I responded on the video screen by asking whether the strategy was to get out of Afghanistan at all costs or to achieve some level of success for the president and the country. I said the critics were too focused on Karzai and the central government, that the situation was far better than it had been a year earlier. The war was not open-ended, I said. The surge would end in 2012, and we faced a deadline of 2014.
Donilon was so concerned that Biden had convinced the president to withdraw the entire surge by April or July 2012 that he helped me get a private session with Obama a few days after my return from Afghanistan. I started with my bottom line: I recommended he announce a drawdown of 5,000 between July and December 2011 and the return of all surge troops by the end of summer 2012—late September. This would, I said, be consistent with his decision to surge for between eighteen and twenty-four months. I said the full surge had been in place only since late summer 2010—just nine months. I said the strategy was working and that you couldn’t generalize across the entire country. A quarter of the Afghan population was under Afghan security, and our troops had a much more positive view of the Afghan army than did intelligence assessments. Kabul was now safer than Baghdad, and the Afghans had primary security responsibility there. Karzai was a challenge, I said, but we had a new start with Ryan Crocker as ambassador, and in any event, we had successfully managed around Karzai when necessary. The coalition was strong, our costs were declining sharply—from $40 billion in FY2012 to $25–$30 billion in FY2013. This most certainly was not an endless war. We needed to retain our confidence, act in a measured way. Afghanistan would be messy, just as Iraq still was, but the commanders in the field, many journalists, and NATO leaders believed we were achieving success. “The more time you spend in Afghanistan,” I told the president, “the closer to the front you get, the more optimistic people are.”
I then tackled Biden’s proposal to withdraw all surge forces by April 2012. I reminded Obama that the vice president had never accepted the 2009 decision, had never thought about the consequences if his approach failed. I said if Obama were to announce the withdrawal of all 30,000 surge troops by April, he would signal to the Afghans, the Taliban, the Pakistanis, the allies, and the world that the United States had concluded it could not be successful and was pulling the plug nine months into the surge. I continued that if he opted for April or even July, the entire force would be focused on withdrawing, on choosing which areas to leave exposed, on defense, and on meeting the deadline. The surge effort would largely be over before the first soldier came out. I reminded him that the logistics were complicated and that we would be looking at pulling 40,000 to 50,000 troops out of Iraq by December, another 15,000 from Afghanistan by then as well, and another 15,000 by April. I said I thought the troops would feel betrayed by such a decision: “After all their losses, they are convinced they are winning and thus would consider their sacrifices in vain.” Confidence and morale were high, I said, but a precipitous withdrawal of the surge troops would lead them to believe that their successes were neither understood nor appreciated. “I know you want to end this war,” I told him, “but how you end it is of critical importance. To pull the entire surge out before the end of summer would be a tragic mistake.”
Biden was relentless during those few days in pushing his view and in attacking the integrity of the senior military leadership. A White House insider told me he was telling the president, They’ll screw you every time. Biden was said to be pushing Donilon really hard, accusing him of being “too fucking even-handed.” I considered that a high compliment for a national security adviser. Tom continued to be deeply suspicious of the military, but he wanted to do what was in the best interests of the president and the country. His willingness and courage to challenge both Obama and Biden when he thought they were mistaken was a great service, including to them.
The president met with the team on June 17. I repeated most of what I had told him privately. Clinton argued forcefully that withdrawing the surge by April or July 2012 would signal we were abandoning Afghanistan. It would, she said, shock the Afghans, encourage the Taliban, and encourage ordinary Afghans to hedge their bets. We would have to cede control of some areas, and it would take all the pressure off the Taliban to seek a political solution. She recommended withdrawing 8,000 troops by December 2011, with the rest of the surge coming out by December 2012, the “pace and structure… linked to political negotiations.” We had to leverage the drawdown, she said, to pressure both the Taliban and the Afghan government. At the end, the president said he wasn’t sure we needed the surge for another fighting season, especially since we would still have nearly 70,000 troops there. He would ponder on it.
The decisive meeting was on June 21, nine days before I stepped down. The president walked into the Situation Room, sat down, and declared that he intended to withdraw 10,000 troops by the end of December and the remaining 20,000 of the surge by July 2012. “You’re welcome to try to change my mind,” he said. Petraeus and Mullen described the risks associated with that timetable. I said that a July completion of the surge withdrawal meant the surge troops would have no 2012 summer fighting season at all since the planning for their withdrawal would pull them out of the line in April and May. The vice president argued strongly for July—“though I prefer earlier”—because the fighting season would still be under way in September and therefore finishing the surge then would be illogical. (I didn’t ask what that would make a July withdrawal.)
Hillary said with conviction that the entire State Department team preferred December but she could live with September because I had suggested it. (I knew Obama wouldn’t agree to Petraeus’s proposed December timeline; at least late September would get us through much of the fighting season.) Panetta said that CIA’s analysts unanimously agreed the surge troops should stay until then. Leon then put on his experienced “Washington hand” hat and told Obama that “speaking politically,” all of Defense, State, and CIA were recommending September or later. “Do you really want to go forward with July against all that?” The president then went around the room. Clinton, Mullen, Petraeus, Panetta, Donilon, McDonough, and I all supported the end of September. Biden, Blinken, Lute, Rhodes, and Brennan supported July or earlier. Not one person outside the White House favored a withdrawal by July or earlier.
The president decided to withdraw 10,000 troops by the end of December 2011 and the remainder of the surge by the end of summer 2012. He turned to me, Hillary, Mullen, and Petraeus and asked, “If I decide this, will you support it publicly?” All but Petraeus said yes. He said that he had a confirmation hearing for CIA director in two days and that he was certain he would be asked his professional military judgment about the decision. He intended to say that the scheduled withdrawal was “more aggressive” than he liked. The president said that was okay and in fact would be helpful. But he then asked Dave, Will you say it can succeed? How can you have confidence the plan will succeed if I decided December but not September? Dave got argumentative with Obama at that point, and I came within a whisker of telling him to shut up. He had gotten most of what he wanted, and I believed we had avoided a much worse outcome.
The next day the president announced his decisions. He spoke encouragingly of the progress of the war:
Thanks to our extraordinary men and women in uniform, our civilian personnel, and our many coalition partners, we are meeting our goals…. We’re starting this drawdown from a position of strength…. The goal that we seek is achievable and can be expressed simply: No safe haven from which Al Qaeda or its affiliates can launch attacks against our homeland or our allies…. Tonight we take comfort in knowing that the tide of war is receding…. And even as there will be dark days ahead in Afghanistan, the light of a secure peace can be seen in the distance. These long wars will come to a responsible end…. America, it is time to focus on nation-building here at home.