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Despite the CIA’s love affair with unmanned aerial vehicles such as Predators, Obama understood with increasing clarity that the United States would not get a lasting, durable effect with drone attacks. “I don’t think anybody believes that we’ll have much more than a disruption effect on al Qaeda,” said Lute, “and its associates by doing it from the air or by doing sort of the high value target hit list.”

Still, Emanuel showed an intense interest in the drone strikes and called CIA Director Leon Panetta regularly with one question: “Who did we get today?”

The president wanted to move the Pakistanis to bring some semblance of law and order to the ungoverned tribal areas and go after al Qaeda and the Taliban more aggressively on the ground.

“We’ve got to get to that Pakistani risk factor,” Obama said. “Why don’t we send a delegation, high-level delegation over there?” He reached out directly to Pakistani President Zardari, drafting a letter and dispatching Jones and John Brennan to hand-deliver it.

In the two-page letter, dated November 11, Obama proposed a more formal “long-term strategic” partnership over the coming months and years. Referring to “recent arrests in the United States of individuals with ties to militants in Pakistan,” meaning Najibullah Zazi and David Coleman Headley, Obama wrote, “we must find new and better ways to work together to disrupt their ability to plan attacks.” In an unmistakable reference to the ISI-supported terrorist group LeT, he said that using such “proxy groups” would no longer be tolerable.

Obama made an unusual appeal to the widower of the assassinated Benazir Bhutto in the private letter, which was not intended to become public. “I know that I am speaking to you on a personal level when I say that my commitment to ending the ability of these groups to strike at our families is as much about my family’s security as it is about yours.”

He proposed an escalation. “If your government will match my gesture, I will commit my government to deepening and broadening our work together, particularly in the area of counterterrorism cooperation, with the goal of defeating al Qaeda, TTP, LeT, the Haqqani network, the Afghan Taliban” and others.

Jones and Brennan flew to Pakistan, presenting the letter to Zardari on November 13. “Pakistan is the epicenter of the strategic review,” Jones said. The president was elevating the importance of Pakistan. Jones said the region would now be called PakAf instead of AfPak.

This distressed the Pakistanis, who responded that the inversion might suggest that Pakistan was the main problem. That would not be positive, nor would it be in the spirit of the proposed partnership, they said.

Jones said he understood, and the name change was not made.

Brennan, Obama’s trusted counterterrorism adviser, said that during the past several months, U.S. law enforcement agencies had discovered at least two individuals who had been trained in terrorist camps in Pakistan, and he cited the cases of Zazi and Headley. They had been very close to developing attacks in New York and Europe, Brennan said. They had been uncovered by the U.S. and foreign intelligence services.

“It is difficult,” Jones said solemnly, “to imagine the consequences to our relationship had they been successful.”

This was both a plea and a warning. If a destructive attack originated from Pakistan, there would be a response from the U.S.

Jones’s message also was that Pakistan could get virtually anything from its wish list of weapons, trade deals and money if it agreed to go along with the partnership. He believed that no country could refuse such an offer from the United States.

And it was not as though the U.S. was seeking the kind of presence in that country as it had in Afghanistan, or for that matter Germany and Japan. “We are not asking for bases in Pakistan,” he said at one point.

On November 17, Tony Blinken met with Pakistani Ambassador Haqqani. Blinken said that despite the impressive Pakistani efforts in Swat and Waziristan there was still concern about the ISI and some terrorist groups. “There is appeasement one day, confrontation another day and direction a third day,” he said.

And that same week, Panetta visited Islamabad for meetings with Zardari and other top officials.

“The United States,” the CIA director said, “expects Pakistan’s full support as al Qaeda and its affiliates are common enemies.” This cooperation, he added, was a matter of Pakistan’s own “survival.”

Panetta noted that the command and control for the Taliban was in the Pakistani city of Quetta. Intelligence showed that bombs were being made there. “They are taken across the border and blowing up Americans,” Panetta said. “We have to go after this.”

