In Afghanistan, No Time to Celebrate
By FIRST LT. HOLLY HERNANDEZ
Osama bin Laden is dead. The news was announced in tickers, as I entered my office at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan on Monday morning. Everyone was gathered around the television, intently sitting on the edge of their black swivel chairs. “All right, let’s pack up now — it’s time to go home,” one of the sergeants in the room said. “I want to see a death certificate,” our chiseled former infantry first sergeant said. “We all know Donald Trump is going to demand to see one.” The blond newscaster described how Bin Laden had been hiding in a luxurious compound 60 miles outside of Islamabad. She exclaimed, “Who would have thought he would be hiding in Pakistan all along?” One sergeant jumped up, muttering, “I would have thought that.” We all laughed.
It is difficult to watch some of these news stories. President Hamid Karzai’s reaction to the capture was to say: “Every day we have said that the war on terror is not in Afghan villages, not in Afghan houses of the poor and oppressed. The war against terrorism is in its sources, in its financial sources, its sanctuaries, in its training bases, not in Afghanistan.” And yet I am still here. Here in Afghanistan, a country that by its president’s own admission is “war weary.” This is my first deployment; I have been here 10 months, and I can assure you I am tired of working every day. Weekends don’t exist in war zones. It is difficult to fathom the degree of exhaustion for a country continually at war for years.
Bin Laden’s Killing Helps President’s Poll Numbers
By AT WAROur colleagues James Dao and Dalia Sussman report that the operation in Pakistan that killed Osama bin Laden has given President Obama a sharp bump in his job performance approval rating among both Republican and Democratic voters, climbing to 57 percent from 46 percent in April. Many more Americans now approve of the job he is doing as president and of the way he is handling foreign policy, the war in Afghanistan and the threat of terrorism, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.
However, the poll also revealed that the euphoric response to Bin Laden’s death was hemmed in by worries that his killing could set off retaliatory attacks from terrorist groups in the short term. More than 6 in 10 Americans said that killing Bin Laden was likely to increase the threat of terrorism against the United States in the short term. A large majority also said that the death of the leader of Al Qaeda did not make them feel any safer. Just 16 percent said they personally felt more safe now.
The New York Times/CBS Poll found that while nearly half of Americans thought the nation should decrease troops levels in Afghanistan, more than six in 10 felt that the American mission there was not finished, despite Bin Laden’s death. That would suggest that public opinion is not clear on when or how the United States should leave Afghanistan.
‘We’ Got Him
By REBEKAH SANDERLIN
Chip East/ReutersPeople gathered in New York’s Times Square on Sunday night to celebrate the news of Osama bin Laden’s death.
In early November 2004, I kissed my husband goodbye as he left for his first deployment to Afghanistan. I told him, my voice trembling as he walked toward the war, “Go and kill Bin Laden.”
Seven and a half years later, after three deployments to Afghanistan and five elsewhere, we learned with the rest of the world that the terrorism mastermind was dead. We watched on television as people around the country waved flags and sang the national anthem, celebrating the end of a man who had caused so much pain for so many.
It was a very good day, a day that stood in stark contrast to that day in November 2004 when my and my husband’s portion of the war began.
I tried to look brave that day as I bid goodbye to the love of my life, wondering if I would ever see him again. Just three weeks earlier I had given birth to our first child and, with that tiny baby hanging from the crook of my arm in his infant carrier, I watched my lifeline walk away. I had no idea how to be a mother or what to expect from the coming months. I was alone in a military town where I had very few friends and no family members, and I didn’t want my husband to know that I was scared. Read more…
Bin Laden’s Death Expected to Have Little Impact on Al Qaeda in Iraq
By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT
BAGHDAD — Eight years ago Osama bin Laden called on his followers to head to Iraq to fight the United States. Within months, Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia took form, eventually allying itself with militants from the country’s Sunni minority. The group took a leading role in the insurgency that plunged Iraq into a bloody sectarian war.
Today, Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia is a shell of the organization that was once led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the one that beheaded hostages on camera and controlled significant portions of the country.
Although the group still conducts attacks across Iraq — typically roadside bombs, suicide bombings and assassinations — the number of violent incidents the group has been involved in has plummeted since the height of the sectarian war in 2006.
