Battle Ready (2004)

by Tom - Nf - Commanders Clancy

  This time the approach was going to be softer and less visible. There would be no special envoy. Ambassador Burns was going to quietly run the mediation mission out of his own shop. Since he had to run the whole region, not just this one process, he was looking for someone he knew and trusted, with knowledge, experience, stature, and solid personal relationships in the region, who would become his semiofficial assistant, working closely with him and filling in when he had to turn his attention elsewhere. This person would become a part-time right hand, who could take over and oversee the process when he was away.

  The goal, Burns went on to explain, was to reengage without making a big deal of it. Everyone knew what needed to be done and where we needed to go; and the Mitchell and Tenet plans already went a long way toward spelling all this out (as did the various agreements, near agreements, and accords already reached in Madrid, Oslo, and elsewhere). There was no need to create another big plan or to launch another big effort. What needed to be done was already out there. It had to be won or lost on the ground.

  Burns and Powell wanted a few people to go over there and work out with the two parties how to actually structure the existing agreements, and to find the best way to set these up and implement them. These people would start up the process, feel it out, and then oversee it.

  What I think Burns had in mind for me was to start the initial movement; and then, as the process moved along, if a bigger player was needed in there to close deals or whatever, he would come and take the lead. When he was not able to be present, but they still needed somebody with clout who could ride herd on this thing, then I would fill in for him.

  "Are you willing to take this on?" he asked.

  How could I not be excited? This was a job worth doing. Even if nothing lasting came of it--which was all too likely.

  "Great!" I told him. "I'm not real familiar with all the issues or many of the people involved in this thing; but I'd really love to get involved in it."

  "I'd love to see you involved," he said. "Let's see what we can do to make it happen."

  And he continued: "What I'm talking about is a kind of unusual setup here at State. We'll have to figure out how we structure our arrangement."

  "Well, look," I said, "I have some thoughts on that. First of all, I don't want to be paid for this thing. That way I can keep some measure of independence. I want to be able to do what I have to do, say what I have to say, and not feel that somebody's going to accuse me of doing this for gain.

  "Second, I don't want a title. I don't want to be called envoy or anything else.

  "Third, we ought to keep this low-key. There shouldn't be a lot of publicity about me doing this. I'm just a part-time special assistant who happens to be there with you.

  "Let's absolutely do this thing. But let's do it with no pay, no title, no press, no media attention, and no making a big deal of it."

  He agreed that was the best arrangement. "I'll take these ideas to Secretary Powell and see what he says."

  "Great," I said.

  DAYS PASSED. I waited restlessly for Bill Burns's call, which would take us to the next step. I was very eager to find out my actual function and the nature of my mission--all still unclear.

  As I waited, I did my usual thing when I took on something new; I read everything about the Israeli-Palestinian problem that I could get my hands on.

  During the same period, I worked with Bill Burns's people to structure my official relationship with the State Department. The lawyers drew up a contract. It turned out that even a no-pay employee is still bound by conflict-of-interest and ethics rules, which rightfully limited other things I might have done.

  I have to confess that my refusal to take pay did not totally spring from altruistic motives, such as my wish for independence, or from my hope to be a wonderful servant of the nation (though these motives were important). This job was going to be part-time; and I was involved in other work that brought in paychecks. If I accepted pay from State, I'd have to give up these other positions. The ethics and conflict-of-interest rules still prevented me from taking on certain jobs; and everything I did had to be vetted and cleared by the government and the State Department. Was it worth it? Absolutely.

  TWO WEEKS after my initial meeting with Bill Burns, on September 11, 2001, the world changed drastically.

  In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks, the Bush administration looked anew at reengagement in the peace process. Their approach changed, and expanded. According to Ambassador Burns, the rate of these changes was accelerating. He couldn't be specific, but the nature of the peace initiative was no longer what we had discussed. I sensed that my own part in all this was also changing.

  On the twenty-third of October, I attended a series of briefs at the State Department on the background of the peace process and an update on the current situation; and I was instructed to stay ready to travel quickly after the design of my mission was firmed up. How exactly it was going to be firmed up was still not clear to me.

  On November 10, 2001, President Bush delivered a historic speech before the UN General Assembly in which he committed to the establishment of a Palestinian state--the first time a President of the United States had done that. The objective of the peace process, he told the delegates, is two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side. This was a very controversial and bold statement.

  I was very impressed. The reengagement effort we were about to start promised to be more momentous than I had first thought.

  The President's speech was to be followed by a major speech from Secretary Powell on the nineteenth at the University of Louisville that would add specifics to the President's general principles.

  Shortly before the Louisville event, Ambassador Burns called to tell me that Powell's remarks would trigger our departure for Israel, though he couldn't actually tell me what this meant for me and what we were going to do. . . . He was not keeping this from me; he truly didn't know the answer. All he--or anybody--did know was that Powell's speech would be the defining moment; yet right up to the eleventh hour, nobody was sure what the moment would define.

