by Obama Barack
On March 15, I convened a meeting of my national security team to discuss the pending Security Council resolution. We began with a briefing on Gaddafi’s progress: Libyan troops with heavy armaments were poised to overtake a town on the outskirts of Benghazi, which could allow them to cut off water, food, and power to the city’s six hundred thousand residents. With his forces massed, Gaddafi was pledging to go “house by house, home by home, alley by alley, person by person, until the country is cleansed of dirt and scum.” I asked Mike Mullen what difference a no-fly zone would make. Essentially none, he told me, confirming that since Gaddafi was using ground forces almost exclusively, the only way to stop an assault on Benghazi was to target those forces directly with air strikes.
“In other words,” I said, “we are being asked to participate in a no-fly zone that will make everyone look like they’re doing something but that won’t actually save Benghazi.”
I then asked for people’s recommendations. Gates and Mullen were strongly opposed to any U.S. military action, emphasizing the stress that missions in Iraq and Afghanistan were already placing on our troops. They were also convinced—correctly, I thought—that despite the rhetoric from Sarkozy and Cameron, the U.S. military would end up having to carry most of the load for any operation in Libya. Joe considered it foolish to get involved in yet another war abroad, while Bill remained astonished that we were even having the debate.
As I worked my way around the room, though, the voices for intervention weighed in. Hillary had been conferenced in from Paris, where she was attending a G8 meeting, and said she’d been impressed by the Libyan opposition leader she’d met there. Despite—or perhaps because of—her realpolitik on Egypt, she now favored us joining an international mission. Speaking from our U.N. offices in New York, Susan Rice said the situation reminded her of the international community’s failure to intervene in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. She’d been a member of Bill Clinton’s National Security Council at the time and remained haunted by the lack of action. If a relatively modest action could save lives, she argued, we should take it—though she suggested that rather than sign on to the proposal for a no-fly zone, we should present our own resolution seeking a broader mandate to take whatever actions were necessary to protect Libyan civilians from Gaddafi’s forces.
A few of the younger staffers expressed concern that a military action against Libya might have the unintended consequence of convincing countries like Iran that they needed nuclear weapons as a hedge against a future U.S. attack. But as had been true with Egypt, Ben and Tony Blinken felt we had a responsibility to support those forces protesting for democratic change in the Middle East—particularly if the Arab states and our closest allies were prepared to act with us. And while Samantha remained uncharacteristically clinical when describing the potential death toll in Benghazi should we decide not to act, I knew that she was in daily, direct contact with Libyans pleading for help. I almost didn’t need to ask what her position was.
I checked my watch, knowing I was soon due to host an annual dinner with the U.S. military’s combatant commanders and their spouses in the Blue Room of the residence. “All right,” I said. “I’m not ready to make a decision yet. But based on what I’m hearing, here’s the one thing we’re not going to do—we’re not going to participate in some half-assed no-fly zone that won’t achieve our objective.”
I told the team we’d reconvene in a couple of hours, by which time I expected to hear real options for what an effective intervention would look like, including an analysis of the costs, human resources, and risks involved. “Either we do this right,” I said, “or we stop pretending that we’re serious about saving Benghazi just to make ourselves feel better.”
By the time I arrived in the Blue Room, Michelle and our guests had already assembled. We took photos with each commander and spouse, making small talk about our kids and trading jokes about our golf games. During dinner I sat next to a young Marine and his wife; he had stepped on an IED while working as a bomb technician in Afghanistan and lost both his legs. He was still getting accustomed to his prosthetics, he told me, but he looked to be in good spirits and was handsome in his uniform. I could see on his wife’s face the mixture of pride, determination, and suppressed anguish that had become so familiar to me during my visits with military families over the previous two years.
All the while, my brain was churning with calculations, thinking about the decision I’d have to make as soon as Buddy and Von and the other butlers cleared away the dessert plates. The arguments Mullen and Gates had made against military action in Libya were compelling. I’d already sent thousands of young men like the Marine sitting next to me into battle, and there was no guarantee, whatever those on the sidelines might think, that a new war wouldn’t lead others to suffer such injuries, or worse. I was irritated that Sarkozy and Cameron had jammed me on the issue, in part to solve their domestic political problems, and I felt scornful of the Arab League’s hypocrisy. I knew that Bill was right: that outside of Washington, there wasn’t a lot of support for what America was being asked to do, and that the minute anything about a U.S. military operation in Libya went south, my political problems would only worsen.
I also knew that unless we took the lead, the European plan would likely go nowhere. Gaddafi’s troops would lay siege to Benghazi. At best, a protracted conflict would ensue, perhaps even a full-blown civil war. At worst, tens of thousands or more would be starved, tortured, or shot in the head. And at the moment, at least, I was perhaps the one person in the world who could keep that from happening.
The dinner ended. I told Michelle I’d be home in an hour and made my way back to the Situation Room, where the team had been reviewing options and sat awaiting further instructions.
“I think I’ve got a plan that might work,” I said.
