The “first” Afghan War, a CIA war in response to 9/11, was directed by the CIA Station Chief in Islamabad. It put Hamid Karzai in power in 88 days. “If you want an insider’s account of the first American-Afghan War, you can’t do better than this…Important reading to understand where we are today” (Library Journal).From his preparation of the original, post-9/11 war plan, approved by President Bush, through to “final” fleeting victory, Robert Grenier relate...

The "first" Afghan War, the CIA's war in response to 9/11, was approved by President Bush and directed by the author, Robert Grenier, the CIA station chief in Islamabad. Forging separate alliances with warlords, Taliban dissidents, and Pakistani intelligence, Grenier defeated the Taliban and put Hamid Karzai in power in eighty-eight days. Later, as head of CIA counterterrorism, he watches as bureaucratic dysfunction in the CIA, Pentagon, and the White House lead to failure in Iraq and Afgh...

In 1975, fresh out of law school and working a numbing job at the Treasury Department, John Rizzo took "a total shot in the dark" and sent his résumé to the Central Intelligence Agency. He had no notion that more than thirty years later, after serving under eleven CIA directors and seven presidents, he would become a notorious public figure—a symbol and a victim of the toxic winds swirling in post-9/11 Washington. From serving as the point person answering for the Iran-Contra scandal to ap...

The New York Times Bestseller and Winner of the 2015 Army Historical Foundation Distinguished Writing Award for Unit History.Since the attacks of September 11, one organization has been at the forefront of America's military response. Its efforts turned the tide against al-Qaida in Iraq, killed Bin Laden and Zarqawi, rescued Captain Phillips and captured Saddam Hussein. Its commander can direct cruise missile strikes from nuclear submarines and conduct spe...

In this unforgettable memoir, the Navy SEALs’ most trusted translator—a man who is credited with saving countless American lives and became a legend in the special-ops community—tells his inspiring story for the first time.As the insurgency in Iraq intensified following the American invasion, U.S. Navy SEALs were called upon to root terrorists from their lairs. Unsure of the local neighborhoods and unable to speak the local languages, they came to rely on one man to guide them and ...

An unprecedented high-level master narrative of America's intelligence wars, demonstrating in a time of new threats that espionage and the search for facts are essential to our democracyFor General Michael Hayden, playing to the edge means playing so close to the line that you get chalk dust on your cleats. Otherwise, by playing back, you may protect yourself, but you will be less successful in protecting America. "Play to the edge" was Hayden's guiding principle w...

From the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning history The Dead Hand comes the riveting story of a spy who cracked open the Soviet military research establishment and a penetrating portrait of the CIA’s Moscow station, an outpost of daring espionage in the last years of the Cold WarWhile driving out of the American embassy in Moscow on the evening of February 16, 1978, the chief of the CIA’s Moscow station heard a knock on his car window. A man on the curb ...

A legendary CIA spy and counterterrorism expert tells the spellbinding story of his high-risk, action-packed career while illustrating the growing importance of America's intelligence officers and their secret missionsFor a crucial period, Henry Crumpton led the CIA's global covert operations against America's terrorist enemies, including al Qaeda. In the days after 9/11, the CIA tasked Crumpton to organize and lead the Afghanistan campaign. With Crumpton's strategic initi...

In June 2010, Michael Hastings published an article in Rolling Stone that made headlines around the world: In "The Runaway General," he reported on a week he spent in Europe with General Stanley McChrystal, the revered soldier in charge of the war in Afghanistan.McChrystal and his staff's unguarded remarks about the White House, our allies and the conduct of the war led President Obama to order McChrystal to the Oval Office, where he was fired unceremoniously. While Hastin...

Until the war in Iraq, the Special Forces were the military's counterinsurgency experts. Their specialty was going behind enemy lines and training insurgent forces. In Afghanistan, they toppled the Taliban by transforming Northern Alliance fighters into cohesive units. But in the almost nine years since, Special Forces units have forgone their previous mission, instead focusing on offensive raids. With time running short, the Green Berets are going back to their roots and have started to f...

In this groundbreaking book of new reportage, sure to stir a global debate, journalist Jeremy Scahill—author of the acclaimed international bestseller Blackwater—takes us into the heart of the War on Terror's most dangerous battlefields as he chases down the most important foreign policy story of our time.From Afghanistan and Pakistan to Yemen, Somalia, and beyond, Scahill speaks to the CIA agents, mercenaries, and elite Special Operations Forces operators who populate the...

Amid ferocious fighting that many times nearly took his life, Sergeant Dillard "C. J." Johnson and his crew are recognized by Pentagon reports to have accounted for astonishing enemy KIA totals while battling inside and out of the "Carnivore," the Bradley Fighting Vehicle Johnson commanded during Operation Iraqi Freedom. After miraculously beating stage-three cancer (caused by radiation exposure from firing armor-piercing depleted-uranium rounds during combat), he returned to his platoon i...