The Gamble_ General Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq Part 12

Petraeus offered very little in his opening statement. He began by establis.h.i.+ng his independence. "I wrote this myself and did not clear it with anyone in the Pentagon, the White House or Congress," he said. The military aspects of the surge were going fairly well, he a.s.serted. "The security situation in Iraq is improving, and Iraqi elements are slowly taking on more of the responsibility for protecting their citizens." If both those trends continued, he thought that by mid-2008, he could reduce his combat forces to the pre-surge level. That was it. He made no promises whatsoever-keeping a vow he had made to himself. He and Amba.s.sador Crocker essentially said that they thought it was possible that there might be a light at the end of the tunnel, but they couldn't say how long the tunnel was, or how much time it would take to get through it, or actually where it led us.

"This is a sober a.s.sessment, but it should not be a disheartening one," Crocker said in his own opening statement.

John McCain used his own time to break another set of Democratic arrows. While a strong supporter of the war, he took the lead in criticizing how it had been handled for the first four years. "The American people are saddened, frustrated, and angry over our past failures in Iraq," he said. "I, too, have been made sick at heart by the terrible price we've paid for nearly four years of mismanaged war. Some of us from the beginning have warned against the Rumsfeld strategy of too few troops, insufficient resources, and a plan predicated on hope rather than on the difficult business of stabilization and counterinsurgency." Now, he a.s.serted, we were finally "getting it right, because we finally have in place a strategy that can succeed."

That left Democrats little running room, but Russell Feingold of Wisconsin tried to find an opening. How could Petraeus claim progress when the first six months of 2007 had brought higher numbers of deaths than the first half of the previous year? "So, to suggest that there was some decline in the number in June and July, versus other months, does not address the fact that the number of troops' deaths has greatly increased." What Feingold couldn't know was what troops on the streets of Baghdad had been sensing in various ways in recent months, that there was indeed a major change in the feeling of the place. Between June and December, the number of bomb, rifle, mortar, and grenade attacks in Iraq would decrease by some 60 percent, from an all-time high of 1,600 a week in June to below 600 a week by year's end. Some 44 car bombs were detonated in Baghdad in February, killing 253 and wounding another 654, while there would be only 5 in December, killing 12 and wounding 40.

Well, yeah, Petraeus responded, I was leading a counterattack. "When you go on the offensive, you have tough fighting."

The Democrats were beginning to sense that the sessions were going to have a far different result than they had expected. "General Petraeus, you indicate that hopefully within ten months, we will be able to get our troop levels down to one hundred thirty thousand, which is where we started, which is no troop reduction," said Benjamin Cardin of Maryland. "We're back to where we were before the surge, which doesn't seem to be the goal we set out last January." Petraeus wasn't given time to answer, but there was almost no need. The fact of the matter was dawning on the Democrats-yes, that was indeed all that he was offering. As one officer at Centcom gleefully summarized it, "It was like doing a fifty percent markup, and then offering a half-off sale."

Two exchanges that day lingered in Petraeus's mind. The first came with Senator Obama, who took seven minutes-the entire period allotted him for questions and answers-to cast doubt on the strategy and pose a series of questions. "How do we clean up the mess and make the best out of a situation in where there are no good options, there are bad options and worse options?" he asked. If Petraeus and Crocker had been given time to answer, they likely would have said a polite version of, Well, duh-welcome to our lives. "How long will this take? And at what point do we say enough?" Obama continued. "[Y]ou said . . . the Iraqi people understand that the patience of the American people is not limitless. But that appears to be exactly what you're asking for in this testimony." Obama had put his finger on the Democrats' dilemma. But he didn't appear to have a way out of it. By the time he finis.h.i.+ng posing his questions, time was up, and Petraeus didn't get a chance to respond to any of it. The Illinois Democrat was not at his best that day.

Obama said nothing that day about the scurrilous MoveOn advertis.e.m.e.nt, but his political skills should never be underestimated. Nine months later, as he was preparing to visit Iraq as the Democratic presidential nominee, he would use a speech on patriotism to revisit the issue. "All too often our politics still seems trapped in these old, threadbare arguments," he said, "a fact most evident during our recent debates about the war in Iraq, when those who opposed administration policy were tagged by some as unpatriotic, and a general providing his best counsel on how to move forward in Iraq was accused of betrayal." It was a smart fence-mending move to make before going to visit Petraeus in Baghdad.

The comment that would irk Petraeus most that day came from Hillary Clinton. He was surprised when, late in the proceedings, she came at him swinging. "You have been made the de facto spokesman for what many of us believe to be a failed policy," she chided. "I think the reports that you provide us really require the willing suspension of disbelief."

