"We are trying to change our worldview," Zardari said, "but it's not going to happen overnight."

Obama turned to the Swat Valley, a former tourist region in the northwestern part of Pakistan. About three months earlier, the Pakistani government signed a cease-fire that ceded control of the region to an Islamic extremist group that was forcing people to obey religious Sharia law. But these extremists-who were allied with the Pakistani branch of the Taliban-broke the cease-fire and continued to gain control of more territory. When they came within 60 miles of the Pakistani capital of Islamabad and close to the nuclear weapons stored in Tar-bela, the Pakistani army finally snapped to action and counterattacked.

"You've made progress in Swat," Obama said, "but there was a time we were all concerned you guys would do deals." The cease-fire had let the extremist groups subvert the Pakistani government's legitimacy. "It also gives the wrong impression that nobody is in charge," Obama said.

"If I had sent the military in without mobilizing public opinion, it would not have succeeded," Zardari tried to explain. "Once I showed that these guys are not well-meaning people, that even after they had an agreement to enforce Islamic law, that they really want power and not Islam, I was able to turn public opinion around."

Obama recognized that the Pakistani government was showing more resolve than it had before. Progress was evident by the move into Swat, and by the CIA having averaged a drone strike every three days for the past month.

The president then escorted Zardari and his son around the Rose Garden. As they walked, Obama draped his arm around the son's shoulders.

Later Obama told me that the operation in Swat was an important step by the Pakistanis, one that "you would not have seen two or three years ago." The Pakistanis had sent 15,000 troops in one of the largest operations against the Taliban. that the operation in Swat was an important step by the Pakistanis, one that "you would not have seen two or three years ago." The Pakistanis had sent 15,000 troops in one of the largest operations against the Taliban.

One evening during the trilateral summit, Zardari had dinner with Zalmay Khalilzad, the 58-year-old former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq and the U.N. during the Bush presidency.

Zardari dropped his diplomatic guard. He suggested that one of two countries was arranging the attacks by the Pakistani Taliban inside his country: India or the U.S. Zardari didn't think India could be that clever, but the U.S. could. Karzai had told him the U.S. was behind the attacks, confirming the claims made by the Pakistani ISI.

"Mr. President," Khalilzad said, "what would we gain from doing this? You explain the logic to me."

This was a plot to destabilize Pakistan, Zardari hypothesized, so that the U.S. could invade and seize its nuclear weapons. He could not explain the rapid expansion in violence otherwise. And the CIA had not pursued the leaders of the Pakistani Taliban, a group known as Tehrik-e-Taliban or TTP that had attacked the government. TTP was also blamed for the assassination of Zardari's wife, Benazir Bhutto.

"We give you targets of Taliban people you don't go after," Zardari said. "You go after other areas. We're puzzled."

But the drones were primarily meant to hunt down members of al Qaeda and Afghan insurgents, not the Pakistani Taliban, Khalilzad responded.

But the Taliban movement is tied to al Qaeda, Zardari said, so by not attacking the targets recommended by Pakistan the U.S. had revealed its support of the TTP. The CIA at one time had even worked with the group's leader, Baitullah Mehsud, Zardari asserted.

Khalilzad listened calmly, even though the claims struck him as madness. The U.S. was using the Taliban to topple the Pakistani government? Ridiculous. But Khalilzad knew Afghanistan's President Karzai also believed in this conspiracy theory, more evidence that this region of the world and its leaders were dysfunctional.

Despite Zardari's claims, Pakistani government officials had received top secret CIA briefings about drone strikes against Baitullah Mehsud's TTP. A March 12, 2009, attack against a Mehsud compound killed more than two dozen militants, who quickly retrieved the remains of their fallen comrades. And on April 1, another five militants linked to Mehsud, including an al Qaeda trainer, died in a drone strike, according to a CIA briefing given to Pakistan in April. Around 30 were killed in those two CIA attacks to help protect the Pakistani political and military establishment.

Almost everything about Afghanistan was troubling Mullen. As Obama was giving intense focus to the war, Mullen was feeling more personal responsibility. Afghanistan had been marked by "incredible neglect," he told some of his officers. "It's almost like you're on a hunger strike and you're on the 50th day, and all of a sudden you're going to try to feed this person. Well, they're not going to eat very quickly. I mean, every organ in the body is collapsing. The under-resourcing of Afghanistan was much deeper and wider than even I thought. It wasn't just about troops. It was intellectually, it was strategically, it was physically, culturally."

