Known and Unknown (46 page)

With the Soviet disaster still in many people's minds, with winter approaching, and with our faith in a group of haggard yet battle-hardened Afghans, the United States was on the verge of one of the most unorthodox military campaigns in our history.

G
eneral Franks planned to insert special operations teams into Afghanistan on the evenings of October 6 and 7 using a nontraditional, celestial ally. The moon would rise several hours after sunset, allowing our forces a small window when their helicopters could traverse the vast Afghan mountain ranges in darkness and be less vulnerable to Taliban antiaircraft emplacements.

Knowing military action was coming, I set out in the first week of October to meet with leaders in some of the countries in the region. In Saudi Arabia, Oman, Egypt, Uzbekistan, and Turkey I consulted with government officials on our plans, sought their advice, and learned what support they might be willing to provide. I assured our potential partners of two things: The United States would appreciate whatever public or private support they might offer, and we were going to respond aggressively with force against the terrorist threat on a vastly different scale and level of intensity than in the past. This was a welcome message to most leaders of the region, who did not relish the prospects of emboldened radicals in their backyards.

I generally made a point of refraining from asking for specific types of assistance in meetings with foreign leaders. Nor did I spend a lot of time “transmitting”—giving lengthy presentations on the President's goals and views and trying to push them to see things our way. I listened instead, which was valuable either because the foreign leaders had useful thoughts to convey or simply because those leaders were grateful to be heard out by the American secretary of defense. It is hard to overstate the practical importance of mutually respectful discussions of this kind. I have always found that these exchanges are especially important with smaller nations, and particularly with those that have not had long close relations with the United States.

When foreign leaders offered assistance, as they often did, I expressed our appreciation. I made a practice, however, of not publicly discussing the specifics of our understandings unless they did so themselves. Some nations preferred to support the United States quietly, so as not to inflame their enemies, stir up domestic political opposition, or become a terrorist target. This practice, of course, allowed administration critics to claim we were acting unilaterally, often without knowing the extent of the assistance and cooperation we actually received.

The aides who made official foreign trips with me—I visited seventy-five countries, many of them several times, and traveled 750,000 miles during my second tour as secretary of defense—generally described them as forced marches. We could not afford to waste time. If I could squeeze in stops to two countries on a given day, I did. Three was even better. The combination of constant motion, jet lag, early morning wake-up calls, and difficult, high-stakes work was invigorating. But it could be tough for the staff. On one flight I received a memo from a few long-suffering stalwarts who had dubbed themselves “Rummy's Tube Dwellers.” They joked that they had “taken control of the plane, and diverted to the Virgin Islands,” unless I agreed to some “non-negotiable demands” such as “frequent flyer miles…less diet coke, more martinis…For every day spent in a ‘stan' [the countries of Central Asia] we get 4 comp days.”
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On October 4, we arrived in Oman, a country on the eastern tip of the Arabian Peninsula. Sultan Qaboos received us in a large, open tent in the middle of the oppressively hot and humid Omani desert where he regularly camped to meet with his subjects. The tents were brightly colored. Carpets of deep reds and blues covered the sand inside. Those of us in our American contingent, in dark suits and black SUVs, did not cut the image of modern-day Lawrences of Arabia. Every article of clothing we wore was quickly drenched through from the heat. Qaboos, however, seemed unfazed by the temperature as he held forth.

With his immaculately trimmed, strikingly white beard and Bedouin features—skin hardened by sand and sun—Qaboos was much as I had remembered from when I met him in 1983 as President Reagan's Middle East envoy. The Sultan was sympathetic toward the West, having been educated at Sandhurst, the British military academy, and having served in the British army. In his three decades as sultan, Qaboos had opposed Islamist fundamentalism. He skillfully developed Oman—a nation that in 1970 had few diplomatic relations with foreign states, a meager education system, less than ten miles of paved roads, and a draconian legal code—into a modern Middle Eastern country.

Qaboos became emotional when he discussed 9/11. Then he said something that I found striking. He speculated that the attacks might serve an important purpose by awakening America and the world to the dangers of Islamist extremism and the lethality of weapons of mass destruction. He urged a sustained campaign against the terrorists, cautioning that it would take a long time to do it right. Qaboos lamented that the Arab news media promoted the terrorists' point of view. And he said we should suggest to other Muslim friends that their leading clerics speak out against terrorist atrocities to change the moral climate that influences young people. He told me he considered some of the Arab countries “hypocrites” who turned to America when they were in trouble but did little when America needed them.
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In that assessment he found a sympathetic ear.

Sultan Qaboos also offered important assistance to the Afghan campaign. He said Oman would allow us to base our C-130 aircraft at Masira Island in the Arabian Sea.

“We trust you. We're allies,” he said simply. “I have nothing else to add.”
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From Oman, we headed to Egypt, where I met with President Mubarak. After a career as an air force officer, Mubarak had risen to power in 1981, following the assassination by Islamist extremists of his predecessor, Anwar Sadat. Mubarak, then the vice president, had declared a state of emergency and assumed near dictatorial powers. Usually pragmatic in foreign policy, Mubarak followed Sadat's strategy of cooperation with the United States on issues such as Iraq, counterterrorism, and peace talks with Israel. For decades Egypt had received billions of dollars in American aid annually.

