And what about you, Wes, old buddy? he thought. A black man, under thirty, a Yale-graduated lawyer with half a dozen years of quasigovernmental think-tank service under his belt. He had no doubt the media and gossip mavens said the same thing about him: He was an affirmative-action choice and in way over his head, which was partially true, at least the last part. He was in over his head but learning to swim quickly. The problem was, the better his backstroke got, the dirtier the pool seemed. Kealty was a decent enough man, but he was too concerned with the big picture—about his “vision” for the country and its place in the world—and less focused on the “how” of making it happen. Worse still, he was so worried about reversing the course his predecessor had set that he, too, like Kilborn, often sent the pendulum swinging dangerously in the other direction, too lenient in his stand against enemies and too forgiving of allies who failed to follow through on their commitments. The economy was warming again, though, and with it the President’s approval ratings were rising, and Kealty took this as a blanket indicator that God was in his heaven and all was well with the world at large.
And why are you staying, he asked himself for the umpteenth time, now that you’ve seen the emperor’s new clothes? He didn’t have a ready answer to the question, which worried him.
“Okay, Scott, what’s happening in the world today?” Kealty said, starting the meeting.
“Iraq,” Kilborn began. “Centcom has submitted a final drawdown plan for our forces. Thirty percent over the first one hundred twenty days, then ten percent each sixty-day period to follow until we reach nominal force status.”
Kealty nodded thoughtfully. “And the Iraqi Security Forces?” The training and outfitting of the new Iraqi Army had progressed in fits and starts over the past eight months, leading to a debate in Congress about when, if ever, the ISF would be ready to take over completely. The problem wasn’t skill but rather unit cohesion. For the most part the ISF soldiers absorbed the training well enough, but like most Arab nations, Iraq was little better than a collection of sects and extended families, both secular and religious alike. The concept of nationalism came in a distant second to tribe loyalty or Shia/Sunni affiliation. For a time Centcom had toyed with the idea of organizing units and commands based on such familial and religious alignments, but the plan was quickly abandoned as the analysts realized the United States would be doing nothing more than creating well-armed gangs who were already predisposed to internecine warfare. The question was: Could rival clan or sect members stand side by side and fight for the larger good of their country?
Time, McMullen decided, would be the judge of that.
The fact that Kilborn was giving Kealty this drawdown news rather than the chairman of the joint chiefs, Admiral Stephen Netters, told McMullen that the President had already made up his mind about the drawdown in Iraq. At last week’s Thursday meeting, Netters had argued against the ambitious pace of the withdrawal, citing the universally dismal reports on the ISF’s readiness from the Army’s brigade commanders. The ISF was certainly not ready now, and they certainly wouldn’t be ready in three months, when the first U.S. forces were scheduled for withdrawal.
For his part, Kealty had to get it done, McMullen knew, having centered much of his campaign on troop reduction. Whether Netters was right or not was irrelevant to Kealty, who ordered his Chief to get it done and make it work.
“There’s debate between brigade and division commanders about the readiness figures, but the data seem to support our plan. Four months isn’t much time, but the initial drawdown will be gradated over three months, so it’ll be a full seven months until the ISF will really start to feel any pressure.”
Crap, McMullen thought.
“Good, good,” Kealty said. “Ann, get the draft from Scott and run it through the NSC. If they don’t find any problems, we’ll move forward. Next, Scott.”
“Brazil. There are indications their expansion plan for their refinery infrastructure is more ambitious than we’d projected.”
“Which means?” Kealty asked.
Reynolds answered. “Their Tupi fields are richer than they either thought or were letting on.”
At least on the surface, the ever-growing scope of the Santos Basin’s potential had been as much a surprise to Brazil as it had been to the United States. There’d been not a whisper of it until Petrobras’s