Those last four words were powerful. As one friend of Petraeus's later commented, "You're either calling him dishonest or stupid."

Gen. Keane felt a personal sense of duplicity. He had encouraged Petraeus to spend hours with her, explaining the war and his approach to it. Now she was attacking him personally, following the MoveOn course. "I knew she would ask tough questions, but"-here he paused-"well, I talked to Dave about it at his house [the next day], and he was disappointed by her comment and in general with the entire hearing. He was emotionally and psychologically wounded. He knew he was sitting in a chair where his predecessors had lost credibility. The fact that he was in uniform and got attacked in terms of his character was something he wasn't prepared for."

Many generals possess a strong sense of honor and a long memory, and Petraeus probably does more than most. He also has the ability to veil his emotions well. He responded in a neutral but essentially unhelpful manner. "As you know, this policy is a national policy that results from policies put forward at one end of Pennsylvania Avenue, with the advice and consent and resources provided at the other," he said, offering the senator, and former first lady and law professor, an introduction to the Const.i.tution. He didn't show it publicly, but he was furious, friends said. Not only did Petraeus feel that his integrity had been questioned, he also felt a sense of betrayal, because he had given Clinton a lot of his time. Also, he respected her intelligence.

There was one other notable exchange that day. John Warner of Virginia asked if Petraeus's campaign in Iraq made Americans any safer.

The murder board hadn't prepped Petraeus for that one. "Sir, I don't know, actually," he said. This was probably as close as he came during the hearings to breaking with the Bush administration. Nothing was said at the time, but seven months later, the president would state in a speech delivered, notably, at the Pentagon that "because we acted, the world is better and the United States of America is safer."

Petraeus also may have gotten out ahead of the administration on the issue of how long American forces might have to fight in Iraq. David Kilcullen, his sometime adviser on counterinsurgency, went over to the White House a few days after the hearings and came away thinking that "there's still a fundamental reluctance to 'fess up to the American people what the costs are, and what the duration is."

Capt. McNally watched it all a little wide eyed. It was the first congressional hearing she had ever attended, and she was surprised to see that the senators-"these are important people"-each had only seven minutes in which to pose their questions. "I'm one of those dorks who enjoys watching C-SPAN. I was thinking, this is democracy at work."

Crocker and Petraeus were less pleased. The general's conclusion was that he had underestimated the depth of anti-war feeling in the United States, which he termed "industrial strength." But he also seemed to understand that he had prevailed.

The amba.s.sador looked back on it as "one of the least pleasant experiences of my professional life"-this from a man who was blown against a wall at the U.S. emba.s.sy in Beirut when it was bombed in April 1983, killing 64 of his friends and colleagues. On September 12, as the two left the public television studio where they had appeared on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Crocker turned to Petraeus and muttered, "I am not doing this again." Crocker turned to Petraeus and muttered, "I am not doing this again."

"HEY, WE WON!"

Petraeus and Odierno had opponents in places besides Iraq and Capitol Hill. Their boss at Central Command, Adm. Fallon, and some others inside the national security establishment, still wanted to see the number of troops in Iraq come down quickly.

To wrap up the impact of the hearings, the president was giving a nationally televised speech on the evening of September 13. Late that day, the White House sent a late draft of the speech to Rapp. Scanning it, he saw immediately that "the mission wording had been changed to what Fallon wanted," Rapp recalled. He was told that the Iraq staffers at the White House had made the change. He showed the draft to Petraeus, who then made a telephone call to get the wording changed back, Rapp recalled. (Petraeus remembers this moment differently, saying the wording change was just the work of White House speechwriters "who weren't sensitive to the balance between security and transition," and that the fix was made by e-mail, not by phone.) That night the president told the nation that the mission in Iraq would change eventually, but not now. "Over time, our troops will s.h.i.+ft from leading operations, to partnering with Iraqi forces, and eventually to overwatching those forces," he said. "As this transition in our mission takes place, our troops will focus on a more limited set of tasks, including counterterrorism operations and training, equipping, and supporting Iraqi forces."

Fallon's influence was waning. A few weeks after the hearings, Adm. Michael Mullen succeeded Gen. Pace as chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Mullen would prove to be a more effective chairman than the Marine general. Perhaps more important for Petraeus, the admiral was a longtime friend of Fallon's, and was able to reduce friction between Petraeus and Fallon. Indeed, word in Iraq was that Defense Secretary Gates had told the new chairman to get Fallon off Petraeus's back. "He has played a calming role," Lt. Col. Miller said appreciatively a few months later.

