The War Within

by Woodward, Bob

  "You hit a home run!" Miller assured Greenwood as they descended in the State Department elevator.

  "Frank, I don't feel like I hit a home run. What is a broke-dick colonel like me who works for you at the White House doing briefing the secretary of state on a war plan for which we get information third-hand, through hook and crook?"

  Now, years later, he held out hope that his summons for the secret Pentagon group would give him another chance to help turn around a war that he felt had been mismanaged from the beginning.

  Chapter 16

  One by one, 16 men whose lives had been placed on hold showed up at the Pentagon for their mystery assignment.

  Three were Marines, four were from the Army, four from the Navy and five from the Air Force. Some had logged significant time in Iraq or Afghanistan. Most had advanced degrees. But few knew the precise purpose behind their summons to the mother ship on the banks of the Potomac.

  It was the last week of September, and they gathered in the National Military Command Center within the Joint Chiefs section of the Pentagonóthe nerve center of worldwide crisis response.

  Pace had assembled the brightest military minds to study what had become of Iraq and to examine the United States'

  broader global challenges. These were the star thinkers of the military, many of them destined to make up the next generation of admirals and generals. Now this windowless basement space would be their home for the rest of the year.

  On September 27 and 28, Pace and the other chiefs, along with JCS staff director Lieutenant General Walter "Skip"

  Sharp, outlined the assignment the colonels would tackle for the next three months.

  The group was to remain highly confidential. If anyone asked what the colonels were doing, they were to stick to a cover storyóthey were conducting research for a series of war games.

  Pace told the men to think broadly and creatively. They had the freedom to follow their intellects, and they need not come to consensus. Dissenting opinions were welcomed, even encouraged, he said. The colonels should try to figure out what decisions America must make in order to win "the long war," he said, the global struggle against terrorism.

  Pace and the other chiefs posed a range of questions for the group to consider. Among them: How can the United States best implement all the elements of national power? Does the country have the correct national security strategy? How can it outthink and overmatch its enemies? How can we tackle the Israeli-Palestinian problem? How do we improve the American image throughout the world?

  Take a critical look at the way America has waged the global war on terrorism. Analyze the role of CentCom. Study the responsibilities and performance of the JCS. Research historical insurgencies. Bring in experts and critical thinkers. Challenge any and all assumptions. Help the decision makers figure out the fight we're in. Take on the 800-pound gorilla in the roomóIraq.

  The group would report directly to Pace and the service chiefs every Friday afternoon, schedules permitting, from 2:30 to 4:30.

  * * *

  A tangible excitement surrounded the colonels. Greenwood felt his adrenaline rising with the thought of the mission ahead. It seemed weighty and important. Seldom did such a small group of officers get the chance to influence policy at the highest level and perhaps put the countryóand the worldóon a better footing. The group would get face time with the chairman and the Joint Chiefs each week. The secretary of defense would be looking to them for wisdom, he thought, and perhaps the president would too.

  In those first weeks, the colonels immersed themselves in their task like soldiers digging trenches on the front linesómotivated, determined and resolute. There was a sense within the group, a certain idealism, that they were going to fix the Iraq problem.

  Half jokingly, they began referring to themselves as the Council of Colonels.

  * * *

  On September 30, General Casey presented his view on the nature of the enemy to the NSC during a secure videoconference. "The enemyóand the security situationóis much more complex than ever before," he told them. He outlined four major groups that must be confronted: Sunni extremists, Shia extremists, those carrying out resistance attacks on the coalition, and the Iranians, who were covertly undermining stability.

  * * *

  "We're going to have to do this by the drink," Hadley told Bush, the former heavy drinker. "We're going to have to buy American support for continuing the war by the drink. We're going to have to have a new strategy. We're going to have to show that the new strategy is succeeding. And if we can have a three-month period where we begin to show some success, we can probably buy some support for another three-month period." The president said that sounded right.

  "We're going to have to do this on the installment plan," Hadley went on. They didn't have much time, certainly not the multiyear timelines General Casey was still using. They both knew they were getting hammered from the left and the right, and as Hadley saw it the criticism was basically the same. The Democrats were saying, "It's not working.

  Go home." The Republicans were saying, "It's not working. Make it work or get out."

  They both also knew that their most immediate vulnerability was from their own party. Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina senator, had told reporters, "We're on the verge of chaos, and the current plan is not working." Virginia Senator George Allen said, "We cannot continue doing the same things and expect different results. We have to adapt our operations, adapt our tactics." Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island and Olympia Snowe of Maine were among the high-profile Republican critics. But they were far from the only Republicans whose loyalty had worn thin.

  Hadley and the president realized they would have to convince their colleagues by the drink too.

  * * *

  On Sunday, October 1, Hadley sent his deputy, J. D. Crouch, to talk with former Navy Captain William J. Luti, the senior director for defense on the NSC staff. "Would you put together a concept, operational conceptóa planóon a new direction in Iraq?" Crouch asked. "Steve wants you to do this."

