Steve Coll Washington Post Editor Says ëGhost Warsí of 1990s led to 9/11 by John Shaw Steve Coll, the managing editor of the Washington Post, has written a new book that is at once a somber history of modern Afghanistan, a riveting cloak-and-dagger tale of geopolitical intrigue, a valuable primer on South Asian politics, a compelling description of the shadowy world of intelligence, and a superb account of the machinations of the U.S. foreign policy bureaucracy. But above all, Collís book, ìGhost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, From the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001,î is a cautionary tale about what can happen when a country neglects important strategic considerations and clings to policies and alliances that are no longer effectiveóor even relevant. Coll describes how the United States joined the campaign to oust the Soviet Union from Afghanistan in the 1980s, but then, with victory at hand, the United States lost interest in Afghanistan in the 1990s and effectively withdrew from that country. Paying scant attention to the rise of radical Islam and the emergence of the Taliban, the Americans stood by as Osama bin Laden methodically constructed his network of terror that was unleashed on Sept. 11, 2001. ìThere is still a lot of debate about what we should have done at different points in Afghanistan. But there is now a lot of consensus that it was a mistake to pull out so abruptly when the victory over the Soviet Union had been won,î Coll said in an interview at his office at the Post. But he cautions against too sweeping of a critique of the United States, noting that at crucial times between 1988 and 1992, U.S. policymakers were preoccupied with major historical events. ìThis was a period of time that coincided with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of the Soviet Union, the end of the Cold War and the first Gulf War. There was quite a bit going on. Afghanistan seemed so distant and such an intractable conflict. In the face of all these momentous priorities it kept slipping down the list.î Collís book vividly traces nearly a quarter century of remarkable events in which Afghanistan was center stage for intense covert operations by U.S. and foreign intelligence agencies. They were engaged, Coll argues, in ìghost warsî that sowed the seeds of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. From the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 to the summer of 2001, the CIA, Pakistanís Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), and Saudi Arabiaís General Intelligence Department (GID) all operated in Afghanistan. They stockpiled Afghan factions with cash, weapons, guerilla forces and propaganda. Against the backdrop of these struggles, bin Laden conceived and constructed his global organization. Coll argues that U.S. policy toward Afghanistan during this period was shaped by its close ties to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, especially the close collaboration among the CIA, the ISI and the GID. ìItís striking how much self-perpetuating momentum builds up inside the government and in the mechanisms of liaison,î he said, adding that an intense network of relationships evolved among these three intelligence services. Senior U.S. officials initially paid little attention to bin Laden, Coll said, even after his words against the United States grew more menacing and his attacks more vicious. ìThere was hardly anyone in the U.S. government who understood the Afghan context in which bin Laden thrived,î he said. ìThe Taliban was a continual mysteryóa mystery deepened by the self-interested whispers of Pakistan and Saudi liaison officers that the Taliban would moderate, that it was not as bad as it appeared, that it would eventually expel bin Laden to an American court room, that we should just be patient and allow time to resolve some of these difficulties.î Coll, 46, has been with the Washington Post since 1985 as a reporter, foreign correspondent and editor. He is also the author of five books: ìThe Deal of the Century: The Breakup of AT&T,î ìThe Taking of Getty Oil,î ìEagle on the Streetî (with David Vise), ìOn the Grand Trunk Road: A Journey Into South Asia,î and ìGhost Wars.î Born in Washington, D.C., Coll graduated with honors from Occidental College in Los Angeles. He worked as a contributing writer at California magazine and then joined the Post as a feature writer for the Style section in September of 1985. He became the Postís financial correspondent in New York City and co-authored a series of stories about the Securities and Exchange Commission that won the Pulitzer Prize. Coll moved to New Delhi in 1989 to become the Postís South Asia correspondent. He covered India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sir Lanka and Nepal for three years and developed a keen interest in the region. He was named the Postís first international projects and investigative correspondent in 1992. Based in London, he traveled extensively and wrote about such subjects as the global economy, terrorism, money laundering and nuclear proliferation. In the summer of 1995, Coll became the editor of the Postís Sunday magazine. The following year he was appointed publisher of the magazine, overseeing its business and editorial operations. In this job, he effectively ran a $10 million business. Coll became managing editor of the Post in 1998. Although he was running the day-to-day operations of the paper, he remained interested in South Asia, an interest that only intensified after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. ìThe very same issues that I ended up writing about in ëGhost Warsí were subjects I covered in some depth and with some intensity as a reporter,î Coll explained. ìI think I had a reputation among correspondents as being obsessed with Pakistan intelligence and obsessed with the debates about Afghan politics and radical Islam.