“We hear about a few operations here or there of Al Qaeda trying to send a message that it is still in” Iraq, said Samir al-Mahemdi, a lawyer in Falluja and an expert on extremist groups. Read more…
Thoughts on Bin Laden’s Death After 10 Years at War
By STEPHEN FARRELLIt has been nearly a decade since Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda carried out the most devastating attack on American soil. Many of our readers are in the armed forces and have had their lives changed profoundly since that day in September 2001. We would like to hear from you. Share your thoughts about the news of Bin Laden’s death and how the post-9/11 world has affected your life.
Whether you’re in the armed forces or are a civilian in America or in Iraq, Pakistan or Afghanistan, At War is interested in knowing how much and in what ways your life was changed by the events of Sept. 11. Were you at school a decade ago? Were you in a different career? Did you enlist in the armed forces after Sept. 11 — because of the events of that day? Where has it taken you? What have you learned? Has it directly affected your family? And what do you think America and its allies should do now, in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and elsewhere?
Post a comment below.
Bin Laden Is Dead, President Obama Says
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
Osama bin Laden has been killed, President Obama announced Sunday night, almost 10 years after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The text of the president’s television address is here. The Times describes the scenes at the World Trade Center, Times Square and Washington. Our colleagues on The Lede blog are also following reaction from around the world, here, and political reaction on The Caucus blog, here.
From Kabul, The New York Times’s bureau chief Alissa J. Rubin writes, ‘Afghans Fear West May See Death as the End’:
KABUL, Afghanistan — In Afghanistan, where Osama bin Laden was based for many years and where Al Qaeda helped to train and pay insurgents, there was relief and uncertainty about how his death would play out in the fraught regional power politics now shaping the war.
While senior political figures welcomed the news of his death, they cautioned that it did not necessarily translate into an immediate military victory over the Taliban, and urged the United States and NATO not to use it as a reason to withdraw…
Former members of the Taliban who are now part of the reconciliation efforts with the movement said they believed that Bin Laden’s death would drive the Taliban to make a deal to stop fighting and become a political force in Afghanistan.
The Afghan Taliban had no immediate statement.
Of Pakistan’s role, Times correspondent Jane Perlez writes:
The killing of Osama bin Laden deep inside Pakistan in an American operation, almost in plain sight in a medium-sized city that hosts numerous Pakistani forces, seems certain to further inflame tensions between the United States and Pakistan and raise significant questions about whether elements of the Pakistani spy agency knew the whereabouts of the leader of Al Qaeda.
The presence of Bin Laden in Pakistan, something Pakistani officials have long dismissed, goes to the heart of the lack of trust Washington has felt over the last 10 years with its contentious ally, the Pakistani military and its powerful spy partner, Inter-Services Intelligence.
Stanford Debates R.O.T.C.’s Return
By TIM HSIAApril 29, 10:18 a.m. | Vote Results After two hours of debate, the Stanford faculty senate voted to bring ROTC back on campus: 28 members voted for its return, 9 voted against it and 3 abstained. During the faculty senate meeting, Former Secretary of Defense William Perry discussed how bringing ROTC back to Stanford could help the military by providing better trained and educated leaders. Much of the debate was centered on the military’s posture toward transgendered people and also on whether academic credit would be granted to ROTC courses. An amendment to the resolution of bringing ROTC back to campus was added that stated the faculty senate’s objection concerning the military’s treatment towards transgender people.
Since Congress voted to end the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law, several “elite” universities, including Harvard and Columbia, have decided to reinstate R.O.T.C. programs. Stanford might be next. Last week, an ad hoc R.O.T.C. committee at the university unanimously recommended that President John L. Hennessy invite the program back on campus. Today, the Stanford Faculty Senate is expected to support the idea as well.
R.O.T.C., the Reserve Officers Training Corps, is a program for college students. R.O.T.C. cadets supplement their undergraduate academic curriculum with military and leadership training. Upon graduating and successfully completing the program, college seniors are commissioned as second lieutenants. Roughly 60 percent of newly commissioned officers in the Army come from R.O.T.C. programs, and more than 40 percent of general officers in the Army are R.O.T.C. graduates. The military pays for many cadets’ entire undergraduate education. Read more…
Court Rules Against V.A. on Fiduciaries
By JOHN SCHWARTZA federal appeals court has told the Department of Veteran’s Affairs to loosen its grip on benefits decisions for veterans who have been declared incompetent.
The department appoints fiduciaries to manage the benefits of veterans who are no longer able to take care of themselves. There are 110,000 veterans’ accounts under fiduciary management, and the total value is about $3.2 billion.
Veterans’ families have argued in several recent cases that they do not want the financial minders appointed by the department, as an article in The New York Times reported earlier this month.
