The Army had presented only two options: extend troop deployments from twelve to fifteen months or shorten soldiers’ time at home to less than one year. This was the most difficult decision I would make in my entire time as secretary, difficult because I knew how hard even the one-year deployments were, not only because of the absence from family but because, for those in combat units in Iraq (and Afghanistan), the fighting and the stress of combat were constant. There was no respite from primitive living conditions, the heat, and not knowing what the next moment might bring in terms of danger, injury, and death. Missing one anniversary, one child’s birthday, one holiday was hard enough. My junior military assistant, then-major Steve Smith, told me that a fellow midgrade officer had said that a fifteen-month tour was more than just twelve plus three. Steve also reminded me that fifteen-month tours brought to bear the “law of twos”—soldiers would now potentially miss two Christmases, two anniversaries, two birthdays. Still, Pete Chiarelli, who had become my senior military adviser in March, told me that the troops were expecting this decision—the fifteen-month tours—and with the directness I so valued, went on to say, “And they think you’re an asshole for not making it.”
I once received a letter from the teenage daughter of a soldier who had been deployed for fifteen months. She wrote,
First of all, fifteen months is a long time. It is just long enough so when the family member comes home it’s kind of awkward. Not kind of, really awkward. There are so many things they missed out on and so much more to do. Secondly, they are not really “home” for a year. Sure, they are in the states [sic], but not home. My father was off doing training for the entire summer. So I really hadn’t been able to see him very much. That’s not even the worse [sic], the worse [sic] is when he is supposed to be home and he’s been called to do something at the last minute…. Thank you for your time and I hope that you will take all that I have said into account when future decisions are made about the deployments. Megan, AKA Army brat.
I don’t know if Megan’s father ever knew she wrote me, but if he did, I hope he was very proud of her. I certainly was. After all, not many teenagers can make the secretary of defense feel like a heel. But her letter, and others like it, were so important because they did not let me forget the real-life impact of my decisions and the price our military families were paying.
After consulting with the Joint Chiefs and then the president, on April 11 I announced the deployment extension. All combat tours for the Army in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Horn of Africa would be extended to fifteen months. I had no idea when we could revert to twelve-month tours. Both Republicans and Democrats were critical of the decision because to them it reflected the failure and costs of the president’s war in Iraq.
Experience would show that the fifteen-month deployments for both Iraq and Afghanistan would be even worse for the troops and their families than I expected. While I couldn’t prove it statistically, I believe those long tours significantly aggravated post-traumatic stress and contributed to a growing number of suicides, a belief reinforced by comments made to me by both soldiers and their spouses. While I could guarantee them a full year at home between tours, it wasn’t enough.
While the troops may have been expecting the decision, a number of soldiers and their families shared their frustration and their anger with reporters. I couldn’t blame them. They were the ones about to suffer the consequences of the “law of twos.”
GETTING TO SEPTEMBER
The difficulty of extending the surge to September 2007 (when Petraeus would submit his report on progress), much less to the spring of 2008, was underscored by the rhetoric coming from both Republicans and Democrats in Congress. The frequently used line “We support the troops” coupled with “We totally disagree with their mission” cut no ice with people in uniform. Our kids on the front lines were savvy; they would ask me why the politicians didn’t understand that, in the eyes of the troops, support for them and support for their mission were tied together. But the comments that most angered me were those full of defeatism—sending the message to the troops that they couldn’t win and, by implication, were putting their lives on the line for nothing. The worst of these comments came in mid-April from the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, who said in a press conference, “This war is lost” and “The surge is not accomplishing anything.” I was furious and shared privately with some of my staff a quote from Abraham Lincoln I had written down long before: “Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled, or hanged.” Needless to say, I never hinted at any such feelings publicly, but I had them nonetheless.
The president met with his senior team on Iraq on April 16, with Fallon, Petraeus, and our new ambassador in Iraq, Ryan Crocker, participating by videoconference. Crocker was a great diplomat, always eager to take on the toughest assignments—Lebanon, Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan. He quickly earned the president’s confidence, though Ryan’s consistent realism would lead to Bush teasing him as “the glass-half-empty” man, and sarcastically calling him “Sunshine.” Crocker had forged a remarkably strong partnership with Petraeus. The ambassador described the disruptive impact of the recent bombing of the parliament building on the Iraqi Council of Representatives, and the prospects for progress on a de-Baathification law setting forth terms for amnesty for some Baath Party members and on the law for distributing oil revenues, two of the key benchmarks, as I’ve said, for both the administration and Congress in terms of national reconciliation. The president told Crocker to make clear to the Iraqis that they needed “to show us something.” Congressional delegations would come back from visits, he said, say there was no political progress and that the military therefore couldn’t do its job, and urge that the troops be withdrawn. “The political elite needs to understand they need to get off their ass,” the president said. “We don’t need perfect laws, but we need laws. We need something to back off the critics.”
Petraeus reported that despite continuing extremist attacks that attracted considerable publicity, our troops were making slow, steady progress and that the preceding week there had been the lowest number of sectarian murders since June 2006. He warned that we were headed into a tough week as U.S. forces moved into areas where we had not had a presence before. He described his plans for deploying the remaining troops and Marines coming to Iraq. At the end of his briefing, Petraeus said he appreciated the announcement on extending tours to fifteen months: “It gives us much greater flexibility. It was the right call and not a big surprise for most units.”