The CIA had a secret base in Quetta, but the Pakistanis tried to keep the CIA people on the base. They did not allow them much access around the city, arguing that they would be spotted too easily because many had white skin. The CIA people felt almost as if they were under house arrest. The CIA argued it could assert a lot more pressure on the Taliban senior leadership if they could be seen as running agents in Quetta. It would demonstrate that the Taliban had been penetrated, a message the CIA wanted to send.

The CIA team did have kill-capture authority on Mullah Omar. But because of the large population in Quetta, drones would not be very effective. Thus—and this was the bottom line—there was a need for “joint ISI-CIA operations on the ground,” Panetta said. This would be a big step that would involve more CIA covert teams inside Pakistan.

The Pakistanis balked at the joint operations, but were soon granting visas for more CIA people to enter Pakistan. For example, a January 18, 2010, request for 36 CIA people was soon approved, and CIA deputy director Steve Kappes personally asked for 10 more visas on April 19, 2010.

Later in November, Zardari answered Obama with a wandering letter that the White House concluded must have been composed by a committee dominated by the Pakistani military and ISI. It wallowed in the impact of three decades of conflict in Afghanistan: “We continue to suffer. Pakistan continues to bleed.” The letter did not directly refer to India, but its subtext lurked behind many paragraphs. “Our security is fragile,” it said, “due to a fast evolving imbalance in the conventional field.” The Swat operation “cost Pakistan nothing less than US $2.5 billion.

“Here I must draw your attention to a proxy war against Pakistan, now in full swing,” Zardari wrote, “in which neighboring intelligence agencies”—read India—“are using Afghan soil to perpetrate violence in Pakistan.” The letter insisted the Pakistan contributions to the war on terror “against al Qaeda and Taliban are second to none.” Instead of accepting or rejecting the offer for a strategic partnership, Zardari—or the committee—said it was being given “my highest consideration.”

There was a lot of head-scratching at the White House over this. It was decided to take it as a yes, and soon the Pakistanis learned that U.S. military Special Operations Forces were rehearsing attacks into the tribal areas of Pakistan. At a dinner with Ambassador Haqqani, DNI Blair said the two countries had to get over their mutual distrust as he pressed for the strategic partnership. Or, Blair said, “we will have to do what we must to protect U.S. interests.” In other words, go it alone.

There was another side to the tough talk. As a result of nearly endless policy discussions in the White House, Jones, Donilon, Lute and others had repeatedly asked: How are we going to get these guys in Pakistan to change? For the moment, they knew this was the wrong question. Pakistan was not going to change. The Pakistanis were hardwired against India. Let’s quit banging our heads against that wall and accept it.

Pakistan would be at such a disadvantage in a conventional war with India, which had a two-to-one advantage in troops, that it had relied on two asymmetric tools—proxy terrorism through LeT and the threat of nuclear weapons. As a result, Pakistan did not want to be pressed to halt their production of fissile material for more nuclear weapons.

Jones tried to convey to them: We’ve come to the conclusion that after years of trying, we’re not going to change your strategic calculus. It’s yours. We accept it and want to understand it better. You get to be the Pakistanis in this relationship, while we get to be the Americans. We’re not going to try to be both.

DNI Blair believed the Pakistani policy was deeply flawed because it was based entirely on carrots. There were no sticks.

Al Qaeda and the Taliban in the safe havens were having a field day in his opinion. “Those tribes in that territory are trading ideology, leadership, explosives, logistics, money, suicide bombers,” Blair told a colleague. “And so Haqqani, TTP, even LeT, al Qaeda don’t much care if they blow up a bunch of people in Pakistan, India, Afghanistan or the United States. It’s all a touchdown, a good thing.”

The Pakistani leadership had claimed their government was so weak that it might collapse if the U.S. used any sticks. They were basically saying, “You don’t want us falling apart, do you? Because then all hell will break loose.”

