The War Within (41 page)

* * *

Several days later, a two-star general who worked in the operations directorate ( J-3) of the Joint Staff called Keane.

"We've got Casey's plan in here," the general said. "It's two and two."

"What do you mean?" Keane asked. "Two brigades of Army and two battalions of Marines?" That would amount to about 7,000 Army soldiers and 4,000 Marines.

"Yes," the J-3 general said.

"What's your view of that?"

"Our collective view on the staff here is that this is failing. It'll be just Together Forward III." That was about as damning a comparison as could be made because the first two Together Forward operations had failed completely and Casey's command had publicly acknowledged the failure.

"God, that is just awful!" Keane said.

"We're taking it to Pace," the general said.

"You've got to tell Pace it just can't succeed, just like you told me," Keane said. This was the moment to step up and speak truth to poweróa very difficult task considering the head of the J-3, Lieutenant General Doug Lute, opposed the surge.

The two-star general called Keane back to report. "We took it to Pace. We said, 'It's two and two. This plan won't work.'"

So what did Pace say? Keane asked.

The general reported Pace's words as follows: "I don't want to know that. I don't want to hear it won't work. I want you to tell me how to sell this at Crawford." The president was meeting with the NSC at his ranch on December 28.

"Holy shit," Keane said. He had always considered Pace a sycophant, but this, in his opinion, was letting down the people wearing the uniform and fighting in combat. He concluded that it would be futile to call Pace, who clearly did not want to contradict Abizaid and Casey, even though they were going to be replaced. Such a challenge to the ground commanders would be inside the danger zone for a chairman. The senior military leader, the chairman was only an adviser and not technically in the chain of command. Keane figured that Pace was making the safe move, in effect hiding behind Abizaid and Casey's recommendation. "He takes refuge among them," Keane said, "and uses them as protection for himself."

Keane made another call, this one to John Hannah, Cheney's national security adviser. Hannah and the vice president were headed to the Crawford meeting.

"It's two and two," Keane told Hannah. "It's wholly inadequate. It cannot be executed militarily. If that's the case, we should not do it because we're raising the risk of more violence." It was another Together Forward, an operation destined to fail. "It would put more troops at risk without the capacity to bring down the level of violence."

Keane spoke with Hadley again and told him the president or the vice president should ask a single question of Pace: Is this a decisive force? "Now, the answer to that is a resounding no, and he will know it's a resounding no. He'll probably tell you, he'll stammer over it and say, 'General Abizaid and General Caseyóthis is their recommendation.'"

If you press him, Keane said, he'll say something like "Well, I have not asked that question of them. I'm assuming they think it is, or they wouldn't have given us the recommendation." Keane said that the president had to demand an answer about whether the recommendation was a "decisive force." If the answer was no, he said, the president would have to overrule his military advisers.

* * *

Meanwhile, Hadley had another backchannel contact. His Iraq deputy, O'Sullivan, kept in regular contact with General Petraeus. The two had first met in Iraq more than three years earlier, in 2003, when she was working for Jerry Bremer and he was the commander of the 101st Airborne Division. They had stayed in touch, frequently e-mailing and phoning each other, sharing an occasional meal.

During one lunch, Petraeus had persuaded O'Sullivan to speak at a counterinsurgency conference with lots of "big wheels" in attendance. "Meghan, there's nobody from the White House at this conference," he told her. "This is huge." O'Sullivan went to the conference with Petraeus and gave an impromptu set of remarks.

Another time, Petraeus contacted O'Sullivan and invited her to the first Iraqi Ranger School graduation at Fort Benning, Georgia. "I want you to come down and see this," he said. They flew down together, and Petraeus delivered a speech to the graduates.

Petraeus thought the world of O'Sullivan and had great respect for her academic thinking and her abilities as a manager. They shared a common problem: trying to find a successful counterinsurgency plan.

