Nearly four years later, in my last meeting as secretary with the king, he referred—smiling—to that discussion in Jeddah as the night I “turned the table over.” He told me that he had been seeking clarity from the United States on what we were likely to do about Iran and had been unable to get it—until that night. He said my candor demonstrated to him that he could trust what I said.
Our efforts through the summer and fall to gain approval of more international sanctions—and pressure—on Iran and to persuade China and Russia, among others, to curtail their dealings with Iran were dealt a self-inflicted, grievous blow on December 3, 2007. U.S. intelligence agencies on that date issued a national intelligence estimate, Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities. The first sentence of the key judgments said it alclass="underline" “We judge with high confidence that in fall, 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program.” It went on to say that Iran was keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons and that, while it had not restarted the nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007, “we do not know whether it currently intends to develop nuclear weapons.” Because I believed the estimate would be leaked and quoted out of context, I recommended, and the president approved, that we issue an unclassified version of the key judgments. In my entire career in intelligence, I believe no single estimate ever did more harm to U.S. security interests and diplomatic efforts. Because in virtually all other countries of the world intelligence services work for the government in power and are expected to toe the official line, the independence of our intelligence community in preparing assessments is hardly understood at all. Accordingly, most governments wondered what in hell the Bush administration was up to in releasing an intelligence report that was directly at odds with the positions it had been taking diplomatically. My French counterpart, Defense Minister Hervé Morin, characterized the situation best when he told me that the intelligence estimate was “like a hair in the soup.”
Then on January 6, 2008, a group of five small armed Iranian speedboats approached three U.S. warships in the Gulf at a high rate of speed. The rules of engagement for our Navy ships in the Gulf were clear: they were not to take actions that might be seen as provocative by the Iranians, but they were to do whatever was necessary to protect their ships. If the Iranians were to approach within a range considered threatening, the Navy was free to fire. The captain of one of our ships was within seconds of giving the order to fire when the boats turned away. After some back-and-forth with the White House, we released a video of the entire incident two days afterward. That same day I was on the phone with the president talking about a number of issues when he asked me what I would recommend if an Iranian fast boat, loaded with explosives, sank a U.S. warship. I gave him an initial response—still highly classified because it remains an active option—and we agreed we’d discuss it further.
Just when I would begin to wonder what else could go wrong, something always did. A week or so later I met with the president to review senior military personnel issues and appointments through the end of the administration. It was clear that something was bugging Bush, and that was when he asked me, “What is it with these admirals?” As mentioned earlier, I knew he was unhappy with Admiral Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, for an interview he had given The New Yorker in which he characterized waterboarding as torture—always a sensitive subject with Bush. Then the president expressed concern as to whether the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mullen, and the Central Command commander, Admiral Fallon, would continue to support what he was trying to accomplish in Iraq after a new president was elected. If not, should he replace them while he still could? Bush was clearly miffed at some of the things Fallon had been saying about how the United States must not go to war with Iran and at what Mullen had been saying about Iraq preventing us from providing adequate resources to the war in Afghanistan. The next day the president took me by surprise when he told me he had asked Petraeus if he would like to take Central Command. Dave had said no, that he wanted to go to Europe and also didn’t want to push someone out prematurely. Soon afterward I got a call from Hadley, again about the “Navy guys.” I asked Steve if someone on the NSC staff was “gunning” for Fallon. He replied, “The president and vice president are very concerned.” I asked if it was because of his purported remarks on Iran. Steve said, “Yes, mainly.”
A few weeks later Fallon called late in the afternoon to warn me that Esquire was going to publish an article about him in the next few days that likely would cause some heartburn. The press characterization of the article—usually more important in Washington than any article itself—was essentially that only Fox Fallon was keeping Bush from attacking Iran. It indeed caused heartburn and then some—mainly because it was untrue. It was clear, though, that the president had lost confidence in Fallon, the cumulative effect of a number of press statements that together seemed to portray a commander seriously at odds with his commander in chief on both Iraq and Iran.
Three days later, on March 6, Mullen and I met with the president, who asked, “Do we have a MacArthur problem? Is he challenging the commander in chief?” To me, he said, “I know what you’d do if he challenged you.” I told Bush that he did not have a “MacArthur problem,” that Fallon wanted to come in and apologize to him. The president responded, “No, I don’t want to humiliate the guy, but he kind of boxed me in.” When Mullen said that Fallon should volunteer to resign, Bush said, “But no signals, no coaching. If he acts, it needs to be without any pushing or hinting, solely on his own. He’s given a lot of distinguished service to the country.” He concluded, “Let’s let it ride and continue to think about it.” The president and I had another exchange on Fallon the next day. He said he had decided not to do anything and to wait and see if Fallon did “the right thing.” I replied, “At some point I may need to act. I can’t have a combatant commander who does not have the trust and confidence of the president.” Bush said, “I didn’t say I’d lost trust and confidence in him,” and I said, “Right. I would say he’s lost mine.” We agreed not to take any action for the time being.
In truth, Fallon’s actions as a commander had been wholly consistent with administration policy, but his interactions with the press left a different, and unacceptable, impression. I received a very gracious, handwritten letter of apology from Fox on March 7 that also made clear that he hoped to retain his command. However, Admiral Fallon, probably with a nudge from Mullen, on March 11 sent the chairman and me an e-mail requesting approval to step aside as Centcom commander. “The current embarrassing situation, public perception of differences between my views and administration policy, and the distraction this causes from the mission, make this the right thing to do,” he wrote. Fallon had been in the job five days less than a year. Later in the day at a press conference, I praised his forty-plus years of service to the nation and concluded, perhaps stretching the truth a bit, that “Admiral Fallon reached this difficult decision entirely on his own. I believe it was the right thing to do even though I do not believe there are, in fact, significant differences between his views and administration policy.” Fallon, with great class, had done the right thing.
Once again partisan leaders in Congress lived down to my expectations, using Fallon’s resignation to attack the administration. Harry Reid called the resignation “yet another example that independence and the frank, open airing of experts’ views are not welcomed in this administration.” Nancy Pelosi said Fallon’s resignation was “a loss for the country, and if it was engineered by the administration over policy differences, that loss is compounded.”