The memorial was a vivid reminder of why America would soon be in the fight. Our military understood, too. Seven thousand miles away, the first bombs fell. On several of them, our troops had painted the letters
The first reports out of Afghanistan were positive. In two hours of aerial bombardment, we and our British allies had wiped out the Taliban’s meager air defense system and several known al Qaeda training camps. Behind the bombs, we dropped more than thirty-seven thousand rations of food and relief supplies for the Afghan people, the fastest delivery of humanitarian aid in the history of warfare.
After several days, we ran into a problem. The air campaign had destroyed most of the Taliban and al Qaeda infrastructure. But we were having trouble inserting our Special Forces. They were grounded at a former Soviet air base in Uzbekistan, separated from their landing zone in Afghanistan by fifteen-thousand-foot-high mountains, freezing temperatures, and blinding snowstorms.
I pressed for action. Don and Tommy assured me they were moving as fast as possible. But as the days passed, I became more and more frustrated. Our response looked too much like the impotent air war America had waged in the past. I worried we were sending the wrong message to the enemy and to the American people. Tommy Franks later called those days a period “from hell.” I felt the same way.
Twelve days after I announced the start of the war, the first of the Special Forces teams finally touched down. In the north, our forces linked up with the CIA and Northern Alliance fighters. In the south, a small team of Special Forces raided Taliban leader Mullah Omar’s headquarters in Kandahar.
Months later, I visited Fort Bragg in North Carolina, where I met members of the Special Forces team that had led the raid. They gave me a brick from the remnants of Mullah Omar’s compound. I kept it in the private study next to the Oval Office as a reminder that we were fighting this war with boots on the ground—and that the Americans in those boots were courageous and skilled.
The arrival of our troops did not quiet doubts at home. On October 25, Condi told me the slow pace of operations, which was producing a drumbeat of criticism in the media, was affecting the national security team. The war was only eighteen days old, but some were already talking about alternative strategies.
In times of uncertainty, any indication of doubt from the president ripples throughout the system. At a National Security Council meeting the next morning, I said, “I just want to make sure that all of us did agree on this plan, right?” I went around the table and asked every member of the team. They all agreed.
I assured the team that we had the right strategy. Our plan was well conceived. Our military was capable. Our cause was just. We shouldn’t give in to second-guessing or let the press panic us. “We’re going to stay confident and patient, cool and steady,” I said.
I could sense the relief in the room. The experience reminded me that even the most accomplished and powerful people sometimes need to be reassured. As I later told journalist Bob Woodward, the president has to be the “calcium in the backbone.”
I was glad we had stiffened our spines when I saw the
In some ways, this was predictable. The reporters of my generation tend to see everything through the prism of Watergate or Vietnam. Still, I was amazed the
The differences between the two conflicts were striking. The enemy in Afghanistan had just murdered three thousand innocent people on American soil. At the time we had almost no conventional forces in Afghanistan, compared to the hundreds of thousands that had been in Vietnam. America was unified behind our troops and their mission. And we had a growing coalition at our side.
None of those distinctions mattered to the media. The debate about the so-called quagmire continued on the editorial pages and cable TV. I shrugged it off. I knew most Americans would be patient and supportive, so long as we delivered results.
In early November, results arrived. Supported by CIA officers and Special Forces, Northern Alliance generals moved toward Taliban positions. The Afghan warriors led the ground attacks, while our Special Forces used GPS units and laser guidance systems to direct airstrikes. Northern Alliance fighters and our Special Forces mounted a cavalry charge and liberated the strategic city of Mazar-i-Sharif. Residents poured into the streets in celebration. The most modern weaponry of the twenty-first century, combined with a horse charge reminiscent of the nineteenth century, had driven the Taliban from their northern stronghold.
I was relieved. While I had confidence in our strategy and dismissed the quagmire talk, I had felt some anxiety. There was no way to know for sure whether our approach would succeed. The fall of Mazar reassured me. “This thing might just unravel like a cheap suit,” I told Vladimir Putin.
It unraveled fast. Within days, almost every major city in the north fell. The Taliban fled Kabul for mountain hideouts in the east and south. Women came out of their homes. Children flew kites. Men shaved off their beards and danced in the streets. One man listened to music—banned under the Taliban—with a cassette player pressed to his ear. “We are free!” he shouted. A woman teacher said, “I’m happy because I believe now the doors of the school will be open for girls.”
I was overjoyed by the scenes of liberation. So was Laura. The Saturday after Kabul fell, she delivered the weekly radio address, the first time a First Lady had ever done so. The Taliban regime, she said, “is now in retreat across much of the country, and the people of Afghanistan—especially women—are rejoicing. Afghan women know, through hard experience, what the rest of the world is discovering. … The fight against terrorism is also a fight for the rights and dignity of women.”
Laura’s address prompted positive responses from around the world. The most meaningful came from Afghan women. Expanding opportunity in Afghanistan, especially for women and girls, became a calling for Laura. In the years to come, she met with Afghan teachers and entrepreneurs, facilitated the delivery of textbooks and medicine, supported a new U.S.-Afghan Women’s Council that mobilized more than $70 million in private development funds, and made three trips to the country. Just as I was feeling more comfortable as commander in chief, she was gaining her footing as First Lady.
With northern Afghanistan liberated, our attention turned to the south. George Tenet reported that an anti- Taliban movement was coalescing around a Pashtun leader, Hamid Karzai. Karzai was not a typical military commander. He grew up near Kandahar, earned a college degree in India, spoke four languages, and served in the Afghan government before it was taken over by the Taliban.
Two days after our bombing campaign began, Karzai hopped on a motorcycle in Pakistan, crossed the border, and rallied several hundred men to take Tarin Kot, a small city near Kandahar. The Taliban discovered Karzai’s presence and sent troops to kill him. With his position about to be overrun, the CIA dispatched a helicopter to pick him up. After a brief period, Karzai returned to lead the resistance. He was joined in late November by a contingent of Marines. The remaining Taliban officials fled Kandahar. The city fell on December 7, 2001, the sixtieth anniversary of Pearl Harbor, two months to the day after my speech in the Treaty Room.
Driven out of their strongholds, the remnants of the Taliban and al Qaeda fled to Afghanistan’s rugged eastern border with Pakistan. In early 2002, Tommy Franks mounted a major assault called Operation Anaconda. Our troops, joined by coalition partners and Afghan forces, squeezed out the remaining al Qaeda and Taliban fighters in eastern Afghanistan. CIA officers and Special Forces crawled through the caves, calling in airstrikes on terrorist hideouts and putting a serious dent in al Qaeda’s army.
I hoped I would get a call with the news that Osama bin Laden was among the dead or captured. We were searching for him constantly and received frequent but conflicting information on his whereabouts. Some reports placed him in Jalalabad. Others had him in Peshawar, or at a lake near Kandahar, or at the Tora Bora cave complex. Our troops pursued every lead. Several times we thought we might have nailed him. But the intelligence never panned out.
