Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War (61 page)

Along with the assessment, I gave the president the written endorsements and comments from Petraeus, the Joint Chiefs, and Mike Mullen. I said that “they all are essentially of one mind: that McChrystal is the right man, has the right military approach to accomplish the goals set forth in your March 27 decisions, and that he should receive proper resourcing to carry out his plans. As well, they all are, with difference only in degree, convinced that no strategy will work as long as pervasive corruption and preying upon the people continue to characterize governance in Afghanistan.” It did not dawn on me at the time that my
practice of having the president hear directly from each level in the chain of command, because of the unanimity of the senior military in support of McChrystal’s recommendations, in this instance probably only reinforced Obama’s and Biden’s suspicion of a “military bloc” determined to force the commander in chief’s hand.

The same day I gave Jones McChrystal’s assessment, I also gave the president a long “eyes only” memo on my own thinking. I began by saying that, with the additional forces he had approved in February and March, I had hoped we would have until early 2010 to see if McChrystal’s approach resulted in changed momentum in Afghanistan and, if so, that we would be able to use that to justify continued and perhaps increased support. With the worsening situation the general had identified, and public statements of grave concern by U.S. officials, however, “the debate and decisions—including over resources—I had hoped could be delayed until early next year when we might be able to show some progress are, unfortunately, upon us now. In fact, circumstances have conspired to place us at a historic crossroads during the next few weeks.” I added that “as usual,” all the options were unpalatable.

The principal alternative to McChrystal’s recommendations, I felt, would be Biden’s “counterterrorism plus” strategy. I told the president that I thought that strategy had all the disadvantages of a counterterrorism strategy and not enough capability to reap any of the advantages of a counterinsurgency strategy; and “I also don’t know how to explain such a strategy to anyone.”

I wrote impertinently that any new decision that abandoned his decisions in March or the vow he had made to the VFW in August would be seen as a retreat from Afghanistan, with all the implicit messages that that would send to Afghans, Pakistan, our Arab and NATO allies, Iran, North Korea, and others about American will and staying power: “We need to give it [the March strategy] a chance.” Knowing this president, I realized that he, like me, had a number of questions that had to be answered before any decision would be made, and I laid out some of them:

• How do we tie more clearly and persuasively McChrystal’s approach to the goal of disrupting, dismantling, and defeating al Qaeda?

• How do we tackle the reality that a corrupt, predatory—and incompetent—Afghan government will significantly affect any good we do in either the military or civilian effort?

• How do we change the subject from “nation-building” with all that implies to a more minimalist objective of capacity-building, particularly in the intelligence, security, and law enforcement areas?

• What can be done about the Pakistanis’ unwillingness to take on the Afghan Taliban within their borders?

• How can we cut off funding from the Gulf states to the Taliban?

• How can we get our allies and partners to do more on both the military and civilian side?

• We owe you answers to questions about our current troop deployments: what percentage are actually working daily through or with Afghan counterparts, what percentage are defending terrain without leaving their forward bases, and what percentage is now focused on internal support such as construction and force protection?

• If you agree to more troops, how do we prevent troop levels from inexorably growing, making for the same kind of open-ended increases we saw in Vietnam? How do we reassure the American people we can keep control of this commitment both in troops and time? How does this government impose the discipline on itself to acknowledge when something isn’t working and change course? And how do we persuade the Congress and the American people we can and will do this?

The priority, I said, should be to expand the Afghan security forces as quickly as possible. Additional U.S. and allied forces should be considered a temporary “bridge” to train those Afghans while keeping the situation on the ground from deteriorating further, at least until the Afghans could protect their own territory and keep the Taliban and al Qaeda out. I also said we needed a clearer strategy for reintegration of the Taliban. “I am confident of this,” I said. “Your strategy—centered on building Afghan security capacity—gives us a chance for success; the more limited alternatives do not.” I ended on a very personal note:

Mr. President, you and I—more than any other civilians—bear the burden of responsibility for our men and women at war. I’m sorry to tell you that every day in office makes that burden harder to bear. But, I believe our troops are committed to this mission and want to be successful. Above all, they don’t want to retreat, or to lose, or for their sacrifices—and those of their buddies—to be in vain. What we owe them is not only our support, but a clear strategy and achievable goals. I think your
March decisions do that, but we need to explain it better—to them and to the American people. How to do this is one of our principal challenges. I still bear fresh scars from the domestic battle associated with Iraq in my first two years in this job; I am loath to take on another for Afghanistan. But I am more loath to contemplate a Taliban/al Qaeda victory or the implications for us around the world if we are seen to retreat.

During September, several events fractured what little trust remained between the senior military and the president and his staff. On September 4,
The Washington Post
columnist Michael Gerson published an interview with Petraeus in which the general stated flat-out that while there was no guarantee more troops would lead to success in Afghanistan, “it won’t work out if we don’t” send a lot more. He dismissed the “counterterrorism plus” strategy as insufficient, saying it had been tried before and that the way to target terrorists was with “on-the-ground intelligence,” which “takes enormous infrastructure.” Petraeus came down squarely in the interview behind McChrystal’s approach, “a fully resourced, comprehensive counterinsurgency campaign.” Virtually everybody in the Obama White House saw this as blatant lobbying designed to force the president to approve more troops. Their suspicion of Petraeus and his political ambitions was not allayed by the fact that Gerson had been a speechwriter for George W. Bush, something Petraeus denied knowing.