But Mullen also seemed determined to reduce the traffic between Petraeus and the White House, a pattern that under Pace had effectively cut the chairman of the Joint Chiefs out of the decision loop. The chairman officially is the president's princ.i.p.al adviser on military affairs, but even if he partic.i.p.ated in Petraeus's meetings with the president, he still couldn't know what Keane was quietly cooking up with Cheney's staff. As Bob Woodward first reported, the new chairman told colleagues that he felt Keane, by stepping into policy making, had diminished the office of chairman of the Joint Chiefs. This was an inaccurate a.s.sessment by Mullen, because it was Pace and his predecessor, Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, who had reduced the office and created the vacuum into which Keane had stepped. It also was a politically naive step for the new chairman to take. Keane, a career Army officer, had more credibility on ground warfare than did Mullen, a career Navy officer. More significant, Keane had been encouraged in his role by the White House, even to the point of Cheney's asking Keane to take command in Iraq.

"You really don't want me to help Petraeus?" Keane asked Mullen.

"No," the chairman said, "I don't want to take the chance." Once more, the leaders of the American military establishment had shown a tendency to avoid risks, and to prefer following established ways of doing business rather than take difficult but necessary steps to become more effective. Keane went back to the White House and got the chairman's roadblock removed.

Two Mondays after the hearing, in a video teleconference, President Bush brought up the MoveOn advertis.e.m.e.nt with Petraeus. "On behalf of all Americans, I want to apologize to you for that," Bush said, according to people who were present at the meeting. "No public servant should have to endure that." He also told Petraeus that his performance before Congress had altered the domestic political debate on the war.

Crocker had the same sense that something fundamental had s.h.i.+fted in the politics of the war at home. "We kind of saw the air go out of the whole thing," he said. "I still kind of wonder if maybe it really wasn't so much what we said but simply that we said it. . . . [T]his thing had been hyped as the event of the decade, and then, 'Well they came, they testified, they left, so now what?"

The congressional Democrats were stumped. As Senator Webb later put it, "There are a couple of problems with the Democrats and Iraq. One is that there is a wide divergence of opinion inside the party, and the other is that the Democrats are a very fragile majority, and in fact aren't a majority in the Senate because Lieberman always votes with the Republicans."

That said, something had changed in the way Democrats talked about the war. On September 26, two days after the president's apology to Petraeus, the Democratic presidential candidates debated in Hanover, New Hamps.h.i.+re. None of the top candidates would promise to have the U.S. military out of Iraq by January 2013, more than five years later. "I think it would be irresponsible" to state that, said Senator Obama.

"It is very difficult to know what we're going to be inheriting," added Senator Clinton.

Seeing those comments, Boylan exclaimed to himself, "Hey, we won!" He had been right. The hearings were supposed to have been climactic. They were, but instead of seizing control of policy, the Democrats essentially had yielded. They hadn't quite endorsed Bush's position, but they had conceded much in agreeing to go along with Petraeus's approach. They were resigned.

From Kilcullen's point of view, the September hearings were a kind of a parallel to the battle that didn't happen in Samarra in midsummer. Just as Iraqis had looked at the possibility of a full-blown civil war and turned away, he said, so too the U.S. public had considered a leap into the unknown-and declined to take it. "America," he said, "has taken a deep breath, looked into the abyss of pulling out, and decided, 'Let's not do it yet.'"

AMERICA TUNES OUT THE WAR.

The American public had heard all it needed to hear. The people might not have liked what Petraeus was offering, but it was better than anyone else was proposing. They understood that the United States was stuck in Iraq. But that didn't mean they had to like it. So they would let him continue-but they also would tune it out.

The best evidence for that new hands-off att.i.tude was the sharp decline in news coverage of the war in the weeks and months after the September hearings. In the first half of 2007, the Iraq war was the top running story almost every week on television networks' evening news broadcasts. After the September hearings, its ranking declined rapidly, from taking up 25 percent of coverage at the time of the hearings to just 3 percent in mid-2008. Starting a month after the hearings, the network broadcasts began consistently to devote more time to presidential campaign politics and the state of the economy. The broadcast networks' evening news shows are the most sensitive to demand, because they have only about 22 minutes to use every night, roughly equivalent to the number of words a broad-sheet newspaper typically carries on its front page. In the spring of 2008, networks would begin to cut back on their staffs covering the war. CBS no longer kept a correspondent in Baghdad, and it was widely expected that other organizations would follow suit after the U.S. presidential election later that year.

