by Bob Woodward
Jones did not want to be seen as hovering around Obama. But his low-key, low-profile approach appeared to verify the whisper campaign that portrayed him as an out-of-touch national security adviser who only worked 12-hour days when many of the younger staff stayed in their West Wing offices until late at night. The criticism had grown so intense among some blogs and foreign policy publications that Jones gave interviews to reporters from The Washington Post and The New York Times in early May.
The resulting articles failed to halt the whisper campaign. On June 11, Fox News reported that Jones was not up to the job, saying, “One NSC staff member claimed that Jones is so forgetful that at times he appears to have Alzheimer’s disease.” An outraged Jones kept the notes of the broadcast in his office.
Jones finally went to talk to Emanuel about the leaks he believed were coming from Lippert.
“When I heard it three times, I ignored it,” he said. “Then four, five, six times. Longtime friends said that someone was providing this, and they said they can’t say who but his initials are M.L.” Emanuel had to find Lippert another job.
“You’ll have to talk to the president,” Emanuel said. “This is his guy.”
In July, Jones laid out his case to Obama and others. All seemed to agree that it was rank insubordination. Obama promised to move on Lippert.
“I will tell him,” Obama told Jones.
It took more than two months. On October 1, the day of the McChrystal speech in London, the White House press secretary issued a three-paragraph statement that Lippert was returning to active duty in the Navy. The statement made it sound as though this had been Lippert’s choice.
“I was not surprised,” Obama said in the statement, “when he came and told me he had stepped forward for another mobilization, as Mark is passionate about the Navy.”
Jones was quoted as saying, “Mark has been vital to building a strong and revitalized National Security Council, ready to address the myriad challenges we face in the 21st century. I’m confident that Mark will continue to serve his nation in the United States Navy with the same commitment and sense of patriotism that we benefited from here in the White House. I congratulate him on this new post.”
Jones was also contemplating who might succeed him as national security adviser. He was thinking about an exit strategy. His deputy, Donilon, had become indispensable. The lawyer was an office junkie, staying later, reading more and generating the agendas and memos and tasking orders like no other. He was on track to lead some 147 deputies committee meetings that year—occasionally two or three a day. These were often sophisticated reviews of policy, intelligence and in-depth backgrounders.
Jones was impressed, but he also resented the close relationship that Donilon had with Emanuel, Axelrod and some of the others. He still chafed that the main pipeline continued to be Emanuel–Donilon, who were like two tuning forks—when one vibrated, so did the other.
In good Marine Corps tradition, Jones believed that all key subordinates were entitled to a performance evaluation. He called Donilon into his office.
“I will leave at some point,” Jones said, suggesting it might be sooner rather than later. He had always tried to set up a successor in his previous jobs, he said. “Maybe you’re my replacement, maybe not,” but let me give you my sense of where you stand, what you’re doing right and what you may be doing wrong.
Jones praised his substantive and organizational skills, and told Donilon that he was indispensable to the president, the principals—including Jones—the whole interagency and NSC staff. But Donilon had made three mistakes. First, he had never gone to Afghanistan or Iraq, or really left the office for a serious field trip. As a result, he said, you have no direct understanding of these places. “You have no credibility with the military.” You should go overseas. The White House, Situation Room, interagency byplay, as important as they are, are not everything.
Second, Jones continued, you frequently pop off with absolute declarations about places you’ve never been, leaders you’ve never met, or colleagues you work with. Gates had mentioned this to Jones, saying that Donilon’s sound-offs and strong spur-of-the-moment opinions, especially about one general, had offended him so much at an Oval Office meeting that he nearly walked out.
Third, he said, you have too little feel for the people who work day and night on the NSC staff, their salaries, their maternity leaves, their promotions, their family troubles, all the things a manager of people has to be tuned into. “Everything is about personal relations,” Jones said.
On Friday, October 2, Gates invited Pakistani Ambassador Haqqani to the Pentagon for one of their periodic lunches.
Haqqani felt upbeat as he strolled through the Pentagon’s outer E-Ring hallway. There was progress on so many fronts. In the next few weeks, the Pakistani army would move into Waziristan, an offensive President Zardari had pushed for. Since he had lost support by being pro-American, Zardari thought he could gain support by being tough on the Taliban.
Haqqani’s relationship with Gates, as with other important Washington figures, was carefully nurtured. He had known the defense secretary for more than two decades.
They sat in the secretary’s private dining room, with its view through bulletproof glass of the Potomac River. An assistant defense secretary joined them to take notes.
As the president had suggested two days before, Gates had an explicit message for Haqqani.
“We are not leaving,” he told Haqqani, asking him to note that in his cable to Islamabad. “We are not leaving Afghanistan. How many more troops to put in and for what purpose, that is the question. What kind of troops and for what purpose? There is no interest whatsoever in reducing the number of troops already present in Afghanistan.”
Haqqani unfurled a shopping list of gear and vehicles that the Pakistani military needed. Congress had given them the equivalent of a Pentagon gift card, approving a $400 million fund in May to pay for improvements to Pakistan’s counterinsurgency arsenal.