Petraeus told O'Sullivan he believed counterinsurgency tactics could be applied effectively in Iraq. Typically, 20

counterinsurgents per 1,000 residentsóor about 2 percent of the populationóis considered the minimum required for effective counterinsurgency, he had written in the Army's updated
Counterinsurgency Field Manual.
"However, as with any fixed ratio, such calculations remain very dependent upon the situation." U.S. forces alone could not match such a ratio in Iraqóthat would mean a minimum of about 120,000 security forces just to control the 6 million residents of Baghdadóbut he did believe the mission could be accomplished with additional help from Iraqi security forces and private contractors.

O'Sullivan ran Casey's proposal of two extra brigades by Petraeus. "Can you change your strategy with one or two brigades?" she asked.

"No," he said.

"How many troops, how many brigades, do you need to do this?" she asked.

"I want all the force you can give me," he said.

O'Sullivan passed the word to Hadley and Crouch that she had talked to Petraeus. "It's my understanding that we can't change the strategy with only one or two brigades," she said. "We're going to make the same mistake. Now we're going to get the mission right, but we're not going to resource it appropriately. And it's going to fail."

Bush confirmed to me that he'd been told of Petraeus's conclusions. And he obviously already had Petraeus in mind as his new Iraq commander. "If you're thinking about changing the strategy to 'clear, hold and build' and you've recognized that there's not enough to hold," the president recalled, "and if you're the new commander coming in, it makes eminent sense to say, 'Give me all you've got.'"

* * *

The president later told me, "The military, I can remember well, said, 'Okay, fine. More troops. Two brigades.' And I turned to Steve and said, 'Steve, from your analysis, what do you think?' He, being the cautious and thorough man he is, went back, checked, came back to me and said, 'Mr. President, I would recommend that you consider five. Not two.' And I said, 'Why?' He said, 'Because it is the considered judgment of people who I trust and you trust, that we need five in order to be able to clear, hold and build.'"

Those trusted people, of course, came largely through back channels: Ray Odierno telling Petraeus he needed five brigades, Petraeus telling Meghan O'Sullivan he wanted all the force he could get, and Jack Keane telling Hadley and Cheney that a minimum of five brigades were necessary.

Hadley maintained that the number "comes out of my discussions with Pete Pace."

"Okay, I don't know this," Bush said, interrupting. "I'm not in these meetings, you'll be happy to hear, because I got other things to do."

Despite Hadley's characterization, Pace had told the Joint Chiefs weeks earlier that it was actually the White House that had come asking what could be done with five extra brigades.

* * *

After Gates returned from Iraq, he spoke with Petraeus again about the level of forces that might be required. How would the general go about figuring that out?

Once the mission was established, Petraeus said, a commander would have to establish what specific tasks had to be accomplished and determine how many troops would be needed. If those resources weren't available, the commander had an obligation to say, "This is the risk that is incurred by not having that level of resources." And at a certain point, the risk might be so great that the commander would say, "The mission cannot be accomplished." Then you would have to change either the tasks or the mission.

Petraeus said it was important to have an open conversation about military requirements, to welcome transparency.

"We have committed the nation," he said. "And if the nation is not going to provide the commander on the ground with what he asks for, then everyone needs to know." The requests, of course, had to be reasonable. "I can't ask for something that doesn't exist. Look, I can take no for an answer. But then, other people have to know that the answer has been no."

"You need to tell me what you need and not worry about the politics here in Washington," Gates said. "Let me handle that. I'll work that part of the problem. And this building [the Pentagon], as part of the problem. You focus on what you need to do in Iraq, and I'll take care of the rest."

Aware of the Rumsfeld legacy of discouraging dissent, Gates added, "I expect your candor. I expect you to tell me exactly what you think, and in very plain terms. I want to hear what you have to say."

Chapter 30

O
n Wednesday, December 27, Pace briefed the chiefs and colonels in the tank about his trip to Baghdad.

"We are looking at a two-plus-two plan now," the chairman said, referring to two brigades to Baghdad and two battalions to Anbar province. "The thought process is that a fundamental change is required. We need to show 'clear, hold and build' can work."

