My Share of the Task (56 page)

Now, two decades later, with Pervez Musharraf no longer president, General Kayani, in his new role as head of the army, wielded tremendous power. From the Joint Staff, I'd watched Chairman Mullen make a significant effort to build rapport with him. The backdrop of recent events in the region made for a sensitive situation. Clear evidence that the November 2008 Mumbai attacks, conducted by Pakistani terrorists of Lashkar-e-Taiba, were orchestrated from inside Pakistan caused Americans deep frustration. And ongoing accusations that Pakistan's military and intelligence services supported the Afghan Taliban complicated Mullen's and my efforts. Pakistanis were quick to respond with concerns over American violations of their sovereignty, primarily through drone strikes, an ever-perceived U.S. tilt toward India, and a lack of appreciation for the significant Pakistani sacrifices in the war on terror.

Strictly speaking, although my mandate as the NATO commander was limited to inside Afghanistan, it was clear to me that Pakistan would have a role in any lasting solution. At a minimum, ISAF needed access to Pakistani lines of communication for the flow of logistics to our forces. Optimally, for our counterinsurgency campaign inside Afghanistan, the Afghan Taliban could not enjoy support and sanctuaries across the border in Pakistan.

Ideally, our joint ISAF and Pakistani efforts would convince Afghan Taliban leaders that their sanctuaries in Pakistan were no longer secure, and thus their insurgency could not succeed. Effective Pakistani Army operations in the FATA, along with increased levels of coordination with ISAF forces, were necessary in order to produce this kind of rethink inside Mullah Omar's organization. But the FATA was a region where the Pakistani military had traditionally struggled.

The oft-discussed deficit of trust that existed between the United States and Pakistan could only be reduced over time, and personal relationships would be essential to that process. By building as much trust as possible between General Kayani and me, confidence would cascade to some extent down through our subordinates. I believed slow but steady progress was possible. It might not work, but there was no rational alternative.

The next day, July 3, a Pakistani army Mi-17 helicopter went down in the Orakzai Agency of the FATA, killing at least twenty-six Pakistani soldiers. It was a reminder of continuing Pakistani sacrifices in the fight—by early 2010 some two thousand Pakistani soldiers had died fighting in the border regions. I called General Kayani late that evening to express my condolences and followed with a handwritten letter. I knew what it meant to lose soldiers and wanted him to know I shared his sense of loss.

Over the coming months I would spend significant time with Kayani and grow to like and respect him. His perspectives and priorities were, of course, those of a Pakistani army officer, but I found our discussions on the war and our respective strategies to be helpful. Much of our time together was spent alone, simply drinking tea and talking. The talk was substantive but never combative. I never responded well to people who were pushy or arrogant with me, and I came to believe most other people felt the same.

*   *   *

W
e were still at work on the assessment when, on July 20, I reviewed its initial conclusions with two high-profile Afghans, Minister of the Interior Hanif Atmar, and Minister of Defense Rahim Wardak. Wardak hosted us for a small dinner in his office at the Ministry of Defense. The two men were, on the surface, nearly polar opposites. Atmar, then forty-one years old, was a slender Pashtun who normally wore traditional Afghan clothing beneath a Western sport coat. During the Soviet war, he had served in the Soviet-backed Democratic Republic of Afghanistan's KHAD security service. Badly wounded in fighting around Jalalabad in 1988, he had since walked with a cane. (Former mujahideen who now worked alongside Atmar boasted, half-jokingly, “We gave him that limp.”) Courtly in demeanor but passionate and ambitious, Atmar tended to articulate his thoughts in numbered lists. “I have four points on this . . .” he would begin, a habit we learned to tease him about. Atmar had served as both the minister of rural rehabilitation and development and minister of education but now oversaw the Interior Ministry, which controlled the fraught Afghan police.

