Key Leaders from Afghanistan War Testify to Early Successes and Failures During Commission Hearing

Former generals, diplomats, policy advisors, aid administrators, and Afghan officials answered questions on key decisions made during the Afghanistan War’s early years during the Afghanistan War Commission’s second public hearing today at the U.S. Capitol.

“Today’s hearing focuses on the early years of the U.S. war in Afghanistan, from 2001 to 2008,” said co-chair Shamila Chaudhary in her opening statement. “It’s a period often described with confidence: the fall of the Taliban, the pursuit of al-Qaeda, the ambition of rebuilding a nation.  But that confidence masks something more complicated. The shift from counterterrorism to state-building to counterinsurgency wasn’t preordained. It was the product of choices.”

Ambassador Henry “Hank” Crumpton, who led counterterrorism efforts in Afghanistan during this early period, testified, “In the first ninety days after the September 11, 2001, attacks, the Central Intelligence Agency, the U.S. Central Command and the U.S. Special Operations Command, all acting in concert with Afghan tribal allies, overwhelmed the enemy.”  He attributed this rapid success to “an ethos of victory, clarity and discipline in mission, empowered leadership, a field bias, superb intelligence, and trusted partnerships.”

By 2003, the Afghanistan War had become an “economy of force effort” because the “Iraq war had drained significant resources, military headquarters, and attention away from Afghanistan,” said LTG David Barno, U.S. Army (retired), commander of U.S. and coalition efforts in the country from October 2003 to May 2005.  He defined three factors that “undermined the possibility of success during two decades of the war”: “failure to achieve unity of effort,” “lack of leadership continuity,” and “an enemy with external sanctuary,” namely Pakistan.

In her testimony, former U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Nancy Jo Powell argued, “In the aftermath of 9/11, Pakistan found itself in a bind created by their recognition and support of the Taliban regime in Kabul and U.S. decisions to eliminate the threat posed by Al-Qaida and those who harbored them.”  She said, “Pakistani leaders were distrustful of the U.S.”

Ambassador Mohammad Umer Daud Zai, former Afghan Minister of Interior and Chief of Staff to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, discussed in his prepared testimony the crucial Bonn Conference of December 2001, when the U.S. and international partners negotiated new governance structures for Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban regime.  “The decision to establish a presidential system, concentrating power in the hands of one person, was not the most suitable” for Afghanistan, he argued, calling it the “crooked first brick” in the country’s foundation.

Former U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) administrator Andrew Natsios discussed in his prepared testimony the agency’s early “remarkable successes” in Afghanistan, including “rebuilding of the country’s treasury, the construction of its roads, the revitalization of its education, the creation of a viable independent media, the creation of a health system with significant decreases in maternal and child mortality, and most importantly, the prevention of famine.”  He argued, however, “The objectives of the U.S. government in Afghanistan were never reconciled because they were mutually exclusive and contradicted each other.”

Also testifying at the hearing were Ambassador Richard Boucher, former Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia; COL Anthony Harriman, U.S. Army (retired), White House National Security Council Senior Director for Afghanistan (2005-2007); Mr. Younous Qanooni, chief negotiator for the Northern Alliance at the Bonn Conference and former Speaker of the Afghan parliament; LtGen Keith Stalder, U.S. Marine Corps (retired), Deputy J5 for CENTCOM during initial U.S. military operations in Afghanistan (2000-2002).  The prepared testimony of all hearing witnesses can be found at https://www.afghanistanwarcommission.senate.gov/hearing-content2/.

In framing the hearing, AWC co-chair Dr. Colin F. Jackson said, “We on the Afghanistan War Commission are committed to an unflinching examination of key decisions of the war.” He continued: “The Commission has chosen to search for accountability through learning.  If we can identify the things we did well, the things we did poorly, and preserve or transmit those lessons to a future generation of Americans, we may be able to make a future generation better prepared to confront similar challenges.  This act lends new meaning to service and sacrifice of countless Americans. It is the gift that one generation of public servants can make to their descendants in the military, the foreign service, the intelligence services, and development organizations.”

“If we fail to account for what happened in Afghanistan, we risk turning war into abstraction,” said AWC co-chair Shamila Chaudhary.  “With today’s eye-witness testimony, and with testimony from many other senior officials we are interviewing, the Commission can help narrate this opening chapter of the Afghanistan War and those that follow, and to help make the experience of going to war more real and understandable for future generations.”

The Afghanistan War Commission is an independent legislative commission established by Congress in the FY22 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA, Sec. 1094).  For detailed information, including material on the Commission’s first public hearing and interim report, visit www.afghanistanwarcommission.senate.gov.

The following 16 commissioners were appointed by Congressional leaders on a bipartisan basis:

Shamila N. Chaudhary, Co-Chair

Dr. Colin F. Jackson, Co-Chair

Michael Allen

LTG (ret.) Robert Ashley

Jeremy Bash

Amb. Ryan Crocker

Jeffrey Dressler

Daniel Fata

Dr. Anand Gopal

Luke Hartig

Dr. Seth Jones

Laurel Miller

LTC (ret.) Chris Molino

Dr. Dipali Mukhopadhyay

Gov. Bob Taft

Dr. Andrew Wilder

Biographies of the commissioners may be found here.

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Media queries and meeting requests should be directed to Matt Gobush, Strategic Communications Advisor, at matthew_gobush@awc.senate.gov.