How a Suitcase Full of Dollars Finished Off the Taliban

It was not the terrifying US 'daisy-cutter' bombs that defeated the Taliban. Nor was it the warlords of the Northern Alliance. Instead, it was a man armed only with a suitcase stuffed with dollar bills.

A new book, by veteran US journalist Bob Woodward, has revealed how a CIA operative, codenamed 'Jawbreaker', was dropped into Afghanistan just over two weeks after the 11 September attacks with an attaché case containing $3 million (£2m).

He led the first of around six CIA paramilitary teams who spread out through the country and won the campaign for the US-led coalition. By distributing $70m (£46m) to the traditionally mercenary Afghan warlords during the last three months of 2001, they ensured the swift collapse of the Taliban militia.

President Bush described the cost of the operations as 'a bargain' in a four-hour interview at his ranch in Texas with Woodward, who made his name with his award-winning investigation of the Watergate scandal and is now an editor at the Washington Post.

The Observer reported at the time that CIA teams had been deployed to subvert supporters of the Taliban. But this is the first official confirmation from the White House that their tactics relied as heavily on the power of the dollar as on the efficacy of their military equipment.

The tactics did not always work. In October 2001, Abdul Haq, a Pashtun opposition commander, was killed after tribesmen failed to respond to his calls for a revolt against the Taliban. Local tribal chiefs had been given $10,000 and a satellite phone by the Americans. They had kept the money and handed the phone to the hardline Islamic militia.

Millions of dollars were also disbursed to warlords within the fragmented Northern Alliance to convince them to work together. The fall of the key northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, which prompted the rapid crumbling of the Taliban, was only possible after the CIA bribed two key opposition commanders into co-operating.

For centuries Afghan leaders and warlords have looked to overseas powers to provide the funds to sustain their operations. Afghanistan is too undeveloped to generate the surplus wealth for weapons and troops. The result has been Afghan factions volunteering to be used as proxies.

The long-term success of the strategy has been queried by some experts, who claim that the payments, which are continuing, are maintaining the position of powerful warlords and inhibiting the growth of any genuine democratic, inclusive or pluralist culture in Afghanistan. They cite the Afghan proverb: You cannot buy an Afghan; you can only rent him for a while.