the head. Dugan was now seething with rage. He jumped back in the truck and told the driver to just gas it and get them out of there before things got a whole lot worse.
Now they were at the safe house after the long jaw-jarring drive, and the boys spent some time doing minor maintenance on the trucks before getting a welcome hour of rack. Four tall walls surrounded the house for protection, but just in case some uninvited guests decided to make an appearance, Jim put the boys on the second floor and left the muhj guides down on the ground floor.
We were anxious to get the snipers and assaulters down to the schoolhouse so we could get some things rolling. One thing was for certain: come morning, the boys would be in no mood to sit around the schoolyard with coloring books and marbles. They would be arriving hungry and chomping at the bit.
And unlike Allah, the Merciful and Compassionate, Delta planned to show no quarter, no mercy, and no compassion for al Qaeda.
General Ali had some visitors waiting that afternoon, the council of elders-the Shura-from the surrounding area. We noticed them as soon as they stepped out of their vehicles, and we made it a point to get out of sight. They were a lively bunch, roughly a dozen older men with long gray beards and dark skin with deep wrinkles from the decades of unrelenting sun. All were dressed in pseudo-formal attire-large, bright yellow turbans with matching shawls. There had been a rumor of American soldiers coming to Tora Bora to help the general fight al Qaeda, and they were concerned about them and reminded Ali that this was not the true Muslim way.
The general assured them that he had a handle on things. Americans were not welcome as long as he was in command. That was not quite the same as saying we weren’t already there. But convinced of his sincerity, likely with a wink and a nod, the village elders pledged their support to Ali in eliminating bin Laden.
With everyone having done what was required in the strange political dance, the elders promised to activate their version of the neighborhood watch program for any sign of bin Laden. Then they left.
George, Adam Khan, and I met with Ali for a final time, inside his sleeping quarters, as the day came to an end. Boots off at the door and teacups in the middle of the rug.
The major topic of interest to the general was the status of the BLU-82 drop that had been postponed several times and was now expected early the next morning. I assumed the changing of the drop times had been the harebrained idea of someone far removed from the battlefield realities. It was likely some staff officer just doing his job by trying to provide his best operational advice to his commander. But the big bomb had kept us all waiting.
George brought Ali up to date, with Adam Khan meticulously translating and Ali nodding in the affirmative. Ali said that he planned to exploit the bomb drop, as soon as it was safe to do so, by attacking with about two hundred fighters. A reserve of another two hundred fighters would be held nearby to provide him some flexibility.
His tanks would roll out in full force as well, and one would move farther up the foothills to throw some direct fire straight down the valley. Several mortars to the east would also support the attack. Ever the gracious host, Ali insisted we be his guests for this special trip to the front lines, so as to observe his fighters’ skill. It all sounded good, but terrifically unrealistic.
The reported danger radius for the BLU-82 was four thousand meters, which meant that all friendly forces had to be that substantial distance from the intended point of impact. If anyone realistically expected the muhj to exploit the attack in a timely manner in the rugged mountains of Tora Bora, the distance should have been reduced to about four hundred meters, not four thousand! Even a professionally trained army would have their hands full if they expected to maneuver four thousand meters uphill under mortar, rocket, and small-arms fire in the middle of the day.
Even so, we resisted the urge to rain on our host’s parade. At least he was showing some initiative and finally displaying an offensive mind-set.
I politely asked the general to keep us informed as much as possible about how far his troops had advanced to the south so we could adjust the bombing and ensure that the weapons were killing the correct folks. Just as Adam Khan began to translate the request, the general’s bedroom lit up with a flash and we turned in time to see a spectacular strike up in the mountains through the bedroom window. It shook the ground under the schoolhouse. General Ali’s smile grew wide!
George praised him for his actions to date. After that compliment, as if on cue, the radio sputtered to life with the excited sound of hardcore Pashto being spoken. Some of his men had spotted enemy fighters descending the hills, heading for a small village, and Ali’s force was lying in ambush. The general beamed with the pride of a first- time father and motioned to us as if to say, “See, we are doing good things here.”
Our meeting turned back to operational matters. George asked Ali where he planned to command the battle from once things got rolling. The response was typically noncommittal, and he palmed the ball right back to the CIA man. “Wherever you go, I will go,” he said, gesturing to both George and me.
The general was fairly upbeat about finding bin Laden. He said his men were motivated and thankful of America’s help and the willingness to commit her “special commandos.” His men were committed to the end and wouldn’t fail. With that, we pushed our teacups into the center of the rug, lumbered to our feet, put our boots back on, and slipped out into the frigid night air.
I was ready to bag out on the dirty cement floor of our own building for a couple of hours after the meeting with Ali, but it was not to be.
“Sir, there is a message you might want to read from the commander.” Bernie, our communicator, hit me with the news as soon as I came through the door of our corner classroom. It was dark in the room except for the bright green LED readout displays on the state-of-the-art communication suite, the weak flickering glow of a kerosene lamp that had been purchased locally for about fifty cents, and the screen of the small Toughbook laptop computer.
Colonel Ashley was asking for the grid locations of where we planned to put in our sniper teams and what area they planned to lase for the bombers. In his words, he had to “feed the beast.”
I commented to Bernie, “Can you imagine the pressure that must have rolled downhill through four or five levels of command to get this request to us?” And it was not only several layers of general officers breathing down Ashley’s neck for the information, for he explained, “Everybody from POTUS on down is asking for details.” It went all the way up to the White House, for POTUS is the acronym for the president of the United States.
“Bernie, this is exactly why we will never be as good as the Israelis at killing terrorists,” I said. “We have too many bureaucratic layers and decision makers who stifle initiative and waste precious time.”
Before replying to the anxious brass up the chain of command, I briefed Ironhead and Bryan on the particulars of the meeting as an evening lullaby of thundering bombs impacting on al Qaeda positions rolled from the mountains.
After that, I thumbed open my notebook, turned back to the small laptop and wrote a subject line for the message: NIGHTLY FIRESIDE CHAT WITH THE GENERAL.
“What the hell,” I wisecracked to the boys. “If George W. cares enough to ask, who are we to hold up the show?” I started writing.
9 The Daisy Cutter
