America's War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History (72 page)

 11.
“Remarks to Airline Employees.”

 12.
Tommy Franks,
American Soldier
(New York, 2004), 277.

 13.
Bob Woodward,
Bush at War
(New York, 2002), 25, 43–44.

 14.
Benjamin S. Lambeth,
Air Power Against Terror
(Santa Monica, 2005), 76–77.

 15.
Franks,
American Soldier,
271.

 16.
CIA paramilitaries had entered the country on September 26 to open negotiations with (and suborn) anti-Taliban Afghans. For a firsthand account, see Gary Schroen,
First In
(New York, 2005).

 17.
On day one of air operations, U.S. forces, with a minor British augmentation, hit a grand total of only thirty-one targets. Day two involved fewer aircraft than day one and struck only thirteen targets. Lambeth,
Air Power Against Terror,
85–86, 88.

 18.
Lambeth,
Air Power Against Terror,
95–96.

 19.
Woodward,
Bush at War,
212.

 20.
After 9/11, in return for substantial financial compensation, the government of Uzbekistan agreed to allow U.S. forces access to the airfield at Karshi-Khanabad. From 2001 to 2002, U.S. aid to Uzbekistan quadrupled. Donald P. Wright et al.,
A Different Kind of War: The U.S. Army in Operation Enduring Freedom
(Fort Leavenworth, 2010), 38. U.S. forces continued to use this facility, known informally as K2, as a logistics support base for operations in Afghanistan until 2005. At that time, irritated by U.S. pressure related to human rights, Uzbekistan revoked the agreement and evicted the Americans.

 21.
Dana Priest, “ ‘Team 555’ Shaped a New Way of War,”
The Washington Post
(April 3, 2002).

 22.
Woodward,
Bush at War,
51.

 23.
Lambeth,
Air Power Against Terror,
71.

 24.
For a detailed account of the role of U.S. special forces in the campaign to depose the Taliban, see Wright et al.,
Different Kind of War,
75–82, 96–112.

 25.
A few notables registered their dissent. Susan Sontag for one, just a week after 9/11, complained about the “self-righteous drivel and outright deceptions being peddled by public figures and TV commentators” who refused to acknowledge that the terrorist attack occurred as a “consequence of specific American alliances and actions.” In place of what she derided as “grief management,” Sontag advocated “a few shreds of historical awareness” to help understand “what has just happened, and what may continue to happen.” Susan Sontag, “Tuesday, and After,”
The New Yorker
(September 24, 2001).

 26.
James Risen, “U.S. Inaction Seen After Taliban P.O.W.’s Died,”
The New York Times
(July 10, 2009).

 27.
Lambeth,
Air Power Against Terror
, 132–33.

 28.
On the night of October 19–20, approximately two hundred troops from the army’s 3d Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment had parachuted into the same airfield. The Rangers’ principal mission was to support a Delta Force raid aimed at getting the Taliban leader Mullah Omar. That effort came up empty-handed. After a stay of several hours, C-130s safely extracted the Rangers.

 29.
Richard W. Stewart,
Operation Enduring Freedom: October 2001
–
March 2002
(Washington, D.C., [2004]), 19. Stewart was TF Dagger’s official historian.

 30.
Task Force 11 was one of several “black” special forces units participating in Enduring Freedom, their existence classified, their presence not officially acknowledged.

 31.
Wright et al.,
Different Kind of War,
113–20.

 32.
Franks,
American Soldier,
314, 325.

 33.
Franks,
American Soldier,
324.

 34.
“Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz Interview with CNN Late Edition” (December 9, 2001).

 35.
“Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz Interview with Middle East Broadcasting Center” (December 10, 2001).

 36.
Franks,
American Soldier,
315.

 37.
Donald Rumsfeld,
Known and Unknown
(New York, 2011), 405.

 38.
“Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz Interview with Los Angeles Times” (December 14, 2001).

 39.
Charles Krauthammer, “Where Power Talks,”
The Washington Post
(January 4, 2002).

 40.
“Address Before a Joint Session of Congress on the State of the Union” (January 29, 2002).

 41.
Lambeth,
Air Power Against Terror,
247–53.

 42.
The figures come from
icasualties.org/oef
, accessed March 20, 2015.

 43.
Wright et al.,
Different Kind of War,
120.

 44.
The following draws on Sean Naylor,
Not a Good Day to Die
(New York, 2005), which is the definitive account of Operation Anaconda. But see also, Lambeth,
Air Power Against Terror,
163–200; and Wright et al.,
Different Kind of War,
127–73.

