Last year suicide bombings quintupled, attacks on international forces tripled, and support for the Taliban grew. According to CNN terror analyst and Taliban expert Peter Bergen, here are the top 10 entirely avoidable mistakes made by the Bush administration.
Letting Osama Escape Tora Bora: Because Donald Rumsfeld wanted a “light” footprint in Afghanistan, only 60 U.S. Special Forces were sent to smoke out bin Laden. During the 2004 reelection campaign, Bush implied that bin Laden wasn’t at Tora Bora at all—a claim publicly slapped down by the cia‘s on-scene commander, Gary Berntsen, a longtime Republican, who pleaded for additional forces, to no avail.
Too Few Grunts: The initial U.S. deployment was the smallest peacekeeping force, per capita, that America has sent anywhere since World War II.
Hiring Warlords: By outsourcing security to militias in the first years of the occupation, the U.S. undercut attempts to form a desperately needed Afghan national army.
Iraq: Almost immediately, time, money, and key personnel were diverted from Afghanistan to Iraq, including the 5th Special Forces group, which specializes in the region.
Nixing nato: For two years the Bush administration prevented nato troops from deploying anywhere beyond Kabul—i.e., anywhere that mattered.
Prioritizing Poppies: Eradicating poppy fields hasn’t put a dent in drug exports—Afghanistan now supplies 90 percent of the world’s opium—but it has uprooted farmers, some of whom have joined the Taliban. In 2005, the U.S. spent $782 million on narcotics operations, $222 million more than Afghan farmers earned from growing poppies.
Losing Hearts and Minds: Particularly in the first few years, American soldiers had a tin ear for local customs—failing to grasp, for example, that in tribal society, each civilian death must be collectively avenged.