Authors: John Weisman
Joint Special Operations Command, Fort Bragg, North Carolina
February 21, 2011, 1035 Hours Local Time
As the crow flies, it is roughly 225 miles from Dam Neck, Virginia, to Fayetteville, North Carolina. The MH-60G Pave Hawk helicopter made the trip in just over an hour. From the Joint Special Operations Command apron, it took Captain Tom Maurer a little more than four minutes to reach Wes Bolin’s office. He was dressed, as were many SEALs operating in Iraq and Afghanistan, in desert camouflage utilities and tan boots. The only insignia that separated him from any other SEAL were the eagles on his collar tabs.
Maurer was a bear of a man—ruddy complexioned, dark brown hair cropped close, six foot four, 220 pounds, and at forty-six, young to have been a captain for two and a half years. The Colorado native was the son of a Naval Academy graduate who’d been killed in Vietnam. Tom attended the U.S. Air Force Academy. But he wanted to be up close, not above it all. It was not an easy transition, but the young second lieutenant kept at it until he made it happen. Within six months of his graduation, he’d lateraled to the Navy, exchanging his second lieutenant’s gold bar for an ensign’s and volunteering for Naval Special Warfare. He graduated from BUD/S in December 1987. From there it had been a tour at SEAL Team Five, followed by a deployment with a special boat unit working clandestinely against Iranian Revolutionary Guard naval forces who were trying to mine the Persian Gulf. And then back to ST5, where he deployed to Kuwait and then Iraq for the first Gulf War as the unit’s operations officer. After Desert Storm and Desert Shield, he’d been assigned to the Joint Staff at the Pentagon for three long years, followed by a year at the Naval War College, after which he was promoted to full commander and assumed command of SEAL Team Five.
Maurer made captain in 2007. His initial assignment as an 0-6 was working at the NATO Special Operations Coordination Centre in Belgium. He took command of DEVGRU in 2009. It was his first experience working eye-to-eye with the Joint Special Operations Command, and its commander.
JSOC had been created in December 1980, in the wake of the operational disaster at Desert One. It had been designed to C2—militaryspeak for command and control—the nation’s special operations forces: Delta, SEALs, Rangers, and Tier One units in the execution of counterterrorism missions. By the late 1980s, JSOC’s mission statement had been expanded to mounting counter-WMD (weapons of mass destruction) operations, counternarcotics operations in Central and South America, and ops that dealt with helping to secure the nuclear facilities of America’s former adversaries, as well as designing operations to deal with the nuclear capabilities of America’s potential enemies.
Between its creation and 2003, JSOC had the reputation of being a snake-eater’s command: a home for renegades and mavericks, filled with cowboys who lacked discipline. That may not have been the truth, but despite the talent of JSOC’s Tier One units, which included Delta, SEALs, and the Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, known as the Night Stalkers, that was how the command was seen by the defense—and the political—establishment.
Then, in 2003, things changed. JSOC’s new commander, Major General Stanley McChrystal, transformed the command. McChrystal, an ascetic, lead-from-the-front Airborne Ranger, had spent the majority of his career at the 75th Ranger Regiment. He brought with him the Ranger ethos and discipline voiced in the Ranger Creed:
I will always endeavor to uphold the prestige, honor, and high “Esprit de Corps” of my Ranger Battalion. . . .
I accept the fact that as a Ranger my country expects me to move further, faster, and fight harder than any other soldier. . . .
Never shall I fail my comrades. I will always keep myself mentally alert, physically strong, and morally straight and I will shoulder more than my share of the task whatever it may be.
One hundred percent and then some.
Energetically will I meet the enemies of my country. I shall defeat them on the field of battle for I am better trained and will fight with all my might. Surrender is not a Ranger word nor will I leave a fallen comrade to fall into the hands of the enemy and under no circumstances will I ever embarrass my country.
Readily will I display the intestinal fortitude required to fight on
to the Ranger objective and complete the mission,
though I be the lone survivor.
R
ANGERS
L
EAD
THE
W
AY
!
