The War Within (55 page)

"Now's not the time and place for you to be advocating the interests of your building," Bush had said. "I told you, I don't want to hear about that."

Satterfield found it offensive, though Rice didn't seem too bothered.

The president had little patience for briefings. "Speed it up. This isn't my first rodeo," he would say often to those presenting. It was difficult to brief him because he would interject his own narrative, questions or off-putting jokes.

Presentations and discussions rarely unfolded in a logical, comprehensive fashion. Satterfield thought this reflected an insecurity in Bush. The president was a bully.

Satterfield kept making regular trips to Iraq to help in the delicate negotiations on the Status of Forces Agreement that would allow U.S. forces to remain. As he dealt with various Iraqi officials, he was faced with the extent to which the United States had created and propped up a kind of puppet government. With 157,000 troops, more than 180,000

contractors and 1,000 State Department officials in Iraq, the United States was the shadow government. He knew of no parallel in history. If the United States withdrew, the whole house of cards would crumble.

By the spring of 2008, Satterfield found Baghdad more secure than on previous visits. The markets were open. Iraqis and U.S. troops walked through the streets without body armor. But areas were closed off and surrounded by barricades. Nothing about Baghdad's state reflected normal city life. He concluded that a precipitous U.S. withdrawal would ignite a new struggle for power, resources and territory, and the beneficiaries would be al Qaeda and Iran.

When Satterfield pondered the future of Iraq, he was stumped. There was such a mix of good and bad news. Which would win out? What would last? What would survive?

"You cannot credibly speak of an end state," he said. "Where's the endgame? What's the endgame?"

* * *

In early March 2008,
Esquire
magazine published a long article by Thomas P. M. Barnett, a former professor at the Naval War College who had traveled with Admiral Fallon to the Middle East. Headlined "The Man Between War and Peace," the provocative 7,500-word article was mostly laudatory but portrayed Fallon as "brazenly challenging"

Bush and Cheney on Iran policy.

Fallon was in Baghdad on March 11 when the article was made public. He realized instantly the uproar it would cause. Fallon knew he already was on shaky ground. Days earlier, he had warned Gates that the article was coming.

But now he called again.

"I think I need to be gone," Fallon said.

"Okay," Gates said.

The defense secretary could have offered a vote of confidence and backed his commander. If that had happened, Fallon would have stayed. But he had the feeling that Gates wanted him out, and he now had a reason to make it happen.

One of Fallon's aides called Petraeus and said Fallon wanted to meet.

"Okay, I'll come right over."

The aide said it was intensely personal and Fallon wanted to meet in either Petraeus's office or his quarters.

Fallon arrived in Petraeus's quarters just as Gates was appearing live on Fox News.

"I've resigned," Fallon said. He'd held the job only a year.

"You did?" Petraeus said, astonished, as they turned to watch Gates on television.

"I have approved Admiral Fallon's request to retire with reluctance and regret," the defense secretary said. "Admiral Fallon reached this difficult decision entirely on his own. I believe it was the right thing to do even though I do not believe there are, in fact, significant differences between his views and administration policy."

* * *

Keane saw an opening. He sent an e-mail to Chiarelli, Gates's military assistant, at 3:27 P.M. on March 12óthe day he was arriving in Iraq for another visit.

"Subject: Food for Thought

"Pete, a way ahead after Fox Fallon: Announce Petraeus as replacement but do not assign till fall or early winterÖAssign Odierno, who will have had six months back in states, to replace PetraeusÖBelieve this provides the strongest team we have to the key vacancies. For what it's worth. Best, JK."

Chiarelli e-mailed back 20 minutes later.

"Siródo you want me to pass to the SD?" The secretary of defense.

By all means, Keane said.

* * *

During that visit to Iraq, Keane talked to Petraeus about the future. Petraeus's next assignment as NATO commander seemed set.