  Luti, who previously had worked for Cheney and former Speaker Newt Gingrich, was known on the NSC staff for his hard-line views. He had strongly supported the Iraq War. He jumped at the chance to help turn it around.

  Hadley knew that other reviews were under way within the governmentóRice's at State, another at the Pentagonónot to mention the Iraq Study Group. But he was unsure whether a surge option would emerge from any of them, and he wanted to make sure it got on the table. He had already concluded that a surge was the way to go, and he knew the president would want it as an option. The Luti assignment was essentially an insurance policy for the surge and a chance to assess the feasibility of adding more troops.

  "Give it to me when you're done," Crouch told Luti. Work quickly. Work quietly. Highest classification. No leaks.

  The House and Senate elections were only five weeks away.

  * * *

  In early October, the president set out campaigning for Republicans across the country. In Reno, Nevada, on October 2, he said, "If you listen closely to some of the leaders of the Democrat Party, it sounds like they think the best way to protect the American people is, wait until we're attacked again." But then he added, "What you're seeing is the beginning of a victory against an ideology of extremists." In Arizona, on October 4, he said the nature of warfare had changed since World War II and the Korean War. "This is a different kind of war," he said. "It's a war that depends upon our capacity to find individuals and bring them to justice before they strike again." It was the kind of round-'em-up-and-kill-'em mentality that General Casey felt reflected the president's basic misunderstanding of the war.

  * * *

  Condi Rice's worries were escalating. She had not been to Iraq for five months. "I'm going out," she told the president and Hadley. "I think I need to have a firsthand look." Rice arrived unannounced in Baghdad on Thursday evening, October 5. After a brief meeting w
ith Maliki and a 20-minute press conference, Rice met with the Sunni leaders in Ambassador Khalilzad's large, open living room around 8 P.M. The Iraqis lined the chairs and sofas in the room in an almost perfect square around the secretary. Khalilzad and Satterfield also sat in.

  "Why don't you tell me how you see things here?" Rice began.

  Dr. Adnan al-Dulaimi, the elderly head of the largest bloc of Sunnis in the parliament, said sectarian violence was paralyzing Iraqi society, especially in Baghdad. "The school year has started," he said, "but no oneóteachers or studentsócan go to class." Trade was on the verge of collapse because Iraqis were too afraid to leave their homes.

  We're victims, he and his fellow Sunnis insisted. Nobody's doing anything to protect us. The leaders presented Rice with eight-by-ten glossy photographs, some in color, showing Sunni victims of tortureódecapitations and bodies with holes drilled into their heads and handsóa gruesome portfolio. They insisted that the killings and torture were the work of Shia death squads linked to people in the highest ranks of the government.

  Rice knew that these pictures conformed with recent intelligence reports that sometimes showed 150 bodies turning up overnight in Baghdad.

  The Sunnis' message was simple: We need to be protected. The leaders provided details and names from the Ministry of Interior, which ran the national police. Most of it involved crimes of omission, looking the other way, but there were clear acts of barbarism. On the political side, they claimed, Moqtada al-Sadr was trying to force a resolution on a timetable for U.S. withdrawal, in their view an item on Iran's agenda. They complained that the Shia had not followed through on promises made during the formation of the government and that they viewed their Sunni counterparts as adversaries, not partners. Those Sunnis who had been given roles in the government were regularly circumvented by officials from the prime minister's office. In their eyes, all the political and security troubles were traceable to the Shia.

  On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 a devastating earthquake, Rice concluded the situation warranted a 9.

  After an hour with these Sunni leaders, she met with the Shia leadership, most notably Abdul Aziz al-Hakim.

  "We tried to do this the right way" by accommodating the Sunnis, who used to rule Iraq, Hakim said. "We could have said, 'They killed our fathers. They killed our brothers. They destroyed our families and our villages. They gassed our people, and therefore we're going to do the same thing to them.' There were those among us who thought that's exactly what we should do. But we didn't. We've tried to bring them into the government. We tried to work with them. They don't want to work with us." He added in frustration, "Don't you see that they don't really want to be a part?" They wanted everything as in the old days of Saddam. They want to be in power again, he said.

  The Shia narrative was the mirror image of the Sunni narrative. Each saw the other as the enemy.

  Rice, who listened intently for more than an hour, finally said she wanted them to understand how Americans looked at Iraq. "Americans understand that there are people who lost their standingóSaddamists who are fighting us. And they understand al Qaeda" because of the brutality of the 9/11 attacks. "Americans understand that there might be some people who think we're occupiers, and they're fighting us. But Iraqis killing Iraqisóthey don't get that. And Americans are not going to stay with you if you're asking us to be in the middle of your centuries-old fights. And so what is going to happen is we're going to leave, because we won't be able to stay, and within six months you'll all be swinging from lampposts."

  Afterward, Rice realized that the "swinging from lampposts" description might have been a touch indelicate. But it had gotten their attention. Rice asked her translator how it had gone over.

  "It translated just fine," he replied.