McChrystal’s Ranger vision brought JSOC into the mainstream. He integrated its disparate component units into multiple task forces that worked to solve problems, from identifying and capturing/killing IED makers in Iraq, to targeting and eliminating Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his al-Qaeda in Iraq network. He sought out both strategic and tactical relationships with the intelligence community so that it could become an integral part of JSOC operations and JSOC part of theirs. He made sure that JSOC was a nimble, proactive command that used intelligence-based ops to keep the enemy off-guard and on defense. By 2006 JSOC had become a three-star command, with newly minted Lieutenant General Stan McChrystal as its head. There was no region in the world in which JSOC did not operate.
Vice Admiral Wes Bolin succeeded McChrystal in 2008. Bolin insinuated JSOC even further into the system, allowing it to seamlessly function within combatant commands such as CENTCOM, at the Pentagon, at CIA, with the State Department, and even at the National Security Council, where early in 2010 a SEAL rear admiral (lower half) named Scott Moore, detailed by Bolin, added depth and special operations insight to White House counterterrorism, counterinsurgency, and counterproliferation policy making.
Moore’s flag rank, Bolin recognized, also gave JSOC a prime seat at a very special table. As well as a pair of trusted eyes to gather intelligence that would help him further his—and JSOC’s—mission.
Bolin also ratcheted up JSOC’s OPTEMPO, running more than a thousand capture/kill raids against Afghan targets in 2010 alone. He initiated Project Ursus, run by JSOC’s Task Force Odin, which used UAV drones equipped with chemical detection sensors to identify large stocks of ammonium nitrate, a key bomb-making component for what the Odin task force commander called “low metallic/nonmetallic bombs” in the Afghan theater. He expanded raids by Task Force 131, the hunter-killer unit that worked Afghanistan’s border region and even occasionally crossed into Pakistan to snatch or kill a high-value target. He dispatched TF 131 elements to Yemen to provide human reinforcement to the drone strikes that were taking a toll on AQAP, the al-Qaeda network franchise in the Arabian Peninsula.
Like his predecessor, Bolin was a lead-from-the-front commander who spent large segments of his time on the ground with his troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. He would often show up unannounced to accompany them on night raids. Indeed Bolin and McChrystal were the highest ranking American officers in decades to fire shots in anger—and sustain enemy fire at close quarters. The fact that they were not only willing but enthusiastic about sharing every facet of their troops’ actions engendered a level of loyalty and a winning attitude virtually unknown outside special operations or the Marine Corps.
“C’mon in.” Bolin shook Tom Maurer’s hand. “Good to see you again.” The admiral, who was dressed no differently than Maurer, pointed at the sofa. “I think we’ll be more comfortable there.” He looked at the hovering petty officer who had ushered Maurer into the office. “Coffee?” He shot Maurer a glance. “Black, right?”
“Yes, thank you, admiral.” Maurer dropped himself at the end of the sofa, legs scrunched up. Bolin waited until two mugs had been placed on the coffee table and the petty officer had left them alone. Then he pulled the armchair over and sat adjacent to the younger man.
“How’re things going?”
“The only easy day was yesterday, Admiral.”
“Ain’t it the truth.” Bolin sipped his coffee, watching as Maurer took his lead and sipped, too.
“Your people are doing fine work in Afghanistan,” he said.
“Thank you, sir.”
“I know—I was out with one of Blue Squadron’s troops last month—Bravo Troop’s Three-Team. A zero-dark-hundred hop and pop near Khost.”
Maurer nodded. “I heard.” He had indeed. Slam Bolin showed up unannounced and alone. His gear bore no rank. He’d ridden in Chalk Two, sitting squeezed between an AWG contractor and a SEAL petty officer first class, and was eighth in the stick going out. He’d even helped flexicuff the prisoners. Afterward he shared the beer he had brought with him with the assault element, gave them a “Well done,” shook hands all around, and departed as low-key as he’d arrived.
“They did good. In and out in seventeen minutes, no collaterals, three prisoners, and two fewer knuckleheads wasting our air.”
“That’s the way it should be done, sir.”
