The first was counterterrorism "lite" as they called it: no more troops, maybe even bring some out, basically the vice president's position.

Second was 4,000 more trainers for the Afghan army, which General McKiernan, General Petraeus and Secretary Gates had recommended.

Third would be ramping up to full counterinsurgency, meaning one member of the U.S., NATO military, Afghan army or police for every 40 to 50 people in Afghanistan. This was the standard ratio in the theoretical model for counterinsurgency, or as the military called it, COIN. To do that would require another 100,000 U.S. troops-a position that no one had even come close to advocating, including Petraeus.

At one point, Riedel spoke with Rahm Emanuel, who was astounded that the intelligence on bin Laden was not better. "What do you mean you don't know where he is?" the chief of staff asked. Some $50 billion a year spent on intelligence "and you don't have a clue where the most wanted man in the history of the world is?"

We let the trail go cold back after 9/11 when the Bush administration turned to Iraq, Riedel answered. The solution by the Bush White House and the Congress had been to add more people, throw more bodies into the CIA, the DNI and the National Security Agency. They were highly motivated but inexperienced. About two thirds of those in the CIA's Near East and South Asia office of analysis, for example, had less than five years' experience, roughly an inversion of how it had been when Riedel joined the CIA almost three decades ago.

In a later discussion with Jones, Riedel said, "The intelligence community is always better off when it's given direction rather than too much love." They're big boys and can handle the discipline.

The NSC principals met again five days later, March 17, for final approval of the Riedel strategy and to choose among the military options.

"Bruce has done the classic Henry Kissinger model," Gates said, referring to the military options. "You have three options, two of which are ridiculous, so you accept the one in the middle."

"Yes, that's right," Riedel said. "Guilty as charged." It was a vintage White House trick, one that offered the illusion of choice. But even though everyone recognized this for the stunt it was, the Kissinger model remained popular.

Gates and the others voiced objections to the third option of 100,000. Though it was the theoretical model, it was not serious, so they took it off the table, and all, with the exception of Biden, backed the Riedel strategy with the military option of 4,000 trainers.

Biden, whose opinion Gates had called ridiculous, said he wanted his dissent noted.

Emanuel interjected that they now had to get the review paper to the president. "The president's got to get his head into this, in depth," Emanuel said. "He's got to read it carefully, and he's got to have somebody walk him through it."

Jones agreed.

"So guess what, Bruce?" Emanuel said, turning to Riedel. "You're going to California tomorrow." Obama was taking Air Force One to appear on The Tonight Show The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and conduct several town hall meetings. The flight would give him five hours of unscheduled time-an ideal opportunity for him to digest the 44-page report. Riedel could ride along, walk him through it, and answer his questions. with Jay Leno and conduct several town hall meetings. The flight would give him five hours of unscheduled time-an ideal opportunity for him to digest the 44-page report. Riedel could ride along, walk him through it, and answer his questions.

The next day, March 18, Riedel boarded Air Force One. Over the years, he had flown numerous times on the presidential plane and had a favorite seat, a window seat, well behind the private cabins used by the president and isolated from the chairs clustered around tables. Riedel didn't feel like chitchatting. He sat down and looked over his notes to make sure he had it right.

Emanuel's plan was to stage the presentation away from the White House so none of the national security team-Clinton, Gates, Jones, Mullen, Blair, Panetta, Holbrooke or Petraeus-would feel they had been excluded from an important presidential meeting. Obama would be able to give Riedel his undivided attention.

About two hours into the flight, Axelrod came over to Riedel. Both the president and he had finished reading the report.

Showtime, Riedel thought as he stepped into the president's office in the front.

Obama was behind his desk, in a shirt and tie, with his suit jacket nearby for their arrival in California.

Riedel told Obama that the written report was by necessity a bureaucratic document, a reflection of the interagency process. The 20 recommendations were serious and focused, he hoped, and the 180 sub-recommendations fixed around actions that should be taken. It was dense-not Shakespeare-and there were parts that required some decoding. Mr. President, what I can do is read between the lines for you, he said.

You might remember, Riedel said, that during the campaign I told you that al Qaeda was as dangerous now as they were on the 10th of September, 2001. After a review of the intelligence, he said, it turns out that I was underestimating the danger.

