America’s Army of Mavericks In 2012, veteran counterterrorist officials concluded that the White House was suppressing intelligence on Islamic extremist threats to justify pulling out of the Middle East. By Mark Moyar
http://www.wsj.com/articles/americas-army-of-mavericks-1478041836
In November 2001, as the militiamen of the Northern Alliance were preparing to assault an Afghan city that remained under Taliban control, the militia’s commander, Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, phoned an urgent request to the U.S. general in charge of the air campaign. Gen. Dostum explained to his American counterpart, Maj. Gen. David Deptula, that a Taliban leader in the city had just called him to boast that he had put his headquarters in Gen. Dostum’s own house. “You should bomb my house immediately,” Gen. Dostum said. “It’s the only house within miles with a swimming pool and tennis court.”
In a few minutes’ time, Gen. Deptula obtained overhead imagery of the house and ordered a B-1 bomber to drop two precision-guided bombs on it. But then the staff at U.S. Central Command intervened, putting the strike on hold until it could verify the target. Geospatial intelligence personnel faxed a satellite photo of the house to Uzbekistan, from which the photo was flown by helicopter into Afghanistan, where a Special Forces soldier carried it on horseback to Gen. Dostum. By then, of course, the Taliban leader had left. “If you want to bomb my house, go ahead,” Gen. Dostum informed Gen. Deptula. “But there is no one there anymore.”
This episode is one of many in James Kitfield’s “Twilight Warriors” that will be new to observers of America’s wars against Islamic extremism. Mr. Kitfield, a veteran national-security reporter whose earlier book, “Prodigal Soldiers” (1997), deftly narrated the U.S. military’s revitalization after Vietnam, here provides an enlightening tour of 21st-century counterterrorism—its successes and failures, its evolving technologies, and its ever-festering rivalries among national-security agencies. Along with voyaging through the Greater Middle East, he covers parts of Africa and Latin America, where U.S. agencies have combated terrorists and drug traffickers.
ENLARGE Twilight Warriors
By James Kitfield
Basic, 405 pages, $27.99
Unlike many such accounts, “Twilight Warriors” does not dwell on Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama or their cabinet officials. Rather it focuses on the leaders at the next level down—those who prosecuted the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and other distant lands. Some of these individuals, like Gens. David Petraeus and Stanley McChrystal, are nearly household names, owing to their battlefield accomplishments. Two who are less familiar—Gen. Martin Dempsey and Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn—are presented more fully than before through Mr. Kitfield’s expansive interviews. Both are shown to be leaders who routinely overcame bureaucratic parochialism and hidebound thinking.
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