The War Within (54 page)

Mullen said that he had become acutely aware of the strains on the Army and the Marine Corps. Military families were shouldering the strain, and the military was losing quality officers.

"Mike, all of that's true," Keane said. "But this is true every time we fight a war of any consequence." Wars break armies, and they have to be put back together. That's the price of war. But the price was worth it. "You've not talked one time about winning here, Mike. Not one time, have you mentionedÖ'I want to win in Iraq.' I mean, do you?"

It was an insulting question to put to a fellow military man.

"Of course, I want to win," Mullen said.

"I assume you do," Keane replied, "but to the degree that you're putting pressure on Petraeus to reduce forces, you're taking far too much risk, and that risk is in losing and not winning."

"Well," Mullen said, "we're just going to disagree."

"You really don't want me to help Petraeus?" Keane asked. "Dave Petraeus, no matter who he wants to talk to over there, no matter what size he is, shape he is, what his views are, given Petraeus's responsibilityóhe's got the toughest job anybody in uniform hasówhy wouldn't you let him have that?"

"No," Mullen said, "I don't want to take the chance. I don't want you to do it."

End of meeting.

Afterward, when Keane couldn't get clearance to go to Iraq, he called Petraeus, who told him that he had met with Mullen in Iraq before he had taken over as chairman and that Mullen had told him he didn't want Keane coming again. "I was really surprised," Petraeus said.

Petraeus told Mullen that he could understand how the chairman would not appreciate Keane's involvement. But it wasn't meddling. Keane was providing military advice to the president, the vice president and Petraeus himself.

"Perhaps you could consider embracing him and trying to draw on that over time."

"No," Mullen said. It was too soon in his tenure, and he was trying to reestablish the authority of the chairman's office.

Keane called John Hannah in Cheney's office to report what had happened. Shortly afterward, Keane received a call from Army Lieutenant General Skip Sharp, the director of Mullen's Joint Staff.

"We have an unusual request," Sharp said. "We have a request from the White House to provide assurances that General Keane will be able to visit Iraq and assist General Petraeus as he has been doing in the past." Sharp was apparently doing some staff work before passing the request to Admiral Mullen. "This is really bizarre. Do you have any idea why this would be happening?"

"Yeah, of course," Keane said. "I've been told I can't go."

"Who told you that?"

"The chairman." There was a long silence as Sharp realized it was his boss. "Skip, are you there?"

"I'm trying to figure out what the hell is going on here."

Keane later spoke with Lieutenant General Chiarelli, Gates's military assistant.

"The secretary has received some notes," Chiarelli said, so now the secretary and his office are telling everyone,

"General Keane, as in the past, as well as in the future, can go into Iraq to assist General Petraeus whenever they want it to happen. We have no problem with any of that."

Vice President Cheney had noticed Admiral Mullen putting the hammer down on Keane. He didn't agree, so he had sent a note and talked to Gates about how important Keane's assistance had been. The president had also requested that Keane be allowed back in Iraq.

Chapter 40

P
resident Talabani, a main Kurdish leader, had once said, "Iraq is like a bouquet of flowersómany different, but who nonetheless combine into one." Satterfield thought of Iraq more like a tank of "mutually carnivorous fish."

The intelligence and diplomatic reporting continued to show that several of Maliki's top aides were highly sectarian with strong ties to individuals or movements deeply opposed to the U.S. presence in Iraq, such as Iranians and Sadrists.

Foremost among these aides was Bassima al-Jaidri, an intense woman with three graduate degrees whom one senior U.S. intelligence official described as "anti-Western, anti-American, anti-occupation." Jaidri and Prime Minister Maliki had become confidants, according to intelligence and military officials. She had enormous influence and had used her position in Maliki's office to order Iraqi army generals and others in the government to halt operations against Shia militia members.

"Don't arrest that person," Jaidri would order, and the generals would comply. "Halt that operation," she would say, and they would obey. The previous year, she had been instrumental in the widespread cleansing of Sunnis from neighborhoods in Baghdad. The American embassy, the U.S. intelligence agencies and Petraeus's command had spent countless hours trying unsuccessfully to figure out how to get her out of Maliki's office. Their efforts, including one to get her an ambassadorship abroad, failed.