Though my first recommendation is an integrated civilian-military counterinsurgency for Afghanistan, you, Mr. President, have to be focused on the real, central threat-Pakistan.

Some al Qaeda watchers would argue that bin Laden, hiding in Pakistan, is irrelevant, Riedel said. He's stuck in a cave somewhere, and yes, he puts out these audiotapes once in a while, but he's more of a symbol than the commander of a global jihad.

What I learned is that's just not true, Riedel said. He communicates with his underlings and is in touch with his foot soldiers. His troops believe they are getting his orders, and we know from good intelligence that they are. But we don't know the exact mechanism by which this happens. And that we don't know is one of the more troubling facts. We know that, say, four people get his messages. What we don't know is if 40 other people are getting his messages. Or even 400? If you are seeing a slice of the picture, how big is what you're not seeing? It could be huge.

You could ask, Riedel said, what was the last thing al Qaeda or its affiliates did on the world stage. And the answer, as Obama knew, was the brutal Mumbai attack organized by Lashkar-e-Taiba that previous Thanksgiving. That was a big deal, and LeT is growing.

Al Qaeda is clearly plotting against targets in Western Europe and, less clearly, in North America. For Europe, al Qaeda is using Pakistanis who have relocated to the United Kingdom, Norway and Denmark and can pass through our screening and defenses. They are not young Saudis or Somalis, but the children of immigrants, with British, French, Belgian passports. So this is a triple problem-recruiting, plotting and traveling with relative freedom.

"These guys are serious," Riedel said. "They are clever, and they are relentless. Until we kill them, they're going to keep trying to kill us."

You have to see the threat as a syndicate, Riedel continued. Al Qaeda is part of a larger militancy in Pakistan. It incubates the Afghan or Pakistani Taliban or LeT. The groups all interact. Bin Laden can't be found because he is swimming in a sea of like-minded people.

The singular feature of the syndicate is that despite the Bush administration's efforts-the extreme rendition, detention and interrogation techniques-no one has turned in bin Laden, his deputy, Ayman Zawahiri, or the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar. Lost in the entire torture controversy is the fact that none of those interrogated ever gave up the major intelligence priority-the location of bin Laden. Whether the Bush-Cheney approach was right or wrong, it did not get us what we most want to know.

That fact suggests a greater discipline than is normally attributed to al Qaeda now, Riedel warned.

You could make the case, he continued, that we were surprised once on 9/11 for all kinds of reasons. It's going to be pretty hard to explain what happened to the American people if we're surprised again. We can't be complacent. It's great that drones are killing bad guys, but we don't know where the top leaders are, where "the essence is." Drone strikes are similar to going after a beehive one bee at a time. They would not destroy the hive.

Predator drone strikes only work because CIA paramilitary teams have an ultra-secret presence on the ground in Pakistan. Without the local informants these teams develop, there would not be good signals intelligence so that the drones know where to target. This was a risky enterprise that might collapse overnight. So don't rely on drones, Riedel said. They look like a cheap way out, but they're not.

Turning to Afghanistan, Obama asked if sending in 17,000 and then 4,000 more troops would make a difference.

Yes, Riedel said, or at least you will know the answer in a reasonable time frame. Given what President Bush and you have ordered-nearly 33,000 more troops this year-that will double the number there now. The additional forces will be there by summer or early fall. We're going to go into parts of southern Afghanistan where nobody's been in a long time. If that doesn't have a measurable impact on the Taliban, then you've got a fundamental problem. In his 44-page report, Riedel wrote that the Taliban's momentum "must" be reversed that year.

When an 18-year-old Pashtun warrior has 5,000 Marines in his neighborhood he may say, "You know, I think I'll sit out the next campaign season. I'll just go home." I wouldn't call that reconciliation between a Taliban insurgent and the Afghan government, but I would call that victory, Riedel said.

"But you should have a measurement over the course of six to 12 months whether you're succeeding," Riedel said.

If you don't see progress, there are lovely words in the bureaucratic process. You can "on-ramp" more forces or you can "off-ramp" them, meaning that because of the months of delay between your approval and actual deployment, you can decide to not deploy them. Basically, you're not locked in.

