Authors: Bob Woodward
Tags: #History: American, #U.S. President, #Executive Branch, #Political Science, #Politics and government, #Iraq War; 2003, #Iraq War (2003-), #Government, #21st Century, #(George Walker);, #2001-2009, #Current Events, #United States - 21st Century, #U.S. Federal Government, #Bush; George W., #Military, #History, #1946-, #Presidents & Heads of State, #Political History, #General, #Biography & Autobiography, #Politics, #Government - Executive Branch, #United States
Hadley was very uncomfortable with that. "The problem is, if you let the bad guys out, they'll kill again," he said.
"I'm not for blanket amnesty," Barham Salih said.
Rather than attempt to referee, Hadley said, "Okay, Meghan, what did we forget?"
"The only thing I'd like to say is, I'd like to emphasize, underscore, the need for drama." She had advocated for the surge and was disappointed that it had not yet shown results.
As if to demonstrate how far expectations had fallen, they agreed how great it was that Maliki had visited Ramadi, once the violent heart of the insurgency and now a mostly peaceful city. Yes, Maliki ought to do more such visits, they chimed in. Someone suggested the prime minister visit al-Qaim, in far western Anbar province.
"Yes," Hadley said, "get the prime minister out to al-Qaim. It would be huge."
Rubaie asked for a private minute with Hadley. When they were alone, he said he had a bombshell. He had spent three hours several days earlier in Cairo with the head of Egyptian intelligence, Omar Suleiman. Egypt was involved in a covert action to try to change the Iraqi government by overthrowing Maliki, Rubaie said.
"Well," Hadley said, "I take this seriously."
The Egyptians were later warned to stay out of Iraqi internal politics.
* * *
"Iraq small arms fire attack killed two U.S. soldiers and wounded four U.S. soldiersÖ
"Sniper fire killed one U.S. Marine in FallujahÖ
"IED attack killed one U.S. soldier and wounded two U.S. soldiers in Baghdad.
"Furthermore, RPG [Rocket Propelled Grenade] and IED attack killed one U.S. soldier and wounded four U.S.
soldiers in Baghdad.
"Finally, small arms fire attack killed one Danish soldier and wounded six Danish soldiers in Basra."
The summary said that an al-Qaeda group called "Islamic State in Iraq" had issued a demand about three U.S.
soldiers who were missing: "Your soldiers are in our grip. If you want the safety of your soldiers, then do not search for them."
The TOP SECRET/SCI Iraq update that evening told the president that 4,000 U.S. troops were searching for the missing men. And his casualty chart read:
"Killed in action: 2,755.
"Wounded in action: 25,389."
I
n May, Keane went to Iraq for another 11 days on the ground. On May 25, he reported to Cheney.
"There's a significant shift in momentum," he said. He had spent most of his time in the neighborhoods of Baghdad.
"Casualties will rise as we continue to go into areas we have not been in the past. IEDs still represent 75 percent of the instruments used against us." The advanced IEDs, the explosively formed projectilesóor EFPsósupplied by the Iranians could pierce all U.S. armored vehicles and were capable of killing everyone inside. "The IEDs have gone down in terms of their use, but they're getting more lethal."
"We need to buy time back here," Keane insisted. "The operations must go into '08 to have any chance of success."
Keane told Cheney that the U.S. troops in Iraq were idealistic. When the president had changed the mission, changed the strategy, changed the leaders and asked them to take on more risk, they had responded. The troops were committed, and their morale remained high. "They like being on the offense, and they believe they've been given a winning hand," he said, but recent leaks and statements "pull the rug out from underneath. This is very frustrating."
Cheney said that Petraeus and Odierno had just talked to the president about it. "Petraeus just did a SVTS [secure video] with the president and said that he and Ray were just scratching their heads wondering what is going on." He said that the president had told them that he was fully committed.
