My Share of the Task (47 page)

From the very beginning, Dave had been supportive of TF 714's targeting missions in Iraq. And while there was one level between the political heat and me, I felt the burn. My teams needed immense freedom to operate in order to achieve the required operational tempo. But I was always personally responsible for what they did. In practice, the only way I could manage the balance between assuming the risk for their actions and allowing them enough autonomy was through trust, and lots of it. It had taken four years to build the machine that produced the intelligence that located the Special Groups leader deep in Sadr City. But, more important, those four years also had built up the trust that allowed TF 714's leaders to act on it.

So in the days following, we did a significant review with the operators of what had occurred and how to move forward. But it was important the men understood I did not question the decisions they made once bullets started flying. I did not want them to feel that they could go from heroes one night to villains the next depending on the whims and friction of war.

As much as the networked organization of our force was novel, sustaining the bonds among warriors, particularly during these difficult months, demanded age-old leadership. On the night of November 20, 2007, a month after the Sadr City raid, a British Puma
helicopter was flying near Baghdad, carrying operators from the SAS on an operation. As it descended to land, the helo was caught in a brownout, engulfed in the plumes of desert earth kicked up by its rotors. The helicopter crashed and rolled, and one of the SAS operators was pinned inside, conscious as the helicopter burned and his teammates tried in vain to pull him from the wreckage. The crash killed two of the SAS operators, while others on board were left injured.

After the crash, the British pilots stopped flying for a few days to review the incident—a standard thing to do following a crash like that. I knew they might be self-conscious about getting back into the air after a rattling crash and might worry that the rest of the task force—namely the operators who depended on them—would doubt their ability. During the stand-down, I told my aide Chris Fussell that the first time they got back in the air, I wanted to fly with them. Days later, I rode with the Brits in the Pumas on a run from Balad down to Baghdad.

Graeme captured it in his typically profound and gnomic way: “Soldiering equals trust.”

*   *   *

O
ur war demanded relentless focus and a hardening of natural emotions. I knew that required me to regularly reflect on what we were doing and how to keep myself moored to what I believed. Chris Fussell later reminded me of such a moment that spring of 2008. It was Sunday morning, and we'd left TF 714's small enclave inside Balad Airfield to get a haircut.

I was irritable as we left the barbershop. Seeing the fast-food restaurants and electronics sales displays around the PX did that to me. From the earliest days of our presence in Afghanistan and Iraq, I'd been frustrated by the seemingly unstoppable growth of facilities that I considered a serious distraction from the business at hand. I wanted soldiers well fed and housed, but attempts to replicate the comforts of home could deceive us into thinking we weren't in a deadly fight.

Pulling out of the lot and back onto the roads that led to our compound, the car was quiet. Chris tried to make conversation.

“You see that one of the dogs died on the target last night?” he asked, referring to the dogs the assault teams outfitted with cameras and sent bounding into dark, often booby-trapped houses before the team entered. Chris shook his head. “Really sad.”

“Fuss,” I snapped, turning toward him and squinting. “Seven enemy were killed on that target last night. Seven humans. Are you telling me you're more concerned about the dog than the
people
that died?”

The car fell silent again.

“Hey, listen,” I said. “Don't lose your humanity in this thing.”

He looked me in the eye for a few beats, nodded, and turned to face the road again. We drove back to base. My reaction was unfair. I hadn't raised the dog that died. I hadn't enjoyed his companionship during lonely nights at some dusty outpost. I hadn't had my life saved by the dog.

But, nearing the end of my command, four and a half years in, I had an acute awareness of the incredibly lethal machine we had built in order to defeat the enemy, and the amount of killing that machine had required men like Chris—young, moral, fearless—to bear. I reacted to Chris like this not because I saw in him any bloodlust or brutishness or imbalance but because I feared these qualities might gnarl the upright men I led.

We found ourselves in a situation wherein an enemy ideology had spread and corrupted thousands of young men. By the time they came into contact with our machine, by the time they had a vest strapped to their chest and were planning to cut down a score of Americans on their way out, the only way to deal with them was to fight them and, often, kill them. Operations reports put the toll into tidy acronyms—EKIA, enemy killed in action—while the aerial feeds of operations showed men fleeing our helicopters as antlike specks, too small to show their blanched faces. But they obviously believed in what they were fighting for. And while some men showed an innate, unalloyed cruelty, many who ended up fanatical and dangerous had begun as misguided, gullible kids. That they had to die was something to lament.

