My Share of the Task (9 page)

In the spring of 1989 I witnessed an extraordinary demonstration of leadership in which not a single word was spoken. That March, the 3rd Rangers conducted a battalion change of command on Fort Benning's large parade field. The afternoon on which we assembled was cold and rainy. Rather than move the ceremony indoors, someone decided we would continue as planned—leaving the entire battalion, about five hundred Rangers, standing in formation in the drizzle waiting for the ceremony to start. The bleachers and individual chairs arranged for the spectators were empty as people waited inside nearby Building 4, the schoolhouse of the infantry since 1964, where my father and brother had trained for Vietnam.

Then, about twenty minutes before we were meant to start the ceremony, a single uniformed individual emerged from the building, walked across the soggy grass, and sat in one of the wet chairs facing the Rangers. It was a special operations commander, Major General Gary Luck. As the rain fell steadily, he sat there, he looking at us, every Ranger eye on him. He didn't wave or call out. He didn't order us into rigid attention. He simply sat still, under the same rain that fell on us.

At one point, someone sent a young soldier running from the center with an umbrella that he tried to hold over Luck. But with a reassuring pat on the shoulder, the general sent the soldier away. He sat at least a hundred yards from the formation, but I never saw a commander closer to soldiers than he was at that moment.

I spent my final year in the 3rd Rangers as the battalion operations officer, a job I had held before in Korea and at Fort Stewart. Much of the final year was focused on potential operations into Panama against dictator Manuel Noriega. We conducted several detailed rehearsals, and in June 1989, right before I was due to depart, tensions led us to deploy and posture personnel in the United States and Panama in anticipation of imminent operations. Like others in the battalion, I thought I might finally experience combat. I didn't. The decision was made not to act at that time, and my tour with the Rangers ended a week later.

I spent four years in 3rd Rangers, culminating a series of troop assignments in the 82nd Airborne, Special Forces, Korea, the 24th Mech, and now the Rangers. These years had kept me interested and later proved invaluable. I'd also seen the Army climb out of the hole it had found itself in after Vietnam, restoring its professionalism and pride. And I was lucky enough to have been a part of a dramatic evolution in both the mechanized infantry and special operations force as each grew and adapted to emerging missions and technology.

For the most part, I'd enjoyed serving under a succession of first-rate leaders, several of whom were truly exceptional. And I had been blessed to build lasting relationships of respect and trust with people like John Vines and Dave Rodriguez, who would be lifelong friends. Finally, I served alongside a new generation of army soldiers. At the time, they were young privates or sergeants. Years later, on distant battlefields, I'd serve again with many of them—all seasoned soldiers and many of them fathers. The wars they'd fight in years later had their roots in events occurring then, amid the final act of the Soviet-Afghan War.

*   *   *

M
y first contact with Al Qaeda actually took place a year before it existed, in a curious encounter outside Cairo in August 1987. After completing Ranger company command in May, I'd joined the battalion staff. One of my first missions was to lead an advance element to Egypt in preparation for the battalion's participation in Exercise Bright Star 1987. Programmed to conduct operations during the exercise with Egyptian commandos, we set up our small team on the commandos' base and initiated final coordination.

After we arrived, the U.S. 5th Special Forces Group lent us an Egyptian-born U.S. Army sergeant to interpret for us. Normally a supply sergeant, the athletic, outgoing man, named Ali Abdelsoud Mohammad, was quickly invaluable as he accompanied me to some initial meetings. After several days, Ali Mohammad and I went to the headquarters of the Egyptian 45th Commando Brigade. Ali Mohammad was a gifted translator, but the atmosphere with the Egyptians was uncomfortably cool. It was difficult to determine why. Descending the stairs after the meeting, we passed two Egyptian Army majors, and Ali Mohammad greeted them as old friends. They were friendly but reserved, and we left.

On the way back to our tent area, Ali Mohammad explained that before coming to the United States he had been a
major in the commandos, and those were old comrades. The next day he was gone. The Egyptians had asked that he leave the country immediately, which he apparently did. The brigade commander later confirmed it but offered no additional explanation.

