Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War (45 page)

Before Bush concluded the meeting, he said he didn’t think the current strategy of being able to fight two major regional conflicts at once was useful any longer because we “likely won’t have to do that.” He went on: “If that is the standard for readiness, we will never be ready.” He also said that we needed to focus on “nation-building” where “we have torn the nation apart and have a responsibility, but I’d be damned concerned about it in other places. Resist the next group that wants to do this—that is the State Department’s responsibility, even though you [the military] may do it better.”

No one in the Tank that day knew that the odds of my continuing to lead those same senior officers under a new president were increasing. The Obama camp had reached out to me privately. On July 24, Democratic Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island told me he was leaving shortly for Iraq with Obama, would be spending a lot of time with him,
and wanted to know whether, if Obama was interested in my staying at Defense, I would consider that. I told Jack, one of the handful of members of Congress whom I truly respected, that “if he believes the nation requires me to stay, I would be willing to have that conversation.” A second call came on October 3, when Reed asked if I would be willing to meet with Obama. I told him that I didn’t think it would be appropriate for me to meet before the election but would be willing to meet afterward. In the meantime, I told Reed, I would prepare some questions to focus a potential postelection conversation.

After the call with Reed, I asked Steve Hadley to tell President Bush I had had a feeler from Obama about staying on. Steve called back to say the president was very pleased and hoped that, if I was asked, I would stay because it would greatly benefit the country. I called Reed on October 15 to arrange delivery of my questions, and a few days later, Robert Rangel handed them to him in a sealed envelope.

On October 29, Reed told me the questions had elicited a very positive reaction and even more interest, on the part of Obama, in having a conversation with me. He said that Obama had asked whether I wanted the answers in writing, whether I wanted him to brief Reed, who would then brief me, or whether the questions were to serve as the basis for a conversation. I said the last. Reed responded that Obama “will want to talk right after the election.” The more I thought about these contacts, the more I realized how extraordinary they were, truly unprecedented. Perhaps the most unusual aspect was a prospective appointee sending the prospective president-elect a list of questions to answer. Potential vice-presidential candidates, prospective cabinet members, and other possible appointees were always the ones who had to answer the president-elect’s questions or the questions his minions prepared.

My questions might have seemed somewhat presumptuous, if not impertinent. But Obama and I were both embarking on uncharted waters in the middle of two wars. There was no precedent, since the creation of the Defense Department in 1947, for a sitting secretary to stay on in a newly elected administration, even when the same party held on to the White House. As we contemplated such a historic move, I wrote Obama, “I think it would be more complicated than it might seem. The questions … are intended to help both of us think it through.” If this relationship was to work and benefit the country, we needed to understand each other clearly at the very beginning. I needed to know I could
ask hard questions and get straight answers and that he would welcome straight talk and candor. And frankly, because I did not want to stay in the position, I felt free to press him both on my role and on the tough issues we would face. What did I have to lose?

A few days after the election, I was given the telephone number for Mark Lippert, one of Obama’s closest aides, so we could set up a meeting with the president-elect. I contacted Lippert and asked him to work with Rangel on the arrangements. Like my interview with Bush, this meeting was to be highly clandestine. We agreed to meet at the fire station near the General Aviation terminal at Reagan National Airport on November 10.

That day Obama was headed back to Chicago. His plane was on the tarmac at the airport. My staff was told I was “behind closed doors” in a private meeting while I stepped into the private elevator from my office to the underground parking area, climbed alone into the backseat of an armored Suburban, and headed for the airport. The meeting was set for three-thirty p.m., and I arrived a little early. All the fire trucks had been moved out of the station so both our motorcades could enter. After we did, the doors closed. The empty, spotlessly clean firehouse seemed cavernous. I was escorted to a small conference room that had been meticulously prepared by one of Obama’s aides for the meeting. There was an American flag in one corner. On the table were bottled water, almonds, two bananas, two apples, and a bottle of green dragon tea. I sat at the conference table thinking about my path to this meeting. I had a pretty good idea how it was going to end, partly because I knew that if he asked me to stay, I would agree. I had e-mailed my family the day after the election and foreshadowed what was to come: “Regardless of one’s political leanings, yesterday was a great day for America—at home and around the world. The land where dreams come true. Where an African-American can become president. And where a kid from Kansas, whose grandfather as a child went west in a covered wagon … became the secretary of defense of the most powerful nation in history. Big decision coming at some point in the next few days. Pray it’s the right one. But there is a debt to the Founders that must be paid.”

Obama arrived about twenty-five minutes late. I heard a commotion outside, and then he was in the room. It was our first meeting. We shook hands, he took off his suit jacket, and I took off mine as well. He got straight to business, pulling from his suit pocket his copy of the
questions I had sent. The first question was pretty simple: “Why do you want me to stay?” He said it was, first, because of the excellence of my performance as secretary, and, second, because he needed to focus over the next six months or so on the economy and needed continuity and stability in defense matters. My second question was: “How long do you want me to stay?” I had added parenthetically that I thought about a year would be optimal to get the full Obama team at Defense—and elsewhere in the national security arena—confirmed and fully knowledgeable in their jobs. Saying “about a year” would not make me a lame duck but would not lock in either of us. Obama replied, Let’s leave it completely open publicly, with the private understanding of about a year. My third question: “We do not know each other. Are you prepared to trust me from day one and include me in your innermost councils on national security matters?” He answered, “I wouldn’t ask you to stay if I didn’t trust you. You’ll be in on all the major issues and decisions—and the minor ones, too, if you want.”