*   *   *

O
n May 1, 2008, I waited in the SAR at Balad for a missile impact some two thousand miles away in a rural compound in Somalia. We'd done the
same thing eight weeks earlier, however, and had failed. In that case, our intelligence was accurate, but to be conservative, we'd fired only two missiles when four would have covered the entire compound. Al Qaeda leader Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan was in a separate part of the compound, escaped the edge of the blasts, and survived. The miss was a bitter lesson for me.

Another opportunity arose quickly. In late April 2008, we located Al Shabab leader Aden Hashi Ayrow near Dusa Mareb, Somalia. Like Dadullah in Pakistan, Ayrow seemed an eerie mirror of Zarqawi. A stubborn but charismatic extremist known to be personally volatile and ruthless, he was responsible for the deaths of foreign aid workers, Somalis, international peacekeepers, and BBC journalist Kate Peyton, who was
shot in the back near her Mogadishu hotel in February 2005. Since the Ethiopian invasion sixteen months earlier, Al Shabab had
split from the Islamic Courts Union. No longer a “youth wing,” Al Shabab was growing into an autonomous terroristic organization with aims to disrupt political reconciliation inside Somalia. It also had aspirations, albeit boastful ones, of
striking beyond its borders. Aden Ayrow's continued personal ascendance had helped spur Al Shabab's dangerous rise. Now we felt we had him in the crosshairs.

Waiting for the operation brought me back to the tense moments surrounding Big Ben, the arms cache on the southern edge of Fallujah we had struck in the summer of 2004, when insurgents controlled the city and TF 714's credibility was far more fragile. And yet, in spite of everything we'd done in the past four years, I again worried about the potential impact of a second failed strike on TF 714's standing and its hard-won freedom of action.

As the missiles impacted, we waited anxiously for indications that Ayrow was dead. Sometimes the target's voice came up on a phone call after the strike. Ayrow's never did. The operation represented an important step in TF 714's ability to contribute in even difficult, denied areas. A September 2009 U.S. raid that killed Nabhan reflected the continued maturation of this capability.

*   *   *

A
month later, in June of 2008, immediately before I left Iraq for the last time, I walked the three hundred meters from a new headquarters and billet area we had occupied since March of that year for a last look at the original area we had built and occupied since the summer of 2004.

In the fading light of early evening, with the frequent roar of departing jets or helicopters in the background, Jody Nacy and I walked into the bunker, through the SAR, TF 16's operations center, and then across the gravel patch I'd crossed thousands of times to our small wooden hooch when retiring at dawn. All the areas were deserted but still largely furnished, as they had been when we had lived there. The plywood tables, worn chairs, and shelves, often built quickly, all remained. It was as though everyone had suddenly disappeared. It was as though we were exploring a sunken ship.

Memories poured back. I recalled good times, like modest ceremonies to pin medals on deserving young people. And I remembered moments of frustration and loss.

At what had been the entrance to the bunker area—a small wooden guard shack flanked by cement blast walls—we paused. As much as there was sacred ground for members of the task force, this was such a place. Here, on more occasions than Jody or I liked to recall, the small patch of concrete would fill with weathered and bearded Green operators, young and focused Rangers, our SAS brothers-in-arms, the tireless men of the Night Stalkers, a broad assortment of SEALs, intelligence analysts, interrogators, communicators, and countless others.

As had become our tradition, it was here that our task force would assemble at dusk whenever we lost a comrade on the battlefield. In an admittedly ragtag military formation, beneath half-masted American and British Union Jack flags folding and unfolding easily in the warm breezes of the Iraqi desert, we would listen to a brief and solemn remembrance of our fallen comrade. We would then remain at silent attention as bagpipes played and the flags were returned to their positions at the top of the flagpole. With our Balad bunker in the background, the team would disperse, returning to a fight that did not pause for losses.

I doubt there's anything there now to mark the spot or record what took place. It remains only in the memories and hearts of the incredible men and women who gathered there. Jody and I said nothing and walked away from our Balad war bunker for the last time.

