by Leon Panetta
That night, I dined at an impressive Italian restaurant with the crown prince, his knowledgeable ambassador in Washington, Yousef al-Otaiba, and other members of his team. We talked well into the evening about Iran, and agreed that the situation was increasingly precarious. Afterward, a few of my close aides and I retired for a nightcap. I asked each of them whether they thought Israel would launch an attack before the fall of 2012. They were split right down the middle.
• • •
The Gridiron Club dinner is a stuffy springtime ritual in Washington, when journalists, government officials, and the permanent class of Washington insiders dress in white tie and tails and gather for a night of self-referential comedy. The journalists perform some skits, and a few politicians are invited to deliver humorous remarks. The 2012 dinner’s Republican speaker was Texas governor Rick Perry. The Democrat was DNC chairwoman Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz. The administration’s representative was the secretary of defense, me.
I’ve never pretended to be a stand-up comic, but I thought I had some good material: “Speaking of advanced weaponry, DoD recently completed a sixty-five-year project to develop a cutting-edge robot. Initial testing wasn’t good, but Mitt Romney’s performance is improving.”
I also poked fun at my Italian heritage and told a few off-color jokes. But my favorite line was one I didn’t get to deliver: “Looking back on my career, I’ve been a Republican, a congressman, and White House chief of staff, and a defense secretary. Come to think of it, I’ve done everything that Dick Cheney has done. Except the guy I made sure got shot in the face was Osama bin Laden.”
About ten minutes before I was to take the microphone, my speechwriter, Jacob Freedman, saw a wire story that Cheney had been hospitalized for a heart transplant. Freedman told Jeremy, who was seated across the ballroom. They quickly ran up behind the dais and whispered to me that I probably needed to pull the Cheney joke. I sort of wanted to let her rip, but Cheney was a decent man, and there was no sense in risking an ill-timed insult. Oh well. At least I got to share it now.
• • •
By 2012, the Afghan surge had run its course, and we were beginning to draw down our forces in the region. But as our hasty departure from Iraq had only recently served to remind, it’s a lot easier to start wars than it is to finish them. In the case of Afghanistan, three important agreements needed to be negotiated and finalized in order for the United States to turn over responsibility for Afghan security, move from combat to support, and leave a sufficiently secure country that it would not again become a haven for terrorists. In the spring of 2012, we engaged Karzai’s government and knocked off each of the agreements.
The first was the subject of long, sometimes acrimonious negotiations, and concerned the future of the Parwan Detention Center, located at Bagram Airfield. The United States had used the facility to hold prisoners taken from the battlefield and suspected of ties to insurgents or terrorist organizations. They were not charged criminally, but in the view of NATO commanders they posed a threat to our forces in the region if released. As such, we were reluctant to simply turn over the keys to the Afghan government and stand by while it released people we regarded as dangerous; instead, we negotiated a phased transfer under which we gradually yielded control of the facility to an Afghan commander while retaining some authority to review and even overrule decisions on prisoner releases. That agreement was signed on March 9.
The second area of negotiation was delicate for a different reason. It established rules and limits on nighttime raids, a particularly sore subject in Afghanistan, where villagers complained of terrifying encounters with U.S. forces in the middle of the night. Bales’s recent rampage, though not a raid, had also inflamed tempers about the threat our soldiers could pose. On the other hand, relinquishing the right to fight during darkness would vastly reduce the effectiveness of our troops in the country as long as Afghanistan was not prepared to take over the lead in that area. By 2012, however, our forces had been working closely with the Afghan military, and after some deliberation we concluded that we could afford to begin giving up our lead role in those operations. On April 9, General John Allen signed the raid agreement on behalf of the U.S. government. It gave Afghan forces the lead role in future operations, and put the raids under the auspices of the Afghan criminal justice system, with requirements for warrants and the filing of charges. It also permitted Afghanistan to request American assistance at any point. And it allowed for continued, limited work by nonmilitary representatives of the United States.
Those two agreements cleared out some of the underbrush in relations between our countries, and allowed us to turn to the largest and most complex of the negotiations: the terms of the continuing military relationship once the United States had completed its withdrawal. I was determined not to repeat what I regarded as the essential mistake of the transition in Iraq—an abrupt departure that left the United States without any presence to continue exercising influence. At the same time, the White House was eager to be able to conclude the war in Afghanistan, by then the longest in American history. And of course there was substantial pressure from Afghanistan itself, where Karzai was torn between recognizing the value of continued military assistance and growing domestic discontent with the military occupation of much of his country, discontent only exacerbated by incidents such as the Koran burnings and the murderous attack by Bales.
Around the time of these negotiations, the State Department’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Ambassador Marc Grossman, was developing plans for so-called Taliban reconciliation. The idea was to foster a political dialogue between the Karzai government and the Taliban—and plan for the eventual reintegration of the Taliban into Afghan political life. The plan for reconciliation, which had begun under Grossman’s predecessor, Dick Holbrooke, would require the Taliban to renounce violence, break ties with Al Qaeda, and embrace the Afghan constitution. Unfortunately, the Afghan government was largely kept in the dark and never fully endorsed the effort.