Overall, Keane said, the Sunni insurgency was considerably weaker. "Popular support is eroding. The AQI [al Qaeda in Iraq] relationships are fractured. The Sunnis are expressing a willingness to join the ISF [Iraqi security forces] in a political process. This is very significant. And negotiations are promising, but we must be wary of a fight-bargain-subvert strategy" on the part of the Sunnis. "The key military enemy is AQI. Its capability to undermine political support in Iraq and in the United States is real. They are weaker. They have lost their safe haven in Anbar."
U.S. commanders, he said, "are very much aware that they have the initiative with the al Qaeda, and they are focusing a significant, coordinated effort to go after them."
The bad news was that JAM, though not monolithic, "enjoys unimpeded access to Iranian support in southern Iraq and Sadr City."
On the political side, he said, "Maliki is beginning to move away from Sadr, which is a significant sign. We should make an all-out effort to discredit Sadr, because he's clearly emerged as our number one political enemy in Iraq."
Keane said that the CIA station chief in Baghdad had told him about a TOP SECRET covert operation that could be undertaken to stop foreign fighters from coming in through Syria. The full effects of the surge would not be felt until the end of July because the last of the five additional brigades would not arrive until June. "Every area of operation since last February that I visited, 90 days previous, especially in Baghdad, shows improvement," he said.
"There is a Shia or JAM problem in east Baghdad, and there's a safe haven in Sadr City. The commander's aware of it, and as they get all the forces in, in June, they're going to work against it. There are beleaguered Sunni enclaves that are hosting al Qaeda, still." He named six areasóEast Rasheed, Dora, Ghazaliya, Mansour, Amiriya, and Adel.
"There's a very difficult and complex fight against al Qaeda and the JAM in Diyala province. We probably could use some more troops on the ground," but instead the commanders were going to take troops that had been providing force protection at U.S. bases.
"The sectarian behavior that still exists inside the Iraqi government undermines the government's legitimacy." At times in the past, U.S. officers partnered with Iraqis involved in sectarian activity would look the other way.
"General Petraeus has changed that policy," he said, taking a shot at Casey. "That was a holdover from the previous leadership.
"The Maliki government is under extraordinary pressure. His intentions remain unclear. He's subject to bad information and malign influences," Keane said, but Petraeus had more leverage than any American commander before him. "We're occupying their capital city with our forces in a way that we have never done before."
Petraeus had publicly promised to return to Washington in September to report to Congress. Keane thought that was a problem, considering the expectations. "In a sense, it's become a timetable in itself to make an up-or-down"
evaluation of the surge. It was supposed to be only a progress report. By September, security would in all likelihood be much improved, but "we probably will not have met everyone's political benchmarks. And the danger is: Should that political uncertainty trump the very real progress that has been made? In my judgment, it should not.
"This is doable," Keane insisted. "We can succeed. We have to be given the time to succeed."
* * *
On May 26, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky kept up the drumbeat of Republican dissatisfaction with Iraq. "The handwriting is on the wall," he said, "that we are going in a different direction in the fall, and I expect the president to lead it. I think he himself has certainly indicated he's not happy with where we are."
Key Republicans said they expected a new strategy the coming fall after Petraeus reported to Congress.
"I'm not going to dime that guy," the president later told me, declining to elaborate on what McConnell had said privately. "There was a lot of members that were sending signals, some directly to me. So I don't want to speak about a single guy. But I was getting word from all the senior team that were getting pinged by members that were saying,
'Petraeus better pull out,' 'We'd better do this,' 'We'd better do that.' 'Progress can only be made if fewer troops are there,' was kind of the attitude.
"I understand the politics of war, and I will listen to these allies and friends. But for me, the overriding concern is to succeed in Iraq. These political concerns are short-term compared to the long-term consequences of failure. And I would, from my perspective, I am more than willing to sacrifice short-term popularity to do what is absolutely right, so that in the long term, people will say, 'Now I understand why he made the decision he made.'"
