was a digitally doctored photograph of a squadron of B-52 Stratofortresses bearing the logos of American and United Airlines on their tails, dropping long strings of bombs over snowy desert mountains.

The photo caption matched the national mood: “United & American Airlines Announce New, Non-Stop Service to Afghanistan.”

 

“HERE’S THE MOONLIGHT DATA, GENERAL,” JEFF KIMMONS said, handing me a printout.

Gene Renuart and I had been looking at moon illumination from the end of September through October. Inserting Special Operations Forces by helicopter was best accomplished on dark, moonless nights. The Taliban and al Qaeda had hundreds of former Soviet Army antiaircraft guns; their 23mm ZSUs, mounted on a pickup or towed behind an old Zil truck, were an especially effective weapon. The last thing we wanted was for one of our troop-laden helicopters, straining at high altitudes to cross passes, to be silhouetted against the moon.

There was a full moon coming up on Tuesday, October 2. It would wane into a last quarter crescent by October 10. But on the nights of Saturday and Sunday, October 6 and 7, that waning crescent moon wouldn’t rise over northern Afghanistan until three hours after sunset.

“We might have a good window here, Jeff,” I said.

 

THE WAR ROOM IN THE SCIF WAS CROWDED WITH OFFICERS AND a handful of civilian staff. With its wide oak table and rows of outlying chairs, the facility could have been a conference room anywhere in corporate America, except for the sign above the projector screen: “Top Secret-Code Word.” This morning—yet again—the subject at hand was progress on basing rights. Rear Admiral Jay Campbell was at the podium, using a laser pointer on the projection of the Afghanistan Theater map.

“Within a week,” Campbell said, “the Pakistanis will probably be on board with these CSAR bases.” The ruby dot of his laser pointer flicked across southwestern desert airbases near Dalbandin and Quetta, at which our Combat Search and Rescue units would be staged. Those units would protect the aircrews flying missions over southern Afghanistan. Should aviators be forced to eject anywhere south and east of a line from Kabul to Kandahar, CSAR would launch from those bases to bring them out.

Access to Dalbandin and Quetta: that was progress. The personal relationship I had with President Musharraf, which had paved the way for direct appeals from the White House and Colin Powell, was paying off.

“But we’re still working on the Stans,” Campbell said. The former Soviet republics north of Afghanistan had not yet signed on. This was, after all, Central Asia; in thousands of years of history there, a simple trade had never happened overnight. The negotiations were taking time; then again, America had lots of carrots and just as many sticks, and I was confident that—eventually—we would prevail.

Eventually, however, was a problem. We were hoping for quick agreement on basing rights in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, but that was by no means a done deal, and Musharraf still might balk at allowing us to base large numbers of special operations forces in his territory, especially in remote areas near Afghanistan where Muslim fundamentalism and support for the Taliban ran deepest. We needed to stage SOF, particularly the elite SMU troopers of the Joint Special Operations Command, close enough to strike al Qaeda in their mountain redoubt in southeast Afghanistan. And we needed to stage them soon.

As I studied the map on the projector screen, a plan took shape. Afghanistan might be landlocked, but many Taliban and al Qaeda installations lay within range of a ship-borne helicopter force flying from the Northern Arabian Sea. The MH-53 Pave Lows and MH-60 Direct Action Penetrators of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment needed a relatively large base, with room for the big choppers as well as adequate maintenance and ordnance facilities. The Navy’s helicopter carriers, on which the Marine Expeditionary Units deployed, were not big enough for the force I envisioned. I needed a steel lily pad—a Forward Operating Base (FOB)—just off the coast of Pakistan, and I needed it soon.

In the mid-1990s, the Navy had developed the capacity to transform fleet aircraft carriers into floating Special Operations bases. The USS America had carried more than 2,000 special operators and their helicopters during military operations in Haiti in 1994. If we could not secure bases in Pakistan, we would need a carrier to serve as the floating base for our SOF mission in the south. That would take time.

In my office, I reached for the Red Switch and called Admiral Vernon Clark, the Chief of Naval Operations. “Vern, we’re going to need an aircraft carrier for unusual duty…”

Two weeks later, having sailed halfway around the world at flank speed, the USS Kitty Hawk would arrive in the northern Arabian Sea, just south of the Strait of Hormuz. We would have a “lily pad” in place.

