Killing Machine (5 page)

Like all other challenges to the policy, the question received no clear answer from Ambassador Crocker, while Petraeus continued to make notes on a yellow pad. According to a writer who interviewed the general, Obama’s questions gnawed at him as he left the
hearing room because they centered on the question of what was minimally acceptable to the United States in the Iraqi endgame? He could not answer with specifics in the fall of 2007, he told Steve Coll, out of fear that it would only increase violence again.
¹⁹

Because of their different roles, therefore, the differences between the two men looked broader and deeper than they actually were. In a January 31, 2008, debate with his strongest rival in the Democratic Party, Senator Hillary Clinton, Obama argued that setting a specific time for American troop withdrawal from Iraq would force the contending groups to come together and focus on a national solution. “It can’t be muddy, it can’t be fuzzy. They’ve got to know that we are serious about this process.” As the only prospective nominee who opposed the war from the beginning, he was, he said, in a perfect position to pressure Iraqi factions to cooperate, because they could be sure he meant what he said. His opposition to the war also made him the best candidate to go up against Senator John McCain, because it drew a clear line beneath all previous arguments over the best way to exit the war. “I will offer a clear contrast as somebody who never supported this war, thought it was a bad idea.” And then he delivered the most dramatic statement of his political career that sent hopes soaring among critics—not just of the war but the assumptions behind American policy: “I don’t want to just end the war, but I want to end the mind-set that got us into war in the first place.”

Just prior to that rousing finale, however, Obama had made a more ambiguous statement about the future of American military bases in Iraq. Referring to Clinton’s position, he said, “We have both said that we need to have a strike force that can take out potential terrorist bases that get set up in Iraq. But the one thing that I think is very important is that we not get mission creep, and we not start suggesting that we should have troops in Iraq to blunt Iranian influence.” Senator McCain seized on this statement to point out contradictions inherent in Obama’s position. It was a strategy based on a decision to accept defeat disguised as a timetable, McCain argued, with the prospect of restarting the war under worse
circumstances. Troop withdrawals, unless Petraeus approved them, would be waving the “white flag.” “And my friends, if we left, they [al-Qaeda] wouldn’t be establishing a base,” McCain said. “They’d be taking a country, and I’m not going to allow that to happen, my friends. I will not surrender. I will not surrender to al-Qaeda.”
²⁰

With Obama aides suggesting that their candidate might leave thirty thousand to fifty thousand soldiers behind to deal with any contingency, McCain’s criticism touched on a soft spot in Obama’s pledge to change the mind-set that led to war. Throughout the 2008 campaign, however, Obama had it both ways: he continued to criticize the surge while promising that he would take the war to al Qaeda in the borderlands between Pakistan and Afghanistan, prompting a frustrated John McCain to say that his opponent’s proposals unwisely disregarded Theodore Roosevelt’s counsel to speak softly and carry a big stick.

Obama whipsawed his opponent by opposing a narrow surge as an inadequate strategy and all but embracing the main elements of counterinsurgency as the alternative. Yet it appeared to voters, nevertheless, that Obama intended to follow a narrow counterterrorism strategy, not an ambitious scheme that involved nation building in Afghanistan. McCain’s
Dirty Harry
–esque threat that Osama bin Laden “will be the last to know” about plans to root him out of hiding certainly made him the campaign’s prototypical exponent of “shoot first, ask questions later.” By contrast, Obama’s cool assertions about finding the right way to defeat terrorist plots against America using all of the nation’s “might” did not produce skepticism in liberal circles. Because of McCain’s bluster, hardly anyone took notice, for example, when Obama referred to the new army counterinsurgency manual in his speeches laying out detailed strategies for dealing with America’s present and future wars. His supporters preferred the 2002 Obama and saw little in his speeches that touched on matters of national security policy other than their own projections. Anything else they dismissed as standard political deflectors put on to protect against right-wing attacks—such as his decision to wear an American flag in his lapel for the rest of the
primaries after someone questioned its absence during a debate with Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden.