CHAPTER 26
WE MET FOR ANOTHER TWO hours that night in the Situation Room, going point by point through the plan I’d sketched out in my mind during dinner, knowing we had to try to prevent a massacre in Libya while minimizing the risks and burdens on an already overstretched U.S. military. I was ready to take a meaningful stance against Gaddafi and to give the Libyan people an opportunity to engineer a new government. But we would do it swiftly, with the support of allies, and with the parameters of our mission clearly spelled out.
I told the team I wanted to start as Susan Rice had suggested—by persuading the French and British to back off their proposal for a no-fly zone so that we could put an amended resolution before the Security Council, asking for a broader mandate to halt attacks by Gaddafi’s forces in order to protect Libyan civilians. Meanwhile, the Pentagon would develop a military campaign that involved a clear division of labor among allies. In the campaign’s first phase, the United States would help stop Gaddafi’s advance on Benghazi and take out his air-defense systems—a task for which we were uniquely suited, given our superior capabilities. After that we’d hand off the bulk of the operation to the Europeans and the participating Arab states. European fighter jets would be principally responsible for carrying out any targeted air strikes needed to keep Gaddafi’s forces from advancing against civilian populations (in essence, establishing a no-fly and no-drive zone), with Arab allies mainly providing logistical support. Because North Africa was in Europe’s backyard and not ours, we would also ask the Europeans to pay for much of the post-conflict aid that would be required to rebuild Libya and help the country transition to democracy once Gaddafi was no longer in power.
I asked Gates and Mullen what they thought. Although they were still reluctant to engage in what was essentially a humanitarian mission while in the middle of two other wars, they acknowledged that the plan was viable, limited the cost and risk to U.S. personnel, and could probably reverse Gaddafi’s momentum in a matter of days.
Susan and her team worked with Samantha through the night, and the next day we circulated a revised draft resolution among U.N. S
ecurity Council members. The main drama ahead of the vote was whether Russia would veto the new measure, so while Susan sought to persuade her counterparts on the floor of the U.N., we hoped that our efforts over the past two years with Dmitry Medvedev would help gain his support, stressing to Russia that beyond the moral imperatives of preventing a mass atrocity, it was in both Russia’s and America’s interests to make sure that we didn’t see a prolonged civil war in Libya, as the country could then become a breeding ground for terrorism. It was clear that Medvedev had serious reservations about any Western-led military action that could lead to regime change, but he also wasn’t inclined to run interference for Gaddafi. In the end, the Security Council approved our resolution on March 17 by a vote of ten to zero, with five abstentions (Russia among them). I called the two key European leaders, Sarkozy and Cameron, both of whom showed barely disguised relief that we had handed them a ladder with which to get down from the limb they’d climbed out on. Within days, all elements of the operation were in place, with the Europeans agreeing that their forces would operate under a NATO command structure, and with enough Arab participation—from the Jordanians, Qataris, and Emiratis—to insulate us from accusations that the Libya mission was yet another case of Western powers waging war against Islam.
With the Pentagon prepared and awaiting my order to begin air strikes, I publicly offered Gaddafi one last chance, urging him to pull his forces back and respect the rights of Libyans to engage in peaceful protest. I hoped that, with the world lined up against him, his survival instincts might kick in and he’d try to negotiate a safe exit to a willing third country, where he could live out his days with the millions in oil money that over the years he’d siphoned into various Swiss bank accounts. But it seemed that whatever attachment Gaddafi might have once had to reality had been severed.
As it happened, I had to depart that evening for Brazil for the start of a four-day, three-nation tour designed to boost the United States’ image in Latin America. (The Iraq War, as well as the Bush administration’s drug interdiction and Cuba policies, hadn’t played well there.) The best part was that we’d deliberately scheduled the trip to take place during Malia and Sasha’s spring break, allowing us to travel as a family.
What we hadn’t factored in was an imminent military conflict. As Air Force One touched down in the capital city of Brasília, Tom Donilon informed me that Gaddafi’s troops showed no signs of pulling back—and had in fact started breaching the perimeter of Benghazi.
“You’re probably going to have to issue an order sometime today,” he said.
Under any circumstances, launching a military action while visiting another country posed a problem. The fact that Brazil generally tried to avoid taking sides in international disputes—and had abstained in the Security Council vote on the Libya intervention—only made matters worse. This was my first visit to South America as president and my first time meeting Brazil’s newly elected president, Dilma Rousseff. She was an economist and a former chief of staff to her charismatic predecessor, Lula da Silva, and was interested in, among other things, improving trade relations with the United States. She and her ministers greeted our delegation warmly as we arrived at the presidential palace, an airy, modernist structure with winged buttresses and high glass walls. Over the next several hours, we discussed ways to deepen U.S.-Brazilian cooperation on energy, trade, and climate change. But with global speculation swirling over when and how strikes against Libya would start, the tension became hard to ignore. I apologized to Rousseff for any awkwardness the situation was causing. She shrugged, her dark eyes fixed on me with a mix of skepticism and concern.
“We’ll manage,” she said in Portuguese. “I hope this will be the least of your problems.”
