Chapter 23

At 5 P.M. on Wednesday, November 15, J. D. Crouch assembled his strategy review team for an introductory, organizational one-hour meeting. The group of about a dozen gathered in Room 208óknown as the Cordell Hull Roomóof the Eisenhower Executive Office Building across from the White House.

Crouch, O'Sullivan and her top Iraq staff represented the NSC. Bill Luti, the senior defense director on the NSC staff who had authored the feasibility study of a surge the previous month, also attended.

For State, Rice had appointed Zelikow and Satterfield. Rumsfeld had designated Steve Cambone, a longtime aide and the current undersecretary for Pentagon intelligence, and Peter Rodman, an assistant secretary of defense. Pace sent two lieutenant generalsóDoug Lute, the head of operations for the Joint Staff, and John Sattler, the Joint Staff's head of plans and policy. David Gordon, vice chairman of the National Intelligence Council, represented the director of national intelligence (DNI).

John Hannah, Cheney's national security adviser, represented the vice president's office. He made it clear that anything he asked, said or wrote would reflect only his personal views and not necessarily those of Cheney, who, as they all knew, offered his views directly to the president.

Crouch handed out binders that included O'Sullivan's long paper on the four constructs, or options: adjust at the margins; target our effort; double down; bet on Maliki. A cover sheet noted that the four were not mutually exclusive. They could mix and match as they saw fit.

The group would get down to business the next day.

* * *

On Thursday, November 16, General Casey gave an update to Rumsfeld by secure video teleconference. He had no role in Crouch's strategy review and had become so out of the loop, it seemed as if he were speaking from another planet. Casey had learned that Rumsfeld was leaving just before Bush announced it the week before. Considering that they shared the same basic view of the war, he was sorry to see the secretary go.

"Bottom line up front," he told Rumsfeld. "We are in a position in the campaign where accelerating and completing the transition of security responsibility to capable Iraqi security forces is both strategically appropriate and feasible.

"Enduring strategic success will be achieved by the Iraqis." His SECRET briefing paper had read, "It will take longer than we want." But Casey edited out the last three words.

"We are two-thirds of the way through a three-step process to bring the Iraqis to the point where they can credibly assume responsibility by the end of 2007 with some lower level of support from us." That was a year away. He listed four possible options: "acceleration of the transition to Iraqi control; reinforcement; status quo"; and the almost forbidden notion of a "fixed withdrawal schedule."

* * *

About this time, General Abizaid passed word to Casey that the White House was thinking about a surge of more U.S. brigades to Iraq. The question immediately arose: What would Casey do with more brigades? Neither he nor Abizaid wanted them, but they agreed that Casey had better ask his subordinates.

Casey and Lieutenant General Pete Chiarelli, the corps commander for all U.S. forces in Iraq, met with the new Baghdad commander, Major General Joseph F. Fil Jr.

"We have to secure Baghdad," Casey said. "We have to do that now. We have to. We've tried twice." He was referring to the two summer operations, Together Forward I and II, which had failed. "It hasn't worked. Third time's got to be the charm, man, or we're in big shit." Casey turned to Fil. "Take a blank sheet of paper. Tell us what the hell we need to do to help you guys secure Baghdad."

Fil, a boyish-looking combat veteran with 30 years in the Army, came back with a request for two more brigadesóabout 7,000 more troops. That way, he said, he could put a battalion of 600 to 1,000 with a larger Iraqi brigade in each of Baghdad's 10 districts. Casey wasn't surprised. Fil was new to his position, and it was natural that he would be inclined to rely on his own forces rather than on the Iraqis. Even though he didn't want to bring one more soldier than necessary into the Baghdad troop sump, Casey decided to go along with Fil and began the formal process of an RFFóRequest for Forces.

* * *

Rice kept in close contact with Zelikow and Satterfield as they worked the White House strategy review. They told her that the "double down" option for more forces seemed to have little backing, except with the NSC staff. "What are more forces going to do?" Rice asked. "Are they just going to get into a civil conflict? Are we going to put our people between Iraqis fighting old problems and then have the Iraqis pull the rug out from under them?"

Zelikow and Satterfield had been working on a memo outlining what they felt was a realistic view. They hoped the White House strategy review would offer a change that would be seen as an outreach to Congress, accommodate the Baker-Hamilton study group and even give Democrats some cover for compromise.

They wanted to get their say in early, so the final version of their 12-page SECRET paper was circulated Friday, November 17. Crouch, O'Sullivan and the others read it with great interest, knowing it would reflect the views of Rice, still probably the person closest to the president.

"The original objectives of America's invasion of Iraq have been substantially accomplished," the memo began. "The key choices about the future of the country must now be made by Iraqis." Zelikow and Satterfield advocated "a more traditional state-to-state relationship" that is "more arm's length." The Green Zone, where U.S. and Iraqi government officials were holed up, has "limited relevance and reach" elsewhere in Iraq.

"Foreign troops are wearing out their welcome," they wrote. "Most Iraqis resent the U.S. presence," which is "rapidly becoming either an irritant or irrelevant."

