by Bob Woodward
Next, Obama turned to Emanuel, who privately had called the war “political flypaper”—you get stuck to it and you can’t get unstuck.
The chief of staff said he was worried about the cost, noting that he had recently worked hard just to find a few hundred million dollars for an important program. “This could cost $30 billion” more, he said. “You know, this is a big deal.” He agreed they needed to stay linked together. “You’ve got to just go forward now,” he told the others, making it clear he was unhappy with the outcome. “Now, we’ve got a decision, and we’ve got to go forward.”
The president next asked Jones, who simply said he supported the decision.
Gates then said, “This came out about where I thought was right. What we laid out in late March, in retrospect, was too ambitious. The timelines are about right, in terms of the assessment”—December 2010 for a serious evaluation “and then beginning transition in summer 2011. We have a strong case … I’m sure Congress will support us.”
Biden said, “As I see it, this is not a negotiation. I fully support. I view this as an order from the commander in chief.” This was a mission change. “If this is not perceived as a change in mission, we cannot justify why we spent months working on this.
“The context for this is that this is necessary to defeat al Qaeda and support the effort in Pakistan. We can’t lose sight of Pakistan and stability there. The way I understand this, Afghanistan is a means to accomplish our top mission, which is to kill al Qaeda and secure Pakistan’s nukes. We must be making progress separately against al Qaeda and separately in Pakistan.”
Yes, the president agreed. The main pillar of this would be top secret and not be made public. That pillar was that safe havens for al Qaeda in Pakistan or elsewhere would no longer be acceptable. He was already expanding the mission against the main enemy and planned to intensify it with both the military and CIA. He wanted to send a message to Pakistan that the United States was committed, and address the real threat to the homeland and U.S. interests.
After the 9/11 attacks, President Bush had developed the so-called Bush Doctrine that said in responding to terrorist attacks, “We will make no distinction between those who planned these acts and those who harbor them.” Obama was not going to wait for an attack. They were going after the sanctuaries with a vengeance.
“Okay,” the president said, “the process has been very useful. This is an order. We’ll all be united.” He planned to unveil the new strategy on Tuesday night at West Point, he said.
Gates said, “You sound the bugle Tuesday night, Mr. President, and Mike”—the chairman—“and I will be the first to charge the hill.”
They all walked out of the Oval Office. Everyone seemed supportive. They were going along, but did anyone truly believe?
Unlike Lute, Donilon thought Gates had navigated the divide between Obama and the uniforms pretty well. The secretary of defense had to keep the trust, confidence and loyalty of the uniforms and balance that with the president’s vision. It looked as if Gates had been able to deliver unanimity and Obama would not have to deal with military leaders saying they couldn’t do it or, worse, have a bunch of resignations.
The president then went down to the Situation Room with Biden and Jones for a secure videoconference with McChrystal and Eikenberry to review the terms sheet, which had been sent to them.
“Gentlemen,” Obama began, “I want to be clear about what we are not doing. This is not a nationwide counterinsurgency strategy.” Such a strategy would not be sustainable with the American public, he said, it would break the budget, and it would leave the Afghan government more dependent on us. The cost of Stan’s plan might be up to $1 trillion.
“No way,” the president said.
We have to break the momentum of the Taliban, he said. The terms laid out in the sheet would give the time and space for the ANSF growth. “We need to send a message of resolve to the region.” But above all, he said, “We’re not making Afghanistan a long-term protectorate.
“The first reassessment will be in December 2010.” That would be used to reach a conclusion about the pace of thinning out forces the next year. “This assessment will not result in holding the numbers we now have or adding numbers. It will only be about the flexibility in how we draw down, not if we draw down.
“We are not going to do 400,000 [ANSF],” Obama said, “but we’ll train as many as possible. We still will have a big problem getting this through Congress.
“Everything is calibrated on us thinning out. … Stan, if this were 2003, maybe we could do a counterinsurgency strategy. Maybe I would have done that, but it’s 2009 and we’re long past that point.
“Even with a narrower mission and less resourcing, there is still no appetite here for us doing this. I hope you understand that. So there cannot be any dogfights between you, Petraeus, Mullen and Biden, and that includes you, Karl.” Addressing Eikenberry, he said, “If this is not the case, I will go with” the 11,000 trainers only. He said he wanted them to understand precisely what he was saying. “Messaging in the next two weeks is going to be critical.”
“Mr. President,” McChrystal said, “I think I’ve got it. But I need clarification on the size of the ANSF. Mr. President, what is the target? I need more clarity for the Afghans. They’re going to want to know what is the actual number.”
“You’ll give yearly goals for two years,” Obama said, “and keep working on developing the cost for the next decade for the Afghan National Security Forces.” Train as many as possible, he said. “I’m not going to micromanage this.” But there was no longer a target of 400,000.
Eikenberry said he fully supported the decisions but saw three risks—Pakistan, the Afghan forces and governance. “What kind of security guarantees can we offer beyond two years?” the ambassador asked.