 

“MICHAEL,” I SAID, AS COLONEL HAYES ENTERED MY office.

“I’ve got a job for you.”

“Don’t like the sound of that, Sir,” he said, grinning.

“State thinks that we may well have a few friends in this operation,” I explained. “I’m betting that we’re actually going to see a large coalition form. That means allied reps liaising with this headquarters, here at MacDill.” I waved my hand toward the windows. “We’re going to have to put them someplace.”

“…office space, housing, vehicles, and parking,” Michael offered.

“You just got yourself a task, Colonel Hayes.”

When Michael began that September afternoon, neither of us realized that within three months our “Coalition Village,” near the MacDill flight line, would eventually consist of sixty-eight single-and double-wide trailers, housing the offices of fifty-two nations in what President Bush had designated the Global War on Terrorism. The work Michael Hayes did built the coalition—literally. Without his ability to organize a plan and navigate an incredible maze of local and international finance, CENTCOM could not have functioned as it did.

 

 

“BY THE WAY, GENERAL,” RUMSFELD HAD SAID AT THE END of one of our video conferences in late September, “don’t forget about Iraq.”

“I won’t, Mr. Secretary,” I’d said. “We’ve got aircrews flying in harm’s way over Iraq every day.”

Rumsfeld and I both realized that we were still flying Northern and Southern Watch as we had since 1992—and our pilots were being shot at during almost every mission. Every morning when I listed Challenges on my three-by-five card, I led off with “Shootdown, OSW/ONW.” Even while I was absorbed in Afghanistan, Iraq never left my mind. At some point I knew that America would change or abandon its containment strategy, which had not succeeded in ensuring Saddam Hussein’s compliance with U.N. sanctions. Planning for that day, I thought, was the only wise course of action.

And my concern was only heightened by the terrorist anthrax mailings of that fall—which, for me, immediately called to mind Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction program. As late as January 1999—after the U.N. inspectors were thrown out of Iraq—the United Nations was reporting that Saddam could be in possession of thousands of liters of weaponized anthrax. It was a thought that didn’t help me sleep at night.

 

ON THE MORNING OF THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2001, GENE Renuart and I boarded Spar 06 again and flew to Washington. We carried ten copies of a Top Secret brief outlining the concept for military operations to destroy al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

At 1:00 P.M. the next day, I would present these concepts to the President in the White House.

An Air Force flight attendant brought a pot of black coffee. One of these days, I was going to ease back on the caffeine, but not today. Once we were wheels-up, Gene and I spread the briefing charts on the table in front of us and reviewed the operational concept.

We had divided the campaign into four phases, the first of which was already under way. Phase I, SET CONDITIONS AND BUILD FORCES TO PROVIDE THE NATIONAL COMMAND AUTHORITY CREDIBLE MILI-TARY OPTIONS, involved laying the groundwork for the operation, and included the completion of basing and staging agreements with Afghanistan’s neighbors. On this front, the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, CIA, and CENTCOM were making progress. I was confident that the Stans would soon be in place. President Bush had announced that the nations of the world would either be with us or against us in the war on terrorism, and the Central Asian leaders seemed to be reading that message loud and clear. They had plenty to gain by joining the coalition, and a lot to lose if they did not. Horse-trading was under way all across the region. Basing and staging were going to cost us money, but the agreements reached would be worth the dollars spent.

Another of the tasks in Phase I involved inserting advance teams of CIA officers—wielding satellite phones and sacks of hundred dollar bills—into Afghanistan to begin bolstering the fractured Northern Alliance and other “tribals” in the anti-Taliban opposition. Here, too, we were making strides. Already Agency officers had made contact with the principal warlords. Generals Mohammed Fahim Khan—the Tajik successor to the murdered Ahmad Shah Massoud—and Abdul Rashid Dostum, the Uzbek militia leader based farther west, were counting their initial support money, and preparing to accept CIA paramilitary operators from the Agency’s Special Activities Division.

Dostum’s longtime friends—and rivals—Mohammed Attah and Mohammed Mohahqeq, a Shia Muslim Hazara, were standing by to receive their Agency liaison officers as well. These officers would lay the groundwork for our Special Forces Teams, which would follow almost immediately. Known as “A-Teams” for years, these twelve-man units now went under the acronym ODA—Operational Detachment Alpha, some of the toughest and best-trained soldiers in the American military.