Perhaps the biggest missing resource was leadership, in Mullen's view. Obviously, Afghanistan needed absolutely the best commander. And for all his skills and experience, the general who currently held that post, David McKiernan, was not the best.

"I cannot live when I know I have a better answer," Mullen said, "when kids are dying every single day."

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs realized that the solution to Afghanistan was right before his eyes, walking through the ringed hallways of the Pentagon. Army Lieutenant General Stanley McChrystal had been director of the Joint Staff for more than seven months. The Joint Staff director was essentially the chairman's deputy. It was the premier assignment for a three-star, an almost certain path to four-star rank. Among McChrystal's predecessors in the post were DNI Dennis Blair, former CentCom commander John Abizaid and the current Army chief General George Casey.

McChrystal was already a legend within the Joint Staff. He worked harder than anyone, fixing problems rather than complaining about them. He was open-minded and carried out all requests and orders seamlessly. He skipped lunch, staying at his desk and munching instead from a plastic container of large, salt-encrusted Bavarian pretzels. McChrystal started the Pakistan Afghanistan Coordination Cell, which brought officers with multiple deployments in Afghanistan into the Pentagon so their experiences could inform Washington.

Gates, who often worked with McChrystal, agreed he was the man for the job. He and Mullen told the president they wanted to replace McKiernan. Obama said he would approve whoever the secretary and Mullen recommended.

Gates told others in the White House, This is my test for the president, whether I'm going to succeed here. I've got to have the best team on the field.

In late April, Admiral Mullen arrived in Afghanistan and told McKiernan in a private meeting that it was time for him to retire. arrived in Afghanistan and told McKiernan in a private meeting that it was time for him to retire.

You'll have to fire me, McKiernan responded.

McKiernan had given his word to Afghan officials that he would be there for two full years. He would not break it. Perhaps he had not thumped his chest enough, bragged to the Pentagon leaders, or charmed the visiting congressional delegations. Some of his advisers wondered if maybe McKiernan should have been more of a public presence. Other commanders seemed to benefit from media exposure. to Afghan officials that he would be there for two full years. He would not break it. Perhaps he had not thumped his chest enough, bragged to the Pentagon leaders, or charmed the visiting congressional delegations. Some of his advisers wondered if maybe McKiernan should have been more of a public presence. Other commanders seemed to benefit from media exposure.

At a Monday, May 11, Pentagon press conference, Gates's voice quivered slightly as he announced that McChrystal would be the new Afghanistan commander.

"Our mission there requires new thinking and new approaches from our military leaders," he said. "Today we have a new policy set by our president. We have a new strategy, a new mission. ... I believe that new military leadership also is needed."

Gates listed the questions he expected McChrystal to answer as the new commander: "How do we do better? What new ideas do you have? What fresh thinking do you have? Are there different ways of accomplishing our goals?"

When Riedel heard the questions Gates had posed, he wondered what the hell was going on. Just six weeks earlier, he had completed the strategy review, the president had given his speech and Gates had embraced it fully. Were they starting over again?

Petraeus was in Washington that day to attend a National Security Council meeting on terrorist detainees. He watched the press conference on television. As Gates and Mullen were speaking, Petraeus stood to go answer some e-mails. He agreed with the change, but a member of his staff reported that he looked "ashen." McKiernan had been his immediate superior during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Generals were expendable. Center stage one day, gone the next.

A week later, Obama met for 10 minutes in the Oval Office with McChrystal.

On the choice of McChrystal, Obama later recalled to me, "Well, it was ultimately my decision." But he was relying on Gates's and Mullen's judgment. "They felt that the best person to do the job at this stage was General McChrystal," Obama said. "You know, I had not had a person-to-person conversation with him."

"Did you have any feeling you're picking your Eisenhower, to a certain extent, for your war?" I asked. "Did you feel you were sufficiently involved in that decision at that point, picking your Eisenhower?"

Obama challenged the comparison. "A, I don't want to analogize myself to FDR," he said. "B, I don't want to analogize the Afghan effort to World War II."

"But it is your war," I said.

"But what I will say is," the president said, "is that given the time frames we were operating under, it was important for me to satisfy myself that this was the best person we had available."

Lute understood the rationale for installing McChrystal. But the addition of 21,000 troops included a Marine brigade of 9,000 that McKiernan was dispatching to Helmand province. Less than one percent of the Afghan population lived where the Marines were going. Lute asked McChrystal, How high would the cost be to pull those Marines out and commit them to Kandahar, the cradle of the Taliban movement?

It would be crippling, McChrystal said, because it would break the confidence with the Afghan people in Helmand.

