The Eleventh Day_ The History and Legacy of 9_11 - Anthony Summers [264]
52 Towr Ghar: Fury, 107, “The Caves & Graves of Tora Bora,” www.legionmagazine.com, 9/1/03;
53 “purpose-built”: The Independent (U.K.), 11/27/01 & see “The Lair of Bin Laden,” www.edwardjepstein.com;
54 no electricity/water: bin Ladens & Sasson, 185–;
55 schoolhouse: Berntsen & Pezzullo, 253, Fury, 108;
56 Afghan generals: e.g., Berntsen & Pezzullo, 272, 275, 280–, Fury, 114–, 124, 129–, 257;
57 negotiating: Berntsen & Pezzullo, 289–, NYT, 9/11/05, Fury, 216–, 234, 244;
58 OBL largesse/sons: Fury, 209, 108;
59 “flawed”: Fury, 99, Berntsen & Pezzullo, 213–;
60 reluctance: Berntsen & Pezzullo, 277–, 290, 295, 305–, 309, 314, “In the Footsteps of Bin Laden,” CNN, 8/23/06;
61 airpower: e.g., Berntsen & Pezzullo, 270, 274–, Fury, 170–, 192;
62 Marine: Berntsen & Pezzullo, 34–, 283–;
63 “tall”: ibid., 291;
64 6′4″: “Most Wanted Terrorists,” www.fbi.gov;
65 BLU-82: description at www.globalsecurity.org, Berntsen & Pezzullo, 291, Fury, 127;
66 Used on plains: Berntsen & Pezzullo, 137–;
67 delivered: ibid., 295–, Fury, 149–;
68 BLU-82: described at www.fas.org, Michael O’Hanlon, “A Flawed Masterpiece,” Foreign Affairs, 3/02;
69 “too hot”/“hideous”: “Tora Bora Revisited: How We Failed to Get Bin Laden and Why It Matters Today,” Report, U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2009, 7;
70 movement orders: Fury, 230.
71 “victory or death”/“Father”: According to Delta Force leader Fury, bin Laden was overheard saying in desperation, “arm your women and children against the infidel!” His lead bodyguard Abu Jandal has recalled that “all bin Laden’s wives knew how to handle weapons. They had taken a military course while al Qaeda was in the Sudan.” It seems unlikely, though, that the terrorist leader would have expected young children to take part in the battle (Fury, 233, Nasser al-Bahri [Abu Jandal] with Georges Malbrunot, Dans l’Ombre de Ben Laden, Neuilly-sur-Seine, France: Michel Lafon, 2010, 199).
72 Dec. 13/listened to a voice: The CIA’s Gary Berntsen dated this last intercept as having occurred not on December 13 but the 15th. Fury suggested that bin Laden was overheard once more, a day or so later. What he said, Fury wrote, came over as “more of a sermon than issuing orders” (Fury, 233–, 236–, Berntsen & Pezzullo, 307).
73 devastation: Fury, 270, 272, Berntsen & Pezzullo, 296;
74 not a trace/“punched”/rubble/Exhumations: Fury, 286, 282, Newsweek, 10/31/08;
75 “real war”: Fury, 293;
76 “We need”: Berntsen & Pezzullo, 290;
77 Dailey: Berntsen & Pezzullo, e.g., 307, 276;
78 “We have not said”: DOD press conference, 11/8/01, www.defense.gov, & see Franks with McConnell, 388;
79 skirted discussion: ibid.
80 As recently as 2009: In testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee, and on the PBS program Frontline, Franks suggested that the drive to “get into Tora Bora” came from the Afghan commanders. A decision was made, he said, to support the Afghan operation and to “work with the Pakistanis along the Pakistani border.” He declared himself “satisfied with the decision process.” CIA’s Gary Berntsen has responded by writing that Franks was “either badly misinformed or blinded by the fog of war.” Berntsen had made it clear in his reports, he said, that the Afghans were less than keen to attack Tora Bora. General Franks, meanwhile, has also said he had concerns as to the amount of time it would have taken to get U.S. troops into the mountains. He has pointed out, too, most recently in 2009, that relying principally on Afghan ground forces in the field had worked in overthrowing the Taliban (“get into”/“work with”: int. Tommy Franks for Frontline, www.pbs.org; “satisfied”: Testimony of Tommy Franks, U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, 7/31/02, www.access.gpo.gov; Berntsen: Berntsen & Pezzullo, 290–; concerns: New Republic, 12/22/09).
81 “conflicting”: New Republic, 12/22/09 & see NYT, 10/19/04, MFR 04021460, 4/9/04. General Michael DeLong, who had been Franks’s deputy at CentCom, wrote in his September