Blair figured it would take about ten minutes of good, honest discussion at a National Security Council meeting to sort out what the real leverage was on Pakistan. Suppose the president asked in earnest, “What do you think you could do?”

If asked, Blair maintained he would have said, “We could conduct some raids across the border, we could bomb” the extremist groups inside Pakistan.

The president and others then would have asked, of course, “Denny, what would be the consequences of that?”

“I think Pakistan would be completely, completely pissed off and they would probably take actions against us,” he would recommend, “but they would probably adjust. And depending on which raids, which things, I think we might be able to get away with it.”

In Blair’s view, the Oval Office and Situation Room conversations were artificial. Obama, like all presidents, wanted harmony. If there was anything other than that, it would get out that there had been a knockdown, drag-out fight in the Situation Room and the president would look like he had lost control of his team. Blair believed the debate had a hollowness to it. The president asked good questions but quickly exhausted the wisdom of those in the room. Instead of a real in-depth discussion, there was a scripted feel. Prior to meetings, someone in the NSC trying to control the agenda would call Blair and say, “Denny, you have five minutes for the intel update.”

Blair realized that Jones had no control over the place. Donilon and Brennan had direct access to the president, so they didn’t have to go through Jones. There were at least three national security advisers—Jones, Donilon and Brennan. But Denis McDonough also had his own turf, so he was a fourth. And Emanuel also tinkered in policy and acted at times as a fifth.

“It’s the goddamnest thing I’ve ever seen,” Blair said.

After meeting up with the rest of the presidential entourage in China, Jones requested permission from Obama to go back to Washington several days early to work on the strategy review.

Obama had one important thought. He had realized that the key to holding the national security team together was Gates. My goal is to keep Gates, he told Jones. I do not want to break with the secretary of defense.

The president told me this was not an exact quote, but it reflected his view. “What is absolutely true is that my relationship with Bob is sufficiently close,” he said, “and my respect for the job that he’s been doing is sufficiently high that I would take his views very heavily into account in any final decision that I made. Partly because I’m asking him to execute” the final decision.

“I’m not sure if he considers this an insult or a compliment, but he and I actually think a lot alike, in broad terms.” The president said he understood that Gates had to be a voice for the military. “Now, he has a different job than I do. And part of the job of secretary of defense is tending to a particular constituency within the Pentagon.”

After returning from Asia, Obama called his national security team together again at 8:15 P.M., Monday, November 23, for an unusual evening meeting.

“Final decision in the next couple of days,” he promised.

Gates had written a memo to Obama summarizing the six primary military objectives in Afghanistan that incorporated comments from the agencies.*

Obama said he agreed with the less ambitious, more realistic objectives. Although the military leadership had previously argued that “defeating” the Taliban was necessary, the word was missing from the memo. The U.S. now planned on “disrupting” and “degrading” the Taliban.

The president explained that these objectives should be met on a much shorter timeline than what the Pentagon initially recommended, saying the troops would start thinning out after July 2011—the time frame Gates had suggested in their last session.

“If people don’t think this realistically can be done in this time frame, they need to speak now,” he challenged. Our goal is to stabilize population centers and then transition to Afghan forces. “It’s not perfection. If you don’t think we can do this, you need to speak up now. This is not going to be the five-year time frame that had originally come in.” You have to understand if this time frame is not realistic, one will be imposed on us, so we need to have a realistic time frame. We need to understand with precision what we’re trying to do. “If this two-year time frame for accomplishing these goals is not possible, I want to hear it now.”

Obama wasn’t expecting a model outcome in Afghanistan, though he was demanding precision from his advisers and military leaders. There would be no extended surge that lasted long enough for the Afghan National Security Forces to reach 400,000 and fulfill the counterinsurgency ratios suggested by the Pentagon.

“We do not need perfection,” Obama said. “Four hundred thousand is not going to be the number we were going to be at before we started thinning out.”

Clinton seemed to be almost jumping in her seat, showing every sign she wanted to be called on. But Jones had determined the speaking order and the secretary would have to sit through Biden’s comments. Her desire to speak and disappointment at having to wait was noticeable to several on the back bench.

