But that was all still very much in the future when, on January 11 and 12, 2007, Condi testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the surge, and Pete Pace and I testified before the two Armed Services Committees. Although we all were grilled intensively, I think Condi had the more difficult session—mainly, I think, because she had been in the administration at the time the decision was made to invade Iraq and so was the target of members’ frustration about the entire course of the war. I suspect another reason she had a harder time was that at least four members of the Foreign Relations Committee were planning on running for president and saw the hearing as a platform. Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut accused the administration of using our soldiers as “cannon fodder,” Senator Joe Biden of Delaware said the new strategy was “a tragic mistake” and “more likely to make things worse,” and Senator Barack Obama of Illinois said, “The fundamental question that the American people—and, I think, every senator on this panel, Republican and Democrat—are having to face now is, at what point do we say ‘Enough’?” The Republicans weren’t particularly supportive either. Indeed, Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska said that the surge would be “the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam.”
Pace and I had a somewhat different experience, partly because the Republicans on the Armed Services Committees were generally more supportive of the president’s war policies, especially John McCain. There was still a lot of criticism from the Democrats and tough questions from Republicans. I may also have gotten off a little easier because it was my first hearing after confirmation, and I was not my predecessor. I also won broad support when I announced my proposal to expand the size of the Army and Marine Corps during the hearings. And I think I caught them (as well as the White House, Petraeus, and others) off guard when I indicated that I hoped we could begin drawing down troop levels by year’s end.
As is often the case, the members asked very few questions that we had not asked ourselves. There was broad skepticism about Maliki and the other Iraqi leaders delivering on their promises this time, unlike so often before; we wondered about this as well. This skepticism was only magnified by the fairly tepid support for the plan by Maliki and other Iraqi leaders in their public statements. Asked how long the surge would last, I went out on a limb in responding, “Months, not years.” Both Pace and I took questions on our military leaders’ apparent opposition to the plan.
All who testified had not expected a friendly environment, but I think Rice, Pace, and I—and the White House—were taken aback by the vehemence of the reaction and the criticism. It would not soon improve. There would be innumerable efforts to pass binding and nonbinding resolutions opposing the surge, to tie the size of the U.S. troop presence to the Iraqis’ passage of legislation, and to use funding bills to limit what the president could do or to force his hand. All would fail, but not before causing those of us in the administration a lot of anxiety and huge budgetary disruptions in the Pentagon as Congress dribbled out war funding to us a few months at a time throughout the year.
One area that would truly test my patience was the senators’ focus on benchmarks, and their demands that the Iraqi Council of Representatives enact, by specific deadlines, legislation in key areas such as de-Baathification, the sharing of oil revenues, and provincial elections. This was an approach I also had recommended to Baker and Hamilton, but I had not fully understood then just how tough these actions would be for the Iraqis, precisely because they would fundamentally set the country’s political and economic course for the future. Remember, they had no experience with compromise in thousands of years of history. Indeed, politics in Iraq from time immemorial had been a kill-or-be-killed activity. I would listen with growing outrage as hypocritical and obtuse American senators made all these demands of Iraqi legislators and yet themselves could not even pass budgets or appropriations bills, not to mention deal with tough challenges like the budget deficit, Social Security, and entitlement reform. So many times I wanted to come right out of my chair at the witness table and scream, You guys have been in business for over two hundred years and can’t pass routine legislation. How can you be so impatient with a bunch of parliamentarians who’ve been at it a year after four thousand years of dictatorship? The discipline required to keep my mouth shut left me exhausted at the end of every hearing.
Almost immediately after the president’s January 10 announcement of the surge, both Republican and Democratic members of Congress began looking for ways to reverse it or at least express their disapproval. In the Senate, Republican John Warner put forward a bipartisan resolution opposing the surge but supporting the forces going after al Qaeda in Anbar province. The Democratic leadership supported Warner’s nonbinding resolution, believing that if they could get that passed, they could then move toward stronger steps, such as attaching conditions to war spending. But Warner could not rally the necessary sixty votes to prevent a filibuster, so the resolution quietly died. Too many senators just couldn’t bring themselves to support a bill that seemed to undercut the troops.
On the House side, Democrat Jack Murtha, chairman of the Appropriations Defense Subcommittee and a wily old congressional operator, was more subtle. He proposed that units meet strict combat readiness criteria before deployment, a maneuver that Pace and I argued, in a hearing on February 6, 2007, would tie our hands and effectively cut the number of U.S. forces in Iraq by a third. Murtha’s plan was to offer an amendment to our wartime supplemental appropriation request of $93 billion, then on the Hill and in need of passage by April to avoid disruptions. We would wrestle with Murtha’s proposal and variants of it all through the spring as the Democrats turned to the spending bill as a vehicle to manifest their opposition to the surge.
Toward the end of January, the nominations of Casey to be Army chief of staff and Petraeus to be commander in Iraq were both before the Senate. As predicted, there was opposition to Casey, mostly among the Republicans. McCain was the most strongly opposed, as previewed, saying he thought Casey was the wrong man for the job. Warner was ambivalent. Senator Susan Collins of Maine was not supportive, saying Casey was too removed from the Army and that she had not seen anything positive in his record as commander in Iraq. Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia flipped from being supportive to opposing. Even some of those prepared to vote for Casey didn’t think he was the best candidate. While I had no chance of getting McCain to change his mind, he did tell me he would not try to organize opposition to Casey. I also talked to Warner and others. This was, of course, discouraging to George after all his service, and on January 20 I suggested to the president that he convey to Casey his ongoing support, and he quickly did so. I was especially concerned about Casey’s morale given that Petraeus was moving so fast toward confirmation in the Senate. I told Casey about the negative reactions but explained: “You’re in charge in Iraq, and they hate what’s going on there.” I reassured him that the president was “strong as horseradish” behind him, and so were Pace and I. I said I hoped he would be confirmed by February 9 or 10. Majority leader Harry Reid said he would get Casey confirmed, and he was, on February 8. Still, fourteen senators voted against him. There was not a single vote against Petraeus.