Amid the near-universal skepticism, a few brave souls defended the surge. Foremost among them were Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, a lifelong Democrat who had been cast aside by his party for supporting the war; Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a member of the Air Force Reserves; and Senator John McCain of Arizona.
McCain and I had a complex relationship. We had competed against each other in 2000, and we had disagreed on issues from tax cuts to Medicare reform to terrorist interrogation. Yet he had campaigned hard for me in 2004, and I knew he planned to run for president in 2008. The surge gave him a chance to create distance between us, but he didn’t take it. He had been a longtime advocate of more troops in Iraq, and he supported the new strategy wholeheartedly. “I cannot guarantee success,” he said. “But I can guarantee failure if we don’t adopt this new strategy.”
The most persuasive advocate of the surge was General Petraeus. As the author of the Army’s counterinsurgency manual, he was the undisputed authority on the strategy he would lead. His intellect, competitiveness, and work ethic were well known. On one of his visits home, I invited the general to mountain bike with me at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. He was mainly a runner, but he had enough confidence to accept the challenge. He held his own with the experienced riders of the presidential peloton.
After the ride, I stepped inside a building at Fort Belvoir to take a call from the prime minister of Japan. I heard a noise in the background. I peeked out the door and saw Petraeus leading the peloton through a series of post-ride push-ups and crunches.
Petraeus’s rise had attracted some resentment. I had heard gossip from several people warning that he had an outsize ego. Back in 2004, when Petraeus was leading the effort to train Iraqi security forces, Newsweek had run a cover with a close-up photo of him above the headline “Can this man save Iraq?” When I raised the topic with him, he smiled and said, “My classmates from West Point are never going to let me live that down.” I appreciated his self-deprecating remark. It was a good complement to his drive.
Petraeus’s confirmation hearings came late in January. “I think that at this point in Baghdad the population just wants to be secure,” he said. “And truthfully, they don’t care who does it.” When John McCain pressed him on whether the mission could succeed without more troops, General Petraeus answered, “No, sir.” The Senate confirmed him, 81 to 0.
I called the general to the Oval Office to congratulate him on the vote. Dick Cheney, Bob Gates, Pete Pace, and other members of the national security team were there to wish him well. “I’d like a moment alone with my commander,” I said.
As the team filed out, I assured General Petraeus that I had confidence in him and that he could have my ear anytime. At the end of the meeting I said, “This is it. We’re doubling down.”
As he walked out the door, he replied, “Mr. President, I think it’s more like all in.”
On February 10, 2007, David Petraeus took command in Baghdad. His task was as daunting as any American commander had faced in decades. As he told his troops on his first day, “The situation in Iraq is exceedingly challenging, the stakes are very high, the way ahead will be hard and there undoubtedly will be many tough days.” He continued: “However, hard is not hopeless. These tasks are achievable; this mission is doable.”
As our surge troops flowed into Iraq, Generals Petraeus and Odierno relocated our forces from bases on the outskirts of Baghdad to small outposts inside the city. Our troops lived alongside Iraqi security forces and patrolled the city on foot, instead of inside armored Humvees. As they entered enemy strongholds for the first time, the extremists fought back. We lost 81 troops in February, 81 in March, 104 in April, 126 in May, and 101 in June—the first time in the war we had faced triple-digit losses three months in a row. The casualties were agonizing. But something felt different in 2007: America was on offense again.
General Petraeus drew my attention to an interesting metric of progress: the number of intelligence tips from Iraqi residents. In the past, Iraqis had feared retribution from insurgents or death squads for cooperating with our forces. But as security improved, the number of tips grew from about 12,500 in February to almost 25,000 in May. Our troops and intelligence operators used the tips to take insurgents and weapons off the street. The counterinsurgency strategy was working: We were winning over the people by providing what they needed most, security.
We followed up the clearing and holding with building, thanks in large part to the civilian surge led by Ambassador Ryan Crocker. I first met Ryan in Pakistan, where he was serving as ambassador, during my visit in 2006. He came across as a patient, unassuming diplomat. But beneath his calm exterior was a fearless man widely regarded as the best Foreign Service officer of his generation. Fluent in Arabic, Ryan had served all over the Middle East, including several tours in Iraq. He had survived the 1983 terrorist attack on our embassy in Lebanon and escaped an angry mob plundering his residence in Syria. When I announced the new strategy in Iraq, I decided we should change ambassadors, too. I nominated Zal Khalilzad, who had done a fine job in Baghdad, to be our permanent representative to the UN. Condi didn’t take long to recommend a replacement for him. She said Ryan was the only man for the job.
Ryan gained my respect quickly. He had a knack for detecting problems and heading them off. He spoke bluntly about challenges but had a wry sense of humor and liked to laugh. “What have you got for me today, Sunshine?” I asked him during one particularly rough stretch. He started his briefing with a big grin. He worked seamlessly with General Petraeus. And he earned the trust of Iraqis from all factions.
