Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the
Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 by Steve Coll
Reviewed by Julian Gearing
The administration of US President George W Bush is currently feeling the heat
for perceived failures to respond to the terrorist threat toward the United
States prior to September 11, 2001. But as Washington Post editor Steve Coll
makes clear in his book Ghost Wars, far worse finger pointing can be
leveled at previous US government
administrations. Their mistakes, naivete and wrongdoing over Afghan policy not
only indirectly led to thousands of Afghan deaths and the rise of the
ultra-conservative Taliban, but also gave succor to the anti-American Osama bin
Laden, helping to lay the groundwork for the terrorism exploding around the
world today.
It began back in the 1980s with the United States government's misplaced
multi-million dollar anti-Soviet policy in Afghanistan. During that time, an
Afghan royalist mujahideen commander offered this warning to the US: "For God's
sake, you are financing your own assassins."
With his warning, the commander and supporter of long-exiled Afghan king, Zahir
Shah, was not saying don't fund the Afghan "freedom fighters", those battling
the Russian communist forces who had invaded Afghanistan in 1979 (many saw the
mujahideen as a "just cause"), his gripe was that when it came to the choice of
who in the mujahideen to back, Washington was funding the wrong guys.
It is easy to talk with hindsight, but even back in the mid-1980s, in the midst
of the Cold War, warnings were given to Washington on the dangers of backing
hardline Islamic fundamentalists who increasingly spat venom at the US.
That warning, by a "moderate" commander, was prophetic. But few in the US
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Washington's halls of power were willing
to listen. Instead, a policy was followed that not only backed the wrong
mujahideen in Afghanistan, but also helped provide Osama bin Laden with a
crucible for developing terror.
Putting the pieces together
It is clear that questions need to be asked as to whether the September 11
terrorist attacks could have been prevented. And the world's most powerful
democracy currently is asking them of President Bush and his administration in
this election year. Meanwhile, the 9-11 Commission is unearthing what few
Americans knew about the "low priority" the terrorist threat got from Bush
prior to that sunny Tuesday morning when fully loaded passenger jets were flown
into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in southern
Pennsylvania.
But as the debate over responsibility for September 11 continues to rage, and
threatens the Republican's grip on government, there has been little debate
over the genesis of what is proving to be the greatest threat to peace in the
world today. Ghost Wars looks at the roots of poor intelligence and bad
policymaking over Afghanistan that led to the terrorism crisis. This book is
"news-breaking" - as the publicity blurb puts it - in the sense that it takes
us behind the scenes and pulls together much of the key developments into one
account. It is not news, however, to a few of the more informed journalists who
often risked their lives to cover the Afghan war. In this sense, the book is a
confirmation of what they already knew - that there was a serious flaw in the
US approach to the conflict. However, Coll, who was the Washington Post's South
Asia bureau chief from 1989 to 1992, has done us a service in putting together
the jigsaw of Afghan intrigue in a compelling way, making his book one of the
best to come out on Afghanistan in a quarter of a century.
It would be inadvisable, though, to hand this thick book to US special forces
currently said to be "closing in" on the world's "most wanted" man - bin Laden.
This is not because it would be too bulky to cart around in their knapsacks,
but because it would be demoralizing for grunts bedded down near the
Afghanistan-Pakistan border to read that their mission could have been avoided
and their lives not put at risk because their country, in essence, had failed
them. They would also be frustrated to read how previous attempts by US forces
and the CIA to capture or kill bin Laden had failed.
Few would venture as far as saying categorically that a major terrorist attack
on the United States could have been avoided. Yet, in this book, the roots of
what caused September 11 to occur are carefully laid out. And when the blame
has to fall, the current president should not be the only one it all comes
crashing down on. In the saga of international jihad, President Bush is
relatively new on the scene, following on the actions and failures of his
predecessors, presidents Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and even Bush's father,
George Bush Sr. It is worth keeping this in mind while following the ongoing
critical onslaught in Washington against the current President Bush.
Ghost Wars chronicles the litany of mistakes made by the CIA and current
and previous US administrations as well as the the often flawed policy
decisions regarding Afghanistan and bin Laden that may actually have
contributed to September 11. In Coll's careful "show, don't tell" reporting, he
lays out the facts as best he can and lets the reader decide. But after reading
the book, it is hard to avoid this conclusion.
Of heroes, misfits and villains
It is a story comprising heroes, misfits, incompetents and villains, and an
important thread throughout is the work put in by dedicated CIA agent Gary
Schroen. He spent much of the last 25 years dealing with the complexities of a
country, Afghanistan, used as a "playing field" by his country's intelligence
agency and those of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Russia and others. Schroen comes
across as an "agent's agent", an operative whose work the CIA should feel proud
of, but whose advice and knowledge is not always listened to or acted upon.
