In the Arena

by Pete Hegseth

  It was July 2007, I was twenty-seven years old, and it was my second Iraq summer.

  After an exhaustive and spirited series of meetings that day, mostly with “on the fence” senators who were waffling in their war support (but also including an equally raucous and motivating meeting with Senator John McCain), our rookie crew of insurgents joined a core group of pro-victory senators—dubbed the “no surrender caucus”—at a podium just steps from the Senate floor in the Mansfield Room for a press conference. It was standing room only, with nearly as many cameras as people. Before the press conference, our group of veterans stood awkwardly behind the podium; then, already ten minutes behind schedule, I was tapped on the shoulder by a hasty staffer who asked me to step into a back hallway.

  The staffer swung open the huge wooden doors, and I was immediately greeted, surrounded, and lavished with appreciation by a who’s who of the U.S. Senate—including a half-dozen top Senate Republicans as well as former Democratic vice presidential hopeful Joe Lieberman—who was, in many ways, the heart, soul, and de facto ringleader of the newly minted “no surrender caucus.” As the senators shook my hand and patted me on the back with words of encouragement, the only thought that passed through my mind was, My dad would love this—I can’t wait to tell him. My dad was, and is, a voracious viewer of the Sunday political shows, which served as my initial (boring) introduction to politics. In my mind, these senators in their Senate chambers were titans from a far-off world that only the powerful—not a small-town kid from Minnesota—could access.

  In eager and earnest tones, they thanked me and my “cavalry” for arriving in Washington “just in time.” It felt like an alternate universe, and I’m certain the best I could do was babble out incoherent pleasantries in a rush to not look stupid. As the ad hoc “no surrender caucus” meeting wrapped up, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell turned to me and said, “You’ll bat cleanup for us at the podium—giving the cameras the truth about what’s going on in Iraq.” I was honored, if terrified, as I clung to three pages of scribbled notes. The real honor came not from the compliments from senators, but from the opportunity—the privilege—to give voice to the warriors still slinging lead in the streets of Baghdad. This effort was never about me, or our group, or about senators—but about the men and women still fighting and the lasting legacy of our war.

  This day on Capitol Hill, and our hastily arranged press conference, were necessary because Iraq War opponents had zeroed in on the summer of 2007 (dubbed by antiwar leaders as the “Iraq Summer”), this week, and this day to press for a Senate vote to mandate a withdrawal from Iraq. The big debate on the Iraq War was supposed to happen two months later, in September 2007, when the commanding general in Iraq, General David Petraeus, came back to Washington, D.C., to testify about the progress of the troop surge. However, emboldened by a House vote in March that tied war funding to withdrawal, powerful outside groups that opposed the war sensed an advantage in July, and chose to push to end the war sooner by pressuring squishy senators to vote for a withdrawal deadline.

  An amendment sponsored by Democratic senators Carl Levin and Jack Reed (the Levin-Reed Amendment) became their chosen legislation and, if passed with sixty votes, would set a certain date for withdrawal and effectively end the surge, and by extension, the unpopular Iraq War. Anticipating that General Petraeus’s testimony in September could show signs of progress, they pressed ahead in dramatic fashion in July. Antiwar activists didn’t yet have sixty votes in the Senate but thought a high-stakes, high-profile blitz might get them very close. Squishy, finger-in-the-wind senators—especially those worried about their 2008 reelection campaigns—were targeted from all sides.

  To raise the stakes, Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid—who had already declared the war “lost” in April—scheduled an all-night Senate debate on the Levin-Reed Amendment, going so far as bringing sleeping cots just off the Senate floor. Antiwar groups like Iraq Veterans Against the War, MoveOn.org, and Americans Against Escalation in Iraq simultaneously swarmed Washington, with the latter group hosting 23 senators and 57 representatives at an antiwar candlelight vigil to coincide with the late-night Senate session.

