Chapter 40

President 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.

"Now's not the time and place for you to be advocating the interests of your building," Bush had said. "I told you, I don't want to hear about that."

Satterfield found it offensive, though Rice didn't seem too bothered.

The president had little patience for briefings. "Speed it up. This isn't my first rodeo," he would say often to those presenting. It was difficult to brief him because he would interject his own narrative, questions or off-putting jokes.

Presentations and discussions rarely unfolded in a logical, comprehensive fashion. Satterfield thought this reflected an insecurity in Bush. The president was a bully.

Satterfield kept making regular trips to Iraq to help in the delicate negotiations on the Status of Forces Agreement that would allow U.S. forces to remain. As he dealt with various Iraqi officials, he was faced with the extent to which the United States had created and propped up a kind of puppet government. With 157,000 troops, more than 180,000

contractors and 1,000 State Department officials in Iraq, the United States was the shadow government. He knew of no parallel in history. If the United States withdrew, the whole house of cards would crumble.

By the spring of 2008, Satterfield found Baghdad more secure than on previous visits. The markets were open. Iraqis and U.S. troops walked through the streets without body armor. But areas were closed off and surrounded by barricades. Nothing about Baghdad's state reflected normal city life. He concluded that a precipitous U.S. withdrawal would ignite a new struggle for power, resources and territory, and the beneficiaries would be al Qaeda and Iran.

When Satterfield pondered the future of Iraq, he was stumped. There was such a mix of good and bad news. Which would win out? What would last? What would survive?

"You cannot credibly speak of an end state," he said. "Where's the endgame? What's the endgame?"

* * *

In early March 2008, Esquire magazine published a long article by Thomas P. M. Barnett, a former professor at the Naval War College who had traveled with Admiral Fallon to the Middle East. Headlined "The Man Between War and Peace," the provocative 7,500-word article was mostly laudatory but portrayed Fallon as "brazenly challenging"

Bush and Cheney on Iran policy.

Fallon was in Baghdad on March 11 when the article was made public. He realized instantly the uproar it would cause. Fallon knew he already was on shaky ground. Days earlier, he had warned Gates that the article was coming.

But now he called again.

"I think I need to be gone," Fallon said.

"Okay," Gates said.

The defense secretary could have offered a vote of confidence and backed his commander. If that had happened, Fallon would have stayed. But he had the feeling that Gates wanted him out, and he now had a reason to make it happen.

One of Fallon's aides called Petraeus and said Fallon wanted to meet.

"Okay, I'll come right over."

The aide said it was intensely personal and Fallon wanted to meet in either Petraeus's office or his quarters.

Fallon arrived in Petraeus's quarters just as Gates was appearing live on Fox News.

"I've resigned," Fallon said. He'd held the job only a year.

"You did?" Petraeus said, astonished, as they turned to watch Gates on television.

"I have approved Admiral Fallon's request to retire with reluctance and regret," the defense secretary said. "Admiral Fallon reached this difficult decision entirely on his own. I believe it was the right thing to do even though I do not believe there are, in fact, significant differences between his views and administration policy."

* * *

Keane saw an opening. He sent an e-mail to Chiarelli, Gates's military assistant, at 3:27 P.M. on March 12óthe day he was arriving in Iraq for another visit.

"Subject: Food for Thought

"Pete, a way ahead after Fox Fallon: Announce Petraeus as replacement but do not assign till fall or early winterÖAssign Odierno, who will have had six months back in states, to replace PetraeusÖBelieve this provides the strongest team we have to the key vacancies. For what it's worth. Best, JK."

Chiarelli e-mailed back 20 minutes later.

"Siródo you want me to pass to the SD?" The secretary of defense.

By all means, Keane said.

* * *

During that visit to Iraq, Keane talked to Petraeus about the future. Petraeus's next assignment as NATO commander seemed set.

NATO was important, Keane said, but its time had passed. The international center of gravity had moved to the Middle East. "We're going to be here for 50 years minimum, most of the time hopefully preventing wars, and on occasion having to fight one, dealing with radical Islam, our economic interests in the region and trying to achieve stability." We should be thinking strategically from the military perspective about how to support a national strategy for the region. "Where should we have bases? Where should we have prepositioned equipment? Where should we have forward industrial bases? Because it doesn't make any sense to keep sending that stuff home."

This shift would have huge implications for how the U.S. military would be educated and trained, as well as how the Army would deal with other organizations. "We're going to do it anyway because we don't have a choice," Keane said. "So the issue is: Get over it. Come to grips with it." The Army didn't want that. "It wants to end a war and go home. But that's not going to happen."

Petraeus seemed to agree but waxed nostalgically about NATO.

He had to go to CentCom, Keane said. "Dave, you're the only guy, okay?"

"Wouldn't it be nice to have some time with Holly?"

"Just get the region used to your spouse going to the region with you. Start breaking the paradigm. Come on, we've got a secretary of state that runs all around the region, and she's a woman."

Petraeus shrugged.

"Nobody's going to have the kind of authority and credibility and power and influence that you have," Keane kept pushing. "This is coming to you. It's got to come to you. If people do the analysis, who else should have this job but you?"

The phone rang.

"Hey, Pete," Petraeus said into the phone, "what have you got?" It was Chiarelli.

"Three o'clock, okay, I've got it."

"Secretary of defense wants to talk to me at three o'clock," he told Keane.

"You know what this is, don't you?"

"I suspect I know."

"Hopefully, you'll give him the right answer."

* * *

While in Iraq, Keane also met with Senator McCain, who was making another tour of the country. "No doubt in my mind that Petraeus has to go to CentCom," he said. The stature that Petraeus had achieved in and outside the United States was off the charts, and the country had not had such a general for many years. The region respected power. If Petraeus was made Central Commander, he would have more authority and gravitas than his predecessors. More important, once he took over the command, the U.S. strategy in the Middle East would be locked in, no matter who won the 2008 presidential race.

For Petraeus's replacement, Keane also saw only one choice: Ray Odierno. He was head and shoulders above anyone else. He was tough and knew all the players. Odierno had just come back from Iraq to be nominated as vice chief of staff of the Army, so they would probably have to wait six months or so to give him time at home. But that would be fine.

McCain seemed to agree and said he would call President Bush.

* * *

Not long after Fallon resigned, Admiral Mullen called Petraeus. "I know you're going to Europe," he said, but,

"Would you be willing to do the CentCom job?"

"Let me talk to my wife," Petraeus replied.

He raised the possibility with Holly. She had been looking forward to the NATO assignment. But with what she later called "controlled disappointment," she acquiesced. She knew the unpredictability of Army life and often told friends that she never measured for new curtains until she saw the orders.