We also discussed who should be the next chief of staff of the Army. General Pete Schoomaker had been brought out of retirement to assume the job and was more than ready to re-retire. The president said he did not want Casey, after all his service to the country, to leave with a cloud over his head because of the situation in Iraq. We agreed to ask George to become the chief of staff.
Some senators in the confirmation process to come, above all, John McCain, would not be as generous with Casey as the president had been. Indeed, during my first trip to Iraq as secretary, I received word that McCain wanted urgently to speak with me. The telephonic connection was finally made during a dinner Casey was hosting for me. I took the call in his bedroom in Baghdad and, in a surreal moment, listened to McCain tell me just how strongly he opposed making Casey chief of staff of the Army.
The meeting of the national security team with the president at the ranch near Crawford on December 28 brought nearly all of the issues to a head. The United States would commit up to five additional brigade combat teams, or approximately 21,500 troops, half of them by mid-February and the rest at a rate of about 3,500 each succeeding month. While Abizaid and Casey were still talking about sending two brigades with the others to come later as needed, both Petraeus and Odierno wanted all five committed and sent. I agreed with the new commanders’ recommendation (reversing my earlier support of Casey’s approach), persuaded by the argument that if you sent two brigades, then added others later, it would look like the strategy was failing and therefore reinforcements had to be sent. Better to go all in at the outset. I never kidded myself that I was a military expert at the operational level. On this occasion, as later, when I heard the field commanders’ recommendations and was persuaded by the reasoning behind them, I was prepared to go all out to provide what they needed.
My lack of understanding of the actual number of troops required for a surge of five brigades led me to underestimate the overall size of the surge in my discussions with the president. The 21,500 represented just the combat brigades but not the so-called enablers—the personnel for helicopters, medevac, logistics, intelligence, and the rest—that would add nearly 8,500 more troops, for a total surge of about 30,000. (Never again would I forget about the enablers.) When first told about the larger numbers, I said, “This is going to make us look like idiots. How could military professionals not have anticipated this?” I sent an impatient memo to Deputy Secretary England and Pete Pace afterward asking if we were now confident in our estimate of the required support capability: “Explaining the most recent additional OIF [Operation Iraqi Freedom] forces and associated funding will be challenging enough. We simply cannot afford another surprise in the weeks ahead…. I do not want to be hit with another request three weeks from now.” I was taking a crash course in asserting myself with senior officers.
We agreed in Crawford that the Iraqis would take the lead in quelling sectarian violence, but we would insist on the government’s allowing the Iraqi army to carry out operations in a nonsectarian way—for example, the politicians (meaning Maliki) would not try to secure the release of politically “protected individuals.” We would support the Iraqi forces even while continuing aggressive operations against al Qaeda in Iraq, the Shia kill squads from Jaish al Mahdi, and the Sunni insurgency. The point was made that most of our casualties were coming not from the sectarian violence but rather from improvised explosive devices (IEDs) planted by these groups. We also discussed an increase in the size of the Army and Marine Corps, but no decisions were made by the time we left Crawford.
On January 2, 2007, I reached Petraeus in his car on a Los Angeles freeway. He pulled into a parking lot to take the call, and I asked him if he would take the job as commander in Iraq. He didn’t hesitate in saying yes. Like me, I don’t think he had any idea how hard the road ahead would be, both in Iraq and in Washington.
On January 3, I met with the president to discuss two key personnel issues. I wanted him to know that Casey would likely face a lot of criticism in the confirmation process, though I thought it would work out if we stood strongly behind him. I also raised the question of who should succeed Abizaid, who was retiring. I said there was a need for a fresh perspective at Central Command and offered three names—General Jack Keane, retired vice chief of staff of the Army (and a key proponent of the surge); Marine General Jim Jones, who had just retired as commander of European Command and supreme allied commander Europe; and Admiral William “Fox” Fallon, commander of Pacific Command. I told him that Pace and others had told me that Fallon was perhaps the best strategic thinker in the military. I observed that in dealing with many of Centcom’s challenges—Iran, the Horn of Africa, and others—the Navy had a big role to play. I also pointed out that the commander of Centcom would be Petraeus’s boss, and I thought we would need a strong and seasoned four-star officer to make that work. Centcom would be Fallon’s third position as a four-star. Fallon would also be the first admiral ever to command there, which I liked because I thought no command should “belong” to one or another service. The president accepted my recommendation, which included pairing Fallon with Army Lieutenant General Marty Dempsey, just coming back from Iraq, as the deputy commander. He also wanted to accelerate the announcement of the changes in leadership both in Baghdad and at Central Command to January 5 so he could send the message that the entire team dealing with Iraq was being changed (including a new ambassador).
At that meeting, I also told the president that I was working on a proposal to increase the size of the Marine Corps by 27,000 for a total of 202,000, and the Army by 65,000 for a total of 547,000. The increase would be spread over several years, with a first-year cost of $17 to $20 billion and a five-year cost of $90 to $100 billion. I also reported that I was looking at our policies with regard to mobilization of the National Guard and Reserves, particularly to ensure that their deployments were limited in duration—probably to a year—and to make sure they had the promised time at home between deployments. He immediately told me to proceed.
The president held a last National Security Council meeting on the new strategy in Iraq on January 8. My briefing materials framed just how dire the situation had become: “The situation in Baghdad has not improved, despite tactical adjustments. The police are ineffective or worse. Force levels in Baghdad are inadequate to stabilize the city. Iraqi support for the Coalition has declined substantially, partly due to the failure of security over the past year. We are on the strategic defensive and the enemy [Sunni insurgents and Shia militias] has the initiative.” We had to face four key realities: (1) the primary challenge was extremists from all communities; the center was eroding and sectarianism was spiking (a change from when the Sunni-based insurgency was the primary challenge); (2) political and economic progress in Iraq was unlikely absent a basic level of security; (3) Iraqi leaders were advancing their sectarian agendas as hedging strategies, in pursuit of narrow interests and in recognition of past history; and (4) the tolerance of the American people for the effort in Iraq was waning (a gross understatement, if there ever was one). I think the meeting was, in some ways, a final gut check, for everyone at the table, of the necessity of undertaking the surge and changing our primary military mission from transition to protecting the Iraqi people. The president needed to know the team would hang together in what was certain to be a very rough period ahead.
The president announced his decisions on the surge in a nationwide television address on January 10. He would send five brigades to Baghdad and two battalions of Marines to Anbar. Condi Rice would surge civilian resources, as the chiefs had been asking. Maliki had provided assurances that our forces could operate freely and would say so publicly. My recommended increases in the size of the Army and Marine Corps would be adopted.