The biggest concern in the spring of 2008 was the presence of Shia extremists. While security in most of Iraq improved during the surge, Shia extremists, many with close ties to Iran, had taken over large parts of Basra, Iraq’s second-largest city.
On March 25, 2008, Iraqi forces attacked the extremists in Basra. Prime Minister Maliki traveled to the south to oversee the operation. Most of my national security team was somewhere between anxious and petrified. The military worried that Maliki did not have a well-defined plan. Some in the embassy questioned whether he had enough support within the Iraqi government. The CIA gave Maliki’s assault a bleak prognosis.
I felt differently. Maliki was leading. For almost two years, I had urged him to show his evenhandedness. “A Shia murderer is as guilty as a Sunni murderer,” I said many times. Now he had followed through in a highly public way. When Steve Hadley and Brett McGurk came to the Oval Office the morning after Maliki launched the attack, I said, “Don’t tell me this is a bad thing. Maliki said he would do this and now he’s doing it. This is a defining moment. We just need to help him succeed.”
The assault was far from textbook, but it worked. The Iraqi forces brought security to Basra. Their success stunned Shia radicals like Moqtada al Sadr and their backers in Iran. Above all, the Basra operation established Maliki as a strong leader. The prime minister had reached a major decision point of his own, and he had made the right call.
A few weeks after the Iraqi government’s offensive in Basra, Petraeus and Crocker returned to Washington to testify in April. This time, there were no antiwar ads in the newspapers and no prolonged battle for funding. NBC News, which in November 2006 had officially pronounced Iraq in a state of civil war, stopped using the term. There was no grand announcement of the retraction.
Calling our gains in Iraq “fragile and reversible,” General Petraeus recommended that we continue withdrawing troops until we hit pre-surge levels, and then pause for further assessment. As Ryan Crocker put it, “In the end, how we leave [Iraq] and what we leave behind will be more important than how we came. Our current course is hard, but it is working. … We need to stay with it.” I agreed.
It was a measure of the surge’s success that one of the biggest military controversies of early 2008 did not involve Iraq. In March, Admiral Fox Fallon—who had succeeded John Abizaid as commander of CENTCOM—gave a magazine interview suggesting he was the only person standing between me and war with Iran. That was ridiculous. I asked Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen and Vice Chairman Hoss Cartwright what they would do if they were in Fallon’s position. Both said they would resign. Soon after, Fox submitted his resignation. To his credit, he never brought up the issue again. At our last meeting, I thanked him for his service and told him I was proud of his fine career.
I had to find a new commander to lead CENTCOM. There was only one person I wanted: David Petraeus. He had spent three of the past four years in Iraq, and I knew he was hoping to assume the coveted NATO command in Europe. But we needed him at CENTCOM. “If the twenty-two-year-old kids can stay in the fight,” he said, “I can, too.”
I asked General Petraeus who should replace him in Iraq. Without hesitation, he named his former deputy commander, General Ray Odierno. I first met Ray years earlier when I toured Fort Hood as governor of Texas. Six foot five with a clean-shaven head, the general is an imposing man. He was an early proponent of the surge, and he helped the strategy succeed by positioning the additional troops wisely throughout Baghdad.
For General Odierno, winning in Iraq was more than his duty as a soldier. It was personal. When Ray was home on leave in December 2004, I welcomed his family to the Oval Office, including his son, Lieutenant Anthony Odierno, a West Point graduate who had lost his left arm in Iraq. His father stood silently, beaming with pride, as his son raised his right arm to salute me. Even though Ray had just left for a top position back home at the Pentagon, he accepted the call to return as commander in Baghdad.
With Ray Odierno. White House/Eric Draper
It gave me solace to know that the next president would be able to rely on the advice of these two wise, battle-tested generals. In our own way, we had continued one of the great traditions of American history. Lincoln discovered Generals Grant and Sherman. Roosevelt had Eisenhower and Bradley. I found David Petraeus and Ray Odierno.