On September 13, the president chaired the first of nine—by my count—very long (two-to-three-hour) meetings on McChrystal’s assessment and Afghan strategy. Two days later the Senate Armed Services Committee held a confirmation hearing for Mike Mullen’s second term as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at which time he forcefully argued for more troops in Afghanistan. He was implicitly critical of the vice president’s views, saying we could not defeat al Qaeda and prevent Afghanistan from becoming a safe haven again “from offshore.… You have to be there, where the people are when they need you there, and until they can provide for their own security.” The president—and everyone else in the White House—was livid, seeing the testimony as another effort by Mullen and the military to force the commander in chief’s hand. Rahm told me that the president “used my language” when he heard what Mullen had said. In an effort to calm things down, at a
press conference soon thereafter I said the president deserved the right to absorb McChrystal’s assessment and have his questions answered, that some of the most important decisions of his presidency were involved and he should not be rushed. I suggested that “everybody should just take a deep breath.”

Then the biggest shoe of all dropped. On Monday, September 21,
The Washington Post
published a detailed story by Bob Woodward on McChrystal’s assessment, clearly based on a leaked copy. The four-column-wide headline read “McChrystal: More Forces or ‘Mission Failure.’ ” The
Post
had given us advance warning it was going to run the story, and over the weekend Cartwright, Flournoy, and Geoff Morrell negotiated with Woodward and others from the
Post
to remove sensitive numbers, references to intelligence gaps, Special Forces unit designations, and the like. They had some success, but they could not redact the political bombshell the story represented. The story ended with a quote from the assessment: “Failure to provide adequate resources also risks a longer conflict, greater casualties, higher overall costs, and ultimately, a critical loss of political support. Any of these risks, in turn, are likely to result in mission failure.” After I left office, I was chagrined to hear from an insider I trust that McChrystal’s staff had leaked the assessment out of impatience with both the Pentagon and the White House. If so, I’d be very surprised if Stan knew about it.

Anger and suspicion were further fueled six days later when the CBS-TV program
60 Minutes
aired an interview with McChrystal in which he spelled out in detail how bad he had found the situation in Afghanistan and what needed to be done. The interview had been taped in late summer, long before the debate got under way in the administration, but the timing of its airing was awful.

McChrystal had been invited weeks earlier to give a speech on October 1 in London and asked Mullen whether he should do so, given the furor surrounding the leaked assessment. Mike encouraged him. I did not object. I should have. Stan’s speech was innocuous enough, but in response to a question afterward, he dismissed out of hand the option Biden was supporting.

An infuriated president, Mullen, and I repeatedly discussed what he regarded as military pressure on him. On September 16, Obama asked us why all this was being discussed in public. “Is it a lack of respect for me? Are they [he meant Petraeus, McChrystal, and Mullen] trying to
box me in? I’ve tried to create an environment where all points of view can be expressed and have a robust debate. I’m prepared to devote any amount of time to it—however many hours or days. What is wrong? Is it the process? Are they suspicious of my politics? Do they resent that I never served in the military? Do they think because I’m young that I don’t see what they’re doing?” Mike assured him there was no lack of respect. I said we just needed to shut everyone down until the process was complete.

The president and I then talked alone. I told him Mullen had called both Petraeus and McChrystal after the incidents and thought he had the situation under control. I said Mike’s testimony had been a surprise to me, especially since we had reviewed potentially hot topics before his hearing.

Again and again I tried to persuade Obama that there was no plan, no coordinated effort by the three military men to jam him. I said that if there had been a strategy to do that, they sure as hell wouldn’t have been so obvious. I reminded him that McChrystal had never had a job before with the kind of public exposure he now had, that he was inexperienced and a bit naïve about dealing with the press and politics. I said Mullen and Petraeus were both on his team and wanted to serve him well; but particularly when testifying, or even when talking to reporters, both felt ethically compelled to say exactly what they thought, however politically awkward. I told the president that Mike’s independence had annoyed Bush as well. My assurances fell pretty much on deaf ears, which I found enormously frustrating and discouraging.

The press was reporting a campaign being mounted by the military to force acceptance of McChrystal’s recommendations, and Emanuel told me that, according to reporters, there were four different sources saying that McChrystal would quit if he didn’t get his way. A wall was going up between the military and the White House. That was bad for the country, even dangerous. I had to fix it. In a conference call with McChrystal and Petraeus on September 23, I told them that the decision the president was facing was conceivably the most significant of his presidency. The experts and politicians in Washington were divided on what to do in Afghanistan. The president was very deliberative and very analytical, and he was going to take whatever time was necessary to work through this decision. If he agreed to provide significant additional troops, he would do everything he could to make it work, though it would be a very
heavy political lift at home. I directed McChrystal to provide his memorandum on force options only to me, the chairman, Petraeus, Stavridis at NATO, and the NATO secretary general. I said no copies should be made, and it should not be shared with staff or anyone else, that a leak would possibly be fatal to Stan’s case. I reassured them that the president was not questioning Stan’s assessment or recommendations for further resources, but rather whether changed circumstances on the ground required revisiting the strategy he had settled on in March. I ended the call by emphasizing that we had to actively oppose the perception in the press and embraced by some in Congress that the president and the military were pitted against each other.

Four days after McChrystal’s London gaffe, I gave a speech to the Association of the U.S. Army in which I mentioned the leaks. I said it was important to take our time to get the Afghan decision right, “and in this process it is imperative that all of us taking part in these deliberations—civilian and military alike—provide our best advice to the president candidly but privately.” Most commentators thought it was a shot at McChrystal, but my target was far broader. We heard regularly from members of the press that Biden, Jones, Donilon, McDonough, Lute, Emanuel, and Axelrod were “spilling their guts” regularly—and disparagingly—to reporters about senior military leaders, Afghanistan, and the decision-making process. I was told that
The New York Times
was besieged by unsolicited White House sources offering their views. I acknowledged that the Pentagon leaked. But whenever I would complain about White House leaks, there were bullshit protestations over there of innocence. Only the president would acknowledge to me he had a problem with leaks in his own shop.