Article Reviews

The Hunt for Bin Laden, Robin Moore, Random House Publishers

This book offers a patchy account of the first phase of Operation Enduring Freedom. Through a garbled narrative it tracks some of the key operations effected by the 5th Special Forces Group (SFG) based at Karshi-Khanabad Airbase in Uzbekistan. The 5th SFG was responsible for establishing liaison with all the major anti-Taliban players in Afghanistan. Fighting alongside the Northern Alliance and the Anti-Taliban Pashtun militias under Hamid Karzai, the 5th SFG participated in the defeat of the Taliban and their expulsion from most major Afghan cities.

In a Tom Clancy-ish tone the author brings out the large gaps that existed in the US intelligence support in Afghanistan. For example, according to the author, a CIA briefing told the 5th SFG that General Abdul Rashid Dostum was an 83 year old man with a missing arm and a partially paralyzed body. According the CIA brief, General Dostum spoke only Arabic. As a result the 5th SFG team that landed at Mazar-e-Sharif with six Arabic speaking SF officers were quite surprised to find a perfectly healthy 53-year-old General Dostum who could only speak Dari, and Pashto. Eventually communications was established through Russian which one member on each side knew. The problem of language persisted throughout the 5th SFG's operations, there were no Dari or Pashto speakers in the group, one wonders if this is due to the enduring perception that all "ragheads" (as the author so delicately refers to them) speak Arabic. It is a credit to the actual team members and the patience of the Northern Alliance soldiers that despite all the obstacles the 5 SFG was able to coordinate with the Northern Alliance offensives.

The book also discusses in brief the failures encountered in Operation Enduring Freedom. Most notable among these are the failed `decapitation' raid on Kandahar, the Great `ISI' Escape from Kunduz, the mess that came to be known as Operation Anaconda, and the disastrous incident of friendly-fire that nearly killed Hamid Karzai. In each case the author neatly deflects blame from the members of the 5th SFG to "General Tommy Franks and the conventional generals", "people who want to make this a heavy war", "Pakistanis who break promises" and "air force controllers who aren't as qualified as their Army SOF colleagues". More generally the book is chock-full of references to the superiority of the US Special Forces over both the enemy and their own colleagues in the rest of the US armed forces. The book on one hand eulogizes the sacrifices of the 5 SFG personnel but on the other hand tells us how Northern Alliance generals like Abdul Rashid Dostum told their soldiers to guard the 5 SFG personnel with their lives or face the prospect of having their families executed. One wonders the wisdom of releasing such sterling accounts of `bravery' on part of the 5 SFG.

The author also comes across as being incredibly sexist. The comments attributed to SFG personnel in the book especially about a female SOF operative in a C-130 Spectre gunship are unprofessional. It is not surprising that such attitudes exist towards women in uniform but there is no need to tell the world that the SOF units on the ground would get a `woody' listening to their female co-worker relaying SITREPs and AARs on the tactical radio network. Neither does the public need to know that the US-SOF would name the military objectives after porn stars and that the action at Point `Ginger' (in Op. Anaconda) was "hotter than Ginger Lynn in an XXX movie". Robin Moore freely admits that a number of people are attracted to the US-SOF by reading books about them, but one shudders to think what sort of people he is advertising for in this book.

Like other books in this genre (ex. Black Hawk Down), `The Hunt For Bin Laden' offers a glance at the cross section of American Special Forces. The book reinforces the reviewer's belief that outside of Special Forces Operations Detachment-Delta (SFOD-D) there rest of the people in USSOFCOM can best be described as `special forces compatible'. The prevalent idea of Close Quarters Battle (CQB) among SOF personnel (outside of SFOD-D) appears to be of dropping 2000 lb JDAM/laser guided munitions on an aging ZSU-23-4 and a Toyota pickup. The book ends with a complaint about the lack of benefits for the relatives of SFG people who "really won" Afghanistan for the US. 

The reviewer has read many books in this genre, and the `Hunt for Bin Laden' is an exceedingly poor contribution to this body of work. One fervently hopes that this is not the only chronicle of these crucial times that is made public and that a more balanced and authoritative source is also published.

Looking even casually through the book, the reader at once seizes the trends in the operations that alarmed Indian analysts like B. Raman of the South Asia Analysis Group. Throughout the operation, a very poor idea existed of what exactly was to be done in Afghanistan. There is plenty of evidence in the book of the `Fear of Iran' that pervades American policymaking. From this account alone it appears that several key opportunities to work with the Iranians were missed out due to what can mildly be termed a culture problem. At every possible stage the Pakistanis were allowed to get away with their support for the Taliban and Al Qaeda. The wages of this flawed strategy were paid out in full measure in heavy casualties in Operation Anaconda and in the ongoing Operation Valiant Strike. All in all, the reviewer is compelled to gently shake his head and to say caveat emptor.

 Sunil S.