And the CIA was preparing to move large quantities of former Soviet Army weapons and ammunition—the standard ordnance of all Afghan combatants—from stockpiles in Europe. At first this materiel would be air-dropped by C-130s; later, once we’d nailed down our basing in the Stans, it would be airlifted to our new allies by MH-47 Chinook helicopters of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. In the meantime, CIA pilots flying Soviet-era Mi-17 helicopters were carrying radios, aerial navigation beacons, and supplies into northern Afghanistan.

Completing the arrangements for active military participation from coalition allies—especially high-skill European, Canadian, and Australian Special Operations Forces—was another element of Phase I. I was very encouraged by the role these allies were performing. Our NATO partners and Australia were taking practical steps to bring troops to the fight at the exact times and places where we wanted them.

A final task in Phase I was preparing for the inevitable Humanitarian Assistance crisis we knew we would see as civilians were displaced by combat. The Air Force was cranking up to airdrop thousands of tons of Humanitarian Daily Rations, the civilian version of military MREs. The barley and lentil stew we brought might not have been haute cuisine, but I was confident that it would not be turned down by the hungry refugees we assisted.

Phase II, CONDUCT INITIAL COMBAT OPERATIONS AND CONTINUE TO SET CONDITIONS FOR FOLLOW-ON OPERATIONS, would begin as Phase I preparations were completed. The Afghanistan campaign would be a unique page in military history, and flexibility was a key ingredient of the plan. Gene Renuart, Jeff Kimmons, and their staffs had worked hard on the targets for this phase of operations. Tomahawk missiles, tactical aircraft, B-2 Stealth bombers, and B-52s would take out Taliban and al Qaeda Command and Control targets, early warning radars, and major air defense systems—principally Soviet-built SA-3 missiles.

Special Forces Teams would infiltrate into Afghanistan as the air campaign unfolded, and begin to provide air support to the Northern Alliance and other opposition forces. The Japan-based aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk would set up shop as a floating SOF Forward Operating Base in international waters off the coast of Pakistan.

Once the antiaircraft threat was reduced, jets from carriers in the Arabian Sea would overfly Pakistan’s western deserts and attack targets across Afghanistan. And B-2s from the United States, as well as B-52s from the British island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, would deliver their heavy loads of ordnance during the longest air sorties ever flown. The B-52s would employ JDAMs, giving each plane the capacity to drop twenty-five tons of precision-guided munitions on a single sortie.

As air operations unfolded and SOF teams were deployed, the Northern Alliance and their associated tribals, resupplied and equipped compliments of the CIA, would go on the offensive. We would leverage technology and the courage of the Afghans themselves to liberate their country.

This campaign was not going to be a matter of lobbing missiles into mud huts. We were going to war—boots-on-the ground war.

Phase III, CONDUCT DECISIVE COMBAT OPERATIONS IN AFGHANISTAN, CONTINUE TO BUILD COALITION, AND CONDUCT OPERATIONS AOR WIDE, would flow seamlessly from Phase II. Once our indigenous allies, augmented by about 200 SOF, had routed the enemy, we would bring in Coalition troops—including American soldiers and Marines—to seek out and eliminate pockets of resistance. I estimated we would need no more than ten to twelve thousand American ground troops to complete this phase.

Secretary Rumsfeld and I agreed that the U.S. force should remain small. We wanted to avoid a cumbersome Soviet-style occupation by armored divisions. It hadn’t worked for the Soviets, and it wouldn’t work for us. Flexibility and rapid reaction—airborne and helicopter-borne night assault by small, lethal, and unpredictable units coupled with unprecedented precision—would be the hallmarks of America’s first war in the twenty-first century.

Phase IV was the final stage: ESTABLISH CAPABILITY OF COALITION PARTNERS TO PREVENT THE RE-EMERGENCE OF TERRORISM AND PRO-

VIDE SUPPORT FOR HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE EFFORTS. This phase would develop over a three-to-five-year period. I was certain that surviving Taliban and al Qaeda units would resort to guerrilla combat once their large formations had been destroyed. So stabilizing and rebuilding Afghanistan, a country that had known nothing but war and privation for thousands of years, would require both counterinsurgency and civil affairs military forces. In this regard, I was pleased that our allies had already pledged their support. It would be a strong coalition, not simply the United States, that would help a liberated Afghanistan to rejoin the family of nations.

