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The Attack on Bin Laden and Al Qaeda: A Personal Account by the CIA's Key Field Commander
Crown
December 2005
352 pages
ISBN: 0307237400
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
In Jawbreaker Gary Berntsen, until recently one of the
CIA’s most decorated officers, comes out from under cover
for the first time to describe his no-holds-barred pursuit
of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. With his unique mix of clandestine knowledge and
paramilitary training, Berntsen represents the new face of
counterterrorism. Recognized within the agency for his
aggressiveness, Berntsen, when dispatched to Afghanistan,
made annihilating the enemy his job description. As the CIA’s key commander coordinating the fight against
the Taliban forces around Kabul, and the drive toward Tora
Bora, Berntsen not only led dozens of CIA and Special
Operations Forces, he also raised 2,000 Afghan fighters to
aid in the hunt for bin Laden. In this first-person account of that incredible pursuit,
which actually began years earlier in an East Africa
bombing investigation, Berntsen describes being ferried by
rickety helicopter over the towering peaks of Afghanistan,
sitting by General Tommy Franks’s side as heated
negotiations were conducted with Northern Alliance
generals, doling out millions in bribes to treacherous
Afghan warlords and Taliban traitors, plotting to save
hostages about to be used as pawns, calling in B-52 strikes
on dug-in enemy units, and deploying a dizzying array of
Special Forces teams in the pursuit of the world’s most
wanted terrorist. Most crucially, Berntsen tells of
cornering bin Laden in the Tora Bora mountains—and what
happened when Berntsen begged Washington to block the al-
Qaeda leader’s last avenue of escape. As disturbingly eye-opening as it is adrenaline-charged,
Jawbreaker races from CIA war rooms to diplomatic offices
to mountaintop redoubts to paint a vivid portrait of a new
kind of warfare, showing what can and should be done to
deal a death blow to freedom’s enemies.
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