When families have sued, however, the department has generally argued that while families may have input in the decision to appoint a fiduciary, once the minder is in place the relationship is solely within the jurisdiction of the Department of Veterans Affairs and is not subject to judicial review. Read more…
NATO Officials Acknowledge Frustration in Libya Campaign
By THOM SHANKERWASHINGTON – Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates stood on the steps of the Pentagon late Tuesday alongside Liam Fox, his counterpart from Britain, America’s closest ally. Questions swirled here, in Europe and across North Africa whether NATO was specifically trying to find and kill Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the Libyan leader, with airstrikes.
Mr. Gates patiently repeated the alliance’s longstanding policy that it was attacking only legitimate military targets in Libya in order to degrade the ability of the government’s forces to threaten its civilian population. There was no targeted assassination effort under way.
“We have considered all along command-and-control centers to be a legitimate target, and we have taken those out elsewhere,” Mr. Gates said. Read more…
War, Wives and a Near Suicide
By ALISON BUCKHOLTZ“If you are reading this, you should know that I am dead,” began the blog of a 27-year-old Army wife named Jessica Harp. “At least I hope I’m dead,” she added. “It would be awful to fail at your own suicide.”
The entry, posted to the blog “(Mis)Adventures of an Army Wife” on April 11, was titled “A Final Goodbye.” Its broad outlines, though not dramatic conclusion, are recognizable to many in the post-9/11 generation of military spouses. In 4,100 words, Ms. Harp chronicled her husband’s severe depression after his unit’s deployment to Afghanistan in 2009, and her own subsequent depression, for which she sought counseling and medication.
After her husband’s return and their cross-country move to Fort Jackson, S.C., so he could attend an eight-month officers’ course, she was told she could not join the base’s family support group because her husband was only a student there. She tried to put to use her master’s degree in financial counseling, but was told she was unemployable because she would be leaving the area before the year’s end. Her husband’s erratic behavior, coupled with his drinking, convinced her that he was an alcoholic, and she encouraged him to get help.
“The doctor immediately put him on antidepressants and sleeping pills,” she recounts. “And that was it. No counseling. No getting to the root cause of the issue. Just drugs.” She writes that he mixed his prescriptions with alcohol and at times became violent.
Service Held for Combat Photographers and Doctor Killed in Misurata
By C.J. CHIVERS
Bryan Denton for The New York Times Sidney Kwiram, right, of Human Rights Watch, and Alexander Dziadosz of Reuters leave candles in a bouquet next to a pair of cameras placed in rememberance of Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros at a small memorial service held by colleagues in Benghazi on Thursday.This is an e-mail sent this morning from C.J. Chivers to the editors at Getty Images and Vanity Fair, describing events in Benghazi, Libya, since the remains of Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros arrived at the Benghazi port Thursday night. Mr. Hetherington, the conflict photographer and director of the Afghan war documentary “Restrepo,” and Mr. Hondros, one of the top war photographers of his generation, were killed Wednesday in Misurata, Libya.
The editors of Getty Images and Vanity Fair shared this e-mail with the men’s families, who, after slight redaction (of e-mail addresses and of some internal discussion about with whom to share this) approved it for public release. Sebastian Junger has written a moving tribute to Mr. Hetherington, his co-director on “Restrepo,” for Vanity Fair.
Eddy Risch/European Pressphoto Agency Tim Hetherington in 2008. Read Sebastian Junger’s remembrance of Mr. Hetherington on the Vanity Fair Web site.Pancho, Hugh, David,
This morning the bodies of Chris and Tim, along with that of a Ukrainian doctor killed in Misurata the same day, were blessed in a small, private ceremony at the Benghazi Medical Center, where the three spent the night.
The ceremony was organized by the British consular office here, and attended by about eight people.
The blessing was administered by Sylvester Magro, the Bishop of Benghazi. Father Magro leads the Roman Catholic diocese of eastern Libya, a spiritual footprint remaining from the decades of Italian presence here.
The bishop was kind and soft-spoken, and clearly touched. He began by asking the Lord to, “Hear our prayers for these, our brothers, who you have called in peace.” His primary reading was a set of excerpts from the Gospel of John, Chapter 11, on the death and resurrection of Lazarus.
The lines I remember most from it were these:
Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.
But even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.”
Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise.”
Getty Images Chris Hondros was killed Wednesday in Libya.After the gospel reading, the bishop led the group in prayer and sprinkled the three with holy water.