By the time the surge ended in the summer of 2008, violence in Iraq had dropped to the lowest level since the first year of the war. The sectarian killing that had almost ripped the country apart in 2006 was down more than 95 percent. Prime Minister Maliki, once the object of near-universal blame and scorn, had emerged as a confident leader. Al Qaeda in Iraq had been severely weakened and marginalized. Iran’s malign influence had been reduced. Iraqi forces were preparing to take responsibility for security in a majority of provinces. American deaths, which routinely hit one hundred a month in the worst stretch of the war, never again topped twenty-five, and dropped to single digits by the end of my presidency. Nevertheless, every death was a painful reminder of the costs of war.
My last major goal was to put Iraq policy onto a stable footing for my successors. In late 2007, we started work on two agreements. One, called a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), laid the legal predicate for keeping American troops in Iraq after the United Nations mandate expired at the end of 2008. The other, called a Strategic Framework Agreement (SFA), pledged long-term diplomatic, economic, and security cooperation between our countries.
Hammering out the agreements took months. Maliki had to deal with serious opposition from factions of his government, especially those with suspected ties to Iran. In the middle of a presidential campaign, Democratic candidates denounced the SOFA as a scheme to keep our troops in Iraq forever. The CIA doubted that Maliki would sign the agreement. I asked the prime minister about it directly. He assured me he wanted the SOFA. He had kept his word in the past, and I believed he would again.
Maliki proved a tough negotiator. He would obtain a concession from our side**** and then come back asking for more. On one level, the endless horse trading was frustrating. But on another level, I was inspired to see the Iraqis conducting themselves like representatives of a sovereign democracy.
As time passed without agreement, I started to get anxious. In one of our weekly videoconferences, I said, “Mr. Prime Minister, I only have a few months left in office. I need to know whether you want these agreements. If not, I have better things to do.” I could tell he was a little taken aback. This was my signal that it was time to stop asking for more. “We will finish these agreements,” he said. “You have my word.”
By November, the agreements were almost done. The final contentious issue was what the SOFA would say about America’s withdrawal from Iraq. Maliki told us it would help him if the agreement included a promise to pull out our troops by a certain date. Our negotiators settled on a commitment to withdraw our forces by the end of 2011.
For years, I had refused to set an arbitrary timetable for leaving Iraq. I was still hesitant to commit to a date, but this was not arbitrary. The agreement had been negotiated between two sovereign governments, and it had the blessing of Generals Petraeus and Odierno, who would oversee its implementation. If conditions changed and Iraqis requested a continued American presence, we could amend the SOFA and keep troops in the country.
Maliki’s political instincts proved wise. The SOFA and SFA, initially seen as documents focused on our staying in Iraq, ended up being viewed as agreements paving the way for our departure. The blowback we initially feared from Capitol Hill and the Iraqi parliament never materialized. As I write in 2010, the SOFA continues to guide our presence in Iraq.
On December 13, 2008, I boarded Air Force One for my fourth trip to Iraq, where I would sign the SOFA and SFA with Prime Minister Maliki. On the flight over, I thought about my previous trips to the country. They traced the arc of the war. There was the joy of the first visit on Thanksgiving Day 2003, which came months after liberation and a few weeks be
fore the capture of Saddam. There was the uncertainty of the trip to meet Maliki in June 2006, when sectarian violence was rising and our strategy was failing. There was the cautious optimism of Anbar in September 2007, when the surge appeared to be working but still faced serious opposition. Now there was this final journey. Even though much of America seemed to have tuned out the war, our troops and the Iraqis had created the prospect of lasting success.
We landed in Baghdad and choppered to Salam Palace, which six years earlier had belonged to Saddam and his brutal regime. As president, I had attended many arrival ceremonies. None was more moving than standing in the courtyard of that liberated palace, next to President Jalal Talabani, watching the flags of the United States and a free Iraq fly side by side as a military band played our national anthems.
