Last June St. Martin’s Press, the book’s publisher, distributed promotional material (pdf) to reviewers, including a list of “Key Background Points and New Revelations in Operation Dark Heart.”
Key Background Points & New Revelations In Operation Dark Heart:
• The Primary target of the 1999-era black operation known as ABLE DANGER was
the penetration of the known al Qaeda computers in Kabul
• By 2000, Shaffer's team has targeted 2 of the 3 cells that were responsible for 9111
• Shaffer turned over the info Abel Danger had gathered but noting ever came of it
• Things start to fall apart for Able Danger when SOCOM (Southern Command)
lawyers rule Able Danger cannot link US Muslims in the country legally to being
spied on vis-a-vis President Reagan's ruling of Executive Order 12333 which
allowed this
• By 2001 Able Danger was nixed and then 9111 took place. Shaffer gives Able
Danger info to Dr. Philip Zelikow with the 9/11 Commission. When the military
becomes aware of this it starts Shaffer down the path to the end of his career
• As the military heads work toward ending Shaffer's career he is told there are
complaints against him for running unsafe convoys and that he falsely claimed $247
for phone calls and a seminar he attended
• What also burned at the heads of the DIA was that Shaffer was also awarded a
Bronze Star
• Shaffer was named Director of Task Force Stratus Ivy (which later morphed into
Able Danger) with US forces going after al Qaeda in Afghanistan as well as
penetrating Iran and North Korea
• A group of intelligence officers identified the Taliban's resurgence's center and then
were prevented from acting to stop the re-birth of the Taliban
• NSA and DIA illtelligence operatives identified the location of Dr. Ayman alZawahiri,
bin Laden's deputy, in late 2003 and were forced to pass the intelligence to
the Pakistani Army who then permitted Zawahiri to escape in early 2004
• Details are revealed regarding a major pre-9/ll intelligence operation that could have
stopped the 9/11 attacks had it been implemented
• ill 2003, things started looking grim in Afghanistan, but it was 2004 that the US
really started to lose there. DoD leadership ignored the first Taliban counteroffensive
in 2003 as well as the intelligence that indicated the Taliban was rebuilding and
planning to return to Afghanistan in 2004
• Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld insisted in 2003 that the "Taliban were
defeated" despite intelligence indicating the contrary, and implanted a policy of
"wishful thinking"
• The Taliban's first attempt to take back ground in Afghanistan started in the fall of
2003 with a full blown force-on-force counteroffensive. The US Army defeated
soundly the first attempt of the Taliban to re-take portions of Afghanistan in
September 2003 in Operation Mountain Viper via terrific intelligence from Ray
Moretti
• illtelligence information indicated in 2003 that a full-blown Taliban insurgency was
being formed and if left unchecked, the Taliban would likely re-take whole regions of
Afghanistan by late 2004
-more-
2-
• The Mghanistan Combined forces Commander, Lt. Gen. Barno, learned of the
Taliban insurgency in October' 2003 and chose to ignore the intelligence information.
When Lt. Gen. Barno was briefed on an operation, focused on Wana, Pakistan, to
prevent the Taliban insurgence, he decided to take no action. Instead, Barno insisted
that the intelligence information be passed to the Pakistani Intelligence Service (lSI)
even after he was told that the lSI was corrupt and would not take any action against
the Taliban or al Qaeda operatives suspected of being in safe havens in Pakistan.
This resulted in the escape of Zawahari from his suspected Wana, Pakistan, hideout
• The DoD was initially conducting cross border operations in 2003, but stopped later
that year. This initially approved operation was designed to destroy the first of three
known Taliban safe havens (the infamous "AI Qaeda Hotel" as it came to be known)
in 2003 and was called Operation Dark Heart
• The only way the cross border operation would have worked would have been in
Gen. Vines and Col. Olivero had agreed to bypass the CIA. Title 10 of the US Code
allows this but gray area in Title 50 would hold up Shaffer's efforts
• A female operative of the Pakistani lSI was captured while she was supporting the
Taliban in September 2003
• US Special Forces captured an Iranian intelligence operative and his brother who was
a US citizen in a raid in Gardeyz, Mghanistan. The operative was attempting to use
$65 thousand dollars furnished by Iranian intelligence to ferment resistance and
attacks against the US forces in Afghanistan
• Task Force 121 entered into the traditional mountain safe havens for the first time
ever in Operation Winter Strike in November 2003
• In March 2003, ajoint Special Operations task force preceded the US invasion forces
into Iraq, going to suspected WMD sites to capture the site and any chemical
weapons. While the operations were successful, no WMD were ever found
• There is a path to victory in Afghanistan - but we are not on it. We must install an
Eisenhower type commander who leads combat forces both in Afghanistan and
Pakistan if we are to win
www.fas.org/sgp/news/2010/09/dark-promo.pdf