I never saw him after that. Only years later did I find out about his subsequent membership in Al Qaeda, after he was arrested in conjunction with the August 1998 embassy bombings in Africa, and his public discussions about Al Qaeda as an organization.

The group Ali Mohammad joined was born in 1988 in Peshawar, Pakistan. Peshawar had been a key node from which Afghan mujahideen, split among seven groups of differing ideology, ethnicity, and sophistication, had waged a guerrilla war against the Soviet forces and those of their communist satellite state. Mixed into Peshawar were Arabs who had traveled to central Asia to wage jihad.

The Arab volunteers never had a large role in the anti-Soviet guerrilla war itself. Only fifteen Arabs, by a veteran's account, had joined the jihad by 1984,
rising to two hundred in 1986 when they began to fight on their own. But with victory over the Soviets assured in 1988, the Arabs—then estimated by the Islamabad CIA office to be
four thousand strong—further asserted themselves.

One of the most influential Arabs was Osama bin Laden, the rich thirty-one-year-old son of a Saudi construction magnate. Born into privilege, as a teenager Osama had become increasingly fundamentalist in his religious views and since his first trip to Pakistan in 1980 had become deeply involved in the Afghan war against the Soviets.

Bin Laden began to develop a mystique through his charitable work.
Tales fluttered of the Saudi personally sitting behind the wheels of the bulldozers, supplied by the Bin Laden Group, moving dirt to make defensive positions and roadways for the jihadists in the Afghan ridges. He was known around Peshawar for his visits to the bedsides of the wounded in the hospitals, his uniform—traditional Afghan
salwar kameez
top, English trousers, and
Beal Brothers boots—partly that of the respected Saudi scion and partly that of jihadist patron, with the balance
between the two quickly shifting.

With impending victory over the Soviets, a central question now divided the “Afghan-Arabs” in Peshawar: Where should the jihad go next? Abdullah Azzam, an itinerant Palestinian cleric, wanted the focus to remain on Afghanistan, ensuring that it became an Islamic state. He had preached that Muslims needed a literal “firm base”—
al-qaeda al-sulbah
—from which to spread the fight. In opposition, Ayman al-Zawahiri, a dour physician and veteran militant in that sphere, wanted to immediately extend the jihad in order to topple Arab regimes, starting with
his homeland of Egypt. He and his fellow Egyptians felt a mobile army—a vanguard of jihadists—could undo these regimes
through coordinated coups. These issues were not fully resolved but were in some sense transcended from the get-go through the organization's ambitious, if vague, agenda. Al Qaeda's bylaws were as broad as they were soaring: “
To establish the truth, get rid of evil, and establish an Islamic nation.”

After their planning meetings in August, Al Qaeda officially got to work on
September 10, 1988. From the beginning, the group looked for a specific person to join its vanguard army. Testing would cull the “best brothers” from the Arab volunteers; they would need to be obedient and determined. “
Trusted sources” would vouch for their integrity and the security of the organization. Al Qaeda soon began to field such candidates and trained them at a new base—
separate from the conventional one. Many of the first recruits and advisers to bin Laden were
hardened Egyptians, who would remain a powerful faction within the movement.

*   *   *

I
n late June of 1989, almost exactly thirteen years after we had left West Point, Annie, Sam, and I loaded our car and drove back to school, this time to Rhode Island.

For an army major in 1989, going to the Command and Staff College was important. Only about 50 percent of all officers were ever selected for resident attendance, most to the Army's school at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. It served as the first significant culling process of the officer corps. Few officers not chosen would later command at the battalion or higher levels.

I was happy to be selected for school but surprised when the Army notified me that instead of attending the Army Command and Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, I'd be going to the Navy's version in Newport, Rhode Island. It proved to be a great year.

Sited in scenic Narragansett Bay, the Naval War College was academically stimulating beyond anything I'd yet experienced. Unlike more structured programs with long class hours, the Navy emphasized extensive reading punctuated by limited but focused seminars. I'd always loved to read, and the instructors pushed me into the works of Clausewitz, Homer, and others that helped build a firmer foundation of knowledge.

