The War Within (10 page)

Satterfield had found the U.S. military's effort to train Iraqis largely bogus. Elaborate briefing charts showed how many Iraqis had been trained. But they never reflected the actual number of Iraqi soldiers available for duty. Because of desertion, injuries, illness and periodic leaves to take pay home, the Iraqi forces on duty were actually a small percentage of the number of those trained.

Satterfield tried many times to get accurate numbers, but had little success. He had spent the year in Baghdad attending the daily BUAóbattlefield update assessmentóin which cheerful briefers plotted in red, green and yellow PowerPoint slides an endless list of force levels, statistics, attacks and counterattacks. Numbers, numbers, always more numbers. But rarely were strategic outcomes defined, identified or assessed. Never talk of real progress.

So as he was about to assume his new duties as Rice's right-hand man on Iraq, Satterfield could not have been more concerned about where Bush and the administration were heading. He would be replacing Jeffrey, the career diplomat who had served a year as deputy chief of mission in Baghdad and a year as Rice's Iraq coordinator. Jeffrey was so worried about the increase in violence that he had remarked privately, "Sometimes I wonder, why did I ever take this job?"

* * *

At the end of June, Casey took a few days of leave but kept in touch with his staff in Baghdad by secure video teleconference. Al Qaeda launched some horrific attacks during his absence. A bicycle bomber in a central market north of Baghdad killed at least 18 people and wounded 43. Another bomb in Hilla, 60 miles south of Baghdad, killed six and wounded 56. Attacks on Iraqi police and army in Baghdad killed another 14.

Was it as bad as it looked on television from Washington? Casey asked.

No, his staff assured him.

A few days later, on Saturday, July 1, a truck bomb exploded in Sadr City, the Shiite enclave of 2 million people in Baghdad ruled by the radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. The death toll was at least 62 with 120 others wounded. A Sunni female member of the new parliament and eight of her bodyguards were kidnapped. By this time, Casey had returned to Baghdad, and the assessment had changed. The generals and colonels were painting a grim picture.

"Well, I'm glad I'm rested," Casey thought to himself, "because this is going to get a lot harder."

He spoke with Abizaid and finally with General Pace, telling the chairman he'd changed his mind about how quickly he could reduce troop levels. "Hey, look," he said, "I don't see us as off-ramping here. This is a security situation that has not gone in the direction I thought it was going to go in."

Pace was surprised but did not dispute the ground commander.

The next morning, Casey had his regular meeting with his number two, Lieutenant General Pete Chiarelli, the day-to-day commander in Iraq. Casey and Chiarelli had built a candid rapport after working closely together for more than six months.

"Last chance for the Strykers," Chiarelli said. The 172nd Stryker brigade combat team from Alaska, known as the

"Arctic Wolves," was heading home after a yearlong deployment. The 3,800-member unit employed the Stryker armored vehicleóessentially an armored tank on eight giant conventional tires that can travel up to 60 miles per hour and is maneuverable in urban environments while providing armored protection for up to 11 soldiers. "I really need them," Chiarelli said.

Casey saw fear in his deputy's eyes. He pressed for his rationale to keep the unit. Chiarelli didn't really have one other than the increasing violence and his instincts.

"Okay," Casey finally said, acceding to Chiarelli's concern.

Later that day, Casey told Rumsfeld on the secure video, "You need to understand that I'm thinking about asking to extend the Strykers. I realize some of them have already gone home." About 300 soldiers had returned to Alaska, and another 300 had gone south to Kuwait, the staging area for the return home. He noted that the Strykers were the most capable force he had. "This can be hard, but right now, given what we have going on here, I think I have to keep that force here in Iraq. I need to think about it a little bit more, but that's where I'm headed."

"Okay," Rumsfeld said. "I have a meeting at the White House tomorrow, so if you think you really want to do something, let me know so I can tell the president."

The next day Casey called Rumsfeld to say he wanted to keep the Strykers. "I need to do this."

Rumsfeld didn't blink, and the president gave his approval.

All hell broke loose in Congress and in Alaska, where "Welcome Home" signs already hung at Fort Wainwright.