Meanwhile, newspaper coverage of the war declined by about half between early 2007 and early 2008. "It seems like a bad dream, and the public's not interested in revisiting it unless there is a major development," Hunter George, the executive editor of the Birmingham Birmingham (Ala.) (Ala.) News, News, told the told the American Journalism Review American Journalism Review in early 2008. "If I'm outside the newsroom and Iraq comes up, I hear groans." in early 2008. "If I'm outside the newsroom and Iraq comes up, I hear groans."

A series of anti-war movies bombed, despite having high-power actors and directors: In the Valley of Elah, In the Valley of Elah, directed by Paul Haggis and starring Tommy Lee Jones and Charlize Theron; directed by Paul Haggis and starring Tommy Lee Jones and Charlize Theron; Lions for Lambs, Lions for Lambs, with Robert Redford, Tom Cruise, and Meryl Streep; Brian De Palma's with Robert Redford, Tom Cruise, and Meryl Streep; Brian De Palma's Redacted; Redacted; and and Grace Is Gone, Grace Is Gone, featuring John Cusack. Hollywood wasn't telling moviegoers anything they didn't know already. The best movies to come out of Iraq were doc.u.mentaries, such as featuring John Cusack. Hollywood wasn't telling moviegoers anything they didn't know already. The best movies to come out of Iraq were doc.u.mentaries, such as Baghdad Diary Baghdad Diary and Deborah Scranton's innovative and Deborah Scranton's innovative The War Tapes, The War Tapes, which was filmed by giving video cameras to deploying National Guardsmen. which was filmed by giving video cameras to deploying National Guardsmen.

When the fifth anniversary of the war arrived in March 2008, the anti-war demonstrations were tiny. In Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C., where anti-war marches during the Vietnam era brought out at least 250,000 or more, there appeared fewer than 1,000 souls. In San Francisco, where an estimated 150,000 people had turned out against the war in 2003, just 500 protestors showed up in 2008.

"I think the debate has moved on," Secretary Gates said. He was right. Iraq was just part of the national wallpaper, always kind of there, but not particularly noticed.

Hadi al-Amari, the head of the Badr Corps, the militia of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, the largest s.h.i.+te party, told Gen. Barbero that Petraeus returned to Iraq with much more wasta. wasta. "He went there, he went into the teeth of the opposition, and he came out with his plan intact," the militia commander explained. "He went there, he went into the teeth of the opposition, and he came out with his plan intact," the militia commander explained.

Sadi Othman noticed a similar effect in the rest of the Middle East. "That was huge," Othman he said. "The hearings in the States [changed] the debate on Iraq in the Middle East and around the world."

But it is axiomatic in military affairs that every strength carries its own weakness. Petraeus now "owned" the war-that is, he has made it his. He had implemented the changes he wanted to make, and had some tactical success to show for it. But the surge hadn't led to national political reconciliation. That left Petraeus in the position of just keeping his fingers crossed, hoping against hope for a political breakthrough in Iraq. His predicament left him in the same position as Rodney King, who famously pleaded for an end to the 1992 riots in Los Angeles: "Can we all get along?" The answer from many Iraqi factional leaders was negative.

PART THREE.

WAR WITHOUT END.

THE TWILIGHT ZONE.

(Winter 2007-8)

At the turn of the year, Lt. Freeze, the reconnaissance platoon leader in Diyala who on Independence Day had despaired for Iraq, revised his characterization of the country. The one word to summarize it now, he thought, would be "progress."

That was a distinctly relative term. Baghdad was more secure, but still far from safe. Violence had decreased to the level of 2005, which at the time had seemed nightmarish, but now, coming after the horror of 2006, felt like a welcome relief. Civilian deaths were plummeting. The bloodshed that did occur now seemed to resonate less, especially because there was a new air of desperate improvisation in al Qaeda's attacks. "None of 'em add up to anything particular," Brig. Gen. Anderson, Odierno's chief of staff, said of that winter's car bombings. Baghdad had moved from the seventh circle of h.e.l.l, which Dante reserved for the violent, to the fifth, the destination of those overcome with anger and sullenness, or as the poet put it in Canto VII, "those who swallow mud." It was a notable improvement, and it was in the right direction-but it was still a version of h.e.l.l. Al Qaeda's usual methods of bomb delivery-cars or young men-were deterred by a proliferation of checkpoints, so it began using bicycles, women, and preteen boys to bomb Iraqis. Eventually it would perversely turn to mentally handicapped or disabled girls. In a sign of how much checkpoints run by the turned militias were impeding its operations, al Qaeda fighters also began launching sophisticated ambushes against them, in one instance wearing Iraqi police uniforms so they could get near. U.S. military operations continued, with large offensives in Diyala and Nineveh Provinces, but they had a desultory feeling of mopping up.

