In December 2008, I made a farewell trip to Afghanistan. Air Force One landed at Bagram Air Base around 5:00 a.m., just ahead of the dawn. “I have a message to you, and to all who serve our country,” I told a hangar full of troops. “Thanks for making the noble choice to serve and protect your fellow Americans. What you’re doing in Afghanistan is important, it is courageous, and it is selfless. It’s akin to what American troops did in places like Normandy and Iwo Jima and Korea. Your generation is every bit as great as any that has come before. And the work you do every day is shaping history for generations to come.”
I shook hands with the troops and boarded a Black Hawk helicopter for the forty-minute flight to Kabul. Afghanistan is one of those places you have to see to understand. The mountains are gigantic and rugged; the terrain is harsh and bare; the landscape feels desolate and forbidding. Like many Americans, I sometimes wondered how anyone could hide from our military for seven years. When I looked at the topography of Afghanistan, it was easy to understand.
As we got closer to Kabul, I picked up an acrid smell. I realized it was coming from burning tires—sadly, an Afghan way of keeping warm. The air quality was no better on the ground. I was coughing for a week when I got home, a reminder that the country had a long way to go.
When we landed at the presidential palace, President Karzai strode over to meet me in his trademark robe and cap. He introduced me to his cabinet ministers and escorted me to a large sitting room for tea. As usual, he was energetic and exuberant. He beamed with pride as he showed me photos of his young son, Mirwais, his only child. He talked about his plans to increase Afghanistan’s agricultural yield and stimulate its business sector in areas like telecommunications. After the meetings, he walked me out into the dusty courtyard. We parted with a handshake and a hug. No doubt he had made mistakes. But despite all the forces working against him, he never lost his determination to lead his country toward a better day. He helped give the Afghan people hope, something they hadn’t had in many years. For that, he will always have my gratitude and respect.
With Karzai on the last foreign trip of my presidency.
As I climbed aboard the chopper, I thought back to the afternoon in October 2001 when I announced the opening of the war from the Treaty Room. A country dominated by one of history’s cruelest regimes was now governed by freely elected leaders. Women who had been prisoners in their homes were serving in parliament. While still a danger, al Qaeda had lost the camps it used to train ten thousand terrorists and plan 9/11. The Afghan people had cast their ballots in multiple free elections and had built an increasingly capable army of seventy-nine thousand soldiers. Afghanistan’s economy had doubled in size. School enrollment had risen from nine hundred thousand to more than six million, including more than two million girls. Access to health care had gone from 8 percent to 80 percent. In 2010, the Pentagon revealed that geologists had discovered nearly a trillion dollars’ worth of mineral deposits in Afghanistan, a potential source of wealth for the Afghan people that the Taliban would never have found.
I also knew I was leaving behind unfinished business. I wanted badly to bring bin Laden to justice. The fact that we did not ranks among my great regrets. It certainly wasn’t for lack of effort. For seven years, we kept the pressure on. While we never found the al Qaeda leader, we did force him to change the way he traveled, communicated, and operated. That helped us deny him his greatest wish after 9/11: to see America attacked again.
As I write in 2010, the war in Afghanistan continues. The Taliban remain active, and the Afghan government is struggling to gain full control of its country. From the beginning, I knew it would take time to help the Afghan people build a functioning democracy consistent with its culture and traditions. The task turned out to be even more daunting than I anticipated. Our government was not prepared for nation building. Over time, we adapted our strategy and our capabilities. Still, the poverty in Afghanistan is so deep, and the infrastructure is so lacking, that it will take many years to complete the work.
I strongly believe the mission is worth the cost. Fortunately, I am not the only one. In the fall of 2009, President Obama stood up to critics by deploying more troops, announcing a new commitment to counterinsurgency in Afghanistan, and increasing the pressure on Pakistan to fight the extremists in the tribal areas.
Ultimately, the only way the Taliban and al Qaeda can retake Afghanistan is if America abandons the country. Allowing the extremists to reclaim power would force Afghan women back into subservience, remove girls from school, and betray all the gains of the past nine years. It would also endanger our security. After the Cold War, the United States gave up on Afghanistan. The result was chaos, civil war, the Taliban takeover, sanctuary for al Qaeda, and the nightmare of 9/11. To forget that lesson would be a dreadful mistake.
Before I took off from Bagram Air Base for the flight home in December 2008, I returned to the hangar for the final meeting of my last foreign trip as president. Standing in the room was a group of Special Forces. Many had served multiple tours, hunting the terrorists and Taliban in the freezing mountains. They had one of the hardest and most dangerous jobs in the world. I shook their hands and told them how grateful I was for their service.
Then a small group of soldiers from the 75th Ranger Regiment entered the room. Their platoon leader, Captain Ramon Ramos, asked if I would be willing to participate in a brief ceremony. He reached into a pouch, unfurled a large American flag, and raised his right hand. Several of his men stood opposite him and did the same. He delivered an oath, which the men repeated. “I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. …”
There in that lonely hangar, in the nation where 9/11 was planned, in the eighth year of a war to protect America, these men on the front lines chose to reenlist.
*Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Bob Mueller, Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, CIA Director George Tenet and Deputy Director John McLaughlin, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Hugh Shelton and Vice Chairman Dick Myers, White House Chief of Staff Andy Card, National Security Adviser Condi Rice and Deputy National Security Adviser Steve Hadley, White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, and Chief of Staff to the Vice President I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby.
**The surge in Iraq attracted much more attention.
***A spinning pitch that is hard to hit, similar to a screwball in baseball.
n Wednesday, March 19, 2003, I walked into a meeting I had hoped would not be necessary.
The National Security Council had gathered in the White House Situation Room, a nerve center of communications equipment and duty officers on the ground floor of the West Wing. The top center square of the secure video screen showed General Tommy Franks sitting with his senior deputies at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia. In the other five boxes were our lead Army, Navy, Marine, Air Force, and Special Operations commanders. Their counterparts from the British Armed Forces and Australian Defense Forces joined as well.
I asked each man two questions: Do you have everything you need to win? And are you comfortable with the strategy?
Each commander answered affirmatively.
Tommy spoke last. “Mr. President,” the commanding general said, “this force is ready.”
I turned to Don Rumsfeld. “Mr. Secretary,” I said, “for the peace of the world and the benefit and freedom of the Iraqi people, I hereby give the order to execute Operation Iraqi Freedom. May God bless the troops.”
Tommy snapped a salute. “Mr. President,” he said, “may God bless America.”
As I saluted back, the gravity of the moment hit me. For more than a year, I had tried to address the threat from Saddam Hussein without war. We had rallied an international coalition to pressure him to come clean about his weapons of mass destruction programs. We had obtained a unanimous United Nations Security Council resolution making clear there would be serious consequences for continued defiance. We had reached out to Arab nations about taking Saddam into exile. I had given Saddam and his sons a final forty-eight hours to avoid war. The dictator rejected every opportunity. The only logical conclusion was that he had something to hide, something so important that he was willing to go to war for it.