One soldier's wife, Jennifer Davis, a member of Military Families Speak Out, an antiwar group, wrote on a Web site,

"My husband called to let me know in the best way that he knows how, that the Army was extending his deployment four more months, mere hours before he was to board a flight home. I am totally frustrated, disappointed and heartbroken. Just when I thought we were going to be able to resume a 'normal' life. Just when I thought the nightmare was over, it was extendedÖ. This war should never have started, and now I'm left wondering if it will ever end."

Rumsfeld sent a SECRET snowflake to Casey complaining, "We have to do a better job looking around corners to the extent it is humanly possible. We are facing some difficulties in Alaska and Congress because of it."

Casey waited a week to answer formally. "As the security situation in Baghdad continued to deteriorate, it became apparent to us in our planning that the Iraqi security forces and government did not have the ability to make a decisive impact on the Baghdad situation in the near term without more help from us. Extending the Strykers became an opportunity to make a decisive impact in Baghdad at a critical point in the government and in our mission." The 300 who had already returned to Alaska were being brought back to Iraq, he said.

"As always Mr. Secretary, I appreciate your courage and your continued support for our mission. George Casey."

Rumsfeld went to Fort Wainwright, Alaska, to meet with some 700 family members of the Arctic Wolves. The press was shut out of the meeting, but some of the wives videotaped the session and played the tapes for the media.

One woman asked why her husband was out on foot patrols clearing buildings and houses, and not in the well-armored Stryker, which could better defend against deadly IEDs. "My husband hasn't set foot in his Stryker since he arrived in Baghdad," she said.

"Over 90 percent of the house clearings are being handled by the Iraqis," Rumsfeld assured her.

Shouts of "No!" and "That's not true!" erupted from the audience.

"No?" Rumsfeld responded, caught off guard. "What do you mean? Don't say, 'No.' That's what I've been told. It's the task of the Iraqis to go through the buildings."

It was a tough session, and the family members had plenty of questions. Was it possible the Wolves would be extended beyond the 120 days? Would they be home for Christmas? Rumsfeld said he didn't have a magic wand, but he would do everything in his power.

And he did. In a SECRET snowflake to Pace, Army Chief of Staff General Peter Schoomaker and Generals Abizaid and Casey, he wrote, "It would be a wonderful thing if we could get them home for Thanksgiving instead of Christmas." He also wrote, "I need assurances in confidence that these folks are not going to be asked to extend again." The Strykers weren't home for Thanksgiving, but they made it by Christmas, and as the secretary of defense ordered, they were not extended again.

For some time, Casey came to expect two or three e-mails a night from spouses calling him every name in the book for extending the Strykers.

* * *

On July 7, President Bush answered a few questions from reporters after a speech in Chicago and once again voiced his confidence in his Iraq commander. "General Casey will make the decisions as to how many troops we have there," he said. "General Casey is a wise and smart man, who has spent a lot of time in Baghdad recently, obviously.

And it's his judgment that I rely upon. He'll decide how best to achieve victory and the troop levels to do so. I spent a lot of time talking to him about troop levels and I told him this. I said, 'You decide, General. I want your judgment, your advice. I don't want these decisions being made by the political noise, by the political moment.'"

* * *

On July 19, Hadley called Rumsfeld to inquire about a new group that Casey, Ambassador Khalilzad and the Iraqi government were to form that supposedly was going to be called the "Joint Commission on Coalition Withdrawal."

Surely that couldn't be true, both agreed. That might be the intent, but they didn't want to be so explicit. Withdrawal was a dangerous word that smacked of "cut and run." Rumsfeld snowflaked Casey, saying, "Certainly, in the current environment, the title Steve Hadley believes has been decided on would not be good."

Casey answered that such a get-out-of-Iraq title had never been considered. Instead, Casey said, they had worked out with the Iraqis the title "Joint Committee for Achieving Iraqi Security Self-Reliance (JCAISSR)." The name would emphasize the "self-reliance" rather than the "withdrawal," though the two went hand in hand as far as Casey was concerned.

