The Good Soldiers

by David Finkel

  And that was just the beginning. A few hours later, when Petraeus entered a U.S. House of Representatives hearing room, the scene was of Washington at its most starstruck. Could there have been more photographers surrounding someone walking into a congressional hearing? And when in this war had so many members of Congress shown up for a hearing? Typically a handful might make a brief appearance; for this—a joint hearing involving two committees—there were 112, each of whom would get five minutes to question Petraeus and Ryan C. Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq. If everyone took his full five minutes, that was nine hours right there, and it didn’t include bathroom breaks and delays for protests, the first of which came right away, from several women who had waited in line since dawn for some of the twenty-three seats allotted to the public, all so they could immediately stand up and yell, “War criminal,” and get hauled off by the police.

  “Out they go!” the Missouri Democrat who was running the hearing, Representative Ike Skelton, bellowed. “No disturbances will be tolerated.” And it went on from there, into opening statements, in which the chairman said to Petraeus, and live TV cameras, and that night’s newscasts, and the next morning’s newspapers: “In a poll of Iraqis released this morning, sponsored by ABC News, the BBC, and the Japanese broadcaster NHK, we learned that at least 65 percent of Iraqis say the surge is not working and 72 percent say the U.S. presence is making Iraqi security worse. This is troublesome . . . I hope, General Petraeus, and I hope, Ambassador Crocker, that you can persuade us that there is a substantial reason to believe that Iraq will turn around in the near future.”

  He talked for a while, and then another Democrat talked for a while (“We need to get out of Iraq, for that country’s sake and for our own. It is time to go—and to go now”), and then a Republican talked for a while (“. . . and the idea that this Congress is going to arbitrarily overlay a requirement for a reduction in America’s forces when we are moving toward a maturing of the Iraqi forces and a successful hand-off, which will be a victory for the United States, I think should not be supported by this body”), and then another Republican talked for a while (“I am distressed by the accusations leveled by some in the media and by some members of Congress during hearings like these, calling into question the integrity of our military, accusing the military of cherry-picking positive numbers to reflect a dramatic decline in sectarian violence”), and forty-five minutes into the hearing, Petraeus still hadn’t said a word.

  Not that his testimony was going to be a surprise. There’d been hints and leaks for weeks that he would say the early signs were good, but that more time, and money, were needed. As he had written in a letter to the troops that had been leaked three days before, “We are, in short, a long way from the goal line, but we do have the ball and we are driving down the field.” He was going to be specific. He was going to be pragmatic. He was going to use graphs and charts about attack trends, and none of them would be depicting his bad-news vessel, not on this day. Washington wasn’t that kind of crowd.

  Still, when the committee chairman announced, “General David Petraeus, the floor is yours,” there was so much anticipation in the room that even the remaining protesters in their GENERALS LIE, SOLDIERS DIE T-shirts were absolutely silent in their seats.

  Petraeus began speaking. But there was a problem. His mouth was moving, but no one could hear what he was saying.

  “We will have to ask you to stand a bit closer to the microphone, because the acoustics in here are not—well, not good at all,” the committee chairman said.

  Petraeus moved closer to the microphone and began again.

  Again, nothing.

  “Would somebody please fix the microphone?” the chairman said.

  Hours later, the microphone fixed, the sun setting, the last of the protesters hauled away, the questioners pretty much repeating questions and Petraeus wearily repeating answers and gobbling down Motrins on breaks, because sitting still and straight for so long had become painful, the hearing came to an end.

  The next day, though, on September 11, after a moment of silence for the victims of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Petraeus was at it again, this time before the Senate. There were two hearings that day, and the buzz was about how the various senators who had announced they were running for president would do when their turn came to question Petraeus. Would Hillary Clinton use the occasion to explain why she had initially been in favor of the war? Would Barack Obama use it to remind people he’d been adamantly against it? What about Joe Biden, what would he say? And what about John McCain?

  Such were the interests in Washington this day about the war. They were political interests. And yet every so often the war as the 2-16 saw it would make an appearance.

