My Share of the Task (58 page)

We had submitted the strategic assessment on August 30, and I was comfortable with the analysis and recommendations. Although the war was not easy to describe clearly in a document, I felt we had captured the essence of the challenges and risks we faced. More daunting was assessing whether the mission was achievable and what it would take to reach an acceptable outcome. I understood the tendency of military leaders to be optimistic, often dangerously so. But both our analysis and my intuition told me our effort could succeed. My responsibility was to provide my best military judgment, and I had done that. Not once in the months and years that followed did I feel we got it wrong. We now waited to see how Washington would receive the assessment.

In an interview earlier that month with PBS's
Frontline,
the reporter had noted that there was “
a lot of talk in Washington that in twelve months we'll have an assessment of how we're doing in Afghanistan.” Having surveyed our organization and having started to move it in the right direction, I believed I knew what we needed to accomplish. I also knew, realistically, what we could accomplish.

“I would not expect to be able to sit with you twelve months from now,” I answered, “and tell you that we are at victory or near victory or even close to victory. What I would say is, I would hope to be able to convince you we have an organization that is now focused and moving in the right direction with the right culture,” so that “you could then believe that this is . . . the kind of effort that could be successful.”

The ISAF team, while imperfect, was coming together. And while at best our mission in Afghanistan would be extraordinarily difficult, I felt that it could be done.

| CHAPTER 19 |

Decide

September–December 2009

O
n a sunny Friday, September 4, 2009, Ambassador Karl Eikenberry and I walked across the newly constructed bridge with local Afghan officials, everyone in apparent good humor. In Kunar Province, bisected by the shallow but fast-moving Kunar River, bridges are a big deal. This one seemed to represent tangible progress, and we hoped it would stimulate local economic growth. But in counterinsurgency, setbacks lie in wait.

I saw Charlie Flynn walking briskly toward me, cell phone in hand. I knew from his drawn face something was up. His brother Mike had just called from ISAF headquarters to inform us that a Coalition air strike in Kunduz Province, two hundred miles to the northwest, had reportedly killed a large number of Afghan civilians. As many as a hundred were dead, he said. Details were limited, but initial reports indicated that U.S.-piloted F-15 aircraft, responding to a German request, had bombed two fuel trucks that insurgents had hijacked. The insurgents reportedly planned to use the tankers as massive vehicle bombs against the Coalition base in Kunduz. But while still a significant distance from the compound, the trucks had become stuck on a sandbar as they crossed a small river. When the aircraft struck the trucks, local civilians had gathered around them to obtain free fuel.

Using Charlie's cell phone while standing on the bridge, I immediately called the palace and asked to speak to President Karzai. He listened quietly as I explained what I knew of the incident. I said that we would investigate immediately but offered no theories or excuses as to why it happened. I didn't know enough yet and that was not the way I'd decided to deal with such incidents. I continued: “Mr. President, I want to apologize for the incident. As I promised you when I arrived, I am working to prevent this kind of loss. I'll redouble that effort. I also want to express my sympathy to you, and all Afghans, for the tragic loss.”

President Karzai's response was immediate and disarming. He thanked me for the report and for my apology. I sensed he had expected me to communicate something like this in a more guarded fashion, or indirectly.

We flew back to Kabul that evening, and the next day, sensing the seriousness of the situation and a slower reaction than was needed, flew to Kunduz. Arriving by helicopter, we moved first to RC-North's headquarters, and then drove to the site of the strike—a stretch of river four miles from the airport.

From our vehicles, the acting RC-North commander, a small group of Afghan and ISAF leaders, and I walked a twisted dirt track that stopped at the edge of the river, where I paused. Partway across the water, in the center of a long sandbar, sat two blackened fuel tankers. Assorted burned debris surrounded the stranded vehicles in a large, uneven pattern. Across the river, half visible through the trees and bushes, small groups of Afghans milled about, including, we believed, local Taliban. They were likely the same band that had hijacked the trucks whose burned shells we were about to inspect. Patiently pacing or crouching, they watched us.