Twenty-three years his senior, General-turned-Minister Wardak was invariably clean-shaven and dressed in three-piece suits. As a mujaheed, he had fought against the Soviet-backed government in which Atmar served. Although also a Pashtun, his military heritage superseded any ethnic concerns. And though he was more reserved, he was deeply passionate about building the Afghan military.

My relationship with both men had only started in June, but I rapidly came to appreciate the challenges they faced in trying to build functional institutions like the army and police, while dependent upon the largess of western donations and constantly buffeted by the forces that tormented their nation.

In the discussion, I sought their views and their support. I summarized my two primary conclusions about the war. First, the insurgency had grown stronger than at any time since 2001. Second, the weakness of the Afghan government and nationwide corruption had given people what we described as a
crisis of confidence. I told them we proposed to change ISAF's strategy to focus on protecting the people, not pursuing insurgents. Further, we aimed to fix ISAF's internal command-and-control structure to achieve unity of command. And finally, we sought to change the ISAF relationship with Afghan National Security Forces by increasing the size of those forces and, for the first time, truly partnering with them. I confided that convincing progress was essential in the next twelve months if we were to retain political support within the Coalition.

Both men expressed gratitude for being included in the process. They agreed that the situation was serious and endorsed the proposed strategy, particularly the value of focusing on protection of ordinary Afghans. Then these two very different men—once battlefield opponents—voiced a single message.

“ISAF is temporary,” each stressed. “This must transition to an Afghan-led effort. Our army, police, and other parts of government must be up to the task.” Both also asked for international pressure to curtail Iranian and Pakistani interference in Afghanistan.

At the conclusion of our dinner, however, conversation turned to the looming event of the summer. Minister Atmar drove the point home with quiet, haunting power.

“If the elections fail,” he said in his characteristically soft voice, “I would recommend that the international community not waste any more blood or treasure here.”

*   *   *

W
ith the August 20 presidential election fast approaching, blood and treasure were the uneasy topic of an important meeting that summer. On August 2, Dave Rodriguez, my command team, and I flew to Belgium to meet with Secretary Gates, Chairman Mullen, Under Secretary Michele Flournoy, and a few others. In a small conference room alongside the runway at a military air base we reviewed the initial points of the yet-to-be-submitted strategic assessment and discussed any potential force recommendations.

By then, we'd begun drafting the assessment. Chris Kolenda produced the initial draft containing the core ideas and conclusions. Jeff Eggers would ultimately become the primary “pen” for the final version, and he and I spent countless hours poring over every word. During the day, he and I exchanged drafts by e-mail—I often did my best writing and editing on helicopter rides—and when I returned to headquarters, we would meet well into the night in my office. Jeff was a good partner in this—a critical thinker about the war, and our prospects, he helped prod and challenge me.

The document we submitted was some sixty pages long, including a frank assessment of the war, and some thirty pages of appendices laying out a number of specific recommendations for remedy. Without making any requests, the assessment acknowledged that “
continued under-resourcing will likely cause failure.” But this was “not the crux” of the problem and “
focusing on force or resource requirements misses the point entirely.” Rather, “the key to take away from this assessment,” I wrote, “is the urgent need for a significant change to our strategy and the way that we think and operate.” Crucially, this would mean internalizing that “protecting the people means shielding them
from
all
threats.” Those threats were not just from insurgent and collateral violence. They were also from the corruption and predation of the Afghans' own government.

In addition to the structural changes to ISAF that I'd explained to Wardak and Atmar, the assessment set a full agenda for that fall. We would institutionalize a reintegration program to make it an avenue for insurgents off the battlefield. And, noting there were “more insurgents
per square foot in corrections facilities than anywhere else in Afghanistan,” we'd continue our effort under way to revamp our own prisons while cleaning up Afghan-run centers, which were often under de facto insurgent control.

As directed, we kept the basic assessment separate from any recommendations for resources, namely additional troops. Those would be submitted in another document after the assessment. I agreed with that approach, especially because by the end of July it was clear to me that if provided together, any force recommendation would be what policy makers focused on.