  Just as General Petraeus’s surge forces were hitting the ground in Iraq, the antiwar movement was surging in Washington. Political and public opposition to the war had never been higher. Our small band of pro-victory veterans, alongside a tiny group of “no surrender” senators, were unpopular, outnumbered, and surrounded. They had the numbers and the momentum, but we had the moral high ground and the pulse of the battlefield.

  We had them right where we wanted them.

  I don’t remember much of what was said at that press conference, nor does anyone else. In the arc of the Iraq War debate, this event is a mere footnote. The content of my remarks can be summarized as: We can win the war in Iraq. Don’t set a deadline for defeat. A hasty retreat will embolden Al Qaeda—and make the situation far worse. Senator Lieberman also summed up our advocacy in one of the only clips from that press conference that still lives online, saying: “I’m so deeply grateful that the Vets for Freedom have chosen this day to come here, because what they are telling the Senate is—wake up. Wake up to what is actually happening in Iraq. . . . Now is not the time to legislate defeat by mandating a retreat of our troops. . . . The sad truth is that too many of my colleagues in the chambers are asleep when it comes to Iraq. The American military will never lose the war in Iraq. We’ll only lose if we lose our political will.” He was right then, and even more right today.

  That moment on July 17, 2007—on a ninety-degree day in Washington—was not about what was said, but instead about the stand that was taken. For those who stood there that day, it was a chance to stand in the breach of history during the darkest days of an unpopular war that we believed in then—and still believe in today. The three preceding months had been the most deadly of the Iraq War, as new surge forces pushed into contested areas. Regardless of what defeatists in Washington said, our warriors were fighting, from behind, for a victory in Iraq—in 102-degree heat. This was our chance to stand with them, guarding their exposed domestic flank. The troops in Iraq had reinforcements, a new strategy, a fortified commander in chief, and a courageous commanding general. Now all they needed was the time to see it through. That was our job.

  And, there we stood. The political summer soldiers had long since gone home, shrinking from a bitter and unpopular fight, the outcome of which was far from certain; and many of my own politically savvy personal friends had pulled me aside to say, “Why are you carrying political water for a lost cause? For an unpopular president? This is going to hurt your reputation.” None of this noise mattered. Antiwar groups had dubbed this the “Iraq Summer” in Washington, but the real Iraq summer was taking place six thousand miles away. We stood confident that we were doing the right thing for the soldiers in the field, consequences be damned. It was never—ever—about politics for us. It was about winning the war we were sent to fight.

  There were more press conferences after the one in July 2007—and many were much more high profile. Vets for Freedom was back on the Hill in even greater numbers in both September 2007 and April 2008, when General Petraeus came back to testify before Congress. But by then our warfighters had already turned the tide. Progress on the ground—with violence dropping precipitously and progress becoming more evident by the day—eventually made our argument for us and fundamentally undercut domestic efforts to legislate defeat. But on that afternoon of July 17, the outcome was still in doubt—on the battlefield, on the Hill, and in the media.

  That evening, as cots were ushered onto the Senate floor, I had an opportunity to duke it out—Lindsey Graham–style—on Hardball with Chris Matthews on MSNBC, as I would do many times that summer. The entire segment was heated, and Chris cut me off twenty-four times after asking me if “the president’s surge strategy had run its course.” It was one of my first television appearances and felt like a slow-motion train wreck. With nothin
g resolved except the size of Chris Matthews’s ego, he ended the segment by telling me, “I wish this government of ours had as much brainpower behind this war as your passion for this war.” A compliment, I guess.

  Following that segment, I made the half-mile walk back to the tiny American Legion post that served as our makeshift headquarters for the day. Walking with one of Vets for Freedom’s founders and my good friend David Bellavia, a highly decorated Army veteran of Fallujah, I remember being in a daze and reflecting on the whirlwind of a long day. David was reassuring, but I was nonetheless consumed with whether or not my band of insurgents would approve of my train-wreck television appearance. With a sigh, we walked into the small hall of the Legion post. It was empty. We assumed folks had dispersed, with our day over. I was disappointed, but unsurprised. So we swung open the small door to the adjoining bar to grab a beer—only to find it packed with our crew of tan-shirted misfits. The bar erupted just like the conference room had for Senator Graham earlier in the day.