The heart of the civilian surge was doubling the number of Provincial Reconstruction Teams, which paired civilian experts with military personnel. I held several videoconferences and meetings with PRT team leaders deployed across Iraq. They were an impressive group. Several were grizzled combat veterans. Another was a female Foreign Service officer whose son served as a Marine in Iraq. They described their projects, which ranged from supporting a local newspaper in Baghdad to helping set up courts in Ninewa to creating a soil-testing laboratory to improve agriculture in Diyala. It wasn’t always glamorous work, but it was critical to the counterinsurgency strategy we were carrying out.
I spoke to General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker by secure video-conference at least once a week, sometimes more often. I believed a close personal relationship and frequent contact were critical to making the new strategy succeed. The conversations gave me a chance to hear firsthand reports on conditions in Iraq. They allowed Petraeus and Crocker to share frustrations and push for decisions directly from the commander in chief.
With David Petraeus (right) and Ryan Crocker. White House/Eric Draper
The situation was improving, but we all worried about the possibility of another Samarra-like bombing, a game-changer that would reignite sectarian violence. Petraeus pinpointed another problem. “The Washington clock is ticking a lot faster than the Baghdad clock,” he said.
He was right. Less than one week after General Petraeus arrived in Iraq, the new Democratic majority in the House of Representatives had passed a nonbinding resolution that declared, “Congress disapproves of the decision of President George W. Bush announced on January 10, 2007, to deploy more than 20,000 additional United States combat troops to Iraq.”
After a day of heavy violence in April, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada declared, “This war is lost, the surge is not accomplishing anything.” The majority leader of the U.S. Senate had just used his platform to tell 145,000 American troops and their families that they were fighting for a lost cause. He had written off the surge as a failure before all of the additional troops had even arrived. It was one of the most irresponsible acts I witnessed in my eight years in Washington.
On May 1, Congress sent me a war-funding bill mandating a troop withdrawal deadline later in the year. Setting an arbitrary pullout date would allow our enemies to wait us out and would undermine our ability to win over the local leaders
who were critical to our success. I vetoed the bill. Led by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell—who supported the surge after I announced it and graciously later admitted to me that he had been wrong to suggest a withdrawal—and House Minority Leader John Boehner, Republicans on Capitol Hill stood firm. Democrats didn’t have the votes to override the veto. On May 25, I signed a bill fully funding our troops with no timetable for withdrawal.
They called it “The Awakening.”
Anbar is Iraq’s largest province, a sprawling expanse of desert that extends from the western boundary of Baghdad to the borders of Syria, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. At fifty-three thousand square miles, Anbar covers nearly the same amount of land as New York State. Its population is mostly Sunni. For almost four years, it served as a stronghold for insurgents—and a sanctuary for al Qaeda.
Al Qaeda took over Anbar’s principal cities, infiltrated the security forces, and imposed their ideology on the population. Like the Taliban, they forbade women from leaving their homes without a male escort and banned sports and other leisure activities. They attacked American troops, Iraqi security forces, and anyone else who resisted them. By 2006, Anbar was home to an average of forty-one attacks per day.
Our troops discovered an al Qaeda document laying out an elaborate governing structure for Anbar, including an Education Department, a Social Services Department, and an “Execution Unit.” Our intelligence community believed Anbar was to be al Qaeda’s base for planning attacks on the United States. In August 2006, a senior Marine Corps intelligence officer in Anbar wrote a widely publicized report concluding that the province was lost.
Then everything changed. The people of Anbar had a look at life under al Qaeda, and they didn’t like what they saw. Starting in mid-2006, tribal sheikhs banded together to take their province back from the extremists. The Awakening drew thousands of recruits.
As part of the surge, we deployed four thousand additional Marines to Anbar, where they reinforced the tribal sheikhs and boosted their confidence. Many of the al Qaeda jihadists fled into the desert. Violence in the province plummeted by more than 90 percent. Within months, the brave people of Anbar—with support from our troops—had retaken their province. An al Qaeda safe haven had become the site of its greatest ideological defeat.
On Labor Day 2007, I made a surprise visit to Anbar. Air Force One flew over what looked like a giant sand dune and touched down at Al Asad Air Base, a patch of black asphalt amid miles of brown. We walked down the stairs into the searing heat and quickly moved to an air-conditioned room at the base. I listened to several briefings and then met with a group of tribal sheikhs who had started the Anbar uprising. They were a rough-hewn, earthy bunch. Their friendly, animated mannerisms reminded me of local officials in West Texas. But instead of jeans and boots, they were wearing full-length robes and colorful headdresses.
With the Anbar sheikhs who rallied their tribes against al Qaeda. White House/Eric Draper
The sheikhs beamed with pride as they described what they had accomplished. Violence was down dramatically; mayors’ offices and city councils were functioning; judges were hearing cases and meting out justice. With the help of our civilian surge, the provincial council in Ramadi had reopened, with thirty-five members present for the inaugural session.
Prime Minister Maliki and President Jalal Talabani joined the meeting. It was extraordinary to watch Maliki, a Shia; Talabani, a Kurd; and a roomful of Sunni sheikhs discuss the future of their country. When the prime minister asked what they needed, they had a long list of requests: more money, more equipment, and more infrastructure. Maliki complained that there wasn’t enough in the budget for everything they asked for. Talabani helped referee the disputes. I sat back and enjoyed the scene. Democracy was at work in Iraq.
