500 Days (27 page)

Ashcroft fumed. The answer wasn’t good enough. He wouldn’t stand for being cut out. He was going to have to take on Rumsfeld, and win back his turf.

•  •  •  

At a National Security Council meeting that day, Rumsfeld picked up his now-familiar refrain: The CIA plan was a failure. The Northern Alliance would not capture Mazar-e Sharif. The military needed to take over.

On the other side of the table, Tenet was sitting with Hank Crumpton, a legendary CIA operative who led the new Special Operations branch at the Counterterrorist Center. It was Crumpton who crafted the CIA strategy for Afghanistan, and he remained unwavering in his certainty that it would succeed.

The Pentagon was wrong, he argued. “Mazar will fall in the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours,” he said.

Not many in the room believed him.

•  •  •  

Mazar-e Sharif fell the next day.

The final battle was being waged even as the meeting of the National Security Council was taking place. Taliban fighters, driven back to the north, had dug in on a ridge outside the city, giving them cover as they launched a rocket assault. A-Team 595 called in strikes by B-52 bombers, hitting the Taliban. By late afternoon, the Northern Alliance fought off the Taliban counterattacks and, led by the Special Forces team on horseback, seized the ridge.

The fight came to an end when General Dostum and his Northern Alliance forces seized the city’s airport and rode into Mazar-e Sharif. Afghanis poured out of their homes, celebrating and kissing the fighters who had routed the Taliban.

Afterward, General Dostum spoke to Captain Nutsch and his fighters in A-Team 595, expressing his gratitude.

“I asked for a few Americans,” he said. “They brought with them the courage of a whole army.”

•  •  •  

While the fight for Mazar-e Sharif raged, a less deadly war for turf unfolded in the Roosevelt Room at the White House.

The previous day, Ashcroft had demanded a meeting with Gonzales to hash over the military commissions order. It was wrong for the Justice Department to be cut out of this new process, he had groused. This was a dispute that had to be resolved immediately, before the president signed.

Even though it was a Saturday, there was no casual dress; everyone arrived in dark suits. Gonzales came into the room with Addington, Flanigan, and a few others. Ashcroft was accompanied by two of his top aides.

The discussion began abruptly. “You’ve been going behind our back,” Ashcroft snapped, looking at Gonzales. “We wouldn’t be in this situation, at this level of disagreement, if you had done the right thing and just involved us in the first place.”

While he made no accusation, Ashcroft glanced at Addington as he continued fuming about his sense of betrayal.

Addington leaned in. “This is not something I did on my own. The vice president of the United States asked me to do this.”

“Yes, and I’m sure you had nothing to do with that,” Ashcroft said, his tone dripping with sarcasm.

“There really isn’t an issue here for DOJ, except as to form and legality of the presidential order,” Addington continued. “This is an issue with respect to the president exercising his commander-in-chief power, which, Mr. Attorney General, is not your area.”

Ashcroft looked at Gonzales. “I don’t think this is appropriate unless the attorney general of the United States decides who’s in and who’s out of this military system,” he said. “Otherwise, you’re creating a system that stands outside the justice system.”

“That’s the point,” Addington said.

“
You
created this mischief!” Ashcroft barked at Addington, pointing a finger at him. “You created this havoc by not bringing DOJ in!”

“I’ll bring in who I’m asked to bring in by the vice president of the United States.”

Ashcroft turned away from Addington. He would no longer acknowledge that the vice president’s lawyer was in the room.

He stared at Gonzales. “The person who did this is the spawn of the devil!” Ashcroft boomed.

The room went silent. Addington was Satan’s son? No one knew how to respond. Gonzales let the comment pass.

“We’ll have to tee this up for further discussion,” he said. There would have to be another meeting, this time with Cheney.

•  •  •  

Bin Laden closed his grip around an AK-74 Kalakov assault rifle as he crossed a basement banquet hall at the Jalalabad Islamic studies center. A crowd of about one thousand tribal leaders had just feasted on lamb kabobs, rice, and hummus, and now awaited the al-Qaeda leader’s words.

