The young government made progress. In September 2003, President Karzai told me that pay for the average Afghan had increased from one dollar to three dollars a day—a major improvement, but also a reminder of how primitive the country remained. The government’s biggest accomplishment was drafting a new constitution, which was ratified by a third loya jirga in January 2004. A country that three years earlier had forced women to paint the windows of their homes black now protected basic rights such as freedom of speech and assembly. The constitution established an independent judiciary and bicameral legislature, and it mandated that women account for 25 percent of the House of the People.
The next step was to hold the first free presidential election in Afghanistan’s history, which was scheduled for October 9, 2004. The Taliban and al Qaeda pledged to kill voters, candidates, and election officials. U.S., NATO, and UN officials helped train election workers and secure voting stations. I hoped the Afghan people would express their desire for liberty at the polls. In truth, nobody knew what to expect.
When dawn broke, the world witnessed an amazing sight. Across the country, Afghans had lined up overnight, eager to vote. At the front of the line outside the first polling station to open was a nineteen-year-old girl. “I cannot explain my feelings, just how happy I am,” she said. “I would never have thought I would be able to vote in this election.”
Across the country, turnout exceeded eight million, nearly 80 percent of the voting-age population. Every major ethnic and religious group participated, as did millions of women. The polls stayed open two extra hours to accommodate the huge crowds.
Condi gave me the news early in the morning in Missouri, where I’d debated John Kerry the night before. I was pleased with the results, but not surprised. I believe the human desire for freedom is universal. History shows that, when given the chance, people of every race and religion take extraordinary risks for liberty. In one village, a toothless man in a black turban said, “It is like independence day, or freedom day. We are bringing security and peace to this country.”
When the ballots were tallied, Hamid Karzai became the freely elected president. History has a way of dulling memories. But I will always remember the joy and pride I felt that first election day, when the people of Afghanistan—the land where 9/11 was conceived—cast their ballots for a future of freedom.
In September 2005, the Afghan people went to the polls again, this time to choose a national legislature. More than 2,700 candidates put their names forward for 249 seats. Nearly 7 million voters turned out, despite Taliban threats and calls for a boycott. The new National Assembly included 68 women and representatives of almost every ethnic group.
Dick Cheney represented the United States at the assembly’s inaugural session in December 2005. The ceremony opened with an emotional speech from the nation’s former king, ninety-one-year-old Zahir Shah. “I thank God that today I am participating in a ceremony that is a step towards rebuilding Afghanistan after decades of fighting,” he said. “The people of Afghanistan will succeed!”
I shared his optimism. Four years after the fall of the Taliban, the country had elected a president and a parliament. But I recognized the elections were only a first step. Democracy is a journey that requires a nation to build governing institutions such as courts of law, security forces, an education system, a free press, and a vibrant civil society. Afghanistan had made some hopeful progress. Some 5 million children, including 1.5 million girls, were back in school. The economy was growing at an average rate of more than 15 percent per year. A much-anticipated new highway from Kabul to Kandahar had been completed. Four million of 7 million refugees had returned home.
On the surface, it seemed we were making progress. But trouble lurked underneath. In June 2005, a four-man Navy SEAL team operating high in the mountains was ambushed by the Taliban. The team leader, Lieutenant Michael Murphy, moved into an exposed position to call in help for his three fellow wounded SEALs. He stayed on the line long enough to relay his teammates’ location before suffering fatal wounds. When a Special Forces chopper arrived to extract the SEALs, Taliban fighters shot it down. Nineteen Americans were killed, making it the deadliest day of the war in Afghanistan and the worst for the SEALs since World War II. One SEAL, Petty Officer First Class Marcus Luttrell, lived to tell the story in his riveting book, Lone Survivor.
Two years later, I presented the Medal of Honor to Lieutenant Michael Murphy’s parents in the East Room of the White House. We talked about their son, a talented athlete and honors graduate of Penn State whose one brush with trouble came when he intervened in a schoolyard fight to protect a disabled child. In our meeting before the ceremony, they gave me a gold dog tag with Mike’s name, photo, and rank engraved on it. I put it on under my shirt and wore it during the ceremony.
Presenting Dan and Maureen Murphy with the Medal of Honor earned by their son, Navy Lieutenant Michael Murphy. White House/Joyce Boghosian
As the military aide read the Medal of Honor citation, I looked into the audience. I saw a group of Navy SEALs in their dress blues. These battle-hardened men had tears streaming down their cheeks. As I later told Daniel and Maureen Murphy, I gained strength from having a reminder of Mike next to my heart.
The devastating attack on the SEALs was a harbinger of trouble to come. In 2005 and 2006, Taliban militants killed road-building crews, burned down schools, and murdered teachers in provinces near the Pakistan border. In September 2006, a Taliban suicide bomber assassinated the governor of Paktia Province near his office in Gardez. The next day, another suicide bomber struck the governor’s funeral, killing six mourners.
My CIA and military briefings included increasingly dire reports about Taliban influence. The problem was crystallized by a series of color-coded maps I saw in November 2006. The darker the shading, the more attacks had occurred in that part of Afghanistan. The 2004 map was lightly shaded. The 2005 map had darker areas in the southern and eastern parts of the country. By 2006, the entire southeastern quadrant was black. In just one year, the number of remotely detonated bombs had doubled. The number of armed attacks had tripled. The number of suicide bombings had more than quadrupled.
It was clear we needed to adjust our strategy. The multilateral approach to rebuilding, hailed by so many in the international community, was failing. There was little coordination between countries, and no one devoted enough resources to the effort. The German initiative to build the national police force had fallen short. The Italian mission to reform the justice system had failed. The British-led counternarcotics campaign showed results in some areas, but drug production had boomed in fertile southern provinces like Helmand. The Afghan National Army that America trained had improved, but in an attempt to keep the Afghan government from taking on an unsustainable expense, we had kept the army too small.
The multilateral military mission proved a disappointment as well. Every member of NATO had sent troops to Afghanistan. So had more than a dozen other countries. But many parliaments imposed heavy restrictions—known as national caveats—on what their troops were permitted to do. Some were not allowed to patrol at night. Others could not engage in combat. The result was a disorganized and ineffective force, with troops fighting by different rules and many not fighting at all.
Failures in the Afghan government contributed to the problem. While I liked and respected President Karzai, there was too much corruption. Warlords pocketed large amounts of customs revenue that should have gone to Kabul. Others took a cut of the profits from the drug trade. The result was that Afghans lost faith in their government. With nowhere else to turn, many Afghans relied on the Taliban and ruthless extremist commanders like Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Jalaluddin Haqqani. A CIA report quoted one Afghan as saying, “I don’t care who is in power, as long as they bring security. Security is all that matters.”