Just before leaving for Iraq, I met with Pete Pace about how to approach Petraeus. I told him I didn’t want Petraeus walking out of our meeting thinking, I’ve been told to wrap this thing up by October and I have to recommend an off-ramp by October. We agreed that we were going to need a long-term presence in Iraq and that we had to set the conditions for that.
I arrived in Baghdad at midafternoon on April 19. Pace, Fallon, and Petraeus all met me at the plane. We immediately jumped in helicopters and flew to Fallujah. The security situation was still too tenuous for me to go into the city, so I was briefed at our military headquarters on progress in Anbar province. It was very encouraging. On leaving, I shook hands and had pictures taken with a number of troops, including one group of officers holding a Texas A&M flag. I ran into Aggies in the war zones all the time, and it was always special for me, although encountering in combat zones those I had given their diplomas was always unsettling.
We returned to Petraeus’s headquarters and got down to the business of war strategy—specifically, how to lower the level of violence and buy time for internal political reconciliation. We all agreed that accomplishing those goals required extending the surge beyond September. I had a two-hour private dinner with Pace, Fallon, Petraeus, and Chiarelli, followed by a two-hour session with the same group the next day. We addressed three questions: how to sustain politically at home a significantly higher number of troops for a year; how to maximize the possibility of keeping a substantial number of troops in Iraq for years to come; and how to establish a long-term security and strategic relationship with Iraq. The answers to all three questions had to take into account the twin realities of growing opposition in the U.S. Congress and the growing desire of the dominant Shia in Iraq—especially those within the government, including Maliki himself—to be rid of the “occupiers.” The key would be Crocker’s and Petraeus’s evaluation of success in September.
I emphasized to Dave that his recommendations were to be his own, not dictated by me or anyone else, but with a view to prolonging the surge to a year or more and enabling a sustained U.S. presence. Petraeus said he likely would recommend drawing down one brigade in late October or early November, a second in early to mid-January, and then a brigade every six weeks or so after that. This would allow him to keep 80 percent of the surge through the end of 2007, and 60 percent through the end of February. This would signal to both Americans and Iraqis that a corner had been turned (one way or another) and, hopefully, enable rational decision making regarding a long-term presence. Pace and Fallon both endorsed this approach.
As usual, when I visited Iraq—this was my fourth visit in four months—I met with all the senior Iraqi government officials. It was getting to the point where I could write their talking points for them, from President Talabani’s unrealistic optimism and usually empty promises to take action on problems to Sunni vice president Tariq Al-Hashimi’s constant complaints of being ignored, insulted, and sidelined, as well as his concerns about Maliki’s dictatorial approach. What was new on this trip, though, was that in a private meeting, Prime Minister Maliki aimed a litany of complaints at me personally that he offered “as a brother and partner.” While expressing appreciation for President Bush’s steadfast support, he said that my statements expressing disappointment in Iraqi government progress toward reconciliation, particularly the oil law and de-Baathification, would encourage the Baathists to come back. He said he understood that the United States was keen to help the Iraqi government, but the realities were very tough. He couldn’t fill ministerial positions, among other problems. He went on to say that “benchmarks give the terrorists incentives and encourage the Syrians and Iranians.” He concluded that the political situation was very fragile and that we needed to avoid certain public statements that only helped our “enemies.”
When he concluded, I was seething. I told him that “the clock is ticking” and that our patience with their lack of political progress was running out. I angrily told him that every day that we bought them for reconciliation was being paid for with American blood and that we had to see some real progress soon. After the meeting, I stewed over the fact that I had been arguing the case for this guy for months in Congress, trying to avoid mandatory benchmarks and deadlines, trying to buy him and his colleagues some time to work out at least some of their political issues.
As usually happened, a visit to our troops revived my morale. I went to a joint U.S.-Iraqi military and police facility in Baghdad meant to provide neighborhood security. It was a centerpiece of Petraeus’s strategy, getting U.S. forces out of large bases and into local areas with Iraqi partners. I had imagined a police station like those in most U.S. cities, in the middle of a densely occupied urban area. The one I visited was instead in the middle of a huge open area—in essence, a small fort with concrete outer walls protecting a large concrete building in the center. In the entryway were pictures of Iraqis who had been killed operating out of this facility. I was escorted to a medium-size conference room crowded with Iraqi army officers and police as well as U.S. soldiers and officers, nearly everyone in body armor and carrying weapons. And right there in the middle of a war zone, in the equivalent of Fort Apache, Baghdad, I got a PowerPoint briefing by Iraqi officers. PowerPoint! My God, what are we doing to these people? I thought. It took a lot of self-control to keep from bursting out laughing. But what these men—both Iraqis and Americans—were trying to do, and the courage it took, was no laughing matter. I came away immensely impressed, not least by the awful conditions in which our young soldiers were having to work day and night.
I reported the results of my meetings with Petraeus to the president at Camp David on April 27. In testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee some two weeks later, in response to questions, I showed a little leg on the possibility that the September evaluation might open the way to reducing forces in Iraq. Because the full surge was not yet on the ground in Iraq, this led to a minor firestorm in the press. It was said that I was on a different page from the president and the rest of the administration, that I was ready “to throw in the towel” if we could not see the surge working by September. In fact, this was what the president, Condi, Steve Hadley, Pace, I, and the commanders had been working on for weeks. It was consistent with my approach of holding out the carrot of possible troop reductions to get us at least through September and, hopefully, into the spring of 2008 with much of the surge still in place. Most outside observers and “military experts”—even the vice president—seemed to have no idea of how thin a thread the entire operation hung by in Congress through the spring and summer. George W. Bush understood.
The president once again came to the Pentagon on May 10 to meet with the chiefs and me in the Tank, which is actually a rather plain, utilitarian conference room. When the chiefs meet, the chairman and vice chairman sit at the head of a large blond-wood table, the heads of the Army and Navy sit on the side to their left, and the commandant of the Marine Corps and chief of staff of the Air Force to their right. The flags of the services hang behind the chairman, video screens are at the other end of the room, and on the wall to the chairman’s left hangs a picture of President Lincoln and his generals. To the chairman’s right and up a step is a long narrow table for staff. When the president visited, he and the other civilians—including the secretary—would sit with Lincoln at their backs, with the chiefs at one end and on the other side of the table.