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

43. John D. Banusiewicz, “National Caveats’ Among Key Topics at NATO Meeting,” American Forces Press Service, February 9, 2005.

44. Author interview with Ambassador David Sproule, January 10, 2007.

45. Author interviews with senior German military officials in Mazar-e-Sharif and Kunduz, September 6–7, 2006; September 2007.

46. Memorandum from General Barry R. McCaffrey (ret.) to Colonel Mike Meese and Colonel Cindy Jebb, United States Military Academy, “Trip to Afghanistan and Pakistan,” June 2006, p. 4.

47. Quoted in Hy S. Rothstein, Afghanistan and the Troubled Future of Unconventional Warfare (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006), p. 111.

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

49. Peter Spiegel, “Gates Says NATO Force Unable to Fight Guerrillas,” Los Angeles Times, January 16, 2008, p. A1.

50. David Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice (St. Petersburg, FL: Hailer Publishing, 2005), p. 77.

51. The clear, hold, and expand section draws extensively from Joseph D. Celeski, Operationalizing COIN, JSOU Report 05–2 (Hurlburt Field, FL: Joint Special Operations University, 2005).

52. Celeski, Operationalizing COIN.

53. Colonel Bruce Burda, Operation Enduring Freedom Lessons Learned (Hurlburt Field, FL: Air Force Special Operations Command, 2003).

54. Author interview with Western ambassador, Kabul, Afghanistan, September 13, 2007.

55. Author interviews with Canadian soldiers, Kandahar, Afghanistan, September 16–19, 2007. See also, for example, United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, A Review of the Taliban and Fellow Travelers as a Movement: Concept Paper Updating PAG Joint Assessment of June 2006 (Kabul: United Nations, August 2007).

56. Author interview with senior NATO military official, Kandahar, Afghanistan, September 16, 2007.

57. Letter from Paddy Ashdown to Gordon Brown and David Miliband, December 2007.

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

Chapter Fifteen

1. Rudyard Kipling, Verses, 1889–1896, vol. 11 (New York: Charles Scribner, 1899), p. 79.

2. “Enemy Assault on North OP in VIC BCP 213 Shkin,” U.S. After Action Report, September 22, 2005. I interviewed one of the U.S. officials present at Shkin that night (he wished to remain anonymous) on February 7 and February 11, 2007. I also interviewed nearly a dozen U.S. soldiers with similar reports along the Afghanistan- Pakistan border in 2006, 2007, and 2008.

3. Author interview with senior officer, 82nd Airborne Division, March 7, 2008.

4. Quoted in Mohammad Yousaf and Mark Adkin, Afghanistan—The Bear Trap: The Defeat of a Superpower (Havertown, PA: Casemate, 2001), p. 20.

5. PBS Frontline, “The Return of the Taliban,” Written, Produced, and Reported by Martin Smith, Airdate: October 3, 2006.

6. On U.S. aid to Pakistan, see C. Christine Fair and Peter Chalk, Fortifying Pakistan: The Role of U.S. Internal Security Assistance (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2006); Craig Cohen and Derek Chollet, “When $10 Billion Is Not Enough: Rethinking U.S. Strategy toward Pakistan,” Washington Quarterly, vol. 30, no. 2, Spring 2007, pp. 7–19.

7. David E. Sanger and David Rohde, “U.S. Pays Pakistan to Fight Terror, but Patrols Ebb,” New York Times, May 20, 2007, p. 1. There were a number of additional New York Times investigative pieces on the Coalition support funds. See, for example, David Rohde, Carlotta Gall, Eric Schmitt, and David E. Sanger, “U.S. Officials See Waste in Pakistan Aid,” New York Times, December 24, 2007, p. A1.

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

9. On the capture of these al Qa’ida figures, see Pervez Musharraf, In the Line of Fire: A Memoir (New York: Free Press, 2006), pp. 222–63.

10. See, for example, Intikhab Amir, “Waziristan: No Man’s Land?” The Herald (Pakistan), vol. 37, no. 4, April 2006, pp. 74–79; Amir, “Whose Writ Is It Anyway?” The Herald (Pakistan), vol. 37, no. 4, April 2006, pp. 80–82; Iqbal Khattak, “40 Militants Killed in North Waziristan,” Daily Times (Pakistan), September 30, 2005.

11. On Operation Anaconda, see, for example, U.S. Air Force, Office of Lessons Learned (AF/XOL), Operation Anaconda: An Air Power Perspective (Washington, DC: Headquarters United States Air Force AF/XOL, February 2005); Paul L. Hastert, “Operation Anaconda: Perception Meets Reality in the Hills of Afghanistan,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, vol. 28, no. 1, January—February 2005, pp. 11—20; Sean Naylor, Not a Good Day to Die: The Untold Story of Operation Anaconda (New York: Berkley Books, 2005).

12. Musharraf, In the Line of Fire, pp. 269–70.

13. Ismail Khan and Alamgir Bhittani, “42 Uzbeks among 58 Dead: Fierce Clashes in S. Waziristan,” Dawn (Pakistan), March 21, 2007.

14. Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research Carl W. Ford, Jr. to Secretary of State Colin Powell, “Pakistan—Poll Shows Strong and Growing Public Support for Taleban,” November 7, 2001. Released by the National Security Archive.

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

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

17. Gary Berntsen and Ralph Pezzullo, Jawbreaker: The Attack on Bin Laden and Al Qa’ida (New York: Crown Publishers, 2005), p. 241.

18. Letter from Lieutenant General James B. Vaught (U.S. Army Retired) to Secretary Rumsfeld, October 28, 2003.

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

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

21. General Barry R. McCaffrey USA (ret.), After Action Report, February 26, 2007.

22. The rest of this section relies on extensive author interviews with American, European, Canadian, Afghan, and Pakistani government officials between 2003 and 2008. The interviews—which took place throughout Afghanistan and in Washington, London, Brussels, The Hague, and Ottawa—were conducted with military, political, and intelligence officials.

23. Husain Haqqani, Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2005), p. 240.

24. “Outgoing U.S. Envoy Enthusiastic about Afghanistan’s Future,” Sherberghan Aina Television, June 18, 2005. Ambassador Khalilzad’s comments were supported by President Karzai’s office in “Afghan Spokesman Calls on Pakistan to Curb Taliban Activities,” Kabul Tolo Television, June 21, 2005.

25. Author interview with senior adviser to Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, Kabul, Afghanistan, June 24, 2004.

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

27. Author interviews with three U.S. soldiers from 7th Group Special Forces, Washington, DC, May 10, 2007.

28. Author interviews with senior U.S. officials, U.S. Embassy, Kabul.

29. David Kilcullen, The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 57.

30. Barnett R. Rubin, Afghanistan and the International Community: Implementing the