We then went outside, where the Human Rights Watch representative present (who with Peter Bouckaert arranged Chris’s and Tim’s swift exit by sea from Misurata) picked flowers from the hospital grounds and passed them around.
We all took care to thank the attending diplomat for arranging all of this and for allowing us to be there. It’s worth noting here, even though I’m sure you all know this from your own bittersweet experiences these past days, how deeply Chris’s and Tim’s deaths have resonated among even those who did not know them. After the ceremony, the bishop and John (last name not given), one of the diplomat’s security escorts, lingered. They very much wanted to hear stories of the two, and how they had died, to provide some sense and meaning to the loss. Even among these men, no strangers to war, there were reddened eyes.
This was the second service for Chris and Tim since their arrival in Benghazi port last night. Shortly before midnight a candle-lit public event was held at one of the local hotels, and attended by 35 or 40 people, including Christopher Prentice, the UK envoy here, and Chris Stevens, the American envoy. After each attendee was handed a lit candle, both men were invited to speak, and they did. Mr. Prentice noted in particular the powerful words of condolences he has heard from Libyans, who see Chris and Tim as heroes.
There were also readings.
David, at your recommendation we opened with the inscription from Tim’s book: “For He Who Gives His Life Shall Always Be My Brother.” This, appropriately, allowed our friends to be the guides in. It also, in its way and perhaps more appropriately, had Tim and Chris shepherding us. Thank you for pointing us to it.
Next came a few more.
The first was from Gustave Mahler, 9th Symphony, 4th Movement. This was recommended via Stephanie Sinclair of the VII photo agency. Bryan Denton received an e-mail yesterday with a note saying Chris had sent this to her when she was grieving a family death. Marc Burleigh, from Agence France-Presse, read it in the sort of rich voice I wish I had. Marc had bunked with Tim and Chris on the sea passage to Misurata early in the week, and had come back to Benghazi with them on the Ionian Spirit.
Here is the selection of verse:
Often I think they’ve gone outside!
Soon they will get back home again!
The day is lovely! Don’t be anxious,
They’re only taking a long walk,
They’ve only gone out before us,
And will not long to come home again.
We’ll catch up with them on yonder heights
In the sunshine!
The day is fine on yonder heights!
After Marc sat down, Bryan read this from Plato:
The souls of people, on their way to Earth-life, pass through a room
full of lights; each takes a taper — often only a spark — to guide it in
the dim country of this world. But some souls, by rare fortune, are
detained longer — have time to grasp a handful of tapers, which they
weave into a torch. “These are the torch-bearers of humanity — its
poets, seers, and saints, who lead and lift the race out of darkness,
toward the light. They are the law-givers, the light-bringers,
way-showers, and truth-tellers, and without them humanity would lose
its way in the dark.
And then Chris Stevens, the U.S. envoy, gave a brief speech about Tim and Chris’s work, and discussed the need to respect and protect journalists. He ended with a reading from Isaiah, (25:6, 7-9), that Bryan had chosen in the afternoon.
On this mountain the LORD of hosts will provide for all peoples. On
this mountain he will destroy the veil that veils all peoples, the web
that is woven over all nations; he will destroy death forever. The
Lord GOD will wipe away the tears from all faces; the reproach of his
people he will remove from the whole earth; for the LORD has spoken.
On that day it will be said: “Behold our God, to whom we looked to
save us! This is the LORD for whom we looked; let us rejoice and be
glad that he has saved us!”
We thought we were finished, and would light more candles, but a representative from the rebel government rose and asked to say a few words. I am half-deaf and he spoke softly, so I missed his name but will get it later. His words focused on the appreciation, even wonder, that many eastern Libyans feel that foreign journalists have come to live within another people’s struggle, and that people like Chris and Tim would give their lives to record what is happening here.
When he finished, the attendees gathered around the pair of cameras on the table and lit bouquets of candles.
Evan Hill of Al Jazeera wrote something of the ceremony. In a very brief update, I linked to it here.
As for next steps, Chris and Tim are in the good hands of the medical authorities here and their arrangements are being looked after by the diplomats. I sense that all of you have a strong sense of the schedule for bringing them home. So I will leave the logistics to others, and sign off.
If any of you have questions, Bryan and I are ready and happy to answer them. As for photos, AFP filed from the memorial last night. We have other images if you wish to see them.