 45.
Dating from its service in post–World War II Japan, the 187th Infantry Regiment had acquired the nickname Rakkasans. The infantry battalions forming Wiercinski’s brigade of the 101st came from that regiment.

 46.
Naylor,
Not a Good Day
, 120.

 47.
Lambeth,
Air Power Against Terror
, 194.

 48.
Brian Knowlton, “U.S. Offensive ‘Absolute Success’ but More Fighting Seen Ahead,”
The New York Times
(March 19, 2002).

13. Kicking Down the Door

 1.
“Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz Interview with Sam Tannenhaus,”
Vanity Fair
(May 9, 2003). In his memoir, Douglas Feith affirms this point, writing that Saddam’s alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction “was
not
a cornerstone of our rationale for going to war.” WMD merely offered a convenient argument, useful in attempting to persuade skeptics at home and abroad. Douglas J. Feith,
War and Decision
(New York, 2008), 228, emphasis in original.

 2.
The allusion is to the famous quote by Bush national security adviser Condoleezza Rice making the case for preventive war against Iraq and warning that “we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.”
CNN Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer
(September 8, 2002),
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0209/08/le.00.html
, accessed March 28, 2015.

 3.
Rumsfeld,
Known and Unknown,
435.

 4.
“Scott McClellan Holds White House Regular News Briefing” (December 6, 2005).

 5.
“Remarks by National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice on Terrorism and Foreign Policy” (April 29, 2002).

 6.
Max Boot, “The Case for American Empire,”
The Weekly Standard
(October 15, 2001).

 7.
George W. Bush, “Address to the Nation on Iraq from the U.S.S.
Abraham Lincoln
” (May 1, 2003); Dick Cheney, interview on
Meet the Press
(March 16, 2003); Donald Rumsfeld, “Secretary Rumsfeld Media Stakeout” (January 19, 2003); Paul Wolfowitz, “Testimony Before House Appropriations Committee” (March 27, 2003); Douglas J. Feith, “Statement to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations” (February 11, 2003).

 8.
Thomas Hobbes,
Leviathan
(rpt., London, 1886), 48.

 9.
During his confirmation hearings in 2001, Rumsfeld had previewed the logic. The ultimate goal of U.S. national security policy, he testified, “ought to be to be so strong and so powerful that you can dissuade people from doing things they otherwise would do. You do not have to even fight the war.”
Nominations Before the Senate Armed Services Committee, First Session, 107th Congress
(January 11, 2001), 55.

 10.
Democracy Now
(March 2, 2007),
youtube.com/watch?v=SXS3vW47mOE
, accessed March 30, 2015.

 11.
Feith,
War and Decision,
49.

 12.
Feith,
War and Decision,
52.

 13.
Quoted in Hal Brands,
What Good Is Grand Strategy?
(Ithaca, 2014), 163.

 14.
John Prados and Christopher Ames, “Was There Even a Decision?” (October 1, 2010), National Security Archive,
nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB328/
, accessed March 31, 2015.

 15.
Some might suggest that there was a fourth task—making the case internationally that invading Iraq was legitimate and justified. This task fell to Secretary of State Colin Powell, but apart from Powell himself, other senior Bush administration officials did not see it as of very great moment.

 16.
Philip Reichel, ed.,
Handbook of Transnational Crime and Justice
(Thousand Oaks, Calif., 2005), 205.

 17.
Douglas Feith, “Sovereignty and Anticipatory Self-Defense” (August 24, 2002),
papers.rumsfeld.com
, accessed April 12, 2005.

 18.
“President Bush Delivers Graduation Speech at West Point” (June 1, 2002). In September 2002, the White House released a new
National Security Strategy of the United States of America
that embellished these themes.

 19.
“Downing Street Memo,”
Sunday Times
(May 1, 2005). The memo itself, minutes of a meeting between British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his key security advisers, was dated July 23, 2002.

 20.
“Cheney Cites ‘Risks of Inaction’ with Iraq,”
CNN.com/Inside Politics
(August 27, 2002).

 21.
Robert C. Byrd and Mary Sharon Hall,
The Senate, 1789–1989,
vol. 1 (Washington, D.C., 1988), 417.

 22.
Thomas Morrow, “Wheeler Flays F.D.R. Smear of Col. Lindbergh,”
Chicago Tribune
(April 26, 1941).

 23.
In
The New York Review of Books,
the journalist Mark Danner has contributed several acutely insightful essays on Cheney’s methods and the results he achieved. They include “In the Darkness of Dick Cheney” (March 6, 2014), “He Remade Our World” (April 3, 2014), and “Cheney: The More Ruthless the Better” (May 8, 2014).