It was as if we had never stopped arguing since 2009. The vice president jumped in aggressively, saying the strategy in Afghanistan could never succeed, there was no government, corruption was rampant, and Pakistan was still providing sanctuaries. He proclaimed that neither Karzai nor Kayani wanted a big Afghan army. I countered.
The internal fight heated up again on March 1, when Biden convened a meeting at his residence to push for a dramatic troop drawdown. The residence is a big Victorian-era house on the grounds of the Naval Observatory, first occupied by Vice President Nelson Rockefeller in the mid-1970s. As always, Biden was warm in welcoming us, a cordial host. When we got down to business, he asked whether the strategy had succeeded enough so we could “think bigger about transition sooner.” Could we meet our strategic goals with less “input” over the next two years? He argued again that no one wanted an Afghan army of 300,000 or more and that our commitment in Afghanistan was limiting our ability to deal with both Iran and North Korea. He contended that both public opinion and Congress were becoming more negative about the war. (In my view, virtually no effort had been made by the White House to change that attitude during the fifteen months since the president’s decisions on the Afghan surge.)
The temperature of the Afghan debate rose further a few days later, provoked in no small part by a cable from the U.S. ambassador to NATO, Ivo Daalder, reporting that Petraeus had told a NATO meeting that the transition to Afghan security leadership would “commence” everywhere by the end of 2014, a statement that seemed to contradict the president’s intention that the security transition be completed by then. When the president saw that cable, it looked to him like another case of military insubordination. As a result, the president opened an NSC meeting on March 3 with a blast: “I am troubled by people popping off in the press that 2011 doesn’t mean anything…. My intention is to begin the security transition in July 2011 and complete it by the end of 2014. We will think through the glidepath [of troop drawdowns], but I will push back very hard if anyone proposes moving the drawdowns to the right [delaying them]. I prefer to move to the left [accelerating them]. I don’t want any recommendations trying to finesse the orders I laid out.” He concluded, “If I believe I am being gamed…” and left the sentence hanging there with the clear implication the consequences would be dire.
I was pretty upset myself. I thought implicitly accusing Petraeus (and perhaps Mullen and me) of gaming him in front of thirty people in the Situation Room was inappropriate, not to mention highly disrespectful of Petraeus. As I sat there, I thought: The president doesn’t trust his commander, can’t stand Karzai, doesn’t believe in his own strategy, and doesn’t consider the war to be his. For him, it’s all about getting out. Biden continued to egg him on, and his staff missed no oppertunity to pass him inflammatory news clips and other information raising questions about Petraeus and the senior military leaders.
I called Donilon two days later to express my concern that the vice president was poisoning the well with the president with regard to Petraeus and Afghanistan. I said I thought Biden was subjecting Obama to Chinese water torture, every day saying, “the military can’t be trusted,” “the strategy can’t work,” “it’s all failing,” “the military is trying to game you, to screw you.” I said we couldn’t operate that way. I asked how the Daalder cable could be sent in to the president without someone checking its accuracy. I said, if he or the president had been concerned about the cable, why didn’t they call me instead of posturing in front of thirty people “who will inevitably leak how the president imposed his will on the military” and about mistrust of the military in the White House?
My fuse was really getting short. It seemed like I was blowing up—in my own, quiet way—nearly every day, and no longer just in the privacy of my office with my staff. As we’ve seen, I had blown up at Donilon and the vice president at a meeting on Libya on March 2 and at House Defense Appropriations chair Bill Young on the third, had come close to openly arguing with the president in the NSC meeting that same day, and had gone off on Donilon again on the fifth. Partly, I think, I was just exhausted from the daily fights.
As the debate in Washington over the pace of troop drawdowns cranked up, I wanted to get a firsthand report on how the campaign was going. I also needed to talk with Karzai about the overall relationship and our post-2014 relationship. In addition, I wanted to reassure Afghans that the drawdowns beginning in July would be gradual, that there would still be many American troops fighting in the fall.
Tensions between the United States and Karzai were running particularly high when I arrived on March 7, following the deaths the preceding week of nine young Afghan boys in an American air strike. I had a long private meeting with him late that first afternoon. I apologized profusely for the deaths of the boys and, as I had so often before, described for him the extraordinary measures we were taking to avoid civilian casualties. With regard to the security transition, I told him I shared his concerns about foreign governments and organizations operating independently of the Afghan government, creating parallel structures. I also recognized the intrusiveness of ISAF troops and operations on the daily lives of Afghans. The solution, I said, was for the Afghans gradually to assume leadership for security. While NATO would provide recommendations on which places were ready to transition, I said, Karzai should have the final approval authority.
I said the Afghan security forces were critical for transition. The United States had budgeted $12.8 billion to train, equip, and sustain those forces for the coming year, but how, I asked him, could that be sustained long term? Maybe over time Afghanistan could maintain a small regular army plus a large national-guard-type organization. I told Karzai I believed a long-term U.S. presence in Afghanistan would be important for his country but also in the interest of regional stability. We did not want permanent bases, I made clear, but perhaps we could share some facilities with the Afghan security forces. He had spoken of a binding agreement between us, but I told him it had taken Congress five years just to ratify defense-technology-sharing agreements with the British and Australians. What we needed was a mutual commitment to an enduring U.S. presence.
Partnerships must be of mutual value to last, I said, raising the level of my intensity. He and I had been working together for more than four years, I said, and I had been his advocate and defender throughout. “I have listened to you” on civilian casualties, on more respect for Afghans, on respect for Afghan sovereignty, on private security contractors, and most recently, on the provincial reconstruction teams. “But my efforts are not helped when you blame us for all of Afghanistan’s problems. We are your ally and partner. We protect your government, and we saved your life. Your criticisms are making a long-term relationship more difficult to sustain in the United States and elsewhere.” Looking ahead, I said, we needed to work together on transition and the Kabul Bank. In February, Dexter Filkins had published a devastating exposé of the looting of the bank in The New York Times. I told Karzai he could not ignore it or blame earlier audits or the United States or the international community. I told him that if he did not address the bank problem or continued to blame us, it would undermine efforts to agree on any strategic partnership. I said the bank issue provided “an opportunity for you to stand up for your people.” Not for the first time, I warned him that he had people around him who exploited his worries and concerns, who tried to get him angry and upset at us, and who propounded all kinds of ridiculous conspiracy theories.