Haqqani scrolled through the must-haves. Cargo helicopters, Beechcraft 350 aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles, night vision devices, IED jammers, aviation maintenance support, communications monitoring equipment, frigates and P-3C Orion airplanes to conduct maritime surveillance. This could all help with the Pakistani army’s upcoming offensive against the Taliban in South Waziristan.
Gates instantly okayed almost everything on the list but chose to be noncommittal on the frigates and P-3C Orions. They would have little use in the landlocked tribal areas where the Taliban and al Qaeda were.
With the buying spree out of the way, Haqqani brought up the $1.6 billion that America owed the Pakistani military for conducting operations along the Afghan border. After 9/11, the U.S. set up an expense account for Pakistan and other countries called the Coalition Support Fund. It reimbursed allies for their assistance, although a scathing 2008 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office said the U.S. could not verify more than $2 billion in Pakistani claims. The new $1.6 billion had steadily accumulated between May 2008 and March 2009. For Pakistan, the tab was equal to more than 30 percent of its defense budget, according to CIA estimates. Haqqani pressed for the money and Gates promised to look into it.
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Jones called the principals together for a meeting on Monday, October 5, to rehearse for the next NSC meeting. Debate went again to the question of who the primary enemy was.
“We’re just parsing this distinction between the Taliban and al Qaeda too much,” Petraeus said in frustration. “The Taliban is almost becoming a new extremist brand itself.”
“The Taliban and al Qaeda are together when they’re winning,” DNI Blair said. He didn’t have to add the subtext: The Taliban were winning. “They can’t be split apart except when under pressure.”
The U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, Anne Patterson, was on a secure video screen. She said that al Qaeda, the Taliban and all the groups were “mutually reinforcing.”
There were questions about t
he prospects for a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.
“If we left,” Petraeus said, it would happen “pretty, pretty quickly.”
Gates said that they had to realize that Afghanistan carried a unique symbolism for the jihadist movement. “This was where the jihad was born.”
“We’re struggling to separate groups that are relatively linked,” CIA Director Panetta said.
The logic went like this: A victory for the Taliban counted as victory for al Qaeda, so the U.S. couldn’t walk away from Afghanistan.
But Jim Steinberg, Clinton’s deputy, didn’t see it quite that way. “What do we have to do to win the war?” he asked. “How much do we have to win the war against the Taliban?”
No one answered directly, but Peter Lavoy went back to his usual argument, “Were the Taliban perceived to be winning in Afghanistan, that would be a boost to militants worldwide.”
Eikenberry, on secure video from Kabul, supported that line of reasoning. But as a practical matter, he said, “We should distinguish between the Afghan and Pakistan Taliban. Getting Pakistan to move against the Afghan Taliban would help enormously.” While Pakistan moved against its own Taliban, the ISI still had contacts with the Haqqani network and other affiliates of the Afghan Taliban as part of its hedging strategy.
Mullen reinforced Gates’s point that the Pakistan-Afghanistan border area was the epicenter of terrorism. He also parroted Petraeus’s warning against making too many distinctions among the groups.
Clinton saw little ambiguity. “The Taliban are linked to al Qaeda,” she said firmly. “The Riedel core goal and supporting objectives were correct and proper. We don’t need to change those to discuss the level of effort in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The debate is about whether we need to conduct a fully resourced, comprehensive counterinsurgency campaign and massive aid to Pakistan.”
That’s not exactly the debate, Petraeus thought. First and foremost, it’s about what the reality is on the ground in terms of these groups. Everything else would come out of that.
Lute reminded Clinton of the context for McChrystal’s counter-insurgency strategy. “You know, the implementation plan signed by General Jones told the field to defeat the Taliban, because of the assumption that that is what is required.”
The Jones directive had said the core goal was to “defeat the extremist insurgency,” meaning the Taliban.
Donilon said, “You have to give meaning to the phrase.” The question after two hours of discussion was still whether they had to defeat the Taliban to achieve the core goal or could they disrupt or degrade them until the Afghan National Security Forces were ready.
Petraeus was sure that it would be difficult if not impossible to build the Afghan security forces in a challenging security environment. He had seen that in Iraq. It was the reality on the ground. But he would have to wait to make that point.
Clinton and Gates went off to George Washington University for a roundtable discussion, where they were interviewed by then CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour. They had dinner at the Blue Duck Tavern afterward, where they seemed to agree on what should be done with Afghanistan and troop levels. Gates and Clinton would be a team inside the Situation Room, a formidable one.
At 2:30 P.M. on October 6, Obama met in the State Dining Room with a bipartisan group of about 30 congressional leaders. It was a chance to update them on the strategy review.
Representative Eric Cantor, the Republican minority whip, offered his party’s support. “If you decide to move forward, we’ll be with you,” said the congressman from Richmond, Virginia.
Obama said that he appreciated the gesture. “I can’t help but notice that when the supplemental came up,” he said, referring to the May request for $94.2 billion for the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, “that support wasn’t as forthcoming. I don’t remember that bill sliding through the House. So I’m glad to hear that it’s here today.”
