cnn.com
Washington -- When President Obama took to the world stage to detail U.S. policy toward Afghanistan, he hammered home a key foreign policy principle: Success in Afghanistan is "inextricably linked to our partnership with Pakistan."
"We are in Afghanistan to prevent a cancer from once again spreading through that country," he said in his Tuesday night speech at West Point. "But this same cancer has also taken root in the border region of Pakistan. That is why we need a strategy that works on both sides of the border."
The United States says Pakistan looms large because Taliban and al Qaeda militants operating in Afghanistan also have had a presence in Pakistan's northwestern region near the Afghan border and have threatened the governments and troops in both countries.
One U.S. counterterrorism official told CNN the Afghan Taliban has bolstered its ranks, stepped up its attacks and increased its territory. In Pakistan, al Qaeda and other militants persist in planning strikes against U.S. interests in the region, the official said.
"They've suffered some major losses, but no one should think for a second that they're down and out for good," the official said. "They remain intent on harming the United States and our allies, including Pakistan, so keeping up the pressure on them is critical. That's exactly what we're doing."
Islamabad-based political analyst Pervez Hoodbhoy said if the Taliban should prevail in Afghanistan, it will be a disaster.
"That is because the local Taliban, the Pakistani Taliban, are the ideological brothers of the Afghan Taliban, and they will gain enormous strength if the Taliban in Afghanistan sweep across the country."
Because of this scenario, Obama has from the start of his presidency linked the fight in Afghanistan with the effort to combat militants in Pakistan.
When Obama announced his policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan in March, he outlined an extensive plan for Pakistan that included bolstering Afghanistan-Pakistan cooperation, helping the security forces fight militants, increasing economic assistance and improving Pakistan's governmental capacity and performance.
He reiterated those points in his Tuesday speech and said Pakistanis understand the gravity of the fight.
"In the past, there have been those in Pakistan who have argued that the struggle against extremism is not their fight, and that Pakistan is better off doing little or seeking accommodation with those who use violence. But in recent years, as innocents have been killed from Karachi to Islamabad, it has become clear that it is the Pakistani people who are the most endangered by extremism. Public opinion has turned," Obama said.
While there's no agreement between the United States and Pakistan to deploy U.S. troops into that country, there have been drone strikes against militant targets in Pakistan's northwestern tribal areas near the Afghan border. CIA director Leon Panetta said in May that airstrikes aimed at al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan have been "very effective."
The U.S. military in neighboring Afghanistan does not comment on the attacks, which typically target Islamic militants in the border region. But the United States is the only country operating in the region known to have the capability to launch missiles from remote-controlled aircraft.
The New York Times on Wednesday said Obama now "has authorized an expansion of the war in Pakistan," a report denied by the Pakistani government.
The newspaper reported "the CIA delivered a plan for widening the campaign of strikes against militants by drone aircraft in Pakistan, sending additional spies there and securing a White House commitment to bulk up the CIA's budget for operations inside the country."
The dispatch said the "expanded operations could include drone strikes in the southern province of Baluchistan, where senior Afghan Taliban leaders are believed to be hiding, officials said. It is from there that they direct many of the attacks on American troops, attacks that are likely to increase as more Americans pour into Afghanistan."
Without getting into specifics and not commenting directly on the New York Times story, a U.S. official told CNN that it "stands to reason" that an expanded military presence in Afghanistan "will lead to an intensification of intelligence efforts in the region to support U.S. strategic goals."
The Pakistani government haled Obama's strategy in Afghanistan on Wednesday, saying that the president "correctly mentioned that the struggle against violent extremism extends well beyond the region" and that Pakistan is committed to "uprooting terrorism" and working with the United States. Also, the government is confident that a troop surge in Afghanistan won't prompt a militant spillover into Pakistan.
This year Pakistan has responded to the Taliban presence, launching military offensives this year against militants in the Swat Valley and South Waziristan.
David S. Sedney, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for Central Asia, said the Pakistani military will be facing challenges in South Waziristan, such as "counter attacks and additional pressure," but said the military and government have been engaged in an "impressive" campaign against the militants.
"It is going to be hard for them. but they are a sovereign country with a proud military, and we really expect they will be able to control their entire territory with a continuation of that effort they have already shown," Sedney said.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Hamid Karzai offers to 'spare no effort' in implementing the revamped strategy, but says little about fighting corruption in his government.
L.A.TIMES
President Hamid Karzai today pledged to "spare no effort" to help implement the revamped American war strategy but did not directly respond to U.S. demands that he root out corruption in his government.
