All In Page 17
After two years in command of the brigade, Petraeus headed up the East Coast yet again, for another tour at the Pentagon. This time it was General Hugh Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, requesting that Petraeus serve as his personal executive assistant. Petraeus had already seen the way the Pentagon functioned through the eyes of General Vuono, a service chief. Now he would come to understand the building from the all-important “joint” vantage point, in which all four military services worked, planned supported operations together—and, sometimes, fought with each other.
Working for Shelton, Petraeus gained exposure to civil-military relations at the highest levels. He had a superb vantage point from which to view the workings of the Clinton administration, the National Security Council and senior decision making. Petraeus also interacted daily with counterparts in the secretary of Defense’s office, on the National Security Council staff, and at the State Department. Given Shelton’s background as the commander of the Special Operations Command, Petraeus learned at the foot of a boss who thought about the balance between conventional and Special Operations Forces in a different way than the infantry officers with whom Petraeus had previously served. Contingency operations during his time with Shelton included the Iraq no-fly zones (northern and southern), the peacekeeping operation and war criminal hunt in Bosnia, counterterrorist operations focused on Osama bin Laden, kinetic strikes in Iraq after Saddam Hussein thumbed his nose at the international community and, in Shelton’s second year, the Kosovo Air Campaign.
Petraeus then headed back to Fort Bragg to pin on his first star and serve as the 82nd’s assistant division commander for operations. During a year full of training and contingency deployments, the 82nd would also send Petraeus to join the “general-of-the-month club” in Kuwait, where he led the Combined Joint Task Force–Kuwait (Operation Desert Spring)—a rotating contingent of three thousand soldiers in place for a month with the mission of deterring Saddam Hussein, assuring regional allies and supporting U.S. combined forces operations in theater.
Petraeus’s last tour at Fort Bragg was as chief of staff for the XVIII Airborne Corps, the 82nd’s parent organization. On the side, he enjoyed his addiction—skydiving with the Golden Knights, the Army’s parachute team and other skydivers, until disaster struck: Petraeus’s parachute lost air on a late turn and he crashed to the ground, leaving him with a fractured pelvis. Fortunately for Petraeus, his boss, Lieutenant General Dan McNeill, allowed him to work from home. McNeill knew Petraeus’s capabilities and fitness, having had Petraeus as his assistant division commander when McNeill commanded the 82nd Airborne, and he was not about to lose him.
Petraeus asked the doctors to allow him to go swimming to speed his recovery and maintain a level of fitness. “No, absolutely not,” replied his physician. “You’ll displace your pelvis; you know you’re just held together with screws and plates that need to solidify.” Petraeus strapped a pull buoy between his legs and got in the pool anyhow. Keane, by now the Army’s vice chief of staff, warned him against any more free-falling parachuting. “You give me a division and I’ll stop skydiving,” Petraeus half-joked. He would give up free-fall skydiving, but within nine months he was back to running and static-line parachuting, as well as simulated free fall in Fort Bragg’s wind tunnel.
Near the end of his tour as corps chief of staff, in the late spring of 2001, Petraeus was the corps’s representative at a conference hosted by the Army’s John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center at Fort Bragg. The question the conference addressed was whether Army Green Berets should continue to emphasize training of and working with host-nation forces or instead focus more on kinetic tasks like targeted raids. The events of 9/11 would put an end to the debate. Within months of the conference, the Green Berets would be very much back in business with the tasks that had long been their forte, including riding horses into combat in northern Afghanistan.
The debate prompted Petraeus to think hard about his upcoming deployment to Bosnia, where he would work extensively with various types of Special Operations Forces. The experience served him well later in Iraq—and Afghanistan.
THE NIGHT RAIDS IN Afghanistan during the fall of 2010 were largely the domain of the Joint Special Operations Command—and much more sophisticated than those Petraeus had participated in back in Bosnia. Petraeus had picked up the playbook for these operations from McChrystal, a Special Operations legend who had served as Petraeus’s JSOC commander in Iraq during the surge in 2007.
