Based on about 200 interviews with American, Afghan, Pakistani and Saudi intelligence sources, Ghost Wars narrates the intelligence, foreign policy and counterterrorism wars in the Afghan theater preceding the September 11, 2001 attacks. The book's third part is the first and only detailed account of CIA efforts to arrest, kill or disrupt bin Laden at his Afghan base prior to September 11, describing how this CIA covert action unfolded and why it failed. It describes the officers in the CIA's Counterterrorist Center and Near East Division of the Directorate of Operations who led the effort -- as well as their conflicts, assumptions, plans and frustrations.

The larger questions it illuminates include, How good was the CIA? Why was the agency -- dispatched to Afghanistan by Clinton to stop bin Laden -- unable to prevent 9/11?

Ghost Wars discloses for the first time material in the long sections of the congressional Joint Inquiry Final Report on the September 11 attacks that was redacted by government classifiers.