My Share of the Task(260)

                flown to Germany: Dates and information on soldiers Jerak, Diesing, Shea, and Kolath can be found on the U.S. Army Special Operations Command “Memorial Wall” website.

                “A lot of emotion attached”: E-mail to Annie, August 28, 2005, 9:22 A.M.

                “Governments saw men”: T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, 199.

                proportion of the car bombings: Craig S. Smith, “U.S. Contends Campaign Has Cut Suicide Attacks,” New York Times, August 5, 2005.

                10 incidents killed 97 people: These figures were calculated using data from the NCTC’s Worldwide Incidents Tracking System database.

                had fought with the insurgency: Kirk Semple, “U.S. Forces Rely on Local Informants in Ferreting Rebels in West Iraq,” New York Times, December 10, 2005.

                AQI and another tribe: Ibid.

                female body parts commingling: “Al-Qa’eda in Iraq Alienated by Cucumber Laws and Brutality,” Telegraph, August 11, 2008.

                executed nine members: Ellen Knickmeyer and Jonathan Finer, “Insurgents Assert Control over Town Near Syrian Border,” Washington Post, September 6, 2006.

                “Islamic Republic of Al Qaim”: Ibid.

                “I’ve been able to do”: E-mail to Annie August 28, 2005, 6:54 P.M. (edited for punctuation).


CHAPTER 12: THE HUNT

                head of the conference table: Details of this meeting and the dialogue are based upon my recollection but aided and confirmed by interviews with two individuals present at the meeting.

                excluded these Iraq officials: Interviews with two senior members of National Security Council staff.

                “being done to get him”: A memorandum with the subject “Meeting with POTUS” was sent from Donald Rumsfeld to General Dick Myers and Steve Cambone on May 19, 2005. It is available from the Rumsfeld Papers website.

                self-stated main effort: In audio tapes, bin Laden “characterized the insurgency in Iraq as the central battle in a ‘Third World War, which the Crusader-Zionist coalition began against the Islamic nation.’” Christopher M. Blanchard, “Al Qaeda: Statements and Evolving Ideology,” Congressional Research Service, February 4, 2005, 5.

                brothers and seven sisters: The most definitive list of Zarqawi’s nine siblings and their ages can be found in Brisard, Zarqawi, 10, note 13. However, it is worth noting that, like many aspects of Zarqawi’s early biography, contradictory information exists. For example, one otherwise very accurate Los Angeles Times article claims Zarqawi was the “second of five children.” Megan K. Stack, “Zarqawi Took Familiar Route into Terrorism,” Los Angeles Times, July 2, 2004.

                cemetery near his apartment: Fouad Hussein, “Al Zarqawi . . . The Second Generation of Al-Qai’da, Part 1,” Al-Quds-al’ Arabi, trans. by the Federal Broadcast Information Service.

                dropped out at age seventeen: Stack, “Zarqawi Took Familiar Route.”

                sweeping Zarqa’s brown streets: Eli Lake, “Base Jump,” New Republic, November 28 and December 5, 2005, 19.

                reputation for his temper: Jeffrey Gettleman, “Zarqawi’s Journey: From Dropout to Prisoner to an Insurgent Leader in Iraq,” New York Times, July 13, 2004.

                tattoos gave his skin: Stack, “Zarqawi Took Familiar Route.”