Biden had issued a response memorandum that took the president up on his offer to question the strategy’s time frame and objectives.

As he began, Petraeus felt the air go out of the room.

First, Biden said once again, he wasn’t sure if the 40,000 was politically sustainable. I still have serious questions about the viability of the elements of a counterinsurgency strategy. Eikenberry’s cable raises questions. We should prove the concept before we go any further. What about competing needs for State Department personnel elsewhere? What about doing more for Pakistan? He said he thought the Pentagon’s plan was putting the counterinsurgency cart before the troop horse. Is the civilian surge going to be adequate? How much will it cost? This will limit flexibility in foreign and domestic policy, he said.

Clinton then got her chance. “I wholeheartedly endorse the approach,” she said, “and think it can make a difference. We spent a year waiting for an election and new government. The international community and Karzai all know what the outcome will be if we don’t increase the commitment.”

The status quo was totally unacceptable, she said. “What we’re doing now will not work.” The plan was not everything we all might have wanted. “But we won’t know if we don’t commit to it. The six operational objectives are good and linked.

“I endorse this effort,” she said. “It comes with enormous cost, but if we go halfhearted we’ll achieve nothing. We must act like we’re going to win.”

It was a version of one of her sayings from when she had been first lady in the White House that she still used regularly—“Fake it until you make it.”

She continued, “If we don’t come with an approach close to this, we shouldn’t even try, because we’ll just be wasting time, lives and money.” The plan—Gates’s six objectives and McChrystal’s request for 40,000—meant they would “have a fighting chance to be successful.” She rapped her fist on the table.

Petraeus was blown away. What a persuasive, powerful and magnificent performance, he thought.

“This outcome really matters,” Gates said next. “We’re not winning. I endorse this.” But doing a full assessment in six months, in July 2010, was too early. “Our forces will just be taking hold; international forces arriving; civilian surge is taking hold; Karzai’s appointments and recruiting of ANSF still taking hold. We should wait until December 2010” for the full assessment.

That was an appealing date on the political calendar—one month after the November midterm elections. Postponing a formal assessment until then might keep Afghanistan out of the election debate. It was like throwing Emanuel, Axelrod, the political team and the president a bouquet of flowers.

On the question of the third brigade, Gates said, “I believe we should approve it up front. It doesn’t give big leverage anyway. Holding it in abeyance will complicate Stan’s campaign planning. We’ll do everything we can to meet the timelines, getting the third brigade on the ground ASAP. That’s what’ll help get conditions for success. So, formal report in July 2010 on progress, major reassessment in December 2010. Approve three brigades.” He said he agreed with Clinton that July 2011 is when they could begin to make transitions and thin forces. Their tag team approach was evident and formidable to many in the room.

Mullen, calling in from Geneva, Switzerland, by videoconference, strongly endorsed the plan, saying they needed the forces as rapidly as possible. He said he believed that counterinsurgency would work and agreed on the timelines presented by Gates. Mullen acknowledged that developing the Afghan security forces did have risk, but they had to get the trainers on the ground and do everything possible to get on with it. “I’ll know whether the strategy is working in July 2011,” if we’ll be winning or losing.

At one point, facing the bloc lining up for the 40,000, the president interjected, “I don’t want to be in a situation here where we’re back here in six months talking about another 40,000.”

“We won’t come back and ask for more troops again,” Mullen said, repeating his pledge from the October 30 meeting with the chiefs and making an important concession.

“Mr. President,” Petraeus began, “we will support your decision.” The military was not self-employed, Petraeus noted, but was trained to take orders. Everyone in the military swore an oath to “obey the orders of the president of the United States.” It was an oath he knew by heart and repeated several times a week at soldiers’ reenlistment and promotion ceremonies.

“We will support you at the end of the day,” Petraeus said. “We will also provide our best professional military judgment right up until the point that you make a final decision.”