As Grossman began to work out the details through intermediaries with the Taliban, the Taliban came back with a proposal: to return army sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, who had been held by Taliban-linked militants since 2009, in exchange for five senior Taliban leaders whom we were holding at Guantánamo Bay.
I opposed the swap for several reasons. First, I did not believe the Taliban were sincere in their efforts to reconcile with the Afghan government; they were, after all, attacking our forces on the field of battle. Second, I did not believe it was fair to trade five for one. I might have considered one for one, but not five for one. Third, Congress had passed a law stating that no prisoner could be released from Guantánamo unless we could ensure that the country to which we were transferring the prisoner had the ability to prevent the prisoner from rejoining the fight. The Qatari government agreed to receive the prisoners, and I appreciated their efforts, but frankly I did not believe that the Qatari government’s assurances were strong enough to satisfy the law.* I directed our team at the Pentagon to negotiate with the Qatari government a better deal, but at the end of the process the Taliban did not agree to many of our key demands. Secretary Clinton and I—and others—did not think we could proceed, and as much as we wanted to bring Sergeant Bergdahl home and reunite him with his family, the deal evaporated.
The controversy over his return in 2014 in some ways missed the point. Most commentators focused on his conduct and whether he “deserved” to be rescued. My view is that we should leave no man behind and that we should try to reunite all American prisoners of war with their families. The bigger issue is: Is this a good deal for the security interests of the United States? That depends entirely on the assurance that we received and whether in fact these five very bad men are prevented from returning to the fight.
• • •
What we hammered out in those weeks attempted to satisfy our concerns as well as those of Karzai. To Afghanistan, we offered
a substantial reduction in force and new rules limiting the use of American power, some of which had already been handled in the night raid agreement. To fulfill the president’s direction to draw the war to a close, we proposed bringing home the vast majority of our men and women. And to those concerned with the continued security of Afghanistan, we offered to leave a residual force with a new mission—moving from combat to support and training.
Those details were firmed up in March and April, in time for Secretary Clinton and me to bring them to the meetings of NATO defense and foreign ministers, held in Brussels. The two of us presented that group with our proposal for shifting the mission from combat to support, maintaining the bulk of our forces well into 2014 while changing the emphasis of their work. Our allies appreciated that, and expressed relief that we were resisting the urge to pull out precipitously, which they feared would tumble Afghanistan backward and leave open a path for the Taliban’s return. Instead, we offered a measured plan to draw down while at the same time bolstering Afghanistan’s security capacity. Our European allies were happy to join us. We were, as we said, “in together, out together.”
At the conclusion of our talks, I was convinced that we had an approach that could work, and a united front in support of it. As I said then, “Allies and partners have a very clear vision and a very clear message: Our strategy is right, our strategy is working, and if we stick to it, we can achieve the mission of establishing an Afghanistan that can secure and govern itself and never again become a safe haven for terrorists.”9 Two weeks later, President Obama slipped away from Washington and traveled to Bagram Airfield, where he joined President Karzai at a felt-covered table before the flags of both nations. They exchanged remarks, then signed the document, formally known as the “Enduring Strategic Partnership Agreement Between the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.”
It was in some ways a bittersweet moment, a marker in a long and often frustrating conflict, with many lives lost in pursuit of sometimes murky goals. Afghanistan was hardly a new model of democracy, nor was its long-term security assured. And yet Al Qaeda had been dislodged from its sanctuaries, and America was safer as a consequence. It was not a ringing success, but it was an achievement, albeit one won at considerable cost. In his remarks, President Obama captured that sense of ambiguity, of hope and resolve and even relief.
“Mr. President,” he said, addressing Karzai, “there will be difficult days ahead. But as we move forward with our transition, I’m confident that Afghan forces will grow stronger, the Afghan people will take control of their future. With this agreement, I am confident that the Afghan people will understand that the United States will stand by them, and they will know that the United States can achieve our goal of destroying Al Qaeda and denying it a safe haven, but at the same time, we have the capacity to wind down this war and usher in a new era of peace here in Afghanistan.”10
Later that month, the NATO heads of state, meeting in Chicago, ratified the agreement. With that, our longest war turned toward its conclusion.
It did leave one last question, however: At my last NATO meeting in 2013, I strongly urged the alliance to consider endorsing the maintenance of a residual force of 8,000 to 10,000 soldiers, a point I was pressing at the time with the White House as well. No decision was made at that meeting, but President Obama the following year announced that he, too, favored leaving 9,800 American troops in the country after the end of combat operations.