It was the afternoon of that same day. The Saudi-funded Islamic institute
where the crowd gathered had been converted to an al-Qaeda intelligence outpost in the days after 9/11, but with the Americans and the Northern Alliance moving relentlessly toward Jalalabad, bin Laden had decided that it was time to fall back.

As bin Laden approached a podium, the people in the room grew silent; the only sounds were of American bombs exploding nearby. The al-Qaeda leader, dressed in a long shirt and camouflage jacket, praised God before launching into a fiery speech.

“The Americans had a plan to invade,” he said, “But if we are united and believe in Allah, we will teach them a lesson, the same one we taught the Russians!”

As he spoke, there were shouts from the crowd.
God is great! Down with America! Down with Israel!

“God is with us, and we will win the war,” bin Laden said. “Your Arab brothers will lead the way. We have the weapons and the technology. What we need most is your moral support. And may God grant me the opportunity to see you and meet you again on the front lines.”

Bin Laden stepped away from the podium. The crowd rose to their feet and began to chant.
Long live Osama! Long live Osama!

The al-Qaeda leader placed his right hand over his heart as envelopes of cash were dispensed to the tribal leaders. Then fifteen guards surrounded bin Laden and whisked him out the door.

•  •  •  

The lines were drawn for the meeting the next day: the attorney general versus the vice president. And Andy Card, the White House chief of staff, would referee.

A large group of officials, including both Ashcroft and Rumsfeld, arrived early in the Roosevelt Room. Ashcroft was jovial, and everyone engaged in lighthearted banter. Cheney walked in and took a seat at the center of the table. He said a few pleasant words to Ashcroft.

“All right,” Cheney began. “There are some issues we need to resolve. What are they?”

Addington spoke up. “Well, Mr. Vice President, the issues are—”

Ashcroft interrupted. “What we need to discuss is what’s the role of DOJ going to be in making designations for military commissions.”

“Well,” Cheney began, “from what I understand from the lawyers, we need to be concerned about how the courts—”

“No, we don’t need to be concerned about that,” Ashcroft said, interrupting again.

Cheney stopped speaking and lowered his head. Some of the people watching thought he was counting to ten, trying to avoid getting angry.

The door opened and Card stepped into the room, looking cheerful. “All right,” he said as he took a chair beside Cheney. “What do we need to resolve here?”

Ashcroft spoke. “We’ve got to make sure that this order preserves the DOJ’s role in these prosecutions. I am the president’s top law enforcement official. We need to have some role in deciding whether or not we take these cases before a grand jury.”

“Well,” Cheney began, “I understand if we had that role for the DOJ, it will open it up for attack—”

“No, I don’t think that’s true,” Ashcroft said, speaking over Cheney.

The two kept talking simultaneously with Cheney expecting the attorney general to stop. When Ashcroft kept going, Cheney went silent.

On another side of the table, Rumsfeld watched without speaking a word. He wasn’t eager to be the one choosing which suspects would be tried by the commissions, but he was perfectly happy to allow Ashcroft to undermine his own argument by making a fool of himself.

The debate continued for another few minutes, getting nowhere. Card wrapped it up. “I’m going to talk to the president about this,” he said. With passions running this high, Bush was going to have to play peacemaker.

•  •  •  

Ashcroft returned to his office, certain he had lost out to Rumsfeld. “Chalk up another win for the rock star,” he said to an aide.

•  •  •  

The dispute was presented to Bush. No matter which department he chose to make the designations, Bush was told, somebody was going to walk away furious.

He gave it a moment’s thought. Maybe he just needed to take both the Pentagon
and
the Justice Department out of the mix. Hell, he was the commander in chief.

“I’ll do it,” he said.

