The War Within (53 page)

"Dave, TRADOC?" Keane said, half scolding. "C'mon. TRADOC is an important command. I'm not disputing that."

But "You have to understand who you are now and what's happened to you." He meant what he'd said about Petraeus being more like the World War II generals. "We haven't had a general like you in a long time. You may not realize it, but you have more influence than any other military leader in this country right now. More that the Joint Chiefs, more than the chairman, certainly more than the CentCom commander." Petraeus's ability to shape public opinion was unmatched. "What you have is beyond what any other leader has," including the president. "You've achieved that status because of the transformation you've made in this war. Everybody knows that this couldn't have been done without you. So given that reality, that is a platform that you're standing on, whether you like it or not."

"I hadn't thought about it that way," Petraeus said.

"So," Keane said laughing, "the TRADOC assignment is out of the question. No thoughtful leader will let you be assigned to TRADOC. That's not going to happen." Speaking as a former superior and for the Army, he added,

"We've invested in you. If you want to stay in the military, you certainly will be permitted. You can make a case for you not staying, because there's no job after this that will compare to it."

The implied suggestion was politics.

"There's only two positions you should go to," Keane said. "One would be CentCom. The stature that you've achieved would pay us high dividends as leverage and influence in the region. No other military leader could. This region is the center of gravity for international security and strife in the world."

In the 20th century it had been Europe, where two world wars had been fought. But now it was the Middle East. "We will fight other wars here," Keane said.

The other possibility was chairman of the Joint Chiefs, but that depended on how long Petraeus decided to serve. The new chairman, Admiral Mullen, was just starting a two-year term, so the job wouldn't open up again until 2009 at the earliest.

* * *

At Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Fallon could feel his influence waning. He sensed that Petraeus had a

"jumper cable" to the White House that circumvented him and the normal chain of command. Still, his relationship with Petraeus had improved substantially over the course of the year, and in Fallon's view, they both had arrived at the conclusion that they could be down to four or five brigades in Iraq within two to three years, though neither would say that publicly.

Fallon continued to be outspoken, however. He told Gates, "If you think this is undercutting the effectiveness of our ability to do work here, just tell me and I'll eject myself."

"Keep working," Gates said, hardly a rousing endorsement.

Chapter 39

B
ack in Baghdad, Petraeus became increasingly immersed in the smallest details of Iraqi government operations. A top priority was helping the new government make political progress, but he found that that came in fits and starts, one painfully slow inch at a time. It meant that no issue was too small, no problem too mundane. He refereed internal turf battles and argued over issues more suited to a local city council than to a national government.

At one meeting with the senior Iraqi ministers, Petraeus remarked that a huge number of vehicles owned by the Iraqi government before the 2003 invasion were still marked as Iraqi government vehicles, though it wasn't clear who was driving them. "The majority of kidnap operations," he said, "are conducted with government vehicles." In addition, he said many were not obeying orders at the various checkpoints around Baghdad. So how did the government intend to get control of its inventory?

The Iraqi minister of interior proposed that new markings be required and that "we should accept only an authorization signed personally by a minister that the vehicle is legitimate."

Petraeus grimaced. Until recently, the minister of defense had had to sign even the smallest contracts personally and would spend hours signing foot-high stacks of paper.

The minister of defense said he had appointed the deputy ground force commander to head a committee to oversee

"the proper marking and control of vehicles." A major security problem had been turned over to a committee.

"The answer to everything is to appoint a committee, and then you have to help the committee," Petraeus complained privately, though he maintained that things did get done over time, however slowly.

During that same meeting with senior officials, Petraeus and the ministers couldn't agree on which phone numbers to use for the new joint security stations throughout Baghdad, which were manned by U.S. troops, Iraqi army and Iraqi policeóthe heart of Petraeus's population security strategy. As it turned out, some of the stations didn't even have telephone landlines. After much discussion, they settled on some cell phone numbers for the stations.