A number of legislators criticized the counterterrorism approach that Biden had been advocating. They interpreted it as a way to reduce the U.S. presence. Troops had to be on the ground, they said, winning popular support and developing human intelligence. None of this could be done from offshore or from the air.
“Let’s just be clear,” Biden said after hearing three versions of this complaint, “that I’m not, and nobody else who’s participating in these meetings is, advocating a strictly counterterrorism policy that would be carried out by a few Special Forces at night with some drones.”
“Look, guys,” the president interjected, “nobody’s talking about leaving Afghanistan.”
McCain said, “I hope the decision won’t be made leisurely,” adding that he respected that the decision was Obama’s as commander in chief.
“John,” Obama replied, “I can assure you I’m not making this decision in a leisurely way. And you’re absolutely right. This is my decision, and I’m the commander in chief.”
What a bracing moment, thought Axelrod.
“Nobody,” Obama continued, “feels more urgency to make this decision—but to make it right—than I do.”
Petraeus and Senator Lindsey Graham had one of their regular conversations that same day. The general had come to admire the Republican’s ability to navigate Washington. He considered Graham to be a brilliant and skillful political chess player. But Graham’s comments a few days earlier on Fox News Sunday were not helping.
The senator had quoted McChrystal as saying that without reinforcements the U.S. would not defeat the Taliban. Eight Americans had just been killed in Afghanistan, Graham said. “The president has a window of time here to seriously deliberate, but it’s running out. And what you saw yesterday is exactly what awaits this country—our troops cannot change momentum. They’re sitting ducks. They need to be reinforced.”
Petraeus told Graham, You’re kind of taking some of Stan’s statements out of context. “Stan doesn’t want to be pitted against the president,” he said. “Stand down, ratchet it down a little bit.”
Graham saw the wisdom in this. He didn’t want to inflame the situation more than McChrystal’s London speech already had.
“If I were the commander in chief, I wouldn’t have appreciated that,” Graham said. “And Stan, I don’t think, meant it. He’s just, he sees what’s coming. What happened Saturday, with the eight deaths, more of that’s coming.”
Petraeus agreed that something had to be done. He said he thought Gates was with him on troop levels. The military chain—Gates, Mullen, Petraeus and McChrystal—would not break ranks in the Situation Room.
In the course of their conversations, Graham offered Petraeus some thoughts on how to deal with the crucial number of troops.
“If there is a number in your mind below which we can’t succeed,” Graham said, “don’t ever create a scenario where that thought is lost. They can ask you for 20 options and you can give them 20 options, but one thing you’ve got to say, ‘This is the fail-safe line right here.’”
Graham continued, “If you’re not strong on this, they’re going to water it down, because that is their instinct, to water it down.” He recommended giving some leeway, so it would be okay if Obama didn’t pick the exact number. “But if you show any weakness here,” he added, if a lower number “becomes attractive in any way, shape or form, you’re in trouble.”
Graham, the Air Force Reserve colonel, advised the general, “I’m a politician. I know exactly how to create back doors for myself. Every good politician always has a back door. The day that you get an issue where there’s no way out is when you’re dangerous to yourself and others.” Help the president, Graham said. “You’re doing him a service by really making it difficult.”
Petraeus said he did not want to make it easy or hard on anybody, including the president. “I am going to just give my best professional military advice, period.”
Yeah, of course, Graham understood. “One thing the president does not ever need to lose sight of: We’ve been in Europe for 60 years and Japan, all th
ese countries. Nobody gives a shit. It is casualties.” Americans being killed and wounded on a regular basis were what mattered. “Go in with the biggest punch you can go in with, and change the dynamics on the ground in terms of casualties.”
Petraeus said they needed 40,000 more U.S. troops, but his failsafe number would probably be 30,000.
Around this time, Mullen also paid Graham a visit. Perched on the couch inside the senator’s office, the admiral said to not worry about how much time Obama was taking to make a decision.
“I just want you to know, Senator Graham, that we’re having good discussions,” Mullen said. “We don’t think it’s taking too long.”
Graham decided to back off and during his next major television appearance he said that the quality of Obama’s final decision mattered more than the quantity of time spent making it.
Both Obama and Emanuel believed Graham was their most reasonable Republican ally, but he had given Petraeus what might be the most crucial advice for securing what the military wanted—not to budge from a bottom-line number.
On Wednesday, October 7, Jones invited Clinton and Gates into his White House office for a private meeting. The president was not happy. The sessions so far had exposed a simple fact: They had not found a way to articulate why the United States was in Afghanistan. What were America’s interests?
They had to find a better way to explain. It was not entirely a public relations gloss they needed, but that was part of it. The initial cause of the war was crystal-clear—retaliation for the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the successful effort to deny al Qaeda a safe haven in Afghanistan. But the war had ambled along somewhat aimlessly, under-resourced for eight years.
The discussion brought into relief, once again, just how unconventional this war was. Fixing the Afghan government was central to the mission if the U.S. was ever going to get out.