• • •
Memorial Day is an especially somber occasion for a secretary of defense, an opportunity to reflect on the responsibilities of peacekeeping and the price of war. In 2012, I felt those emotions acutely, as we honored those who had sacrificed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and also marked the fiftieth anniversary of the Vietnam War, during which I had served as an intelligence officer in California.*
I began the day with a visit to Arlington National Cemetery, where I joined the president and first lady in laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Later that same day, I traveled to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, and there was powerfully confronted with the sacrifices this nation has demanded of so many young people—in the case of that war, fifty-eight thousand soldiers, their names etched in the black marble of that stirring memorial. Some of my ROTC classmates from Santa Clara were among those whose lives were lost and whose names appear. And of course, there were many whom I’d helped to brief during their time at Fort Ord. I was moved to see those familiar names, and expressed the hope that this country could at last transcend the divisions over that war.
“The Vietnam generation, my generation, is graying now,” I said to those gathered before the memorial. “But this commemoration effort gives the country an opportunity, today and in the years ahead, to try and right the wrongs of the past, to remember those who served in this war and what they did for us, their service, and their sacrifice on our behalf.”
I then was pleased to introduce Senator Chuck Hagel, a Vietnam veteran and friend, who was later to become my successor at the Defense Department.
The following week, I took another step toward healing the wounds of Vietnam, becoming the first American cabinet officer to return to Cam Ranh Bay, the strategically important deepwater port that served as a major American installation for the army, navy, and air force during the Vietnam War. The port was a marvel—deep and calm and protected by row after row of natural buffers. But the wonder of its topography was dwarfed by the marvel of the history that has taken place there. This ancient port had anchored trade in the region for centuries, then became an embattled outpost of American might, then a Pacific harbor for ships of the Soviet Union, and now once again, under a unified Vietnam, a welcoming port of trade and call. I visited a navy cargo ship in the harbor and spoke with sailors about that long history, then headed on to Hanoi.
The highlight of my visit was a brief exchange that helped conclude two intertwined pieces of unfinished business from that war. This particular episode began in 1966, when a young American marine named Robert Frazure led his patrol to clean up after a deadly firefight that left eleven Americans dead and fifty-five wounded in northern South Vietnam. As they were dragging the bodies of the dead from the battlefield, Frazure spotted a small red diary lying on the chest of Vu Dinh Doan, a North Vietnamese soldier killed in the same battle. Frazure shoved it in his pocket and brought it home with him as a souvenir.
Three years later, army sergeant Steven Flaherty was at work with his colleagues in the 101st Airborne in the A Shau Valley, near the Laos border. He was killed in action on March 25, 1969, and Vietnamese soldiers took four partially written letters from him. Flaherty apparently was planning to finish those notes when he returned from his mission. Instead, they were excerpted and used for propaganda purposes, as they described grisly and difficult conditions and the hard life of an American serviceman in combat. These letters had remained in Vietnam for generations.
George Little’s press team—including the very able Carl Woog—heard about the diary from the PBS program History Detectives (Frazure had contacted the program for its help in returning the diary), and learned of the Flaherty letters from the Defense Department’s POW/MIA command, which read about them in a Vietnamese newspaper. Carl put the two together and came up with the idea of an exchange. I endorsed it heartily, but as I left for my Asia trip, we still did not have the diary in hand. Carl dispatched another Pentagon aide to fetch it and jump on a commercial flight to Vietnam. He did, and arrived just in time to meet me there and hand me a FedEx envelope containing the little book.
On June 4, 2012, I presented the red diary to Vietnamese minister of defense Phung Quang Thanh (it was still inside the FedEx package), and he handed me Sergeant Flaherty’s unsent letters on a small silver platter. It was the first official exchange of artifacts between our countries since the end of the war.
I brought Flaherty’s letters home to the United States and, far
too belatedly, had them delivered to his family in South Carolina, where he’d been raised after being adopted from a Japanese orphanage in the 1950s.11 By the time his letters were delivered, his mother and father had passed away, but his uncle gratefully received them.
One of the notes included a line that had only grown more apt and poignant with time. Writing to a “Mrs. Wyatt” whose identity has been lost, the twenty-two-year-old sergeant said, “This is a dirty and cruel war but I’m sure people will understand the purpose of this war even though many of us might not agree.” It took forty-three years for that letter to make it home, and the purpose of the war it described still remained a mystery to many. And yet our countries were now at peace.
• • •
Israel is a tough country in a tough part of the world, and Iran was hardly its only threat. In fact, at precisely the same time that we were urging Israel to hold back against Iran we were working to help it defend itself against another foe, Hamas.
The pressure from Hamas had been growing for years, and Ehud Barak had seen it coming. During one of our first meetings after I became secretary of defense, we weren’t two sips into the coffee when Ehud said, rather matter-of-factly, “Leon, I need you to help me prevent the next war.”
I was certainly game for that, though a little taken aback that Ehud had such a clear vision of the future. “What,” I asked, “is the next war?”
“Hamas has rearmed in Gaza,” he responded. “They are holding tens of thousands of short-range and medium-range rockets, artillery pieces, and mortars. If we don’t stop them, they will rain hell on my people in southern Israel, and we will be forced to go back into Gaza.”