  Around 10:15 P.M., weary from her trip and consecutive frustrating meetings, Rice met again with Prime Minister Maliki, with only their interpreters in the room.

  No matter what we do, she told him, this will not work if the Iraqis are not resolved to bring about some kind of reconciliation. "I don't mean by reconciliation that you all have to love each other," she said. After years of bitter internal warfare, she understood the tensions. She had heard the awful stories from both sides. "I have reason to believe that these stories are trueóthat when the army or the police want to defend a neighborhood, they're either called off or they're punished if they're going after Shia who are killing Sunnis. Innocent people are innocent people.

  And I need to know, do you believe that?"

  Yes, he said, he believed it.

  "This is our problem," she said. "We don't see it." Your words do not match your actions, and the United States would not keep its troops in Iraq if it was not fixed. She repeated the warning she had given the others: "In six months, you'll all be swinging from lampposts."

  Rice left Baghdad the next morning, realizing that she had miscalculated. She had thought that some political deal was possible, a kind of grand bargain whereby the Kurds, Shia and Sunnis would all opt for a place in the sun and compromise on the division of power, oil and money. But the sectarian violence was all-consumingóespecially with the Maliki government sanctioning and even abetting killings. It was tearing the country apart.

  * * *

  Back in Washington, Rice quickly beat a path to the White House. She met with the president in the Oval Office. Cheney and Hadley came to listen.

  "What we're doing isn't working," Rice told the president. She said she thought there hadn't been an adequate response to the deteriorating situation since the Samarra bombing. And as she had in August, she again raised with Bush the image of an Iraqi society that was "rending," stretched to the breaking point and on the precipice of coming apart.

  She recounted her conversations with the Iraqi leaders and told the president that Maliki wasn't the main problem. It was bigger than that. The problems seemed systemic. For example, no one trusted the police.

  "We have a Bull Connor problem," she said, recalling her childhood during the turbulent 1960s in Birmingham, Alabama. Bull Connor, the notorious commissioner of public safety, had made his own law. He was a member of the Ku Klux Klan and a rabid segregationist, a lawman who ignored the law and fought integration with fire hoses, attack dogs and intimidation. "If the police came into my neighborhood, it wasn't for good," Rice said, adding that Iraq had a similar problem. "And until they find a way to make people think that the police or the army or somebody is there to evenly protect the population, this isn't going to work."

  "You really think it's gotten to that point?" Bush asked.

  "Yes," she said. The Iraqis had a lot to prove to their own people. Maliki had to prove he would not countenance, participate in or ignore organized violence. "And, frankly, they have a lot to prove to us."

  She said she was worried that the effort the United States was making was no longer relating to the reality on the ground. Bush, usually given to a back-and-forth, mostly listened.

  "How do you know that?" he finally asked. "How do you know that they aren't making the tough choices? What is it that you see?"

  There are certain metrics to watch, indicators that would make it clear one way or another, Rice said. Most important, the Shia-led government must not act in a sectarian way. It must take on the Shia militias.

  The average Iraqi has nobody to trust, she said. Not the government, not us. We are losing the population. Life is far from normal in Iraq. "It's not approaching normal," she said. "And it's not going to be normal unless the security situation is better."

  They eventually got around to the obvious questions: What do we do about it? How do we fix it?

  "Mr. President, I can't give you any easy answers," Rice said. "I want to go think about it. I want to go think about what we can do about it."

  She had gotten off the plane from Iraq only hours earlier. She needed time to contemplate what she had seen, and more important, to figure out what must come next.

  Rice and Hadley talked about which direc
tion to head. "Obviously, we're going to need some way to think through this," Rice said. Maybe it was time to get people together and study the situation in a more formal, aboveboard way.

  But they both were worried about the upcoming elections and wanted to avoid drawing attention in the charged political environment.

  So the reviews continued under the radar.

  Chapter 17

  On Friday afternoon, October 6, the Council of Colonels headed to their first full session with the Joint Chiefs. They descended into the secure conference room known as the tank, a World War II moniker from when the chiefs had met in a basement room of the Public Health Service Building on Constitution Avenue. The entrance to the room was down a flight of stairs and through an arched doorway, giving the impression of entering a tank.

  Officially known as the JSC conference room, or the "gold room," the current room in the Pentagon is trimmed in gold carpet, heavy gold drapes and dark wood paneling, much like a down-at-the-heels men's club. The tank is the military's secret society, a sacrosanct place where candid debates take place and what's said is not supposed to be reported to outsiders.

  Chairman Pace and the service chiefs were seated in dark leather chairs around a long wooden conference table. The 12 colonels and four Navy captains sat along the walls.

  For any military officer, participating in a tank session is a heady experience. But for Colonel McMaster, it qualified as downright surreal. His 1997 book, Dereliction of Duty, had blasted the Vietnam era chiefs who had met in this same room as "five silent men," meek and indecisive, utterly failing to be forceful and honest with President Johnson and Secretary of Defense McNamara.