From there we drove to the prime minister’s complex, where Maliki and I signed the SOFA and the SFA and held a final press conference. The room was packed tight, and the audience was closer than at a normal event. A handful of Iraqi journalists sat in front of me on the left. To my right was the traveling press pool and a few reporters based in Iraq. As Maliki called for the first question, a man in the Iraqi press rose abruptly. He let out what sounded like a loud bark, something in Arabic that sure wasn’t a question. Then he wound up and threw something in my direction. What was it? A shoe?
The scene went into slow motion. I felt like Ted Williams, who said he could see the stitching of a baseball on an incoming pitch. The wingtip was helicoptering toward me. I ducked. The guy had a pretty live arm. A split second later, he threw another one. This one was not flying as fast. I flicked my head slightly and it drifted over me. I wish I had caught the damn thing.
I wish I had caught the damn thing. White House/Eric Draper
Chaos erupted. People screamed, and security agents scrambled. I had the same thought I’d had in the Florida classroom on 9/11. I knew my reaction would be broadcast around the world. The bigger the frenzy, the better for the attacker.
I waved off Don White, my lead Secret Service agent. I did not want footage of me being hustled out of the room. I glanced at Maliki, who looked stricken. The Iraqi reporters were humiliated and angry. One man was shaking his head sadly, mouthing apologies. I held up my hands and urged everyone to settle down.
“If you want the facts, it’s a size-ten shoe that he threw,” I said. I hoped that by trivializing the moment, I could keep the shoe thrower from accomplishing his goal of ruining the event.
After the press conference, Maliki and I went to a dinner upstairs with our delegations. He was still shaken and apologized profusely. I took him aside privately with Gamal Helal, our Arabic interpreter, and told him to stop worrying. The prime minister gathered himself and asked to speak before the dinner. He gave an emotional toast about how the shoe thrower did not represent his people, and how grateful his nation was to America. He talked about how we had given them two chances to be free, first by liberating them from Saddam Hussein and again by helping them liberate themselves from the sectarian violence and terrorists.
Having a shoe thrown at me by a journalist ranked as one of my more unusual experiences. But what if someone had said eight years earlier that the president of the United States would be dining in Baghdad with the prime minister of a free Iraq? Nothing—not even flying footwear at a press conference—would have seemed more unlikely than that.
Signing the SOFA and SFA agreements with Nouri al Maliki. White House/Eric Draper
Years from now, historians may look back and see the surge as a forgone conclusion, an inevitable bridge between the years of violence that followed liberation and the democracy that emerged. Nothing about the surge felt inevitable at the time. Public opinion ran strongly against it. Congress tried to block it. The enemy fought relentlessly to break our will.
Yet thanks to the skill and courage of our troops, the new counter-insurgency strategy we adopted, the superb coordination between our civilian and military efforts, and the strong support we provided for Iraq’s political leaders, a war widely written off as a failure has a chance to end in success. By the time I left office, the violence had declined dramatically. Economic and political activity had resumed. Al Qaeda had suffered a significant military and ideological defeat. In March 2010, Iraqis went to the polls again. In a headline unimaginable three years earlier, Newsweek ran a cover story titled “Victory at Last: The Emergence of a Democratic Iraq.”
Iraq still faces challenges, and no one can know with certainty what the fate of the country will be. But we do know this: Because the United States liberated Iraq and then refused to abandon it, the people of that country have a chance to be free. Having come this far, I hope America will continue to support Iraq’s young democracy. If Iraqis request a continued troop presence, we should provide it. A free and peaceful Iraq is in our vital strategic interest. It can be a valuable ally at the heart of the Middle East, a source of stability in the region, and a beacon of hope to political reformers in its neighborhood and around the world. Like the democracies we helped build in Germany, Japan, and South Korea, a free Iraq will make us safer for generations to come.
I have often reflected on whether I should have ordered the surge earlier. For three years, our premise in Iraq was that political progress was the measure of success. The Iraqis hit all their milestones on time. It looked like our strategy was working. Only after the sectarian violence erupted in 2006 did it become clear that more security was needed before political progress could continue. After that, I moved forward with the surge in a way that unified our government. If I had acted sooner it could have created a rift that would have been exploited by war critics in Congress to cut off funding and prevent the surge from succeeding.