I felt the familiar popping in my ears as the plane’s old pressure hull responded to our descent. Gathering my notes, I looked forward to discussing the presentation with the Secretary of Defense and to the White House meeting.

 

AT THE PENTAGON THAT AFTERNOON, THINGS GOT BUSY FAST. First I had to return calls to partners in the growing coalition and potential allies in the AOR. Then Gene and I would fine-tune the target sets with the Defense Intelligence Agency and CIA. We had to move right along because I had a meeting scheduled with the SecDef.

I spoke with General Jean-Pierre Kelche, chief of staff of the French Armed Forces. France, he said, was “vigorously” pursuing contributions to the developing campaign, including an aircraft carrier, airlift, tactical fighter-bombers, and Special Operations Forces. Good news there.

A huddle with Joint Staff planners helped firm up the Humanitarian Assistance aspect of the operation. Air Force C-17s making the long haul from Ramstein Air Base in Germany would fly over Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan to drop hundreds of thousands of humanitarian rations in Afghanistan. The HA operation would begin the same day as the air campaign; the launching of simultaneous kinetic and humanitarian efforts in this fashion was without precedent, but it was the only responsible way to mount this campaign. Any potential risk from our military action would be offset by the benefits we were bringing to the Afghan people.

And there was more good news: Sultan Qaboos of Oman gave his permission for AC-130 Spectre gunships and a SOF support team to operate out of the Masira Island air base in the northern Arabian Sea, well within range of Afghanistan.

Air Force Lt. General Chuck Wald, our air component commander, called from Saudi Arabia. He wanted to augment the Combined Air Operation Center (CAOC) by about one hundred personnel for the coming campaign, but he suspected that the Saudis would not approve the request if he went to them formally. Another cut among the thousand. “Go ahead and fly them in, Chuck,” I said. “Once they’re on the ground, we’ll request forgiveness. That’s easier than asking permission.”

Next I called Wendy Chamberlin, the American Ambassador to Pakistan. A recent arrival in the post, she was already making headway with the leadership. President Musharraf, she reported, had granted permission for Coalition aircraft to overfly Pakistan. Implicit in this was the TLAM “overshoot” authorization that Gene Renuart had mentioned. Musharraf had also agreed to a detailed list of seventy-four basing and staging activities to be conducted in Pakistan, from Combat Search and Rescue, to refueling and operating communications relay sites, to establishing a medical evacuation point near the Afghan border. In return, Musharraf requested that the campaign plan not involve the Indian government or the Indian military, especially in any way that would put Indian forces in Pakistani air or sea space. He also asked that the Coalition not “advertise” Indian political involvement, which would inflame sensitivities in Pakistan.

The requests were reasonable, and well worth the effort in exchange for a secure southern flank in Afghanistan. I asked Wendy to extend my personal thanks to President Musharraf, and to tell him that I would try to minimize the visibility of Indian involvement. “And we’re working to get relief from the Pressler Amendment,” I told her, and asked her to pass the message along. “I know Pakistan needs military spares and I’ll try to help.”

“Musharraf will be pleased, General.”

“We are also working on Humanitarian Assistance and financial aid to help Pakistan handle any influx of refugees,” I said. Wendy replied that Musharraf had expressed confidence in his ability to handle incoming refugees, but that they would accept any financial aid gratefully. “General, President Musharraf also asked for you to visit him as soon as possible.”

“Wendy, please tell him I’ll do that as soon as I can. Tell him to polish up his golf game.”

“We’re on a roll, Sir,” Gene said.

But the roll wouldn’t last long. Just after lunch, a few minutes before my scheduled meeting with the Secretary of Defense, I checked in with Hugh Shelton.

“Tom, the Chiefs have requested that you and your J-3 brief them in the Tank… along with the Secretary. It’s SOP before taking a plan across the river to the White House.”

“Damn it!” I said.

Judging from Hugh’s expression, he wasn’t too pleased either. I was prepared to present a concept to the Secretary, not a formal OPLAN to the Service Chiefs. Hugh Shelton needed to keep the Chiefs onboard, and I knew it. But my intuition told me that briefing them in front of the Secretary would be “a bridge too far.” The Chiefs were likely to “posture,” and the Secretary was likely to become frustrated. I suggested to Hugh that we brief twice, once for Secretary Rumsfeld, and later for the Service Chiefs.

