Bush's War Part1 (18 of 71)

Bush's War

The CIA would wait and wait for almost a month.
We were there for just about a month by ourselves in the valley.
We were the only Americans in country for almost a month.
The leader of the ruling Taliban again refused to hand over bin Laden- There was a fiery National Security Council meeting.
The CIA complained Rumsfeld was dragging his feet in Afghanistan.
Rumsfeld didn't like taking orders from the CIA.
We're briefing the president about Afghanistan operations.
And Mr.Tenet briefed and Mr.Rumsfeld briefed.
And the president saw me looking a little quizzical and said, "What's the matter, Rich? What's your problem?" And I said, "Mr.President, this sounds FUBAR to me." And he said- he was a little annoyed, and he said, "Really? What?" And I said, "I don't know who's in charge here.

And it's not- you got to have someone in charge." There was a lot of jealousy that Tenet had a leg up and Rumsfeld was about three yards back.
Rumsfeld went to the president and said, "The CIA has to work for me or this isn't going to work." I've got a lot of respect for Rumsfeld as a bureaucratic infighter.
He never loses a battle because if he loses a battle, he'll re-fight it the next morning.
Later, Mr.Bush told Dr.Rice, the national security adviser, that Armitage was right.
"Fix this.
Get somebody in charge." Rumsfeld would now be in charge.
That's what happened.
The CIA works for Rumsfeld.
The CIA had waited a month.
Soon Army special ops teams were airlifted to Afghanistan and the military side of "Operation Jawbreaker" could begin in earnest.
And it wasn't until the night of the 19th of October or the morning of the 20th that the first Special Forces A-team came in.