My Share of the Task (62 page)

On the screen above the elliptical, the camera periodically panned to the faces of the cadets. The youngest would have been ten years old when September 11 struck. Now, as the president spoke, the decision he outlined would likely send some of them to a war that had until then been far away. For those of us already close to it, his speech was an important development for ISAF and a milestone for our long war in Afghanistan.

“We will pursue the following objectives within Afghanistan. We must deny Al Qaeda a safe haven,” he said. “We must reverse the Taliban's momentum and deny it the ability to overthrow the government. And we must strengthen the capacity of Afghanistan's security forces and government so that they can take lead responsibility for Afghanistan's future.”

To provide the means to accomplish this, Obama announced he would send thirty thousand additional U.S. forces and said he expected our Coalition partners to provide their proportion as well. As a means of demonstrating limits to the mission, he also announced that the increase in forces was for the next eighteen months only and stated his intention to begin withdrawing U.S. forces in July 2011. The surge forces would be one part of a three-part strategy that included a surge in U.S. civilian personnel to help with governance, development, and other efforts, and the pursuit of a new, more effective partnership with Pakistan.

As with most presidential decisions in wartime, there was something for everyone to like and something for everyone to hate. Those who opposed the war decried the escalation, while those who supported it found the stated plan to withdraw counterproductive.

Because I had been through the gestation of his decision, its public birth was anticlimactic. For me, and the command I led, it was simply guidance to execute.

*   *   *

L
ater that morning, I drove out the small ISAF gate that had been the site of the lethal car bomb attack in August, and down familiar Bibi Marhru Road to the palace to meet with President Karzai. I went to brief him, as well as ministers Wardak and Atmar, and others from his national security team on the implications of his American counterpart's speech. I'd briefed Karzai earlier in the fall on what I had recommended to President Obama and he offered his concurrence. But, as always, I sensed ambivalence toward any actions that he feared were likely to increase the violence.

I then began a journey to disseminate President Obama's intent across my command. We drove from the palace to a helipad at the Ministry of Defense and flew by UH-60 helicopter to Bagram Airfield to meet with Lieutenant General Mike Scaparrotti and the other leadership of RC-East. We spent the remainder of a long day flying first to RC-North in Mazar-e-Sharif, then to RC-West in Herat, and finally to Kandahar to meet with RC-South. In each location I met face-to-face with ISAF leaders to talk to them about President Obama's decision and what it meant. Earlier in my career, I'd found that reaching or making a decision was sometimes less critical than communicating it effectively.

On Thursday, December 3, we continued. After briefing a meeting of Afghan ministers at ISAF headquarters, I went to the parliament to meet with selected representatives of the people. I explained our strategy and how the additional forces would be employed. I sensed general support. Not surprisingly, despite the exigencies of the situation in their country, some were more concerned with political maneuvering than with addressing the looming issues that threatened the survival of their government.

After parliment, we went to the airport and Brussels for a NATO foreign-ministerial conference scheduled for the following day. That venue provided an opportunity to explain the U.S. decision, and included a strong endorsement of the course of action by Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen. At the conclusion, we reboarded the aircraft and continued on to D.C., where Karl Eikenberry and I would testify before Congress on December 8 and 10.

That next week was a whirlwind. Saturday and Sunday were spent intensively preparing for our upcoming congressional testimony and included two full dress-rehearsal “murder boards,” exquisitely humbling experiences where several old “Washington hands” grilled Karl and me with seemingly sadistic pleasure. But as always, the preparation paid off and our testimony went smoothly.

There was time to visit the wounded at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, which was, as always, a difficult but uplifting experience. We gave a series of media interviews, attended a meeting of Army four-star generals, and took a couple of days off before redeploying.

As we often did, Annie and I drove to Gettysburg for the night. En route, we stopped at a used bookstore. Old books, carefully selected and inscribed to people I worked with, were my favorite gift to give. We arrived in town in the late afternoon and Shawn Lowery and I ran the battlefield to clear our heads after the week's work. First making our way south from town into the heart of the battlefield, we turned north near Pennsylvania's monument on Cemetery Ridge and ran the line where federal forces who had been rushed to the frontmost line had stood firm on the critical third day.

It was cold and the day was nearly done. After months of politics, the diplomacy of coalition warfare, and the scrutiny of the media, seeing the stone markers and the cannons in the frigid, fading light brought things into focus. The president's decision was no longer a policy issue for pundit analysis. It was an order sending more Americans to war.

