“But that doesn’t change the fact that the commanders on the ground–who, if these issues were in play didn’t know about them–wanted more resources and didn’t get them.”

EW, that is one of the true values of Berntsen’s Jawbreaker that Mary references at 42. The Author details the multiple requests for deployment of US Military Assets to block the passes between Tora Bora and Pakistan, and where in the military chain of command those requests were made. In Kerry’s recent report, he puts the weight for saying No with CENTCOM and with Rumsfeld…Tommy Franks and Don Rumsfeld.

I suspect the key question that needs a clear answer here is whether Bush ever had the resource matter placed squarely before him as a Commander-in-Chief issue? How was it framed? Let’s look at possible contingent issues.

First of all — Musharraf was upset because the Northern Alliance along with the US and British forces had taken Kabul. Bush had promised they would not, but Northern Alliance in particular went ahead. In the period between the opening of the attack on 7 October, and the entry into Kabul, both Bush and Musharraf make press statements about some sort of moderate Taliban Kabul government — but the reality is Bush has to “take care” of Musharraf’s interests by extracting Pakistani Military from Afghanistan, getting ISI officers out of the grasp of the Northern Alliance, including the air-lift out of Kunduz.

I think the critical point to understand here is that US Military were not in complete control of the dynamic situation on the ground in Afghanistan as they did not “command” the Northern Alliance. Thus Bush could neither promise nor fulfill promises to Musharraf. The interests of Pakistan were not those of the US — Pakistan wanted Kabul weak, wanted a role for what they termed the “Moderate Taliban” and essentially wanted a significant role for Pakistan in a future Afghanistan. They were deeply suspicious of the Northern Alliance connections with Iran, India, and Russian or former Soviet entities that had supported Northern Alliance over the years of Taliban Rule.

Second — we need to consider what Pakistan probably did given these developments. I would focus on two things, first the attack on the State Parliment building in Jammu & Kashmir, followed several weeks later in the December attack on the National Parliment Building in New Delhi. As would be predicted in the wake of such attacks, India mobilized its army and moved military units toward the Pakistani-Indian borders both in Kashmir and in Sind. Pakistan thus placed priority on countering what they considered an Indian Threat with a counter mobilization, removing regular Pakistani Army units from the Af-Pak border, and shifting them to the east and the Indian Border regions. One clear outcome of this was that Musharraf could say NO to Bush with respect to the expectation that he would strongly reinforce the Af-Pak border as the US attacked al-Quada at Tora Bora. Since I believe Musharraf would have been under extreme pressure from the Pakistani Military to preserve the resource they had nurtured — Taliban and the al-Quada fighters — I think it highly likely the attacks on the two Indian Parliment buildings were tactical moves by the Pakistani Military, to provoke the predicted response that the Indian Army would mobilize, thus requiring a Pak counter-mobilization on their eastern border with India.

Third — US interest have never been to get inbetween Pakistan and India. At times US policy during the Cold War was to assure some degree of balance of forces between the two (thus the many arms “sales” over the years) but US policy has never been to “take sides” in the overall conflict. If India got tanks from the Soviets, the US would “sell” tanks to Pakistan so as to balance forces — but we took no position on the underlying issues. Post Cold War, US interests changed. We were far more interested in engaging India in economic relationships, trade and all — and when 9/11 occurred, we had been in the midst for about ten years in developing a quite different, more friendly, more engaged relationship with India which was punching through as a developing country. Pakistan’s economy was always frail, and was going down hill. Post 2001 it has mostly been kept out of bankruptcy by IMF loans, and the Billions it has extracted from the US for use of territory vis a vis Afghanistan. (Look at Clinton’s policy, and realize that Bush continued and pushed forward many of Clinton’s initatives.) Post Cold War development of much stronger and deeper relationships between US and India are deeply distressing to Pakistan, as they can no longer see the US as a likely ally in any India/Pak conflict. But in fact it remains in the US interest to stand somewhat aloof from this conflict — which is the problem that presented itself in late 2001 when both Indian and Pakistan mobilized. My guess is that Musharraf and the Pak Military thought by provoking India to mobilize they could also achieve more of a commitment of the US to the Pakistani Agenda vis a vis Kashmir and other matters.

I think this state of affairs might have restrained Bush and DoD, and perhaps CIA in December 2001 with respect to demands on Pakistan to follow through, and block passes from Afghanistan, and otherwise assist in the defeat of Taliban and al-Quada. It seems that in the end Bush settled for an early 2002 speech by Musharraf declaring some of the Islamist Groups illegal (they then changed their names), and agreeing some of them were terrorists. Bush got his odd lot of lower level fighters that allowed him to populate Gitmo, and eventually a few High Value operatives who were probably tracked by FBI and CIA, or by lucky breaks such as intelligence from the British based al-Jazeera reporter who interviewed bin-al-Sheib and KSM.

So while I think it highly likely that the reasons resources needed at Tora Bora were not released by CENTCOM at the time bin Laden and al-Quada were cornered there, and had much to do with turf wars between DoD and CIA — Rumsfield, and probably Cheney didn’t like the fact it was a CIA plan and CIA Command that was successful in Afghanistan in the fall of 2001 — I also think Bush was cornered by Musharraf’s tactics of bringing forward the Pakistan/India conflicts, essentially using that conflict to block his own army’s mission to assume a blocking position on the Af-Pak Border, and assist in destroying Taliban and al-Quada forces.

I think this rasises the question of Bush Administration Planning — we know that in the case of Iraq, they intentionally excluded from the planning process most of the persons with legitimate Iraqi Expertise who in fact did, almost to the person, predict the insurgency. I just wonder if anyone with extensive knowledge of Pakistani/Indian relations and history was close to those planning and executing on Afghani operations?