  “Let’s just put on the table as honestly as we can what lies ahead for the American people and U.S. military if we continue to stay in Iraq,” Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator from South Carolina who had been one of the most consistent supporters of the surge, said to Petraeus at one point. “Now, I know you’re not—you can’t predict with certainty the numbers we’re going to have, but can you agree with this statement, General Petraeus, ‘It’s highly likely that a year from now we’re going to have at least 100,000 troops in Iraq’?”

  “That is probably the case, yes, sir,” Petraeus said.

  “Okay,” Graham said. “How many people have we been losing a month, on average, since the surge began, in terms of killed in action?”

  “Killed in action is probably in the neighborhood of sixty to ninety,” Petraeus said. “Probably on average, eighty to ninety, average, killed in action. That does not include the nineteen soldiers, for example, tragically killed last month in that helicopter crash.”

  “But here’s what lies ahead for the American military,” Graham said. “If we stay in Iraq and continue to support the surge through July, we’re going to lose somewhere in the neighborhood of sixty military members, most likely hundreds more.”

  “Yes, sir,” Petraeus said.

  “We’re spending $9 billion a month to stay in Iraq, of U.S. dollars,” Graham continued. “My question for you: Is it worth it to us?”

  “Well, the national interests that we have in Iraq are substantial,” Petraeus said. “An Iraq that is stable and secure, that is not an al Qaeda sanctuary, is not in the grip of Iranian-supported Shi’a militia, that is not a bigger humanitarian disaster, that is connected to the global economy, all of these are very important national interests.”

  “Would that be a ‘yes’?” Graham said.

  “Yes, sir. Sorry,” Petraeus said.

  “So you’re saying to the Congress that you know that at least sixty soldiers, airmen, and Marines are likely to be killed every month from now to July, that we’re going to spend $9 billion a month of American taxpayer dollars, and when it’s all said and done we’ll still have 100,000 people there, and you believe it’s worth it in terms of our national security interests to pay that price?”

  “Sir, I wouldn’t be here, and I wouldn’t have made the recommendations that I have made, if I did not believe that,” Petraeus said.

  “Don’t you think most soldiers who are there understand what lies ahead for them, too?” Graham asked.

  “Sir, I believe that’s the case,” Petraeus replied.

  In Iraq, those soldiers had been watching as much of the testimony as they could, especially in the beginning. It was evening in Rustamiyah when the first hearing began, and so they watched for a while on the TVs scattered around the DFAC, and then continued to watch in the operations center, where there were two mounted TVs. One showed video feeds from surveillance cameras around eastern Baghdad. That was the one they had begun calling “Kill TV.” The other showed news feeds from various American news networks, and that was the one they watched until well past midnight.

  It was a standing-room-only crowd with a typical chattering-crowd dynamic, especially a crowd of young male soldiers. They marveled that protesters had go
tten into the hearing room, which led to some back-and-forth about the limits of free speech. They paid particular attention whenever a woman was shown, which led to discussions about whether she was someone with whom they would consent to have sex. The consensus in most cases was that of course they would. The consensus about the MoveOn.org ad—“General Petraeus or General Betray Us”—was that it was “catchy.” They thought that Petraeus spoke well and had prepared well, and they listened intently, at least at first, to what he was saying.

  Would he say “winning”? Would he say “done”? Would he say “over”? Would he mention “East Baghdad” or “New Baghdad” or “Kamaliyah” or “Fedaliyah,” or that anyone who doubts the greatness of American soldiers should know about a battalion called the 2-16 Rangers?

