Al Qaeda's Great Escape: The Military and the Media on Terror's Trail
- Book Review,
by Philip Smucker
From Publishers Weekly
Christian Science Monitor foreign correspondent Smucker offers an excellent, compact study of the campaign in Afghanistan and expounds a familiar thesis clearly and convincingly: the U.S. military, under not only executive but public pressure for a quick victory in revenge for September 11, adopted a strategy that achieved that victory, but only over the Taliban. Resources were not allocated to the hunt for Osama bin Laden and his cohorts, many of whom either fled or went underground, to continue to cause trouble in Afghanistan and elsewhere. The bulk of the book details how that was allowed to happen. Smucker is much harsher on U.S. strategists and his fellow journalists than he is on the American fighting men and women in the field, who include not only the glamorous covert operations troops but the humble logisticians "in the air, on land, and sea." Stronger on the military than on the civilian side, Smucker does not adequately deal with the question of whether the pursuit of the Taliban received its priority because of the need for Northern Alliance support, and the Washington-based coverage could have been usefully expanded. Much more literate than most journalistic accounts, this book is not for ideologues at either end of the spectrum, as the struggle for balance and perspective is visible on every page. By the end, the wealth of operational detail will leave readers with a palpable sense of missed opportunity. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
This account of the American campaign in Afghanistan, specifically the battles of Tora Bora and Operation Anaconda, is that of an experienced war correspondent. It covers what happened in the Afghan hills, the strategic policies in Washington, media coverage on the spot, and how bin Laden and scores of his followers were able to escape from Afghanistan, despite the U.S. Army. Besides providing an excellent picture--and pictures--of the war, Smucker explains how information was obtained, used, abused, and just plain ignored, which is important because, although the last thing the media should do during a campaign is provide the enemy with free intelligence, an informed citizenry needs to know this to consider what kind of job the commander in chief has done. War reporting has always been subject to propaganda biases, but Smucker's narrative style makes you feel as if you were there, especially when his "get the story at all costs" impulses take over. So in addition to everything else it is, this is quite a picture of contemporary combat reporting. Frieda Murray
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
The Washington Post
It is difficult to grasp how reading about something so depressing can be so much fun
Katharine Sale, Financial Times, Books of 2004: Terror Firmament - Conflict, December 10, 2004
Philip Smucker ... details how, Svengali-like, bin Laden and scores of his men managed to slip out of Afghanistan .
Peter Bergen,
...a lively recounting of the Dec. 2001 battle of Tora Bora in eastern Afghanistan.
Richard Sale, The Washington Times, UPI Intelligence Correspondent, November 30, 2004
Smucker reminds one of ...Georges Clemenceau ... who having barely escaped a bullet ... replied, "It is my great pleasure!"
Book Description
GREAT ESCAPE UNVEILED: HOW OSAMA OUTSMARTED AMERICAN STRATEGISTS Why hasn’t Osama bin Laden been brought to justice? What happened in Afghanistan after September 11th? In AL QAEDA’S GREAT ESCAPE: The Military and the Media on Terror’s Trail (April 19, 2004; Brassey’s, Inc.) Philip Smucker, a respected foreign correspondent who broke the story of Osama bin Laden’s escape from Afghanistan in 2001, reveals how bin Laden and scores of other highly trained Al Qaeda fighters managed to slip unnoticed out of eastern Afghanistan, despite the presence of the overwhelming U.S. military power that helped oust the Taliban. Smucker explains how the Bush administration’s push to achieve early and visible successes to satisfy the public’s need for vengeance led to a shortchanging of long-term strategy. Impatience at the top from mostly civilian policymakers forced a rush into a war aimed primarily at "regime change," but it left the U.S. military largely empty-handed when it came to capturing its Al Qaeda prey. In Al Qaeda’s Great Escape, Smucker follows the escape route on foot, by jeep and by mule through dusty villages and frigid mountain passes, to tell an intriguing story of what really happened at the battle of Tora Bora and Operation Anaconda. He describes the heavy bombing of the Tora Bora redoubt beginning in October 2001, which served only to alienate the very tribesmen that the Pentagon had been hoping to win over. He details the behind-the-scenes deal making between Afghans and Arabs that had assisted bin Laden and his top lieutenants in their escapes. The book also includes interviews with U.S. forces and their commanders, as well as a first-ever published account and frank assessment of the successes and failures of the campaign from the top ground commander for U.S. Special Forces in Afghanistan. The author documents the turn of events at Operation Anaconda in January and February of 2002 as the enemy learns to respect the power of the U.S. war machine. Nevertheless, a flawed battle plan, driven by strategists eager for quick results, contributes to the fresh escape of hundreds of Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters. Smucker charges that during our conflict in Afghanistan, western media outlets, eager to satisfy their audience’s thirst for revenge and blinded by their own patriotic feelings, began losing their grasp on journalistic objectivity. Subject to an unhealthy reliance on the Pentagon’s official press releases, the media portrayed events that did not reflect the reality on the ground in Afghanistan. Smucker witnessed his fellow colleagues as they often disregarded, manipulated and misinterpreted the information available to them. Al Qaeda’s Great Escape: The Military and the Media on Terror’s Trail provides both a powerful and needed account of the truth behind enemy lines and a stunning look at how the U.S. fell short of the victory claimed by both the media and the military.
About the Author
PHILIP SMUCKER has spent the last sixteen years as an overseas reporter, covering conflicts in Burma, Cambodia, Haiti, Bosnia, Serbia, Afghanistan, and Iraq. He currently writes for U.S. News and World Report and the British newspaper the Daily Telegraph. Smucker broke the story of bin Laden’s escape from Afghanistan in the Christian Science Monitor in December 2001. In connection with his reporting in Afghanistan, Smucker appeared on Good Morning America, The Today Show, Chris Matthews’s Hardball, ABC’s Nightline, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer Reports, and other television programs. Smucker resides in Cairo, Egypt.
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