On another occasion, Petraeus scolded an Iraqi lieutenant general for the lack of junior officers and noncommissioned officers (NCOs) in the Iraqi army. "We all know what the problem is," Petraeus said angrily. "The problem is that you don't have an NCO corps or junior officers who'll hold your soldiers to standards. Everybody knows this. We've been talking about it for months." In the U.S. Army, noncommissioned and junior officers are the heart and soul of an effective unit. "So where's your plan to get the NCOs? We should be talking here about how to fix the problem, not your coming in wasting our time telling us a problem we all already know."

Afterward, Petraeus stopped an American adviser to the Iraqis and said he wanted to ask the Iraqi lieutenant general to lunch. "Tell him that I really think highly of him and I was just trying to help him," he said. "Tell him I'm not attacking him personally."

At one meeting of the Ministerial Committee on National Security (MCNS), which included Maliki and other top officials in the government, the problem at hand was that the acting minister of transportation had failed to pay the bill for six months to Global Strategies Group, a British contractor that supplied security at Baghdad International Airport. The contract, worth $500 million a year, was in danger of lapsing.

"The problem," said Barham Salih, the deputy prime minister, "is that other countries won't bring their planes here without security assurances."

"This is a huge situation," Petraeus said. "It's not only here, but we have to work also on Basra and the seaport at Umm Qasr that are equally important because that's the only seaport in the country. There must be a firm trusted by the international air carriers charged with security." If not, flights would cease in Baghdad, further isolating the country. Iraq's place in the new global economy could suffer a serious, if not irreparable, setback.

The top ministers in Iraq, along with the country's prime minister and the American commanding general, then turned to the issue of scrap metal. Petraeus cited a study that showed Iraq had as much as $16 billion of scrap metal strewn all over the country. It included shipwrecks that were obstructing the port at Umm Qasr. He said that the minister of industry and minerals would require $75 million to begin the project to clean up and reuse the scrap. But he noticed that the $75 million was not there.

Salih confirmed that the money wasn't in the budget. He said they hoped to privatize the scrap metal project. He promised to keep working on it.

* * *

At 1 P.M. on October 2, Iraqi National Security Adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie went to see Rice at the State Department. Though he was keenly aware that Petraeus and Crocker were calling most of the shots in his country, a new "Status of Forces Agreement" that would allow U.S. forces to remain in Iraq needed to be negotiated. "We don't necessarily need to publicize this," Rubaie told her. Prime Minister Maliki wanted to "eliminate the irritants that are apparent violations of Iraqi sovereignty."

"This is really Doug Lute's problem," Rice said, shifting the responsibility to the new Iraq coordinator in the White House, the 1975 West Point graduate Bush had appointed the administration's "war czar" for Iraq and Afghanistan nearly five months earlier. "He will be the team leader for the United States in getting this relationship developed."

"Well, you have to help us," Rubaie said.

Rice said a working group needed to be set up, but at a meeting she'd attended, Bush had told Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, "They don't want this agreement to happen in the middle of the U.S. election's political season. Because then will it not only be difficult to pass in the U.S., but it may be impossible under those circumstances to pass in Iraq."

"We need a stronger central government," Rubaie said. "And this one isn't. It won't be strong unless you, the United States, become much more aggressive with those people who are obstructionists." He meant the Sunnis and their foreign allies such as the Saudis.

"Okay," Rice replied, "Who do we need to push? What do we need to push?"

"Help us with the political bloc leaders" such as Hashimi, the Sunni vice president of Iraq, he said, "so that they know that they cannot simply resort to violence rather than participate in the political process. You take care of the Sunni party, and we'll take care of Moqtada. We'll take care of the Shia."

Rice asked about the administrative boundaries of the provinces, an issue in dispute.

"There is a general paralysis," Rubaie said. "Total stagnation."

"Why?"

