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A commander’s “compelling” behind-the-scenes view of the United States at war after 9/11, from high-level strategy to combat on the ground (The Wall Street Journal).
Over his thirty-five year career, Daniel P. Bolger rose through the ranks of the army infantry to become a three-star general, commanding in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Perhaps more than anyone else, he was witness to the full extent of these wars, from September 11th to withdrawal from the region. Not only did Bolger participate in top-level planning and strategy meetings, he also regularly carried a rifle alongside soldiers in combat actions.
Writing with hard-won experience and unflinching honesty, Bolger argues that while we lost in Iraq and Afghanistan, we did not have to. Intelligence was garbled. Key decision makers were blinded by spreadsheets or theories. And we never really understood our enemy. Why We Lost is a timely, forceful, and compulsively readable account from a fresh and authoritative perspective, “filled with heartfelt stories of soldiers and Marines in firefights and close combat. It weighs in mightily to the ongoing debate over how the United States should wage war” (The Washington Post).
| ISBN-13: | 9780544438347 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Houghton Mifflin Harcourt |
| Publication date: | 06/01/2018 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 400 |
| Sales rank: | 365,776 |
| File size: | 18 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
CHAPTER 1
HARBINGERS
A destroyer: even the brave fear its might. It inspires horror in the harbor and in the open sea. She sails into the waves Flanked by arrogance, haughtiness and false power. To her doom she moves slowly. A dinghy awaits her, riding the waves. — OSAMA BIN LADEN, JANUARY 2001
AMERICAN SAILORS HATED to stop in Aden. They got no liberty, didn't even tie up at a pier — going to the great harbor of backward, hostile Yemen amounted to a very unpleasant way to get some fuel. The craggy peaks of a long-dead volcano marked the eastern promontory that defined the anchorage. The great pinnacles loomed above, a reminder of why soldiers always want to hold the high ground. The hills had eyes, or worse.
Still, one of the duties of the U.S. Navy, going all the way back to the early 1800s, the days of the Barbary pirates of North Africa, involves showing the flag. Safe passage of Navy ships ensures unmolested transit of merchant shipping, always the main conduit of all overseas trade whether in 1800 or 2000. Port calls projected U.S. influence ashore and kept markets open. Freedom of the seas, like all freedoms, must be exercised or it will atrophy.
A glance at a map showed why naval officers valued Aden. It dominated the Bab-el-Mandeb, Arabic for "Gate of Grief," which divided the Arabian Peninsula from Africa. Rarely has a geographic location been better named. Grief flowed in abundance on all sides and had done so for centuries. The Bab-el-Mandeb marked the entrance from the Indian Ocean to the southern end of the Red Sea. Those troubled waters separated Somalia, Djibouti, and Eritrea from Yemen. All four countries suffered from terrorist activities and internal turmoil. As it widened, the Red Sea divided Egypt from Saudi Arabia, both countries that balanced the usual requirement for help from the U.S. infidels with strong anti-Western sentiments in their local souk, the ever-aggrieved Arab Street. At its northern end, that same Red Sea fed into the Suez Canal, central to many Egyptian-Israeli conflicts, although quiescent since the Camp David Accords of 1978. Beyond lay the Mediterranean Sea, with all of its travails.
The Red Sea and its approaches have been contested since the time of Moses and the pharaohs. Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Crusaders, Turks, Mamelukes, Napoleon's French, British regulars, the Nazi German Afrika Korps, Egyptian armored brigades, and Israeli paratroopers came and went, leaving their bones in the desert. The U.S. Navy stationed missile-firing ships there during the 1990–91 war with Iraq. The advent of the Suez Canal made the Red Sea a critical waterway feeding maritime trade, notably oil, to Europe. Despite all the poverty and violence on its shores, some 3.4 million barrels of the world's oil, about 10 percent of all petroleum that went by sea, moved each day through the Bab-el-Mandeb. That's why the U.S. Navy stopped in Aden.
Like Singapore on the busy Strait of Malacca and Gibraltar in Spain, Aden attracted the British long before the Yankees got there. Dependent on sea commerce, Great Britain's Royal Navy identified such key chokepoints and took them. The British East India Company secured the port of Aden in 1832. Redcoats followed, and with Aden in hand, the British held the surrounding territory as the Aden Protectorate until 1967. The British ignored the wild, poor, mountainous north, leaving that to the ostensible rule of the far-off, feeble Ottoman Turks. For London, only the strategic Bab-el-Mandeb really mattered, and it mattered even more once the Suez Canal to the north opened for traffic in 1869.