On the matter of unfinished business, I will try to find more on the Ukrainian doctor. His name, we believe, taken from the small slip of paper that accompanied him as he was blessed, is Anatoly Nagaiko. We want to provide you more information of a man who died on the same day, in the same city, and was prayed over together along with two men you love.
With respect, and sorrow,
Chris
Coming Home, as an Interpreter
By FIRST LT. HOLLY HERNANDEZIt was 1 in the afternoon. I was looking through the mess hall in Bagram Airfield north of Kabul, scanning the faces to find Parween. I had met her a few days before as she commented on a book I was reading about Afghanistan; her first name was the same as that of the main character. The book was “Lipstick in Afghanistan” by Roberta Gately, a fictional account of an American nurse volunteering in Bamiyan Province after 9/11. Unlike the nurse in my book, Parween had grown up in Kabul in a highly educated family. Her father had attended Columbia University and worked as an ambassador for Afghanistan to Ethiopia. Now, she worked as a translator for American military forces in Afghanistan.
I found her sitting at a small table, her black hair combed neatly back from her forehead. She smiled at me and invited me to sit across from her. Parween, who was perhaps in her late 40s, had beautifully distinctive features highlighted by wrinkles of happiness. “I’m so glad you had time to get lunch with me today,” I told her. “It is a pleasure,” she said, rising from her chair to hug me. We settled back into our seats, picking up our utensils to eat.
I asked her what it was like growing up in Afghanistan. “Well, my father wanted to leave this country, but the government wouldn’t let him,” she said. “My father was always abroad, but he raised us in the Western tradition.” The government would not have allowed him to leave again had he returned home, she said, so he stayed away, traveling for the foreign service, until he finally settled in the United States.
But the Afghan government “kept us, his family, imprisoned here,” she said. “My mother was incredible. She kept our entire family together, all seven of us, raising us all without him.”
Read more…
The Challenge of Covering Iraqi Justice
By TIM ARANGO
Ayman Oghanna for The New York Times Former Baath Party officials on trial in a Baghdad courtroom on April 21. Front row, from left: Tariq Aziz, Abud Hassan Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti, Farooq Abdullah Yahya and Hadi Hassoun Najim. Back row, from left: Sabawi Ibrahim al-Tikriti, Saber Abdul Aziz Hussein and Ahmed Khudair Sabah.BAGHDAD — Iraq has been castigated of late by human rights groups for violently cracking down on journalists at protests.
Photographers, in particular, have an especially difficult time here taking pictures of government proceedings and scenes of violence — as a blog post last year by my colleague Joao Silva described in detail.
But like nearly everything in Iraq, the issues of press freedom are never simple. Sometimes it’s a matter of showing up and schmoozing to gain access in a way that would be unheard of back home.
On Thursday morning, I, our photographer Ayman Oghanna and our Iraqi newsroom manager visited the criminal court in the heavily guarded Green Zone, just across from the American Embassy, to see the verdicts delivered in a case against several defendants on trial for the 1994 murder of Sheik Taleb al-Suhail, then an Iraqi exile living in Lebanon.
Initially, we were told that taking photographs in the courtroom was forbidden. But that was just the first answer, and we knew from experience that it was subject to negotiation.
We spoke to the security officials and then popped into the presiding judge’s office. And before we knew what was happening, court security officers were shuffling the eight defendants into the courtroom for a quick and private photo shoot, before the judge entered the room to read out each of the men’s sentences. (I immediately recalled a similar experience last year when we visited Samarra. After chai and polite conversation with the police colonel, we were ushered into a room to meet the prisoner we had been hoping to see, a young man who had just killed his father. )
Some of the men in the courtroom, including Tariq Aziz, the former foreign minister, and Abed Hammoud, a presidential secretary, were on the famous American deck of cards of the most wanted members of Saddam Hussein’s government after the invasion in 2003.
One of the men, Abed Hassan al-Majied, the brother of the former government official known as Chemical Ali, who was executed in January 2010, asked about us, “What are they doing here?”
“This is just for the memories,” said the head of the court’s security detail.
Mr. Hammoud, who covered his face with a notebook as the pictures were being snapped, asked, “Why are these Americans taking pictures of us?”
After a few minutes, the court session was about to begin and we were asked to go to the spillover room in the back. As we walked out, Mr. Hammoud looked at me and shouted an expletive to describe former President George W. Bush in particular and all Americans in general.
As the proceedings began, Mr. Majied, before hearing that he would be sentenced to hang for his role in the murder, rose and addressed the court.