How much does this cost? Obama asked.

We don't know, Riedel answered. This is a review, not a budget. But to put an American soldier in Afghanistan, to pay everything including his veteran's bill, his health insurance, take care of his family, feed him and arm him, is roughly $250,000 a year. Having an Afghan solider on the ground is roughly $12,000. And a committed, well-trained Afghan army unit knows the language, terrain and neighborhood. But remember, the United States would still have to pay for the Afghan forces because their government does not have anything near the revenue.

"The principals are in consensus on this," Riedel said. "The vice president, however, has a different point of view," a modified counter-terrorism strategy. But that is what the Bush administration did, and it's how we ended up where we are today. Biden's basic argument is that the war is not politically sustainable, Riedel said. That's politics, and not in my purview. "Mr. President, that's better left for you to decide."

"Yes, that's right," Obama replied. "That shouldn't be part of your writ."

The president also had to think about how to respond to what might happen, Riedel said. For example, we're attacked again and the address is Pakistan, what do you do about it? Obama knew about the retribution plan against Pakistan, to bomb more than 150 sites linked to al Qaeda and other groups. But, Riedel said, problem two, Pakistan's internal situation continues to deteriorate and you get a jihadist government there. What do you do?

Third bad thing. Pakistan attacks India again, either directly or indirectly, Mumbai redux. What are we going to say to the Indians this time? We admire your Gandhi-like self-restraint? I think we've probably reached the threshold in India, Riedel said. The next attack will get a military response. And that means you're talking about the potential for nuclear war.

Another problem would be responsibility for the next attack, which Riedel said he wanted to underscore again. We simply don't know enough about al Qaeda. There are dimensions, capabilities or quirks we don't understand. Al Qaeda may be more formidable than we think.

And when it came to Pakistan, Riedel said bluntly, the president and his team should not rely on Admiral Mullen's latest conversation with General Kayani. At best, it would be half the story.

To summarize, Riedel said that they would have to change the strategic direction of Pakistan. Making the necessary kind of strategic change in any country would be difficult, but particularly with Pakistan.

"That is not something you do in two years," Riedel said. "It may take two decades. It may not be possible." This was an extraordinary-and chilling-prospect.

When Air Force One landed at the Costa Mesa County Fairground, Obama and Riedel were still talking. Obama put on his jacket Obama put on his jacket to greet the crowd of 1,300. to greet the crowd of 1,300.

Taping The Tonight Show The Tonight Show that afternoon that afternoon, Obama told Jay Leno that he had picked the University of North Carolina to win the NCAA basketball tournament known as March Madness.

"Isn't that a swing state?" Leno teased.

"Complete coincidence," Obama said. "Absolutely."

There was no hint in Obama's demeanor that he had just received a devastating analysis of the threats against the U.S., a warning that al Qaeda was as dangerous as it had been on September 10, 2001.

At one point during their time in Southern California, Axelrod explained to Riedel why Obama went with UNC in his bracket. North Carolina, which Obama had carried in the presidential election, was normally a swing state, so he wanted a team from that state to win. Supporting Duke University would have been too blue, an appeal to the Democratic base. UNC, however, could be seen as more red, a way to reach Republicans.

The former CIA agent could not tell if Axelrod was joking. Politics was not Riedel's writ. On the way back from California, Obama, Axelrod and Riedel watched nearly five hours of the college basketball tournament.

Later, the president confirmed that Pakistan would have to be the centerpiece of any new strategy. "Bruce felt very strongly, as I did," he told me, "that we had to have a serious heart-to-heart with Pakistani civilian, military and intelligence leaders." that Pakistan would have to be the centerpiece of any new strategy. "Bruce felt very strongly, as I did," he told me, "that we had to have a serious heart-to-heart with Pakistani civilian, military and intelligence leaders."

"And it continues to this day, does it not?" I asked on July 10, 2010, more than a year after Riedel briefed the president.

"It continues to this day," Obama said.

The National Security Council met with the president on March 20 to review the Riedel strategy. Everyone was now familiar with it, and they discussed Biden's argument that the war was politically unsustainable.

