The War Within Page 9

  "Great job!" his father yelled, as the young Hadley, wearing shorts and a short-sleeved shirt, pumped away at the pedals. But as his father's voice grew more distant, the boy realized he was on his own. He turned to look back and spilled right over, tearing up his knees and elbows. It would be two and a half years before he got back on a bicycle.

  Now, when Rumsfeld said it was time to take the hand off the Iraqi bicycle seat, Hadley thought, "Well, there are costs and consequences of taking the hand off the bicycle if the lad falls over."

  Chapter 8

  With the midterm congressional elections three months off, the Democrats stepped up their criticism of the war. A dozen top congressional Democrats, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, sent a letter to the president on July 30. "Far from implementing a comprehensive 'Strategy for Victory'

  as you promised months ago, your administration's strategy appears to be one of trying to avoid defeat," it read.

  "Meanwhile, U.S. troops and taxpayers continue to pay a high price as your Administration searches for a policy."

  It concluded, "Mr. President, simply staying the course in Iraq is not working. We need to take a new direction."

  They did not know that the president had reached the same conclusion, though he wasn't about to say so publicly.

  * * *

  On August 1, a roadside bomb detonated under a bus filled with Iraqi soldiers in northern Iraq, killing 23 and wounding 40. The next day, a suicide bomber killed 13 and wounded 26 in a well-to-do area of Baghdad, and two bombs placed in gym bags near a soccer field in a Shia area in west Baghdad exploded, killing 12 and wounding 14. Most of these victims were children. That was only a sampling of the extent and variety of the grisly slaughter.

  In Steve Hadley's "GWB" file of pressing matters for the president's attention, the classified summary showed 150

  attacks a day in Iraq, six an hour. The attacks included assaults on Iraqi facilities, bombs, IEDs, mines, sniper fire, ambushes, grenade and small arms, mortar, rocket and even surface-to-air fire.

  DIA analyst Derek Harvey circulated a classified paper in August based on the latest intelligence. He forecast the inevitable fracturing of the country if the administration remained on the same course. The Iraqi government was failing; it had no chance of overcoming the violent Shia-Sunni hostilities. The Iraqi security forces had not changed or adjusted. The U.S. "catch-and-release" policy on insurgents who were picked up and detained was feeding them back into the population rather than removing them as a threat.

  Harvey's paper soon acquired a nickname: "The Doomsday Paper."

  * * *

  The Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group continued its work behind closed doors. On Wednesday, August 2, members gathered in an ornate meeting room on Capitol Hill. Their first session was with a dejected Senate Republican leadershipóBill Frist of Tennessee, the majority leader, and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the number two. "It is pretty obvious," Frist said, "that hopes are falling in Iraq. There will be a real hard time unless things start to turn. A lot of big ifs have to go right to get to a safe and prosperous Iraq." McConnell said that Iraq needed at least reasonable stability. Referring to one of the largest, most notorious, authoritarian and repressive regimes in the Middle East, he said, "I'd settle for Egypt."

  Nearly everyone laughed.

  The next meeting was with the leadership of the Senate Armed Services CommitteeóVirginia Republican John Warner and Michigan Democrat Carl Levin. Levin, who would become committee chairman if the Democrats won control of the Senate, said that the Iraqis "think they have a security blanket. The bottom line is that right now patience is the watch word. The watch word should be that we're impatient. We're damn impatient."

  Study group member Charles Robb thought that since the United States had invaded Iraq, it had a moral obligation to stay until the Iraqis could restore order.

  A conservative, hard-line, promilitary Democrat, Robb had been a young Marine captain during the mid-1960s when he was assigned as a military social aide to the White House. There, he met President Johnson's daughter Lynda Bird, and the two married at the White House on December 9, 1967. Robb went on to serve two tours in Vietnam, winning a Bronze Star as commander of a combat rifle company.

  Robb had been pushing the idea of adding more troops on a temporary basis to stabilize Baghdad. "We have far too much skin in the game to just walk away on a fixed timetable," he argued. None of the other members seemed to agree.

  Still active in Marine Corps matters, Robb knew General Pace and was proud that a Marine was finally chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. So he floated his idea of adding forces to Pace. Was it possible? Was the military capable?

  In several conversations, Pace responded positively. But when the two exchanged e-mails, Pace seemed hesitant.

  Robb was the only senator to serve simultaneously on all three national security committeesóintelligence, armed services and foreign relations. During the session with Senators Warner and Levin, he inquired about a possible escalation, calling it a "surge," according to notes of the meeting. He picked the word out of the air because it reflected his view of a sudden increase that would eventually decrease. Was a "surge" possible?

  Yes, said Senator Warner.

  No, said Senator Levin.

  But Robb had put the idea on the radar screen. As he said later, "Every river starts somewhere."

  Lee Hamilton asked his favorite question: What should be the definition of success in Iraq?

  "I would drop the word victory," Warner said. "Success is a stable Iraq that can take the reins of sovereignty."

  Levin said, "Iraq will not have a democracy. The goal should be stability. But democracy should be mentioned."