“No time, Tom. This will be a good chance for all the key players to get to know each other better. We can make it work.”

“Okay, Hugh, we’ll give it a shot.”

As Gene and I walked along the E-Ring to the Tank, I forced myself to relax. Maybe this would be a painless bureaucratic exercise.

It may have been an exercise, but it was not painless.

The Tank was an ornate place, its hardwood table gleaming, the furniture several pay grades higher than was found in the offices of most Pentagon staff officers. With its gold drapes framing the decorative wood-paneled false windows, the Tank was officially known as the Gold Room.

When we arrived, Secretary Rumsfeld was standing at the head of the table, speed-reading his way through a stack of documents.

Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and the Chiefs were seated around the table—Admiral Vern Clark, Chief of Naval Operations; Army Chief of Staff, General Eric Shinseki; Air Force Chief of Staff, General Mike Ryan; and his successor, General John Jumper. The Commandant of the Marine Corps, General Jim Jones, sat beside Hugh Shelton and Dick Myers, the Vice Chairman. I took my seat, while Gene Renuart stood by the podium, and my aide, Lt. Colonel Jeff Haynes, distributed the briefing sheets.

We’ll sure as hell get back every one of those briefing papers before we leave, I thought. The Pentagon was notorious for leaks. Secretary Rumsfeld cautioned everyone in the room that this concept was as highly classified as you could get—that it was “Sensitive” and “Compartmented.” But I’d briefed here before; something told me we had a fifty-fifty chance of opening the New York Times tomorrow morning and reading the minutes of this meeting.

It soon became clear, however, that security would be only one problem in the Tank this afternoon.

Once the Chiefs had scanned the stacked pages, and Gene Renuart had begun to explain Phase I of the campaign concept, Hugh Shelton asked for “opinions” from the Chiefs. He could not have recognized the trouble that simple question would create.

One after another the Chiefs offered their views of the concept. The Army argued the efficacy of Land Power, and described the difficulties of sustaining Army forces. The Marine view suggested “From the Sea” as the most effective approach to war-fighting—even in a landlocked country. Airpower was offered by the Air Force Chief as the most powerful of the contributing arms. None of which, of course, meshed totally with CENTCOM’s operational concept—or my view of joint warfare.

We endured half an hour of this aimless dialogue, a waste of time that neither the Secretary nor I could spare. The briefing had been intended to provide information on a campaign that CENTCOM had carefully and laboriously developed, with the inputs of our Army, Navy, Marine, Air Force, and Special Operations Component Commanders—three-star generals nominated by these same Service Chiefs. I had no tolerance for this parochial bullshit. And Rumsfeld was becoming visibly annoyed. I could see in his expression that this was not what he expected.

The Chiefs must have noticed, too; at length, they began directing their glances—and their caveats—toward me. “Don’t take this wrong, Tom…Just to play the devil’s advocate…” And so it went.

Gene Renuart plowed ahead, his bald pate growing red.

“That’s not particularly helpful, General,” Rumsfeld finally said, staring coldly at the offending Chief.

Still, they persisted. Rumsfeld looked pointedly at his watch.

I’d had enough. “Look,” I said, standing to sweep up the briefing charts before me on the polished tabletop. “We have a lot of work to do. Mr. Secretary, I’ll put this concept together tonight and have it to you tomorrow morning.”

The room was silent.

“We’re finished for today,” Rumsfeld said.

 

BEFORE I MET WITH THE SECDEF THE NEXT MORNING, MARINE Corps Commandant General Jim Jones asked to speak to me in his office. When I arrived, I found Jim and the CNO, Admiral Vern Clark, sitting beside Jones’s desk.

“Tom,” Clark said. “We really do support you.”

“Nothing we said yesterday was meant as criticism, Tom,” Jones added.

“Great,” I began. “I do want your input.”

They relaxed.

“But I want your advice as the Joint Chiefs of Staff, not as individual Service Chiefs scrabbling for the biggest piece of pie in this operation.” I didn’t give them time to respond. “Look. You guys each have a three-star who commands a service component for me, and represents the service expertise we need to put together a joint plan. It’s best to let those guys know your ideas. And then trust them to work for all of us to build a cohesive approach, rather than a patchwork of service interests.”