* * *
Keane reiterated much of what he had told Cheney but expanded on it. He said U.S. casualties were up, but that was because it was a true counteroffensive, similar to the Battle of Inchon in the Korean War and the Normandy invasion during World War II. If the Normandy counteroffensive had been damned because of high casualties, he said, "We would have folded up and gone back on the ships and gone home."
The strategy was working, Keane said. "The issue is time." He didn't want to lecture or sermonize, "but at the risk of doing this, there's something I do have to say to you. This military that we have in Iraq may be the most idealistic force we've put on a battlefield since the Revolutionary War."
"Maybe include the Civil War," the president said.
"That's possible," Keane said. "But the American people have soured on the effort and are no longer supporting the war." Similarly, Congress. "But nonetheless, every single day, they go out there and are willing to risk everything that they care about in life."
The New York Times
had published a front-page story that weekend headlined "White House Said to Debate '08 Cut in Troops by 50%." It reported that Rice and Gates allegedly were proponents of the cuts, which would leave only 100,000 U.S. troops in Iraq by the next year. Such stories were "undermining" and "corrosive," Keane said.
Officers in the military, he said, even senior officers, didn't understand the nuances of Washington. "They don't separate the commander in chief, the president of the United States, from the White House. They assume if it came out of the White House, the president's involved in the process."
"Petraeus said something like that to me when he started out our last VTC," Bush interjected. "He said, 'Mr.
President, to be quite frank about it, Ray Odierno and I were wondering what's going on?' I told David, he's got my 100 percent support, as well as the administration's."
"The good news," Keane continued, "is that Maliki is moving away from Sadr. And that Maliki has never turned down a Petraeus request to kill or capture a Shia militia leader. That is absolutely astounding." Maliki had approved about 50 such requests.
"We must stick with Maliki," Keane said. "As weak as he is, and as weak as his coalition is, given the time that we have available back here in our own country, I don't believe we have time for the government to be changed out."
Maliki was under extraordinary pressure. "He reacts to the last cell phone call that he gets." Petraeus had told him how Maliki gets bombarded by the Shia, then the Sunnis, and then each night by the Americans. They all want something different from him.
Bush said that he believed Maliki had grown in the job.
"Ambassador Crocker is very well received by everybody," Keane added.
"Yeah, Crocker's a great guy," the president said.
"And he's well thought of. And he's got a wonderful reputation," Keane said.
"He and Petraeus have just a great relationship," he added.
"Maliki doesn't like Petraeus much," Bush said.
"No, of course, he doesn't," Keane said. "George Casey's strategy was to turn over to the Iraqis and let them do it.
Therefore he was giving them the lead and letting them drive all the issues and being somewhat passive. Enter Petraeus. He is putting demands on Maliki. Every time he walks in his office, it's about something Petraeus wants from Maliki." Keane said that Crocker needed some help. "None of his new people have arrived."
"They're going to be due in there in summer," Hadley said.
That was because the State Department still had a policy of not transferring its people during the school year, Keane explained. He noted that the military moved people when the military needed them, period.
Keane said it was unfortunate that Congress had insisted that Petraeus come back in September and give a public report. Requiring an American field commander to return to Washington and brief was setting a bad precedent. The field commander should report only up the chain of command, he said.
"I had nothing to do with that," Bush said.
Congress had passed a law requiring that Petraeus testify.
* * *
"Let me make a forecast," said Perry, normally a cautious man. "In October, there's going to be a major change in the way the war is conducted. The reason I say that is because when Dave Petraeus testified to the Congress at his confirmation hearing, he told them he would come back in September and give them a report. Dave's an honest guy, so he'll give an honest report. My own forecast is that the so-called surge is not going to be successful. So his report is going to lay out a continuing disaster and he'll say it honestlyÖthen I think the president's going to lose about a third of the Republicans in the Congress, who up until now have been holding their noses and supporting him. At that point, the dynamics will change altogether." Congress would then have the votes to override any Bush veto, Perry said. "The legislature will gain control, and the ones who are in control are going to want to end the war."