So the Marines stayed. They had sacked the Afghanistan commander but kept his plan.

On May 26, 2009, one of most sensitive reports from the world of deep intelligence appeared in the TOP SECRET/CODEWORD President's Daily Brief. Those who wrote the PDB had learned to craft careful headlines that did not sensationalize their findings, and in some cases even downplayed them. The headline on this item read The headline on this item read, "North American al Qaeda trainees may influence targets and tactics in the United States and Canada."

This report, and another highly restricted one, said that at least 20 al Qaeda converts with American, Canadian or European passports were being trained in Pakistani safe havens to return to their homelands to commit high-profile acts of terrorism. They included half a dozen from the United Kingdom, several Canadians, some Germans and three Americans. None of their names was known.

DNI Dennis Blair thought the reports were alarming and credible enough that the president should be alerted. He personally edited the PDB each night before briefing it to Obama the next morning.

Rahm Emanuel summoned Blair to his office in the corner of the West Wing after the al Qaeda report had been briefed.

"Why'd you put that in the PDB?" he asked.

"This is a threat to the United States," Blair said. "I'm worried about it, and I think you ought to know."

"What can we do about it?" asked the ever practical Emanuel.

"I can't tell you anything to do right now," Blair answered. "If we knew more about it, we would've caught them. But maybe there's some defensive actions we can take."

"You're just trying to put this on us, so it's not your fault," Emanuel retorted.

"No, no," Blair replied, "I'm trying to tell you. I'm the president's intelligence officer and I'm worried about this, and I think I owe it to him-and you-to tell him."

Blair was insulted. The White House chief of staff was not only accusing him of a brazen act of ass covering but of ducking responsibility. Blair viewed his willingness to bring bad news as a strength, a sign of loyalty. He was accepting responsibility. The warning was an important reminder that a domestic terrorist strike was one of the greatest threats to the country, its economy and Obama's presidency.

Though toned down, the item echoed the notorious PDB headline given to President Bush a month before the 9/11 terrorist attacks that said, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." An inescapable part of Bush's legacy was that he had not acted quickly or seriously enough against the terrorist threat.

"Wow," Blair thought as he left the White House, "we come from different planets on this one."

Increasingly, he saw a fault line in the administration. Emanuel's "us" meant Obama and his team of political advisers in the White House. The military leaders and former four-stars, such as Jones and himself, were outsiders.

Over the next several months, separate FBI investigations ed to the arrest of two U.S. residents who had been trained by al Qaeda or an affiliate in Pakistani safe havens. The first FBI investigation, called Operation High Rise, was triggered by a single alert Central Intelligence Agency analyst examining intercepts. On September 19, 2009, agents On September 19, 2009, agents arrested Najibullah Zazi, 24, in Denver. He was an al Qaeda operative who was planning to detonate up to 14 backpack bombs aboard New York City subway cars. arrested Najibullah Zazi, 24, in Denver. He was an al Qaeda operative who was planning to detonate up to 14 backpack bombs aboard New York City subway cars.

A tip from British intelligence launched a second investigation called Operation Black Medallion. Chicago resident David Coleman Headley Chicago resident David Coleman Headley, 49, was arrested for plotting a terrorist attack in Europe. His business partner ran an immigration and travel agency, which had an office in New York's Empire State Building. That gave him 24/7 access to the building that was possibly the most iconic terrorist target in Manhattan.

Blair figured the U.S. had dodged two bullets because of a single CIA analyst and British intelligence. Was there a third terrorist in the United States, as suggested by the PDB?

Soon, new intelligence showed that some 100 Westerners, including many with U.S. passports or visas, were being trained in Pakistani safe havens. U.S. intelligence had lost track of too many of those people. Al Qaeda had adapted since the 9/11 attack that had killed 3,000 people. It was now aiming for smaller operations that might only require one man and one bomb.

When I later asked the president about these intelligence reports, he said, "I won't get into the weeds on this." about these intelligence reports, he said, "I won't get into the weeds on this."

But he added, "What you've seen is a metastasizing of al Qaeda, where a range of loosely affiliated groups now have the capacity and the ambition to recruit and train for attacks that may not be on the scale of a 9/11, but obviously can still be extraordinarily ... One man, one bomb ... which could still have, obviously, an extraordinary traumatizing effect on the homeland."

On Tuesday June 2, Stan McChrystal sat down in a wood-paneled Senate chamber for his confirmation hearing. He had deep-set eyes, jutting ears, straw-colored hair and practically no trace of fat. In his prepared remarks In his prepared remarks, McChrystal suggested that the president might need to send even more troops to Afghanistan.

