Not a Good Day to Die: The Untold Story of Operation Anaconda (review)

Sean Naylor, a reporter for the Army Times, has written a gripping and thought-provoking tale of how the deployment of military force can go terribly wrong despite application of the much-heralded American strengths of information dominance, precision application of force enhanced by information dominance, and special operations forces that can direct and apply precise force. Naylor's setting is Operation Anaconda, the coalition and Northern Alliance assault into the Shahikot Valley located in Eastern Afghanistan in March 2002. The explicit objective of the assault was a small concentration of Taliban and al Queda fighters in the valley.

The implicit objective, as Naylor notes, was to compensate for the previous failure of coalition and Northern Alliance forces to trap senior Taliban and al Queda leaders at Tora Bora, a battlefield in northeast Pakistan. Anaconda was to serve as a demonstration of lessons learned from the earlier battle.

Coalition leaders assembled an American force of the first rank. Tenth Mountain Division units provided the main support ground force. An impressive array of special operations forces provided human intelligence, targeting, advice and leadership for Northern Alliance forces. Additionally, military planners focused an extraordinary amount of electromagnetic intelligence means on the valley; nothing was to go unnoticed. Anaconda was to use the best of the best to achieve both of its objectives. What happened actually reflects the intransigence of friction in war.

Special operations forces observers discovered over four times more enemy personnel in the valley than previous intelligence sources had identified. Equally important, the observers found that the enemy was emplaced in the high ground surrounding the valley, not in the bottomlands as previously assumed. Air assaults planned to land on valley ridges would be risky at best. The observers reported this information to Anaconda's top leadership, including CENTCOM headquarters, thirty-six hours prior to execution of the plan. Incredibly, that timeframe was too short to change the plan. High level commanders and their staffs insisted on managing the operation from headquarters as far away as 10,000 miles, relying on the information dominance afforded them. What resulted was an information "traffic jam" that jeopardized several tactical maneuvers and failed to provide tactical leaders with timely, accurate understanding of the developing battle.

The epitome of these failures was the fight for Takur Ghar, the highest ground in the area and where most American casualties in Anaconda occurred. Failure to exchange information within special operations forces headquarters resulted in an attempt at helicopter insertion of a military observation team directly on the mountain top, which was occupied by significant enemy forces. The Americans withdrew under fire and lost one man. Because of headquarters delays, a rescue helicopter assault landed on the top of the mountain several hours later, virtually in the same place as the first attempt. This assault also failed, leaving several Americans in a desperate fight for survival on the mountain against a large enemy force.

The Americans' plight required yet another helicopter assault, this time by an Army Ranger Quick Reaction Force (QRF). Again due to headquarters confusion, the QRF had little current awareness of the evolving tactical situation. The Rangers landed in the same place as the previous two attempts, sustaining heavy casualties and losing their helicopter. However, the depleted Ranger force was able to secure the mountain top and save the survivors.

In the end, Anaconda did not accomplish either of its objectives. Friendly forces left the valley after the battle, and the claim of victory uttered by Coalition and Northern Alliance headquarters rang hollow. Sean Naylor, who accompanied the Americans into the valley, allows the reader to reach his/her own conclusions from this botched and deadly series of assaults. He chooses simply to...