Iraq still was far from a functioning state. "We had a much better government in Vietnam than we do in Iraq right now," one colonel warned ominously.

One day I was traveling from Camp Victory, near the airport, to downtown when my driver and I came to a National Police checkpoint manned by perhaps eight men. We, and our bodyguards in a chase car, waited about half an hour, and then were waved through. Fifty yards later we came to an Iraqi army checkpoint, manned by another eight men. The two checkpoints apparently were stationed closely so the police and army could keep an eye on each other. After another half-hour wait, we were through. About 200 yards later, we arrived at a bridge over the Tigris, only to find one side of it closed for repairs, pus.h.i.+ng all the cars to the other side. There, where a police officer really could have helped, there was no one directing traffic, nor were there even lanes demarked for the two opposing directions. The river crossing felt like a civilian demolition derby, with Iraqis driving head on at each other at high speeds, flas.h.i.+ng their lights as warnings to swerve out of the way. That was how Iraq worked in 2007.

"It's ironic that the Iraqis, who we built up into such a threat, now seem so entirely helpless," observed Lt. Col. Miller.

As Iraqi's rainy, surprisingly chilly winter set in, Petraeus was pondering whether the war might change. "It's going to continue to morph," he said. "We think we are going to be quick enough to adjust."

It was a time of a.s.sessment. What had we gained with tactical success? Where has the new strategy taken us? How much further do we need to go? Who are our friends, and who the foes, in reaching our goals? Was the Baghdad government part of the problem or part of the solution? Asking these questions led to reexaminations not only of the strategy but of the major players it was intended to affect: the Iraqi government, the former Sunni insurgents, and the s.h.i.+te militias. The new American strategy also had the unintended side effect of casting a new light on the tens of thousands of mercenaries-also known as "private security contractors"-that the Americans had brought to Iraq.

REVISITING A STRATEGIC a.s.sUMPTION.

"The surge is doing what it was designed to do," President Bush a.s.serted in the spring of 2008. But it hadn't done what he had hoped hoped it would-that is, lead to political reconciliation. As Defense Secretary Gates had phrased it, "The purpose of the surge was to create enough s.p.a.ce that the process of reconciliation could go forward in Iraq." it would-that is, lead to political reconciliation. As Defense Secretary Gates had phrased it, "The purpose of the surge was to create enough s.p.a.ce that the process of reconciliation could go forward in Iraq."

On the ground in Iraq it was clear that anything resembling genuine reconciliation wasn't occurring, and probably wouldn't anytime soon. "We had a faulty logic, February '07, that the surge protects the people, then government will reconcile," Col. Bill Rapp said one day later that year. "We still haven't seen that knitting together at the top."

Col. Mike Bell, Rapp's successor as consigliere to Petraeus, found pretty much the same situation obtained in mid-2008. It took him back to Petraeus's persistent need for more time. "I think what we haven't thought through as a government is how much time you need from improved security to a political change," Bell said.

Despite a reputation for stubbornness, President Bush had become quite flexible as he searched for a way out of the labyrinth of Iraq. In a speech at the National War College he offered a fallback a.s.sumption. Political movement at the local level ultimately would lead to change at the national level, he argued. The goal of this new approach, he said, was "to help Iraqis make progress toward reconciliation," which in turn would lead to freedom, human rights, democracy, and so on.

But here again, there had been little evidence of that happening. As Maj. James Powell, one of Odierno's planners, was preparing to leave Baghdad early in 2008, he said that bottom-up moves "buy us time." But, he added, "As I've heard one Iraqi say, it takes two hands to clap. At some point it has to be met by movement at the top."

Rapp at first was an advocate of the localized alternative. But by the winter of 2007-8, he also had given up on that idea. "In retrospect, it was a dumba.s.s thing to say." There was something happening at the local level, he said, but "it wasn't reconciliation, it was bottom-up accommodation, or calmness. They weren't reconciling with anything."

Some top Iraqi leaders dismissed the entire notion the Americans were peddling. "I don't think there is something called reconciliation," said Barham Salih, the deputy prime minister. "To me, it is a very inaccurate term. This is a struggle about power." Maliki, meanwhile, began to argue almost the opposite, that the necessary reconciliation already had occurred, so there was no need to talk about it anymore.

The lack of political movement raised the unhappy question of just what it was that U.S. forces were fighting for. In the Army's survey of the mental health and morale of soldiers in Iraq, one sergeant commented, "They are at the watering trough but choose not to drink. . . . I don't think we're doing anything at all-they're not changing." It is not too much to say that American troops were dying to give Iraqi politicians the chance to find a way forward-but that it wasn't clear if Iraqi politicians wanted that chance.

