My Share of the Task (81 page)

“
Mujahedin”:
Omar quoted in Clark, “Taleban Codes of Conduct,” 23.

“fiercely” forbidden
:
Ibid., 22.

“
A brave son of Islam”:
This translation comes from Al Jazeera, “Key Quotes from New Taliban book,” Al Jazeera, July 27, 2009. Clark has it translated as, “The Islamic nation's sacrificing heroes shall not be used against minor and valueless targets” (“The Taleban Codes of Conduct,” 21).

the entire 1980s:
With some rare exceptions, during the 1980s suicide bombing was largely confined to Lebanon, and viewed as a peculiar aspect of that war's internecine violence.

following the book's release:
Kate Cark, “The Layha: Calling the Taleban to Account,” Afghan Analysts Network
,
June 2011, 23.

polio vaccination programs:
Yaroslav Trofimov, “Risky Ally in War on Polio: the Taliban,”
Wall Street Journal
, January 15, 2010.

even in areas like Helmand
:
Coghlan notes that most estimates for the population who “actively support” the Taliban are “in the range of 10–20 per cent” (Coghlan, “The Taliban in Helmand,” 133).

CHAPTER 18: DESIGN

“First, tell me”:
Notes of ISAF military officer present at June 20, 2009, meeting.

largest operators:
International Security Assistance Force, “3 SCOTS Launch Massive Air Assault into Taliban Stronghold” (press release), June 2, 2009.

three thousand British, Afghan, Estonian, and Danish troops
:
Jeffrey Dressler,
Securing Helmand: Understanding and Responding to the Enemy
(Institute for the Study of War, September 2009), 34.

Nasim Akhundzada:
Biographical details about Mullah Nasim Akhundzada are drawn from
Antonio
Giustozzi and Noor Ullah, “‘Tribes' and Warlords in Southern Afghanistan, 1980–2005,” Crisis States Research Center, September 2006, 9–15, and Joel
Hafvenstein
,
Opium Season: A Year on the Afghan Frontier
(The Lyons Press, 2007), 128–32.

platform he built overtop the soil:
Giustozzi and Ullah, “‘Tribes' and Warlords,” 9. That Nasim had engaged in this practice was confirmed in correspondence with an intelligence analyst deployed to Helmand, 2009–11.

a fatwa he issued:
Hafvenstein
,
Opium Season
,
129.

He was on his way
:
Ibid., 130.

durable drug cartel:
Giustozzi and Ullah, “‘Tribes' and Warlords,” 12–13.

checkerboard of roadblocks:
Hafvenstein,
Opium Season
,
131.

the Karzais:
Giustozzi and Ullah, “‘Tribes' and Warlords,” 12.

Taliban program took hold:
Coghlan,
“The Taliban in Helmand,” 124–25.

Taliban showed themselves unqualified:
Ibid., 124.

mustered networks of aggrieved:
Ibid., 125

posterboy of insurgents' propaganada:
Ibid., 126

brigade-size task force:
The overall task force contained 3,500 personnel, but only 600 infantrymen. Anthony King, “Understanding the Helmand Campaign,”
International Affairs
(March 2010), 314.

married two sisters:
Giustozzi and Ullah, “‘Tribes' and Warlords,” 13.

eased the population:
Coghlan, “The Taliban in Helmand,” 140.

as a fourth tenet:
This was originally a suggestion of Jeff Eggers in his memo, “Patience Is Paramount but Time Is of the Essence” (memorandum), June 5, 2009.

last four summers:
Stephen Grey, “Cracking On in Helmand,”
Prospect
(September 2009), 46–51.

Nawa and Garmsir districts:
Dressler,
Securing Helmand
,
38.

