two-hour debate in quebec ahead of the september 20 federal election live thursday at 9:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. you can watch on c-span.org or listen on the free c-span radio app. c-span is your unfiltered view of government. >> broadband -- charter has invested billions upgrading technology, empowering opportunity in communities big and small. charter is connecting us. >> charter communications support c-span is a public medication service is long -- as well as these other providers. giving you now proceed -- front row seat to democracy. our first guest of the

morning is toby harnden. thank you for joining us. guest: good morning. host: how is it that the cia played the first role in the days after 9/11? guest: the cia had been going in and out of afghanistan since 1999, liaising with the leader of the northern alliance. surprisingly, the pentagon had no plan for afghanistan. the cia said we have a plan, and we have been going in and out of the country, and we have regional experts, linguists, and

to send in small teams. that was the plan that president bush went for, and that is what happened in late september and october and led to the fall of the taliban regime. host: you write, within the government, america had abandoned afghanistan after the cold war. it sent small teams into the country to assist leaders of the northern alliance. the pentagon had no military plan for afghanistan. you say the first team, something called team alpha, talk about the team and its mission. guest: team alpha was the first team behind enemy lines.

there was a bridgehead there. team alpha was eight men, four paramilitary. david tyson was the only uzbek speaker in the cia. he was based in the cia station, also a medic and greenbrae captain. they were -- greenbrae captain -- green beret captain. they were an eclectic band. they were used to cutting deals,

and it was also put together at the last moment. some of the men had barely met each other. everything was improvised because it was imperative to get in quickly. the aim of the mission was to hunt down al qaeda and prevent another attack on america and deny the safe haven that taliban had been providing al qaeda. it was a fascinating period of history. i feel let people think that the people who went and -- the picture of them, somebody commented that they looked like suburban dad's about to mow the lawn. that is a little bit of an exaggeration. in other ways, it was pretty

ordinary people who stepped up and her -- and who were dropped into the unknown. host: our guest will continue with us for the hour if you want to ask him questions about his book. (202) 748-8000 for the eastern time zone's. war veterans of afghanistan, (202) 748-8002. you can text us at (202) 748-8003. what would you call the key missions that team alpha did that led to the success of what they did in the country? guest: given what has happened in recent weeks, the tragedy, and it is worth going back to the beginning to look at what the mission was and compare it with what the mission became. in this period, people talk about the u.s. invasion of

afghanistan, there was not any invasion until 2002. there were hundreds of americans and they were off to one side. you had team alpha, the cia, and then you have the green beret team that came in three days afterwards. this was replicated in the country. the green berets were focused on the taliban. cia was focused on intelligence. they were looking at al qaeda. the afghans did the fighting. it was an afghan war. the u.s. were not the invaders. the invaders were al qaeda. the u.s. was supporting the indigenous resistance and it was a different kind of paradigm. the u.s. mission expanded and we

have been so successful, let's change another regime in iraq. this is pretty simple. troops were called in and we decided to shoot for the moon to build centralized democracy. we did not allow the afghans to do any kind of deal with the remnants of the taliban. it is sad. you see a great deal of success at the end of 2001, marred by the success of the former marine corps officer who was a member of the team alpha. it changed immediately and you will see the seeds of catastrophe that we have been seeing in recent days starting to be sewn at the end of 2001. host: you made the assertion

that the pentagon was not prepared for the days after. were they ok with the cia taking the lead? guest: donald rumsfeld was not ok. he was very unhappy that a much smaller organization was taking the lead. he did not like the agency taking the issue anymore he believed that was why the pentagon was therefore. that is one of the reasons why rumsfeld pushed so hard for iraq war planning. iraq was being discussed and donald rumsfeld major the pentagon was ready and the pentagon ran the war in iraq and the cia took more of a backseat than it did in afghanistan in the early period. host: toby harnden, the untold

story of the cia mission to avenge 9/11. before we take calls, your reaction to the taliban gaining control. guest: absolutely tragic. eerie echoes of the period before 9/11. the only sliver of territory that was free, that was occupied by the afghan resistance. after the fall of the governments, they were holding out geographically. difficult to conquer. after 9/11, american support,

american airpower. probably a journey that could not be taken out. this time, they were left on their own and the americans had left. really sad. the flame of resistance burned for a week or two, but it looks like for now, it has been extinguished. host: the taliban at the time of the events of the book, how have they changed from what we know now? guest: it remains to be seen, doesn't it? the taliban that ruled afghanistan in 2001, savage brutality. women shot dead in soccer stadiums if they had been killed -- accused of adultery. women having to cover themselves from head to toe, not allowed to work.