When the British left under fire in 1967, a pro-Soviet front took over in the newly proclaimed People's Democratic Republic of Yemen. The Russians knew all about the Bab-el-Mandeb and wanted a boot on that Western windpipe. North Yemen, always quasi-independent, split with the leftists in Aden city and sought Saudi and Western help. The two states and their various subfactions skirmished throughout the rest of the Cold War. In a reversal of its familiar pattern in both Korea and Vietnam, the U.S. backed the north.
After a surfeit of blood and a lot of haggling guided by the Arab League, mainly the Saudis, the two countries took advantage of the end of the Cold War. In 1990, Yemen unified under President Ali Abdullah Salah, an authoritarian autocrat in the style of Hosni Mubarak of Egypt. In the usual Middle Eastern fan dance of dealing with necessary outsiders while placating militant Muslims at home, Salah said all the right things to America and the West. Meanwhile, inside his own country, official and unofficial spokesmen impugned the West daily, reserving special venom for Israel and its superpower ally, the United States. Yemen's weak security forces had hit-or-miss success in trying to quash a rat's nest of local terror networks, insurgents, and general bad actors.
Into this hothouse sailed the guided-missile destroyer USS Cole (DDG-67). The USS Cole stretched 505 feet long and 66 feet wide, and it displaced 9,000 tons, making it about the size of a World War II light cruiser. The Cole bristled with firepower: ninety launchers for various long-range missiles, an automated 127 mm (5-inch) gun, six torpedo tubes, and an armed helicopter, the Navy version of the Army Black Hawk. Its radar allowed the ship to track and destroy attacking aircraft hundreds of miles away; its capable sonar and affiliated weapons ensured the detection and engagement of lurking enemy submarines. The Cole could plaster up to ninety different targets with smart Tomahawk cruise missiles, and each of those big sluggers could range out some fifteen hundred miles to deliver a thousand-pound-bomb-equivalent warhead. Whereas a 1945 light cruiser carried nearly 900 sailors, thanks to modern IT, only 281 were needed to run the Cole.
One thing that hadn't changed since the olden days was the risk to the crew. In the armed forces, those who fight on the ground generally see those on ships as much better off. The Marines live in both worlds, and they have strong views. Major General Julian C. Smith put it well on the eve of the bloody 1943 Tarawa landing: "Even though you Navy officers do come in to about a thousand yards, I remind you that you have a little armor. I want you to know that Marines are crossing that beach with bayonets, and the only armor they will have is a khaki shirt." As an admiral who had risen from the ranks once told an Army infantryman, the worst wardroom always trumps the best foxhole.
Yet that same admiral went on to explain that the life of the sea is inherently exhausting and dangerous. To the unforgiving challenges of wind and waves, familiar to Ulysses or John Paul Jones, one must add the back-straining, knuckle-scraping daily rhythms of checking and fixing the seagoing industrial plants that are modern ships. Each day sees struggles to move on icy decks or wrestle outsize, greasy equipment through narrow passageways or up slippery ladders. Engine rooms run hot as furnaces; you can't drink enough water. Things break down in odd, oily corners. Somebody must wriggle in to make repairs. To this, append the pleasures of living cheek by jowl with hundreds of other people. Often, there's another sailor six inches above your head when you go to sleep for a few hours. And the whole time, whether you're tossing in your narrow bunk or yanking on a flailing cable in the howling wind, you're one massive rogue wave or hull breach from going right to the bottom, full Titanic, in the time it would take someone to read this page. "For a sailor," the admiral concluded, "there's only about 5% difference, where you aim the Tomahawks or how much you shoot the 5-incher, between being in combat and just doing your job at sea. Unless something bad happens ..."
Unless something bad happens. On October 12, 2000, it did.
Whatever the Cole and her crew did or didn't do, Commander Kirk S. Lippold owned it. A U.S. Navy captain — and the ship's commander always holds that title, regardless of his or her official rank — enjoys near-absolute authority. But as both Voltaire and World War II veteran Stan Lee wrote (Lee in reference to his superhero Spider-Man), with great power comes great responsibility. That, too, had not changed since the days of John Paul Jones.