"I think I have two years with the public on this," Obama said. "They'll stand by us for two years. That's my window."

Gates said that the Afghan National Army and National Police would be the key-increasing their numbers, their training, professionalism and commitment. "That's our ticket out."

"I think the die is cast," Biden said. With his dissent noted, he would support the president's decision. "We've pretty much reached agreement with how to go forward. I have some concerns about it, but the die is cast."

"I think this is right," Obama said. "I'm in general accord with it." But he indicated it was not a done deal. "I'm going to think about it a little bit more and I will get back to you." Nonetheless, the die was cast. And unlike the deployment announced in February, this would have to be explained to the American public.

11

In the overcast night, General Petraeus hurried along the sidewalks of Washington's Georgetown neighborhood. His spartan frame looked smaller in real life than in photographs.

The general's fame evolved from a strategy in which soldiers lived as the locals did, no matter the squalor, danger or-in the case of Washington-luxury. He had a dinner reservation and a draft of Obama's planned speech on the Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy.

There was some dissonance between the speech and the Riedel strategy review it was based on. The review's first recommendation on page 19 was to put a "fully resourced" counterinsurgency into Afghanistan. The president's draft gave scant attention to that and, ominously, the word "counterinsurgency" was not mentioned.

This concerned Petraeus. Some thought the general was trans-fixed by his protect-the-people counterinsurgency success in Iraq. But Petraeus was aware of his infatuation. He worried about becoming the victim of his previous triumph. It was possible a counterinsurgency could be the wrong track for Afghanistan.

"I've looked very hard at that," he had told some of his staff. "That is something that can have you spring awake in an early hour of the morning, that you turn over a thousand different ways when you're running." Petraeus had assigned a "red team"-groups of intelligence and operations experts who developed the contrarian view-to study the issue.

More to the point, it seemed that the president was not buying his counterinsurgency argument.

Petraeus met Holbrooke-his civilian counterpart and "wingman"-on M Street at La Chaumiere. It was a Georgetown institution and Holbrooke lived a few blocks away. With its wood-beamed ceiling and central stone fireplace decorated with wine bottles, the restaurant resembled a French country inn. By 9 P.M P.M. on Thursday, March 26, the crowd was thinning out.

Petraeus and Holbrooke huddled intently, reviewing each line of Obama's speech. Holbrooke had what he said were important edits about the Afghan police. As the restaurant cleared out, Petraeus suddenly jumped to his feet to greet the elderly woman passing by their table.

"Helen Thomas," he said, in a courtly display of military manners and charm. "It's David Petraeus. It's so good to see you."

There was the 88-year-old columnist for Hearst newspapers, the scourge of ten presidents and their press secretaries.

"What the hell are you doing in Afghanistan?" she asked. Not even a hello. Why escalate the war? she prodded. "This is Vietnam all over again."

No, Petraeus said, trying to respond.

But Thomas barged into his answers with more questions, some of which she recalled later in an interview. "Come on, don't give me that stuff." "What's your exit strategy?" "How are you going to solve this?" "What are you talking about?" "And anyway, what are you screwing around in Iraq for? You know it's going to hell when we leave." "What are we going to do? Are we going after al Qaeda?"

About her conversation with Petraeus and Holbrooke, she later reflected, "They had very soothing words. Everything is going to be fine. They were very confident. But I am passionate about Vietnam. I feel it is a repeat of Vietnam-impossible terrain, [the Afghans] are fighters. The Russians spent 10 years and they pulled out and no one called them cowards. and Holbrooke, she later reflected, "They had very soothing words. Everything is going to be fine. They were very confident. But I am passionate about Vietnam. I feel it is a repeat of Vietnam-impossible terrain, [the Afghans] are fighters. The Russians spent 10 years and they pulled out and no one called them cowards.

"Petraeus was not bragging," explained Thomas. "All I know, I didn't feel reassured."

As Obama's foreign policy speechwriter, Ben Rhodes, 31, read the president's final edits to the text. Rhodes, who had moved from the campaign to the NSC, thought Obama did not fully own the strategy in the speech. The young would-be novelist, who had set aside his literary ambitions to craft political rhetoric, was a diligent note taker. Obama had been frustrated that he had to commit 17,000 troops to Afghanistan before the Riedel review was completed. And as part of the speech, Obama announced that another 4,000 would be sent to train the Afghan security forces.