So what were the Americans waiting for? "This is the dilemma we're in right now," said a senior U.S. military intelligence officer with long experience in the Middle East. "We've bought some time, but for what? We're still waiting for someone to pull the rabbit out of the hat. But so far there is no indication that anything is going to stave off the breakup of the country. So right now we are in a kind of twilight zone of neither peace nor victory. But I think we are drifting toward a breakup."

To some, that meant it was time to pull the plug. "To date the Iraqi political process has not demonstrated the capacity to deal successfully with any of these issues," said Senator Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat who was growing increasingly influential on defense issues. "And if they're not dealt with, then you've got a failing state that is not helping itself."

But to others, the failure of Iraqi politics raised the question of whether the next step was to revise the American mission-and in some ways return to the grandiose vision that the Bush administration held when it sent American forces into Iraq, that of making it a democratic beacon that would change the politics of the Middle East. "We've built a state, and now we have to build a nation," Col. Allen Batschelet, chief of staff of the 4th Infantry Division, said early in 2008. "At the tactical level, we've been buying time for that to happen."

TIME FOR MALIKI TO GO?.

The impa.s.se led to a new and grimmer understanding of the limitations of the people at the top of the Iraq government. There was a growing feeling that perhaps they just weren't capable of doing what the Americans thought they needed to do. "We thought that once they weren't being shot at, they could start being statesmanlike," Col. Rapp said. "It turns out we have a bunch of guys who survived the Saddam years by being secretive and exclusive, instead of being open and inclusive."

Some of those around Petraeus were coming to see the intransigence of the Maliki government as the key threat in Iraq, rather than terrorists, insurgents, or militias. "I think the reason that we're in the twilight zone is the Maliki government is very dysfunctional, and unwilling to reach out to his enemies," Mansoor said. "He has a conspiratorial mind-set, and is fearful of a coup."

The Americans were especially antagonized by what they saw as Maliki's footdragging on bringing in the former insurgents who had turned onto the Iraqi government payroll. An Army officer in Baghdad reported that after his unit sent in applications for local Sunnis to join the police, they were returned because they had been filled out with a nonprescribed color of ink. "The longer the Iraqi government stalls, . . . the greater the danger that tens of thousands of tough, armed Iraqis will stray," said Wayne White, a retired State Department specialist on the Middle East.

There was an undercurrent of distrust in dealing with Iraqi officials. Top officials not only didn't do the right thing, they didn't seem to want to do it. "The ministers, they don't get it," said Campbell, the a.s.sistant commander of the 1st Cavalry Division. "They don't know what the h.e.l.l is going on on the ground." By contrast, he said, the Sunnis, waiting to be given a place at the table by the Baghdad government, had in his view shown great patience. "You don't want the Sunnis that are working with you to go back to the dark side."

After years of insurgent attacks and criminal kidnappings, anyone in the Iraqi government who was still alive was viewed with some suspicion. Had he cut unsavory deals, or worse, did he have a foot in both camps? One battalion commander in Baghdad, talking about a neighborhood official, called him "a good guy," but then wondered aloud about how he alone on the local political council had survived: "Why is he the original member who wasn't touched?"

Americans worried that the Baghdad government would fritter away the opportunity won for it by their b.l.o.o.d.y counteroffensive of the spring and summer of 2007. "The tipping point that I've been looking for as an intel officer, we are there," said a senior U.S. military intelligence officer. "We are at the critical juncture. The GOI [government of Iraq] and ISF [Iraqi Security Forces] are at the point where they can make or break it." He was especially worried that if the top Iraqi officials didn't make more of an effort to reach out to the Sunnis that the country would slide back into civil war. "If the Sunni insurgents are disenfranchised by the GOI, guess what? It's game on-they're back to attacking again."

Americans quietly debated whether to look for an alternative to Maliki. "As I arrived, Maliki had kind of a questionable future," recalled Col. Bell, who got to Baghdad in February 2008. "It wasn't clear that he had the political support or the personal leaders.h.i.+p to remain there [in office] very long."

Arguing against Maliki was his track record. There were concerns that he might prove to be a leader who needed to have a war, who thrived on its divisiveness and feared peace for two reasons. First, any fair election would diminish his power, because greater Sunni partic.i.p.ation in the vote would cut the s.h.i.+te hold on government. Also, an absence of violence would push to the fore the divisive questions to which he had no answers: How to divide oil revenue among the peoples of Iraq? How to decide the future of the disputed city of Kirkuk, claimed by the Kurds as their capital, but sitting on top of much of Iraq's oil? And who really led Iraq's s.h.i.+tes, still learning how to exercise the power of the majority?