“Just 10 minutes ago, there were two Americans here,” he said. “By what right can they come into this court and photograph us? Who are they, and what is behind this?”
The judge replied, “They are from the press, so just be quiet.”
Ayman Oghanna for The New York Times Tariq Aziz awaiting the judge’s verdict. He was acquitted, but has already been sentenced to death for crimes committed during the administration of Saddam Hussein.Then, one by one, the judge read the sentences for each man in the trial, which began in 2009. Three were sentenced to death, two to life sentences, one to 15 years in prison. Two others, including Mr. Aziz, were acquitted. Mr. Aziz, however, has already been sentenced to death in another case involving crimes of the former government.
After the defendants were taken from the courtroom, Safia al-Suhail, the daughter of the victim who became an international symbol of Saddam Hussein’s repression as a guest of the Bush White House at the State of the Union address in 2005, stood in the lobby.
“Justice is there, after 16 years,” said Ms. Suhail, who is now a member of Parliament and a prominent activist.
Duraid Adnan contributed reporting from Baghdad.
‘Restrepo’ Director Is Killed in Libya
By STEPHEN FARRELLTim Hetherington, a British photographer based in New York who was a director and producer of the film “Restrepo,” was killed in the besieged Libyan city of Misurata on Wednesday, our Times colleague C.J. Chivers reports. Three photographers were wounded in the same attack, and one of them, Chris Hondros of Getty Images, died.
The four had reached the city by sea from Benghazi, the rebel capital. “Early reports said they had been working together near the front lines when they were struck by a rocket-propelled grenade,” Mr. Chivers wrote.
During the making of “Restrepo,” Mr. Hetherington and his co-director Sebastian Junger spent 14 months with a platoon of United States soldiers in the Korangal Valley in Afghanistan in 2007 and 2008. A Times review of “Restrepo” can be read here.
Our colleagues on the Lens blog have a slide show of Mr. Hetherington’s work and one of images by Mr. Hondros. The pictures by Mr. Hondros were taken earlier Wednesday. Also, the photographers Guy Martin and Michael Christopher Brown were wounded in the attack.
Pentagon Is Quiet on ‘Three Cups of Tea’ Questions
By ELISABETH BUMILLERPentagon officials continued their silence on Tuesday about allegations against Greg Mortenson, the co-author of the best-selling “Three Cups of Tea,” after a fellow best-selling author and mountaineer, Jon Krakauer, released an article on byliner.com raising his own questions about the accuracy of Mr. Mortenson’s book and the management of his charity.
But Col. Christopher D. Kolenda, one of the United States military officials who first reached out to Mr. Mortenson because of the book’s inspirational lessons about girls’ education in Central Asia, said that Mr. Mortenson’s work had been vital to the American war effort in Afghanistan.
“My personal and professional interaction with Greg and his organization has proved invaluable in terms of contacts with elders from across the country and support for education in some critical areas,’’ Colonel Kolenda, now a senior adviser to Michele A. Flournoy, the under secretary of defense for policy, said in a brief phone conversation on Tuesday.
Colonel Kolenda declined any comment on the allegations against Mr. Mortenson, first by the CBS News program “60 Minutes” on Sunday and then by Mr. Krakauer in his article on Monday.
Both CBS and Mr. Krakauer said that the central, inspirational anecdote of the book was false: Mr. Mortenson, they said, never stumbled disoriented into the warm embrace of the village of Korphe in northeast Pakistan after failing to reach the summit of K2 and then in gratitude returned to build a school. CBS and Mr. Krakauer also said that Mr. Mortenson had grossly mismanaged the finances of his charity set up to build schools, mostly for girls, in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Mr. Mortenson has forcefully countered the allegations.
Colonel Kolenda, who read “Three Cups of Tea” in late 2007 when his wife sent it to him while he was commanding 700 American soldiers in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan, was so taken with a central lesson in the book – reaching out to the local residents – that he contacted Mr. Mortenson. By June 2008, Mr. Mortenson’s Central Asia Institute had built a school near Colonel Kolenda’s base, in Kunar Province, close to the border with Pakistan. Although CBS and Mr. Krakauer said that some of Mr. Mortenson’s schools were empty, or did not even exist, Colonel Kolenda said that the school near his base, at least as of 2010, had students and was operating.
By 2009, Mr. Mortenson had become an unofficial adviser to the United States military in Afghanistan. That summer, Colonel Kolenda has recalled, Mr. Mortenson was in meetings in Kabul with him, village elders and at times Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, then President Obama’s top commander in the country.
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