•  •  •  

Ahmad El-Maati and his mother had just obtained boarding passes for their flight out of Toronto Pearson International Airport. They joined the security
line; it was moving slowly, but El-Maati was comfortable that they had enough time to make their flight.

Two officers approached.

“Sir, could you please step out of line?”

El-Maati blinked. “Is there a problem?”

“Sir, I just need you to step out of line, please.”

His mother was escorted away, and El-Maati was taken downstairs by two detective sergeants. They asked him a series of questions—why was he traveling, when had he planned his trip? They removed the gifts he was carrying in a bag and asked him why he had them. Meanwhile, in another part of the airport, other police officers were interviewing his mother about the itinerary.

The questioning dragged on, and the two missed their flight. Finally, El-Maati and his mother were escorted through security to the boarding gate for the next plane. Two undercover officers monitored them on the first leg of their trip, from Toronto to Vienna, but stopped there. The plane to Damascus, they decided, was Syria’s problem.

El-Maati was shaken, but by the time the plane landed the following day, he had put the experience behind him. He was excited about seeing his fiancée and her family, who were waiting inside the terminal. At immigration, he presented his documents to an agent, who punched his name into the computer.

The agent looked up from the screen and asked El-Maati to come to a nearby office. There, Syrian officials checked his papers, then escorted him to his luggage, leaving his mother behind.

“Follow us outside,” one of the officials said.

El-Maati stepped through the airport doors. Without a word, someone grabbed his arms and handcuffed him. A car drove up, a door flung open, and El-Maati was shoved inside.

As the car pulled away, someone slipped a black hood over his head.

•  •  •  

The four-page military commissions order was finished the following day. Cheney brought it in a folder to his weekly lunch with Bush and passed it over the table.

The president put on his glasses and silently read. “That’s it,” he said. “Ready to go.”

Lunch ended and Cheney took the order with him. Even though Bush had given his oral approval, the document still had to go through a final processing before it was ready to sign. Cheney handed it over to Addington, who in turn
brought it to the White House counsel’s office. Once Flanigan took charge of the paperwork, he called Brad Berenson over from the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

“This is the order,” Flanigan told him. “It’s ready for the president’s signature.”

Bush had already reviewed the document, Flanigan said, and it should be taken to him right away. Since the president was about to leave for his ranch in Crawford, he said, forget about the usual, detailed process that preceded the signing of an order. Berenson took the document and headed to the White House basement. Before the order could be presented to Bush, it had to be logged with the office of the staff secretary, Harriet Miers.

When Berenson arrived, he found Miers’s second in command, Stuart Bowen. Berenson told him that he had an order for Bush’s signature. Bowen was dumbstruck—there was a procedure for reviewing and coordinating the presentation of documents to the president. It wasn’t some rapid-fire undertaking.

This had to go through the staff, Bowen protested. Every assistant or advisor with a stake in the new rules had to sign off. That was fundamental. The president needed a full range of advice to avoid making a mistake.

“Brad, there’s a process for this,” he said. “I’ve handled thousands of documents, and I’ve never bypassed that procedure.”

“It’s urgent,” Berenson replied. “the president is waiting to sign this. As I understand it, somebody already briefed the president, and he’s already approved it.”

After some more back-and-forth, Bowen reluctantly gave in. He knew Bush’s schedule; the president would be leaving for Crawford in a matter of minutes. If Bush was going to sign the order, Bowen said, they had to hurry.

The two men rushed up the stairs. Outside the window of the Oval Office, they could see
Marine One
landing on the helipad. The president would be leaving momentarily.

Bush glanced up. “Hey, Brad, Stuart, how you doing?”

“Fine sir, thank you,” Bowen said. “Mr. President, there’s a document that requires your signature before you leave. It’s the military order authorizing the secretary of defense to establish military commissions.”

Bush walked from behind his desk toward the sitting area. Bowen opened up the blue portfolio containing the order. Bush scanned it impassively.

He signed with a felt-tip marker.