I stepped down into the cold, muddy water, balanced myself for a moment, and proceeded as the group followed behind and we waded the shallow river to reach the sandbar. As we neared the site, the air hung with a strong, acrid odor of gasoline and burned rubber. Everything was charred. The heat of the fire had melted tires and stripped the trucks of everything but the metal—the frames, tanks, and seat springs in the cabs. Milk containers, brought by Afghans to store the gas, lay on the sand, as did what looked like human hair. There were no bodies. After the flames had died down, the dead had been collected by locals from nearby villages, from which the victims had apparently come when the Taliban invited them to come get free fuel. Few Afghans summoned by the Taliban in the middle of the night would have dared say no. It was clear that, when struck, the trucks had been firmly mired in the mud and could not have presented the immediate security threat the commander had felt they did when ordering the strike.

From the incident site, we visited injured civilians in a very rudimentary local hospital. One young man of about sixteen was badly burned, a bitter reminder of the paratroopers I'd watched suffer back in 1994 at Fort Bragg. The staff and families were stoic and not confrontational. They were doing their best to keep the sheets clean and sterile. It was an atmosphere of quiet tragedy.

Before going to the site of the strike, we'd met in a conference room at RC-North with a group of some fifteen local leaders gathered to provide their thoughts about the situation. Interestingly, they were strongly supportive of the air strike, and the group expressed satisfaction that direct action had finally been taken against the Taliban threat in their area. Kabir Sekander, one of my cultural advisers, was there to translate when one of the elders spoke. Even with a skilled translator like Kabir, communication was always challenging, but today their message was clear.

“
We need these kinds of operations to tell the opposition that ‘we mean business,' that ‘the people are fed up with you,'” the elder said. “The people are hostages in the hand of this opposition; the people do not want to participate; they're forced to participate in these kind of activities. But the people want to live in peace and harmony, so we have to have some of these kinds of operations like we did last night. We have to do these things, so people can live in harmony.”

Their views were unusual for the aftermath of such a grisly civilian casualty incident. Usually, we heard outrage. But I wasn't surprised, as I suspected the leaders whom the regional command had invited to meet with us were not broadly representative of all the people in the area. Moreover, I knew they were caught in a particularly tough position: For years, the north, around Kunduz, had remained quiet. But insurgents had been steadily gaining power in the area. Many there wanted NATO to target the Taliban more aggressively. I believed the elders had shrewdly calculated that anything less than effusive support would reduce our willingness to conduct operations against the feared Taliban.

The elders complained that the media was focusing on the air strike—an event that I knew had been a tragic mistake with potentially far-reaching consequences in Kunduz and in Kabul—not the insurgents' use of suicide bombings.

“Tashakur,” I thanked them, and turned to Kabir. “Also, please convey that I agree with him that the actions of insurgents on things like suicide bombs are terrible and in no way compare to how we operate.” I continued: “And what I want to do is to partner with the Afghan people to protect the Afghan people, so I am here today to ensure that we are operating in a way that is truly protecting the Afghan people from all threats.”

That evening, as we headed back to Kabul, I decided to do two things. I directed a general officer to lead an investigation of the incident. I wanted to take quick action; we had a moral responsibility to do so. Also, on the advice of my cultural advisers—Kabir and Abdullah Amini—I recorded a statement of sympathy and issued an apology to the Afghan people for broadcast on local television. Dedicated Afghan Americans who had joined ISAF in 2006, Kabir and Abdullah had worked for the previous two ISAF commanders. I was soon glad I took their advice, and came to rely on their ability to parse interactions I had with Afghans for revealing cues I overlooked. Despite some western concerns and criticism over potentially accepting culpability for the incident before an investigation was complete, the television statement was the right move. Afghans typically knew the reality of incidents like this before we did and thought our sluggishness in acknowledging their loss was disrespectful.

“To the great people of Afghanistan,
salam alaikum
,” I said in a recorded statement, which was soon dubbed in Dari and Pashto and distributed on Afghan television. “Friday morning, the International Security Assistance Force launched an attack against what we believed to be a Taliban target in Kunduz, in northern Afghanistan. . . . I take this possible loss of life or injury to innocent Afghans very seriously. . . . I have ordered a complete investigation into the reasons and results of this attack, which I will share with the Afghan people.”

*   *   *

I
f our submission of the strategic assessment on August 30 seemed to end the first phase of my tour at ISAF, the Kunduz civilian-casualty incident seemed to begin the second. The air strike was a clear mistake, and a setback. But I recognized that the tragic event was salutary: After the call with President Karzai, I felt as though our relationship had just taken a step, albeit a small one, from being polite and correct toward something closer to genuine trust. If so, such a development cut against the grain of larger forces in the backdrop. Relations between the United States and President Hamid Karzai were rapidly deteriorating, and had been for the past two weeks since the presidential elections. The postelection controversy of widespread fraud by the Karzai campaign and pressure for a runoff election between Karzai and his strongest rival, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, were producing bad feelings all around.