The surge had been in effect for a few months before there was a decline in casualties. But back in the United States, where the main concern was to find a way out of Iraq, Petraeus became known as something of a miracle worker. Suddenly Obama faced a new challenge in the heroic general who had emerged from what had been called perhaps America’s greatest foreign policy and military blunder ever. A sharp-eyed reporter for the New York
Daily News
noted that Obama’s campaign site had removed references to the troop surge as being part of “the problem.” An Obama spokeswoman said it was just part of an “update” to “reflect changes in current events.” The update included a new section on the rise of al Qaeda violence in Afghanistan, the subject of both an op-ed piece Obama wrote and another major speech on foreign policy.
²¹

In that op-ed, “My Plan for Iraq,” written for the
New York Times
, the Democratic candidate wrote that in the eighteen months since President Bush had announced his plan, American troops “have performed heroically in bringing down the level of violence.” In a somewhat oblique fashion, he agreed that the credit would have to go to Petraeus for reshaping the battle lines. “New tactics have protected the Iraqi population, and the Sunni tribes have rejected Al Qaeda—greatly weakening its effectiveness.” But the factors that had led him to oppose the surge still held true: the costs to the military and the added financial burden it had imposed on Americans, already over $200 billion, could have been avoided. Meanwhile, Iraq’s leaders had failed to invest tens of billions of dollars of their oil revenues in rebuilding the nation’s economy, and had failed to reach “the political accommodation that was the stated purpose of the surge.”
²²

Despite this failing—and what it indicated about future Iraqi stability—Obama then cited those same leaders, principally Prime Minister Maliki, as desiring to set a timetable for “the removal of American troops.” “Meanwhile, Lt. Gen. James Dubik, the American officer in charge of training Iraq’s security forces, estimates that
the Iraqi Army and police will be ready to assume responsibility for security in 2009.” Instead of seizing this moment, Obama wrote, President Bush and Senator McCain “are refusing to embrace this transition—despite their previous commitments to respect the will of Iraq’s sovereign government.” Getting out of Iraq by the summer of 2010 (except for residual forces to “perform limited missions”) was not a precipitous withdrawal, he insisted, and was the only way to secure the resources needed to finish the job in Afghanistan. Iraq was not the central front “in the war on terrorism” and never had been, despite President Bush’s insistence that it was. Therefore, as president, Obama would send at least two additional combat brigades to Afghanistan, as well as more helicopters, better intelligencegathering support, and nonmilitary assistance. “I would not hold our military, our resources and our foreign policy hostage to a misguided desire to maintain permanent bases in Iraq.”
²³

There had been too much talk, he concluded, about flip-flopping and surrender in American politics in the past several years. “It’s not going to work this time. It’s time to end this war.” Once again, as had been the case with his major 2007 speech, Obama’s final words resonated with supporters far more than his accompanying discussion of what yet had to be done in Afghanistan. In a speech that served as a companion piece to the op-ed, the presumptive Democratic nominee ticked off the list of things that could have been done in the wake of 9/11 to make the nation safer. It began, “We could have deployed the full force of American power to hunt down and destroy Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, the Taliban, and all the terrorists responsible for 9/11, while supporting real security in Afghanistan.” The list went on to include Kennedy-esque steps that individuals in “a new generation” could have taken, such as joining the Peace Corps, while the nation could have acted to rebuild roads and bridges, construct new rail and broadband and electricity systems, and make college affordable for every American.
²⁴

Listeners heard echoes of the “New Frontier” and the “Great Society” before Vietnam devoured everything. It was an ambitious list—but the point Obama hoped to make was that the cost of the Iraq War had prevented the nation from doing any of these things.
He repeated what he had been saying about getting American combat troops out of Iraq within sixteen to eighteen months of his taking office. Both McCain and President Bush attempted to use that “commitment” (or any timetable) to accuse Obama of not being willing to listen to the commander in the field, General Petraeus, before making or even considering such an important decision.

