you re going to be just fine. there had been complete tension. we had the expectation we re about to save them. suddenly it looked as though everything was lost, and now suddenly, they were safely in the helicopter. it was complete relief. once he hit pakistan, we were transferred to a c-130 that took us to islamabad. and it was the back of the c-130 opened, standing in the middle of the runway was my father. were you happy when you found out that the hostages had been rescued? absolutely. very, very happy. but he sacrificed so much because of these issues. it s spread out all over the world.
it was an honor and a privilege to serve my country, and it was a collective effort. not just by the cia and afghanistan and pakistan, but of course, with our military brothers in arms. there was a very brief and intense sense of joy. did you meet the hostages? i never did. once they were rescued, i was on to the next thing. freedom is blank? freedom is life. i don t think you can really live without being free.
in august of 2001, we first got word that these eight individuals, including two young americans, had been arrested by taliban security in kabul. the u.s. embassy procured the assistance of pakistani lawyer and he is dealing with the legal authorities inside afghanistan. this was not an intelligence matter for us at that point. so gathering information concerning these arrestees was not high in our priority list. in fact it was basically off the bottom. the cell was a concrete room with a concrete floor. the room was very dirty. chipped paint. i would write in my journal. i d be sitting in the cold with a blanket. o lord jesus, i struggle so much with fear here. every moment of every day, i
the most literal fundamentalist conception that you can possibly imagine. the taliban regime was ruthless. there wasn t anything that they wouldn t do. there were eight individuals arrested in afghanistan. all eight were in shelter now invitational. under islamic law, the crime for proselytizing was death. after we were arrested, they walked us into this compound, and they opened the door, there standing in front of us were about 35 to 40 afghan women. and that was the first time i broke down and cried. in 2001, i was the cia station chief in islamabad, pakistan. where i had responsibility for all intelligence gathering operations in both pakistan and afghanistan.
and then there was also that purpose, if you can figure out a way to keep these people safe. and then eventually released without any harm. so i called the u.s. embassy and offered to help. we did get into contact with an individual who had a natural reason to go in and out of the prison. and so we get a satellite phone to him to communicate in realtime with his cia case officer back in pakistan, which we hoped ultimately might help us to support the military raid to free them. did you have a code name the embassy gave you? yes. what was it? it was baaz. there are many motivations that drive a foreign national to cooperate with the cia. there s money. there s ideology. perhaps compromise, ego,