Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War (57 page)

The other major issue discussed at the February 13 NSC meeting was the timing of the Afghan elections. The Afghan constitution required that the presidential election be held by May 22, 2009, when Karzai’s term would legally end, but the United States and our coalition partners were pressing hard to postpone the election to August 20. Holbrooke argued that a May election could undermine the opposition’s ability to compete and the ISAF’s ability to provide security. The president directed Holbrooke to tell Karzai that he, Obama, was aware of the constitutional problem of going beyond May and that we would work with him to help find a “bridge” to August elections. No one, including me, was indelicate enough to mention that the new administration, dedicated
to building “the rule of law” in Afghanistan, had just decided to violate the Afghan constitution and to connive with Karzai on keeping him in power illegally for several months. In its most favorable light, the decision was intended to provide time for other presidential candidates to get organized so there would be a credible election in Afghanistan. For Holbrooke and others at the table, it provided the time necessary to identify a viable alternative to Karzai, who they thought had to go. If the Afghan constitution was an impediment to achieving this goal, the hell with it.

About the same time, Michèle Flournoy returned from her first visit to Afghanistan with some disquieting observations:

I saw little to convince me that we have a comprehensive interagency plan or concept of operations. I still believe that many competing—and often conflicting—campaigns are ongoing in Afghanistan: counterinsurgency, counterterrorism, counternarcotics, and efforts at nationbuilding. Interagency planning, coordination and resourcing are, by far, the weakest link.… Commanders believe that the substantial planned increase of U.S. forces and capabilities, combined with growth in the ANSF [Afghan National Security Forces], will improve their ability to “clear” and “hold” some key areas. These forces alone will remain insufficient to “build” enough to reduce the insurgency and promote Afghan self-reliance.

She told me that the civilian-military assistance teams—the provincial reconstruction teams—intended to help bring services and better governance to areas the military had cleared of insurgents were “woefully underresourced.” I was dismayed but not surprised by her assessment of deficiencies on the civilian side—after all, I’d been talking about this problem for two years.

I told my staff in early March that I was very disappointed in the Riedel review so far, which contained no new ideas. Among other things, his report called for significantly greater U.S. civilian advisory capacity without offering any concrete proposals as to where it could be found. Flournoy said that the draft report was all about
what
should be done but the
how
was missing. There were four options under discussion: (1) “whack-a-mole” counterterrorism—also referred to as “mowing the grass”—and walking away from any other goals; (2) counterterrorism
plus some training of the Afghan security forces, cutting deals with warlords, and then getting out as soon as possible; (3) limited counterinsurgency (COIN); and (4) more ambitious COIN, going beyond McKiernan’s request in terms of troop numbers.

During a single week in mid-March, there were three Principals Committee meetings and two sessions with the president on Afghanistan. That Friday we reviewed the final Riedel report, which recommended disrupting the terrorist networks in Afghanistan and especially Pakistan, promoting a more effective government in Afghanistan, developing the Afghan security forces, ending Pakistan’s support for terrorist and insurgent groups, enhancing civilian control in Pakistan, and using U.S. diplomatic, military, and intelligence channels to reduce enmity and distrust between Pakistan and India. It was breathtaking in its ambition. Most significantly in terms of the conflicts to come between the White House and the military, the report stated, “A fully-resourced counterinsurgency campaign will enable us to regain the initiative and defend our vital interests.” All the principals except Biden concurred in the recommendations of the report and also supported full deployment of the 17,000 troops already approved and another 4,000 trainers for the Afghan security forces. Except for the focus on the need to treat Afghanistan in a regional context and, above all, the critical importance of Pakistan to the outcome of the war, the Riedel report had much in common with the review Lute had overseen at the end of the Bush administration. They also had in common the weakness pointed out by Flournoy: far too much attention was paid to
what
should be done and far too little to
how
to get it done.

Biden argued throughout the process, and would continue to argue, that the war was politically unsustainable at home. I thought he was wrong and that if the president remained steadfast and played his cards carefully, he could sustain even an unpopular war. Bush had done that with a far more unpopular war in Iraq and with both houses of Congress in the hands of the Democrats. The key was showing that we were being successful militarily, at some point announcing a drawdown of forces, and being able to show that an end was in sight. Nearly two and a half years later, when I left, we still had 100,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Contrary to Biden’s gloomy forecast in early 2009, the president had been able to sustain the effort.

The president embraced most of the Riedel recommendations and
announced the elements of his new “AfPak” strategy in a televised speech on March 27 with his senior advisers standing behind him. The goal, he said, would be “to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan and to prevent their return to either country in the future.” He said that the 17,000 soldiers he already had approved would “take the fight to the Taliban in the south and east, and give us a greater capacity to partner with Afghan security forces and to go after insurgents along the border.” Although he added that they would also help provide security in advance of the Afghan elections, implicit in his remarks was the priority of taking the fight to the Taliban in their heartland. There would now be some 68,000 American troops in Afghanistan. Further, we would increase the training and size of the Afghan security forces.

He also called for a dramatic increase in the U.S. civilian effort—agricultural specialists, educators, engineers, and lawyers—to advance security, opportunity, and justice and to help the Afghan government serve its people and develop an economy not dominated by illicit drugs. This civilian component was central to any political strategy for denying the Taliban influence. He never used the words
counterinsurgency
or
counterterrorism
in the speech, but the strategy he announced was clearly a blend of both. Two days after the announcement, I told a television interviewer that I did not think there would be any need to ask the president to approve more troops until we saw how the troops soon to deploy were doing.