Maliki's advocates responded that it wasn't clear that anyone else could do better. As Kilcullen had observed, we shouldn't blame the Iraqi officer who cuts deals with insurgents to keep his family alive, we should fix a system that can't protect his family and so forces him into such arrangements. Maliki may be in the same position on a national scale. Also, there was fear that pus.h.i.+ng out Maliki could return the country to the situation in early 2006, when it took five months to form a government, during which Baghdad drifted into a munic.i.p.al civil war.

THE SUNNI SIDE OF THE STREET.

Many American officials considered the turning of the Sunni insurgency to be more significant than either the surge or the new tactics a.s.sociated with the surge. But no one knew how long the loyalty of these new allies could be retained, especially if they believed they weren't getting a fair deal from the Baghdad government. In 2008 there were 103,000 of these armed men-a ceiling the Iraqi government had asked the U.S. military to stop at-and there were plans to absorb only 20,000 of them into the police and army. It wasn't clear ultimately what would happen to the rest, especially if the Sunni community continued to feel estranged from the Baghdad government.

But the central government in Baghdad had never warmed to them, seeing them as little more than warlords for hire. "They are like mercenaries," one aide to Maliki told the a.s.sociated Press. "Today they are paid by the Americans. Tomorrow they can be paid by al Qaeda." Other Iraqi officials scorned the groups as "American militias."

The American view was rather different. "Clearly the coalition and the government of Iraq and I think the Iraqi people realize that these are very brave, courageous people that stood up in a time of need of their country," said Brig. Gen. David Perkins.

Maj. Gen. John Kelly, commander of the Marines in western Iraq, reported that more than two-thirds of the Sons of Iraq, most of them turned Sunni insurgents, in his area wanted to join the Iraqi army or police. How would the thousands left hanging react? "Despite the repeated a.s.surances of the Maliki government, there is no evidence to date that the governing coalition has resolved its sectarian concerns" about the groups, "or begun to formulate a comprehensive plan for integration of their members," noted Michael Hanna, an expert on Iraq law and politics.

In the short term, such a reliance on local militias didn't appear to be such a bad bet. But what would happen to them in the long run? As Col. Jon Lehr, commander of one of the surge brigades, prepared to leave Iraq, he explained the role that the Sons of Iraq had played in improving security in Diyala Province, north of Baghdad. "From Baqubah, emanating out from Baqubah, we have conducted a strategy of clear, hold, and tactical build in a series of concentric rings," he said. "And clearing is one thing, but holding the ground is another. And that's where the CLC/Sons of Iraq part of the strategy is very important. You can clear an area, but if you can't hold it, it's all for naught." In other words, Lehr appeared to have succeeded by turning over control of cleared areas to a force that may or may not respond to orders from Baghdad. That raised the question of whether basic problems of security weren't being solved as much as deferred. If so, when push came to shove, there almost certainly would be far less U.S. combat power available to back up Baghdad than was available during the surge of 2007-8.

Likewise, in Tarmiyah, the rough little town where a U.S. outpost had been besieged for four hours in February 2007, the U.S. military finally cut a deal with the local Sunni sheikh and made his son the chief of the local contingent of the Sons of Iraq. But the Americans and the Iraqis seemed to have different notions of the long-term purpose of this force. The father, Sheikh Sa'd Ja.s.sim, had been accused of providing funds for al Qaeda operations in the area, but the U.S. military now chose to interpret that as simply a case of blackmail in which the victim shouldn't be blamed. The son, Sheikh Imad, oversaw a force of 500 armed men, each paid $300 a month. "He does not seem to regard the U.S.-paid Sons of Iraq as a short-term transition, but as a long-term means to protect Sunni areas against s.h.i.+te persecution," reporter Nathan Webster wrote in the blog "The Long War Journal."