I wasn't tortured by doubts that the president's decision to deploy additional troops was the wrong one. Although our path to that point could be endlessly debated, by December 2009 reversing the rapid deterioration of Afghanistan demanded decisive action. The thirty thousand Americans soon to deploy were the first step of that reversal. The president's speech did not signal success in Afghanistan, nor was it even a promise that we were on a road to it. It simply gave us the tools. It gave us an opportunity. I strongly believed we could succeed, and committed myself completely. As I ran that evening alongside the grass of the battlefield, gray and dry in the wintry early evening, I knew that despite all I'd done, all I'd learned, and all of myself that I was prepared to devote, in war, nothing was certain.

More important, I knew that regardless of victory or defeat, the costs would rise. Soldiers just then being alerted for deployment would die or be grievously wounded. Even in the best of outcomes, fighting would keep our field hospitals busy. Afghan families, long tossed about by the war, would suffer, as would families far away who would never see the country where their loved one died. On most evenings ahead, I would sit quietly at my place in our operations center and write letters to the next of kin. These were sincere but pitifully inadequate efforts to ease their devastating pain. We would use our forces judiciously, but they would go in harm's way. And I was responsible.

| CHAPTER 20 |

Execute

January–June 2010

O
n the evening of Sunday, February 12, 2010, we gathered in the living room of Palace Number 2. The loftily named but modest two-story building lay on Kabul's palace grounds but outside the historic walled-in compound where the kings and other rulers of Afghanistan had traditionally lived. It was now President Karzai's residence, where he, his physician wife, and their young son, Mirwais, lived. The house was comfortable though hardly palatial. The living room where we waited for President Karzai had the feel of a prosperous but not wealthy American home, circa 1964.

Gathered with me were Afghanistan's security-sector leadership, including Minister of Defense Rahim Wardak; Minister of the Interior Hanif Atmar; Director Amrullah Saleh of the NDS, Afghanistan's intelligence service; and General Bismullah Mohammedi, or “BK,” as he was known, Afghanistan's army chief. I found it a comfortable group. In the seven months since I'd arrived, military operations, the elections, and efforts to grow Afghanistan's security forces had brought us into almost daily interaction.

The president was expected down shortly, and we chatted in subdued voices. We'd never met in the president's home before, and I felt slightly guilty having first requested, and then demanded, the evening meeting. The president kept his family life private, and I knew that invading his home that night was an imposition. I also knew he was sick in bed with a cold, but I felt my purpose was important enough to warrant it.

Earlier in the day I had pushed this meeting to secure his final approval for the launch of Operation Moshtarak, the next major step in the campaign we'd begun in June 2009 to reassert Afghan government control over the Helmand River valley. Operation Moshtarak (Dari for “together”) was also an advancement in the integration of ISAF and Afghan forces in operations. As we waited, talking through details of the operation, Coalition and Afghan forces were marshaled with vehicles and helicopters some 360 miles southwest, in Helmand. They were poised to begin with a dramatic encircling maneuver.

The operation that awaited them was to be a complex and tedious counterinsurgency. It required they seal off, then clear Marjah, a locale about the size of Washington, D.C., that included gridded urban areas, interlinked bazaars, and agricultural fields, all crisscrossed by a series of irrigation canals designed by American engineers in the 1950s and 1960s. Then the difficult work of local governance and development programs had to begin. The population had to see the benefit of supporting the Taliban's expulsion.

The campaign in Helmand had really begun with the British assault on Babaji the previous June. But the added attention Afghanistan had received from Washington and Europe since then had increased anew with President Obama's December 1 announcement of additional forces. The leadership in Coalition capitals expected these forces be quickly employed, and there was an appetite for an operation with rapid, observable impact.

Before I had arrived at the palace, I'd spoken with General Rod. If we didn't relay a go to the field commanders by 9
P.M
., we couldn't start the operation that night. And the weather the next day, he'd said, was not good. We'd have to delay twenty-four hours. We'd lose tactical surprise and Taliban defensive preparations would continue. More IEDs would be buried. The soldiers and Marines who were gathering then in the dark, double-checking equipment, steeling themselves, would be told to marinate another day.

It was now after 7
P.M.