“Soviet Invasion of 1979”:
U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, “Abstracts of Master of Military Art and Science (MMAS) Theses and Special Studies, Annual Edition 1987–88,
”
16–17.

left them feeling spurned:
A 1993
New York Times
article notes: “For five years, the Reagan and Bush Administrations certified that Islamabad did not possess the cability [sic] to detonate a nuclear bomb, a finding widely considered to be a good will effort toward a country that was helping guerrillas fight Soviet forces in Afghanistan. In 1990, after Soviet soldiers had withdrawn from Afghanistan, the Bush Administration stopped protecting Pakistan from the amendment's sanctions and the aid was cut off.” Steven A. Holmes, “Clinton Plans Change in the Law Banning Military Aid to Pakistan,”
New York Times
, November 27, 1993.

crisis of confidence:
Stanley A. McChrystal, “Commander's Initial Assessment,” International Security Assistance Force, August 30, 2009, section 1, 1.

“continued underresourcing”:
Ibid., Section 2, 1.

“focusing on force”:
Ibid., Section 1, 1.

“from
all
threats”:
Ibid., Section 1, 1-3. Emphasis in original.

“per square foot”:
Ibid., Appendix F, 1.

more insurgents:
For more on this, see Steve Coll, “Ink Spots,”
New Yorker
, September 28, 2009.

aggressive use of fires:
Chapter 5 of Gilles Dorronsoro's
Revolution Unending
is an informative take on the Soviets' later approach and the Najibullah regime they left in place. Gilles Dorronsoro,
Revolution Unending: Afghanistan, 1979 to the Present
(Columbia University Press, 2005), 173–201.

thirty-two candidates:
Kenneth Katzman, “Afghanistan: Politics, Elections, and Government Performance,” Congressional Research Service,
March 30, 2012, 22.

burst the cinderblocks
:
Interview with U.S. military officer present at the scene.

killed seven people:
Carlotta Gall, “Bomb Kills 7 Near NATO's Afghan Headquarters,”
New York Times
, August 15, 2009.

women-only voting stations:
United Nations Development Programme Afghanistan: Enhancing Legal & Electoral Capacity for Tomorrow, “Annual Progress Report–2009,” 31.

tunics for poll workers:
Ibid., 29–30.

Taliban attacks was extremely high:
The BBC reported that ISAF said there were 400 attacks, but in 2012 the Congressional Research Service reported that there were roughly 280 (“NATO/ISAF announced that there were about 380 total attacks, about 100 more than in 2009”). Katzman, “Afghanistan: Politics, Elections, and Government,” 28.

90 percent of the polling sites:
The IEC website indicated that it opened “95.1% of the planned number” of polling centers, but this turned out to be a slight overestimate. Originally, there were 6,970 polling centers planned, but before election day that number was whittled down to 6,210 due to security concerns. A further 760 polling centers were closed the day of the election, again for security reasons. “Press Release of the Independent Election Commission with Reference to Announcement of Preliminary Results of 2009 Presidential Elections,” Independent Election Commission of Afghanistan website, September 16, 2009.

threats inactivated just 12 percent:
Ibid.

39
percent of voters turned out:
Voter turnout was at
38.7 percent according to the IEC (ibid.); it was 35 percent according to the Congressional Research Service (Katzman, “Afghanistan: Politics, Elections, and Government,” 24).

“a lot of talk in Washington”:
The full transcript of the interview, parts of which aired in the episode “Obama's War” on October 13, 2009, is available on the
Frontline
website.

CHAPTER 19: DECIDE

From our vehicles:
My recollection of these events was confirmed and augmented by interviews with two team members present on this trip.

“We need these kinds of operations”:
The dialogue of this scene comes from a publicly available video of the meeting. “Stanley McChrystal in Kunduz After 2009 Air Strike” (video), YouTube, May 22, 2009.

my team contacted them:
Interview with a senior military officer involved in coordinating the civilian advisers.

lowered to 328,000:
These numbers reflect our calculations at that time and come from notes taken by a team member on October 6, 2009.

approved to grow to 134,000:
Numbers for the Afghan National Army come from an annex in my assessment, an unclassified version of which was printed by the
Washington Post.
McChrystal, “Commander's Initial Assessment,” Annex G, 1.