The Taliban, meanwhile, scoffed at the goals laid out by President Obama in a major speech on Tuesday night, insisting that the insurgency would grow only stronger in the face of an American troop buildup that is to begin within weeks.
Some senior officials in Karzai's government expressed misgivings as to whether the Afghan army and police could be adequately strengthened in time to accommodate a drawdown of foreign troops beginning in July 2011, the goal set by Obama.
"In 18 months we will not be able to grow [the security forces] as much as required given the security needs of the country," said Interior Minister Mohamad Hanif Atmar, who met with the top American commander, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, shortly after Obama delivered his speech.
However, Atmar and other Afghan officials expressed hopes that the timetable laid out by the U.S. administration would help provide momentum for building up Afghanistan's police and army, and noted Obama's assurances that the American drawdown would be a phased one, tied to conditions on the ground.
McChrystal also met today with Karzai and described him as "very upbeat, very resolute" about implementing the Obama plan.
But the Afghan leader was largely silent in response to Obama's crisp demand for reforms in his government -- a refrain that has been sounded repeatedly by senior U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who traveled to Afghanistan last month for Karzai's inauguration to a second term.
In a statement issued a full 12 hours after Obama's speech, the presidential palace said the Karzai administration would work toward "strengthening of the Afghan government in law enforcement" but said nothing else about promised efforts to crack down on graft and bribery.
Corruption has been a highly charged issue between Karzai's administration and the West. The Afghan president is expected to name his Cabinet in the next 10 days.
Western officials have said the lineup of ministers will give an indication as to whether the Karzai is ready to withhold key posts from those implicated in past wrongdoing.
Many Afghans expressed relief over Obama's commitment to send 30,000 more American soldiers, saying the country is under serious threat from the insurgency.
"Sending more troops is a good idea, because they have to help curb Al Qaeda and the Taliban," Kabul businessman Abdul Kafil said. "Otherwise they will recapture the country."
Obama's Afghanistan Plan Won't Work Without Afghan Help
American military commanders in Afghanistan have warned that President Obama's new strategy, announced Tuesday night during his speech at West Point -- even though it will mean a commitment of another 30,000 troops -- will fail unless backed by dramatic action by President Karzai's government.
As Taliban are driven from their strongholds by U.S. and allied troops in the country's most war-torn provinces in the south, U.S. troops insist these gains will be pointless without trained Afghan soldiers, policemen and bureaucrats ready to fight beside them and to take charge of the areas when they are secured.
As I saw on a recent four-week trip to southwest Afghanistan's Helmand Province, one of the more dangerous areas of the country, an influx of more than 10,000 Marines this summer has already dramatically altered this war -- taking thousands of people out of rebel hands and bringing the return of schools, health clinics, refurbishment of canals, and a program to provide an alternative crop to illegal opium poppy.
But from junior soldiers to senior generals, the military were clear to me that these short-term gains had no purpose and would ultimately result in failure unless the Afghan government led by President Karzai took decisive action to take charge of these "liberated" districts.
And American forces are facing an enemy that is using more sophisticated tactics of attrition to its own minimize losses and maximize pain for the occupiers. The insurgents have learned to fight from a distance, compensating for the Americans' massive advantage in firepower. The insurgents have mastered the IED (improvised explosive device), using explosives made from fertilizer. Their next best choice is a stand-off weapon like a mortar or a rocket.
At the end of October, I joined a group of Marines from the 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance on a raid on a Taliban stronghold in Helmand Province, the most dangerous province in Afghanistan. The Marines were hitting a town known as Safar Bazaar, once the largest drug markets in the area. A year ago, a strike like this into the Taliban's heartland would have led to a firefight. This time, it led to a deadly waiting game, of a type that has become increasingly common in Afghanistan.
The Marines were operating out of Camp Payne, a forward operating base, east of newly captured Khan Neshin. Camp Payne is the most southerly combat post in Afghanistan.
When I joined them, it was clear the area had been transformed since the summer. The Marines and civilian agencies have in four months opened a school, funded the rebuilding of long-derelict canals, held shuras (town meetings) with elders, opened a radio station, funded a job creation scheme and are doling out cheap loans to tradesmen. All this has helped to prove the value of evicting the Taliban.
U.S. Leader Says More Afghan Forces Needed
But Lt Col Tim Grattan, the battalion commander, said it would take further forces to really secure Helmand. "There is no doubt we can interdict and deny the Taliban a route in from Pakistan," said Grattan, "but we need the forces to do it."
Grattan had deployed to Helmand with just two companies of infantry, under 40 percent of his battalion's strength. He blamed what he called an "artificial cap" on troop numbers set back in Washington.