ethnic massacres in the north. really, this is why we saw afghans clinging to c-17's, they were so desperate to get out. my phone is pinging all the time . there is real desperation. some of the words seem to be kinder and gentler, but let's see some of the behavior. they may be using iphones now, but i fear that the likelihood is they are using modern techniques to become more savvy and more clever.

victory over america, it is unlikely they will choose to become more like us and embrace liberal, western values. our first call is from ruth from california. caller: good morning. before i ask my question, i would like to simply say that i think the comment that was made earlier that you are the only good moderator, i think you are great. i also think the others are great. i was horrified somebody insulted jesse last week by calling him boy. that is terrible. enough of that. i would like to ask a guest question. in this discussion of the war in

afghanistan and his termination -- and its termination, i have not heard anyone bring up the military involvement in iraq as part of the perhaps declination of -- we took our eye off the ball, so to speak. in afghanistan, in order to spend blood and treasure in iraq -- i wonder what your opinion is about the impact of the iraq war on the afghanistan war. thank you. host: thank you. guest: i think that is a very solid point. certainly, cia officers from team alpha who are still living through the day we went to rue

-- rue the day we went to iraq. iraq was a constant throughout this. on september 15, at camp david, donald rumsfeld raise the issue of iraq. the counterterrorism center director who oversaw the war planning, he described it, my brain was screaming. we had been attacked by al qaeda, which was based inside afghanistan, given safe haven by the taliban, and yet here we have senior pentagon officials talking about going after iraq. he thought president bush shelved this notion for months. but there were discussions throughout the entire period.

once we got into 2002, and i remember it vividly, the talk was iraq, iraq, iraq all the time. somehow afghanistan had been solved and everything would fall into place. the military and cia had were planning for iraq and resources went there and the highflying officers, their attention was toward iraq. that was the war that could make their careers. a real army of history that this was done early success in afghanistan from team alpha and other cia teams, that led to hubris within the country and the bush administration, the regime change was easy so let's do another one. let's deal with another enemy. the rest is literally history. host: this is from david in los

angeles. caller: i would really like to thank this gentleman for his contribution this morning. we all know that the first casualties of war are the troops. what that organization was about was a cia funded operation to deal with the cold effort against the soviet union in afghanistan, which was being funded by the u.s. government and cia and all the operatives. we come all the way over to where we are today. especially nowadays, when americans are hell-bent on believing lies and selective recall in relationships to

history. this guy is on point. as we begin to unravel and we see all of these warlords being dusted off with their so-called conventional international wisdom that got us into this mess in continue to perpetuate -- and they continue to perpetuate a lie with no analysis. host: is there a specific question? david, are you there? caller: casualties of war. host: that is david in los angeles. guest: david is right. the period of the 1980's, the soviets invaded in 1979, was part of the picture here. what happened is you had lots of

different factions and tribes. osama bin laden was involved in funding parts from saudi arabia. the cia was not in the country. it was worked through the pakistani intelligence service, which later became a benefactor of the taliban. the biggest contribution was the missile program. david tyson was flying to london to take part in a meeting about missiles which the u.s. provided, which were feared to have fallen into the hands of terrorists. i do not think it is the case that the cia created al qaeda or bin laden or funded that group,

which was relatively minor in terms of defeating the soviets in afghanistan. the main problem was that the u.s. and the cia left afghanistan after 1989. it was seen as a cold war, proxy war that did not have any broader global relevance. that led to afghanistan -- the taliban students, that movement grew up, some veterans of the afghanistan war. in the ungoverned space, al qaeda group. -- the al qaeda grew. in 1998, you have the uss cole