The president asked the NSC staff to get talking points from McChrystal and Eikenberry that he could present to Karzai in a secure videoconference. Finally, he directed that the principals have a series of meetings to develop the strategic framework for relations with Pakistan.
As they all knew, the Pakistan problem was not just a matter of protecting the homeland and destroying al Qaeda. There was always the prize: bin Laden. “We’ve found the hornets’ nest,” Jones said later. “We’re poking at it from different ways. The bees are swarming but the queen is still there.”
That Monday morning, the president met with his White House national security staff. He had several changes to the draft of his speech and the tone was different from his secret orders. “The days of providing a blank check are over,” the speech said, but the reference was to Karzai and not the military.
He wanted a three-part argument: troops, civilian surge and Pakistan. There was nothing explicit about limiting the mission.
I went back and read Eisenhower’s famous farewell speech about the threat of the military-industrial complex, Obama said. The speech-writers had given him a copy in a packet as he was also preparing his Nobel acceptance speech.
He said everyone focuses on the military-industrial complex part, but to him the most interesting quote was Eisenhower’s statement about the need to find a reasonable equilibrium between defense needs and the other vital functions of government: “Each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs.”
“I want you to put that quote in the speech,” Obama told Rhodes. And he wanted to say that the loss of balance was one of the mistakes made in recent years. Military might and national security were dependent on the economy, which needed major attention.
Copies of the latest draft were sent to Clinton and Gates.
Robert Rangel, Gates’s Pentagon chief of staff, called Rhodes because the secretary was concerned about the rigid July 2011 date to begin withdrawing some forces. Gates wanted to make sure the decision to draw down was based on something. He proposed adding a phrase saying that any withdrawal would take into account “c
onditions on the ground.”
Rhodes went to Obama, who approved the change. That was what they had done in Iraq, and the president seemed to like the flexibility and the ambiguity.
Clinton, who had been at Karzai’s November 19 inaugural, wanted the speech to underscore a lasting commitment to both the Afghan and Pakistani people.
Obama agreed to add those points.
• • •
On the morning of Tuesday, December 1, before the speech, Jones repeated his lingering concerns to an associate in his office. He was still worried that they had not evaluated the 33,000 already ordered in by Bush and Obama. “One of the weaknesses in the demand, I think, for more troops, was we got 33,000 flowing in there this year and no real assessment yet as to how the hell they’re doing.”
It had been a real roller coaster, Jones felt. “It was raw,” he said. “There were some raw emotions out there.
“It just frayed. There are people here whose background is politics, so they look at everything in political terms. … The hard part was to not let the political interpretation of everything we decide drive the train: If you can’t sell it politically, you can’t do it.”
“We’re going to get our asses kicked for a while here,” Axelrod said six hours before the speech. “There’s going to be a lot of turmoil politically around this. We’ve got to strap on our armor here.”
Biden believed the president had put a stake in the heart of expansive counterinsurgency. His orders, in Biden’s view, formed a new strategy to stabilize Afghan population centers, such as Kabul and Kandahar, to prevent the Taliban from being able to topple the Karzai government. The military felt they had outsmarted the president and had won, but he believed that the president had prevailed.
Petraeus saw it differently. Counterinsurgency was alive and well. The core of the decision was 30,000 troops to protect the population. All the issues about what the strategy wasn’t—not fully-resourced COIN, not nation building—were just words. The reduction from 40,000 to 30,000 allowed the president to save face. It wasn’t ideal, but McChrystal could get 10,000 from NATO and other countries. If the president had told him at the beginning that it would come out with this strategy and 30,000 troops, Petraeus would have taken it in a second.
Petraeus said privately, “You have to recognize also that I don’t think you win this war. I think you keep fighting. It’s a little bit like Iraq, actually. Iraq is a bit of a metaphor for this. Yes, there has been enormous progress in Iraq. But there are still horrific attacks in Iraq, and you have to stay vigilant. You have to stay after it. This is the kind of fight we’re in for the rest of our lives and probably our kids’ lives.”
Perhaps the most pessimistic view came from Richard Holbrooke. “It can’t work,” he said.
29
The White House stage-managed the West Point speech, making sure that key members of the national security team would be in the audience. Clinton and Gates had to testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee the next morning, but their government planes would not be allowed to fly into Andrews Air Force Base when the president was departing or returning. So the whole team flew with Obama on Air Force One, then transferred to a helicopter for the 10-minute ride to the West Point campus.
When security officials heard that Obama, Clinton, Gates, Mullen and Jones were traveling together, they complained that one broken hydraulic line could have wiped out the entire brain trust.
Obama, wearing a dark suit, white shirt and red-striped tie, stepped to the podium at the United States Military Academy’s Eisenhower Hall Theatre at 8:01 P.M. on December 1. It was the speech the president and Rhodes had worked on for days, long on history, short on rhetoric and anticlimactic. He announced he was sending 30,000 more U.S. troops.
