No Room for Error The Covert Operations of America's Special Tactics Units from Iran to Afghanistan

TUNGI, AFGHANISTAN The first war of the twenty-first century quickly became America's first special operations war. President George W. Bush's "war on terrorism," triggered by the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon, began on October 7 when Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announced the first U.S. air strikes against forces of the repressive Taliban regime and al-Qaeda terrorists in northern Afghanistan as part of Operation "Enduring Freedom." Within a few weeks they would announce the first two raids by American Rangers and other special operations forces in Afghanistan and acknowledge that small, clandestine teams of American special forces and special tactics units had begun operating directly with Afghan anti-Taliban tribesmen. Air Force special tactics, Army special forces teams, and Army Rangers, Rumsfeld said, were targeting Taliban forces for long-range U.S. air strikes supporting Northern Alliance troops, gathering on-the-spot intelligence, and conducting unconventional hit-and-run raids on key targets. Soon after the Army-Air Force teams had infiltrated Afghanistan, Navy SEAL units also began operating there. A brave young Afghan described the role that these special operators played in that war during a fierce firefight in eastern Afghanistan in January 2002, when an American special forces and special tactics team leading anti-Taliban forces came under such withering fire that his comrades fled the battleground. Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters had depressed their antiaircraft guns on the hills and mountains surrounding the U.S.-led troops and were inflicting gruesome losses. But this particular Afghan stayed as the Americans held their ground and Sergeant William "Calvin" Markham, a special tactics combat controller, radioed for close air support strikes to suppress and destroy the enemy weapons. In the midst of this raging and bloody battle, the Afghan flung himself to the ground directly in front of the American sergeant to protect him from incoming rounds. Markham yelled at him, "What are you doing?" The Afghan replied calmly, "Sir, if they kill me, I'll be replaced. But if they kill you, the airplanes will go away."1 Except for such air strikes, however-blurred images of which appeared almost nightly on TV news for weeks after the president's and Rumsfeld's October announcements-little progress seemed evident in the war in its early days. As American special operations troops in the country increased from "a few" to "less than a hundred" (actually, fewer than fifty by November 4) to "several hundred" (actually, fewer than three hundred of them), TV pundits and op-ed columnists complained that President Bush's war on terrorism had bogged down into a stalemate or "quagmire." TV screens were filled with images of precision-guided bombs-dropped from long-range B-2 bombers flying two-day, round-trip missions from the United States and B-1 and B-52 bombers flying twelve to fifteen hours and some 5,500 miles from and back to Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean2-exploding on fuzzily pictured mud huts or barren, rugged terrain, but there was little sign and no word of progress against the Taliban. What would come to be known as "America's first special operations war" seemed to be off to an inauspicious start. The Washington Post, for instance, headlined on November 2, Big Ground Forces Seen as Necessary to Defeat Taliban; Bombing Has Left Militia Largely Intact and reported, "The attacks have not eliminated any measurable number of Taliban troops. Northern Alliance forces have made no important gains against the Taliban . . . a major chunk of the 50,000 Taliban army and much of its arsenal are pretty much intact after three weeks of bombing."3 Dr. Andrew Bacevich, a West Point graduate and formerCarney, John T. is the author of 'No Room for Error The Covert Operations of America's Special Tactics Units from Iran to Afghanistan' with ISBN 9780345453358 and ISBN 0345453352.