"A key component of resourcing is people," he told the Senate Armed Services Committee, "and more than 21,000 additional U.S. military personnel will have deployed to Afghanistan by October of this year. You might properly ask if that is enough. I don't know. It may be some time before I do."

The media did not seem to pick up on McChrystal's meaning, but National Security Adviser Jim Jones did. McChrystal had confirmed what Jones was hearing from his contacts inside NATO. Just three months after the Riedel review, a campaign for more troops by McChrystal and Mullen was underway, though the Pentagon had officially committed to holding forces at the current level for a full year, at which point the new strategy-and the impact of 21,000 more troops-could be evaluated.

Jones called Gates and Mullen into his White House office.

"Hey guys, we just went through this," he said. "We told the president, we won't bother you for another year. Troops haven't even gotten there. We don't have an assessment on how they're doing. And now I'm hearing these drumbeats about more troops or things are going to hell in a handbasket, the situation is critical."

Gates's and Mullen's response was, in essence, this is something we think is coming. We're going to have to deal with it sooner rather than later, because Stan is saying things are going badly.

Jones wanted to put some order to it all, some definition. What he was getting was a cacophony of opinions. Inside the White House, people were assuming that the Pentagon was trying to force the president's hand.

Jones flew to France with the president that weekend for the 65th anniversary of D-Day. During the ceremony, he went to a quiet section of the American Cemetery in Normandy. Standing alone amid thousands of marble headstones, Jones missed the ceremony.

As President Obama spoke, Jones pulled out his cell phone to talk to Gates.

They had gone through the whole Riedel review, Jones reminded him. They had gone through all the numbers, briefed the president and the congressional leadership, and teed up the public. The military had given its advice. Obama had supported it.

"And now we got the new team running around saying, the sky is falling," Jones said. "How do we get this back in the box so that what we said to the president in March doesn't sound like we didn't mean it?"

Jones pitched Gates on a way to defuse the tension. Let McChrystal have two months-60 days-to deliver a commander's assessment of Afghanistan, rather than campaign for more troops behind the president's back.

"Look, it makes perfect sense to me the new commander would come in and make an assessment," Jones said. "He has to-it'll be on his watch. He has to make his assessment. Make an assessment. But let's knock off the chatter, in NATO and other places, before the president has a chance to be consulted. And if at the end of 60 days, he wants to come in and say whatever he wants to say, and you want to back him up, there's a certain logic and order to this. But absent that, this is crazy."

Gates agreed to the plan. McChrystal should put his thoughts down in a written report for the president.

After the ceremony, Jones told Obama about the assessment. The Pentagon is unhappy and McChrystal is worried about Afghanistan, he said.

That next Monday, June 8, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell was asked why the Pentagon had yet to announce any measurements of success for Afghanistan. Instead of answering that question, Morrell seized the moment to announce that McChrystal would lead an assessment to "get a ground-eye view of what's going on" and recommend "what changes in the strategy should be made."

12

For six years both as Marine commandant and NATO commander, General Jones had gone to Afghanistan to make his own assessments. He suggested to the president that he go again, evaluate how the strategy was working and send a message to the generals on the ground to stop agitating for more troops. Jones wanted to get to General McChrystal early. "Generals always want more force," he said.

Jones invited me to travel with him at the end of June for what would be a six-day trip to Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. I accepted.

Taliban and insurgent attacks in Afghanistan were escalating, reaching an all-time high of more than 400 attacks during one week in May. Though that did not rival the violence in Iraq, which had peaked at 1,600 attacks in one week two years earlier, it signaled an alarming trend.

Jones and a traveling party of about 40, including his staff and Secret Service protection, took off Sunday night, June 21, from Andrews Air Force Base in a giant C-17 cargo plane that can carry 160,000 pounds. The plane came equipped with about 100 standard airline seats and dozens of bunks. Jones occupied a security pod in the center of the cargo hold that contained a well-appointed office and several bunks.

During an hour-long conversation mid-flight, he laid out his theory of the war. First, Jones said, the United States could not lose the war or be seen as losing the war. mid-flight, he laid out his theory of the war. First, Jones said, the United States could not lose the war or be seen as losing the war.

"If we're not successful here," Jones said, "you'll have a staging base for global terrorism all over the world. People will say the terrorists won. And you'll see expressions of these kinds of things in Africa, South America, you name it. Any developing country is going to say, this is the way we beat [the United States], and we're going to have a bigger problem." A setback or loss for the United States would be "a tremendous boost for jihadist extremists, fundamentalists all over the world" and provide "a global infusion of morale and energy, and these people don't need much."