After declaring his unconditional loyalty, he said his military advice was that they couldn’t do it with less than 40,000.

“You’ve got one bite at this apple,” Petraeus continued. “It ought to be a decisive one. I agree with the secretary and chairman that a two-part decision on the third brigade is unwise. Not sure what’s achieved by withholding the third brigade, but it does create issues for our military campaign plan.” July 2010 is probably too soon to conduct another review, he said. “Best course of action is a single-deployment decision with possible off-ramps rather than on-ramps.” In military terminology, this meant the president could decide later not to deploy some of the forces.

Petraeus said he strongly supported an energetic effort to get more from NATO, but he said that 10,000 troops from the allies would not be as useful as 10,000 American troops.

“Be careful how you characterize our NATO allies,” Obama said sharply. “We need them. They will be useful in this coalition.”

“The objectives are good, as defined,” Petraeus said. The July 2011 goal is fine on the thinning of our forces, but the military advice, he said, would be for conditions-based transitions because that gives the president more flexibility.

“Just as a point,” he added, “Pakistan is achieving progress. It is tough, but we need to keep pushing to support them.” Petraeus repeated for emphasis, “I will support your decision, be part of the unified effort.”

Turning to the Afghan security forces development, he agreed with McChrystal that it would take time—“2013 at the earliest and it is high-risk, but we need the additional U.S. and ISAF forces to create space and time for ANSF development. It can be done with the right number of forces and resources. Have to convince the ANSF and people that it can be done, and to convince the Taliban they’ll lose.”

Because Mullen was out of the country, General Cartwright was the acting chairman of the Joint Chiefs and was relaying the opinion of the service chiefs. He got to the crux of things by addressing an issue that had yet to be discussed at the meeting.

“We have to be flexible,” Cartwright said. “We’ve got to be prepared to listen to the commander on the ground.”

In response to the president’s request for a speedier troop deployment, the Pentagon had sent SECRET backup documents to the White House and the principals that front-loaded the deployment schedule. The first round would be 18,000 troops, instead of the 10,000 in the original McChrystal plan.

Cartwright said the last deployment was so small that it provided no additional leverage over Karzai, even though the four blocks of granite had essentially said that the troop number was a way for Obama to show resolve and influence the Afghan government.

“It’s not the number of troops,” he said. “It is how quickly we can get our troops in.” The idea was to create a shock with so much force. “Getting troops in quickly and the 18-to-24-month time frame is leverage.” The length of the surge was what mattered in changing Karzai’s behavior.

This was a sharp contradiction of what the president had heard so far and he seemed to agree with it.

“Mr. President, I shared the option with the chiefs before I came over,” Cartwright said. “And the chiefs said to me that there’s leverage in your plan at the front and at the back. The fact that you get more in sooner and you’ve made clear that they’re coming out at the end increases your leverage on the Afghans.” It would send the message “I’m not an occupier—that there is a date certain that I’m going to start to change the character of my relationship here.” The message was that Afghans would have to assume more responsibilities.

Cartwright realized that by disagreeing with the chairman and then invoking the rest of the JCS he was really sticking it to Admiral Mullen.

Instantly, McDonough realized that this was the option that the president had been looking for. It was all about “leverage” on the Afghans, their leader, Karzai, and others. McDonough was struck that Cartwright was representing the consensus of the chiefs, and they clearly saw the heart of the matter—time frame not number of troops. In contrast, all Mullen did was channel the views of McChrystal.

Axelrod and McDonough were convinced that this was a decisive moment in the debate, and they admired the way Cartwright seemed to blast through the smoke.

“We should announce a total number of troops and not detail the force mix,” Cartwright continued. Instead of talking about brigades, the president should set a total number of troops and let McChrystal decide the makeup of the forces, he said.

Budget director Peter Orszag, who had been invited to the meeting, said there was a significant chance of having to submit a supplemental funding request to Congress.

