In the end, the president deflected the Israeli requests but simultaneously directed a dramatic intensification of our bilateral intelligence sharing and cooperation on ways to slow down the Iranian program. In the years ahead, I would enthusiastically oversee a dramatic expansion of our military cooperation with Israel, direct an intensification of our military planning efforts vis-à-vis Iran, and significantly increase U.S. military capabilities in the Gulf. Whatever our differences internally or with Israel on what to do about the Iranian nuclear program, there was no disagreement that it posed a huge threat to the stability of the entire region.
It probably was not coincidental that a few weeks later, in mid-June, the Israelis held a military exercise that they knew would be monitored by many nations. In what appeared to be a rehearsal for a strike on Iran, one hundred Israeli F-15 and F-16 fighters flew from Israel over the eastern Mediterranean to Greece and returned. The exercise included the deployment of Israeli rescue helicopters and the use of refueling tankers. Flight tactics and other elements of a potential strike were rehearsed. The distance the fighters flew was 862 nautical miles. The distance from the Israeli airfield to the Iranian uranium enrichment facility at Natanz was 860 nautical miles. Israel wanted to signal that it was prepared for a strike and could carry it out.
I think my most effective argument, and one that even the vice president came grudgingly to acknowledge, was that an Israeli attack that overflew Iraq would put everything we had achieved there with the surge at risk—and indeed, the Iraqi government might well tell us to leave the country immediately. I discussed this with the president in a meeting on June 18, and he emphatically said he would not put our gains in Iraq at risk. I responded that the Israelis had to be told this.
Given the connections the Israelis had in the Bush White House, they quickly knew of my role in the policy debate. They intensified the dialogue between Defense Minister Ehud Barak and me to see if I could be persuaded to change my view. I had known Ehud since I was CIA director and he was chief of the Israeli Defense Forces fifteen years earlier. I liked and respected him and always welcomed our meetings—well, almost always. Our first get-together after the Iran policy debate was on July 28. Then, and subsequently, we worked out some significant enhancements for Israeli security, including sending to Israel a U.S. X-band missile defense radar system and contributing to the development of several Israeli missile defense programs, perhaps most importantly one named Iron Dome to defend against short-range missiles. Barak and I would sustain our dialogue, and our friendship and cooperation, for the rest of my time as secretary.
Iran would get at least one more senior military officer in trouble with President Bush. In early July, Admiral Mullen apparently told reporters that, in essence, the U.S. military was too stressed to take on Iran. This mightily displeased the president, as Hadley told me. I called Mullen and advised him to “cool it” on Iran. I did not tell him that the president had said it “looked like Mullen was auditioning for a job with the next commander in chief while he still works for this one!” I just couldn’t understand the lack of political awareness by senior officers of the impact at the White House of their remarks to the press.
FREQUENT FLYER
I traveled to scores of countries over a two-year period working for Bush 43. I made more than a dozen trips for various NATO meetings, at which I almost always hammered away on three themes: the need for greater European investment in defense, the need for the Europeans to do more in Afghanistan, and the need for NATO to reform its structures and way of doing business. For a decade or so, member states had committed to spend at least 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense (reduced from the earlier guideline of 3 percent). By 2007–8, just five of twenty-eight members met that guideline, including Greece and Croatia; all others spent less. Given the economic downturn during this period, telling the Europeans to increase their defense spending was about as useful as shouting down a well.
I found the NATO meetings excruciatingly boring. On every topic, representatives of each of twenty-eight countries could speak their piece, reading from a prepared script. My secret to staying awake was revealed publicly at one meeting by the French defense minister, who was in a rant about how boring the meetings were—he confessed to doodling to pass the time and then outed me for doing crossword puzzles.
At the NATO summit in Bucharest, Romania, in April 2008, President Bush lasted longer at the meeting table than most of his counterparts—at least five hours—but as the afternoon wore on, he was eager to get a little downtime before a long formal dinner and “native” entertainment. Condi and I, sitting behind him, also wanted to leave. But who would stay and represent the United States until the bitter end? I offered the president and Condi a deaclass="underline" I would stay at the table by myself until the meeting was over in exchange for not having to attend the formal dinner. They agreed immediately. Over time I made some good friends among my ministerial colleagues, and I would continue to value the alliance greatly. But I didn’t have the patience for those long meetings.
I made three trips to Asia during my first fourteen months as secretary. The first, in early June 2007, was to Singapore for the “Shangri-La” Asia Security Summit, named for the hotel where it was held every year. My maiden speech in Asia focused on urging the Chinese to explain the purpose behind their major military buildup, but I also tried to turn down the temperature in the relationship with China by calling for a bilateral dialogue on a range of issues. During this trip, I again visited the troops in Afghanistan. In Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, where Manas airfield had become a vital link in our aerial resupply of soldiers in, and troop movements to, Afghanistan, the amazingly corrupt government of Kurmanbek Bakiyev saw our continued need for the airfield as a rich source of revenue or, as I called it, extortion. The Kyrgyz were once again making noises about closing Manas to us, and we had to have it open, so I had to see Bakiyev and let him pick our pockets again. He, his officials, and his generals looked and acted just like the old Soviets, whose vassals they had been. Bakiyev reeled off a list of areas where we were ignoring Kyrgyz sovereignty and Kyrgyz people, and how we were “cheating” them of revenues. In the crassest kind of insult in that part of the world, the big crook didn’t even offer me a cup of tea. He was, without question, the most unpleasant foreign leader I had to deal with in my years as secretary, and I celebrated when he was overthrown in April 2010.
My trip ended at the American cemetery in Normandy on June 6, the sixty-third anniversary of D-Day, where French defense minister Morin and I presided over the commemoration ceremonies. It was rainy, windy, and cold, just like that historic day in 1944. After the ceremony, I walked alone among the countless rows of white crosses, deeply moved by the sacrifice they represented but also reflecting on the new gravestones being erected at home above the remains of young men and women I was sending in harm’s way, making their own sacrifice for our country just as the GIs had done at Normandy. It was a hard day.