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May 9, 2005
Our Interagency Seams
An interesting exchange took place today on Meet the Press, though it might not have seemed so unique at first. Tim Russert's first guest was Gary Schroen, a career CIA officer, who has just penned the book, "First In" about his participation in clandestine and US military efforts in Afghanistan. The exchange on its face appears to be Russert asking questions of Schroen about bin Laden's escape from Tora Bora:
MR. RUSSERT: In December of 2001, the battle of Tora Bora. This is what you write.While the press, and last fall John Kerry, focused on the number of US forces in Afghanistan, and the idea that their lack contributed to bin Laden's escape, Schroen here opens another possibility, just as plausible: that as a "special operations war," the US had little experience to rely upon for conducting such complex interagency operations. In other words, the "joint" nature of the Afghanistan campaign cannot be overlooked in any estimation of either its failures or its successes. The war that Schroen describes was a very complex one, and the integrated cooperation of a number of US agencies was necessary for every one of its successes: local actors were of dubious credibility and difficult to pin down as to their loyalties -- something for the CIA to decipher; the area of operations spanned over two separate countries, both Pakistan and Afghanistan -- a delicate diplomatic matter for handling by the State Department; local militias had to be funded by US cash dispensed by the CIA, and advised by Green Berets of the DoD. Moreover, as Schroen mentions, when and how to incorporate regular US forces into the mix was not fully figured out on the first go-round, and "It was only late in the campaign that U.S. ground forces came in, and the evolution, I think, simply we didn't take it far enough. If we'd have had one more battle after Tora Bora, we probably would have gotten it right.""In early 2002, in the immediate aftermath of the battle of Tora Bora and the subsequent escape of Osama bin Laden and his chief lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahari, CIA and specially trained U.S. military Special Operations units began to organize teams in the provincial areas east and south of Kabul, along Afghanistan's border with Pakistan."You have no doubt that bin Laden escaped at Tora Bora?MR. SCHROEN: No doubt at all. When the first film--videotape that was made--that he made afterwards shows him that he was holding his left side and was probably wounded there in the battle, but every bit of information we had at the time indicated that he had escaped and moved into the Waziristan area which is south of Peshawar.
MR. RUSSERT: How did he get away?
MR. SCHROEN: We had done--followed the same lead we had taken since September of '01 in defeating the Taliban. We were attacking with U.S. military forces against the al-Qaeda and Taliban militants, and we hired local tribal leaders to guard the escape routes into Pakistan. Unfortunately, many of those people proved to be loyal to bin Laden and sympathizers with the Taliban and they allowed the key guys to escape.
MR. RUSSERT: In the heat of the presidential campaign in 2004, John Kerry as part of his stump speech in effect would say things like this. Let's watch.
(Videotape, October 30, 2004): SEN. JOHN KERRY, (D-MA): As I have said for two years now, when Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda were cornered in the mountains of Tora Bora, it was wrong to outsource the job of capturing them to Afghan warlords who a week earlier were fighting against us.(End videotape)MR. RUSSERT: Should we have had more U.S. troops in Afghanistan circling Tora Bora to prevent his escape?MR. SCHROEN: In hindsight that would have been ideal. We fought a special operations war. It was CIA and Army Green Berets on the ground directing the bombing campaign. It was only late in the campaign that U.S. ground forces came in, and the evolution, I think, simply we didn't take it far enough. If we'd have had one more battle after Tora Bora, we probably would have gotten it right.
The joint nature of the military realm of the campaign has been lauded: many pundits were full of awe at the Green Beret on horseback, calling in a B-52 strike and this is a joint military task at its most basic essence as it involves Green Berets from the Army and aircraft from the Air Force, and a command and control system manned most likely by members from all services.
The interagency nature of the Afghanistan campaign in its initial phases however has gone largely unremarked. Yet here lies the most fascinating part of the campaign's design and execution: the cooperation between different agencies and bureaucracies necessary for it to be successful. And as Schroen suggests, it is this aspect of the campaign that dictated either its success or failure.
If my interpretation is correct, the battle of Tora Bora reflects another example where the national security of the United States has been at the mercy of interagency relationships and the concept of "jointness." The other recent examples are far more well-known:
-the "wall" that existed between the CIA and FBI, and which the 9/11 Commission has attempted to break down with, among other things, the creation of the Director of National Intelligence position.
-the failure of our domestic security agencies to prevent 9/11 and the subsequent creation of the Department of Homeland Security, which integrated so many different agencies under one office.
-the failure to quickly begin a comprehensive reconstruction of Iraq; this complex task required the expertise of individuals in both the State and Defense departments, and the terrorist insurgency had gained steam by the time Bremer was brought in to re-establish US momentum.
And with the exception of the conventional invasion of Iraq and its success, which was very much a joint operation, though not so much an interagency operation, most of our most prized successes in the war have had fundamental bases in interagency jointness:
-the capture of so many Al Qaeda operatives and commanders: this requires an always-changing mix of FBI, CIA, US military, and host-nation cooperation.
-the development of Joint Terrorism Task Forces in US cities, which require the participation of the FBI and local law enforcement agencies.
-the toppling of the Taliban government in Afghanistan, which used the same mix of forces and agencies as Schroen mentions were present in Tora Bora.
-the creation of the Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa, perhaps the most robust joint organization currently operating.
-the The Proliferation Security Initiative, requiring a complex interaction between intelligence agencies, diplomats, and the military (just look at the pictures on that page).
Our security tasks in the future are likely to look as much like that Schroen describes at Tora Bora as they are the invasion of Iraq in 2003. We would be wise to exert a considerable amount of thought imagining creative ways for the many instruments of our national security symphony to play well together.
Posted by Chester at May 9, 2005 12:08 AM
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