Laura Rozen: Leaked Hadley Memo Suggests Internal WH Battle on Future of Iraq Policy

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http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=12270

Get the Memo
A readers' guide to Stephen Hadley's reflections on Iraq.

By Laura Rozen
Web Exclusive: 11.30.06

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Over Veterans' Day weekend, the entire national security team met for a White House-ordered review of Iraq strategy, as first reported by the Washington Post's Robin Wright. According to my sources, the memo, which was dated November 8 (two days before Veterans' Day), was intended as a starting point for those discussions. While it does not reflect all the positions within the administration over how to proceed in Iraq, the Hadley memo offers clues to the wider debate. Herewith a readers' guide to the plans that are emerging as dominant:

Option 1: Status quo plus. This option, as outlined in the Hadley memo, would be a last-ditch effort to prop up a reconstituted Iraqi government of national reconciliation with 20,000 additional U.S. troops to secure Baghdad. ...


Option 2: Tilt to the Shias. Among the views advanced at the Veterans' Day weekend meeting was one seemingly at odds with the gist of the Hadley memo: This option, described to me as a fallback position supported by Cheney's office and elements of the National Security Council, would have the U.S. abandon the immediate goal of national reconciliation and instead pick a side -- the Shia. ...


Option 3: Reduce U.S. forces, hunker down, focus on al-Qaeda and Iran, and ride out the civil war under massively reduced goals and expectations. ...

At this moment, it is not clear who leaked the Hadley memo and why. But one possibility is that it might have been a shot in a bureaucratic turf war aimed at making people talk about the futility of Option 1, national reconciliation, with the intention of accelerating Option 2 or 3. Even if that wasn't the intent of the leak, it may be the result: Hours after the memo was published, Bush's long-planned meeting with Maliki was delayed. Asked if the delay was due to the memo's revelations that the White House lacked confidence in Maliki, White House advisor Dan Bartlett was cited by the Washington Post saying, "Absolutely not." A rare public expression of certainty in an increasingly murky landscape.