Pace was heading to Crawford the next day to deliver his recommendation. He gave a homework assignment to the colonels: "How do we describe the surge inside and outside of the U.S. government?"

* * *

At 4 P.M. that day, Rice arrived in Crawford to have a private dinner with the president and his wife, Laura. The rest of the national security team was coming down the next morning. Before dinner, Bush and Rice sat on a bench in front of the president's ranch house.

She said she could tell that he had come, in his own mind, to the belief that he had to do a surge. "I think you've got to do this," she said. "You're going to, aren't you?"

"Are you now for it?" the president asked.

"Well," she said. "I've never been against more forces." She simply wanted to know what their mission would be.

"Are you telling me that you're now for it?"

"I think you probably have to do it," she replied. "But this is going to be one of the most consequential decisions of all time. You are probably, because of the things that you've chosen to do, one of the four or five most consequential presidentsómaybe in our history, certainly of the last 100 years, but maybe in our history. And you have to think about how you're going to do this and hold the country together. Because consequential presidents can't be divisive."

"I have to do the right thing," he said.

"Yeah, I know that," she said. "But what we've got to do is, we've got to find a way to bring as many people as we can along." The surge was not going to be popular. The country and Congress were expecting a drawdown. So it was going to be important how he explained it. She told him that he couldn't say, "I've made this decision, and to hell with all of you who disagree." That simply wouldn't work. It would have to be "This was hard. And people have good reason to be concerned. This has been harder than we ever thought, and we've done a lot of things wrong, but we cannot lose in Iraq. And I don't think Americans want to lose in Iraq."

He would have to be conciliatory, she said. He would have to acknowledge that those who disagreed with him had valid arguments. He indicated that he agreed.

"What if it doesn't work?" she asked. "What do we do then?"

Bush didn't answer.

Such an addition of forces, she said, depends heavily on Maliki. Did the president have a feel for whether Maliki was really up to this?

Bush said he would talk to Maliki again.

There is a very specific set of things, Rice said, that we could ask him to do that would be measurable and visible.

She returned to what plan B might be. "If we do it and it doesn't work," she said, "it'll be the last bullet. The last card." This is our ace, she said. She figured the total surge would be about 30,000, when support troops were included. "If you play 30,000 American forces, put out 30,000 American forces and things don't change, what do you do then?" If the violence doesn't come down, she said, and the fabric of the society doesn't stop tearing, then what would be the argument for the continuation of the war in Iraq?

Bush didn't answer, and they headed inside for dinner.

"I'm not sure I bought the last card concept," Bush told me later. "First of all, to me the last card would be to pull out and hope for the best. Hope the thing, you know, fizzled out, the enflamed sectarianism just petered out on its own energy as opposed to exploding inside the capital and we sat there and watched it happen. To me, that's the last card."

"Does the president ever have a last card?" I asked.

"That's a really interesting question," Bush replied. He paused for a few seconds. "No. There's always another card."

* * *

At about five the next morning, the rest of the national security team flew to Texas for the 9:30 A.M. NSC meeting.

General Pace said he had been consulting the Army's counterinsurgency expert, Dave Petraeus, as well as Ray Odierno, Casey's deputy and the tactical ground commander in Iraq. They wanted the maximum force available.

Casey's recommendation was still two additional brigades to Baghdad and two Marine battalions to Anbar province.

"Do we have an accomplishable mission here?" Bush asked. "What's the test of success, of accomplishing the mission?"

They seemed to agree that the test was the level of violence. The chart in Hadley's "GWB" file that month was showing still more than 1,200 weekly attacks in Iraq.

"We have to have the right measure of violence," the president said.

"The goal is that the Iraqis are able to establish control over their capital," Rice said. She was still worried that the Iraqis might not step up and U.S. troops would be held responsible. "The measure is not that America has to get the violence down. Iraqis need to get the violence down. They need to do it."