Jawbreaker: The Attack on Bin Laden and Al Qaeda: A Personal Account by the CIA's Key Field Commander (Hardcover)

by Gary Berntsen (Author), Ralph Pezzullo (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com
The U.S. campaign in Afghanistan against the Taliban and al Qaeda will certainly go down in history as a brilliantly executed military victory in an entirely new age of warfare. But its glory was a bit marred, just as in Operation Desert Storm, by the failure to kill or capture Dr. Evil. Despite a huge and costly effort by the media, the public still has an incomplete picture of what really happened during the first post-9/11 war and of how Osama bin Laden survived it. While not intended to be a comprehensive history of the campaign, Gary Berntsen's Jawbreaker provides a valuable new account by a major participant that fills in many blanks. Berntsen was a top CIA field commander in the most critical sector of a new kind of war. What made the Afghan campaign a landmark in U.S. military history is that it was prosecuted by Special Operations forces from all the services, along with Navy and Air Force tactical airpower; operations by the Afghan Northern Alliance and the CIA were equally important and fully integrated. No large Army or Marine force was employed. The complex campaign had not been practiced or war-gamed before 9/11, but despite the inevitable conflicts and shouting matches, the different elements of American might came together brilliantly. Berntsen exemplified this new synergy; at various times, the CIA veteran had elements of the Delta Force, Army Rangers, Navy SEALs and tactical air units reporting to him. This field commander was straight from central casting: a hell-raising kid who found himself during military service and was later recruited by the CIA and served as an operative for 22 years. Berntsen's counterterrorist philosophy is simple and straightforward: "Focus on those groups that pose an immediate threat and strike them quickly; understand that the risks cannot be removed even though CIA and political leadership will always gravitate towards risk-free solutions." His story is a comforting reminder that underneath the ponderous and bloated Washington intelligence bureaucra cy, there are still doers and risk-takers who fear neither Washington bureaucrats nor al Qaeda -- and are eager to get in harm's way. In 2000, Berntsen had led a promising effort to work with the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance "to capture a bin Laden lieutenant." But the operation was called off, for which he blasts CIA Director George Tenet and President Clinton for lacking "the will to wage a real fight against terrorists who were killing U.S. citizens." Berntsen was withdrawn and sent to a comfortable position as CIA station chief in a country in Latin America. After 9/11, Berntsen immediately began jostling to get to the center of the strike against al Qaeda. He got his wish and was one of the first senior CIA officials inserted into Afghanistan. Unlike the public image of the self-effacing spy always lurking in the shadows, the CIA operatives I have known have never been shy about tooting their own horn. Berntsen shares that characteristic hubris, and Jawbreaker is written (with the help of Ralph Pezzullo) in the first-person singular from start to finish. "In the past, I've stopped dozens of bombings and assassinations overseas," Berntsen brags. "I've also hunted down and captured terrorists from various groups. These are CIA successes that were never reported in the news." Although the book dwells on such successes, Crown Publishers has chosen unnecessarily to position it as a diatribe that the CIA tried to suppress. In fact, while the CIA dragged its feet in reviewing the manuscript for classified material and redacted plenty of specifics, the book is hardly an attack on the CIA. Perhaps unintentionally, Berntsen