But Grattan said the most critical shortage was the lack of Afghan forces. While the centerpiece of NATO commander General Stan McChrystal's strategy to win this war has been to partner with the Afghans, Grattan's battalion in Khan Neshin had to work with no Afghan soldiers at all, and could work only with a few dozen border guards and barely a dozen policemen, although others are in training.
Since parts of Helmand remain in Taliban hands, the Marines combine their work in holding the ground they have secured with raids into enemy territory.
On the way to raid Safaar Bazaar, 20 miles northeast of Khan Neshin, Grattan rode in an armored vehicle flying the Jolly Roger. His goal was to disrupt a Taliban haven. "They can't be left thinking any place is safe."
The raid began with a convoy of 40-plus vehicles fording the Helmand river. In a ruse, the Marines pushed west into the desert until darkness fell. Then they turned and looped north, stopping only to dig out bogged-down vehicles. Staying hidden, they reached an attack position just after 2 a.m. They swooped in at dawn on Thursday.
For all the deception, the Taliban had still known the Marines were coming. Rather than fight in the open, they chose to fight from a distance and tie down the Marines. They slipped away from Safar Bazaar -- and left behind a deadly ghost town pocked with IEDs.
Bomb disposal technicians moved through the silent marketplace, lined by squat brick buildings. The metal shutters had all been pulled down.
Then one Marine lay down in the dirt in the middle of a street and began to brush the dust from a pressure plate linked to a massive bomb. Other Marines took shelter where they could at the edges of the street. Everyone but a wandering donkey and a handful of Kuchi, Afghan nomads, had disappeared.
The Taliban Strikes
For all the technical expertise involved, the work still comes down to one brave man, alone and exposed, face to face with a bomb. The man I was watching asked not to be named.
"I am just glad to be helping save lives," he told me. Since July, two of the battalion's disposal technicians have died while defusing bombs.
As I sheltered with some Marines beneath an awning of thatched twigs, some used black humor to break the tension.
"I wish they'd get back to shooting at us, rather than this s***," said a Marine. As two Cobra attack helicopters flew over, one man joked: "Shoot the road! Shoot up the bazaar!"
After an eternity, we watched as the lonely man in the street disarmed the pressure plate and placed a charge to blow the bomb apart. "Get back into cover. Watch out for secondaries!" he yelled. "Controlled det! Two mikes!" he warned, meaning that a controlled explosion was due in two minutes. Then came the blast. When the debris settled there was a six-foot crater in the tan dirt of the street.
As the Marines resumed clearing the town, cutting open locked metal shutters, searching buildings, the Taliban struck. At 12.40 p.m. two mortars slammed into homes beside the market. They seemed to be coming from beyond some fields to the left.
The Marines began to fire back, and soon I heard the deep sound of cannons from the light armored vehicles (LAV) nearby on my left.
The Marines saw men piling their mortar tube into a truck and escaping. After six hours the soldiers had cleared about 100 yards of the town's main street.
An order came not to bother trying to recover any more IEDS -- to destroy them instead. There were six more in the town, and the technicians destroyed them.
By now help had arrived to search for the Taliban firing team. Choppers were circling, jets were overhead, and above them a Predator drone scanned the terrain.
Finally, the crew of an armored vehicle on a hill saw men hiding in a clump of trees, unloading a rocket from a truck. The Americans unleashed hell mortars, explosive rounds and artillery. When the thuds and explosions had subsided, orange flame and smoke covered the fields.
Obama Will Rapidly Expand Forces in Afghanistan
It was hard to imagine anyone could have survived, but from a distance no one could tell. The Taliban disappeared, the smoke cleared and the silence returned. Before sundown the Marines finished clearing the marketplace, jumped back into their trucks and drove back to Camp Payne.
Via such raids, and their work around Khan Neshin, Grattan's battalion has established a 20-mile security zone along the Helmand River. But the American drive south is still 70 miles short of Pakistan and a chain of smuggling towns that dot the border. It has also left pockets of Taliban strength, including the 30 mile stretch of riverside that separates Grattan's bases in the district of Khan Neshin from other Marine units based farther north. And when the Americans are not in Safar Bazaar, the Taliban return.
To sustain gains on the ground in a country of more than 250,000 square miles, even an augmented American force will clearly need the help of Afghan troops. In Helmand, the offensive launched in July by just over 5,000 Marines was backed by only 700 Afghan troops. But brigadier general Larry Nicholson told aides that, for an effective counter-insurgency campaign, he would rather have 700 Marines and 5,000 Afghan troops.
"It is not enough just to send in the troops," one senior commander told me. "We will be wasting the lives of our fallen servicemen unless Karzai and his government match our commitment."
