01 06 06 Jawbreaker
he Attack on Bin Laden and Al Qaeda: A Personal Account by the CIA's Key Field Commander by Gary Berntsen (w/Ralph Pezzullo) ISBN 0307237400 A short, heavily redacted book by the primary field agent during the key period of the war in Afghanistan. While Bernsten can be a bit hokey in his descriptions of people, he does a good job of conveying how the operation went down and the key, if not primary, role the CIA and other clandestine operatives played. While it was disappointing to see so much material redacted (some of which the author says is available in other published accounts), what is most disappointing is the failures of higher leadership both in the intelligence community and the defense department to close the deal when repeatedly given the chance. The desire not to take casualties or offend the native population clearly held sway even in the immediate aftermath of 9/11.Copyright 2004-2008 by Gedanken Experiment (previously Rant Street) except as otherwise noted. Our terms of use are as follows: Content on Gedanken Experiment may not be indexed, cached, reproduced or syndicated in any manner by any party whose purpose is to provide such an index, cache, reproduction or syndication of our content for a monetary fee or other consideration to their clients, customers or users. Content on Gedanken Experiment may not be copied, reproduced, republished, indexed, cached, uploaded, posted , transmitted, framed or distributed in any way, without the prior written permission of Gedanken Experiment, except that a) user may download, display, or print one copy of the materials on any single computer solely for user's use; b) user may briefly quote or excerpt for use in a review or criticism for purposes of illustration or comment or as part of a news report as per fair use guidelines of www.copyright.gov; c) internet search engines which provide the public the ability to search online content at no charge (free) may index and cache content from Gedanken Experiment which is not explicitly blocked by robots.txt; in case (a), (b) and (c) above user agrees to keep intact all copyright, trademark, and other proprietary notices of both Gedanken Experiment and any other third parties mentioned in our content. Modification of the materials or use of the materials for any other purpose is a violation of Gedanken Experiment's, its affiliates', or its third-party information providers' copyrights and other proprietary rights. Nothing contained herein shall be construed as conferring by implication, estoppel, or otherwise, any license or right under any copyright, patent, trademark, or other proprietary interest of Gedanken Experiment, its affiliates, or any third party, except as expressly set forth herein. 02-13-2007