Summary

Chapter Four: Afghanistan Becomes an Afterthought begins with Whitlock depicting the scene of President George W. Bush’s victory speech aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, delivered to herald the victory in Operation Iraqi Freedom. The chapter goes on to detail the ways in which the invasion of Iraq by the United States in 2003 assumed primacy in the Pentagon and the Bush administration’s attention at the expense of the US military occupation of Afghanistan. Whitlock describes a meeting between Donald Rumsfeld and Hamid Karzai from this period. Karzai expresses his anxiety that his collaborationist government will be forgotten by the United States as it invests more military attention on Iraq. Rumsfeld forwards for the press the idea that the military situation in Afghanistan has entered a new phase, stressing the move away from kinetic engagement with “’pockets of resistance...