Clark and Jones understood my reasoning. I wanted to nail this problem here and now. “If you don’t trust those three-stars to represent you and assist me in joint war-fighting,” I told them, “you should replace them.”

They nodded again. But I wasn’t finished.

“Yesterday in the Tank, you guys came across like a mob of Title Ten motherfuckers, not like the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Thanks for hearing me out,” I said, then turned and left.

I knew they’d gotten my message: No operation that is totally satisfying to any one service is truly a joint operation.

 

“GENERAL FRANKS,” DONALD RUMSFELD SAID TEN MINUTES later in his office. “Would you please explain what that was all about yesterday?”

I had cooled down, but I still resented the bureaucratic shark attack in the Tank. “Mr. Secretary,” I began, keeping my voice even. “I know you appreciate that unity of command is an essential military principle.”

Rumsfeld fixed me in his thoughtful blue gaze.

“We’ve developed this campaign concept on your orders, Mr. Secretary. You informed me that the President wanted a thorough operation to destroy al Qaeda in Afghanistan and remove the Taliban from power.”

“That’s correct, General.”

I thought for a moment before continuing. I was the senior commander at the start of a war. I had to solidify the lines of authority. “I work for you and for the President, not for the Service Chiefs. They were fighting for turf yesterday. If this continues, our troops—and the country—will suffer. We should not allow narrow-minded four-stars to advance their share of the budget at the expense of the mission.”

I remained silent. And so did the Secretary. A moment passed.

“Mr. Secretary,” I said. “I have to know before we take this briefing to the White House that unity of command prevails. I will follow every lawful order that you and the President give me. But I must have command authority to execute those orders.”

Rumsfeld thought before replying. “You have that authority, General. You are the commander.”

“Thank you, Mr. Secretary.”

Donald Rumsfeld and I now knew each other a little better.

 

IN THE EARLY AFTERNOON, I JOINED HUGH SHELTON, DICK MYERS, and Major General Dell Dailey, the Commander of JSOC, for the drive to the White House. Secretary Rumsfeld followed us a few minutes later in a Lincoln Navigator.

President Bush received us in a comfortable study in the second-floor living quarters. Vice President Dick Cheney arrived as we did. I noticed at once that neither Secretary of State Colin Powell nor National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice was present. Rumsfeld had stressed the need for secrecy, and the group in this parlor was the smallest “compartment” possible.

It was a hot day, and the President noted that we looked warm in our Class A uniforms. “Maybe these folks would like a Coke,” the President said to a White House waiter. He brought a tray with ice, several bottles of Diet Coke, and crystal glasses with the Presidential seal and then left, closing the door.

The President appeared relaxed and thoughtful as he poured each of us a Coke.

“Tommy,” he said, lighting a cigar. “Come over here and sit,” he said, pointing to a chair beside him.

“Well, Don,” the President said to Rumsfeld. “What’s Tommy got for us today?”

“The General has prepared an operational concept for Afghanistan, Mr. President.” The Secretary looked at me and nodded. “Go ahead, General.”

I distributed the briefing charts. “Mr. President, the operation will be executed in four phases,” I began. “Phase I is already under way…”

President Bush was reading ahead; almost immediately he began asking questions. “How’s progress on securing host nation support? We getting the bases we need?”

I explained that President Musharraf had approved virtually every one of our requests concerning overflight, basing, and staging.

“That’s good,” the President said.

I added that Sultan Qaboos had granted permission for us to stage AC-130 gunships and SOF forces on Masira Island. And I was about to explain the importance of that location when the President spoke: “That puts how much of Afghanistan within the range of our aircraft?”

President Bush, I knew, had flown fighters himself. He understood the strengths and limitations of airpower.

“We will have plenty of operational range, Mr. President,” I said. “Plus we will establish aerial refueling tracks inside Afghanistan once the fight begins.”

As I moved from page to page in the briefing, the President read closely, puffing his cigar in concentration. On virtually every page, he asked a pertinent question. The briefing had been scheduled for two hours, a significant block of time considering the President’s commitments during this period of crisis. I realized we were going to run long, but felt I had to answer his questions as completely as possible.

After about the sixth exchange, Don Rumsfeld pointedly checked his watch. “You’ll have to move on, General.”

