“Because that’s the mission we provided them in a tasking document,” I remember Lieutenant General Doug Lute interjecting into the discussion. “They are using what we told them.”
Recognizing the disconnect, I walked into the next VTC with a slide that outlined the sources from which we’d derived the mission we’d used for our assessment, including the president’s public speeches and the marching orders that flowed from the administration’s March strategy review. We also showed the origins of NATO’s mission statement for ISAF. It seemed to surprise some of the participants in the session.
Not the president, however. “Stan is just doing what we’ve asked him to do,” he explained. But it was clear to me that the mission itself was now on the table for review and adjustment.
Redefining the mission was an important, maybe the most important, task in front of policy makers. I’d repeatedly advised my staff not to be wedded to our first interpretation of the mission. We would have to provide our best military advice on the course of action and resources necessary to accomplish whatever directives we were given. Our strategic assessment provided a partial foundation for the process, but had not considered significantly different missions.
While the review debated whether to defeat or degrade the Taliban, I never thought we’d crush the Taliban in a conventional military sense; I calculated we didn’t need to. I hoped to defeat it by making it irrelevant: We’d do so through limiting its ability to influence the lives and welfare of the Afghans, and reducing the grievances that pushed recruits to its ranks. But we also needed to craft realistic avenues and opportunities for insurgents to reconcile with the government in safety. Five months earlier, almost immediately after being alerted I would deploy to Afghanistan, I had decided I wanted to create an organization to orchestrate that process. To lead it, only one man came to mind: Soon-to-retire Lieutenant General Sir Graeme Lamb, the Scottish maverick who had so quietly done so much in Iraq to produce much needed spurts of momentum in our favor during a crucial time.
In a gross adaptation of Churchill’s famous tribute to the heroes of the Battle of Britain, I’m confident never has so much been extracted from someone for so little. Instead of offering an impressive dinner for a man who is a closet gourmet, I had taken Graeme to a cheap Mexican restaurant near the Pentagon before I’d deployed. Over burritos and beer I asked him to put all his plans for retirement life on hold, come to Afghanistan for an undetermined length of time, and do a job I couldn’t precisely define. I had no idea what the mechanics of his employment would be, or what he’d be paid. He had no time to consult his wife, Mel, or his daughters, who’d waited years for Graeme to settle.
“Of course, Stan,” he answered with his characteristic laugh, “but I can’t believe I’m selling myself for a pathetic Mexican dinner, yeah.”
Graeme arrived in Kabul in August and soon began organizing his team and establishing connections with relevant Afghan leaders. The Force Reintegration Cell, or F-RIC as it was named, became ISAF’s arm to help provide both organization and energy to what was an almost nonexistent Afghan effort to reintegrate smaller bands of Taliban insurgents into society and to set the conditions for potential large-scale, top-level reconciliation between the Afghan government and insurgent leaders.
Years of halfhearted, mostly failed efforts to reintegrate former Taliban into society had produced deep skepticism. Insurgents doubted they would be adequately protected while loyal Afghans were unreceptive to the idea that former enemies might receive land, money, or political stature while they struggled.
Because feelings on the issue were so passionate, Afghan domestic politics were entrenched. Efforts to organize and implement reintegration and reconciliation programs moved at a frustratingly deliberate pace. The international community, anxious for an acceptable accommodation, struggled to maintain a consistent position on the issue. Into this environment I inserted Graeme Lamb, with confidence he would get people talking and, I hoped, acting.