This week, the British prime minister, Gordon Brown, said he had won a promise from Karzai to dispatch a brigade of 5,000 Afghan soldiers down to Helmand. And Obama's plan includes a commitment to a rapid expansion of Afghan forces.
"We must strengthen the capacity of Afghanistan's security forces and government," said the president Tuesday night, "so that they can take lead responsibility for Afghanistan's future."
On the ground, many troops are skeptical that such promises will be delivered; many believe much more radical measures are needed -- like the training of a reliable police force, recruited from local tribes, that could garner support from the mainly Pushtun people from which the Taliban draw their fighters.
"This part of the world is fiercely suspicious of outsiders," said one U.S. military intelligence officer, who was personally skeptical the military campaign could ever succeed. "Simply sending more troops from the north of the country is not going to subdue the revolt."
As Taliban are driven from their strongholds by U.S. and allied troops in the country's most war-torn provinces in the south, U.S. troops insist these gains will be pointless without trained Afghan soldiers, policemen and bureaucrats ready to fight beside them and to take charge of the areas when they are secured.
As I saw on a recent four-week trip to southwest Afghanistan's Helmand Province, one of the more dangerous areas of the country, an influx of more than 10,000 Marines this summer has already dramatically altered this war -- taking thousands of people out of rebel hands and bringing the return of schools, health clinics, refurbishment of canals, and a program to provide an alternative crop to illegal opium poppy.
But from junior soldiers to senior generals, the military were clear to me that these short-term gains had no purpose and would ultimately result in failure unless the Afghan government led by President Karzai took decisive action to take charge of these "liberated" districts.
And American forces are facing an enemy that is using more sophisticated tactics of attrition to its own minimize losses and maximize pain for the occupiers. The insurgents have learned to fight from a distance, compensating for the Americans' massive advantage in firepower. The insurgents have mastered the IED (improvised explosive device), using explosives made from fertilizer. Their next best choice is a stand-off weapon like a mortar or a rocket.
At the end of October, I joined a group of Marines from the 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance on a raid on a Taliban stronghold in Helmand Province, the most dangerous province in Afghanistan. The Marines were hitting a town known as Safar Bazaar, once the largest drug markets in the area. A year ago, a strike like this into the Taliban's heartland would have led to a firefight. This time, it led to a deadly waiting game, of a type that has become increasingly common in Afghanistan.
The Marines were operating out of Camp Payne, a forward operating base, east of newly captured Khan Neshin. Camp Payne is the most southerly combat post in Afghanistan.
When I joined them, it was clear the area had been transformed since the summer. The Marines and civilian agencies have in four months opened a school, funded the rebuilding of long-derelict canals, held shuras (town meetings) with elders, opened a radio station, funded a job creation scheme and are doling out cheap loans to tradesmen. All this has helped to prove the value of evicting the Taliban.
U.S. Leader Says More Afghan Forces Needed
But Lt Col Tim Grattan, the battalion commander, said it would take further forces to really secure Helmand. "There is no doubt we can interdict and deny the Taliban a route in from Pakistan," said Grattan, "but we need the forces to do it."
Grattan had deployed to Helmand with just two companies of infantry, under 40 percent of his battalion's strength. He blamed what he called an "artificial cap" on troop numbers set back in Washington.
But Grattan said the most critical shortage was the lack of Afghan forces. While the centerpiece of NATO commander General Stan McChrystal's strategy to win this war has been to partner with the Afghans, Grattan's battalion in Khan Neshin had to work with no Afghan soldiers at all, and could work only with a few dozen border guards and barely a dozen policemen, although others are in training.
Since parts of Helmand remain in Taliban hands, the Marines combine their work in holding the ground they have secured with raids into enemy territory.
On the way to raid Safaar Bazaar, 20 miles northeast of Khan Neshin, Grattan rode in an armored vehicle flying the Jolly Roger. His goal was to disrupt a Taliban haven. "They can't be left thinking any place is safe."
The raid began with a convoy of 40-plus vehicles fording the Helmand river. In a ruse, the Marines pushed west into the desert until darkness fell. Then they turned and looped north, stopping only to dig out bogged-down vehicles. Staying hidden, they reached an attack position just after 2 a.m. They swooped in at dawn on Thursday.
For all the deception, the Taliban had still known the Marines were coming. Rather than fight in the open, they chose to fight from a distance and tie down the Marines. They slipped away from Safar Bazaar -- and left behind a deadly ghost town pocked with IEDs.
Bomb disposal technicians moved through the silent marketplace, lined by squat brick buildings. The metal shutters had all been pulled down.