  The day before the speech, Burns faxed me a rough copy of the speech, but with a caveat attached: These pages are not yet final--but they are close.

  I read the pages, and, bang!, I got knocked off my feet.

  "Holy cow," I said to myself. "There's a big piece in this thing about me: I've got a big new title now! I'm the Special Advisor to the Secretary of State for the Middle East! So much for all our hopes about not making a big deal of my mission. There goes our no-title and no-publicity agreement." (They kept my no-pay arrangement.)

  Suddenly, for all practical purposes I'd become another special envoy. Powell had inflated my position into something I didn't want it to be--not because I am all that modest, but because I wasn't convinced it would work (an opinion later justified by events). On the other hand, I was excited to learn that the administration's level of commitment and involvement had moved way up. I really liked it that Secretary Powell had showed what was called the path: We'd try to put the Tenet and Mitchell plans in play on the ground, and this, we hoped, would lead to the final status agreement, and then finally to the Palestinian state. We now had a horizon. The peace process was beginning to look promising.

  The speech generated a lot of media excitement; my phone rang off the hook; and there was nothing I could tell anybody. I just didn't know any answers. What was my job?

  ON NOVEMBER 21, I visited the State Department for further briefings and administrative processing in preparation for my initial trip, scheduled for the twenty-fifth; but my most important business at Foggy Bottom that day was the marching orders I got from Secretary Powell and Deputy Secretary Armitage. They gave me tremendous latitude:

  My mission was to achieve an immediate cease-fire in place, to be followed by implementation of the Tenet and Mitchell plans. They wanted these to be accepted on the ground rather than just in principle. How I did it was up to me. I was expected t
o use my head, and my own initiative.

  "We don't like to lose," Secretary Powell told me. "We like to win. You get out there and make it happen, use your judgment. You've got a lot of latitude, a lot of freedom in action. But don't hesitate to pick up that phone and call me directly if you need something."

  It was gratifying to hear the Secretary express such personal confidence in me. Yet taking on that kind of responsibility always makes you a little tense. I knew what kind of burden had fallen on me.

  Ambassador Burns would travel out with me on the first part of the trip; and Aaron Miller would be assigned to assist me--a great choice.

  Miller was the State Department specialist on the Middle East peace process. Years before, he had joined the Department as a historian, but somehow the peace process itself had captured him. It became his life. His total personal commitment was to bring peace to the region. In time, as the specialist, he'd worked for all the secretaries of state and presidents, becoming over the years the government's corporate memory on that subject. 84 He knows everybody, and he's known by everybody. He knows every issue, every event, and every betrayal. Nothing in that part of the world stays hidden from Aaron Miller.

  In Israel, he was involved in everything I did, and was totally there for me--without in any way trying to impose his thinking or his way of doing things. He provided background, recommendations, support, ideas; and then encouraged me to add my own thinking. "We need fresh thinking," he explained. "A lot of people in this business think they know how to do it, and they'll never skip an opportunity to pass on their wisdom. But the truth is, no ideas have worked so far. So fire at will, and find something new."

  He and I became very close; it was just a wonderful fit of two different personalities. He was intense and full of nervous energy. While I'm not exactly easygoing, I try to be more relaxed and good-humored at work. He had started out as a liberal academic, and had never experienced a military guy before we met. I was a complete alien to his country. Yet he found that fascinating, and I found him fascinating; and so we somehow complemented one another. When he was down, I could pick him up; when I was down, he'd pick me up. And in the end, our friendship really helped the team.

  EARLY ON the twenty-first, Secretary Powell, Bill Burns, and I traveled to the White House to brief President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and National Security Advisor Rice.

  When the president asked me about my mission--essentially to see how I understood what I was supposed to do--I let him know that I wanted to get the Tenet and Mitchell plans into play. This seemed to satisfy him. He wished me luck and told me he appreciated my doing this for the country. My sense was that he was giving this thing his blessing, but from a distance; this was Colin Powell's baby. Still, we were good to go, and that was enough for me.

  AS I prepared to leave for Israel, I tried to keep a low profile and avoid distractions--such as encounters with the press. Better to leave the press interaction to the State Department. This caused resentment in the media and resulted in minor disruptions when some of the media retaliated; but I knew public diplomacy on my part would be counterproductive.

  After the struggle to make the U.S. Constitution had been won, James Madison remarked that the twenty representatives who'd put it together had made an agreement to hold the process in confidence and not talk to the press. If that had not been done, he went on to say, if the fathers had failed to keep the process private and it had become naked to the media and the scrutiny of the public, we would never have had a Constitution.

  If every step of the way, every consideration, every possibility, every proposal, every tentative glimmer of an idea, every thought put on the table suddenly got into the open where it could be endlessly analyzed or attacked or mauled by the press (and it didn't matter which press--Al Jazeera, the New York Times, the Jerusalem Post, the Guardian, the Wall Street Journal), we'd never have moved anywhere. You can't go forward in an emotional, involved, complex process like the Middle East peace process if the spotlight is on you.