* * *

Casey questioned Prime Minister Maliki's efforts to get control of the Shia militia that operated freely, especially in Baghdad. Under an old order (CPA 91) from the Bremer era, the Iraqis were supposed to undertake what was called

"disarmament, demobilization and reintegration"óknown as DDRóof the militias. Casey told the president that Maliki might be deliberately dragging his feet so the Shia militias could establish themselves around Baghdad. On the other hand, he said, it was possible that it was just Iraqi ineffectiveness. He leaned toward ineffectiveness. But his assessment of Maliki was harsh.

"He's got two biases that he's got to break through," Casey said. "One, he absolutely believes that the Baathists are coming back. He's scared to death of the Baathists, and Baathists equals Sunni, and so he doesn't trust them at all.

And second, he's sectarian. He's a Shia." Maliki's Dawa Party, a small Shia group, is deeply sectarian, Casey noted.

* * *

In her office adjacent to the White House, O'Sullivan kept a chart of the violence in the 15 main neighborhoods of Baghdad. She had tried to get everyone to focus on Ghazaliya, a Sunni Arab neighborhood in west Baghdad with dramatically escalating violence. It vividly demonstrated that what the military was doing was not working. The picture that the president was getting from Casey and Khalilzad was much better than the reality. Their strategy of training the Iraqis and getting out did not fit. But she wondered how to get them to acknowledge that. The weekly hour-long brief from Casey was not a forum to ask fundamental questions. But fundamental questions were exactly what needed asking, the kind that would come only through a full strategy review.

As far as O'Sullivan was concerned, Casey had a credibility problem. On July 19, she sent a long SECRET memo to Hadley and his deputy, J. D. Crouch, titled, "Adjusting Our Security Strategy to the New Realities in Iraq."

Two months into the new Maliki government, she noted delicately, "tangible signs of progress have been elusive as Maliki has struggled with limited tools at his disposal and a deteriorating security situation.

"Now is an opportune moment," she wrote, aware that the moment had existed for months, "to explore: 1) Whether our security strategy has been sufficiently adjusted to account for new realities (especially sectarian strife)." The use of the word "strife" implied tensions and difficulties rather than the bloodbath she knew was taking place. She continued: "2) Whether external constraints on available U.S. military resources through the end of 2007 limit our ability to respond adequately to these new realities." In other words, were there enough troops? "And 3) Whether we have strategic options for filling any gaps between available U.S. resources and what may be required to ensure long-term success in Iraq." Plainly stated, did the United States possess enough force?

On one level, O'Sullivan was asking the hardest and most basic question: Do we know what we are doing? But the memo's tentativeness and deference, its muted and conditional phrasing, reduced its sting.

"The current focus on drawing down coalition troops," she wrote, "is one of several factors suggesting that"óand here she switched to bold typeó"we are executing a plan based on assumptions that are no longer valid."

She then proposed that before withdrawing any further troops, the security strategy be "reevaluated" because security was getting worse in some places and the "presence of MOI [Ministry of Interior] forces in Sunni areas may actually fuel sectarian violence."

She went on to note, again with understatement, "It would also be hard to characterize a decision to bring troops home at this point as a consequence of success or the result of an improvement in conditions.

"For all these reasons, we recommend a security review where the president considers asking the following series of questions." The questions focused on the sectarian violence, whether they had the right approach to Baghdad, and the impact of the Ministry of Interior on the Sunnis.

O'Sullivan then asked whether they should consider what she called an "additive" strategy by providing more troops.

To pump up the urgency, she suggested that the NSC meeting with the president that day be devoted to these questions.

But other events that Wednesday, July 19, swamped Bush. He issued his first veto in five years as president, rejecting a law passed by the Congress lifting restrictions on human embryonic stem cell research. It was a highly emotional issue, and the president staged a ceremony for the veto that afternoon in the East Room of the White House, attended by children who had developed from frozen embryos.

Also that day, Maliki broke publicly with Bush to strongly condemn Israeli attacks into Lebanon that Bush had said were justified as defenses against terrorism.

In the daily crush, the pressing questions about the U.S. strategy in Iraq were placed on hold again.