Known and Unknown_ A Memoir - Donald Rumsfeld [450]
* The last time the Defcon had been raised to that level was in 1973, during the Yom Kippur War, when I was ambassador to NATO.
* Each of the other three hijacked aircraft had five al-Qaida terrorists onboard, and the difference between four and five terrorists may have meant the difference between failure and success. In 2002, the individual believed to be the twentieth hijacker—the missing hijacker from United Flight 93—came into U.S. custody in Afghanistan. The detention and interrogation at Guantánamo Bay of the suspected terrorist, Muhammed al-Qahtani, would later become a focal point of controversy.
* Pakistan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and China all share borders with Afghanistan.
* He should not be confused with the terrorist who led the nineteen September 11 hijackers, an Egyptian also named Muhammed Atta.
* At my first meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels in June 2001, I made a point of meeting privately with the minister of defense of Uzbekistan, Kodir Gulyamov, which surprised some of our NATO allies.
* Until 2001, UAVs had been used mainly on an experimental basis. When they first had been ready for operations, Defense and CIA officials debated over who would control them and who would pay for their use. In both bureaucracies, some officials were eager to avoid responsibility and preferred not to be burdened with the cost. After 9/11, with coalition operations underway in Afghanistan, George Tenet and I began to sort out Defense-CIA joint Predator operations. We came to an agreement over who owned and paid for the assets, where they would operate, and who would “pull the trigger” on the very few UAVs that were armed at the time.
* Powell remarked, “All of the countries in the region—the United States, Russia and, as you heard, Pakistan, through Musharraf last evening—say, it’s better that they not enter Kabul. There’s too many uncertainties as to what might happen.” Secretary Powell went on to say, “Entering a city is a difficult thing. You put people in close quarters, they are of different tribal loyalties. We have seen what has happened previously when you had an uncontrolled situation and two forces arriving in Kabul at the same time not meaning each well.”10
* Early on, Karzai emerged as a possible candidate for a national leadership post. As such, we wanted him protected. At one point during the fighting against a much larger Taliban force, Karzai was evacuated briefly to Pakistan. In talking with Pentagon reporters, I mentioned Karzai’s evacuation. Though my remarks were accurate, I did not want to give a false impression that Karzai had sought to retreat, which he most certainly had not. Karzai, understandably, didn’t want it known that he had been taken out of Afghanistan, even for a short period. I later apologized to Karzai. He responded graciously.
* At one point I watched a Predator video feed of a tall, lanky man wearing a turban and white robes and surrounded by what looked like an entourage of bodyguards. Our military command center was abuzz with anticipation. There was not a doubt in anyone’s mind that the image on the screen in front of us was Osama bin Laden. As they made final preparations to take out the target, something spooked the man we were observing, perhaps an intelligence tip or someone catching sight of our Predator UAV above. He took off, running like a gazelle over rocky, rugged terrain. He couldn’t have been more than twenty years old. Bin Laden was in his midforties in 2001. Intelligence later corroborated that the man we all were absolutely convinced was bin Laden was not.
* One soldier confided that they had encountered a phenomenon largely unknown to them until that point: saddle sores. The problem had become so severe, in fact, that they found it difficult to ride. Some tried Vaseline to make it more comfortable, but the conditions were so windy and