“
Hoo-yah!
Textbook stuff. And effective. We’ve degraded a whole level, level and a half of Taliban leadership in the past eight or nine months.”
Maurer nodded. “Heavy OPTEMPO, though.”
“Seventeen hundred HVT hits last year alone. It’s a tough pace, but we have to keep it up.”
“I understand.” Maurer sipped his coffee, wondering where the conversation was leading. He had no idea why he’d been summoned. Certainly not to make small talk about OPTEMPO.
He didn’t have long to find out. The admiral put his mug back on the table. “We’re not in a SCIF, so I can’t talk specifically.”
“Sir?”
“I’m going to assign DEVGRU a mission.” The admiral paused. “HVT. Nothing your people don’t do every day.”
Maurer’s nose wrinkled. If it was everyday stuff, why did it warrant this special summons? He chose a neutral response: “Can do, sir.”
Bolin’s big, strong hands went palms down on the coffee table and he leaned toward the younger man. “This particular operation may go, or may not go, depending on what develops”—Bolin’s chin nudged toward the ceiling—“in the stratosphere. But I need your people to be ready, drop of a hat.”
Wesley Bolin had given the matter a lot of thought, and he’d come to the decision that SEALs—DEVGRU—would do Abbottabad. For legal reasons they’d have to be under the nominal control of CIA, but it would be a DEVGRU mission all the way.
Yes, Delta would be pissed. Yes, the Army would be pissed. But it made sense. DEVGRU had been working Afghanistan for the past ten years, while since 2003 Delta had concentrated mainly on Iraq. It was SEALs who had executed so many of those seventeen hundred HVT capture/kill missions in the past year. It was DEVGRU’s Black Squadron, not Delta’s D-Boys, who made regular cross-border hits with CIA’s paramilitary people to take out HVTs in North Waziristan. AFPAK was SEAL turf. They’d earned this mission with their time, their sweat, and their blood.
There was another factor as well. Bolin had commanded SEALs in battle. He knew that SEALs wouldn’t hesitate. They’d pull the trigger. There would be no second-guessing, no thumb-sucking. If SEALs got into the Abbottabad compound and Bin Laden threw up his hands and said, “I surrender,” he was still a dead man. Full stop, end of story. Bolin wouldn’t have to tell DEVGRU anything except to do what they always do. And they’d get the job done exactly the way he wanted it done.
He understood all too well that the politics of his decision could result in political blowback. SEALs ran both SOCOM—the U.S. Special Operations Command—and JSOC. There was even RUMINT, which was intel community slang for what Bolin called PUG, or Pentagon urinal gossip, that another SEAL admiral was in line to take command of CENTCOM later in the year.
Bolin knew from firsthand experience that the Army’s chief of staff and especially his deputy were Machiavellian backstabbers. They’d never been supporters of special operations. In fact, they were currently trying as hard as they could to disassemble several of the Army’s most valuable spec-ops components, including the Asymmetric Warfare Group. But he had no doubt they’d go crying “conspiracy” to their friends in Congress once they knew Delta was being shut out of Abbottabad.
And if politics was one reason Wes Bolin had decided he’d keep his decision to himself, op-sec was the other. He would continue to deploy chaff, sending out taskers just as he’d been doing to all the Tier One units. But DEVGRU would work the real scenario: utilizing all the overhead, all the thermal, and all the eyes-on intelligence Vince Mercaldi’s people were collecting in Abbottabad. That intel would allow the SEALs to work the kinks out.
He would also insist they red-team the mission—table-top it against another group of SEALs who would play the bad guys, so that every vulnerability could be tested, every flaw probed, every contingency considered, all before the fact.
Oh yes, starting early was good tactics. The more preparation time a unit had, the more likely it would be to develop a successful op-plan. Starting now would give DEVGRU the time to do just that. Yes, the assault was the easiest part of the mission. But it had to be flawless because, especially in Abbottabad, there had to be an extended time for sensitive site exploitation. Most HVT missions ran on a thirty-minute template. This one would take one-third longer.