On August 20, 1998, two old classmates from the Combined and General Staff College reunited for dinner in Islamabad, Pakistan. Both officers had come a long way since graduating from Fort Leavenworth: the guest, Air Force General Joseph Ralston, was now Vice-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the second highest ranking officer in the U.S. military. His host, General Jehangir Karamat, had risen to become the Pakistani Army’s Chief of Staff. They reminisced over a dinner of chicken tikka, and as the meal was winding down, General Ralston looked at his watch. At approximately 9:50PM, as he prepared to leave, Ralston said, By the way, General Karamat, at this moment missiles are coming over your airspace. He assured his host that they were U.S. cruise missiles en route to targets in Afghanistan rather than an Indian attack against Pakistan’s nuclear sites. Karamat was visibly unhappy, but understood Ralston’s need for discretion.
The two classmates shook hands. Ralston thanked Karamat for his hospitality, and departed for the Islamabad airport.
 |
| General Joseph Ralston, the Vice-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who was chosen to inform the Pakistanis of the missile strike against Bin Laden. |
As Ralston and Karamat dined, five Navy destroyers lined up in the Arabian Sea and began spinning Tomahawk cruise missiles in their launch tubes. At about 10PM local time, 75 missiles, each costing about $750,000, slammed into Zawhar Kili’s rock gorges. The secret attack, code-named Operation Infinite Reach, killed at least 21 Pakistani jihadist volunteers, and wounded dozens more.
Half-a-world away, on Martha’s Vineyard, a solemn Bill Clinton announced the military strikes to the media assembled there. Clinton quickly flew back to the White House, where he addressed the nation from the Oval Office. “Our target was terror,” Clinton explained,
our mission was clear – to strike at the network of radical groups affiliated with and funded by Osama bin Laden. . . . They have made the United States their adversary precisely because of what we stand for and what we stand against. . . . And so this morning, based on the unanimous recommendation of my national security team, I ordered our armed forces to take action to counter an imminent threat from the bin Laden network.
Ironically, many of these same themes – “war on a noun,” the idea that al Qaeda hated us for our values, and the doctrine of pre-emption – would be ridiculed when adopted by President Bush three years later.
The next day a radio broadcast emanated from somewhere in Afghanistan. “By the grace of Allah,” bin Laden’s voice announced, “I am alive!”* Although al Qaeda’s camps suffered extensive damage, bin Laden himself was unscathed.
 |
| A satellite image of Zawhar Kili |
*The CIA later reported to Clinton that it had received information that bin Laden had been at Zawhar Kili, but had left several hours before the strikes. Yet according to al Qaeda sources, bin Laden was hundreds of miles away when the U.S. cruise missiles struck his camps. According to his bodyguard Abu Jandal, bin Laden and his bodyguards were driving through Vardak province en route to Zawhar Kili when they stopped at a crossroads. “Where do you think, my friends, we should go?” bin Laden asked. “Khost or Kabul?” Abu Jandal and the others said they would rather go to Kabul where they could visit friends. “With G-d’s help, let us go to Kabul,” bin Laden decreed.
In reality, Abu Jandal’s account is likely a cover story to protect al Qaeda’s allies in Pakistan’s intelligence service, whom other al Qaeda sources say warned bin Laden about the imminent attack. There are at least three ways the Pakistanis could have known an attack was coming. 180 American diplomats were withdrawn from Islamabad, and all foreigners were evacuated from Kabul in the days before the attack. Additionally, the Pakistani navy in the northern Arabian Sea likely noticed the U.S. naval activity prior to the attack and reported it back to the ISI.
No comments:
Post a Comment