attacked in yemen. the cia was screaming warnings to the clinton administration and then the bush administration. on 9/11, there was a degree of blowback, it's true. the results of the unintended consequence of what had happened , abandoning afghanistan after 1989. that was something we did at our peril. lots of lessons to be learned from all of this. we abandoned afghanistan at our peril. if we turn our backs now, who knows what is going to happen? host: you write that bill clinton had treated al qaeda as a problem to be dealt with by legal means. the afghans fighting the taliban

were begging for more american help. can you summarize how the obama and trump administrations shaped what went on in afghanistan? guest: lots of blame to go around. after this early. , the bush -- early period, the bush administration took a turn toward nationbuilding. obama was elected because of his opposition to the iraq war. he did not want to be seen as soft on foreign policy. i think some of his stuff, he was played by the generals. the good thing about the military, there is a solution to every problem.

the top-level solution is usually, let's send in more troops. in 2009, there was a surge. we pushed up to more than 100,000 american troops. at the same time, president obama felt that he had general mcchrystal and petraeus had perhaps pushed their case too far. at the same time as announcing the surge, he also announced a withdrawal date. that sends very mixed messages to the enemy and to our afghan allies. by the time we get to 2016, i think it was a bipartisan weariness with war reflected in the country. we got a sense of, let's just get out of here. policymakers have forgotten the reason we weren't there -- we

went there, which was just and politically the right thing to do, militarily, the right thing to do. this stopped other attacks from al qaeda on the homeland. it was supported by the united nations. there was this sense of ennui. from 2016 onwards, the taliban knew that we just wanted to get out. ultimately, we get to 2018 and negotiations with the taliban amounted to surrender. in 2020, the so-called -- it did not involve the afghan government. they were excluded. president biden and then-president trump during the most recent election, there was no policy difference between

them. there was no ambassador in kabul. we just wanted to get out. we learned in iraq that america can say that it ends war, but wars continue without america. sadly, although the afghanistan war is over, the war is not over for the afghans. host: the next call for toby harnden is from texas. caller: how are you doing? we built a base in saudi arabia as bin laden declared jihad against us. they had everybody on the run, at one point.

it was on horseback, believe it or not. they were killed by finley fire -- by friendly fire by this new weapon. as far as afghanistan, the russians are more worried. the pakistanis do not know what is going on either. i would not worry too much about them. host: go ahead. guest: a number of points. absolutely right, they were on horseback. team alpha arrived and they soon realized they were in the mountains and the principal mode of transportation was horses. it was very painful, the saddles

were bits and pieces of two by fours. very few of these guys had any experience on horses. he is right to draw attention to the friendly fire. there was a prisoner uprising on november 25, 2001. cia operative was killed. the following day, there was a 2000 pound dropped on the fort and the intention was to drop the bomb on the pink house. that is where most of them were seeking shelter. the fog of war and some of these

procedures had not been used before. the court in its got mixed -- coordinates got mixed up. it dropped on one of the towers in the northern compounds. it flipped over a soviet era tank and killed a number of afghans, wounded four green berets and the number of british troops, special forces. the first purple of the afghanistan war were from friendly fire and they were awarded at the start of september 2001. despite the success of its early. , you could see -- early period, you could see there were

complications, the difficulty of fighting a war in this country. hunting echoes -- hunting echoes -- haunting echoes when researching all of this. host: toby harnden is our guest. who did team alpha and the cia have to trust within the country? how much trust was there? guest: trust and risk was central to this mission. the warlords they linked up with -- a notorious figure in the 1980's. under his command, they had been

enemies and allies. it was -- then you relatively little about them. the cia had not been in direct contact with him. he had been accused of war crimes. he had a ferocious reputation and they did not know what they would find. what they did find, for all his personal foibles and flaws, he was a person who was willing to fight. his interests coincided with those of america. the cia and the green berets on the ground how to trust him. they slept with their weapons, but they came to lot -- they came to rely on him.

it was with this ragtag band of afghan fighters waging war on horseback. it looked like something from centuries earlier. these two things combined were the hallmark of this period. host: from pennsylvania, this is jackie. caller: good morning. i know this does not relate to your book but i am wondering if you could comment on pakistan's current involvement in afghanistan. i have been watching a lot of india's news and i'm hearing the pakistan army went in with ground troops and air support.