In his morning briefings, Petraeus repeatedly stressed the performance of Special Operations Forces and their mandate to kill and capture Taliban leaders in night raids predicated on pinpoint intelligence—often communications intercepts, but also intelligence from human sources and imagery from unmanned aerial vehicles and tower-mounted optics. “Today’s report on our nighttime raids again underscores that we must properly recognize the extraordinary courage of our small units and individual troopers who go out night after night into harm’s way,” he said in a stand-up in late September. “These operations are having a critical effect and must not be seen as ‘just another day at the office.’ This is extraordinary work which must be recognized appropriately.” Special Operations Forces were devastating the insurgent networks, and Petraeus wanted their work to spread. They were a key component in expanding the security bubbles in much of the country.
A ninety-day summary that coincided roughly with Petraeus’s first three months in command broke down the “accumulated effects” of Special Operations Forces into two categories, “kinetic” and “non-kinetic.” There were 2,795 “kinetic” operations that resulted in the death or capture of 285 high-value insurgent leaders. An additional 889 insurgents were killed, and 2,084 midlevel insurgents were captured. On the “non-kinetic” side, Special Operations Forces carried out 1,823 population-centric operations.
The night raid operations were largely the business of secret “black” Special Operations Forces. Army Delta Force commandos and select Navy SEALs and Army Rangers are specially trained to capture high-value targets with great precision under the most difficult circumstances, including entrance to heavily guarded compounds.
Night raids in Afghanistan relied on tactical intelligence used to identify insurgent leaders and their precise locations. The National Security Agency and other units engaged in intercepting cell-phone, radio and Internet communications had made enormous strides since 9/11 in the speed with which they could process communications, determine exact locations and deliver data to Special Operations Forces. The proliferation of unmanned aerial vehicles with sophisticated optics provided real-time full-motion video, and human sources and other forms of intelligence provided important information as well. In some cases, night raids could now be planned and executed in a matter of minutes. In others, the intelligence picture would come together more slowly and required days, or even weeks, of careful surveillance, matched against signals intercepts, imagery and human intelligence. Virtually all the U.S. special-mission-unit night raids carried out on Petraeus’s watch—about three hundred a month—were conducted in partnership with Afghan special-mission elements, highly trained and superbly equipped. Commanders at the Special Operations center at Bagram Air Base typically watched the raids in real time through various video feeds, including infrared video streamed by intelligence drones.
Night raids proved highly effective in eliminating mid- and high-level Taliban leaders, who seemed incapable of staying off the communications grid for long. They also became a significant source of intelligence, since most of the targets of these “kinetic” raids were captured without a single shot fired, so that they could be interrogated and, in some cases, turned. Yet some Afghan citizens despised the night raids, because it was terrifying to have American and Afghan commandos breaking down the doors of neighbors’ houses in the dead of night. In certain cases, until Petraeus directed changes to the conduct of the raids, men were carted off in handcuffs withou
t any explanation to the locals at all. On occasion, when the raids went wrong and Special Operations Forces found themselves under attack, innocent civilians were caught in the crossfire and killed.
To mitigate these effects, district governors were informed of and even invited to accompany the SOF elements on operations as often as was possible. The missions often began with helicopter insertions, leaving troops to walk the final leg—anywhere from half a mile to five or even ten miles—to their targets. The raids could go one of two ways: The Afghan special operators would do “callouts” in an attempt to get the insurgent out on the street so they didn’t have to do a forced entry, or the forces could enter a compound by either blowing off the door or knocking it down. In each case, ISAF paid for damage to any facilities. Sometimes, Special Operations soldiers waited days near the target, stealthily watching and developing “pattern of life” analysis to supplement the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets they’d focused on the target location before the operation. Once they had eyes on the target, they executed a rapid entry and got in and out in a matter of minutes. Typically, Special Operations Forces were used against “high-value” commanders whose capture would disrupt insurgent operations and, often, yield valuable intelligence.