It was also a good year to be studying the past and future worlds. The February withdrawal of the Soviets from Afghanistan after nine years of bitter fighting, the Tiananmen Square massacre in China, Solidarity's electoral success in Poland, and the November fall of the Berlin wall created the most fluid international environment of my lifetime. We were forced to think broader than a lockstep Cold War view of the world, and to consider strategy in a more traditional multipolar sense. For a year we had time to do that.

Classes were only four days each week; I played on the class basketball team with Tim McHale and Ray Odierno; I prepared for and ran the Boston Marathon on Patriots' Day; and Annie, Sam, and I enjoyed exploring New England.

There was one personal disappointment. On the morning of December 20, I awoke to run before class and saw news announcements of Operation Just Cause, an American intervention into Panama spearheaded by the Rangers I'd left just six months earlier. I wasn't surprised, but after thirteen years as an officer and over a year of direct participation in the planning and rehearsals, it hurt to miss the operation.

It is difficult to explain a soldier's feeling about missing a combat action. Soldiers don't love war but often feel professional angst when they have to watch one from the sidelines. Reports of the Rangers' performance gave me pride but also guilt and embarrassment that I wasn't there.

Annie let me feel sorry for myself for a few days. Then, standing one evening in our small kitchen, she drew herself up to her full five feet six inches, looked me in the eye, and asked point-blank, “Are you going to get over this? Because you missed it. It wasn't your fault, but you did. And if you can't get past this, then you'd better get out of the Army.”

It was the proverbial two-by-four to the forehead, swung as only Annie can. I wanted sympathy, but it was the last thing I really needed. I still loved being a soldier, so I told her I'd buck up.

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I
n June of 1990 we graduated and I headed for another tour at Fort Bragg, this time to a joint special operations task force.

Formed in 1980 following the post–Eagle Claw Holloway Commission, the task force began as a small battle staff designed to command and control the complex special operations, like hostage rescue, that the commission concluded would be needed in the future. It envisioned a lean, secret team capable of avoiding the ad hoc approach that had hampered Eagle Claw from the start.

In the beginning it was not welcomed by the subordinate units it would control. But by 1990 the task force had matured significantly. Its participation in the October 1983 invasion of Grenada had not been flawless, but it had legitimized the command. So too had action against a series of terrorist incidents like the Palestinian Liberation Front's hijacking of the
Achille Lauro
in October 1985. But more than any other event, the task force's central and impressive role in the invasion of Panama—six months earlier—had solidified its reputation and role.

I joined the Operations Directorate, and as the Ranger representative in Current Operations, I shared a small office with Army, Navy, and Air Force special operators. Each day, we handled unit-related issues and helped coordinate forthcoming operational or training deployments. When the task force conducted exercises or real-world operations, we served as operations officers developing plans and then overseeing their execution.

I was on a major exercise at Fort Bliss, Texas, on August 1, 1990, when our intelligence officer informed me that Iraqi forces were massing on Kuwait's borders and an invasion appeared likely. A day later, Iraq bombed Kuwait City, and in less than a day Iraqi units had overrun the country.

With their kingdom threatened, the Saudis received two offers for assistance. The first came during a visit from Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney and Central Command (CENTCOM) commander General Norman Schwarzkopf. On August 6, they
met with the king, who approved deployment of a force that eventually totaled 543,000 U.S. and allied troops. They would soon be based in the kingdom, postured to protect Saudi Arabia and eject Iraq from Kuwait if and when necessary. But the arrival of American forces soon provoked ire and an urgent, competing pitch: In early September, Osama bin Laden, recently returned from Afghanistan, proposed to the Saudi king that he could have an army of
one hundred thousand Muslims ready in three months to defend the Land of the Two Holy Places. Bin Laden's option was smiled at—and dismissed.

The rejection smarted for bin Laden. So too did the shame he felt at having Christians and Jews defend Muslims. Top Saudi religious authorities fell in line with the regime and sanctioned the American presence, but bin Laden did not. He founded a group in London that produced
hundreds of pamphlets condemning the Saudi state, fell out of favor with the Saudi government, and underwent brief house arrest before moving his Al Qaeda group to Sudan the following year.
While bin Laden's first enemy had been communism—in Afghanistan, the Central Asian states, and then his father's homeland of Yemen—his ire and the aims of his group now increasingly turned toward America.