The oft-discussed deficit of trust that existed between the United States and Pakistan could only be reduced over time, and personal relationships would be essential to that process. By building as much trust as possible between General Kayani and me, confidence would cascade to some extent down through our subordinates. I believed slow but steady progress was possible. It might not work, but there was no rational alternative.
The next day, July 3, a Pakistani army Mi-17 helicopter went down in the Orakzai Agency of the FATA, killing at least twenty-six Pakistani soldiers. It was a reminder of continuing Pakistani sacrifices in the fight—by early 2010 some two thousand Pakistani soldiers had died fighting in the border regions. I called General Kayani late that evening to express my condolences and followed with a handwritten letter. I knew what it meant to lose soldiers and wanted him to know I shared his sense of loss.
Over the coming months I would spend significant time with Kayani and grow to like and respect him. His perspectives and priorities were, of course, those of a Pakistani army officer, but I found our discussions on the war and our respective strategies to be helpful. Much of our time together was spent alone, simply drinking tea and talking. The talk was substantive but never combative. I never responded well to people who were pushy or arrogant with me, and I came to believe most other people felt the same.
* * *
We were still at work on the assessment when, on July 20, I reviewed its initial conclusions with two high-profile Afghans, Minister of the Interior Hanif Atmar, and Minister of Defense Rahim Wardak. Wardak hosted us for a small dinner in his office at the Ministry of Defense. The two men were, on the surface, nearly polar opposites. Atmar, then forty-one years old, was a slender Pashtun who normally wore traditional Afghan clothing beneath a Western sport coat. During the Soviet war, he had served in the Soviet-backed Democratic Republic of Afghanistan’s KHAD security service. Badly wounded in fighting around Jalalabad in 1988, he had since walked with a cane. (Former mujahideen who now worked alongside Atmar boasted, half-jokingly, “We gave him that limp.”) Courtly in demeanor but passionate and ambitious, Atmar tended to articulate his thoughts in numbered lists. “I have four points on this . . .” he would begin, a habit we learned to tease him about. Atmar had served as both the minister of rural rehabilitation and development and minister of education but now oversaw the Interior Ministry, which controlled the fraught Afghan police.
Twenty-three years his senior, General-turned-Minister Wardak was invariably clean-shaven and dressed in three-piece suits. As a mujaheed, he had fought against the Soviet-backed government in which Atmar served. Although also a Pashtun, his military heritage superseded any ethnic concerns. And though he was more reserved, he was deeply passionate about building the Afghan military.
My relationship with both men had only started in June, but I rapidly came to appreciate the challenges they faced in trying to build functional institutions like the army and police, while dependent upon the largess of western donations and constantly buffeted by the forces that tormented their nation.
In the discussion, I sought their views and their support. I summarized my two primary conclusions about the war. First, the insurgency had grown stronger than at any time since 2001. Second, the weakness of the Afghan government and nationwide corruption had given people what we described as a crisis of confidence. I told them we proposed to change ISAF’s strategy to focus on protecting the people, not pursuing insurgents. Further, we aimed to fix ISAF’s internal command-and-control structure to achieve unity of command. And finally, we sought to change the ISAF relationship with Afghan National Security Forces by increasing the size of those forces and, for the first time, truly partnering with them. I confided that convincing progress was essential in the next twelve months if we were to retain political support within the Coalition.
Both men expressed gratitude for being included in the process. They agreed that the situation was serious and endorsed the proposed strategy, particularly the value of focusing on protection of ordinary Afghans. Then these two very different men—once battlefield opponents—voiced a single message.