Berntsen, Gary, and Ralph Pezzullo. Jawbreaker: The Attack on Bin Laden and Al Qaeda: A Personal Account by the CIA's Key Field Commander. New York: Crown, 2005. Berntsen, Gary, and Ralph Pezzullo. Jawbreaker: The Attack on Bin Laden and Al Qaeda: A Personal Account by the CIA's Key Field Commander. New York: Crown, 2005.
Clark comment: Berntsen replaced Gary Schroen as head of the CIA's JAWBREAKER operation in Afghanistan in early November 2001, and headed the CIA effort through the fall of Kabul and in the hunt for Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora and beyond. He left in mid-December. The success of the CIA-led war against the Taliban certainly makes the decision not to give all covert operations to the military look pretty good. The speed at which the CIA was able to move and the flexibility shown in responding to the ever-changing situation is impressive. Berntsen's frustration, even anger, over the failure "to finish the job" -- that is, kill Osama bin Laden -- is clearly stated and heartfelt. Whether he is correct in his assessment of that "failure" is open for discussion. His book needs to be read in conjunction with Gary C. Schroen, First In: An Insider's Account of How the CIA Spearheaded the War on Terror in Afghanistan (Novato, CA: Presidio, 2005). Taken together, the two books are a stunningly detailed view of a major paramilitary operation.
John Lehman, Washington Post, 12 Feb. 2006, says that this book "provides a valuable new account by a major participant that fills in many blanks" in the new kind of war waged in Afghanistan. At various times, CIA veteran Berntsen "had elements of the Delta Force, Army Rangers, Navy SEALs and tactical air units reporting to him." The "best aspect" of the book "is its day-by-day account of the execution of an aggressive strategy that originated at the most senior levels of the White House, the Pentagon and the CIA."
For the reviewer, a former Secretary of the Navy and 9/11 Commission member, the author "recounts very credibly how he and others pleaded with Gen. Tommy Franks and the Pentagon brass to put in blocking forces so that bin Laden and the remnants of al Qaeda's leadership could not flee into Pakistan. But for reasons that remain unclear to Berntsen..., the Bush administration or Franks decided to depend instead on local Afghan warlords rather than put U.S. forces on the ground to block bin Laden's escape." This "was a huge blunder."
To Peake, Studies 50.3 (Sep. 2006) and Intelligencer 15.2 (Fall/Winter 2006-2007), "Berntsen offers highly detailed and, if they are to be accepted, disturbing perspectives of numerous events.... Published with many parts blacked out in the Agency’s classification review, it still tells an important story and should be read by all those who want to learn about CIA counterterrorism analysis at Headquarters and operations in the field."
See Richard Leiby, "Knocking on Osama's Cave Door: The CIA Operative Says He Was There at the Right Time. His Ex-Bosses Insist No One Was Home," Washington Post, 16 Feb. 2006, C1, for an interview with Berntsen.
See also Dana Priest, "Suing Over the CIA's Red Pen: Retired Operative Says Agency Unfairly Edited His Book," Washington Post, 9 Oct. 2006, A15, for a report on Bertsen's legal efforts to get redacted portions of his book restored.
Cordesman, Anthony H. The Lessons of Afghanistan: Warfighting, Intelligence, Force Transformation, Counterproliferation, and Arms Control. Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2002.
Lambeth, Benjamin S. Air Power against Terror: America’s Conduct of Operation Enduring Freedom. Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 2005. [http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG166]
Dunlap, Air & Space Power Journal 20.4 (Winter 2006), sees this as "one of the few accounts that properly approaches [Enduring Freedom] as fundamentally an air operation, not a special-forces action supported by air.... [T]he reader is treated to a detailed account of how newly fielded technologies, including unmanned Global Hawk reconnaissance aircraft and unmanned (but armed) Predators, made their battlespace appearances to give the Air Force’s intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) assets unprecedented persistence and, in the case of the Predator, lethality." The book has "tremendous overall value."
Luttrell, Marcus, with Patrick Robinson. Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10. New York: Little, Brown, 2007.
According to Longino, Proceedings 134, no. 5 (May 2008), this is the harrowing story of a special operation "mission that went awry." The author was the sole survivor of a four-man SEAL Team deployed into northeastern Afghanistan in June 2005.
Mackey, Chris [?pseud.], and Greg Miller. The Interrogators: Inside the Secret War against Al Qaeda. New York: Little, Brown, 2004.
According to Marisa, DIJ 14.1 (2005), Mackey "documents his firsthand experiences as a U.S. Army tactical interrogator," including as "senior Army interrogator in Afghansistan ... at Kandahar and Bagram" until the fall of 2002.... [F]or those ... interested in learning more about operational military HUMINT, particularly about military interrogation, debriefing, and counterintelligence operations[,] ... this book will be of high interest."