the isi chief went into kabul to help form a new taliban government and the infighting with the taliban and i've heard there is talk of a petitioning of afghanistan. a chinese general and a pakistani general were directing the pakistani involvement. why is the u.s. giving pakistan money? guest: fastening question -- fascinating question and pakistan as part of the book. pakistan has been a part of this conflict for the last 20 years and also before that. if you look at afghanistan, you have pakistan to the west and the south, iran to the east and

in the north, you have uzbekistan and a little sliver in the top right northeast, you have a border with china. this is one of the reasons why afghanistan was a venue for the great game. there was a great power competition. you have the u.s. departure and you have that competition once again. in the early days of 2001, while the fighting was going on, there was quite a lot of evidence that the pakistani isi flew into evacuate pakistani troops that were fighting with the taliban and al qaeda. we know over the past 20 years that pakistan played a double

game. it funded and sustained and supported taliban inside afghanistan. you see strategic depth in their ongoing war with india. a lot of questions to be answered about u.s. support for pakistan during this period. one of the reasons the u.s. ended up losing this war is the taliban was able to use pakistan not as a source -- not just as a source of funding but a base with which to sustain. host: we have a special line for veterans of the afghanistan wars. this is from joe in west virginia. caller: good morning. i was wondering how the alpha team or cia office set the stage

or were influential in allowing the mass influx of u.s. troops a little later on? does anybody your book have anything to do with setting up the government to support u.s. presence in afghanistan? guest: in this period, they were focused on a laser on al qaeda. between the u.s. and al qaeda, the taliban. toppling the taliban regime to get to al qaeda. proponents of this light footprint advisory role were not in favor and did not advocate for a much broader special

forces agreement and conventional troops pouring in. i speak to these guys a lot, the surviving members, and a lot of them grieve for their afghan allies and they are working hard to get those remaining in afghanistan, get them out of the country. from 2002 onwards, when conventional forces came in, they see something that should not have happened. they believe we should have stuck to the light footprint principal which was so successful in the early weeks. host: have you had a chance to communicate with the team about recent events in afghanistan? guest: absolutely. several of them are working every hour they have to spare to work with private groups to get their allies out.

i have a translator working with some of these former agency people trying to get him out. there is a lot of discussion, a strong focus on what is happening now. in the quiet moments, there are discussions about what went wrong over the last 20 years and the early success in the sense of optimism about the country and the sense of a new dawn for afghanistan but also in ally -- an ally and safe zones in terms of american interest, how that all ended the way it did. host: to what degree did they agree with the military operations? guest: generally speaking, and i cannot speak for them and they are individuals and they work as

operatives rather than politicians, all six did become senior intelligence members. it varies. the consensus is there should have been some kind of residual force. president trump, toward the end of his administration, brought them down from 5000. there is a sense that we should have kept a number of american troops inside the country to advise and partner with the afghans just as we did in those early weeks. there is a sense that withdrawal was botched. the idea that it was a full unilateral withdrawal of all troops -- host: from ron in new hampshire.

good morning. caller: everyone knows the idea that terrorism or whatever that that is a pretext. it was an oil war. dick cheney is the one who started it. he is an oil executive. we did not want to -- the goal was to create instability and maintain instability to prevent the development of the oil resources, to prevent the ability -- the building of pipelines so there would be less oil and the price of oil would skyrocket. if you look at any graph of oil, the price of oil through that period, you will see that the war was completely successful from the point of view of those who prosecuted -- completely

successful. do you put this into your calculus of your analysis? the actual reason why we went into war. guest: i disagree. this is not a war about oil. it is not a war started by dick cheney. i was in washington, d.c., on 9/11 in 2001 when we had two aircraft hijacked and flown into the world trade center and an aircraft flown into the pentagon and some brave passengers on flight 93 managed to stop the plane probably heading to the capitol. it crashed into a field in pennsylvania. all 3000 were killed in new york. it was carried out by bin laden. the biggest attack, most deadly

attack on the u.s. homeland in american history and that is the reason why the country was united. one member of congress voted against military force. it was backed by the united nations. it i do not think -- i do not think it was anything to do with oil. host: toby harnden is our guest. about 20 more minutes. he is the author of first casualties. the cia was mentioned in an editorial in the wall street journal this morning bringing up the modern-day events. the u.s. will also be counting on the taliban to help with counterterrorism operations. guest: the cia has no station in