In boldface, they added, "We may actually recover leverage and achieve greater success by stepping back, picking our spots and being willing to withhold aid."

If the Iraqi leaders continue to support sectarian violence and "organized campaigns of mass killings or mass expulsions, we would announce and execute a withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Iraq, along with our civilian support for the Iraqi government. We believe the credible threat of such an action would be effective." As part of an incentive, they suggested, "The United States would offer to protect Prime Minister Maliki's government against the Baathist coup he fears."

O'Sullivan thought it sounded like a proposal for "a graceful defeat," representing the State Department view that the United States had very little ability to impact the narrative in Iraq, and that the goals had to be much more modest.

After all the treasure committed and lives lost over three and a half years, she argued it was simply unacceptable not to try everything possible to achieve success.

Bill Luti, who had drafted a concept for a surge, was equally appalled by the State paper. It was a recipe for defeat and a dishonorable exit, in his view.

Satterfield disagreed with any suggestion that the State paper was defeatist or timid. He thought the paper offered the clearest outline of realistic options and consequences.

Zelikow's argument was "We actually kind of need to get out of the center of their politics and force them to take the responsibility of having to sort these things out for themselves." Take the Iraqi army, for instance. The United States was essentially running itóhad become the general staff, the logisticians, providers of everything from intelligence to food.

"What are our no-shit, bottom-line objectives and interests in Iraq?" Satterfield asked. He repeated his view that U.S.

national security interests had suffered because of the "myopic focus on Iraq, defining everything that is happening in the world by Iraq." Iraq had become the lens through which they were seeing everything, he said, "and increasingly, the United States is being judged as a success or a failureóstrategically dominant or weakóbecause of Iraq." He said they needed to "draw back the lens" and see the entire world.

During the earlier, less formal review, Meghan O'Sullivan's group had discussed what could be done if the sectarian violence reached genocidal levels, what Rice called "a Srebrenica-style massacre," resembling the wave of ethnic cleansing in the Bosnian city of Srebrenica, which fell to the Serbs in 1995 during the Clinton administration. An estimated 8,000 men and boys were slaughtered, scores of women and girls raped, and tens of thousands forced to flee.

Violence was bad in Iraq, but it did not yet include mass executions by the thousands.

"How do you protect civilian populations against a Srebrenica-style massacre," Crouch asked, "while you're standing back and standing down forces?"

Satterfield thought it was a valid question. They could send stern political messages to the Iraqi leaders or threaten to pull out.

"Guys," Crouch told Zelikow and Satterfield, "your argument really is a weak one here."

The pair mustered every conceivable argument against a surge, or a "double down" option. It simply wouldn't work, they said. America didn't have the resources. "We don't think this is right," Satterfield said.

The Defense Department team and the two generals from the Joint Staff also opposed the surge. "There's got to be a political process here," said General Lute. "And you guys keep saying that the application of forces will create space for political process. Well, I don't see the linkage."

Finally, Hadley showed up. "You have got to give the president the option of a surge in forces," he told the group.

"You present him everything else you're talking about, but I'm telling you, you have got to give him that option of a surge in forces. He will want to see it, and he'll want to know what it means. You all can take your positions for or against or in between, but you have to present him that as an option."

Hadley didn't say that Bush had already decided. But they all knew that when Hadley spoke emphatically, he was a pure transmission belt for Bush's views.

* * *

With Rumsfeld a lame duck and Gates yet to be confirmed as his successor, there was a vacuum at Defense. Hadley rushed to fill it.

He told General Pace that the president wanted a surge option. Pace, ever dutiful, had the Joint Staff conduct an analysis: What was the maximum amount of troops available? The answer came back that the Army could provide five additional brigades temporarily. That was it.

* * *

On November 18, the Defense Department representatives, led by Steve Cambone, presented a six-page SECRET

strategy paper to Crouch's review group. It was material recycled from Rumsfeld, Abizaid and Casey. "Accelerate the transition to self-reliance," the paper said. "Transition security responsibilities to the government of Iraq in 2007." The only new idea was a proposal to triple the number of teams working on the transition.

The others could see the hands of the Defense representatives had been tied by Rumsfeld, even though he was on his way out.

The SECRET paper from the two Joint Staff generals was five pages long and contained some sharp language and pessimism. "If we do not adjust our strategy," they wrote, "the result could be the fragmentation of Iraq, escalating sectarian violence, a strengthening insurgency and a destructive civil war that could spill over into neighboring countries."

In the near term, they listed the standard goals of an Iraq that could maintain order and the rule of law, defend itself and prevent terrorists from establishing safe havens. "In the long term," they wrote, they envisioned an Iraq "that evolves into a free and unified federal republic that is representative of all Iraqi citizens. The U.S. will fail strategically if we fail to fulfill our strategic guarantees for Iraq." The generals felt that by invading Iraq, the United States had both strategic and moral obligations to leave the people of Iraq with a working democracy.

But they adopted a line straight from the Council of Colonels: "We are losing in Iraq because we are not winning."

Satterfield agreed. "There is no tie," he said. "A tie is losing."