  But of course he wouldn’t say that because, like everyone in the hearing room, he had never been to Rustamiyah. No one came here. No member of Congress had ever come. Only a couple of journalists had come, which was a couple more than the number of Washington think-tank scholars who in some cases were already declaring the surge a success after quick windshield tours through other parts of Iraq. Even the USO celebrities who were always coming in and out of Baghdad tended to avoid the place. One time three professional golfers showed up whom no one had heard of. Another time, in came some cheerleaders from a professional football team, who later wrote on their website: “Today we stopped at two bases that really don’t get to see anyone, Falcon and Rustamiyah. We went to Falcon first for a meet and greet and after that we had a really fun and crazy helicopter ride to Rustamiyah. Rustamiyah has a high threat level, we were a little scared but we were very safe and nothing happened.” Another time it was a country music singer who went by the name “The Singing Cowboy.” “Would you like to meet The Singing Cowboy?” a Public Affairs officer asked a group of soldiers who were outside watching a reenlistment ceremony, and when they looked at him in confusion, he pointed to a lone figure standing at a distance, coated in Rustamiyah dust.

  The dust, the fear, the high threat level, the isolation—all of that was the surge the soldiers knew, and the more they took in of the hearing, the more surreal it became to them. “Those people have no idea how bad it is here,” Cummings thought to himself at one point. There, the war was a point of discussion. Here, the war was the war. There, the sound of a gavel echoed off high walls, a vaulted ceiling, Corinthian pilasters, four chandeliers, and a full entablature. Here, Cummings had another thought: “This place is a complete shithole.”

  Maybe it was natural, then, that as the discussion continued in Washington, the soldiers paid less and less attention. On the second day of Petraeus’s testimony, when Lindsey Graham was saying, “Don’t you think most soldiers who are there understand what lies ahead for them,” Kill TV was back in action, and by the end of the week they were getting their news in snippets from the TVs in the DFAC, where Kauzlarich and Cummings watched images of thousands of people gathering in Washington for an antiwar protest.

  “A lot of people there,” they agreed, and then dug into their food as the protesters continued to gather in a seven-acre park directly across from the White House. The protesters’ plan was for a rally, followed by a march along Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House to the Capitol, followed by a culminating event at the Capitol called a “die-in.” “Whatever,” some of the soldiers said about that, but the protesters were taking it far more seriously.

  On a website promoting the protest, for instance, the die-in was described as “a civil disobedience action that will involve at least 4,000 people who are able to risk arrest.” It also said, “Please read this important note. If you are participating in the Die-In/Funeral and feel compelled to select the name of one of the almost 4,000 soldiers who have been killed in Iraq, you are encouraged to do so. You can select a family member, friend or someone from your city, town or state. Please bring a photograph of that person and a sign with his/her name on September 15 . . . Click here for a list of U.S. soldiers.”

  Those who clicked were taken to a list of the dead, which included Joel Murray, David Lane, and Randol Shelton, who, on the day before the protest, had been memorialized in the Rustamiyah chapel. “May they rest in peace as their memories shall live on forever,” Kauzlarich had said in his eulogy, just before the bang, pause, bang, pause, bang. “This is who I will lie down for,” was the next option on the website, and that was followed by a box in which to type someone’s name and reserve that person for the die-in.

  Hundreds of people did this, and tens of thousands more showed up for the rally. With public opinion polls saying that 65 percent of Americans thought Bush was mishandling the war, 62 percent thought the war was not worth fighting, and 58 percent thought the surge had made no difference, organizers were hoping for a turnout on the scale of the very biggest protests of the Vietnam War.

  This wasn’t that, but there were enough people to fill much of a seven-acre park on a perfect late-summer day. Butterflies were out. So were late-summer honeybees. Ralph Nader—he was one of the featured speakers, talking and talking away as usual, but into a microphone so dead that people in the crowd were yelling politely, “We can’t hear you, Mr. Nader.” Ramsey Clark, the former U.S. attorney general who’d been one of Saddam’s defense lawyers, was there, as were representatives of organizations such as Iraq Veterans Against the War, Hip Hop Caucus, and Code Pink, as was the ubiquitous, eternally sad, always sleepless Cindy Shee-han, who talked about her dead son, Casey. “It’s time for us to stand up and lay down,” she exhorted. “It’s time for us to lay down for peace, but it’s also time for us to lay down for accountability.” Many in the crowd held signs that read, impeach bush, and many held signs that read, end the war now, and most seemed to realize that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon, but here they were anyway, trying to make it happen by cheering for Cindy Sheehan, who stood in front of a perfectly positioned American flag that was being displayed upside down and who paused now to look out into the sloppy, sprawling sea of what the American peace movement had become.