Parallel to, and informed by, the work of the strategic assessment team, we'd had a team of planners working on a campaign plan, the key points of which we briefed that day. In the simplest sense, a campaign plan was nothing more than an outline of how a mission would be accomplished. Taking clearly defined objectives, a commander and staff would analyze and select the best course of action to accomplish them, including identifying the required resources, like forces and time. For complex missions, plans could run hundreds of pages and could include countless maps and matrices. Our goal was to identify, refine, and then coordinate the most effective and efficient way to succeed.

Although soldiers, we looked at Afghanistan like a case of electioneering: in our modified “ink spot” approach, we identified 80 of Afghanistan's 364 key districts that we felt we, and then the Afghans, must control in order to ensure the Afghan state's stability and survival. Some of these districts were safe; others we would have to reclaim from the insurgency and transfer to Afghan hands. To a large degree, the pattern made by the eighty key districts would have been unsurprising to students of Afghanistan. It largely overlaid the Ring Road, a highway still under construction that circled Afghanistan, and hewed close to key urban and agricultural areas. Choosing these districts was not merely a matter of numbers; we also weighed the country's historically or culturally influenced sense of important locations. This meant some on-the-surface unimportant rural districts held special psychological or political significance to Afghans, and their fall, we feared, would do disproportionate damage to Afghan confidence.

To allow us to concentrate our limited ISAF and Afghan forces in the most important areas, the following month we began repositioning a number of units out of remote desert or mountain outposts, pulling them closer to the more populous geographic hubs. But what appeared a logical move was also politically sensitive and deeply emotional.

In July 2009, at the passionate request of Nuristan's governor and Minister Atmar, I had approved ISAF forces to reinforce Barg-e Matal, a district capital under Taliban attack in remote eastern Nuristan. I'd been on a patrol to the primitive mountain village with Navy SEALs back in December 2003 and remembered the faces of children who'd gathered to investigate the strangers. But I also remembered the hills that dominated the small garrison and knew long-term defense would be resource-intensive.

With my concurrence, Major General Scaparrotti refined planning to reposition his limited forces to areas where we could better protect large population centers. That process was ongoing when, on the morning of October 3, 2009, Combat Outpost Keating, to the south of Barge-e Matal, was attacked and partially overrun with the loss of eight American soldiers killed and twenty-two wounded. The attack, which highlighted the vulnerability of small bases in difficult terrain, produced calls for rapid withdrawal from exposed positions. As a soldier I understood. But there were other factors to consider as well.

In the early years of the war we had occupied areas that we subsequently abandoned. Afghans who had enthusiastically supported our initial arrival were left vulnerable upon our departure; their hope for the future and our credibility were left shattered as either
insurgents or despised warlords moved in. In areas where we reappeared in 2006 and 2007, we encountered cautiously distant attitudes. Departing again would complete their disillusionment. Additionally, even the appearance of ceding territory once under government control was a troubling proposition for Afghan leaders. Traditional military calculations had to be balanced with the psychological effects of every decision. Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan was more complex than moving military symbols on a map.

The Soviets had opted for a version of the “ink spot” strategy during the late stages of their war, as had the Najibullah government that the Soviets left behind. While the Soviets' failure tended to make their actions a cautionary tale rather than a road map for us, aspects of Soviet “pacification” efforts had been successful in engaging the populace. But the “sovietization” efforts they'd enacted within the areas they controlled had offended many conservative Afghans. This offense, and the Soviets'
aggressive use of fires in the areas they had ceded control of, undermined their strategy. It was a reminder that we could get the strategy partly, or even mostly, right—and still fail.

Our planners worked hard to determine what was needed to secure the key eighty districts. When we began the process, which I asked Dave Rodriguez to oversee, both he and I had believed no additional forces would be required. We thought, or at least hoped, that the ISAF forces already approved and the projected growth of the Afghan army and police, would be sufficient. But through extensive research, including computer simulations using historical counterinsurgency models, the planners presented evidence indicating otherwise.