The two generals also wrote, "Time is not on our side, because the American public does not see progress. Time is also running out in Iraq." And yet their memo ended with a surprise, a bureaucratic O. Henry short story. Rather than a bold new proposal to turn the tide of the war, the generals focused on the transfer of "responsibility for governance and security to Iraqis." They wrote, "The United States military will shift from a U.S.-led counterinsurgency effort to training and partnering efforts."

It was the Casey strategy: "Leave to win."

The generals were well aware that the administration's actions were limited because public support for the war had plummeted.

O'Sullivan disagreed. She believed that even when the president decided on a new strategy, it didn't have to be the final answer. They would be able to look at the strategy again down the road. In short, they always had more time.

"No," Crouch retorted. "We have a shot in this administrationójust oneóat this now. There will not be another bite at this apple." He said the decision the president was about to make was the strategy that the administration would take into the 2008 presidential elections and through the end of the Bush presidency on January 20, 2009.

Satterfield was with him. "There is no other bite," he said. That is what most troubled him about the idea of a surge.

"You've got to get this right this time. If we blow it, what we will have done is we will have precipitated a political process for the last thing any of us want, which is a precipitous withdrawal. We do not want by our own actions to create a circumstance that we are desperately trying to avoid."

* * *

David Gordon, the representative from the intelligence community, presented a TOP SECRET paper that examined four approaches. "Strengthen National Governance" was the first. Based on the British precedent in Northern Ireland and Malaysia, "more than 500,000 U.S. and Iraqi soldiers would be needed to secure all of Iraq, with 100,000 to 120,000 in Baghdad," his paper said. But that was perhaps too high, he acknowledged, adding that "U.S. stability operations in Mosul and Tall Afar suggest a lower number of U.S. and capable, nonpartisan Iraqi troops, between 207,000 and 263,000, might be enough." That did not include 80,000 to 90,000 support troops, according to the paper. That meant there were 15 U.S. combat brigades currently in Iraq, perhaps some 60,000 troops. It depended on how they determined "capable, nonpartisan Iraqi troops," and no one had a good answer. By any measure, the number fell far short.

Gordon's intelligence paper was not optimistic about the formation of a strong national government, saying that even with reforms such as "robust guarantees of resources sharing" of oil revenue with all sects and regions, "the national government will be fragile."

The second approach was partitioning the country, and the paper said that would probably only make things worse.

A third approach of backing the Shia would likely result in "a large increase in violence," he wrote.

Gordon was the only one to address seriously a withdrawal of U.S. troops, the fourth approach in the paper. "Most analysts judge the immediate results of a rapid U.S. withdrawal would be largely negative: Further escalation of communal civil war, strengthening of al Qaeda in Iraq and terrorists, severe damage to U.S. prestige and destabilization of the region."

In summary, the paper concluded, "No approach stands out as clearly preferable to the others, and all entail significant risks and dangers to the United States."

The others generally found the paper interesting but unhelpful. After the intelligence blunder about weapons of mass destruction in Iraqóthe supposed "slam dunk" caseóthe intelligence agencies had become increasingly cautious and tended to hedge more and more, making their analytic work less and less useful.

At one point during the review, intelligence analysts provided Zelikow with a report about the serious sectarian divides within the Iraqi army. It showed that the Shia dominated to the point that no one could seriously call it a nonsectarian army.

"Let's circulate this to all the other people here in the review," Zelikow said to Crouch.

No, it couldn't be circulated, Crouch replied.

"You're saying I can't give this to Condi?" Zelikow asked. That was too preposterous, so Zelikow appealed to John Negroponte, the director of national intelligence. He ruled that it wasn't finished intelligence, had not been approved by the intelligence community formally, and could not be further circulated.

So Zelikow summarized it in the brief report he wrote for Rice after each strategy review meeting.

The Defense and JCS representatives several times argued that the State Department had to provide more personnel to the Iraq War. Zelikow noted that the State Department was a small operation compared to the Pentagon. He checked and reported back that there were about 6,500 foreign service officers. The American military had more musicians than that.

John Hannah, Cheney's man, wrote a paper that he insisted reflected only his views, which said that the strategy of reconciliation called for a large investment in talking to the Sunni insurgents, and in so doing the United States had paid a big price with the majority Shia, who had become more distrustful. This investment in trying to bring the Sunnis in and cater to them had not really worked. Essentially, Hannah said, let's stop forcing the Sunnis down the Shia's throats. Let's not be so scared of saying the Shia are the majority and that they have won.

Because the Shia and the Kurds made up 80 percent of the population, Hannah's paper was quickly dubbed "The 80

percent solution."

Despite Hannah's disclaimer, Cheney basically agreed with the paper. The Shia were the majority, and they had won the election. Too many people in the Middle East looked down on the Shia, especially the Sunni Saudis. He didn't want it to look as if the United States was in any way undermining the legitimately elected government in Iraq.

* * *

At the end of many intense days, the discussions and papers had yielded no consensus. Crouch, nonetheless, said he was going to put it all together for the briefing Bush wanted after Thanksgiving. He would control the pen, which meant he and Hadley would decide what to report to the president.