Jaidri continued to wield immense power. At one point in 2007, despite her strong anti-Sunni disposition, Maliki appointed her to head the committee for national reconciliation that was supposed to bring the Shia and Sunnis together. The intelligence analysts could hardly believe it.

Satterfield reported to Rice that Maliki was increasingly losing touch with reality. Sadr and his Mahdi Army had fragmented and were on the run, and Maliki attributed this to his own leadership genius. He also credited his efforts with the Anbar Awakening and the recruitment of the Sunni Concerned Local Citizens, which were fighting al Qaeda and helping reduce violence in key areas. Maliki's misguided narrative went something like this: Iraq is back on its feet. Everything's fine. We've turned the corner.

Whenever Crocker, Petraeus, Satterfield or other Americans tried to push Maliki, he invoked the support he had from Bush. "I have the support of the president," Maliki said once. "I don't have to listen to you."

In Washington, the president and his principals debated what to do. Bush felt he had developed an important personal relationship with Maliki, and he judged that if he had too blunt a conversation with the prime minister, he might push him too far, causing him to retreat and withdraw. Puncturing Maliki's self-esteem could backfire.

Maliki had been living an incredibly stressful life over the last 18 months. Too much push, Bush concluded, and they could wind up with a new government and a new leader. And who might that be? No one knew. How long might it take? No one had any idea. The intelligence analysts said there was no one on the horizon to take Maliki's place.

They said his fall could create "total chaos." They would be taking "a leap into the unknown," the president said. No, thank you. The others could push and be blunt with Maliki, but not him. He would stick with the prime minister they had and continue to support and reassure Maliki both publicly and privately.

* * *

That winter, Petraeus's evening reading was again about the Civil War. This time it was
April 1865: The Month That
Saved America,
by Jay Winik.

Petraeus read about his hero, General Ulysses S. Grant, and his efforts to force Robert E. Lee out of Richmond.

"We've got to squeeze them everywhere," Grant declared, a strategy that Petraeus had adopted in Iraq. At one point, Lee was desperately trying to reach a train that was supposed to have food supplies for his starving soldiers. Lee rushed forward, racing on his famous horse, Traveller, and threw open the boxcar doors. He found only ammunition.

General Lee, Petraeus read, made sure not to let his shoulders slump in front of his men. He didn't want them to sense his frustration. Petraeus took comfort in what generals before him had gone through and embraced the importance of leading even in the face of doubt and disappointment. He resolved that his soldiers would never see his shoulders slump.

* * *

On Tuesday, December 18, a week before Christmas, Rice flew to Iraq, where she visited a Provincial Reconstruction Team in Kirkuk and then went on to Baghdad. That evening, she had a 25-minute routine meeting with Maliki, Petraeus and Crocker. At about 7:30 P.M., Rice asked the others to leave so she could talk privately with the prime minister.

"You're not succeeding," she told him bluntly, and attempted to list all the management and political problems in his government. The negotiations over new U.N. Security Council resolutions and other matters could not be conducted with only the prime minister and members of his staff. In the future, negotiations would have to include a representative team of Sunnis and Kurds. "You cannot succeed alone," she said.

"There are people in your office who do not serve you or the Iraqi nation well."

"Who are they?" Maliki asked.

"Prime Minister," she said, "I am not going to list their names, but I can tell you, you are not well served by people."

"I've been waiting a long time to have this conversation," Maliki said. "Let me describe how hard it is to be prime minister of Iraq." He was surrounded by enemies, he said. The presidency council, consisting of Talabani, Hashimi and Mahdi, conspired against him and blocked legislation at every turn. He mentioned specific actions and alleged plotsóa mixture of suspicion and accurate descriptions of the struggle for power amid sectarian hatreds. The meeting lasted an hour and 15 minutes.

Afterward, Rice was delayed an hour on the next leg of her trip because a suspected IED had to be cleared. She told her advisers that she would have to come back to Baghdad as soon as possible to establish a rhythm of talking directly to Maliki and other leadersóSunni, Shia and Kurd.