U.S. troops tended to praise these local allies, but some were indeed genuine thugs, despite American a.s.surances to the contrary. The British newspaper the Guardian Guardian published a hair-raising profile of Haji Abu Abed, the former insurgent who a few months earlier had arrived at an alliance of convenience with the U.S. military in Baghdad's Amiriyah neighborhood. The Americans dubbed his group "the Baghdad Patriots," but it preferred to be known as "the Amiriyah Knights." The published a hair-raising profile of Haji Abu Abed, the former insurgent who a few months earlier had arrived at an alliance of convenience with the U.S. military in Baghdad's Amiriyah neighborhood. The Americans dubbed his group "the Baghdad Patriots," but it preferred to be known as "the Amiriyah Knights." The Guardian Guardian portrayed him screaming at Iraqi bystanders while waving a pistol and shouting, "Oh people of Iraq, I had come to you with two swords, one is for mercy, which I have left back in the desert, and this one"-the gun-"is the sword of oppression, which I kept in my hand." His men piled into cars and drove around his territory, waving weapons out the windows. On a raid looking for an alleged cache of sniper rifles, he told a boy he would cut off his head "and put it on your chest if you don't tell us where the guns are by tomorrow." He then tried to put his shotgun in the boy's mouth, the newspaper said. portrayed him screaming at Iraqi bystanders while waving a pistol and shouting, "Oh people of Iraq, I had come to you with two swords, one is for mercy, which I have left back in the desert, and this one"-the gun-"is the sword of oppression, which I kept in my hand." His men piled into cars and drove around his territory, waving weapons out the windows. On a raid looking for an alleged cache of sniper rifles, he told a boy he would cut off his head "and put it on your chest if you don't tell us where the guns are by tomorrow." He then tried to put his shotgun in the boy's mouth, the newspaper said.

Nine months later, Abu Abed had fled to Amman, Jordan, after being ousted by a subordinate. His former U.S. military adviser still supported him. "Many times he had the opportunity to do the wrong thing and never did," former Army Capt. Eric Cosper told the Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times. "I have absolute faith in him." "I have absolute faith in him."

Spec. Horton, the Stryker brigade soldier who had qualms about working with former insurgents in Baqubah, later wrote that under American tutelage, "they've grown into a much more organized, lethal force. They use this organization to steal cars and intimidate the local population, or anyone else they accuse of being linked to Al Qaeda. The Gestapo of the 21st century, sanctioned by the United States Army."

Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, commander of the forces just south of Baghdad, said early in 2008 that he understood how tenuous the situation was. "I mean, a good portion of our concerned citizens were probably insurgents yesterday, and they could be insurgents tomorrow, and what we're doing right now is working hard to keep them on the right side of the fence."

The Iraqi government was less interested in that approach, and in the summer of 2008, began to talk about setting a deadline sometime in the winter for the groups to unilaterally disarm-or suffer the consequences.

THE ONCE AND FUTURE SADR.

"There's something going on above us," an Army intelligence officer said one day in 2007. He knew there were some sort of contacts between U.S. officials and representatives of Moqtada al-Sadr, but he didn't know the details.

This was a form of reconciliation by the United States government, which was reaching out to an anti-American leader whose followers had killed American troops in two rounds of fighting in 2004, and who continued to be a threat. U.S. policy toward Sadr resembled that of President Johnson toward FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, of whom he said he would rather have him inside the tent p.i.s.sing out than outside it p.i.s.sing in. "Sadr isn't going to go away," said a senior U.S. military intelligence officer. "So how do you deal with him in a way that facilitates the continued growth of the GoI?"-that is, the government of Iraq.

"We are now meeting with them, for the first time," Odierno said in January 2008. Of Sadr, he said, "He's clearly moving more toward a humanitarian approach, and less of a militia." In public comments, American commanders began to refer to Sadr as "the honorable." Petraeus took it a step further a month later, calling him "al-Sayyid Moqtada al-Sadr," using the honorific for descendants of the prophet Muhammad.

It wasn't clear where the talks were going, especially because the Americans had almost no sense of what was happening in Basra, the largest city in the s.h.i.+te south. One of the few reporters to venture there at this time was Solomon Moore of the New York Times, New York Times, who in February 2008 found a "deeply troubled" city where doctors, teachers, politicians, and sheikhs were being kidnapped and murdered. "Most of the killings are done by gunmen in police cars," Sheikh Khadem al-Ribat told him. A senior Iraqi police officer reported that s.h.i.+te militias had taken 250 police cars and 5,000 pistols. who in February 2008 found a "deeply troubled" city where doctors, teachers, politicians, and sheikhs were being kidnapped and murdered. "Most of the killings are done by gunmen in police cars," Sheikh Khadem al-Ribat told him. A senior Iraqi police officer reported that s.h.i.+te militias had taken 250 police cars and 5,000 pistols.

"I think all h.e.l.l is going to break loose down there," said an American military intelligence officer.

THE AMERICAN MILITIA: FRIENDS OR FOES?.

The last nongovernmental armed group in Iraq that was being reevaluated that winter was the genuine American militia, the 20,000 to 30,000 private security contractors who, loosely controlled and operating under a hazy legal regime, guarded American diplomats and other contractors. One of the side effects of the new U.S. strategy, founded on protecting the people, was to cast a harsh new light on the security contractors, and especially their willingness to open fire on civilian vehicles.