Holbrooke said he supported Clinton’s view and agreed strongly that since July 2010 was only seven, eight months away, it was too soon for a big evaluation. He said they should be careful on topics like “eliminating” corruption because that was not possible. He said he didn’t think they had enough leverage over Karzai. They must maintain the focus on Pakistan, he said.

Speaking from Pakistan, Ambassador Anne Patterson said the most important element was to show resolve and assure Pakistan that the U.S. would not leave a mess on its doorstep. They had to remove uncertainty about American intentions in order to deal with the negative press within Pakistan. “They’re making progress against the internal extremists, and we’re making progress against al Qaeda, but it will be frustrating. The sooner we get going, the better.”

Eikenberry, by video from Kabul, said they needed to remember that the Taliban was going to continue to be a part of the political fabric. Second, he said it was a fact that “a lot of our risk comes from the governance side, not the security side.” And the governance issues needed to be dealt with no matter what was decided regarding troop numbers. While they did require more forces to build the ANSF, what was needed was a settlement within the Pashtun community. He pointed out that Karzai didn’t feel he was necessarily fighting a war against the Taliban.

Brennan said, “The counterterrorist program will continue regardless of the decision on any of these military options.” Adding troops would be basically irrelevant. He was very skeptical of making a five-year investment in counterinsurgency, indicating he doubted it was worth the blood and treasure with respect to the goals. In his view, the focus should be on training the national army and police in order to turn the war over to the Afghans. They had the plans and platforms in place to carry out the counterterrorism mission. “It will take a generation to develop an Afghanistan that can achieve modest governmental goals and consolidate these gains.” He underscored the importance of the operations in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.

As Petraeus heard Brennan’s argument that the focus should be on training the Afghan army and police, his thoughts went straight to what had happened in Iraq. There had to be a level of security and safety first—something provided by having more boots on the ground—before local security forces could take over.

Donilon tried to summarize. “We are not accepting the argument in this discussion that to defeat al Qaeda means we would have to do a long-term counterinsurgency strategy to defeat the Taliban,” he said. “To do a counterinsurgency strategy to defeat the Taliban would take a trillion dollars and six to eight years.” The deputy national security adviser felt that Petraeus and his “ilk” had repeatedly argued for counterinsurgency during the past three months. But Donilon wanted to reiterate that the cost of this approach was not in the national interest. A nationwide counterinsurgency was a seam in the proposed strategy, a crack in the strategy that Donilon felt had to be continually addressed. The key difference between what had been proposed and what the strategy would ultimately be, Donilon believed, was that it would not be a full-scale counterinsurgency.

“People have to be comfortable with the decision that in 18 to 24 months we would begin the downward slope so at the end of 2012 we would be at pre-surge levels,” he said. He did not mention it, but the deadline, 2012, was the year Obama would almost surely seek reelection.

Donilon pointed out that everyone also needed to be comfortable with having fewer than 400,000 combined Afghan army and police. Moving up the deployment of a NATO brigade combat team by a year to August 2010 would provide more force than McChrystal had requested in his original request.

There were hard choices with the Pakistani safe haven issue that had yet to be fully addressed, Donilon said. And within the next six months, they had to have a clear path toward dealing with that particular problem.

Rahm Emanuel talked about the difficulty of passing supplemental funding through Congress. “We would need the support of the American people to undertake this project,” he said. With the options favored by the military, Emanuel explained that the U.S. commitment would effectively triple in one year.

This got the president’s attention. “I’ve been very careful to not interject domestic politics into this discussion to date,” Obama said. “Rahm, as a good chief of staff, has just raised this question. It behooves us to ask it. I’m not being flip, but what would happen, what would you do if Congress refused to fund the 40,000 troops?” That scenario was highly unlikely. If a Democratic president wanted to send 40,000, the Democratic Congress would no doubt go along. If it didn’t, the Republicans would certainly provide the votes. But it was a way of asking what they would do if the president did not approve 40,000.

Obama seemed to turn to Petraeus, but the general didn’t answer.