  Chills went up my spine then, as they do each time I think about it now. For us—as it had been on the Hill all day—it was not about whether we got every word right or won every argument. It was the fact that we were in the arena, and we understood—as Teddy Roosevelt understood based on the hills that he had fought for—that “it is right to prevail.” Showing up and fighting for what is right, when the chips are down and everyone is counting you out, is the essence of being in the arena. There we were, tan shirts and all.

  The next day, two things happened nearly simultaneously. First, I woke up in time to watch then-senator Barack Obama say on NBC’s Today show, “My assessment is that the surge has not worked and we will not see a different report eight weeks from now.” His words foreshadowed a political battle—over a war that had nothing to do with politics for us—that would consume the next sixteen months of my life. Hours later, I received a phone call I didn’t believe. President George W. Bush had seen the reports about our group of pro-victory insurgents and wanted to meet with us in the Oval Office . . . in two days.

  In complete candor, when I first received the call—and consulted with other Vets for Freedom leaders—we thought about declining the White House invitation. It sounds weird now but made sense to us then. Even though we revered Bush’s stance on the Iraq surge, and many of us were Republicans, we were worried about looking like merely pro-Bush and pro-Republican veterans. For us, the war was not about Bush, and was not about partisan politics—it was about America’s security, reputation, and legacy. As recently returning veterans, we did not want to risk our credibility by looking like political props. But, after a quick discussion, we soon realized that in this case, reality was far more important than perception. Our wartime commander in chief was requesting support and a meeting; we would have been insubordinate idiots if we did not enthusiastically accept it.

  Two days later, four Iraq War veterans—along with four military families—walked into the Oval Office for an hour-long private meeting with President Bush. The meeting was an incredible glimpse into the mind of a wartime president truly grappling with the best way to salvage—and win—a war. The conversation bounced from body counts to counterinsurgency theory to a comparison of General Petraeus and General Ulysses S. Grant, and everything in between. Reflections on the meeting could consume an entire chapter, but suffice it to say that I left that office—and the Rose Garden press conference that followed—confident that our president understood the stakes of the fight, recognized the nature of the enemy, and had the courage to see it through. His words that day underscore perfectly the stakes of the cause we shared—and very much foreshadow the war we still see raging today: “Failure in Iraq would increase the probability that at some later date, American troops would have to return to Iraq to confront an enemy more dangerous and more entrenched. Failure in Iraq would send an unmistakable signal to America’s enemies that our country can be bullied into retreat.” Prophetic, to say the least.

  A week earlier, I had never met a senator—let alone a president. And, six weeks later, we were back in Washington with reinforcements to amplify the success of our troops in the field—and back up General Petraeus. As we believed it would, the surge was working—in dramatic fashion. Our only job was to shout that fact from the rooftops. So, standing at the same podium in the same room with a similar group of senators and congressmen six weeks later, I couldn’t resist laying out—and rubbing in—how far the troops had come in just six weeks. The confidence I felt at that podium in September was a far cry from July, and an ever further cry from what I had felt in Iraq the year before.

  Six weeks ago members of Vets for Freedom stood with a similar group of senators and urged Congress to wait for the September assessment, at that moment—just six weeks ago—leaders in the United States Senate were loudly declaring that the war in Iraq was lost and they were calling for a timeline for withdrawal. Despite early signs of progress [in Iraq], the D.C. timeline was ticking—quickly—toward a hasty retreat.

  Simultaneously MoveOn.org and their puppet groups declared an “Iraq Summer” in which they would turn up the heat on members of Congress, and end the war in Iraq. In their words, this “historic summer” would “fracture critical elements of the Republican base of support for the war by early fall.” Well, here we are, and I ask—did they succeed?