At 9:40 the next morning, Obama calmly took the stage in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next to the White House. Sporting a crimson tie and flanked by his cabinet, advisers and a row of American flags, the president said the mission was to "disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda.

"Multiple intelligence estimates have warned that al Qaeda is actively planning attacks on the United States homeland from its safe haven in Pakistan," Obama said. "And if the Afghan government falls to the Taliban or allows al Qaeda to go unchallenged, that country will again be a base for terrorists who want to kill as many of our people as they possibly can."

The president continued, "For the Afghan people, the return to Taliban rule would condemn their country to brutal governance, international isolation, a paralyzed economy and the denial of basic human rights to the Afghan people, especially women and girls."

A Washington Post Washington Post editorial editorial praised the plan with the headline: "The Price of Realism." praised the plan with the headline: "The Price of Realism." A A New York Times New York Times editorial editorial entitled "The Remembered War" commended Obama for taking a "good first step toward fixing the dangerous situation that former President George W. Bush created when he abandoned the necessary war in Afghanistan for the ill-conceived war of choice in Iraq." entitled "The Remembered War" commended Obama for taking a "good first step toward fixing the dangerous situation that former President George W. Bush created when he abandoned the necessary war in Afghanistan for the ill-conceived war of choice in Iraq."

The speech surprised Army Colonel John Wood, who since 2007 had been a senior director for Afghanistan on the National Security staff and reported to Lute. Wood popped into Denis McDonough's office.

McDonough, a foreign policy adviser for the Obama presidential campaign, managed strategic communications for the NSC. Wood said he was impressed by how strong the speech was with a counterinsurgency push to protect common Afghans. That had not been in the Rhodes draft.

"I thought that was much better than the version I saw yesterday," Wood said.

Those changes had been made personally by the president, McDonough said.

But Obama had not committed to the full troop request made by the military. McKiernan's request for more troops at the end of the year was still pending.

"No," Obama had told Rhodes. "We'll revisit this after the election" in Afghanistan. That was five months away in August. He wanted to wait to see where they were after the presidential election, and how the 21,000 he ordered to Afghanistan were doing. "We're not making any more troop decisions right now."

Secretary of Defense Gates seemed comfortable with the decision, telling Fox News two days later, "My view is there's no need to ask for more troops, ask the president to approve more troops, until we see how the troops we-he already has approved are in there, how they are doing." comfortable with the decision, telling Fox News two days later, "My view is there's no need to ask for more troops, ask the president to approve more troops, until we see how the troops we-he already has approved are in there, how they are doing."

The troop issue troubled Lute. It was a leap of faith by the Riedel review to believe that a fully resourced counterinsurgency could somehow equate to what McKiernan had requested. As they knew, the math disproved that. And Lute knew that McKiernan had requested troops based on when they became available from Iraq, instead of based on mission requirements. The U.S. desperately needed more trainers in Afghanistan, for example, but McKiernan had asked for them to arrive when they became available in five months.

"Look, sir," Lute said to the Afghanistan commander, "just tell us what you need when you need them, not when Mother Army is telling you they're available."

McKiernan didn't really respond.

There was a fundamental trade-off on resources between Iraq and Afghanistan that Lute felt should be addressed. This had been masked by how the requests were made. But the trade-off had never been presented to Bush, and was not being presented clearly to Obama.

On Thursday, May 7, Pakistani President Zardari and his 20-year-old son, Bilawal, an Oxford University student, stepped into the Oval Office for a meeting with Obama. This was a chance for the two presidents to forge a personal connection. The U.S. was hosting a trilateral summit with Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Obama greeted them warmly, calling himself an enormous admirer of Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister who was Bilawal's mother and Zardari's late wife. He recalled visiting Pakistan with college friends and learning to cook keema and dal, a lentil chili.

"We do not begrudge you being concerned about India," Obama said. "I know that many Pakistanis are. But we do not want to be part of arming you against India, so let me be very clear about that."