As my meeting with Rousseff ended, Tom and Bill Daley hurried me to a nearby holding room, explaining that Gaddafi’s forces were still on the move and that now was our best window for making a call. To formally commence military operations, I needed to reach Mike Mullen. Except the state-of-the-art, secure mobile communications system—the system that was supposed to let me function as commander in chief from any place on the planet—apparently wasn’t working.
“Sorry, Mr. President…we’re still having trouble connecting.”
As our communications technicians rushed about checking for loose cords and faulty portals, I sat down in a chair and scooped a handful of almonds from a bowl on a side table. I had long stopped sweating the logistical details of the presidency, knowing that I was surrounded at all times by a highly competent crew. Still, I could see the beads of sweat breaking across foreheads around the room. Bill, on his first foreign trip as chief of staff and no doubt feeling the pressure, was apoplectic.
“This is unbelievable!” he said, his voice rising in pitch.
I checked my watch. Ten minutes had passed, and our next meeting with the Brazilians was pending. I looked at Bill and Tom, who both appeared on the verge of strangling someone.
“Why don’t we just use your cell phone?” I said to Bill.
“What?”
“It won’t be a long conversation. Just check to make sure you’ve got enough bars.”
After some consultations among the team members regarding the advisability of me using a nonsecure line, Bill dialed the number and handed me his phone.
“Mike?” I said. “Can you hear me?”
“I can, Mr. President.”
“You have my authorization.”
And with those four words, spoken into a device that had probably also been used to order pizza, I initiated the first new military intervention of my presidency.
* * *
—
FOR THE NEXT two days, even as U.S. and British warships began firing Tomahawk missiles and destroying Libya’s air defenses, we kept my schedule largely unchanged. I met with a group of U.S. and Brazilian CEOs to discuss ways to expand commercial ties. I attended a cocktail reception with government officials and took pictures with U.S. embassy staffers and their families. In Rio de Janeiro, I gave an address to a couple thousand of Brazil’s most prominent political, civic, and business leaders about the challenges and opportunities our countries shared as the hemisphere’s two largest democracies. All the while, though, I was checking in with Tom for news about Libya, imagining the scenes unfolding more than five thousand miles away: the rush of missiles piercing the air; the cascade of explosions, the rubble and smoke; the faces of Gaddafi loyalists as they looked to the sky and calculated their chances of survival.
I was distracted, but I also understood that my presence in Brazil mattered, especially to Afro-Brazilians, who made up just over half of the country’s population and experienced the same sort of deeply entrenched—though frequently denied—racism and poverty as Black folks did back home. Michelle, the girls, and I visited a sprawling favela on the western end of Rio, where we dropped in at a youth center to watch a capoeira troupe perform and I kicked a soccer ball around with a handful of local kids. By the time we were leaving, hundreds of people had massed outside the center, and although my Secret Service detail nixed the idea of me taking a stroll through the neighborhood, I persuaded them to let me step through the gate and greet the crowd. Standing in the middle of the narrow street, I waved at the Black and brown and copper-toned faces; residents, many of them children, clustered on rooftops and small balconies and pressed against the police barricades. Valerie, who was traveling with us and witnessed the whole scene, smiled as I walked back inside, saying, “I’ll bet that wave changed the lives of some of those kids forever.”
I wondered if that was true. It’s what I had told myself at the start of my political journey, part of my justification to Michelle for running for president—that the election and leadership of a Black president stood to change the way children and young people everywhere saw themselves and their world. And yet I knew that whatever impact my fleeting presence might have had on those chi
ldren of the favelas and however much it might cause some to stand straighter and dream bigger, it couldn’t compensate for the grinding poverty they encountered every day: the bad schools, polluted air, poisoned water, and sheer disorder that many of them had to wade through just to survive. By my own estimation, my impact on the lives of poor children and their families so far had been negligible—even in my own country. My time had been absorbed by just trying to keep the circumstances of the poor, both at home and abroad, from worsening: making sure a global recession didn’t drastically drive up their ranks or eliminate whatever slippery foothold they might have in the labor market; trying to head off a change in climate that might lead to a deadly flood or storm; or, in the case of Libya, trying to prevent a madman’s army from gunning people down in the streets. That wasn’t nothing, I thought—as long as I didn’t start fooling myself into thinking it was anywhere close to enough.
On the short Marine One flight back to the hotel, the helicopter tracked along the magnificent chain of forested mountains that line the coast, with Rio’s iconic ninety-eight-foot-high Christ the Redeemer statue suddenly coming into view, perched atop the conical peak known as Corcovado. We had made plans to visit the site that evening. Leaning in close to Sasha and Malia, I pointed out the landmark: a distant, cloaked figure with outstretched arms, white against blue sky.
“Look…that’s where we’re going tonight.”
The two girls were listening to their iPods while thumbing through some of Michelle’s magazines, their eyes scanning glossy images of dewy-faced celebrities I didn’t recognize. After I waved my hands to get their attention, they took out their earbuds, swiveled their heads in unison toward the window, and nodded wordlessly, pausing for a beat as if to humor me before putting the buds back in their ears. Michelle, who appeared to be dozing to music from her own iPod, offered no comment.
