Decision Points

told the boys that if they had a message for the president, I’d be seeing you tonight.”
    He continued: “They said, ‘Please tell the president we’re proud toserve a great country, and we’re proud to serve a great man like George Bush.’ ” Dad’s eyes filled with tears.
    The poignant moment gave me an up-close look at the personal toll of sending troops into combat. But nothing prepared me for the feeling when I was the president who gave the order.

    As I knew from my visits during Dad’s time in office, Camp David is one of the great privileges afforded the president. Nestled in Maryland’s Catoctin Mountains about seventy miles from Washington, the 200-acre site is a thirty-minute helicopter ride from the White House. It feels much more removed than that. The retreat is run by the Navy and protected by the Marines. It consists of rustic cabins, a gym and swimming pool, a bowling alley, a chipping green, and scenic trails through the woods for hiking and biking. The atmosphere fosters reflection and clear thinking.

    At Camp David with Laura.
White House/Eric Draper
    The presidential cabin is known as Aspen. Its interior is simple but comfortable. The wooden structure has three bedrooms, a perfect size for our family; a sunlit living room where I watched football with my brother Marvin and friends; and a stone fireplace beside which Laura and I liked to read at night.
    About a quarter mile down the hill is Laurel, a large lodge with a spacious dining area, a small presidential office, and a wood-paneled conference room that Jimmy Carter used when he negotiated the Camp David Peace Accords.
    That was where my national security team gathered on Saturday morning, September 15, to start developing the battle plan for Afghanistan. The mood was somber, serious, and focused. With me at the big oak table were the top national security officials from across the government. * Together they had decades of crisis management experience.

    Meeting with Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, and my national security team at Camp David the Saturday after 9/11.
White House/Eric Draper
    The first key presentation that morning came from CIA Director George Tenet. Six months earlier, at my direction, George and the National Security Council had started developing a comprehensive strategy to destroy the al Qaeda network. In the four days between 9/11 and the Camp David meeting, the CIA team had beefed up their plan. George proposed that I grant broader authority for covert actions, including permission for the CIA to kill or capture al Qaeda operatives without asking for my sign-off each time. I decided to grant the request.
    The heart of the CIA plan was a new offensive in Afghanistan, where 9/11 had been planned. The roots of the terrorist presence in Afghanistan traced back to 1979, when the Soviet Union invaded and installed a communist puppet regime. Afghan tribes, along with a band of hard-core Islamic fighters known as the Mujahideen, rose up against the foreign occupation. With assistance from the United States, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia, the rebels inflicted fifteen thousand casualties and drove out the Soviets in 1989. Two years later, the superpower collapsed.
    Free of the communist occupiers, the Afghan people had a chance to rebuild their country. But the U.S. government no longer saw a national interest in Afghanistan, so it cut off support. America’s noninvolvement helped create a vacuum. Tribal warriors who had defeated the Soviets turned their guns on one another. Ultimately, the Taliban , a group of Islamic fundamentalists, seized power. They imposed a fanatical, barbaric brand of Islam that prohibited girls from going to school, required men to grow beards of a certain length, and forbade women from leaving their homes without a male relative as an escort. The simplest pleasures—singing, clapping, and flying kites—were banned.
    The Taliban’s rules were enforced by brutal religious police. A 1998 State Department report described a woman struggling to carry two small children and a load of groceries on a street in Mazar-i-Sharif. When her body-length burqa slipped from her face, she was beaten with a car antenna. Petty thieves were taken to the national soccer stadium to have their limbs hacked off.
    Homosexuals were stoned to death, as was anyone suspected of adultery. Shortly after the Taliban seized Kabul, they kidnapped the former president of Afghanistan from his UN compound. After beating and