A Training Day and Mike Spann's death site

Since the team leader was in Kabul, here was no staff meeting Saturday. By Monday he had returned and I instructed an Introduction to Project Management Class that day. The entire CNAT team attended. The morning went very well, and the team members seemed to be enthusiastic, particapative, and receptive. After lunch, it still proceeded fairly well, but there was evidence of sleepiness and somewhat less attention. Aggravating this was the fact that the class really needed another four or five hours. The afternoon, therefore, consisted of more lecture and less participation, in an attempt to introduce all the material. Maybe we can follow up at a later date.  The picture to the right is the CNAT team on our training day.

The weather has been nice. One hot day – up to 105 F, but mostly comfortable and clear. There is never-ending dust in the air. It looks like mild smog, but it is dust. A thin layer on everything.

We still cannot do field trips because of not having a reliable second vehichle. DynCorp loaned us a tire to replace the one that blew out a couple weeks ago, but the F-250 is so junky that the Security chief does not want to take it out of town.

I visited the Quala-i-Jangi fortress where Mike Spann was killed. Mike was a CIA employee who was the first American killed in what became the Afghan war. The Mike Spann Army base is located near the site of his death. The events associated with his death occured in late November of 2001. The Taliban had been pretty well defeated in this area by the Northern Alliance. You will remember that Ahmad Shah Massoud, the legendary leader of the Northern Alliance, had been assassinate by Al Qaeda operatives posing as journalists just two days before the 9/11 attack. His successor, Gen. Dostum, in late November, negotiated a deal with the defeated Taliban. The agreement was that, if the Taliban would surrender their weapons, the Afghan Taliban would be allowed to go to their homes. There were, however, several hundred foreign national Taliban. Apparently Gen. Dostum’s staff and the Afghan Taliban leaders agreed to make it seem that the agreement applied to Taliban generally, though it was never intended that the foreign nationals would be allowed to leave, at least not until after they has been interviewed about Al Qaeda. During the disarmament, some of the foreign nationals, probably smelling a rat, secreted grenades and, possibly, some hand guns in their clothing. This group of several hundred foreign Taliban were transported to the fortress.

The fortress was build back in the late 1800's. It is massive. It probably measures 300 - 400 yards on each side. It consists of a wall around 30 feet high and 30 feet thick and is divided, more or less in half, by a another wall running East and West. The Northern half contains General Dostum’s headquarters and his residence. The Southern half, containing a few buildings which included an armory, became a makeshift prison for the foreign Taliban. The Taliban disarmament occurred on Nov. 24th and some of the Taliban were moved to the fortress that day. The rest followed on the 25th. Some of the prisoners were put in a building near the center of this compound, but most of them were seated in the open field area. Some, but not all had their hands bound. There were only a few guards, and the oversight of the prisoners was not well organized. On the 25th Spann and another CIA agent began interviewing the prisoners, one of which was the infamous “American Taliban,” John Walker Lindh. The interviewing had gone on for a while when one of the prisoners blew himself and a guard up with a grenade. This triggered a general uprising which included Spann being attacked by the prisoners near him. There were some journalists and medical personnel in the compound along with the few guards, Spann, and the other CIA operative. Spann stood his ground and fought with an AK-47, then a pistol, then his fists while the others fought a retreat action through the gate into the North half of the fortress. Most who have studied the action believe that the others would likely not have made it except for Spann’s standing his ground. He was eventually overwhelmed and beaten to death. All the other friendly foreigners made it out.

Once the others were out, the few Taliban who made it through the gate killed or captured, and the gate secured, the Taliban were effectively contained within the walls of the southern half of the fortress. There were somewhere between 300 and 500 of them – probably closer to 300. What followed was an embarrassing series of events which continued for six days. These events began with an attempt to drop a “smart bomb” on the armory so as to deny it’s armaments to the prisoners. With the assistance of about four laser target designators from four different locations around the fortress, the 500 pound smart bomb missed the armory building by at least 100 yards. Apparently there were two or three more smart bombs deployed which missed by equally embarrassing margins. Meanwhile the friendlies are bringing more troops and more equipment to the walls of the fortress. Somewhere along the line they even get a tank up on one of the ramparts and it begins firing into the compound. Having the Taliban in a “fish in a barrel” situation, the good guys offered the bad guys a chance to give up. They refused. Soon the bad guys discover the armory and become well-armed fish in a barrel. For the next few days the strategy alternated between trying to kill them and trying to get them to surrender. Little by little the Taliban are driven from the compound into the largest of the buildings which contains a basement (where some of them had been held prisoner back on day one). Now the tank was blasting at the building, bombs continued to be dropped with little effect, and dozens (maybe hundreds of soldiers were blazing away at the building and the few Taliban that show themselves. Thinking, I guess, that a 2000 pound bomb would be smarter than the 500 pounders, the Air Force drops one of those huge bunker-buster monsters on the building into which most of the Taliban had now retreated. It produce an explosion like noone had ever seen or heard. It proved, however, to be even dumber than the five hundred pound variety. Not only did it miss the targeted building, but it hit the friendly tank – destroying it and killing several soldiers.

By the third day, all the surviving Taliban were in the basement of the building, but they still refused to surrender. We tried shooting into the building, dropping grenades through the basement windows, and bombing it. Most of the bombs missed and the few that did hit the building did not penetrate into the basement. We pored a large quantity of diesel fuel and gasoline though the windows and threw in a match. Apparently too much diesel and not enough gas – it burned but did not explode. No one comes out. On the fourth day, the General had the water from an irrigation canal diverted into the basement. No one came out. After several hours, thinking all are drowned, the solders cautiously started to enter. They were met with a grenade and gunfire. They kept the water flowing and, on the sixth day, the third day of flooding, the Taliban gave up. Eighty seven men finally emerged. One of them was John Walker Lindh who was later sentenced to 20 years in prison.

The Southern compound has not been repaired. All the buildings are a mass of bullet marks and explosive damage. It is a little grown over with brush and weeds. There is, however, a nice memorial to Mike Spann on or very near the place where he died.

Above is my security crew ready to take me to the office.  I live in the CONEX over my left sholder.