kabul anymore. it is very hard to find out what is happening in a country when you do not have assets, when you don't have the surveillance. lots of talk over the horizon about actions and the u.s. has drones and there are things that have begun -- that can be done now that could not be done 20 years ago. the cia needs intelligence and needs human intelligence and you cannot do that electronically. you have to put people in the i and you have to -- you have to look people in the eye and you have to take risks with them. isis-k is clearly a threat. does that mean that the taliban is a u.s. ally? not necessarily. probably not in most

circumstances. intelligence is about ambiguity and the maybe and overtures and connections with some elements of the taliban that could be used against isis-k. the taliban's ideology has not changed. they remain connected with al qaeda, which remains inside afghanistan and looks like it could well be on the people of a period of resurgence -- on the eve of a period of resurgence. there are not many easy answers right now. very big challenges within the community -- intelligence committee as well. host: let's hear from maria in new jersey. caller: i have a couple of

comments and a question, please. i am sure the settlement is familiar with the agreement after world war i. ever since then, after world war ii, britain and several other commonwealth nations have access -- we have been becoming parts of british imperialism. we have troops in africa that cannot even speak about their missions. if we wanted to get somebody specific in afghanistan, we could have used reprisal. in our own government, we have foreign agents that are

globalists and do not care at all about america. we have to come back to our own borders. i would like his comments. guest: quite a lot in that question. one thing i pick up on his dimension of trust. -- this mentioned of trust. the message used by the taliban -- you have the clocks but we have the time. the enemy has strategic patients. often in the west, we make deals with other countries and we promise that we will be there with them for the foreseeable future. a few years later, it turns out

that we have changed our minds and we have to pull out and we are seen as abandoning those allies and breaching trust. that has consequences for the future and one of the legacies of this last 20 years is whether potential allies we go to help in our own interest will trust us again. host: twitter asking why cia did not direct efforts toward saudi arabia after 9/11? guest: the saudi is funded the islamist elements. osama bin laden was saudi, although his citizenship was taken away from him. a little bit like pakistan. an ally within asterisk -- with

an asterisk. a lot of controversy about the saudi relationship as there is about the relationship with pakistan. the cia is a tool of the u.s. government and is not an independent entity. while there are a number of critics of saudi arabia within the cia, it was not u.s. policy to go after the saudi arabians. host: this is from texas. go ahead. caller: good morning, c-span. i am going to get your book. guest: thank you. caller: the small issue at hand is -- the main issue is regardless of getting out, not getting out, that is a policy

issue people can argue forever. the issue is the strategic withdrawal that totally went wrong. it is almost as if the military planners were not considered by the state department. there are basic things, security of the lines of communications, that just were not done. we practice this in the army, the u.s. military, and it seems like all of this was just dropped. for example, just giving up the airbase as a secure haven for all of these operations. this could have been done without the loss-of-life and -- in a much more efficient manner. what do you say? guest: i agree with pretty much all of that.

it was clearly badly mishandled and you would have thought that after 20 years, we would have a good exit plan. the afghan government folded much more quickly than most people expected. we know that we plan for all scenarios. i would imagine that there will be congressional investigations into this, maybe an independent commission. it was a botched withdrawal. host: from a gal in maryland -- miguel in maryland, you are on. caller: good morning. i hear all the bad stuff about the taliban. my take personally, i am an

american patriot. when i look at what they have accomplished, i see them -- they have something that americans lost. they waited out the military operation. they waited out everything, and they were successful. they have taken back control of their country. the taliban are afghan nationalists. we do not have the ability to fight against our government anymore or to question when they make a move, even moves against us. something else that i noticed that you said about 9/11 -- we didn't go over there for al qaeda -- we did go over there for al qaeda. the taliban were just in the way. there is something not right about the official story.

i do not care if that conspiracy theory are not. host: we will leave it there. guest: just to pick up on the point that maybe the taliban have something we lost. these are dark days. it is depressing for everyone. if we go back to the beginning, you can see what america can achieve. very small numbers of americans, who had expertise militarily in terms of languages and culture. they went into the unknown. one of them was killed. with very small numbers, they partnered with afghans and the mountains and they managed to remove the taliban regime. they did not get bin laden. that took another 10 years, but that was another u.s.