An Annapolis graduate with a wealth of time at sea, Lippold knew his crew, his ship, and the dangerous waters they sailed. On the landing ship USS Fairfax County, he served off Lebanon in 1983 during the ill-fated Marine expedition to that troubled country. Aboard the cruiser USS Yorktown, Lippold participated in the fighting against Libya in 1985–86. Not only had he heard of terrorist threats, he had been in operations that dealt with them, poorly in Lebanon, but well enough off Libya. Now he commanded the relatively new and very powerful USS Cole, transiting from the Mediterranean Sea to join the Fifth Fleet in the Persian Gulf.
Although today's U.S. Navy submarines and aircraft carriers use nuclear power and hence can sail for years on a single reactor core, a destroyer like the Cole runs on diesel fuel — and lots of it. Lippold and his sailors calculated that to get to the Persian Gulf with a proper reserve of fuel aboard, they needed to fill up with some 220,000 gallons of F-76 naval distillate diesel at about the halfway point. That meant a stop at either French- influenced Djibouti or Aden, Yemen. Djibouti was poor but pretty safe for this part of the world.
From the perspective of the U.S. embassy up in the mountain capital of San'a — that old Cold War North Yemen connection — refueling in Aden reinforced the U.S. commitment to the fractious country and its client in Yemen, President Salah. In 1999 and 2000, twenty-six U.S. Navy vessels had refueled before Cole. The Navy categorized it as a "brief stop for fuel," a few hours the destroyer would spend tied up to a narrow concrete manmade island with a diesel pipe stuck into it. The fuel dolphin was way out in the middle of the anchorage, well off the Aden waterfront. As long as the Cole stayed in the open harbor, what could go wrong?
So Commander Lippold and his crew made their way toward Aden. The Cole played by the rules, arriving the night before and steaming slowly back and forth outside the twelve-mile limit of Yemen's territorial waters. The Cole awaited clearance to enter, arranged for 7:30 a.m. on Thursday, October 12. The Americans, of course, were ready to get in and get going early. Lippold set his sea and anchor details at 5:46 a.m., just as the sun rose. His communications officer got on the radio.
"Aden Port Control, this is U.S. Navy warship USS Cole, channel one-six, over."
Nothing came back. The American tried again; no answer. This went on for about twenty minutes. Then the radio crackled.
"This is Aden Port Control. What time are you scheduled to come in?" Kirk Lippold was about to find out why Indian-born British poet Rudyard Kipling disdained the "fool ... who tried to hustle the East." In Aden's harbor, adhering to a bureaucratic fashion that would please their long-gone Soviet mentors, the Yemenis treated the schedule as if it were Holy Writ, just below the Koran. If that accorded with a casual arrival to start the day, so much the better. The schedule offered a way to direct the pushy infidels. That suited the locals just fine. When Lippold asked to enter early, the predictable response came back: "You are going to have to wait."
The Americans waited. The day grew warm. Finally, at 7:46 a.m., close enough by Yemeni clocks, the harbor pilot arrived to guide the Cole. The Yemenis wanted to do it the easy way: push straight in and moor the Cole with its bow facing the shore and its left (port) side tied to the fuel dolphin. Since the cement structure stretched 350 feet, the U.S. destroyer would stick out 75 feet on either end and have a tough time backing out. Lippold knew there was a better way.
After Lippold plied the pilot with some tea and talked him slowly through the benefits of turning the ship's bow to the open sea, the Yemeni consented to Lippold's request. That did not speed up the Yemeni tugboats. Instead, confused by the change in direction, the two Aden harbor tugs took more than an hour to get the Cole next to the fuel dolphin. Then mooring lines had to be secured, checklists checked, and fuel pipes connected and tested. It all took until 10:31 a.m. By Lippold's reckoning, passing diesel looked to take up to eight more hours. The American skipper definitely wanted to get out of Aden in daylight. It would be tight.
