Kill Bin Laden

The trouble with reviewing a book like "Kill Bin Laden" is that you don't know whether to evaluate it as a literary work, a military arms manual, or an extended battlefield operations report. Most likely, the latter is the best fit, though the first two categories make some sense, too.

Another approach would be to define what the book is not. "Kill Bin Laden" is not a work of fiction, nor it is a newspaper account. Written by Dalton Fury, the author says he wanted to dispel some of the myths connected to the Battle of Tora Bora, myths concocted by a hungry media which lives in a world of immediate gratification. I expect that some of the media myths will survive, but at least they will be severely dented by Fury's account.

For the record, there is no "Dalton Fury." The special operations major who wrote "Kill Bin Laden" had to accede to CIA imposed limitations associated with classified covert operations. While "Dalton Fury" is retired, some of his fellow operators aren't, and terrorists or other hostiles may be trying to identify these operators and their families and use available information to refine their own tactics.

Previous to reading this book, all I knew about Tora Bora was gleaned from newspaper and broadcast accounts, and obtained hurriedly. We live busy lives and, unfortunately, are too dependent on an ever more unreliable media to provide us with essential facts and details. The thing the media trumpeted most often was that we failed to capture or kill Bin Laden, and that is the accurate part of the media rendering.

The second-most repeated description of the Tora Bora story is how Bin Laden and his Al Qaeda fighters had constructed a massive, impregnable, and self-sustaining fortress-cave complex deep within the mountain. Such venerable news reporters as the late Tim Russert publicly fretted about this underground terrorist fortress, equipped with elevator shafts, an electrical plant, Zagat rated sleeping quarters, and massive automated warehouses where advanced weaponry and missiles were stockpiled. The myth became embroidered with ludicrous idolatrous comic-book embellishments asserting that Bin Laden's 5-star underground Camelot was built by the CIA to help the mujahedeen defeat the Soviets in the 80s.

The propagation of this and similar myths remains attractive propaganda to critics of U.S. military efforts in Afghanistan who believe that a fireside chat with Mullah Omar and Ayman Zawahiri will lead to the terrorists' everlasting remorse over world terror attacks, whether the targets were public markets in Baghdad, resorts in Egypt, embassies in Africa, schools in Beslan, opera houses in Moscow, financial centers in New York, ships in the Gulf of Aden, or innocent people anywhere in the world.

The reason the "impregnable fortress" myth survived so long was that the Russians had failed in ten years to dislodge the mujahedeen fighters from the near vertical slopes of Tora Bora which provided optimum fields of fire. Approach paths were narrow and exposed. Assault teams stood little chance of surviving heavy machine gun, rocket, and mortar fire from the commanding, entrenched positions.

Yet, just months after the 9-11 attacks on America, Northern and Eastern Alliance forces, guided by CIA, Delta Force, British SAS, and other special operations troops had pushed the Taliban to the limits, and had Bin Laden holed up in the bleak but familiar Tora Bora mountains.

Dalton Fury and his commandos were part of a combined force entrusted with the mission of capturing or killing Bin Laden at Tora Bora. Enduring extreme weather conditions, altitude sickness, and enemy mortars, the commando teams moved observation posts ever further into Bin Laden's safe haven where aerial combat controllers targeted the Tora Bora hideout for attacks by laser-guided bombs, dumb bombs, and by C-130 Spectre gunships. Bin Laden found the heat too hot to handle and CIA communications monitoring intercepted what they believe were Bin Laden's desperate "blessings" to his followers who wished to surrender-then Bin Laden scrammed. The Battle of Tora Bora demonstrated to the world once more that the enemy was always ten feet tall and invincible until the shooting started.

Dalton Fury advances some opinions of Bin Laden's escape, and it is quite likely that his assessments are accurate. The culture of the Afghani mujahedeen was such that they were disinclined to fight at night, and in spite of daytime advances, were inclined to retreat to the foot of the mountains at night. The style of mujahedeen warfare was essentially tribal warfare with enduring rivalries among warlords. It was lethal and unending, extemporaneous, chaotic, disorganized and without mission objectives. The "muhj" were not as motivated to kill or capture Bin Laden as they were in pursuing money, prestige, and power. They had that much in common with American civilian culture, but they soon learned that the special forces commandos operated beyond the bounds of their own Afghani cultural reasoning.

The lack of motivation of the mujahadeen was a persistent political problem for the Tora Bora operation, solved on both sides by money. Bin Laden paid the villagers for their allegiance. The CIA did the same, replete with suitcases of American dollars. Even with the dollar expenditure, it remained for Fury, the CIA field officers, and his fellow special forces operatives to motivate Eastern Alliance warlord chief Hazlet Ali to accompany the Delta Force rangers into the night.

Another Eastern Alliance warlord, Haji Zaman, drew suspicion upon himself when he and some of his men returned from the ongoing battle saying there would be a cease-fire during which Bin Laden's forces would surrender. The special operations and CIA were skeptical of calling a halt to the battle and wanted to keep the pressure on. It was during that lull in the fighting that Bin Laden escaped through the back door created by an unknown higher level U.S. commander's refusal to stopgap the escape route with mines and a Ranger battalion backup.

"Kill Bin Laden" is timely reading right now as 30,000 Pakistani Army troops have today launched an offensive against Taliban and Al Qaeda staging areas in the South Waziristan region. The Pakistani Army offensive follows weeks of terror bombings in Pakistani cities, believed carried out by the Taliban. The South Waziristan region is where Bin Laden and number 2 man Ayman Zawahiri are believed to have fled and regrouped after their rout from Tora Bora.

The Pakistani Army offensive underscores General McChyrstal's request to President Obama for additional troops. Reports today say that the Pakistani troops have sealed off the Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters on the North, South, and East, leaving the Western border with Afghanistan exposed. If General McChyrstal cannot deploy sufficient troops to stopgap the Afghan border, high value Al Qaeda and Taliban targets may once against slip through the net.