NATO was important, Keane said, but its time had passed. The international center of gravity had moved to the Middle East. "We're going to be here for 50 years minimum, most of the time hopefully preventing wars, and on occasion having to fight one, dealing with radical Islam, our economic interests in the region and trying to achieve stability." We should be thinking strategically from the military perspective about how to support a national strategy for the region. "Where should we have bases? Where should we have prepositioned equipment? Where should we have forward industrial bases? Because it doesn't make any sense to keep sending that stuff home."

This shift would have huge implications for how the U.S. military would be educated and trained, as well as how the Army would deal with other organizations. "We're going to do it anyway because we don't have a choice," Keane said. "So the issue is: Get over it. Come to grips with it." The Army didn't want that. "It wants to end a war and go home. But that's not going to happen."

Petraeus seemed to agree but waxed nostalgically about NATO.

He had to go to CentCom, Keane said. "Dave, you're the only guy, okay?"

"Wouldn't it be nice to have some time with Holly?"

"Just get the region used to your spouse going to the region with you. Start breaking the paradigm. Come on, we've got a secretary of state that runs all around the region, and she's a woman."

Petraeus shrugged.

"Nobody's going to have the kind of authority and credibility and power and influence that you have," Keane kept pushing. "This is coming to you. It's got to come to you. If people do the analysis, who else should have this job but you?"

The phone rang.

"Hey, Pete," Petraeus said into the phone, "what have you got?" It was Chiarelli.

"Three o'clock, okay, I've got it."

"Secretary of defense wants to talk to me at three o'clock," he told Keane.

"You know what this is, don't you?"

"I suspect I know."

"Hopefully, you'll give him the right answer."

* * *

While in Iraq, Keane also met with Senator McCain, who was making another tour of the country. "No doubt in my mind that Petraeus has to go to CentCom," he said. The stature that Petraeus had achieved in and outside the United States was off the charts, and the country had not had such a general for many years. The region respected power. If Petraeus was made Central Commander, he would have more authority and gravitas than his predecessors. More important, once he took over the command, the U.S. strategy in the Middle East would be locked in, no matter who won the 2008 presidential race.

For Petraeus's replacement, Keane also saw only one choice: Ray Odierno. He was head and shoulders above anyone else. He was tough and knew all the players. Odierno had just come back from Iraq to be nominated as vice chief of staff of the Army, so they would probably have to wait six months or so to give him time at home. But that would be fine.

McCain seemed to agree and said he would call President Bush.

* * *

Not long after Fallon resigned, Admiral Mullen called Petraeus. "I know you're going to Europe," he said, but,

"Would you be willing to do the CentCom job?"

"Let me talk to my wife," Petraeus replied.

He raised the possibility with Holly. She had been looking forward to the NATO assignment. But with what she later called "controlled disappointment," she acquiesced. She knew the unpredictability of Army life and often told friends that she never measured for new curtains until she saw the orders.

Chapter 41

O
n Thursday, April 3, Keane gave Vice President Cheney a briefing on his trip to Iraq.

"The security improvement, I believe, is a stunning achievement in such a short period of time," Keane said. "It's unprecedented in the annals of counterinsurgency practice."

The bad news was that, due to the inefficiency of the Maliki government, money was very slow reaching the provinces. From a strategic point of view, Keane said, "We cannot lose militarily. It is impossible at this point because the al Qaeda, for all intents and purposes, has been operationally defeated." They still had to be defeated in the north, but the vast majority of the Sunni insurgents were working with the United States.

"We could still lose politically," he said. "We could lose if our leaders in Washington do not want to continue to sustain the gains that have been made and want to pull out precipitously. If that happens, there could be dire consequences, and we could still lose."

One third of the U.S. forces in Baghdad would be coming out by July, and 60 percent of those in Anbar. It was a drastic reduction made possible by the Sons of Iraq, who now numbered 90,000. In addition, the Iraq security forces had grown by 100,000óan imperfect but significant addition.

The big problem was the Diyala River valley in the north, as well as Mosul and the Jazeera desert to its west.

However, Keane said, "our forces are inadequate." Petraeus did not want to utilize the pro-American, Sunni Sons of Iraq in that region because of the tensions between the Sunnis and Kurds. "I would discount that and do it anyway,"

Keane said, "because the program is so positive, and I think it's worth trying." There were lots of retired Iraqi generals up there, all Sunnis, and he thought the CIA should pay them to reduce the level of violence.

