The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America’s War in Afghanistan (12 page)

Exum, on the other hand, is part of the Center for a New American Security, or CNAS—the differences in name reflect the difference in political style. Not so much a difference in substance—they’re all for the war—just the pose they take while endorsing it.

CNAS is for the Democrats—reluctant warriors, “middle of the road,” cerebral pride, lots of hemming and hawing. You’d never catch a Democrat opening up a place called the Institute for the Study of War.
It’s too direct, it’s too obvious; it suggests a politically incorrect passion for conflict. The Center for a New American Security is just the kind of serious-sounding name to appeal to the liberal hawks. It’s the hottest think tank in town, and they’ve stocked up on influential reporters—one journalist, David Cloud, joined CNAS, went to advise Ambassador Eikenberry, then returned to cover the Pentagon for the
Los Angeles Times
. Tom Ricks is on the payroll, Robert Kaplan is on the payroll, joined by a rotating cast of other prominent national security journalists, including
New York Times
Pentagon correspondent Thom Shanker.

The sticking point is how to deal with corruption in Afghanistan. McChrystal doesn’t really care either way on corruption. He doesn’t view it as a pressing issue and thinks it can be tolerated. The Kagans are passionate about fighting it; Shapiro doesn’t think it should be a high priority.

Stephen Biddle notices a distinct absence. He’s been on these kinds of teams before, helped Petraeus write up an assessment in Iraq in 2007. In Iraq, the State Department was well represented, foreign service officers providing their input. In Kabul, they’re not around.

Where’s the U.S. embassy in Kabul? Where is Ambassador Eikenberry? Biddle takes his concerns to McChrystal’s staff: He thinks it’s a problem that Eikenberry isn’t involved. If the diplomatic and military sides aren’t getting along, “it jeopardizes the mission,” Biddle says.

Eikenberry doesn’t want to be involved, a senior U.S. official tells me. He doesn’t want Stan coming in there and taking over the whole thing. It’s an “out of my sandbox” kind of attitude, this official tells me. Worse, the embassy scraps a civil-military program that ISAF has set up. (McKiernan set up the program, so there’s also an “anything but McKiernan” attitude among McChrystal’s planners.) So although counterinsurgency depends on a hand-and-glove civilian-military partnership, and the strategy will call for that, from the beginning that relationship barely exists.

The biggest question for the assessment team, though, is: Can we win? Is this even worth doing? On this question, the assessment team is split. “There were several of my colleagues who weren’t persuaded,” says Biddle.
“I thought it was a close call, and on balance, the right thing to do.” Others on the team think the whole exercise has been a public relations stunt—“McChrystal knew about 80 percent of the strategy he wanted,” says one member of the team. “We were just for show.”

The assessment team stays for three weeks. They write eight drafts, according to members of the assessment team. Four times, McChrystal comes in and goes over it with them. He vets each line in the paper. The paper the civilians write gets tossed to another staff member, Colonel Chris Kolenda, to finish; he’ll work with McChrystal to finalize the draft.

While working on the assessment, McChrystal gets a visitor from the White House. General Jim Jones, the national security advisor, comes over to Kabul, with
Washington Post
journalist Bob Woodward along to cover the trip. Jones has a message from the White House: If you’re thinking of asking for more troops, don’t. Jones tells another general at Camp Leatherneck the same thing: Hold the line. Jones explains that the White House already is feeling a bit singed—they’d given them seventeen thousand. Then they came back for four thousand more. And now the generals are going to come back to the bar yet again? If more troops are asked for, Jones tells a briefing room full of colonels and generals, Obama is likely to have a Whiskey Tango Foxtrot moment, or WTF, or
What the fuck?
Jones insists that unlike Bush, President Obama isn’t just going to give the generals anything they ask for. It’s what Obama has said publicly: “My strong view is that we are not going to succeed simply by piling on more and more troops.”