My fourth question was who the rest of the national security team would be. (I’d long believed that on the national security front, presidents should look at the key positions as a package—will it be a good team? I’d seen too many administrations where the senior leaders—especially secretaries of state and defense—disliked each other or couldn’t work together.) He was, I thought, very open with me. He said he couldn’t appoint Chuck Hagel (a former Republican senator from Nebraska) to a senior position if I stayed, so he was thinking about Jim Jones (a retired Marine general and former supreme allied commander Europe) for national security adviser or secretary of state. He mentioned Hillary Clinton for State, noting that she respected me but that her husband’s many different commitments were a potential complication. I told him I thought Jones would be better at the NSC as opposed to State because placing a retired general there would convey the image of the militarization of foreign policy. (I was wrong in making that point. Two generals who became secretary of state—George Marshall and Colin Powell, the former a hero of mine, the latter a good friend of many years—had never been seen as “militarizing” foreign policy; quite the contrary.) I said the director of national intelligence should be somebody he trusted implicitly, someone with no policy agenda.

The fifth question was about how to avoid my isolation (as a holdover) in the administration and in the Department of Defense. Above
all, what would be my role in the selection of appointees in Defense? In the questions I sent to Obama, I had written that I didn’t see how I could enforce accountability unless appointees knew I had a role in their selection and that I could fire them. I added that I knew the civilian leadership needed to be an Obama team and that I would be open to his and his advisers’ recommendations, but that I would need the freedom to reject a candidate. Also, because we were at war and needed to keep the department running smoothly, I asked if I would be able to keep a number of incumbents in place until the Obama nominees were confirmed. He said that might be possible.

The sixth question concerned the deputy secretary of defense and his role. I recommended John Hamre, chairman of the Defense Policy Board, who had served as deputy secretary in the Clinton administration. I told the president-elect I didn’t think Hamre would take the deputy’s job again without a good chance to succeed me as secretary. “My highest priority for any alternative candidate would be management experience, preferably in a large enterprise,” I said. Obama said he would take a run at Hamre about being deputy secretary and mentioned Richard Danzig (secretary of the Navy under Clinton) but said, whatever the case, he would consult closely with me. He said he’d like to get Jack Reed, but Rhode Island had a Republican governor who would appoint his replacement in the Senate. He went on, “How did Rhode Island end up with a Republican governor? I took that state with sixty-five percent of the vote.”

My seventh question was whether I could keep two or three current appointees, at least for the duration of my tenure. I mentioned Pete Geren, secretary of the Army; Jim Clapper, undersecretary for intelligence; and John Young, undersecretary for acquisition, technology, and logistics. Obama said that at first glance all seemed strong, and he would consider it. I also said I would want to keep my current immediate office staff and press spokesman.

The eighth question was: “Do you foresee any major change in the level of the defense budget for the first year of your administration?” He replied that he had campaigned on a strong budget for defense, but that was before the economic crisis: “I can’t make tough decisions on domestic agencies—antagonizing my supporters—and leave Defense untouched.” I reminded him of the deep cuts in Defense after each conflict going back a century and that recovery from those cuts was only at
great cost in both blood and treasure. I also mentioned what I had told Bush 43, that there would be moves in Congress to cut troop levels in order to protect jobs at home associated with the procurement of equipment and weapons—a huge mistake, in my opinion. Obama assured me there would be no deep cuts, but Defense had to demonstrate discipline and make tough decisions.

The last substantive question I had asked posited that the two of us were probably “in the same place” on Afghanistan, but I needed to know “if there is some flexibility in how we achieve your goals in Iraq in order to best preserve the gains of the past eighteen months and so Iraq does not go south in 2009–10.” Obama said he was prepared to be flexible. I asked him if he agreed it was important to go after violent extremists “on their ten yard line and not ours.” Obama answered, “Yes. I’m no peacenik.”

We had been talking for fifty minutes. Finally, I said to him, “If you want me to stay for about a year, I will do so.” He smiled, stuck out his hand, and replied, “I do.”

At the end of the written questions, I had offered him some reassurance: “I have asked you some far-reaching questions. In turn, I want you to know that should I stay, you would never need worry about my working a separate or different agenda. As I have with other presidents, I would give you my best and most candid advice. Should you decide on a different path, I would either support you or leave. I would not be disloyal.” I repeated that promise at the end of the meeting, and I kept it for the next two and a half years.

The following three weeks were awkward, to say the least. I told President Bush almost immediately that I had been asked to stay. I was worried he might think ill of me for being willing to work for someone whose entire campaign had focused on attacking him and everything he had done in both domestic and foreign affairs. To the contrary, Bush was very pleased. I suspect he figured that the chances of preserving what had been gained at such high cost in Iraq were improved if I remained secretary of defense. I had told only three people about the meeting (other than Becky)—Rangel, Lieutenant General David “Rod” Rodriguez (who had succeeded Chiarelli as my senior military assistant in July), and my confidential assistant, Delonnie Henry. I was convinced that no one else knew but didn’t take into account the analytical skills of my other two military assistants who, watching the president-elect’s motorcade on
television arrive at the airport and then veer away from his plane to a building, checked the peephole in my office door, saw that the office was empty after a so-called private meeting had run far beyond the allotted time, and concluded I had sneaked out to meet with Obama. Happily, they kept it to themselves. After the meeting with Obama, I told Rangel, press spokesman Geoff Morrell, and Henry that I wanted them to stay on with me, if they were willing. Rangel is a rock-ribbed Republican who had been staff director of the House Armed Services Committee when the Republicans were in the majority, but he and other key members of the core front-office staff, including Ryan McCarthy and Christian Marrone, all agreed to stay with me. They would be loyal to the new president and good team players within the administration, but that’s not to say there wasn’t periodic private muttering “inside the family” about some of the new White House staff, politics, domestic policies, and the incessant attacks on Bush—whom they had all loyally supported and served well. When I told Mike Mullen I would be staying, he seemed both pleased and relieved.