PETRAEUS FELT HE HAD a good grasp that fall on operations in Helmand and Kandahar provinces and elsewhere in the south, where troops were continuing to expand their footprint and connect growing secure areas. In the east, he pushed Campbell to focus on hammering insurgent networks, building on recent momentum and still working hard to improve his understanding of that area. He thought he had a reasonable feel for conditions in western Afghanistan, where the battlespace was relatively calm, and he had a clear sense that ISAF needed to do more in Baghlan and Kunduz, in the north, where ISAF had increased its force levels and operational tempo, to some effect. But for now, the priorities had to remain in the south and southwest, the traditional Taliban strongholds.
The surge had increased the ratio of troops to civilians in these areas, and the numbers reflected both the priority placed on the south and the still relative economy of force, given the number of soldiers required for a comprehensive counterinsurgency campaign. There was one ISAF soldier for every nineteen Afghans in Helmand Province and one for every thirty-three Afghans in Kandahar, the two provinces where forces had been concentrated to clear the Taliban from its strongholds. But in the mountain provinces of the east, where three of the four brigade combat teams from the 101st Airborne were fighting, the ratio was one to ninety-one Afghan citizens. In the northern provinces, the ratio was just one to 192.
As certain as Petraeus was about the ability of U.S. and Canadian forces to clear key areas in Kandahar, he knew the “hold” phase, when gains were consolidated, would likely be more challenging. Progress in the hold phase, to a considerable degree, depended upon establishment of effective local governance and local security, which the nascent but growing Afghan army—meeting its recruitment goals but beset by high AWOL rates—did not yet have enough troops to help provide. There was also still much work to do at the village level, coaxing villagers to return; rebuilding their homes, bazaars and mosques; and recruiting and training enough Afghan Local Police capable of standing up to the Taliban once they returned after the winter. Petraeus expected the enemy to fight back and try to regain ground that was important to them tactically and symbolically. “We will be staying in these areas to resist them, and that is new,” Petraeus said. “We will not know the true impact of these operations until next year. . . . Ultimately, when you take away their safe havens, they will fight to come back.”
He preached caution to his staff when it came to “chest pounding” about successes in Kandahar. He wanted his officers even to avoid claims of “cautious optimism” as they dealt with the media. Stick to the facts, he advised; just state them and let members of the press draw their own conclusions. But with a heavier conventional-troop presence and active operations across Kandahar Province, many of the Taliban had beat a tactical retreat—to redoubts across the border in Pakistan, where they were beyond the reach of American forces. A headline on the front page of the New York Times, “Coalition Routs Taliban in Southern Afghanistan,” triggered a counterattack by members of the antiwar class in Washington. Some saw the article as evidence of how skilled Petraeus was at spinning reporters. He responded that the Times piece had caught him by surprise and noted that it was written by a woman who had spent years in Afghanistan and was known as a hard-edged reporter.
Doug Ollivant was circumspect about whether U.S. forces had, indeed, devastated the Taliban around Kandahar. “We just don’t know,” he said. “It’s like the blind men with the elephant. We don’t know if what we are seeing is the start of a trend or an anomaly. Be very, very careful.” The Pakistan safe havens, he knew, kept Petraeus from being able to attack “the Afghan insurgency at its root.” U.S., coalition and Afghan forces controlled much ground that had previously belonged to the Taliban. But if a single factor could undo Petraeus’s counterinsurgency doctrine, it was the sanctuaries in Pakistan.
For all the caution he counseled his officers to use when dealing with the media, Petraeus was constantly engaged. While he never talked about winning, he often moved the narrative by communicating, via e-mail, with numerous reporters and columnists, sometimes on the record but also on background, which, as was customary, was not attributed directly to him. He also opened his fighting units up to hosting embedded journalists, because he knew that the easiest way to win over even the most hard-bitten reporters was to have them spend time with U.S. forces, especially ones in combat.