  Public diplomacy and transparency are a good thing. But these don't work well in some places, under some circumstances, and with some issues. Often a process hits critical moments when private negotiations are necessary to work through sensitive issues or proposals. If these are made public every inch of the way, they can make it impossible for the parties to explore and develop possibilities. This was clearly one of those places.

  AS I prepared to take on the peace mission, I sounded out friends who were familiar with the Israeli-Palestinian nightmare, looking for advice and insights. Their predictions were gloomy: "You know, you ought to really think about this before you sign on to it. The chances of this thing going south are right up there with night following day. And when that happens, you're going to be saddled with the failure." Even the people from the State Department who solicited me for the job kept asking me: "Are you out of your mind? Do you really want to be actually stuck with this?" . . . Thoughts that were jokingly echoed by Rich Armitage: "Are you crazy?" he asked. I knew, though, that he appreciated my willingness to do this. One reason I was excited about this mission was the chance to work for Rich and Secretary Powell once again. These two great men have always been inspirations for me.

  How could I not look hard at the slim chances of success? Yet I also had to face myself and my own conscience. "It's not this or that failure that matters," I told myself. "You know, if you save one life, you have to do it. But more important, if there's even a point one percent chance of success, you've got to try. You can't give up trying in these situations."

  The number of times you're successful in these mediations is low. It's like baseball. You get a hit every third time up, you're in the Hall of Fame. You have to answer your country's call to service regardless of personal interests or the likelihood of success.

  I had one other strong motivation--Colin Powell's personal commitment. If he was ready to put his ass on the line for this, then I was glad to be part of it.

  I have a tremendous respect for Secretary Powell. I don't know many people with greater honor, integrity, and ethics. The distinction between right and wrong is not a trivial thing with him. I have personally seen Colin Powell take actions that in no way benefit him, actions where the personal and political risks are high, actions that calculating people or those looking at their own personal benefit would avoid. He does them anyway, without calling attention to himself, because they're the right things to do.

  Powell was not standing back and letting the peace process take its course. He was pushing it. It wasn't popular. It wasn't politically expedient. Within the administration, he had enemies. I learned that the Defense Department opposed my selection for this mission. While I was at CENTCOM, I had disagreed with positions taken by many policymakers there; and now I had few friends at the Pentagon. Powell knew this, yet pushed on with what he felt was right.

  ON NOVEMBER 25, 2001, Bill, Aaron, and I departed for Israel.

  ROUND ONE

  Our plane touched down at Ben-Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv on the evening of November 26.

  I spent the first night getting briefings from the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv and the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem (which was our official point of contact with the Palestinians).

  In the past, friction had developed between these two posts. Embassies tend to get "clientitis," which meant that their staffs, if they're not careful, begin to take the side of locals they see and live with day to day.

  Fortunately, when I came to Israel we were blessed with two of our best diplomats--Dan Kurtzer and Ron Schlicher--running the embassy and the Jerusalem consulate. Kurtzer, our ambassador to Israel, is absolutely one of the finest diplomats we have ever created in the United States. He had been ambassador to Egypt when I was at CENTCOM, so I knew him well. In Jerusalem, we had Ron Schlicher, a career diplomat with extensive experience in the Middle East and in the Arab world, whom I had not met, but his reputation was splendid.

  These two brilliant professionals m
ade it work and made their people cooperate. Although they both had strong personal feelings on the issues, they made it absolutely clear that their job was to promote the interests of the United States of America, and they made it equally clear that their first and foremost priority at that moment was to cooperate and find a peaceful resolution to the calamitous conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians. These attitudes took hold of everybody in the embassy and the consulate. And it was the force of their leadership that made it work.

  THE INITIAL BRIEFS (and press reports) painted a bleak picture. No surprises here. The level of violence had steadily increased since the Second Intifada had begun in September 2000. All trust and confidence between the parties had evaporated, and peace talks were almost nonexistent. For the Israelis, the first priority was security, and in particular stopping the suicide attacks from extremist groups. Once that goal was achieved, they might begin negotiations and consider making concessions. For the Palestinians, the first priority was political commitment by the Israelis to Palestinian statehood, and removal of all Israeli troops from their territories. The gap between these views was huge.

  The only ongoing talks were in the Trilateral Committee meetings. This committee--consisting of security experts from Israel, Palestine, and the U.S.--was set up by George Tenet to deal with security coordination and de-confliction issues (that is, where forces rubbed up against one another). Since it was then the only point of engagement between the two parties, it seemed to be the best venue for any attempt to get the Tenet plan into effect on the ground and a cease-fire in place.

  AT THE END of the day, I retired to the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, where we set up our headquarters and living spaces. Because 9/11 and the Intifada had dried up tourism, there was very little occupancy. We set up in one wing of the hotel. My suite, which I used as office and living quarters, was at a corner that overlooked the Old City. It was a beautiful setting, a couple of floors up.