Jones went on, using the kind of rhetoric that Obama had shied away from, "It's certainly a clash of civilizations. It's a clash of religions. It's a clash of almost concepts of how to live." The conflict is that deep, he said. "So I think if you don't succeed in Afghanistan, you will be fighting in more places.

"Second, if we don't succeed here, organizations like NATO, by association the European Union, and the United Nations might be relegated to the dustbin of history."

Third, "I say, be careful you don't over-Americanize the war. I know that we're going to do a large part of it," but it was essential to get active, increased participation by the other 41 nations, get their buy-in and make them feel they have ownership in the outcome.

Fourth, he said that there had been way too much emphasis on the military, almost an overmilitarization of the war. The key to leaving a somewhat stable Afghanistan in a reasonable time frame was improving governance and the rule of law, in order to reduce corruption. There also needed to be economic development and more participation by the Afghan security forces.

It sounded like a good case, but I wondered if everyone on the American side had the same understanding of our goals. What was meant by victory? For that matter, what constituted not losing? And when might that happen? Could there be a deadline? What was the role of protect-the-people counterinsurgency, the Petraeus strategy highlighted in the Riedel report but not embraced directly in President Obama's speech?

The next day, Tuesday, June 23, I attended the last 15 minutes of Jones's meeting with President Karzai. Sensitive intelligence reports on Karzai claimed he was erratic and even "delusional." "Off his meds" was a common description, while high on "weed" was a description by others. Jones said that several months earlier President Obama had told Karzai that he must get his act together. Curtailing corruption had to be Karzai's first goal. As I entered the spacious office As I entered the spacious office inside the Arg-e-Shahi presidential palace, Karzai was exceedingly gracious and warm. He wore his signature lamb's wool cap and mentioned right off his familiarity with my book inside the Arg-e-Shahi presidential palace, Karzai was exceedingly gracious and warm. He wore his signature lamb's wool cap and mentioned right off his familiarity with my book Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA, 19811987 Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA, 19811987, about Reagan's CIA director, William J. Casey.

His interest in the CIA did not surprise me, given his brother's ties to the agency.

I asked Karzai what he might do differently if he won a second term as president in the election, which was two months off.

"I would become a figure of unity," he said, casting himself as a statesman. "I would not become a political player. I would not become a member of a party.

"I would bring the U.S. to the table on the peace process with the Taliban. President Obama announced this on March 27, and we haven't seen much movement on this. In fact the United States is dragging their feet."

Jones shook his head, as did the new U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, retired three-star Army General Karl Eikenberry.

They knew the Taliban currently felt it had the upper hand and would be in no mood to negotiate. But Karzai, as he often did, placed the blame on the Americans.

That night, we flew into the heart of the Taliban insurgency in Helmand province, southern Afghanistan. Here was the war without the filter of a Situation Room briefing. The cool evening air hit my face as the plane's rear loading ramp was lowered. Jeeps, trucks and buses wheeled around the airfield. Flashing lights pierced the darkness to a dizzying effect. The noise and clamor of it all felt surreal, yet the manic scene seemed to unfold in slow motion. All that was missing was the haunting and elegiac theme music from Oliver Stone's movie Platoon Platoon, Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings. We boarded a bus to take us from the airfield to Camp Leatherneck. The moment was exhilarating and frightening.

Helmand is the largest of Afghanistan's 34 provinces, but is sparsely populated and accounts for about half of the country's poppy harvest. Locals call the area the Desert of Death because of its scorching heat (up to 116 degrees) and an annual rainfall that averages less than four inches. A strong headwind can pick up the fine dustlike sand in a blast that is blinding and choking.

I was given luxury quarters in an air-conditioned tent with one of Jones's senior staffers. In the middle of the night I awoke in desperate search for a washroom. With no mountains or high ground surrounding the camp, it is supposedly safe from sniper and mortar fire. I wrapped a towel around my waist. As far as I could see, the concrete T-wall shielding the base might be the only option. I stopped there first, but finally found a small washroom a football field away. A sign on the door said, "Commanding General and Master Sergeant Only." I used it anyway, and padded back, anticipating a random shot into the camp, but there was none. I took a sleeping pill, but I would not call the next several hours restful as I lay with my eyes closed. My mind raced. What would it be like to spend a full year here? How do I show reverence for those who did? What were the real dangers? Suppose the commanding general caught me using his toilet? Did anyone understand this war? Why was 12 percent of the U.S. troop presence in an area with less than one percent of the population? What did protecting the population mean here?