*   *   *

A
few days earlier, I'd traveled to the city of Lashkar Gah, Helmand's provincial capital, and met with elders from Marjah who had come from their district to discuss the impending operation with us.

“We support the operation to liberate our district, but only if it can be done following three important conditions,” a bearded elder in a turban said in a clearly rehearsed statement.

“First, the operation must be conducted in a manner that avoids killing civilians or destroying our homes.

“Second,” he continued, “when it is completed, the corrupt police that have preyed upon us cannot be allowed to return.

“Finally, if you come, you must stay. If you don't, the Taliban will return and we,” he said, gesturing to his colleagues in the room, “will all be killed.”

This was classic counterinsurgency. From frightened, vulnerable strangers, I was asking for a leap of faith.

“I understand,” I said, turning my head slowly to make eye contact with each of the men. “Your conditions represent our intentions for this operation.” And they did. We had crafted Moshtarak to drive out the enemy and simultaneously reassure Afghans across the country that we intended to focus on their protection.

As we met, I was judging the elders' sincerity and legitimacy in representing the desires their district's people. As the international community had learned through painful missteps over the previous eight years, it could be difficult to identify real leaders in war-jumbled Afghanistan. Wealth, clothing, or fluency in English were false indicators. And dealing with men mistrusted or hated by the population was not only ineffective; it made us appear either complicit or clueless.

The elders were conducting their own assessment—whether this time would be different. Whether for the first time since the high expectations of 2001 our efforts would both succeed and provide permanent change. They recognized our power and probably our sincerity. But they also knew that for us and the nations we represented, our time in Afghanistan was finite. I suspected they harbored doubts.

With my statement, the meeting ended with head nods, two-handed handshakes, and right hands touching hearts. We were ready to go.

*   *   *

A
t Palace Number 2, a few minutes after we were all present, President Karzai appeared. He was friendly and gracious as usual, but fatigue and the effects of his cold streaked his face. He asked how I was, thanked me for coming, and then asked me directly the purpose and importance of the meeting I'd requested.

I reminded him about the January 21 briefing Major General Nick Carter, the British RC-South commander, and his Afghan counterpart, Brigadier General Sher Mohammad Zazai, had given him in the National Security Conference Room in the palace. At that time, with all Karzai's ministers, Rod, Mark Sedwill, and me in attendance, Nick and Zazai had explained Moshtarak in detail. Mark Sedwill has recently moved from being Great Britain's capable ambassador to Afghanistan to be my civilian counterpart as NATO's senior civilian representative in Kabul. After the brief, President Karzai had asked some pertinent questions and issued appropriate guidance. My objective had been to bring him increasingly into an active role as commander-in-chief, and immersing him in the tactical plan felt like a good step forward.

Now, three weeks later, I looked at him directly. “Mr. President, the forces are in position and ready to launch the operation tonight, but I won't do so without your approval.”

It was a critical moment. President Karzai glanced briefly at his key leaders and then turned back to me.

“General McChrystal, you'll have to forgive me. I've never been asked to approve this kind of operation before.”

His statement spoke volumes. On one level, I think he questioned the genuineness of my request, fearing it was a charade to put a fig leaf, or “Afghan face,” on what was still an entirely Coalition-controlled operation. That would push him yet further into the puppet-ruler role he feared for himself and for his nation.

But on another level, I think President Karzai knew me well enough by that evening to decide I was sincere. And if so, this operation and his decision represented a paradigm shift, or at least the start of one. He'd never been allowed or encouraged to assume this role, and we'd have to be patient while he and his team grew into it. The decision would affect some one hundred thousand Afghans who made their home in and around Marjah.

Since he'd assumed the presidency in the fall of 2001, Coalition forces had rarely invited any substantive planning or execution by Afghan forces when conducting military operations in Afghanistan. While never asked to be a real commander-in-chief, Karzai, brought his own hesitations, as well. He had an
instinctive aversion to violence—not squeamishness, but something he came to intellectually. Even during the heady days of October 2001, when he crossed into Afghanistan on a motorbike to raise an anti-Taliban tribal rebellion, he had delegated military matters to his compatriot Jan Mohammad Khan, and instead concentrated on inspiring political and tribal support. Over the past eight years Karzai had come to view it as the Coalition's war against foreign terrorists, which we fought on his land, among his people. As leader of the country, he was reluctant to classify the Taliban as a largely Afghan insurgency against his government. This was an attitude that needed to change. We both knew that approving Moshtarak, an operation in which Coalition forces were still the strongest component, was not going to transform his role and attitude about the war overnight. But it was an important start.