84,000 strong:
Ibidi., Annex G, 2.

than any other force:
In 2008, 880 ANP policemen died; 646 died in 2009 and 961 in 2010; 155 American troops died in 2008; 312 in 2009; and 499 in 2010. Ian S. Livingston, Heather L. Messera, and Michael O' Hanlon,
Afghanistan Index
, Brooking's Institution, March 30, 2012, 14, 11.

“a war of necessity”:
These comments by the president—“This will not be quick, nor easy. But we must never forget: This is not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity”—were delivered on August 17, 2009, during a veterans convention. “Remarks by the President at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Convention,” White House website, August 17, 2009.

districts along Pakistan's border:
Details of the TTP come from a fuller account of their rise by Hassan Abbas, “A Profile of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan,”
CTC Sentinel
, January 2008.

border areas:
Abbas, “A Profile of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan.”

CHAPTER 20: EXECUTE

instinctive aversion to violence:
President Karzai has noted that his role models are famous pacifists—Gandhi, and his friend and contemporary, a Pashtun leader named Ghaffar Khan. See Elizabeth Rubin, “Karzai in His Labyrinth,”
New York Times
Magazine
, August 4, 2009.

trump card:
Content of Taliban propaganda comes from an interview with an intelligence analyst deployed to Helmand 2009–11.

more than sixty tribes:
Interview with intelligence analyst deployed to Helmand 2009–11.

slow, dangerous work:
Jeffery Dresser,
Operation Moshtarak: Taking and Holding Marjah
, Institute for the Study of War, March 2, 2010, 4–5.

Taliban they had encountered:
Julius Cavendish, “Afghanistan War: Marjah Battle as Tough as Fallujah, Say U.S. Troops,”
Christian Science Monitor
, February 14, 2010.

apologizing for the incident:
Afghanistan International Security Assistance Force, “ISAF Weapon Fails to Hit Intended Target, 12 Civilians Killed” (press release), February 14, 2010.

On Wednesday, February 17:
Details of Governor Mangal's appearance that day can be found in Patrick Baz, “Afghans Raise Flag as U.S. Says Offensive ‘Going Well,'”
Sydney Morning Herald
, February 18, 2010.

on top of a bamboo pole
:
“Afghan Governor Raises Flag over Marjah Bizaar,”
AFP
, February 17, 2010.

staff from a few days earlier:
Ibid.

seven hundred Marjah residents:
Dressler,
Operation Moshtarak
, 6, citing the Associated Press, “Afghan Government Claims Taliban Stronghold,” MSNBC website, February 25, 2010.

that week, was in attendance:
They had been there since Tuesday (ibid).

“the point at which you have”:
Carter and Zazai are quoted in Michael M. Phillips, “Afghan Flag Marks a Turning Point in Marjah,”
Wall Street Journal
, February 26, 2010.

school into bases:
Sangar Rahimi and Richard A. Oppel Jr., “Afghanistan's President Receives a Mixed Reception in a Visit to Newly Won Marjah,”
New York Times
,
March 7, 2010.

an old man
:
Mel Preen, “President Karzai Visits Marjah” (news video), NATO TV, March 8, 2010. Available on the NATO TV website.

“Their hands have been stained”:
Mohammed Elyas Daee and Abubakr Siddique, “In Marjah, New Gains Could Offer Escape from Tragic Past,” Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty,
March 9, 2012.

to gain a toehold:
Ibid.

actively campaigning against:
Paul Wiseman, “Despite U.S. Gains, Afghan City Still Feels Intimidation,”
USA Today
,
June 11, 2010. The article reports that Abdul Rahman Jan accused the Americans of bringing in an “outsider,” since Abdul Zahir was from Musa Qala, not Marjah.

crowd erupted in cheers:
Rahimi and Oppel Jr., “Mixed Reception,”
New York Times,
March 7, 2010.