"Because all these administrative boundaries are written in blood," Rubaie said. "And no one will agree voluntarily to change them. There'll be a fight about it." He added, "Very simply, only you, the United States, have enough influence to influence the region. We do not. Only you, by a real dialogue, can do something about Syria and Iran.

We cannot."

* * *

At 3 P.M. that day, General Doug Lute met Rubaie in a small conference room adjacent to the White House Situation Room. Rubaie told him the Iraqis were having real problems buying U.S. weapons. "We would prefer to have the majority of our weapons in the army, at least, to be to U.S. and NATO standards."

"To be perfectly frank with you," Lute said, "what we have is a Cold War system. Deputy Secretary England is in charge of reforming the foreign military sales system to meet the needs in Afghanistan and particularly Iraq," and a team was working on it.

"Well, we have to put this on the fast track," Rubaie said. The system was way too slow.

Lute agreed, but the system had needed reform for years.

"If you have a problem, call direct," Lute said. "Here's a bunch of my cards." He handed Rubaie several of his White House business cards.

On the sensitive issue of Sadr's militias, Rubaie said it was better for the Iraqi security forces to go after them. "Even if we do it dirtier," he said, "even if we make mistakes, even if we take more casualties, let us do it. We're willing to spill more blood."

"Well," Lute said, "I thought the Iraq security forces did most of this, anyway."

"In reality, no," Rubaie said. "The U.S. is moving the security forces there. It's all seen as a U.S. operation, not as an independent Iraqi operation. Let us make mistakes while you're still around."

* * *

On October 4, Rubaie went to see Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England and Eric Edelman, the undersecretary for policy.

Rubaie told them that Maliki and his government would need lots of help to show more progress by April 2008, when Petraeus and Crocker were scheduled to give their next report to Congress.

"If the Congress doesn't see you as progressing," England said, "we don't get the money, we can't help you, and it's over."

"I have a message from the prime minister," Rubaie said. "It's for the secretary"ómeaning Gates. "It's about the Iraqi security volunteers, who some people are calling the Sunni militias. In the mixed areas, because the government of Iraq has to be in charge, it has to be the paymaster." But currently, the United States was paying them. "The coalition is persuaded to go for a quick fix, but the government of Iraq has to be in the lead. It has to establish its policy and its processes. And this is an area of enormous friction between us." The Shia-led government didn't like the many arrangements with Sunnis. He continued, "This looks like an act of desperation by the coalition, who is finding any way that it can to generate force so it can leave." He said this "quick fix technique" could succeed only in all-Sunni or all-Shia areas. "Even in Sadr City, there is a 10 percent Sunni population."

"Petraeus and Odierno are certainly aware of this," said Edelman.

"Yes," Rubaie replied. "But realize that the people brought in have to be seen as value added to the Iraqi security forces, not undermining themÖ. It is a first principle of unity of command that one person be in charge."

While he was at it, Rubaie also complained again about the slowness of acquiring U.S. weapons, warning them,

"This will slow down your drawdown."

* * *

Jack Keane heard through the Pentagon grapevine that Admiral Michael Mullen, the newly appointed chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had told colleagues that one of his first plans was to "get Keane back in the box." Keane called and arranged an appointment with Mullen.

"This is a difficult session for me," Mullen said, "but I don't want you going to Iraq anymore and helping Petraeus."

"What the hell? What are you talking about?" Keane asked.

"You've diminished the office of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs," Mullen said. It wasn't clear to the American people who was actually in charge of the military.

"C'mon, stop it," Keane said. "The American people don't even know who the hell I am. This is Washington, D.C., stuff. You can't be serious."

"Yeah, I am," Mullen said.

Keane tried to tell him how in late 2006 he had gone to Rumsfeld and Pace with his complaints about the Iraq War strategy. He had wound up meeting with the president on December 11, 2006, because General Pace had recommended him.

"You probably resent the fact that I've been supporting Petraeus and the execution of the policy and tried to insulate him and protect him from some of the stuff that's going on in this town and in this building," Keane said. "I don't make any apologies for that."