MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD

9-11 Commission Interview

Interviewee: Major General Barno, CFC, U.S. Embassy Kabul

Date: Tuesday, October 21,2003
Location: U.S. Embassy Kabul
Participants: Philip Zelikow, Kevin Scheid, Mike Hurley, Lt Col Moring
Drafted by: Mike Hurley
Reviewed by: Philip Zelikow
Additional: None

MG Barno said that formerly the U.S. commander of the Afghan theater had been based
in Bagram. However, CENTCOM has now determined that the ranking U.S. soldier
needs to be in Kabul to better coordinate Coalition and interagency efforts, and to be
better positioned to work with the Afghan government. This is to bea 3-star billet. As
its current occupant, Barno has the title "Combined Forces Commander." JTF 180 will
remain in Bagram and comes under Barno's command, as does the Office of Military
Cooperation (OMC), the military element responsible for training the ANA. The
Commander OMC is a 2-star billet. Barno's own AOR includes the border with Pakistan
and our operations in Uzbekistan.

Zelikow discussed with Barno the agenda for our next day's visit to JTF 180 at Bagram.
He requested briefings on: the security situation in southern and eastern Afghanistan; a
country-wide threat overview; an overall strategy briefing, including where we are now
and where we are going; and an historical look-back and views on the present and future.
He summed it up saying we were interested in what Americans are doing on the front line
against terror.

Barno said that in confronting terrorism in this region we are facing a transnational
problem. We can do a lot in Afghanistan but we have to get control of the problem in
Pakistan as well. We have a two-border problem, he said. We are organized on national
boundaries but the enemy isn't. Our instruments of national power do not readily fit the
challenges we face. The threat is different from the Cold War, we are challenged by
non-state actors.

He said he was particularly attuned to not becoming "a prisoner of our wiring diagrams"
because the "boxes" don't explain everything that is going on. Although he had only
been in his position for a total of three weeks, he found the country team at Embassy
Kabul was functioning cooperatively, and he was impressed by his diplomatic and
intelligence colleagues. He said, however, that the State Department side of the effort
was woefully understaffed. State has only 15 officers. Its cadre is a fraction the size of

1
State's contingent in Cairo, for example. And yet Afghanistan is one of the biggest
efforts we have going. There is no one at State comparable to CENTCOM's combatant
commander, no one who really seems to be in charge at that level. He also noted that the
country and geographic divisions at CIA seem to have primacy over functional
groupings.

He said we needed to focus on offensive operations but should not just focus on racking
up numbers of killed and taken prisoner. This would not tell the true story. We can kill
the enemy, but if when we move on to other locations, the enemy just rolls back in, if we
have not affected the local population's receptivity to the enemy then we have failed.

The effort must not be limited to the military. We must focus the use of all instruments
of national power. Barno said we need to look at funding for State, USAID, and other
agencies. "Our overall footprint needs to be bigger," he said.

When asked whether we could get the job done in Afghanistan without much stronger
management of the threat from Pakistan he indicated that indeed that our Pakistan policy
required sharp focus. There are large political problems here, he said-citing how hard
to we want to push Pakistan in light of concerns about the Pakistani-Indian nuclear
confrontation-and we need to address those at the national level. He did agree though
that failure to deny Pakistan as a sanctuary made the job in Afghanistan much more
difficult.

2
 t!bNfT~
MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD

Interviewee: Major General Dave Barno,

Combined Forces Commander
Location: U.S. Embassy, CFC Office, Kabul, Afghanistan
Date: Friday, October 24, 2003
Participants: Philip Zelikow, Kevin Scheid, Mike Hurley;
Lt Col Moring (DoD Representative);
Dylan Kors (White House Representative)
Drafted by: Mike Hurley
Reviewed by: Philip Zelikow
Additional Info: This was our second meeting with General Barno, and was
A wrap-up to our meetings with U.S. military personnel in
The Afghanistan Theater.

Philip Zelikow opened this wrap-up session by thanking General Barno for the quality of
the military support the Commission delegation had received during its five days in
Afghanistan. He pointed out that we had received first-rate briefings in Kandahar and at
Bagram and that the U.S. military had exerted considerable effort to ensure the success of
our visit.

Zelikow then posed several questions to Barno, explaining that the questions framed
issues we had focused on, issues that would present challenges in the coming months to
Coalition forces and to U.S. objectives: Can we manage the security problem in the
southern and eastern Afghanistan without managing what is happening inside Pakistan?
Weighed against the crockery that would have to be broken, does the Pakistani
government have the capacity to solve the problem? If we don't fix the Pakistan
problem, are we going to be able to contain it? He pointed out that we had learned from
some briefings, notably from UN Special Representative of the Secretary General
Brahimi that pre-9f11 there were 30,000 al Qaeda fighters in Pakistan [note: this is a
disputed figure], half of whom were Arabs and half of whom were Pakistanis.

Zelikow asked: Can we base dramatic policy decisions on intelligence? Is the

intelligence we are collecting of sufficient quality. Barno said that we need to invest in
human-based intelligence collection. This is a war against terrorists who are mixed in
the population, he said. Intelligence must be the driver. He noted the problem of
intelligence is extremely difficult. We had learned he said, what a dozen fanatics could
do, the damage they could cause. This will have an enormous effect on global society
and security. Barno also agreed that what constitutes "actionable intelligence" is a highly
subjective standard, in some cases an impossible one to meet.

Could we wake up a year from now, Zelikow asked, and discover that Quetta, Pakistan
was the new Kandahar? In other words, is Quetta the epicenter of terrorists and training
camps? Is the U.S. government sufficiently focused on Pakistan? Again, these
questions was raised as one that U.S. military and political leadership must consider.

Barno and Zelikow agreed that al Qaeda doesn't function well on the run. It is harder for
them to manage large, complex operations when they are being hunted. Are we keeping
them moving in Pakistan? Or are they planting roots and developing the infrastructure
that might allow them to attack the U.S. again? The problem requires constant counter
pressure.

Is there a new strategy of infiltration from the Tribal Area of Pakistan? What limitations
and controls are on the border? "With the resources I now have I might be able to beat
this problem," General Barno said, but there are no guarantees.

General Barno thought that the Provisional Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) that are being
established in Afghanistan will help. They will improve "facts on the ground" and help
build capable local government. The goodwill they generate will also help in what is
increasingly becoming a guerrilla war.

The problem of Pakistan, General Barno concurred, will occupy a considerable amount of
his attention and energy. He also cited the hunt for Usama bin Laden and Zawahiri as
important parts of his mission. He explained that he has new missions as well, prinicipal
among them the problem of deteriorating public order. The roads in Afghanistan are
more dangerous. He also has to contend with the counter-narcotics mission, and the
challenge of warlords. He stressed that he faces an "organizational problem" in
Afghanistan. He is well aware, for example, that the International Security Assistance
Force (ISAF) has no idea how it will be lashed-up a year from now with NATO.

Morale is very high among U.S. troops in Afghanistan, General Barno said. They are
terrific soldiers, and they all know why they are there. He considers the progress made
by Task Force Phoenix (training the Afghan National Army) extraordinary. Police
training will also be critical to success in Afghanistan. General Barno emphasized that
the civilian side of the overall effort has been neglected. He pointed out that the
diplomatic staff of Embassy Kabul was inexcusably understaffed. The problems here are
tough, he said, and all our instruments of national power and influence must be brought
to bear and harnessed to ensure we succeed.