From the beginning of the war in Iraq, my conviction was that freedom is universal—and democracy in the Middle East would make the region more peaceful. There were times when that seemed unlikely. But I never lost faith that it was true.
I never lost faith in our troops, either. I was constantly amazed by their willingness to volunteer in the face of danger. In August 2007, I traveled to Reno, Nevada, to speak to the American Legion. Afterward, I met Bill and Christine Krissoff from Truckee, California. Their son, twenty-five-year-old Marine Nathan Krissoff, had given his life in Iraq. His brother, Austin, also a Marine, was at the meeting. Austin and Christine told me how much Nathan loved his job. Then Bill spoke up.
“Mr. President, I’m an orthopedic surgeon,” he said. “I want to join the Navy Medical Corps in Nathan’s honor.”
I was moved and surprised. “How old are you?” I asked.
“I’m sixty, sir,” he replied.
I was sixty-one, so sixty didn’t sound that old to me. I looked at his wife. She nodded. Bill explained that he was willing to retire from his orthopedic practice in California, but he needed a special age waiver to qualify for the Navy.
“I’ll see what I can do,” I said.
When I got back to Washington, I told Pete Pace the story after a morning briefing. Before long, Dr. Krissoff’s waiver came through. He underwent extensive training in battlefield medicine. Shortly after I left office, he deployed to Iraq, where he served alongside Austin and treated wounded Marines.
“I like to think that Austin and I are completing Nate’s unfinished task here in Iraq,” he wrote. “We honor his memory by our work here.” In 2010, I learned that Dr. Krissoff had returned home from Iraq—and then shipped off to Afghanistan.
Nathan Krissoff is one of the 4,229 American service members who gave their lives in Iraq during my presidency. More than 30,000 suffered wounds of war. I will always carry with me the grief their families feel. I will never forget the pride they took in their work, the inspiration they brought to others, and the difference they made in the world. Every American who served in Iraq helped to make our nation safer, gave twenty-five million people the chance to live in freedom, and changed the direction of the Middle East for generations to come. There are things we got wrong in
Iraq, but that cause is eternally right.
*To prevent fraud, election officials had each voter dip a finger in purple ink.
**John answered the call to serve four times in my administration—as ambassador to the United Nations, ambassador to Iraq, director of national intelligence, and deputy secretary of state.
***It included J. D. Crouch, Steve’s deputy and a former ambassador to Romania; Meghan O’Sullivan; Bill Luti, a retired Navy captain; Brett McGurk, a former law clerk to Chief Justice William Rehnquist; Peter Feaver, a Duke political science professor who had taken leave to join the administration; and two-star general Kevin Bergner.
****Led by Condi, Ryan Crocker, Brett McGurk, and State Department adviser David Satterfield.
ust before noon on January 20, 2005, I stepped onto the Inaugural platform. From the west front of the Capitol, I looked out on the crowd of four hundred thousand that stretched back across the National Mall. Behind them I could see the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, and Arlington National Cemetery on the other side of the Potomac.
The 2005 Inauguration marked the third time I had admired that view. In 1989, I was a proud son watching his dad get sworn in. In 2001, I took the presidential oath under freezing rain and the clouds of a disputed election. I had to concentrate on each step down the Capitol stairs, which were a lot narrower than I’d expected. It took time for my senses to adjust to the flurry of sounds and sights. I stared out at the huge huddled mass of black and gray overcoats. I wondered if the sleet would make it hard to see the TelePrompTer when I gave my Inaugural Address.
Four years later, the sky was sunny and clear. The colors seemed more vibrant. And the election results had been decisive. As I walked down the blue-carpeted steps toward the stage, I was able to pick out individual faces in the crowd. I saw Joe and Jan O’Neill, along with a large contingent from Midland. I smiled at the dear friends who had introduced me to the wonderful woman at my side. One thing was for sure: As we enjoyed our burgers that night in 1977, none of us expected this.
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