From a Western perspective, signs of outright fraud, including stuffed ballot boxes and other irregularities, were damning. Combined with increasingly detailed accounts of widespread corruption, they undermined arguments that Karzai's government was a credible partner. Such determinations were crucial for the United States. The key period of the policy-review and the decision-making process had begun ten days after Afghans cast their votes, when I submitted my strategic assessment. That document, soon accompanied by the associated recommendation that additional forces be deployed, provided a point of reference and debate for the strategy sessions the Obama administration convened over the next three months. From the seats inside the White House Situation Room, as the Afghan elections looked bad, so too did a long-term, large-scale engagement in the country.

Afghan views varied, but President Karzai frequently raised with me his frustration at what he interpreted as Western efforts to find and support other candidates to supplant him. Although I felt much of his frustration stemmed from misinterpretation and misunderstanding, watching events as they unfolded, I could appreciate how he arrived at his perspective. Combined with long-held dissatisfaction over how international forces and agencies operated inside his country, President Karzai strained against what he felt was improper meddling. I reminded myself that my view of what had happened in the elections, even if accurate, must be informed by an appreciation of how Afghans viewed it. This proved to be critical on most issues.

As President Obama began a necessarily rigorous and deliberative review of our strategy, and the election controversy grew more heated, the war meanwhile continued apace. Against that backdrop, we worked to lay a foundation for the way ahead, using the strategic assessment to clarify the challenges and the necessary changes.

*   *   *

“W
e can win this war,” I told the command on September 14, as part of the normal morning update that included personnel at ISAF headquarters and other locations by teleconference. “But we can only win one war. We need to stop fighting multiple wars.”

Three months into my command, we still waged an uncoordinated campaign. In some areas of Afghanistan, ISAF soldiers conducting autonomous operations and those advising Afghan forces worked for different commanders and reported up separate chains. So too did Special Forces building local capacity, and special operating forces conducting precision raids against the Taliban. And within those different elements I saw varying interpretations of our mission, strategy, relationship with Afghan security forces, and use of firepower. Our disjointed military effort was complicated further by similar misalignment on the civilian side. It was a recipe for failure.

Secretary Gates's decision to create IJC was a significant step toward redressing this. A strong operational headquarters, empowered with robust communications and intelligence assets, helped foster long-needed synergy. Further, Rod and I pushed relentlessly to achieve “unity of command,” the simple military concept that a single person should be in charge of every significant mission.

Viewed broadly, achieving unity of command was vital to our counterinsurgency, which had to be effective in both its civilian and military components. But achieving such unity of command across the more than forty nations of ISAF's Coalition and the wider international community sometimes felt impossible. I remain convinced that a single leader, most appropriately a talented civilian willing to spend at least several years in the job, with authority to direct and coordinate all military, governance, and development efforts, would have been the best step toward unifying our war effort. But that fall, no such person existed.

Although I'd outlined my position to Dave Petraeus and Admiral Mullen that I needed control over all U.S. forces in Afghanistan, I faced resistance from some organizations. This was a historically contentious issue, and I didn't obtain formal operational control over Marine and special operations forces until Secretary Gates directed it, months after I'd assumed command.

*   *   *

O
n September 18, a couple of weeks after Kunduz, I arrived into Lisbon for a two-day conference of the NATO Military Committee, typically the chiefs of defense of the NATO member nations.

At Chairman Mullen's request I'd flown in to provide an update on Afghanistan. Ever mindful of the time Annie and I had been apart, Mullen had flown her over with him.

Seeing Annie at that time was important to me. About a month after my departure for Afghanistan, in response to intelligence reports indicating a potential threat, Annie had been placed under protective security. I'd long accepted the reality that my role in TF 714 could put me at risk, but it was unnerving to have Annie identified as a potential target. I understood both the rationale behind the protection and the impact it would have on Annie. In addition to the pressure of uncertain danger, Annie's life for almost the next full year involved a security detail who controlled her movements. Trips to the store became orchestrated procedures, and her morning runs through Washington, D.C., required that detail members run or bike close by. Predictably, she maintained her sense of humor, became close to the professionals who spent so much time with her, and tried to ensure that her situation was as little a concern for me as possible.