I thanked the sheikhs for their hospitality and their bravery in the war on terror. “If you need us,” one sheikh jubilantly told me, “my men and I will go to Afghanistan!”
Washington was abuzz when Petraeus and Crocker arrived on September 10 to testify before Congress and make recommendations on the way forward in Iraq. For months, Democrats had pledged to use their testimony to cut off funding for the war. In July, the New York Times declared the cause in Iraq “lost” and called for an all-out withdrawal, despite the likelihood that an immediate pullout could result in “further ethnic cleansing, even genocide” and “a new stronghold from which terrorist activity could proliferate.” It was stunning to see the Times, which rightly championed human rights, advocate a policy it admitted could lead to genocide.
The morning of the hearings, the left-wing group MoveOn.org ran a full-page newspaper ad that read, “General Petraeus or General Betray Us? Cooking the Books for the White House.” It was an astonishing character attack on a four-star general. It was also a political mistake. Democrats in Congress tried to avoid endorsing the ad while supporting the antiwar sentiment behind it. One New York senator denounced the ad but said Petraeus’s report required “the willing suspension of disbelief.”
For their part, Petraeus and Crocker were stoic, resilient, and highly credible. They reported the facts. Iraqi civilian deaths had declined 70 percent in Baghdad and 45 percent across the country. Deaths from sectarian violence had plunged 80 percent in Baghdad and 55 percent across the country. IED attacks had dropped by a third, and car bombings and suicide attacks had declined almost 50 percent. The Awakening movement we had witnessed in Anbar had spread to Diyala Province and the Sunni neighborhoods of Baghdad. The picture was unmistakable: The surge was working.
Two nights after the testimony, I spoke to the nation. “Because of this success, General Petraeus believes we have now reached the point where we can maintain our security gains with fewer American forces,” I said. “… The principle guiding my decisions on troop levels in Iraq is ‘return on success.’ The more successful we are, the more American troops can return home.”
The most quoted phrase in the speech was “return on success.” The clever play on words was suggested by Ed Gillespie, a smart and valued friend who agreed to lead my communications team when Dan Bartlett returned home to Texas. But in my mind, the most important message was that we were keeping as many troops in Iraq as our commanders needed, for as long as they needed them.
The day of my speech, I heard that General Petraeus’s friend, retired General Jack Keane, was meeting with Dick Cheney. I liked and respected Jack. He had provided valuable advice during the decision-making process and supported the surge publicly. I asked Jack to convey a personal message from me to General Petraeus: “I waited over three years for a successful strategy. And I’m not giving up on it prematurely. I am not reducing further unless you are convinced that we should reduce further.”
Three weeks after the much-awaited testimony, I rode to the military parade grounds at Fort Myer, Virginia, to say farewell to a friend.
Shortly after I announced the surge, Bob Gates had recommended that I not renominate General Pete Pace to a second term as chairman of the Joint Chiefs. The environment on Capitol Hill was hostile, and Bob had heard from several senators—especially Carl Levin, the new chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee—that Pete’s confirmation hearing would be contentious. The concern was that senators would use him as a punching bag for all their frustrations with Iraq.
I admired Pete. I had benefited from his advice for six years. I knew how much our troops loved him. I wanted to end the presidency with my friend as chairman. But I pictured the spectacle of the hearing—protestors yelling and senators preening for the cameras, all ending with a negative vote that would humiliate Pete. I reluctantly agreed with Bob’s judgment. I nominated Mike Mullen, a fine Navy admiral, to be the next chairman.
Pete never complained. He served nobly to the end. After turning over his duties, he removed the four stars from his uniform, pinned them to a note card, and left it at the foot of the Vietnam Memorial near the name of a Marine lost four decades earlier. He brought no cameras or press. Later, the card
was found at the foot of the wall. It read, “To Guido Farinaro, USMC, These [stars] are yours, not mine! With love and respect, Your platoon leader, Pete Pace.”
At the 2007 retirement ceremony of Joint Chiefs Chairman Pete Pace (left). Next to us are his successor, Mike Mullen (right), and Bob Gates. White House/David Bohrer
I ached for Pete and his family. When I presented him with a well-deserved Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2008, it only partly assuaged my regret.
The momentum of the surge continued into 2008. By spring more than ninety thousand Iraqis, both Sunni and Shia, had joined Concerned Local Citizens groups like those that had started in Anbar. Many of these forces, now known as Sons of Iraq, integrated into the increasingly effective army and police force, which had grown to more than 475,000. They drove the remaining hard-core insurgents and al Qaeda from their strongholds. The terrorists resorted to using children and the mentally handicapped as suicide bombers, revealing both their moral depravity and their inability to recruit.
Just as counterinsurgency experts predicted, the security gains of 2007 translated into political progress in 2008. Free from the nightmare of sectarian violence, the Iraqis passed a flurry of major legislation, including a law resolving the status of former Baath Party members, a national budget, and legislation paving the way for provincial elections. While the government still had work to do on some key measures, including an oil-revenue-sharing law, the Iraqis’ political performance was a remarkable feat given all that they had endured.
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