  Standing here with other veterans and this bipartisan group of senators and representatives it is very clear that quite the opposite has happened. Instead, since July, members of Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, have returned from Iraq and testified to the positive change that is happening there. And they’ve found common ground—the surge is working and General Petraeus’s testimony deserves to be considered with an open mind.

  Why has this happened? Because facts about progress in Iraq always trump paid political operatives, spin machines, and ad campaigns. MoveOn, and other antiwar groups, did everything they could to convince the American people that “the war is lost” in Iraq.

  But, while these folks spent the summer organizing sparsely attended rallies, chanting empty slogans, and running attack ads . . . on the other hand, our soldiers in Iraq, led by General Petraeus and his new counterinsurgency strategy, took the fight to the enemy. Putting Al Qaeda on the run, and sowing the seeds of stability throughout Iraq.

  This is the true story of the Iraq Summer.

  No two summers—the summer of 2007 in the swamps of Washington, D.C., and the preceding summer of 2006, in the sands of Samarra—taught me more about warfare, politics, and the high-stakes convergence of the two. No two summers will ever shape me more.

  • • •

  The rest of the story is well known—or at least should be. The Iraq surge was wildly successful. Violence plummeted, political progress started, and the Iraqi security forces were emboldened. Iraqi prime minister Nouri Al Maliki, far from perfect but with U.S. troops behind him and diplomats prodding him, even agreed to arm the Sunni tribes and proactively took the fight to Shia militias, all while initially giving the stiff-arm to Tehran. More troops, the right strategy, and strong leadership made the fundamental military and political difference we believed it would. Before Barack Obama’s policies lost the war, we won it.

  Along with other Iraq War veterans from Vets for Freedom, I saw it firsthand on two trips back to the front lines of the Iraq battlefield in 2008 as an embedded reporter with National Review. As I wrote about extensively during trips to Iraq in February and August 2008, the transformation on the ground was nothing short of stunning, especially for someone who had seen some of the worst places of the war at some of the worst times. As I wrote from Baghdad in February 2008, “It was then that I realized I had never really been to this place—I just thought I had. This is the real Al Doura, a neighborhood and a people reborn—thanks to the bravery and sacrifice of [American troops]. Today, I saw Al Doura for the first time.” The Iraq I experienced as a soldier was war-torn and seemingly hopeless; the Iraq that existed after the surg
e was recovering and full of promise. It was only then that I saw the real Iraq, for the first time.

  Yet, despite this overwhelming success, the Democratic nominee for president, Senator Barack Obama, remained committed to the narrative that the outcome in Iraq was inevitable failure (a narrative the Coexist Left—and right-leaning isolationists—will always be wedded to). In speeches, debates, and television commercials during the entire 2008 campaign, he simply insisted that Iraq was an inevitable failure, and a so-called war-weary public lapped it up—wishing away the difficult realities of what it would take to cement progress after a long and difficult war. He was anti–Iraq War, no matter what, and no matter the cost of a rapid withdrawal. He was, as he has remained since, fully and ideologically committed to his coexist foreign policy of retreat.

  As a result, like a machine-gun position facing an enemy wave and locked on a final protective line of rapid fire, Vets for Freedom eventually raised and spent $8 million trying to prevent Barack Obama’s disastrous Iraq policy—running national “I am the Surge” television ads throughout 2008. We also crisscrossed the country in a tour bus, a modern version of Teddy Roosevelt’s effort to awaken the country before World War I, on a speaking tour to motivate the American public and highlight the success of the Iraq surge. The eventual Republican nominee, Senator John McCain, did the same, with his Iraq surge–focused “No Surrender” bus tour credited with reviving his presidential candidacy. (Little-known fact: I had the accidental good fortune of literally naming the “No Surrender Tour” during a private meeting with the senator and his team in 2007.) Whereas other groups pulled back in the final weeks of the campaign based on political calculation, Vets for Freedom internalized the battlefield stakes and did not hold back a penny. Our effort was wholly focused on exposing—thereby preventing—the terrible consequences of a commander in chief Obama. We knew that in Iraq and across the world, his policies would make a bad situation even worse.