I fully supported the president’s decisions although I was deeply skeptical about two fundamental elements of the strategy. Based on our experience in Iraq, I harbored deep doubt that the required number of civilian advisers from State, the Agency for International Development, the Department of Agriculture, and other agencies could be found and deployed. My doubts would prove justified. I also doubted we could persuade the Pakistanis to change their “calculus” and go after the Afghan Taliban and other extremists on their side of the border. When a Pakistani Taliban offensive that spring reached within sixty miles of Islamabad, the Pakistani army went after them in the border provinces of Swat and South Waziristan for their own protection. Their continuing toleration of the Afghan Taliban, including harboring their leaders in Quetta, was a hedging strategy based on their lack of trust in us, given our unwillingness to stay engaged in Afghanistan in the early 1990s. The
Obama administration worked hard to alleviate that mistrust, but history was working against us.

My definition of success was much narrower than Riedel’s or the president’s at that point: using military operations—a combination of selective counterinsurgency and counterterrorism—to degrade the Taliban’s capabilities to the point where larger and better trained Afghan security forces could maintain control of the country and prevent the return of al Qaeda. I would take this position for as long as I was secretary. The president’s broad new policy would help accomplish that goal. I had told Petraeus in Iraq that a key to success was recognizing the tipping point—when the Iraqis doing something barely adequately was better than us doing it excellently. I thought the same principle should apply in Afghanistan and, even in the Bush administration, I had called it “Afghan good enough.”

In June 2008, on my recommendation to the president, General Dave McKiernan became the commander of ISAF in Afghanistan, a coalition force of American troops and troops from more than forty other countries. George Casey, Army chief of staff, and Mullen thought he was the right man for the job, and I had a very high opinion of him, in no small part because he had worked so well with our allies in Europe. Nonetheless, by mid-fall, I was openly expressing concern to my immediate staff about whether I had made a mistake. To this day, it is hard for me to put a finger on what exactly it was that concerned me, but my disquiet only grew through the winter. Perhaps more than anything it was two years’ experience in watching generals like Petraeus, McChrystal, Chiarelli, Rod Rodriguez, and others innovate in blending both counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations, and observing their flexibility in embracing new ideas, their willingness to experiment, and their ability to abandon an idea that didn’t pan out and move on to try something else. McKiernan was a very fine soldier but seemed to lack the flexibility and understanding of the battlespace required for a situation as complex as Afghanistan. Based on his recent background and experience—commanding coalition ground forces during the opening phase of the Iraq War and then leading the U.S. Army in Europe—I wondered if I had put him into a situation that did not play to his strengths.

There were some specific issues. In trying to solve the command and
control problem for coalition forces in Afghanistan, Mullen and I agreed that the best alternative was to replicate the structure we had in Iraq—a four-star commander of all forces, McKiernan, with a subordinate three-star commander to manage the war on a day-to-day basis. McKiernan, like McNeill before him, spent a significant amount of time with Karzai and other Afghan officials, coalition ambassadors, and visiting government officials, and on NATO-related issues—diplomatic and political duties. That role was critically important but made apparent the need for someone else who would be totally focused on the fight. McKiernan strongly resisted such a change. I was also concerned that we were not moving fast enough or decisively enough to deal with the problem of civilian casualties. As I said before, I don’t believe any military force ever worked harder to avoid innocent victims, but it seemed like every incident was a strategic defeat, and we needed to take dramatic action. Soon after the president’s March announcement, I told Mullen, “I’ve got kids out there dying, and if I don’t have confidence I have the very best possible commander, I couldn’t live with myself.”

The issue came to a head in early April when Michèle Flournoy returned from Afghanistan and told me of her concern as to whether McKiernan was the best man for the job. The specific issues she raised paralleled my own list. Mullen and Petraeus both agreed a change was needed. Casey argued strenuously against firing Dave, calling it a “rotten” thing to do. He wrote a letter to the president expressing his views, a letter that he shared with me and I personally delivered.

I had talked on several occasions privately with the president about my misgivings and in mid-April told him I thought the time had come to make a change. Mullen, Petraeus, and I would unanimously recommend Lieutenant General Stanley McChrystal to succeed McKiernan. The president understood the potential for a political ruckus caused by firing the senior commander in the war, but he was willing to make the change.

Relieving McKiernan of command was one of the hardest decisions I ever made. He had made no egregious mistake and was deeply respected throughout the Army. Mullen had been talking with him about what was in the air for a few weeks and, in the latter part of April, flew to Afghanistan to try to persuade him to step down of his own accord. Dave made clear he wanted to remain in place until the end of his tour in the spring of 2010. I couldn’t wait that long. I flew to Kabul on May 6 and went almost immediately into a private dinner with Dave, telling him
why I wanted to make a change so quickly. He acceded with extraordinary dignity and class.

I would learn only later that this was the first time a wartime commander had been relieved since Truman fired Douglas MacArthur in 1951. During World War II, Generals George Marshall and Dwight Eisenhower routinely fired commanders, many of them perfectly capable officers, including several personal friends. General Matthew Ridgway did much the same in Korea before and after taking over from MacArthur. The act was common enough not to be a career-ender or blight on the reputation of the affected general or the Army itself. But by the time of the Vietnam War, it was practically unheard of in the Army. I hope that the McKiernan episode will contribute to reestablishing accountability for senior officers for wartime performance, including the precedent that personal misconduct or serious mistakes need not be required for relief.

On May 11, I announced that McKiernan was being relieved and that I would recommend McChrystal to take his place as senior commander. My senior military assistant, Rodriguez, would become the deputy commander in charge of the day-to-day fight. A reporter asked what McKiernan had done wrong. I said absolutely nothing, that a new strategy required a new commander. When asked why McChrystal was the replacement, I said that he and Rodriguez together brought a unique skill set in both counterterrorism and counterinsurgency.