The President glanced up from a page showing Taliban early warning radar locations. “We’re okay, Don. This is important information.”

“Go ahead, General. Just move along as quickly as you can,” Rumsfeld said.

I moved from one briefing chart to the next. The President asked his questions, and Secretary Rumsfeld listened attentively, joining the conversation on a number of occasions to stress key points.

Flipping back to the target sets, the President looked up. “We are going into Afghanistan to destroy the Taliban and al Qaeda. This is not retaliation. We are at war against terrorism, not the Afghan people.”

In my thirty-six-year career, I had seen examples of confident leadership. But this was one of the most direct and decisive statements of policy I had ever heard.

Next Major General Dell Dailey presented a summary of the Special Mission Unit targets in Afghanistan. We had been focusing on a suspicious Soviet-era fertilizer plant near Mazar-e Sharif. The factory was surrounded by guard posts, and there were checkpoints on the roads leading in and out. Persistent intelligence reports showed al Qaeda members traveling to and from the plant. If the terrorists were working on chemical or biological weapons, that was a logical site.

As Dell Dailey finished his briefing, Secretary Rumsfeld spoke. “Mr. President, this campaign is going to be unprecedented. A lot of traditional lines will be blurred. I recommend that operational control of the CIA be given to the Department of Defense.”

Rumsfeld and I had discussed this. It was essential that I, as the commander, have control over all the forces in the theater, and I knew the Secretary wanted to give me that authority. After yesterday’s debacle in the Tank, it was obvious that we’d need a “single belly button” to push when the shooting started.

Vice President Dick Cheney answered Rumsfeld. “Before this operation begins, we will review all the command relationships.”

That was good enough for me.

“Anything else, Tommy?” the President asked.

“I believe it is essential that we begin the Humanitarian Assistance operation simultaneously with the kinetics, Sir. We want the Afghan people to know that we are not attacking them, but that our war is with al Qaeda and the Taliban.”

The President smiled. “That’s what I’d expect from a boy from Midland.”

We laughed.

“Seriously,” the President said. “That’s exactly what we want to do.”

At the end of the briefing, the President stacked his charts and studied the campaign summary for a moment. “When can you execute this plan, Tommy?”

“We’ll have the air forces in position in five days, Sir. All of our CSAR will not yet be staged, but we can plan around that by using TLAMs and B-2 bombers in the north. I’ll need forty-eight hours advance warning before we initiate kinetics.”

“Okay,” the President said. “But what’s your ideal timing, Tommy?”

Everyone in the room, including Donald Rumsfeld, listened intently. I knew the political pressure the President was under to demonstrate American resolve through military action against al Qaeda. Ground Zero in New York, and a big wedge of the Pentagon across the Potomac, were in ruins. But he was willing to give me the time I needed.

“Mr. President,” I said, “in about two weeks, we’ll have the required support from the nations in the region. I believe that will give Colin Powell and the State Department the time necessary to finalize CSAR and SOF staging in Uzbekistan.”

The President considered this. “I understand…two weeks.”

“Sir,” I said. “We could begin the air operation sooner. But over the long haul, that would not be the best plan. We want air and SOF operations to be as near-simultaneous as we can get them.”

“I understand,” the President said. “A large air operation would make a statement.” Again he paused to think. “On the other hand, I’m willing to wait. When we do this, we’ll do it right. My message to the American people is to be patient.”

As we rose to leave, the President spoke again. “Absolute secrecy is the key here.”

There was a round of “Yes, Mr. President” and “Understand, Sir.”

Dell Dailey, the ultimate special operator, said nothing.

“General,” the President said to him. “Tell your people not to talk.”

Dell looked calmly into the President’s face. “Sir, my people never talk.”

 

DRIVING BACK TO THE PENTAGON, I REMEMBERED A POEM I HAD written during another national crisis, November 1979, when extremists took hostage the staff of the American Embassy in Tehran, and the nation’s tenacity had been tested. I had carried a wrinkled copy in my wallet since that time. As the sedan crossed the Memorial Bridge toward Virginia, I read the poem again.

RESOLVE

Will squandered in an earlier time,
Was recast—

Tempered liquid hot
In a bath of Irresolute Times,
Conscience misplaced,
The metal would be tightly bound,
Slick and pulsing sweat—

Measure it, weigh it, stand in
Awe—test it not.