He’s punting! McDonough and Rhodes concluded. Petraeus was passing the question to McChrystal, they thought. Donilon figured that Petraeus wouldn’t want this option considered.

“I’m committed regardless,” McChrystal said. “I haven’t developed this in detail, but what I would do is go to Plan B. It would be to pull back to key population centers, to train the Afghan security forces, and to continue to target key sanctuaries, including trying to remove sanctuaries in Pakistan.”

Cartwright said that would be the Plan B, which was essentially the hybrid option of 20,000 additional troops, including trainers and counterterrorism assets, that he had developed for Biden.

“Just real quick,” Eikenberry said. “That’s right. You focus on the Afghan National Security Force development as your ticket out, and speed up reintegration.”

Donilon, McDonough and Rhodes thought Plan B didn’t sound half bad. It was pretty good, plausible. Here again was an option the military had never offered, another viable alternative that the president had been waiting to receive from the Pentagon.

Petraeus now had an answer to the question about what would happen if the 40,000 were not funded or somehow they did not get them.

“You would see the spots on the map that we control—and that the Afghan government controls—slowly recede,” he said. “What you would have is a recipe for a slow loss.” Without a secure country, it would become more difficult and more important to improve the ANSF. “But you’ve got to recognize the enormous risk and how difficult it is to develop ANSF if the security situation’s deteriorating.”

The president attempted to sum things up. “At the end of two years,” he said, “the situation may still have ambiguous elements. We’ll have cleared and held areas, security will be improved, there will be more ANSF. It won’t be fully there yet. Taliban momentum will be broken. Political environment will be complex. Some progress there in the economy, but not as much as we’d like. And basically, we’ll have to ask, is this good enough?

“If anybody has additional comments,” he said, “they should get them to me.” Obama added, “I’m inclined to agree with the notion that we announce the third brigade. I’m more inclined to off-ramp rather than on-ramp. But if we are not seeing progress, we could off-ramp.

“Okay, thanks everyone. We need to get a decision. I’ll be working through the weekend on this and I’d like to be able to have a decision early next week.”

On Tuesday, November 24, Biden called Petraeus, who was on a plane heading to the USS Nimitz, the aircraft carrier that was in the theater supporting the war. Petraeus was going to spend Thanksgiving on the ship.

Just want to confirm that you are okay with the 18-to-24-month timeline, Biden said. Obama was likely to set a specific date—July 2011—to begin the drawdown. Biden wanted to make sure the most visible general would not balk.

Roger, Petraeus said. He concluded that the president and vice president were wondering if the military would support the decision.

•   •   •

When Petraeus passed through Washington during the next week or so, Cartwright tried to review the hybrid option with him.

“Let’s talk about this,” he said. “What’s the problem?”

Petraeus said he did not want to discuss the matter.

“I’m taking your lessons here,” Cartwright said, noting that it was straight out of Petraeus’s Iraq playbook to get the surge of troops in fast and also expand counterterrorist operations. “What’s wrong with this plan?”

“You don’t understand,” Petraeus responded, shutting the door on further discussion.

Cartwright had thought for a long time that he was a lone military voice howling into a strong wind, but he was surprised that Petraeus was unwilling to have a frank conversation.

Gates spoke with Cartwright at this point. He wanted to figure out how to have a recommendation that did “not break the internal coalition” among the uniformed military. Cartwright thought of their discussion as a negotiation, but it almost approached an argument.

The secretary of defense said he wanted 35,000 troops, the high end of his Option 2A.

The vice chairman said he was in the 25,000 area, up 5,000 from the hybrid option.

* 1. Reversing Taliban momentum.

2. Denying the Taliban access to and control of key population and production centers and lines of communication.

3. Disrupting the Taliban outside secured areas and preventing al Qaeda from regaining sanctuary in Afghanistan.

4. Degrading the Taliban to levels manageable by the Afghans.

5. Increasing the size and capacity of the Afghan security forces.

6. Building the Afghan government, especially in key ministries.