"Aren't they getting some of the pension money?" Cheney asked.

"That hasn't kicked in," Keane answered. A pension law had been passed, and some money was being paid out, but it was not enough to make a difference.

Turning to the south of Iraq, Keane said the Basra area was now the most important strategically, but the command had been slow to get involved. It couldn't be left to the Iraqis, which had been the plan, because of the Iranian influence there and the U.S. interest in diminishing it. The British, who had kept their forces in the south for a long time, said the problem was one of politics, not security. "This is a myth," Keane said. Basra was now like "the wild West," and the Basra police chief had told Keane that 80 percent of the police were aligned with some kind of militia. The area was a major security threat.

Brigadier General Qassem Suleimani, the commander of the Iranian Quds Force, an elite arm of the Revolutionary Guard, had been working the area for ten years. "He's smart, he's savvy, and he's ruthless," Keane said. The Iranians have "two Hezbollah-type battalions that are in Basra." Keane said the administration needed a comprehensive strategy to counter and defeat Iranian influence inside Iraq. It needed to involve the other countries in the region that had interests in Iraq. This could not just be left to Petraeus. The local Iraqi general in the Basra area was incompetent, Keane said. He had told the general to his face that his plan to disarm the militias was absurd. Weapons were so accessible in Iraq that anyone who had his taken could get a replacement within hours. Keane said that the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), or what he called classified forces, needed to be brought in to kill or capture enemy leaders.

He said drawing down to 15 U.S. brigades by July was risky. They still needed a minimum of 18, but they could not afford to go below 15 anytime in 2008. Keane then repeated his pitch that Petraeus move up to take Central Command and Odierno to the Iraq command.

"Is Ray willing to go?" Cheney asked.

Keane was working on that.

* * *

Four days later, on April 7, Gates invited Keane to brief him at the Pentagon. Keane summarized what he had told Cheney: the security improvement was stunning and validated Petraeus's counterinsurgency practices. He said they needed 18 brigades now and that there was no way to go below 15 during 2008. "One or two brigades could be decisive in Iraq," he said, and should not be held back. Fortunately, he said, there were ways to overcome the lack of 18 U.S. brigades by using the Sons of Iraq.

"Having a stable, secure Iraq is achievable," Keane said. "A government that is aligned with the United Statesóthis is now an achievable end for us. We could not have visualized that in 2006, and we could not have visualized that in 2007. Our opponents who disagree with us say that the war costs too much." He recited statistics about how the United States had spent much higher percentages of its gross domestic product on past wars than it was spending in Iraq and Afghanistan. He said they needed an active campaign to counter the arguments of the war critics.

Most important: "Assign Petraeus to CentCom." Delay the assignment until the fall. Make Odierno the new Iraq commander. He said that Odierno, as the corps commander, was the unsung hero of the Iraq strategy. "When he arrived and started taking his responsibility in November [2006], he started to change the strategy and put together plans to do that and immediately ran into an obstacle called General Casey."

Odierno had both intellect and moral courage, Keane said. After Petraeus had taken over in February 2007, he had gone to Iraq and looked at the situation in detail, realizing that Odierno needed eight to 10 surge brigades rather than the five he was getting. Of course, there were no more brigades, so Odierno had improvised.

But most important, Odierno realized the opportunity of the turnaround in Anbar province. According to Keane, Odierno had told his staff, "What's happening in Anbar can happen all around Iraq. We've got to understand how powerful this is." He instructed part of his staff to do nothing but find Sunnis or former insurgents willing to help the U.S. forces. "He can see things clearly that others cannot," Keane said. "He is in a class by himself.

"Let's be frank about what's happening here. We are going to have a new administration. Do we want these policies continued or not? Do we want the best guys in there who were involved in these policies, who were advocates for them? Let's assume we have a Democratic administration and they want to pull this thing out quickly, and now they have to deal with General Petraeus and General Odierno. There will be a price to be paid to override them."