A few days later, on June 3, 2008, I flew back to the States a different person from the one who'd first flown to Iraq in October 2003. In my pocket I carried a letter from my aide Chris Fussell, who had written to me about his year.

Sir: You asked me once what I would consider the “perfect day,” and I've thought of that often this year—especially during a few of the not-so-perfect days. I know that day would include Holly, a good running trail, crisp morning air, a meal with good friends. I also know it would not involve a war, a helicopter, or an assault rifle; there would be no air support, medical plan, or five-paragraph order. But it would most certainly involve stories and debates from a time when those were the daily norm. And it would involve friends who shared these days and lived to see a more peaceful world. It would also involve stories of great men and leadership and what our mentors taught us, and I will speak with pride of this year.

Well said.

Part Three

The power of the mighty hath no foundation but in the opinion and belief of the people.

—Thomas Hobbes,
Behemoth

| CHAPTER 16 |

The Ticking Clock

June 2008–June 2009

T
he black civilian vehicle drove onto the palace grounds and pulled up in front of a small residence where we would stay. On the entire early morning drive through Kabul, Annie had been perched in her seat in wide-eyed wonder trying to take in every sight, asking questions about all that was new and curious. It was vintage Annie, on her first trip to the country that had so impacted our lives.

The box-shaped, two-story residence sat next door to a similar structure where President Hamid Karzai lived. Both were in the shadow of the historic palace accommodations of kings, but were a far cry from palatial. As the vehicle slowed to a stop, Annie and I saw a collection of members of President Karzai's protective force and staff who were waiting to greet us. I knew most from before, and their genuine smiles and traditional hand-on-their-heart gestures brought back a flood of memories.

It was November 19, 2011, and I was once again in Afghanistan. It had been nine and a half years since I'd first arrived with Combined Joint Task Force 180 early in the war and seventeen months since I'd left on a June evening amid controversy over a magazine article. I'd never expected to return but now found myself excited to see old friends.

We'd traveled at President Karzai's invitation. I'd delayed accepting for many months, but in October, after consulting Ryan Crocker, our new ambassador in Kabul; General Jim Mattis, now the commander of Central Command; and Chief of Staff Bill Daley at the White House, I decided to go, and as we exited the airplane I was glad I had.

Annie and I spent only two days in Afghanistan—I knew how distracting visitors could be for busy leaders, but it was enough time for Annie to visit an American-sponsored center for the vulnerable street children of Kabul she supports as a board member. And it was long enough for me to meet with ministers, generals, ambassadors, and President Karzai. I was able to renew friendships and express in person the respect and thanks I'd only been able to write in letters. After all we'd done together, I owed them that.

As we entered the building to a waiting breakfast of Afghan fruit, tea, and the flatbread I'd always enjoyed, I pointed out to Annie the room where, twenty-one months before, President Karzai had come from being sick in bed to approve, as commander-in-chief, the combined Afghan-ISAF operation into the Helmand district of Marjah. There was history in that room, another chapter in Afghanistan's long, often twisted tale. It was history I had been a part of.

Over lunch Karzai talked to Annie about Afghanistan, and later escorted her on a short tour of the palace. He took special care to explain the restoration that had been required to repair, as much as possible, the needless damage inflicted by the Taliban to the artwork. It was a subtle message of what he was trying to do for his country.

On our last night in Kabul we had dinner at the home of Abdul Rahim Wardak, Afghanistan's minister of defense since 2004. Wardak was a career soldier who'd trained in the United States, but had defected to be a mujahideen leader for a moderate Sufi faction during the Soviet war. An ardent royalist, he had experienced Afghanistan when it had proud institutions, like the army he joined. Since 2001, Wardak had been a consistent advocate of rebuilding a credible Afghan military, and we had become close during my tour.

In the fading light of early evening we passed through checkpoints manned by poorly uniformed security guards and bumped along potholed streets flanked by grayish brown cement walls until we came to a battered metal gate. On a call from our security detail the gate swung open and we pulled into a small courtyard.

The chilled fall air was immediately warmed by the glow of light from an open door and the familiar face of Wardak and his wife, who came quickly to the car to greet us. Clasping my hand firmly, Wardak thanked Annie and me for coming and escorted us into their house.