achievement. the u.s. is an incredible country with incredible people who serve in the military and in the intelligence agencies. those characters, in all of the variety, flaws and foibles, that is what i wanted to portray. this is a very dark period and i think they are not supported by the majority of the people. they were brutal and the previous period from 1996-2001. the story is not over. there will be better days ahead. there are people like members of the team alpha who are americans who serve the country in the

shadows without trying to get any publicity or kudos. host: how difficult was it to get the participation of the very members of the team? did you have to go to the cia to compile this book? guest: it took many years and i did not have any sort of relationship with the cia, just coming in from the outside. you can tell from the accent that i was born in bridget -- in britain. i have been a u.s. citizen since 2009. i was fascinated by the story of david tyson. he killed dozens of al qaeda in the process of getting out. i tracked him down. i met him about eight years ago. he lived in vienna, virginia, very close to where i live.

i met him at a panera bread. he could not say very much because he was still serving. he contacted me when he retired. i went to other members of the team. i said listen, i am an author and journalist and i studied modern history as an undergraduate and i want to piece together what happened. you build up trust and credibility and you get people to vouch for you and you keep moving on. at a certain point, there was a shift in the center of gravity and people were opening up and there was a consensus view that i was serious and was not coming in with an agenda. i was afraid the cia might try to hinder me so i held back on contacting them.

once i had enough for the book, i went to the cia and said, this is what i am doing. and they said, we know. they did facilitate some interviews with serving members of the cia. one member of team alpha is a member of the cia now. i did get some help from the cia, which i'm grateful for. they did not give me all of their classified cables and they rejected my foia applications. but i was able to talk to serving cia officers. host: let's go to bill in albany, new york. caller: i have a question, and i hate to talk in generalities because i do not have any questions with details. it is my own personal recollection that after 9/11 that all americans came together

and you saw cars riding around with the american flags and i remember specifically when president bush went into afghanistan with the airstrikes, and they were very successful, and the airstrikes were successful and it looked like we were getting someplace to get bin laden and to get at who did this to us. i questioned at the same time, all of a sudden, we went to iraq and had the war in iraq and we went away from the afghanistan movement and i felt at that time -- i am talking about then -- i felt that, why are we doing this because we are being so successful and i think from then on in, we were fighting in iraq and we lost the grip we had to immediately get who did this to our country on 9/11. i was wondering what your guest

thinks about that. host: ok. guest: that is absolutely right. i was in the u.s. on 9/11 and i do remember the sense of unity and the sense that afghanistan was a righteous war. the aims were limited. we had been supported internationally like we never had been before. the u.n. and nato were behind us. we did lose that. you can call it american hubris or arrogance, but we quickly moved onto to the war in iraq. that is partly the benefit of hindsight. there are not any links between al qaeda and iraq. that is not how it was seen at the time.

it was popular support for the war in iraq and we all know what happened. unfortunately, there was some slowly unfolding disaster in afghanistan that happened. host: one more call. this is from idaho. as you finish up, we talked a lot about aspects of the book. what is the one thing that stands out that you want to share with the viewers? caller: -- guest: what i would like to share is the quality of these individuals that went into afghanistan. they were not elite teams of operators like the seal team that took out bin laden. they were -- they did not know what they were going to face day

today and they took on the incredible risks and it is useful to go back to the beginning and look at the principles that gave us early success and the quality of these individuals. we should think about that. david tyson saw mike killed and had to kill a number of people. he has nightmares six nights out of seven to this day, although he has managed to live a productive and happy life. i would like to and really on the quality of the individuals who fought for america alongside brave afghans in those early days after 9/11. host: the author is toby harnden

, our >> president biden travels to the northeast to visit places affected by hurricane ida. go online at c-span.org or listen with the free c-span radio app. >> the investigative reporter craig whitlock on his new book, a secret history of the war. he will talk about the conflict and take your phone calls. >> the letters of canada's political party take part in a two hour debate ahead of the september 28 federal election come alive, thursday at 9:00

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