  Alan Simpson chimed in. "People are fed up with this war. Republicans are going to pay a huge price for this war in November. I think we're going to lose the election in November because of this war."

  * * *

  The study group members headed to the U.S. Institute of Peace in downtown Washington to meet with the commander of U.S. Central Command, General Abizaid, who appeared in uniform and handed out a PowerPoint presentation. Here was the combatant commander responsible for Iraq before the group that was supposed to study the Iraq War, but Abizaid, as usual, talked about the entire region of his commandóthe Middle East, East Africa and Central Asia.

  He mentioned the problems of Pakistan with nuclear weapons and Saudi Arabia with its oil. He mentioned Sunni extremism in the Horn of Africa and the Shia revolutionary movement in Iran.

  On intelligence, Abizaid said, "CentCom and CIA aim to be seamless on targeting data." Referring to human intelligence sources, he said, "Our HUMINT is at about 30 percent of what it should be, up about 10 percent from a few years ago. Now we get information from the Saudis based on a raid, it goes to the CIA, and the CIA gets us a target to hit in Iraq."

  "What is the problem in Baghdad?" asked Panetta.

  "To move a car bomb is not a problem," Abizaid said, "even with increased troops. The death squads have to be targeted. The insurgency has to be controlled. Both sides want civil waróal Qaeda because it serves Sunni extremism, the Shia militias because it will serve Shia extremism."

  The general said he was "optimistic" that the violence would diminish before the holiday of Ramadan the next month. "Violence cannot be the measure of success," he said. His argument was an old one: the enemyóinsurgents, al Qaeda or sectarian extremistsódecided to launch attacks, and if the measurement of success was the level of violence, then the enemy was in charge.

  Would a drawdown of U.S. forces be a signal of impatience? Robb asked. Or did the United States need to send more troops?

  "We are trying to work ourselves out of a job in Iraq," Abizaid said. "The Iraqis do not believe that we are leaving.

  This is not a good dynamic, and it is the psychology of the region. We have to make clear to the Iraqis that 'It's your country. We'll help you to the extent possi
ble, but it's your country.'"

  What might be the sign of a tipping point in Iraq? Bob Gates asked.

  "If the Iraq army dissolves," Abizaid replied, "if it becomes sectarian or quits serving the national government. Or if the Iranian government made a strategic decision to attack coalition forces and cause greater casualties. They might do that. You could end up with a Hezbollah-like situation in the south and a weak Iraq." Hezbollah is an Iranian-backed political and paramilitary extremist group based in Lebanon.

  "We're putting a lot of chips on Maliki," Lee Hamilton remarked.

  "We could lose Maliki," Abizaid said. "It would not, for instance, be as big a problem as if Karzai were to go"óa reference to Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan.

  Afterward, several members remarked how little Abizaid had talked about, or even seemed focused on, Iraq.

  * * *

  The next day, August 3, Abizaid testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Capitol Hill. Senator Levin asked the general if he believed that Iraq was sliding toward civil war. "I believe that the sectarian violence is probably as bad as I've seen it, in Baghdad in particular," he replied, "and that if not stopped, it is possible that Iraq could move toward civil war."

  His comments received prominent attention on that evening's national newscasts and landed the next morning on the front pages of The New York Times and The Washington Post.

  * * *

  Hadley had kept Rice informed of his efforts to get an internal strategy review going, and she was familiar with the 50-question grilling that he had meted out to Khalilzad and Casey. It was increasingly obvious to Rice that they didn't have a strategy. She wanted to reevaluate the strategy herself. But to be quite frank, she said, she didn't want "to do anything that would be above the radar screen in the heavy political breathing of the November elections."

  The administration did not need what she called "a hothouse story" that acknowledged Iraq had gotten so bad that they were considering a new approach. That would play into the hands of critics and antiwar Democrats.

  * * *

  On Friday, August 4, Rice appeared on an MSNBC cable news show for an interview with NBC White House correspondent David Gregory.

  "I believe that we've made progress," she said. "No, I do not believe that it's failing."

  "But," Gregory asked, "is there not some discussion about what happens if this doesn't work, a plan B?"

  "David," she replied, "what you want to do is settle on a plan and then press as hard as you can to make that plan work. And that's where everyone's energies are at this point, and I think this plan is going to work."

  The problem was that her statements weren't true. Plenty of energy was going into finding a new and better plan.

  The next morning, Saturday, Rice left Washington for a weekend at the president's Crawford ranch, arriving about 11:30 A.M. She had lunch with the president and Hadley.

  They had been hoping the sectarian violence would burn itself out, but it kept getting worse. The intelligence reports showed large-scale displacement of residents in Baghdad. Whole neighborhoods were being attacked by militiasóboth Shia and Sunnióand bodies continued to pile up at the average of 50 a day, some days far more. The violence was worse than at any other time during the war. Baghdad's neighborhoods had become a patchwork of self-protective enclaves. Burnt-out cars and trucks, barriers and walls created virtual forts dotting the vast city.