The inside felt like an oasis of color and culture in the somber landscape of Kabul. The home had been in his wife's family for many years and was decorated with tasteful furniture and beautiful red Afghan carpets. As Annie and his wife chatted, Wardak escorted me to a small studylike room toward the back of the house. On the walls and shelves were mementos of his military career. Some, like diplomas from military schools, were self-explanatory; others were seemingly innocuous objects that needed backstories to explain their significance. And there were photographs. A younger Wardak, often against a backdrop of harsh terrain, peered at me from alongside other soldiers. It was a soldier's room and testified to all he was, and that which was important to him. He didn't bring me into it to brag or impress, but to connect.

I was home, or at least I could have been. In my father's house the room is the same, except the hills are Korea and Vietnam instead of Jalalabad and Khost. In mine they are Iraq and Afghanistan. And there are always photographs showing comrades who have shaped and defined us. Earlier that day, I'd given Wardak a gift of a small statue of Washington crossing the Delaware, and it was already on a shelf in a place of honor. My office holds a nineteenth-century rifle Wardak had sent to me after I'd left Afghanistan.

For dinner Wardak had gathered a small group of Afghan officials with whom I'd worked closely. Over lamb and plates of steaming rice topped with raisins, we shared an evening of friendship and candor. We knew that the following morning Annie and I would fly home; they would stay in troubled Afghanistan. It would likely be the last time I saw many of them. Unexpectedly, Afghanistan, and most important, Afghans, had become a major part of my career, and my life.

The story I will tell of my command there is from my perspective. I will describe the evolution of my understanding of the challenges we faced in Afghanistan, the mission I believed I'd been given, and the strategy I felt could succeed. I'm not unbiased. Afghanistan can do that to you. In Iraq, though we fought to destroy Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Al Qaeda with all the ferocity we could muster, I never connected with the population. In Afghanistan, as my time in command progressed, I would develop strong feelings for the Afghans and their nation.

At the heart of the story is Afghanistan itself, a complex swirl of ethnic and political rivalries, cultural intransigence, strains of religious fervor, and bitter memories overlaid on a beautiful, but harshly poor, landscape. Without internal struggles or outside interference, Afghanistan would be a difficult place to govern, and a challenge to develop. And there have always been struggles and interference.

But it's not just that. In her beauty and coarseness, in her complexity and tragedy Afghanistan possesses a mystical quality, a magnetism. Few places have such accumulated layers of culture, religion, history, and lore that instill both fear and awe. Yet those who seek to even budge her trajectory are reminded that dreams often end up buried in the barren slopes of the Hindu Kush or in muddy fields alongside the Helmand River.

When I arrived to take command of the war in June 2009, in addition to the rising violence and sense of insecurity, I found a creeping, fatalistic pessimism, as though the fight were over, the effort failed. Some pointed to history and declared the country intractable. Few countries or NGOs were leaving, but many wanted to. There was growing unease with the viability of the mission.

Indeed, in those early days, as I assessed the war, I wasn't sure the mission could be done. Although I'd known it would be difficult, the situation was even worse than I'd anticipated. I was further cautioned by the fact that I would be the twelfth commander to lead the NATO effort in Afghanistan, the latest in a succession of experienced professionals. Any solution would not be only a military one; it had to encompass much more. But as we looked closer and considered a range of strategies, I concluded that it was possible. The intimidating specter of Afghanistan as an impossible challenge belied the reality. The obstacles were numerous, but the accrued problems were not insoluble, just incredibly difficult.

Against the fatalism that the cause was doomed, I believed a unique confluence of factors, personalities, and events in Kabul, Washington, D.C., and other locations offered a real opportunity to succeed. But radical change was needed, quickly. We needed to leverage the movement those factors had created in order to convince Afghans, ISAF, and other players that the status quo had changed, that the trajectory had been altered for the better. It couldn't be false—cynicism would overtake any progress that was too slow or wasn't real. But I thought that if we did smart analysis, got the strategy right, worked to exhaustion, and came into a bit of luck, the mission could be accomplished. I would never have sought additional forces to fight an effort I felt was doomed.

As the story unfolds many things appear: extraordinary sacrifice and teamwork, often alongside an atmosphere of mistrust, uncertainty, media scrutiny, and politics. There is a temptation to seek a single hero or culprit—a person, group, or policy—that emerges as the decisive factor. This makes for better intrigue, but it's a false drama. To do so is to oversimplify the war, the players, and Afghanistan itself. Because despite their relevance as contributing factors, I found no single personality, decision, relationship, or event that determined the outcome or even dominated the direction of events.