The moment carried implications for the conduct of the war beyond the operation set to begin that night. Asking President Karzai to assume a genuine role as commander-in-chief meant that we would necessarily surrender some of the independence ISAF had enjoyed—at the cost of developing a capable Afghan partner. We couldn't ask Karzai to assume responsibility and then constrain his authority. And he clearly held different views from ours on many aspects of how the war should be fought. But I knew that ISAF could never win the war; the Afghans must do that. And they couldn't win it until they owned it. That ownership started at the top.

As the launch deadline grew nearer, President Karzai asked his ministers some pointed questions, then gave his approval. Whatever doubts he had weren't obvious in the firm tone in which he directed Moshtarak to begin. The president never asked me if I would have gone forward with the operation if he had not sanctioned it. I would not have done so.

*   *   *

T
he operation President Karzai set in motion had been eight months in the works. The previous summer, Dutch Major General Mart de Kruif, then the RC-South commander, first discussed with me the concept of retaking Marjah as an essential step in expanding our initial security zones in Helmand. Securing Marjah, we all recognized, would require a special effort because of the stronghold the Taliban and drug traffickers had maintained since it fell in September 2008. Doing so, however, would consolidate hard-won improvements in the rest of the province, and remove a staging perch from which the Taliban could dispatch assassins and suicide car bombs into Lashkar Gah, to frighten the population and attrit its political elite and governing class. The operation would also continue to show our desire and ability to reestablish Afghan government sovereignty over the most Taliban-controlled areas.

The effort to retake Marjah may have appeared to begin on that night. In reality it had been ongoing for weeks with a series of “shaping” actions designed to force out, or isolate, the Taliban in the district; refine our intelligence picture; and increase the confidence of the population in their decision to support us.

A key component of our strategy, as it had been in several locations in Afghanistan, was to use our ISAF special operations forces, and also an expanded TF 714 force, in intelligence-driven raids against identified Taliban leadership. From my experience in Iraq, I'd come to believe that for counterinsurgency to work in Afghanistan, an aggressive but carefully orchestrated campaign of precision strike operations was essential to degrading insurgents' strength and undermining their confidence.

Soon after arriving in June 2009, I reviewed the existing TF 714 force structure—distributed in the east and south of Afghanistan—and confirmed we needed more capacity. But because TF 714 assets, particularly helicopters and surveillance aircraft, were limited, increasing capability in Afghanistan was a zero-sum game. Any additional TF 714 forces for Afghanistan would have to come from Iraq.

The issue was made easier that summer in a VTC with Ray Odierno, then commanding in Iraq; Bill McRaven, commander of TF 714; and Dave Petraeus, who commanded CENTCOM, the command in charge of both Iraq and Afghanistan. Dave stated unequivocally that for CENTCOM, Afghanistan had become the main effort. This meant that the campaign enjoyed priority for the distribution of limited resources, including TF 714 forces. Armed with his decision, I requested he quickly shift as much of TF 714's intelligence capacity and as many of its strike teams as possible to Afghanistan.

This was not a move I took lightly. My classmate and friend Ray Odierno was employing Bill McRaven's forces with a deft touch to maintain progress. Removing TF 714's forces would increase his risk. Because I had invested so much of myself in the mission in Iraq, I was loath to endanger the outcome there. But if we were going to turn things around in Afghanistan, we'd need to maintain pressure on the insurgents while we executed the slow process of counterinsurgency.

As it played out, Ray was gracious in losing combat power in a way that I suspect only a seasoned commander and old friend could be. In his position I would have desperately wanted to maintain as many of Bill's specialized forces as possible, but Ray said he knew we needed them more. This from the formidable center of our Naval War College basketball team, who I knew could be hard to move if he wanted to be.

Like Ray, Bill McRaven understood our priorities and began to reposition forces to Afghanistan. Over the next twelve months, beginning that fall, his footprint multiplied, with bases spread over most of Afghanistan. As important, Bill and his primary command team moved to Bagram, just as I had done in reverse five years earlier. TF 714's pace of operations grew proportionally, as did its impact on the enemy.