The War Within (43 page)

As the White House was grappling with what to do in Iraq, McCain had written the president a letter saying that no new strategy "will be successful without an increase in the number of forces." McCain had proposed "surging five additional brigades into Baghdad."

Hadley called McCain several times, trying to seal his support. McCain wanted details. Hadley told him he would be happy with the president's decision.

On Wednesday, January 10, about 2 P.M., only hours before Bush's evening speech, McCain was asked on MSNBC

if he would support the president.

"I can't comment until I find out the exact details," he said. "I've been assured in conversations with the president's national security adviser and others that I will be satisfied."

Hadley tracked down McCain. "If you don't support it, John, nobody will," Hadley said. He reported that the president had decided that all five brigades would go; none would be kept on a string. "You've got to decide, because this is the surge we're going to get."

McCain said he would support the president.

* * *

Several hours before the president was to present his new strategy on national television, Hadley held a conference call with members of the Iraq Study Group.

The president's decisions were pretty much "Baker-Hamilton plus a surge," Hadley said, adding that they should all be pleased because the president had embraced many of the 79 recommendations.

"Steve," Leon Panetta said, "there are three principal recommendations we made." The first had been an international push for more diplomacy, including Iran and Syria.

Hadley said they were doing a lot of the international diplomacy, but they just couldn't do Iran and Syria.

The second was holding Iraqis to benchmarks and threatening them with reducing forces if they didn't meet certain milestones and reforms.

"We can't put deadlines," Hadley said.

The third was making the transition from a combat to a support role, with an eye toward completing that by the first quarter of 2008.

Hadley said that the president would emphasize transition, "but we don't want to set any time frames for that."

"Well, Steve," Panetta said, "that's kind of the heart and soul of what our recommendations were all about."

"But you have to look at all of your recommendations," Hadley said, "and they really have been very helpful."

* * *

The president seemed tense, almost rigid, as he began his 20-minute address to the nation at 9:01 P.M. from the White House Library.

"The situation in Iraq is unacceptable to the American peopleóand it is unacceptable to me," Bush said. "Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me."

He said it was "clear that we need to change our strategy." The Iraqi security forces would make a new push to secure Baghdad, he said, but it would require help from the United States. The president said he had committed 20,000 additional American troops. Five brigades would go to Baghdad; another 4,000 Marines would head to Anbar province.

Bush also pledged to expand the Army and Marine Corps.

"Victory will not look like the ones our fathers and grandfathers achieved," the president said. But "we can, and we will, prevail."

* * *

The backlash came swiftly, from both Democrats and some Republicans. Minutes after the president finished speaking, MSNBC flashed to Senator Barack Obama in the Capitol.

"I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there," Obama said.

"In fact, I think it will do the reverse. I think it takes pressure off the Iraqis to arrive at the sort of political accommodation that every observer believes is the ultimate solution to the problems we face there.

"So I am going to actively oppose the president's proposal. I don't doubt his sincerity when he says that he thinks this is the best approach. But I think he is wrong."

Republican Senator George Voinovich of Ohio said, "I've gone along with the president on this, and I bought into his dream. And at this stage of the game, I just don't think it's going to happen." Republican Senator and Vietnam veteran Chuck Hagel of Nebraska called the plan "the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam, if it's carried out."

* * *

Rice thought it had been a textbook way of reaching a decision, even though she had opposed it and it had taken longer than half a year. Zelikow deemed the final decision a gamble. Instead of approaching Iraq as a problem of uncertainty, requiring a diversified strategy or portfolioómilitary, diplomatic and economicóthe president had acted more like a stock picker hoping for a big payoff on a single stock.

David Satterfield did not agree with the final decision of investing the United States deeper and deeper into Iraq. He remained troubled by the way Hadley had forced a consensus where none had existedótaking conflicting positions, plucking out the most unrecognizable common ground, and cobbling together an accord over a strategy he had quietly advocated all along. He was disappointed that Rice had gone along in spite of her reservations. He agreed with a colleague's assessment that "She believes wholly in a thing until she decides to believe in something else."

Hadley was more satisfied. He had figured out where the president wanted to go and had brought everyone around to that view. Bush had not adopted the stepping back suggested by Rice and her colleagues. He had rejected the pessimism of the CIA and various versions of a drawdown favored by Rumsfeld, Casey, the chiefs, the Iraq Study Group and most Democrats. Forcing consensus was an art form, Hadley believed, and he had worked it. "Could we have done this earlier?" he asked himself. Given the many obstacles, he didn't see how.

Neither did the president. "Prior to the Samarra bombing," he later told me, "it looked like the strategy was working.

It was the Samarra bombing, the lack of government, and the not enough holding after the clearing that caused the whole situation to change quite dramatically. And we respond to what's happening on the ground."

But the record shows that meaningful change could have come sooner if the president had insisted on moving when he first realized that the strategy "was not working," that "what was happening on the ground was unacceptable," and if the specter of the fall elections hadn't made them proceed so secretly.

In the end, one lesson remained, a lesson played out again and again throughout the history of American government: Of all the forceful personalities pacing the halls of power, of all the obdurate cabinet officers, wily deputies and steely-eyed generals in or out of uniform, of all the voices in the chorus of Congress clamoring to make themselves heard, one person mattered most.

The president was in control. And like most of his predecessors, he had worked his will.

I asked him if he could locate exactly when he had made up his mind.