Through Schroen and others, one learns how the CIA, Pakistan's Inter Service
Intelligence (ISI) and Saudi Arabia's General Intelligence Department operated
secretly in Afghanistan, backing the various Afghan factions from the Soviet
invasion in 1979 to the eve of September 11, 2001. Crucial to the plot is how
Washington dealt with the Afghan mujahideen, the Taliban and the arrival of a
young Saudi millionaire's son, Osama bin Laden.
The US scorecard shows its failures of intelligence, failure to act on
intelligence and the failure of its policy. Washington's major mistake was to
hand over control of backing the mujahideen to Pakistan's ISI. Pakistan was
seen as a bulwark against communism, but Pakistan not only wanted to control
Afghanistan, it had its own Islamic agenda under former military and political
leader General Zia Ul-Haq.
Together with Saudi Arabia, Pakistan backed the Islamic fundamentalist groups,
such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hesbe Islami, at the expense of more moderate
groups and helped block support to the most effective guerrilla commander in
Afghanistan,
Ahmad Shah Massoud, a minority Tajik. The irony was that Hekmatyar's group not
only did little to engage the enemy - the Soviet and Afghan communists - but
actually fought against Massoud.
Washington sought to maintain "deniability" - anything that would help avoid
Moscow's ability to point a finger at "American interference in Afghanistan" as
an excuse to widen the war. US intelligence appeared unable or unwilling to
assess the viability and agendas of the various mujahideen groups. They backed
Pakistan's choice of players, which stifled the effective players, fueled
inter-mujahideen conflict, and, partly because of an ugly civil war, led to the
rise of the Pakistan-backed Taliban. Fobbing off the contrary assessments of
the British and French intelligence agencies, the CIA appeared unwilling to
admit it was wrong. Only after the Soviet forces pulled out in 1989 did the CIA
attempt to deal directly with mujahideen commanders, but by then the die was
cast.
Blinded by black gold
As one American policymaker put it back in the 1980s, "Militant Islam and
militant Christianity should cooperate in a common cause" - defeating
communism. Such a statement sounds ludicrous today.
The irony is that Washington was setting itself up for the very thing the CIA
claimed it was founded for - "to ensure there will never be another Pearl
Harbor". American policy, however, allowed bin Laden in the 1980s to set up
training camps for Arab militants and Muslims of other nationalities - an
upstart Saudi businessman's son who preached "war against infidels" and, among
other things, personally threatened at least one American journalist with
death.
Mesmerized by the glint of oil from Central Asia in the 1990s, Washington
backed a one-eyed, half-crippled Muslim fanatic, Taliban leader Mohammad Omar,
in his "cleansing of Afghanistan". The US hoped to profit from an oil pipeline
through Afghanistan, but instead, they saw a pulverized Third World country
thrown back to the Dark Ages. When it became clear that terrorist attacks on US
targets were the work of Afghanistan-based bin Laden, Washington failed to
capture or kill him, despite cruise missile strikes on one of bin Laden's
bases.
Guerrilla commander Massoud, who fought against the Taliban, warned Washington
of the danger to the US. In meetings with CIA agent Schroen, and in his only
visit to the West in April 2001, Massoud pointedly warned of the threat posed
by bin Laden and the Taliban. Just two days before bin Laden's militants
hijacked the planes on September 11, Massoud himself was murdered in a suicide
attack allegedly made by bin Laden's men.
Conclusions on a superpower Ghost Wars is a book for all those interested in how the US conducts
itself in the world, a sad reminder that "superpower" status does necessarily
translate into justice, common sense and measured foreign policy.
Viewed by many as the United States' 21st century Pearl Harbor, September 11
could have been avoided. Ironically, President Bush's "war on terrorism"
appears to be stoking the fire and is less concerned with targeting the
terrorists and dealing with the underlying causes of their wrath.
Bin Laden may be a tired and harried man as he tries to avoid the US "hammer on
the anvil" posed by US special forces on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, but
he must be grinning over how the US has indirectly helped him stir up so much
sympathy and brought so many angry recruits to his cause.
Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the
Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 by Steve Coll. Published by
Penguin Press, February 2004. ISBN 1594200076. 720 pages. Price US$29.95.
Julian Gearing has covered conflicts in Asia, including Afghanistan,
India and Iraq, for more than two decades.
(Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact
content@atimes.com for information on our
sales and syndication policies.)
government
administrations. Their mistakes, naivete and wrongdoing over Afghan policy not
only indirectly led to thousands of Afghan deaths and the rise of the
ultra-conservative Taliban, but also gave succor to the anti-American Osama bin
Laden, helping to lay the groundwork for the terrorism exploding around the
world today.
Ahmad Shah Massoud, a minority Tajik. The irony was that Hekmatyar's group not
only did little to engage the enemy - the Soviet and Afghan communists - but
actually fought against Massoud.