“I make this decision because I am convinced that our security is at stake,” Obama said. “In the last few months alone, we have apprehended extremists within our borders who were sent here from the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan to commit new acts of terror. And this danger will only grow if the region slides backwards, and al Qaeda can operate with impunity.”
The plan was for Afghanistan to eventually stand on its own two feet, so the U.S. could “begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011,” he said. Without irony, Obama held up what was happening in Iraq as a model. “Just as we have done in Iraq, we will execute this transition responsibly, taking into account conditions on the ground.” There was no talk of victory or winning.
He ended the 34-minute speech by addressing the divisions over the war.
“It’s easy to forget that when this war began, we were united—bound together by the fresh memory of a horrific attack, and by the determination to defend our homeland and the values we hold dear. I refuse to accept the notion that we cannot summon that unity again.”
Although most news coverage focused on the 30,000 troops, the headline in the next day’s New York Times was: “Obama Adds Troops, but Maps Exit Plan.”
The day after the West Point speech, Clinton and Gates appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee to testify on the new plan.
Many Republicans, especially Senator Lindsey Graham, were troubled by the president’s July 2011 deadline to “begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan.” Someone practically had to be a lawyer to figure out what it meant.
Was this an absolute deadline? Graham asked.
“I think the president, as commander in chief,” Gates said, “always has the option to adjust his decisions.”
“So it is not locked in that we’re going to be withdrawing troops in July 2011?” Graham asked. The pace of withdrawal “or not withdraw at all” would be decided later? “Is that correct?”
“The president always has the freedom to adjust his decisions,” Gates answered. “It was a clear statement of his strong intent.”
“Okay,” Graham said, and he turned to Clinton, who was in the witness chair next to Gates. “Have we locked ourselves into leaving, Secretary Clinton, in July 2011?”
“I do not believe we have locked ourselves into leaving,” she said. The July 2011 date was a “signal” that the United States “is not interested in occupying Afghanistan … in running their country, building their nation.” The transition to the Afghanistan forces would “be based on conditions” on the ground.
Later that day, Graham was in the Oval Office. The president wanted support from the moderate Graham on the closing of the prison in Guantánamo.
Graham told the president that he thought the decision to put some of the 9/11 suspects, including the alleged mastermind, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, in civilian court was a strategic blunder. “I don’t know if I can,” Graham said. As he was leaving, he mentioned that the president’s West Point speech was good. “But tell me about July 2011? Is it a goal, which I would share, or is it a withdrawal date no matter what?”
Obama didn’t answer immediately.
“Let me tell you what Secretary Clinton said,” Graham explained, standing at the Oval Office door. “She said it’s a policy based on conditions.”
“Well,” the president said, “if you’d asked me that question, what I would say is, ‘We’re going to start leaving.’ I have to say that. I can’t let this be a war without end, and I can’t lose the whole Democratic Party.”
“Mr. President,” Graham said, “let’s just don’t let that statement get so much attention.” That rationale for why the deadline existed would make it difficult for the president to have Republican support.
“This is tough,” Obama replied, repeating his concern. “I can’t lose all the Democratic Party. And people at home don’t want to hear we’re going to be there for ten years.”
“You’re right,” Graham said. “But the enemy is listening too.”
“Thank you,” the president replied.
• • •
Later, at the White House press briefing, Chip Reid, the chief White House correspondent for CBS News, asked Gi
bbs if July 2011 was the beginning of withdrawal or just a goal?
Gibbs did not have a complete answer, so he went to see the president.
As Reid reported on the CBS blog Political Hotsheet, “Gibbs then called me to his office to relate what the president said. The President told him it IS locked in—there is no flexibility. Troops WILL start coming home in July 2011. Period. It’s etched in stone. Gibbs said he even had the chisel.”
Graham called General Petraeus and went over what had happened, including the etched-in-stone-by-chisel statement from Gibbs.
“Oooohhh,” Petraeus said, “hadn’t heard that before. That’s a problem. You need to fix that.”
“Why do I need to fix it?” Graham asked.
“I’m not so sure I’m the one that needs to bring that up,” Petraeus replied. He would let “Gates and Clinton deal with this one.”
Gates went to Afghanistan and declared, “We’re in this thing to win.” Discussion of July 2011 seemed to fade, letting Obama have it both ways. July 2011 was a date with some meaning and none at all.
At a December 13 regional security conference hosted by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, Petraeus gave his interpretation of President Obama’s West Point speech. He noted, “In July 2011, we will begin—and I stress the word begin—to draw down our forces in the process whose pace depends on the security conditions on the ground. … This does not mean we will ‘race for the exits’ in 2011—far from it.”
In their regular talks, Lute pushed Petraeus. The three-star general felt close enough to the four-star Petraeus that he would usually insert a “sir” early in the conversation and then drop the formality.
Lute thought the four risk factors or “key dependencies,” as Donilon called them, loomed large.
“Sitting here,” Lute said to Petraeus, “this is how this looks. What am I missing? What makes you so cocksure that you can defy these kinds of risk factors and produce?”