"I can't. I can't," he said. "It is incremental, but there is a momentÖ. For me, I often believe that sometimes the answer gets easier with the more study, the more discussion, the more kind of pushing things back. These guys will tell you that I'm the kind of person thatÖI'm a Socratic Method person. Like, they'll be sitting around thinking they're here to talk about something and I'll provoke their thoughts on this issue, just to see where they are. And I wish I could tell you the moment. But there had to be a moment. Maybe Steve knows it."

According to Hadley, that moment had come when the president called him in mid-December 2006 and said, "I'm getting comfortable with my decision, but I don't want to give a speech yet. I want to give Gates a chance to get out there, take a look at it and have input."

I asked Bush if he had prayed about his decision.

"Sure," the president said. "It's very personal."

You understand why I'm asking, I said.

"No. Why?"

"There are a lot of people who don't understand prayer."

"Well, then they're going to have to consult with a religious expert."

You ever talk to your pastor about this?

"No."

Did you consult with your wife?

"She knows I was thinking about it. We're close." He laughed. "I don't think I did."

What about John McCain?

"I'm confident he said, 'You need to put more troops in.' I've got a relationship with him where he will, 'I'm here to tell youÖ' and he tells me. And he was very useful. I knew there weren't going to be a lot of people cheering for it in Washington on both sides of the aisle. But if you want somebody out there punching and if you want somebody out there saying this is the right thing to do, there's nobody better than John McCain. He's got a lot of credibility."

"Do you wish you'd listened to him earlier?" I asked. "Because from '03 he was pounding publicly, 'Send in two more divisions. We need more troops.'"

Bush replied, "I seriously considered everything he said. And ultimately the president, you know, relies upon the considered advice of his military on a matter such as this."

"I'm still going to ask it. Do you wish, as you look back on it? Here was the man who now wants to succeed you essentially on this issue, for years advocatingÖAnd he's knowledgeable, in touch with the military."

"Yeah, he is knowledgeable."

"Do you wish you'd listened to him?"

"The question really is," Bush replied, "should you have put more troops in earlier? Whether it's listening to McCain or listening to anybody else. And history is just going to have to judge."

Did he ever consider full mobilization, given his own pronouncements that the stakes in Iraq were so high?

"No. I did not," he said, "because maintaining an active military presence in a long ideological struggle is going to require a firm commitment by those who wear the uniform, and the only way to guarantee that firm commitment is through the volunteer service. And secondly, I remember the unbelievable angst that gripped America when kids were being drafted into a military in which they did not want to serve" during Vietnam.

Instead of full mobilization, which would almost certainly include a draft, he said, his approach was to "increase the volunteer Army and make darn sure that the benefits of serving are real, tangible and are competitive with other lines of work that people could have. And take care of the families."

Bush maintained that he understood how hard the war was on the country, the soldiers and their families. "I fully understand how painful war can be. I understand how hard it is for a congressman to go to the funeral of a soldier in his district. I understand how hard it is for the community to put ribbons up for a young, heroic kid that died. Look, war is very difficult for a country to accept, particularly long, drawn-out war."

Bush said he understood that he faced a giant decision that fall and winter of 2006.

"I thought about this decision all the timeÖ. This was a very, for me, a very all-consuming decision. Now, this is a period of time where I've got, I don't know how many, holiday receptions. I mean, it'd be interesting for you to know.

We probably shook hands with 9,000 people when they came through."

He added, "I'm not a brooder, but I am a contemplative person. And I thought a lot about this. Actually, there were times probably when I just had some downtime and people would walk in here and they could see my mind wasÖI'm sure they saw it was kind of off somewhere else. And what I'm doing is, I'm hashing through all the different data points that I've been given, all the different consequences.

"At least from my perspective, the hardest part of making a big decision is the run-up to the decision. But once you make up your mind, it's a liberating moment."

* * *

For at least seven months during 2006, President Bush had known that the existing strategy in Iraq was not working.

No matter how he tried to dress it up with positive language and sugarcoat it to the American public, he was losing the war. But somehow he had set no deadlines, demanded no hurry, avoided any direct confrontation with Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, General Pace or General Casey about the need for change.

The fear of a "hothouse" news story that would expose the administration's secret deliberations before the 2006

congressional elections delayed a serious strategy review. U.S. military planners were not brought directly into the review until after the election. Rumsfeld had made his resignation contingent on a political event rather than on the war itselfóhe would resign if the Republicans lost control of either the House or the Senate.

The president delegated the responsibility for finding a new strategy to Steve Hadley, his national security adviser, according to my reporting and to the president's own words. The national security adviser is an appointed staff position in the White House that requires no Senate confirmation. The president can choose anyone to fill it, and he had chosen Hadley.

"If what you're trying to do is get inside my head," Bush said to me, "which I presume you might be trying to do, which is fine, I don't mind thatÖ."

He kept hammering home the point about Hadley's key role. "See," he said, "you've got to understand Steve. I'm telling you, he drove a lot of this, you want to get it right in the book."

We discussed how many of his key staffers on IraqóRice, Gates and Hadleyóhad worked together in previous Republican administrations. I joked that I might someday write a book about people who never leave Washington, like Hadley.

"No," the president said, "it ought to be 'The Life and Times of Stephen J. Hadley, Great American Patriot.'"

"It'll be a book that has two covers and no pages," Hadley quipped.

"Hard worker," the president said. "Clear thinker. Organized mind."

"And likes to be Mr. Invisible," I said.

"Does he ever," the president said. "When you've got a complex problem to describe on major national security issues, unleash Hadley." The president smiled and suggested a title for my book. "That ought to be the book:

'Unleash Hadley.'"

Bush had done exactly that. The commander in chief had handed off a war he was losing to his national security adviser.