"Jawbreaker" by Gary Berntsen

After having read the above account of one of the most decorated CIA operations officers in this agency's history, all I have to say is, "Wow!"

The premise of the book is that Mr. Berntsen was sent in around the world, whenever something bad happened. In recent times, when American embassies were bombed in 1998, Mr. Berntsen and his team went in to investigate and capture the bad guys. In 1999, they were sent in to go after Osama bin Laden, but were inexplicably pulled out once the had made contact with the Northern Alliance commander who agreed to work with them: Ahmed Shah Massoud.

While operating in Latin America, 9/11 ocurred, and his team (called Jawbreaker) was activated and he was resent to Afghanistan. Rather than attempting to "disrupt" terrorists, Mr. Berntsen was sent in to more or less coordinate the agency's role in the war.

They killed alot of terrorists, but when al-Qaeda leadership was pinned down in Tora Bora, and Berntsen called in for nearly 1000 Army Rangers to block their escape. Washington declined, preferring not to get "bogged down" in a land war in Asia. While this potentially was a mistake of historic proportions, this book left me with good feelings more than regret.

I was proud that we have operators like Mr. Berntsen in our government. In fact, I hope there are alot more like him, since he recently left the agency. If there are, I feel pretty good about our prospects in this "war on terrorism." But, if the agency is instead breeding this new risk aversion (as mentioned above), we are in for some serious trouble.