Later that month, Maliki's fears came dangerously close to being fulfilled. The Kurds, along with Sunni leader Hashimi, formed a coalition and drafted a manifesto saying the government was not performing. They hoped to force a vote of no confidence and bring down the Maliki government. Maliki raged, and two of his top advisers, Sadiq al- Rikabi and Sami al-Askeri, urged him to force an open debate. They drafted an in-your-face rebuttal. But Rubaie, the national security adviser, warned, "That'll just make it public, and you'll have a real mess. Deal with this privately."

Maliki eventually sent Rubaie north to meet with Barzani, the Kurdish leader, who finally agreed not to press a manifesto that might precipitate a government collapse.

* * *

On January 12, 2008, the president met with Petraeus alone at Camp Arifjan, a U.S. base in Kuwait. He reaffirmed the message that he had sent through Jack Keaneówhatever you need, if it's possible, you will get it. If it was not possible, they would find some way to make it so.

"Okay, now let me confirm now," Bush asked, "They said that you want to go to SHAPE," the military designation for Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe.

"Yes, sir," Petraeus said. "I know a lot of the folks in NATO because of this job. They contribute troops. I've been to London a bunch of times." He had been the military assistant to the American commander in Europe. "I was a one-star and a three-star in NATO." NATO was involved in Afghanistan, where he could contribute. "My wife speaks French, German, Italian and everything else." Her father, General William Knowlton, had finished his career as a U.S. representative to NATO.

"Okay, got it," Bush said.

* * *

On January 15, 2008, Rice again went to Baghdad and met with the leaders that Maliki had identified as enemiesóTalabani, Barzani, Hashimi, Mahdi. She put the problems in legislative terms, focusing on the political, not the sectarian, and defended Maliki to the others. "Don't tell me he is blocking things," Rice said. "You have more votes."

* * *

Maliki overestimated the temporary restraint of his enemies and in a public speech in February 2008 announced,

"National reconciliation efforts have succeeded in Iraq, and the Iraqis have once again become loving brothers."

In March, Petraeus and Maliki were intensifying plans to launch joint military operations in Basra, the city in southeastern Iraq about 15 miles from the Iranian border. It would be a test of whether Maliki would get serious about imposing central government rule in the hotbed of Iranian influence and Shia extremism. At the end of the month, intelligence showed that Maliki was going to go it alone, even personally oversee the Iraqi army attack on the ground.

"Holy shit!" Ambassador Crocker said. Petraeus couldn't believe it. Maliki and his forces were ill prepared.

Everything could be lost in one impulsive gamble. How could they walk him back? Soon Maliki sent official word that he was going ahead. Many officials in the U.S. government were horrified.

Not the president. Maliki was taking a bold step in the face of all rational judgment. Bush believed it was the right cause. "This is a defining moment in the history of a free Iraq," the president said at a press conference. He also passed word to Maliki: Good for you, keep it up, forward to victory.

* * *

Moqtada al-Sadr's forces in Sadr City began shelling the Green Zone in March 2008. U.S. officials locked the area down, and 1,000 officials crowded into one of Saddam's hardened masonry structures, where they slept on cots. One rocket hit the doorway of Ambassador Crocker's residence, and a heavy-caliber 240 millimeter shellómore than nine inches in diameteróhit 100 meters away and blew out windows.

Soon, Maliki had Iraqi forces moving into Sadr City. He was countering the allegations of the Sunni Arabs that he was an Iranian puppet or a tool of the Shia militias. He was taking on the most powerful Shia militia of all, the Mahdi Army, the most direct and important Iranian asset on the ground in Iraq.

* * *

Satterfield could barely listen to Bush's inflated rhetoric. It was too overstated, too triumphant, too victorious. Bush was feeling renewed confidence because of the lower levels of violence, thanks to Petraeus's and Crocker's work.

From watching the president up close for several years, Satterfield had reached some conclusions. If Bush believed something was right, he believed it would succeed. Its very rightness ensured ultimate success. Democracy and freedom were right. Therefore, they would win out.

Bush, Satterfield observed, tolerated no doubt. His words and actions constantly reminded those around him that he was in charge. He was the decider. As a result, he often made biting jokes or asides to colleagues that Satterfield found deeply wounding and cutting. In one instance, Rice had raised a budget issue at a meeting.