Decision Points

radio address, the first time a First Lady had ever done so. The Taliban regime, she said, “is nowin retreat across much of the country, and the people of Afghanistan—especially women—are rejoicing. Afghan women know, through hard experience, what the rest of the world is discovering. … The fight against terrorism is also a fight for the rights and dignity of women.”
    Laura’s address prompted positive responses from around the world. The most meaningful came from Afghan women. Expanding opportunity in Afghanistan, especially for women and girls, became a calling for Laura. In the years to come, she met with Afghan teachers and entrepreneurs, facilitated the delivery of textbooks and medicine, supported a new U.S.-Afghan Women’s Council that mobilized more than $70 million in private development funds, and made three trips to the country. Just as I was feeling more comfortable as commander in chief, she was gaining her footing as First Lady.

    With northern Afghanistan liberated, our attention turned to the south. George Tenet reported that an anti- Taliban movement was coalescing around a Pashtun leader, Hamid Karzai. Karzai was not a typical military commander. He grew up near Kandahar, earned a college degree in India, spoke four languages, and served in the Afghan government before it was taken over by the Taliban.
    Two days after our bombing campaign began, Karzai hopped on a motorcycle in Pakistan, crossed the border, and rallied several hundred men to take Tarin Kot, a small city near Kandahar. The Taliban discovered Karzai’s presence and sent troops to kill him. With his position about to be overrun, the CIA dispatched a helicopter to pick him up. After a brief period, Karzai returned to lead the resistance. He was joined in late November by a contingent of Marines. The remaining Taliban officials fled Kandahar. The city fell on December 7, 2001, the sixtieth anniversary of Pearl Harbor, two months to the day after my speech in the Treaty Room.

    Driven out of their strongholds, the remnants of the Taliban and al Qaeda fled to Afghanistan’s rugged eastern border with Pakistan. In early 2002,Tommy Franks mounted a major assault called Operation Anaconda. Our troops, joined by coalition partners and Afghan forces, squeezed out the remaining al Qaeda and Taliban fighters in eastern Afghanistan. CIA officers and Special Forces crawled through the caves, calling in airstrikes on terrorist hideouts and putting a serious dent in al Qaeda’s army.
    I hoped I would get a call with the news that Osama bin Laden was among the dead or captured. We were searching for him constantly and received frequent but conflicting information on his whereabouts. Some reports placed him in Jalalabad. Others had him in Peshawar, or at a lake near Kandahar, or at the Tora Bora cave complex. Our troops pursued every lead. Several times we thought we might have nailed him. But the intelligence never panned out.
    Years later, critics charged that we allowed bin Laden to slip the noose at Tora Bora. I sure didn’t see it that way. I asked our commanders and CIA officials about bin Laden frequently. They were working around the clock to locate him, and they assured me they had the troop levels and resources they needed. If we had ever known for sure where he was, we would have moved heaven and earth to bring him to justice.
    Operation Anaconda marked the end of the opening phase of the battle. Like any war, our campaign in Afghanistan had not gone perfectly. But in six months, we had removed the Taliban from power, destroyed the al Qaeda training camps, liberated more than twenty-six million people from unspeakable brutality, allowed Afghan girls to return to school, and laid the foundation for a democratic society to emerge. There had been no famine, no outbreak of civil war, no collapse of the government in Pakistan, no global uprising by Muslims, and no retaliatory attack on our homeland.

    The gains came at a precious cost. Between the start of the war and Operation Anaconda, twenty-seven brave Americans were killed. I read each name, usually in my early morning briefings at the Resolute desk. I imagined the pain their families felt when the military officer appeared at their door. I prayed that God would comfort them amid their grief.
    Early in the war, I decided to write letters to the family members of Americans lost on the battlefield. I wanted to honor their sacrifice, express my sorrow, and extend the gratitude