I was dead wrong. He began by creating a short but frightening video illustrating the depth of the problems we had in the theater detention system in Iraq. To haunting background music, his video showed escapes, frequent violence, even buildings being burned down by prisoners. It also revealed the systematic indoctrination of countless Iraqis who’d arrived into the system with little ideological fervor, but were soon exposed to the extremism then plaguing our detention system in Iraq. He argued that inside our detention facilities, we were losing to the insurgency. Then, in a systematic campaign, Doug and his team changed the environment inside the prisons. What had been a dramatic vulnerability for the Coalition became an effective component of its counterinsurgency campaign.
Now, in 2009, with Dave Petraeus’s support, Doug came out to Kabul to lay the groundwork for the creation of a new organization we named Joint Task Force 435. It would redesign our detention operations in Afghanistan with the objective of transitioning them to Afghan control as quickly as possible, we hoped by January 1, 2011. When Doug became unavailable for long-term assignment to Afghanistan, I sought Vice Admiral Bob Harward. Bob was a relentlessly energetic SEAL who’d been one of my assistant commanding generals in TF 714 for my last two years in command. I tasked him with implementing Doug’s design. A Dari speaker, Bob brought an ability to drive change and build key relationships with Afghan counterparts.
Bob completed the new detention facility, managing every aspect of its operating plan. It was superb, allowing us to provide better living conditions, conduct effective interrogations, and prepare detainees for integration back into Afghan society. To eliminate Afghans’ recurring concerns over the typically opaque way the United States detained their countrymen, we hosted a series of visits and tours by officials, media, and Afghan opinion makers. From the beginning, there was a robust Afghan government presence in the facility, and I directed Bob to place a high priority on the transition to Afghan control as quickly as possible.
More important than reforming how we handled the detention of insurgents, we sought to reestablish the “rule of law” in Afghanistan. Traditional tribal systems—called shuras or jirgas—and the more official police and judicial functions provided by the districts, provinces, and national government were in disarray. Courts, which should have provided essential government services for common problems like land disputes, were plagued by corruption, inefficiency, or a complete lack of capacity. The Taliban had skillfully exploited this vacuum, and further highlighted the government’s failings by providing basic legal arbitration.
Joint Task Force 435’s operations quickly became far wider than U.S.-run detention operations and, in concert with the U.S. embassy, included an effort to transform the Afghan government’s ability to build up the rule of law. We brought to Afghanistan Mark Martins, an army brigadier general I’d known at Fort Bragg and in Iraq, and now asked him to spearhead urgent change. Mark had been first in his West Point class and a Rhodes Scholar, but his energy was just as critical as his intellect in the task ahead.
* * *
At the beginning of October, I got a serious wake-up call. I was in London for engagements conducted to explain and strengthen support for ISAF’s efforts, which had expanded significantly with our campaign to secure the Helmand River valley. The rising violence and risks within Afghanistan prompted political challenges to the leadership of contributing nations, such as Germany and Italy, which had joined ISAF with the expectation of nonviolent peacekeeping operations. Over my year in command, I recieved a number of requests for me to provide such direct ISAF commander observations and insights, and I wasn’t able to fulfill most of them in person. But given the ongoing Helmand operations and the British role in them, I judged this invitation to be particularly important. After consulting with Secretary Gates, I agreed to speak in London.
I was awakened in the early-morning hours of October 2 by Admiral Mullen relaying concerns over remarks I’d made the previous day at London’s International Institute for Strategic Studies. A reporter had asked whether I felt a more limited counterterrorism—CT-only—strategy was viable for Afghanistan. I’d answered that, in my estimation, a more holistic effort than a counterterrorism capture-and-kill campaign was required to leave Afghanistan stable. Although Vice President Biden was not mentioned in the question, and I was not thinking of him in my answer, my response was reported as a rebuttal of other policy options for Afghanistan and as criticism of the vice president’s views.