î Coll wrote ìGhost Warsî over two years, working in the early mornings and on weekends. He conducted more than 200 interviews with top political leaders, senior intelligence professionals and midlevel analysts. He found that the most formidable challenge in writing the book was confirming the various operations conducted by the U.S., Pakistani and Saudi intelligence services over nearly a quarter century. Trying to understand Saudi Arabia was also a particularly daunting and often frustrating challenge. ìSaudi Arabia is just a very difficult society for American scholars and journalists. It is a very complicated and relatively closed society,î Coll said. ìEvery time I felt like I broke through one layer and saw how people related to each other, I instantly became aware there were 95,000 other strands of the cobweb that were beyond my reach. Itís a society that is just the opposite of transparent. Everything is unavailable.î Reflecting on the U.S. experience in Afghanistan, Coll said he is struck by how difficult it was for several U.S. administrations to step back and re-examine Americaís policy in South Asia. The United States, he argues, became shackled to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia and viewed Afghanistan through their eyes. Largely as a result of indifference and bureaucratic momentum, the United States constructed its most active regional counterterrorism partnerships with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, despite evidence that both governments had been penetrated by al Qaeda. ìThere is a relative lack of expertise about South Asia at senior levels of either political partyís national security and foreign policy establishments,î he said. ìThe very best people in the United States on South Asia tended to approach Afghanistan in these years through Pakistan. That was where American policy flowed. We had no embassy in Kabul after 1988. There was no other way into Afghanistan except through the Pakistan experience.î Coll said the coalition that the United States ultimately supported in Afghanistan after 9/11 could probably have been assembled a decade earlier. ìI think the coalition the U.S. backed in the fall of 2001óbasically the Northern Alliance, exiled intellectuals and royalist Pashtunsówas available for sponsorship a decade before.î He added that another fateful mistake was the failure of U.S. leaders to seriously consider an alliance with India against radical Islam. ìThe United States failed during the late 1990s to forge an effective anti-terrorism partnership with India. Indiaís regional interests, security resources and large Muslim population offered great potential for covert penetrations of Afghanistan.î Coll said the record clearly shows that there were officials in the middle level of the State Department and the CIA who understood and warned about the dangers of radical Islam, but their warnings were often brushed aside by senior leaders. Additionally, he cited warnings from some global leaders about the dangers of radical Islam, including prescient statements by Ahmed Ahmad Shah Massoud, the leader of the Northern Alliance, Afghan President Najibullah, and former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. ìThe U.S. leadership was so focused on whether Gorbachev was sincere they were never able to empathize with his point of view about radical Islam,î Coll said. Collís book provides vivid sketches of the personalities that shaped Afghan politics, such as Massoud, former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, Pakistanís military leader Gen. Mohammed Zia ul-Haq, Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal (the long-time chief of Saudi intelligence), CIA directors William Casey and George Tenet, and former President Bill Clinton. Clinton, Coll argues, had a subtle grasp of the challenges posed by globalization and international terrorism, but he failed at several crucial times to move decisively against bin Laden. ìHe was continually looking for that lawyerís compromiseóthe space between hard choices,î Coll said. ìBut the biggest single problem was Clintonís broken relationship with the Pentagon. The most astonishing thing is that the Pentagon was completely unresponsive to his agenda on Afghanistan in the second term.î Coll said one of the central lessons that emerges from Americaís misadventure in Afghanistan is that covert policy cannot be an effective substitute for a clear and coherent foreign policy. ìItís difficult in a democracy and open society to accomplish by covert action what you are not prepared to accomplish by overt action. Covert action can be effective in supporting an overt policy, but it canít be a substitute for an overt policy, for a foreign policy.î John Shaw is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.