Obama left on a battlefield tour a week after his op-ed piece and speech, beginning, however, with Afghanistan, which reemphasized what he had been saying for months: Iraq was the wrong war. Accompanied by media news “stars” from all three TV networks, he told CBS in Kabul, “For at least a year now, I have called for two additional brigades, perhaps three. I think it’s very important that we unify command more effectively to coordinate our military activities. But military alone is not going to be enough.” Two other senators, Republican Chuck Hagel and Democrat Joe Reed, accompanied Obama on this fact-finding mission. They issued a joint statement:

We need a sense of urgency and determination. We need urgency because the threat from the Taliban and al Qaeda is growing and we must act; we need determination because it will take time to prevail. But with the right strategy and the resources to back it up, we will get the job done.

McCain was left in the unhappy position of denying the importance of the Afghan front—in large part, ironically, because Petraeus had not as yet issued any call for a surge there. It was Obama who was doing all the talking about sending almost the same number of troops as Bush had sent to Iraq to prop up (and shape up) Hamid Karzai in Kabul. The Afghan president’s office described the senator’s discussion with Karzai, which included the problem of corruption and the illegal drug trade, “pleasant,” and even reassuring about American commitments.
²⁵

When the trio arrived in Baghdad, however, discussions with Petraeus were much less than pleasant, at least according to several accounts that apparently emanated from someone in the senators’ entourage. “Petraeus laid on one of his epic PowerPoint slide presentations,
which annoyed members of the group. It was propaganda, assuming we didn’t know anything,” one of those present told a columnist. “We wanted to ask questions, and when we did, Petraeus treated us badly, interrupting Obama continually, taking a very hard stand.” The meeting dissolved into a heated exchange between Obama and Petraeus over Obama’s stated intention to withdraw all U.S. combat troops from Iraq by 2010.
²⁶

“You know, if I were in your shoes, I would be making the exact same argument,” Obama began. “Your job is to succeed in Iraq on as favorable terms as we can get. But my job as a potential Commander in Chief is to view your counsel and interests through the prism of our overall national security.” Obama then shifted to talk “about the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, the financial costs of the occupation of Iraq, the stress it was putting on the military.”
²⁷

Returning home, Obama was again challenged to admit that he had been wrong in criticizing the Iraq surge before it had had an opportunity to work. Pressed by right-wing TV host Bill O’Reilly, he maneuvered to have it both ways. It was true, he said, that the surge had succeeded beyond its sponsors’ wildest dreams.

       
OBAMA:
There is no doubt that the violence is down and that is a testament to the troops that were sent and General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker. I think that the surge has succeeded in ways that nobody anticipated, by the way, including President Bush and the other supporters. . . .

       
O’REILLY:
But if it had been up to you there would not have been a surge. You and Joe Biden, no surge.

       
OBAMA:
Hold on, if you look at the debate that was taking place. We had gone through five years of mismanagement of this war, which I thought was disastrous, and the president wanted to double down and continue and open-ended policy that did not create the kind of pressure on the Iraqis to take responsibility and reconcile.

       
O’REILLY:
But it worked, come on.

       
OBAMA:
Bill, look—I already said it succeeded beyond our wildest dreams.
²⁸

Petraeus had another visitor that summer: Steve Coll, a seasoned observer of American policy in Afghanistan from the time of the Soviet occupation in 1979, author of the most important book on that era,
Ghost Wars
(2004), and now a writer for the
New Yorker
. Coll had a conversation with Petraeus about the basics of the counterinsurgency strategy that Obama had not raised.

I tried to summarize a recent essay by Zbigniew Brzezinski, the national-security adviser to President Jimmy Carter. Brzezinski had seemed to suggest that a problem with America’s counter-insurgency strategy in countries like Iraq lay in its proximity to European colonial policies; we send out expeditionary armies and civilian administrators whose missions look uncomfortably like those of imperial subdistrict officers of old. Brzezinski, I said, seemed to argue that the United States had yet to come to terms with the strategic requirements of a post-colonial era.