I had first met Mubarak in June 1975 when, as White House chief of staff, I accompanied President Ford to his meetings with President Sadat in Salzburg, Austria. I had worked with Mubarak later when I served as President Reagan's Middle East envoy, in 1983. Little had changed about the man since our first meeting. On a personal level, I found him animated, even ebullient. Sensing that war in Afghanistan was imminent, he wanted to impart some advice. He shared President Bush's concern that simply firing cruise missiles at caves in Afghanistan would not be effective. He urged us to use financial assistance to “buy allies on the ground.” He reflexively mentioned the Israeli-Palestinian issue as a root cause of terrorism but did not dwell on it. This was the standard line in the Middle East—everything was Israel's fault, although in truth Arab nations had done little to help the Palestinians.
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My next stop was Uzbekistan, the most populous of the Central Asian republics and perhaps the most crucial of my trip. It was an example of a country that was generally ignored by American officials. Central Asia, which includes several former Soviet republics, is a blank slate to many in the West, in contrast to Eastern Europe, which Americans had reached out to after the collapse of the Soviet Union. This was due, in part, to personal familiarity. A major reason Americans were eager to forge close ties with Poland, the Czech Republic, and other Eastern European countries after the Cold War was that many Americans in cities like Chicago, Detroit, and Pittsburgh had relatives there or next-door neighbors of East European descent. It worried me that the countries of Central Asia were not getting similar attention, aid, and encouragement as they tried to move toward freer political and economic systems. Yet because of their location—squeezed between two large nuclear powers, Russia and China, and straddling the legendary East-West corridor through Asia—they were countries of great strategic importance with a potential that remains to this day largely unfulfilled. Well before 9/11, in fact, I made it a personal goal to develop new relationships in Central Asia.
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Now suddenly their support was of enormous importance. We needed overflight rights, and fueling and operating stations in countries like Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Kyrgyzstan. Indeed, U.S. military operations could not begin or be sustained in Afghanistan until we made the necessary arrangements with its neighbors.

The Uzbek president, Islam Karimov, had come to power as a commissar in the waning days of the Soviet Union. He was now attempting a balancing act. He wanted to support America's efforts in Afghanistan but not at the expense of riling his neighbor, Russia. Karimov started our meeting in Soviet style with a thirty-minute statement.
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I recalled Russian President Putin opening in a similar manner when I first met with him, so it did not surprise me; for many who came of political age in the Communist system, this was their normal approach with foreign leaders. Possibly they saw it as a way to assert authority at the outset of a meeting. In any event, after his formal opening remarks, Karimov became quite cordial.
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Usually I did not ask countries for anything specific, but in Uzbekistan's case it was clear what we needed. Karimov agreed to allow our special operators to launch from the decaying Uzbek air base at Karshi Khanabad, known as K-2, conveniently located only 120 miles from the Afghan border. Two decades earlier K-2 had been used by Soviet bombers during their invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. Now the Uzbek base would be used once again, but this time for the liberation of the same troubled people to their south.

Echoing the Egyptian president, Karimov said, “You can buy any warlord and neutralize him. You don't need to persuade him to join the Northern Alliance, just neutralize him.” As his translator spoke, I reflected on the differences in English between buying and renting, the latter being more likely for the transactions he was describing. He stressed the importance of putting an Afghan face on the conflict: “In Afghanistan, only Afghans should fight.” And he underscored the importance of coupling military force with humanitarian aid to try to win over the population. He was wise in his advice, and helpful. He knew the territory. I soon learned from Karimov that earlier Russian offers of assistance to us had limits: He confided to me that Russian officials were pressuring him to seek and receive Moscow's assent before agreeing to provide any help to the United States.

In fact, the Russians already knew the purpose of my visit. Karimov was not pleased that news of my trip had been leaked to the Russians in advance, nor was President Bush, and nor was I. Only a small universe of people knew about my plans to visit Uzbekistan, and apparently an even smaller number were preoccupied with keeping the Russians happy by sharing information with them. “I do not know precisely who is talking to the Russians in real time,” I said in a memo to Powell and Rice, “but you folks should know how unhelpful it is.”
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At a press conference following our meeting, President Karimov was in good spirits. But though he seemed pleased with his evolving relationship with the United States, he spoke carefully. “I would like to emphasize that there has been no talk of quid pro quos so far,” he said. Having little interest in subtlety, he added, “I would like the Russian journalists, in particular, to take this into account.”
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As I departed Uzbekistan, I was asked by a member of our traveling press corps whether the Taliban might stay in power if we were to target al-Qaida in Afghanistan. Even as late as October, despite the public statements by President Bush that should have ended the administration's internal debate, there were American officials who were still telling journalists that it was in our interest to reach an accommodation with the Taliban.

“Tony Blair said today the Taliban needs to either surrender bin Laden or surrender power,” a reporter told me. “Did he frame that correctly?”

“Well, I guess there are those who think it might be nice if they did both,” I answered.
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On my last stop, in Ankara, Turkey, its leaders offered assistance with military facilities. They were strong backers of our plan to arm and supply the Northern Alliance. The Turks knew the Taliban threatened the interests of Muslims worldwide. For many years I had considered Turkey a key country for the United States—a West-leaning Muslim democracy and NATO member that could function as a link between East and West. I had always been concerned by the American tendency to favor Greece over Turkey, at least in part because of our large politically active Greek-American population and their representation in Congress. “The U.S. needs to publicly show more support for Turkey,” I noted in December 2001, “if we are going to have their help when we need it.”
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