There’s not much respect for Jones in Kabul. He doesn’t have much clout in DC, either—he’s been the victim of a series of leaks attempting to undermine him. He is a safe pick for the NSA job, a way for Obama to signal he was serious and bipartisan about his national security. Jones is chosen because he still gets respect on the Hill from the likes of John McCain—Jones and McCain are close friends.

The White House isn’t too impressed with him, either. The rap against Jones inside the White House: He’s not pulling the fourteen-hour
days with the rest of the staff. He’s on “retired general time,” a White House insider will tell journalist Richard Wolffe. In truth, people on his staff think he’s a joke, too. He starts one of his first all-hands-on-deck NSC meetings by reading a poem. Not some “rah-rah” poem, “some doggerel bullshit about fairies or something,” says a White House official who was at the meeting when the poem was read. “He’s like Ron Burgundy in
Anchorman
—you put anything on his cards before a briefing, and he’d read it. You could put ‘I’m a fucking asshole’ on his briefing cards and he’d say that.” At another meeting, he took out a diary from a relative who had served in World War II and started reading it out loud. “It was pretty weird,” says another U.S. official.

For McChrystal, not asking for more troops is a problem.

By early August, the assessment is close to being complete.

McChrystal flies to Chièvres in Belgium, a NATO airbase, for a secret meeting with Gates, Mullen, and Petraeus. He stops in Brussels and takes his close staff out to dinner. Casey has to pick a restaurant. He chooses a pizza place. It’s the most low-rent place he can find, but there are candles on the table. McChrystal isn’t pleased; it’s “too Gucci,” he tells Casey. Sir, it’s Brussels, Casey says. It’s either pizza or some taco stand on the street.

Over the unfortunately candlelit dinner, McChrystal asks his staff questions, the big questions. Why are we here? He doesn’t mean Belgium. He means the war. Why are you fighting? he asks Casey. For the next three hours, they go over every angle. “Is this a modern Crusade?” McChrystal asks his team. “Are we fighting an ideology, a fanatical extremism? Is this really something we should invest our time in? Is it going to hurt or help the region? Can we win?”

The next day, McChrystal meets with Gates, Mullen, and Petraeus. Casey calls it a “mini-Yalta.” He goes over the draft with them, wants to get everyone on the same page. He doesn’t want to get “steamrolled in case things go haywire,” says a U.S. official who was at the meeting. He tells them his stark assessment, tells them the situation is deteriorating, tells them he’s going to ask for more troops. The senior brass isn’t
surprised. It’s what they were expecting. This is a chance for them “to look face-to-face before taking the serious next step of putting the assessment out,” says a military official who was at the meeting. The serious next step means asking for more troops. The serious next step is what the assessment concludes: We’re losing.

The White House, as Jones made clear, isn’t ready for the assessment, doesn’t want to hear about any more troops. They’ve already sent twenty-one thousand. Let those get over there, and see what impact they have. This assessment isn’t going to be well received, McChrystal is told. Hold on to it.

He doesn’t.

  APRIL 18, 2010, PARIS

Ocean 11 wasn’t allowed to leave France. Neither was Ocean 12.

Those were the call signs for the planes the Air Force supplied McChrystal. Ocean 11—named after the George Clooney heist movie with a star-studded cast about a high-speed team of supercool thieves who pull off the biggest caper in Las Vegas history—was a Learjet. Ocean 12 was the plane for the staff.

McChrystal’s plan to fly to Berlin on Monday was in jeopardy.

Dave worked the contingencies. Helicopters? It would be a twelve-hour ride. They’d have to stop and refuel multiple times. It sounded brutal. Did they want to put their wives on a twelve-hour Blackhawk ride? Nope, bad idea. Commercial flights? Not moving yet. Train? That would take too long and they wouldn’t have communication capabilities.

Check back again with Ocean 11: Come on, Air Force, have some balls, take off.

McChrystal wasn’t the only one stranded. The German defense
minister was trapped in Uzbekistan. The German chancellor was stuck in Italy. McChrystal might have to cancel the entire trip to Berlin.