Moore, Robin. The Hunt for Bin Laden: Task Force Dagger. New York: Random House, 2003.
Stein, Washington Post, 16 Mar. 2003, says that this book "is fast-paced and immensely entertaining, in a ... cartoon-strippy way. Page after page, Moore's prose reads like a defiant country-and-western anthem.... (It should be noted ...that ... Moore was hardly 'on the ground with the Special Forces in Afghanistan,' except in the loosest sense of the phrase. This is the barroom version of the war, as told by their balladeer.) Nevertheless, it often rings true.... Moore does reach a kind of ground truth in his narrative of Special Forces at war: the dangerous, sometimes thrilling but unpredictable nature of combat."
For Clemens, MI 30.4 (Oct.-Dec. 2004), this "book’s strength is the chapters on operations with the NA [Northern Alliance], based on interviews with SF soldiers." However, "some chapters are more fully developed and better written than others." Moore's "analysis is unquestionably subjective.... This book is strictly a heroic portrayal of a military victory." In addition, the "sections covering operations after December 2001 relied on ... a source [who] proved dubious" and whose "fraudulent past casts doubt on parts of the book."
Naylor, Sean. Not a Good Day to Die: The Untold Story of Operation Anaconda. New York: Penguin Putnam, 2005.
Rothstein, Hy S. Afghanistan and the Troubled Future of Unconventional Warfare. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.
Maitre, Air & Space Power Journal 21.3 (Fall 2007), notes that the author is "a retired career special-forces officer with 30 years’ active duty." His "concise, well-documented review of the literature, which defines the context of special operations and the arena of unconventional warfare, transforms several vague definitions into clear terminology." Rothstein "argues that despite significant investment in developing special operations, the military lacks the institutional capability of engaging opponents with irregular methods. Employing SOF in a mission does not automatically constitute a special operation."
For Berger, et al, I&NS 22.6 (Dec. 2007), "Rothstein does an excellent job of laying out the requirements for conducting unconventional warfare and uses his analysis of operations in Afghanistan to expose the failures of the US military, more specifically, of US special operations forces.... The only major shortcoming of the book is that it focuses primarily on the infrastructure requirements of an unconventional capability."
Schroen, Gary C. First In: An Insider's Account of How the CIA Spearheaded the War on Terror in Afghanistan. Novato, CA: Presidio, 2005.
Clark comment: Schroen and his JAWBREAKER team were truly "first in," leaving the U.S. for deployment to Afghanistan on 19 September 2001. He recounts the story well, in serviceable language that keeps the pace of the book moving along briskly. The success of the CIA-led war against the Taliban certainly makes the decision not to give all covert operations to the military look pretty good. The speed at which the CIA was able to move and the flexibility shown in responding to the ever-changing situation is impressive. Schroen's First In should be read in conjunction with Gary Berntsen and Ralph Pezzullo, Jawbreaker: The Attack on Bin Laden and Al Qaeda: A Personal Account by the CIA's Key Field Commander (New York: Crown, 2005). Berntsen replaced Schroen as commander of JAWBREAKER in early November 2001, and tells the story through his replacement in mid-December. Taken together, the two books are a stunningly detailed view of a major paramilitary operation.
Bass, Washington Post, 29 May 2005, comments that this "astonishing new book tells the story of how a handful of CIA agents ... led the initial post-Sept. 11 charge against al Qaeda and its Taliban patrons.... The staggering detail in these pages ... makes First In unlike any other CIA memoir." The book is "seriously weakened by several lengthy passages in which Schroen,... offers purportedly verbatim recreations of dialogue he never heard. But this is still a stunning book -- both an essential document about the strange and oft-forgotten war against the Taliban, a withering policy critique and a proud memoir from an aging man who risked life and limb to try to kill al Qaeda's masterminds."
For Moore, Studies 49.4 (2005), this work "speaks eloquently of the CIA's flexibility and ability to react in a crisis." The Northern Afghanistan Liaison team (NALT) "deployed nine days after the 9/11 attacks," while the first special forces teams did not arrive until almost a month later. Schroen tells the action part of his story well, but his "foray into the policy realm ... struck th[e] reviewer as a stretch."
DKR, AFIO WIN 21-05 (30 May 2005), finds that the author "leads the reader through events that range from the exhilarating to the terrifying to the frustrating.... Schroen is critical of the Bush administration's shift of interest to Iraq before the task in Afghanistan had been completed."
Latif, Parameters, Summer 2006, finds that "[t]he chapters are short and the book moves briskly, as the author writes in clear, crisp, matter-of-fact sentences that require no embellishment." Schroen describes his work to gain the Northern Alliance’s allegiance to the U.S. effort "through a combination of financial inducements and delicate diplomacy among the various warlords." This work "adds a riveting account to the already rich martial history of Afghanistan and is destined to become a classic tale of CIA exploits in the war on terror."
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