I read the title, “Jawbreaker: The Attack on Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda: A Personal Account by the CIA’s Key Field Commander” and I hoped I would find out what really happened at Tora Bora. I heard we almost had Osama Bin Laden and somehow it got botched.
This book was written by the guy who arguably got closest to nabbing Bin Laden. Gary Berntsen was a highly decorated, career CIA officer with Afghanistan expertise and experience dating back to the Soviet occupation.
He writes about numerous times the United States could have kidnapped or killed Osama Bin Laden over several years. He says each time the mission was frustratingly called off at the last minute because either President Clinton or his CIA director lacked the political guts to do it.
Berntsen was one of the first CIA officers inside Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks, and he was responsible for spearheading coordinated assaults on the Taliban. Berntsen met a few times with General Tommy Franks and describes several encounters with notable people. Berntsen actually saved current Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai from a mob when the warlord arrived at Bagram Airbase after the Taliban fell.
A vivid reminder of how true Berntsen’s story must be are the numerous blacked-out lines. He of course had to submit his manuscript to CIA for review and censoring the most sensitive information. He was surprised and angered when they dragged their feet on it for several months. Eventually he had to sue his former employer to force them to release his manuscript back to him. The amount of blacked-out information the CIA finally required was so astounding that Berntsen chose to leave in the blacked-out lines rather than edit the book down. It is amazing to just flip through the book pages and visibly see all the black lines going by. Obviously, Berntsen was privy to incredibly detailed inside information about the hunt for Osama Bin Laden.
I raced through the book to find out why Bin Laden got away, and the story unfolds in the last 50 pages. It was an unbelievably political and bureaucratic fumble that allowed Osama to escape. The entire Afghan battle was full of Berntsen getting nearly every military resource he requested. When Bin Laden was pinned down and taking several days of fire in Tora Bora, suddenly Berntsen could not get the 800 Army Rangers he requested to be dropped in between Al-Qaeda and the Pakistan border. This single maneuver would have prevented Bin Laden from escaping, and would likely have ended the War on Terror right there.
Every other request Bentsen made was either granted or at least decided quickly, as in minutes or hours. Berntsen had to ask and plead for several days for a decision on his Ranger request. When Berntsen pressed harder, he was shockingly replaced in the field and in the middle of the Tora Bora battle!
Of course we know the outcome, that Bin Laden escaped into Pakistan and the War on Terror drags on infinitum today. The official reasoning from Tommy Franks and the CIA director was that they wanted the Afghans to finish the job. This answer is shocking because the book is full of examples demonstrating the Afghans could not be counted on to conduct effective battles or to not switch sides at the drop of money.
“Some people say” that Osama Bin Laden was allowed to escape because Bush knew he could then drag out the War on Terror for years and use it to his political advantage. I recall an article about a year after 9/11 of a former Green Beret or Ranger who was arrested in Pakistan. This guy had personally tasked himself with hunting Bin Laden (probably for the reward money). He said he was within 2 weeks of Bin Laden’s last hiding spot when the Pakistan government was told to arrest him. I recall he was sentenced to prison for several years.
I don’t know about those claims, but I think this book tells the most inside and accurate story of what happened in Afghanistan and at Tora Bora. I highly recommend reading it, and leaving a comment on what you think of Berntsen’s viewpoint.
This nonfiction book by Gary Berntsen and Ralph Pezzullo can be found at our local Idaho Falls Library. Its call number is 327.1273 BER, however it is shelved in the new books section right now.
Reading this book caused me to fantasize about a wealthy Idaho businessman bankrolling a team of Idaho big-game hunters to privately fly to Afghanistan/Pakistan and hunt Osama bin Laden. Imagine the world reaction if the Idaho hunters unveiled bin Laden on the capital steps in Boise!
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