I was stuck, too. Even if McChrystal could get Ocean 11 to take off, I wouldn’t be able to get on the military flight. I could spend another night in Paris, but then I’d risk getting left behind if they finally got clearance. I decided to gamble: Take a train to Berlin to get ahead of them.

I was at the Gare de l’Est at five thirty
A.M
. There was travel chaos across the continent. Riotous lines of stranded tourists at the Air France office stretched down the block. Rental car agencies ran out of stock. Taxi drivers were price-gouging, charging thousands of euros for cross-country trips. Trains were somewhat fucked as well, their websites overloaded as everyone scrambled to snag the few remaining tickets.

With no way to book a ticket online, I waited for three hours at the station. The only ticket available was an overnight train in coach. I bought it, checked out of my shitty hotel, then went back to the Westminster.

I spent the day hanging out in the Westminster lobby, doing interviews with other members of the staff. At around three
P.M.
, McChrystal came downstairs. He took a seat across from me at The Duke’s Bar. He checked his BlackBerry.

“Oh, not another e-mail from Holbrooke,” he said.

“Did you read it?” Charlie asked.

“I don’t even want to open it,” McChrystal said.

“Make sure you don’t get any of that on your leg,” Charlie said, pretending to wipe his pants as if the mail had popped open and splattered him.

I jotted down notes—Holbrooke, the legendary statesman. Another civilian they couldn’t stand.

The team was going out to grab an early dinner at a Mexican restaurant, about a ten-minute walk from the hotel. They asked me if I wanted to go with them. I said okay. I could only stay for an hour or so. My train was leaving that evening. The entire crew fell out of the hotel, and we started to walk.

We went down the street and stopped in front of the Paris Opera House.

“Hey, we should get a picture of this,” McChrystal said.

“I’ll take it,” I said.

McChrystal, Flynn, Dave, Duncan, the other officers and staff posed with their wives. I took a few steps back, clicked lightly on the button to focus it, then snapped a photo of them. Just another group of tourists in Paris.

We started walking again, and Duncan told me that it would be a good time for another interview with McChrystal and Mike Flynn.

“Once we’re back in Kabul there won’t be much time,” he said.

We sat outside at the Mexican restaurant. The waiter pushed two plastic tables together, and the half-dozen members of Team McChrystal and their wives grabbed seats. I sat between McChrystal and Mike Flynn. Jake sat next to McChrystal, at the end of the first table.

I started to interview McChrystal. The rest of the table started talking about an incident on Saturday night: a naked man in a window at a restaurant.

“There was a guy with no clothes on, and everyone was looking up at him,” said General Flynn’s wife, Lori.

“He was really naked, leaning against the window,” Jake said, shaking his head.

The waiter came over to take our order.

“Start with Jake,” Lori said.

“Beer,” Jake said.
“Grande.”

“
Grande
beer,” Annie said, laughing.

“You can’t have two until you have one,” Jake said.

Annie and Jackie ordered sauvignon blanc.

“I’ll take a large beer,” said Mike Flynn.

“That’s Mike’s French,” McChrystal said.
“Large beer.”

“My favorite French teacher growing up said there are only three
things you need to know in any language: Where’s the bathroom, thank you, and can I have a beer,” I said.

“Yeah, can’t survive without that,” McChrystal said, then looked at his wife. “Did you bring my jacket?”

“You don’t need a jacket,” Annie answered.

“Paris in the springtime,” McChrystal said.

The waiter came back to the table.

“Neun Bier,”
Jake said, in German.

“He’s coming back to Kabul with us,” said Charlie Flynn, pointing to the waiter, imagining putting a dude who’ll serve beer on demand on the staff.

“Only if he gets this round right,” said Mike Flynn.

“He’s only got to get one right,” said Major General Bill Mayville, meaning McChrystal’s drink. “He’s got my vote.”

We started talking about the volcano.

“What happens if you have hotel reservations, and all that?” McChrystal said.