  The drummers were out there.

  The guy with the American flag headband tied across his mouth was out there.

  The guy in the “Save Darfur” cap was out there.

  The guy in the Gandhi T-shirt was out there.

  The guy handing out a newsletter called “Proletarian Revolution” was out there, talking to a young woman with the word peace painted across her forehead like a rainbow, assuring her that this wasn’t a waste of time, that people everywhere were “going to see this demonstration and know not everybody agrees with Bush.”

  “They’ll see it?” the woman said.

  “They will see it,” the man promised. “On TV. On the Internet. All over the world, people will see it.”

  At Rustamiyah, though, dinner was over, and so the soldiers got up and emptied their trays and went on their way, missing the Iraq War veteran who at some point had been just like them and now stood at a microphone in Washington, D.C.

  “March with us. Honor the dead with us,” he implored, trying to get enough people to represent every one of the 3,800 dead, including Caji-mat, Gajdos, Payne, Craig, Crow, Harrelson, Murray, Lane, and Shelton, and then he gave instructions on what to do at the Capitol: “Die when you hear the air raid siren.”

  In Rustamiyah, the evening patrols were headed out now. In Washington, the time to die was almost at hand. The protesters lined up shoulder to shoulder across Pennsylvania Avenue, between the park and the White House, for the march to the Capitol. Some people sang. Some people chanted. Most people carried signs. Some carried American flags. The drummers kept drumming. The chants got louder. Then came a sudden wind gust, and all of the loose dirt and fallen leaves in the park swirled into the air. For a moment, there was so much dust that it could have been a Rustamiyah dust storm that would coat a singing cowboy from head to toe in a matter of seconds. But of course it wasn’t that. The dust quickly settled and the leaves that had been kicked up floated back d
own, and one of the protesters who was about to die in order to honor the dead turned her face up to the sun.

  “Isn’t it gorgeous?” she said.

  Maybe clear skies travel unbroken sometimes, ever eastward, even across oceans and war zones, because a week later that same gorgeous sky had become the sky over Rustamiyah. It was September 22, a week after the protest and two days past the halfway point of the 2-16’s deployment, and that was when David Petraeus arrived, on the very best day in a while. His schedule to visit soldiers whenever he could had finally brought him to the place no one came to. The visit hadn’t become official until the night before, but it was like a guest arriving at a house where the table had been set for years.

  “Fire away, Ralph,” he said, and after taking a breath, that’s what Kauzlarich did. The general who had mesmerized Washington was now sitting shoulder to shoulder, inches away, and Kauzlarich had a lot he wanted to say—not about the bad days, but about all of the battalion’s accomplishments. One leadership lesson he’d absorbed well was the importance of knowing what to leave out of a conversation. There was no point, for instance, in describing the three dying faces of September 4, the way Shelton kept asking, “Am I gonna be okay?” or the weird search on the roadway for the correct number of severed limbs. Petraeus knew the details, in his own way, through his own bad-news vessel experiences. Every soldier who went out of the wire knew the details, and so it was better to just move along. It was like an interview Kauzlarich had done a few nights before on PEACE 106 FM, when Mohammed had begun the show by asking him, “Sir, would you please tell us a little bit about your current operations?” “Absolutely,” Kauzlarich had said enthusiastically, as if three soldiers of his hadn’t just been killed and he hadn’t been surreptitiously visited by one of the FOB’s mental health counselors the next day to see if he was okay. “Over the course of this last week, for the first time since early March, it’s the first time in my area of operation in which there was not a single enemy action taken,” he’d continued. “So I would like to congratulate right now the people of Kamaliyah, Fedaliyah, Mashtal, and Al-Amin on a job well done as far as security goes.”