  Rice told the president that she was worried that the very fabric of Iraqi society was rending. She held her hands in front of her and pulled them apart dramatically. The Iraqis, she said, weren't going to have anything to build on if they kept going at each other this way. The core of Iraqi civil society was in jeopardy.

  "I think we all knew that that was the problem," Rice recalled.

  In an interview two years later, the president acknowledged that Iraqi society indeed had been "rending."

  "And the reason why is that, because in the absence of a government that is providing the average person security, they're choosing sides," he said. "If I might ask myself a question that you should be asking me hereÖ"

  "Please," I said.

  "What caused you to believe that this was not inevitable?"

  "Good question. And the answer?"

  He said he believed people want to live in peace and eventually would reject the violence. But without an effective government, they weren't being given much chance. "They now found themselves in a situation where they had to rely on the local cat with the big gun."

  * * *

  The next day, Rice appeared on several of the Sunday morning talk shows. She voiced optimism and disagreed with negative assessments that Tim Russert quoted on NBC's Meet the Press. "Iraqis have made a choice for a unified government that can deliver for all Iraqis," she said. "And when I say Iraqis, I mean not just their leadership, which clearly has not made a choice for civil war, but their population." On Monday, Bush and Rice held a joint press conference. The president cited Iraq as a "notable battleground in the advance of liberty," adding, "What the American people need to know is we've got a strategy."

  By August 16, Bush was out on the campaign trail, stumping for Republicans in the upcoming November elections.

  At a political rally in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, he said that his war strategy was to keep on the offense. "The stakes are high," he declared to a crowd of 400 people at a Republican fund-raiser. "But I clearly see where we need to go."

  * * *

  That same week, Bush and Cheney, with Rumsfeld, Hadley and longtime adviser Dan Bartlett, had lunch at the Pentagon with four Iraq experts, including Reuel Gerecht, from the conservative American Enterprise Institute, and Eric Davis, a political scientist from Rutgers University.

  Bush made it clear that he wished the United States got more credit for its efforts and sacrifice in Iraq.

  The president noted the "mass psychology" that al Qaeda had inflicted in one solitary actóthe February bombing of the Samarra mosque. Isn't there anything positive in Iraq? he asked.

  Davis said that education was getting better and a civil society was beginning to emerge.

  "Well, that won't matter if this cycle of revenge keeps accelerating," Gerecht said. "You need Americans monitoring the situation with a heavy American presence."

  Exasperated, Bush said he was growing weary of the ingratitude on the part of the Iraqis. He said it was hard for him to understand.

  Chapter 9

  On Thursday morning, August 17, the president gathered his war council in the windowless Roosevelt Room of the White House for a secret meeting on Iraq that Hadley had planned for nearly a month. The Situation Room, the normal venue for such an important meeting, was being renovated.

  The temperature outside was headed toward 90 degrees, humid and muggyóvacation time for most anyone who could escape the summer doldrums of the nation's capital. Rice was away for a rare breakóa five-day stay at the Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia. But in the West Wing, it was a time for reflection. Hadley had given the president special briefing material in advance, including the SECRET summary of the July 22 question-and-answer session with Casey and Khalilzad.

  Above the mantel in the room, just a few steps from the Oval Office, hung a picture of Republican President Theodore Roosevelt, the Rough Rider himself, astride a great black horse. Solemn and determined, Roosevelt looks as if he and his horse might bound off the canvas.

  "The situation seems to be deteriorating," the president began, acknowledging to his closest advisers a rebuttal of his public optimism. He said he was searching for a way to go. "I want to be able to say that I have a plan to punch back." He had to find a way to explain to the American people what defeat might mean so they would understand the consequences. He recalled, as he often did, that Central Commander General John Abizaid had said that if the United States withdrew under pressure, the extremists and terrorists would follow to the United States. Defeat for the United States would embolden the enemy. The
y must "make it clear that we have a plan to defeat them," Bush said. "We need a clear way forward coming out of Labor Day." They had nothing close to a clear way forward that day, with less than three weeks to go.

  The number of attacks in Iraq had risen to more than 900 each week. Bush was clearly unhappy, almost dejected.

  After nearly six years in office, the presidencyóand the warówere wearing on him. He had turned 60 the previous month, and the photographs of the young Texas governor of the late 1990s contrasted with the gray-haired president who now sat before them. The high-octane optimism of the Bush persona was in remission.

  "We get only rare glimpses of anything positive going on," he said, sounding disheartened. Mass bombings and killings in Iraq were the staple not only of the television news but often of the classified reports he received and the daily Iraq Note from the National Security Council staff. "Surely, something else is going on?" Bush asked.

  At one point, trying to puncture the gloom, Rumsfeld interjected. "Terrific!" he said, referring to the president's opening remarks. "We need that leadership." Perhaps a new message, a new speech, could be used to "show that a defeat of the United States would amount to defeat of the Iraqi people," he proposed.

  "We are constantly adjusting our tactics," the president said, repeating one of his favored lines, "but we're firm in our objectives." He cited Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, where the recent fighting had been brutal and slow. U.S.

  forces had fought hard, demonstrating a willingness to stay, he said.