Beyond the success of Operation Dragon Strike in Kandahar, media reports also appeared regarding nascent peace talks. Petraeus shared with the Washington Post what senior Afghan officials had told him: that “several very senior Taliban leaders” had reached out to the Afghan government. But Petraeus cautioned that this overture “certainly would not rise to the level of being called negotiations.” Privately, he wasn’t sure that some of the secret talks—those set to take place in the Maldives and in a Gulf state, in particular—were yet all that significant, seeing some of them more as “reconciliation tourism.” Consequently, Petraeus struck a cautionary note with the Post similar to the one he used during his stand-ups. “Should these reports of Taliban holding peace talks with [the Afghan government] prove true, we cannot expect any favorable outcome for some time,” he told his staff one morning in mid-October. “Additionally, the Taliban do not speak with one voice, and these talks will create strains within the Taliban senior leadership as they try and work out who is talking to whom. If talks are occurring, then I am not surprised, given the enormous pressure we are placing on the network: This pressure will only increase over the months ahead. Finally, do not make more of these talks than there is—it is more speculation than fact at this time.”
Seeing the gains by conventional forces, coupled with the successful night raids by Special Operations Forces, some speculated that Petraeus had shifted strategy away from McChrystal’s counterinsurgency approach. A story line emerged that Petraeus was moving away from classic counterinsurgency tactics in favor of the ironfisted night raids and greater reliance on air strikes, which increased dramatically during his tenure. Some in the media speculated that he was trying to bomb the Taliban to the negotiating table. Others speculated that Petraeus realized that counterinsurgency alone wasn’t working, as Taliban influence spread to areas that had been peaceful. Petraeus continued to explain that a comprehensive counterinsurgency approach included counterterrorism strikes as well as all the other lines of operation in the overall strategy, but the nuance was lost on many journalists.
Michael O’Hanlon, a defense analyst at the Brookings Institution and a confidant for Petraeus and McChrystal, cited a paradox in comparing the commands of the two men. “I would underscore that there was more continuity than change,” O’Hanlon later shared. “What I notice
d was their shift in public relations strategy: Petraeus was willing to talk about killing bad guys more than McChrystal.” McChrystal had largely been responsible for pushing for the increase in Special Operations Forces and associated enablers early in his command—with support by Petraeus at Central Command—but he was reticent to announce it in the press. Petraeus was eager that fall to discuss progress, and the Special Operations Forces efforts were among those that seemed to indicate progress. He would later regret somewhat having raised the profile of night raids, but he was eager to share an indicator, and Special Operations Forces were the moneymakers at the time.
When Colonel Gunhus sent Petraeus a blog post by Time’s Joe Klein citing this pivot from counterinsurgency to a more violent strain of counterterrorism, the general was “exercised,” Gunhus relayed, using Petraeus’s expression for “irritated.” Petraeus told Rear Admiral Greg Smith, his chief of strategic communications, to tell Klein and David Ignatius of the Washington Post, who had made a similar point in a column, that they had completely missed what was going on. He hadn’t just increased counterterrorist force operations—he’d increased everything! His war strategy was a comprehensive civil-military campaign without silver bullets. Progress required all civilian and military efforts working in concert, albeit in different combinations, depending upon where in the country they were based.
The following morning in his stand-up, Petraeus was still perturbed. “The key point to stress is that we are doing more of everything. We have certainly increased the tempo of SOF operations. We have also increased the clear-hold-and-build operations conducted by conventional forces. We have increased our training effort with the ANSF, local security initiatives, and reconciliation and reintegration,” Petraeus stated. “We’ve also increased support to local governance and development, increased information operations and so on.” Petraeus called the overall approach “the Anaconda strategy,” the same title he’d used to describe the comprehensive counterinsurgency approach in Iraq during the surge there, but modified for Afghanistan.