Afghanistan did that. Only Afghanistan, with her deep scars and opaque complexity, emerged as the essential reality and dominant character. On her brutal terrain, and in the minds of her people, the struggle was to be waged and decided. No outcome was preordained, but nothing would come easily. Few things of value do.

*   *   *

T
his story begins one year to the day before I arrived to command in Afghanistan. On Friday, June 13, 2008, in the same parachute-packing facility at Fort Bragg where Annie had mouthed the words “I love you” seventeen hundred days before, I passed command of TF 714 to my friend and former deputy, then–Vice Admiral Bill McRaven. My boss at SOCOM, Admiral Eric Olson, officiated. Friends and colleagues from throughout our career, like then–Lieutenant General Marty Dempsey and his wife, Deanie, and Dave and Ginny Rodriguez, were there. But mostly the rows were filled with familiar faces I'd shared the turbulent years with since 2003.

“There will be few markers from this war,” I said to those present, and those still far away, “and much of the history will be inaccurate or incomplete. Cannons won't reflect where you stood and bled, or markers to record the cost. But in the minds and hearts of those who have known you, and in the soul of the nation, the fact that you were there is indelibly written. You have done your duty—and it was the honor of my life to have been here to witness it. Thank you.”

With those words, I gave up command of TF 714.

A few weeks earlier, I had been confirmed by the Senate to become director of the Joint Staff, essentially chief of staff to the chairman and the joint chiefs. DJS, as it was called, was a prestigious post, one John Abizaid and then George Casey had held during my previous tour at the Pentagon. I'd been told that the chairman, Admiral Mike Mullen, had sought me for the position. Having appreciated his keen interest in how TF 714 operated when he was the chief of naval operations, I suspected he'd be a kindred spirit.

The Senate confirmation process had been unexpectedly jarring. Although every military officer's promotion to field grade or higher must be confirmed by Senate vote, my experience to that point in my career had been as a name on long promotion lists that the White House recommended and the Senate confirmed. My promotion to lieutenant general in February 2006, when I was deployed in Iraq, had not involved individual testimony or significant issues.

This time the experience was much different. I was informed in December 2007 that I'd be nominated for the DJS job and to anticipate an early 2008 confirmation and departure from TF 714. In the end the process took until the first week of June. Although questions surrounding the death of Pat Tillman were raised and I addressed them, the major issue regarded TF 714's detention operations. Legitimate questions and concerns were intertwined with an ongoing inquiry into the Bush administration's overall detention policies led by Senator Levin. I was happy for the opportunity to address any questions about TF 714 head-on, but it felt as though the delay was the product of a larger political issue.

I reported for duty to the Joint Staff on August 13, 2008. Because I'd disliked the ponderous Pentagon bureaucracy during my previous tour I was pleased with the guidance I received in my first meeting with Chairman Mullen.

“I want you to do what you do,” he said. “I want you to attack and destroy the network.”

I was confused. We were sitting in his quiet office in the Pentagon, not Baghdad. “Chairman, what network are you talking about?”

“Ours,” he said. He was referring to the Joint Staff, and by extension to the parts of the Pentagon and military we in the Staff interacted with. “Tear it down and rebuild it to be faster, more transparent, and more effective.”

That was clear enough, even for an infantryman. A navy admiral with extensive experience in the Pentagon had identified an enemy who must be defeated, and it was us. Much of my next ten months were spent implementing changes to shape the Joint Staff into the more agile, focused team that Admiral Mullen desired. My close partner in this, and in Afghanistan afterward, was my executive officer, Charlie Flynn. Since he had commanded a company under me in the 2nd Ranger Battalion in the mid-1990s, Charlie and I had stayed close. He was, on the surface, charismatic and easygoing, with a quick smile and kind face. But as the youngest of a rough-and-tumble Rhode Island brood of nine, Charlie had a scrappy, hard-charging energy. He came to the Pentagon that year directly from commanding in Iraq—his third combat tour since 9/11. He and his wife decided the family would stay in North Carolina to let their kids stay in the same schools, so Annie insisted he bunk in a small third-floor room in our quarters on Fort McNair.