Though the captain of a warship is, indeed, the sole accountable officer, he runs his crew through his key subordinates. Aboard USS Cole, Lieutenant Commander John Christopher Peterschmidt served as the executive officer (XO). As second in command, he was backed by a brace of lieutenants heading the various departments, such as engineering, weapons, communications, and supply. Command Master Chief James Parlier, the senior enlisted sailor, enforced standards, represented the interests of the crew, and supervised a group of tough, experienced chiefs who served as de facto foremen in each shop of this seagoing factory. Together, Peterschmidt and Parlier acted as Lippold's right and left arms, making things happen aboard the destroyer.
With the diesel flowing, Cole settled into a well-rehearsed routine. Because the ship was not under way, nobody manned the bridge. On the deck, a dozen armed lookouts ensured that no unauthorized swimmers or craft approached the ship. Lippold considered putting out a rigid-hull inflatable boat with armed sailors, and he even got one ready to go. It didn't happen. The boat had to drop off the right (starboard) side, but that now aligned with the cement island. So the security boat stayed stowed. The armed sentinels proved more than capable of waving off one overly curious Yemeni small craft.
With the ship stationary and his crew carrying out their tasks, Lippold went to his cabin to catch up on paperwork. While he worked, Command Master Chief Parlier was near the helicopter deck at the ship's stern. The XO, Peterschmidt, fulfilled his role and rode herd on the refueling and the deck security.
About twenty minutes after Lippold went to his cabin, Peterschmidt came in. He and the ship's supply officer wanted to get rid of garbage. Enterprising Yemenis had offered to do it with three small boats. At first, Lippold said no. The Cole would be in the Persian Gulf in a few days and could dump trash easily at the big U.S. Navy base at Bahrain. Peterschmidt insisted. The Yemenis wanted only $150, and it would clear out a lot of the useless clutter that had accumulated since the ship left Norfolk, Virginia, almost two months earlier. The XO made a good point.
"Okay, fine," Lippold conceded. "Go ahead and bring the boats out to us. Let's pass the word and get everything off the ship." Anticipating approval, two trash boats had already snuggled alongside. Up on the deck, sailors passed bagged garbage down to the Yemenis.
Peterschmidt had more for his captain. The diesel flow ran fast that morning. He estimated they might be finished as early as 12:30 p.m., a welcome break. He recommended opening the galley early for lunch. Getting the crew fed quickly should help get the Cole on its way as soon as possible. Lippold agreed.
The XO announced the change in mealtime over the ship's intercom. Hungry sailors lined up gratefully; the Cole was known as a good feeder, and this day had started way too early. With all the activities humming and the lieutenants and chiefs in charge, Peterschmidt stayed below. He went to a compartment near the ship's stern. There he held a meeting of the destroyer's morale and welfare committee.
Topside, the two Yemeni garbage boats finished at about 11:15. Fireman Raymond Mooney watched them begin to pull away. A third boat approached from the shore, swinging in a nice wide arc off the port bow. White with red trim, thirty-five feet long, with two thin Yemeni men aboard, the boat slowed to approach the Cole. Mooney noticed that both of the locals smiled and waved. Well, they would soon get rid of the rest of the trash. The dinghy touched the Cole's great gray flank, then it detonated with a brilliant flash and a thunderous roar.
The Cole heeled up and away from the explosion, then rolled down and in, its steel hull whipsawed by the burst of the equivalent of a five-hundred-pound bomb. The blast tore open a massive hole, forty feet across, like ripping an entire railroad boxcar out of the destroyer's port side. A third of the damage extended well below the waterline. Water poured into the ragged gap. The Cole began to list to port. If the breach went unaddressed, the ship would roll over and sink.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Why We Lost"
by .
Copyright © 2014 Daniel Bolger.
Excerpted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Title Page,
Contents,
Copyright,
Dedication,
Maps,
Author's Note,
Apocalypse Then,
TRIUMPH,
Harbingers,
9/11,
The Hindu Kush,
Anaconda,
A Weapon of Mass Destruction,
Apocalypse Then Redux,
HUBRIS,
"Mission Accomplished",
What Happened in Fallujah,
Photos I,
The Color Purple,
Implosion,
Malik Daoud,
Requiem on the Tigris,
NEMESIS,
Undone,
The Good War,
Photos II,
Taliban Heartland,
Malik Daoud Again,
Attrition,
Green on Blue,
Infinite Justice,
Acknowledgments,
Notes,
Index,
About the Author,
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