Then one Marine lay down in the dirt in the middle of a street and began to brush the dust from a pressure plate linked to a massive bomb. Other Marines took shelter where they could at the edges of the street. Everyone but a wandering donkey and a handful of Kuchi, Afghan nomads, had disappeared.
The Taliban Strikes
For all the technical expertise involved, the work still comes down to one brave man, alone and exposed, face to face with a bomb. The man I was watching asked not to be named.
"I am just glad to be helping save lives," he told me. Since July, two of the battalion's disposal technicians have died while defusing bombs.
As I sheltered with some Marines beneath an awning of thatched twigs, some used black humor to break the tension.
"I wish they'd get back to shooting at us, rather than this s***," said a Marine. As two Cobra attack helicopters flew over, one man joked: "Shoot the road! Shoot up the bazaar!"
After an eternity, we watched as the lonely man in the street disarmed the pressure plate and placed a charge to blow the bomb apart. "Get back into cover. Watch out for secondaries!" he yelled. "Controlled det! Two mikes!" he warned, meaning that a controlled explosion was due in two minutes. Then came the blast. When the debris settled there was a six-foot crater in the tan dirt of the street.
As the Marines resumed clearing the town, cutting open locked metal shutters, searching buildings, the Taliban struck. At 12.40 p.m. two mortars slammed into homes beside the market. They seemed to be coming from beyond some fields to the left.
The Marines began to fire back, and soon I heard the deep sound of cannons from the light armored vehicles (LAV) nearby on my left.
The Marines saw men piling their mortar tube into a truck and escaping. After six hours the soldiers had cleared about 100 yards of the town's main street.
An order came not to bother trying to recover any more IEDS -- to destroy them instead. There were six more in the town, and the technicians destroyed them.
By now help had arrived to search for the Taliban firing team. Choppers were circling, jets were overhead, and above them a Predator drone scanned the terrain.
Finally, the crew of an armored vehicle on a hill saw men hiding in a clump of trees, unloading a rocket from a truck. The Americans unleashed hell mortars, explosive rounds and artillery. When the thuds and explosions had subsided, orange flame and smoke covered the fields.
Obama Will Rapidly Expand Forces in Afghanistan
It was hard to imagine anyone could have survived, but from a distance no one could tell. The Taliban disappeared, the smoke cleared and the silence returned. Before sundown the Marines finished clearing the marketplace, jumped back into their trucks and drove back to Camp Payne.
Via such raids, and their work around Khan Neshin, Grattan's battalion has established a 20-mile security zone along the Helmand River. But the American drive south is still 70 miles short of Pakistan and a chain of smuggling towns that dot the border. It has also left pockets of Taliban strength, including the 30 mile stretch of riverside that separates Grattan's bases in the district of Khan Neshin from other Marine units based farther north. And when the Americans are not in Safar Bazaar, the Taliban return.
To sustain gains on the ground in a country of more than 250,000 square miles, even an augmented American force will clearly need the help of Afghan troops. In Helmand, the offensive launched in July by just over 5,000 Marines was backed by only 700 Afghan troops. But brigadier general Larry Nicholson told aides that, for an effective counter-insurgency campaign, he would rather have 700 Marines and 5,000 Afghan troops.
"It is not enough just to send in the troops," one senior commander told me. "We will be wasting the lives of our fallen servicemen unless Karzai and his government match our commitment."
This week, the British prime minister, Gordon Brown, said he had won a promise from Karzai to dispatch a brigade of 5,000 Afghan soldiers down to Helmand. And Obama's plan includes a commitment to a rapid expansion of Afghan forces.
"We must strengthen the capacity of Afghanistan's security forces and government," said the president Tuesday night, "so that they can take lead responsibility for Afghanistan's future."
On the ground, many troops are skeptical that such promises will be delivered; many believe much more radical measures are needed -- like the training of a reliable police force, recruited from local tribes, that could garner support from the mainly Pushtun people from which the Taliban draw their fighters.
"This part of the world is fiercely suspicious of outsiders," said one U.S. military intelligence officer, who was personally skeptical the military campaign could ever succeed. "Simply sending more troops from the north of the country is not going to subdue the revolt."
Obama Afghan plan must not hurt Pakistan: Islamabad
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama's plans to boost troop numbers in Afghanistan need to ensure there is "no adverse fallout" on Pakistan, the country's foreign ministry said on Wednesday.
"Pakistan looks forward to engaging closely with (the) U.S. in understanding the full import of the new strategy and to ensure that there would be no adverse fallout on Pakistan," the ministry said in a statement.
"Pakistan looks forward to engaging closely with (the) U.S. in understanding the full import of the new strategy and to ensure that there would be no adverse fallout on Pakistan," the ministry said in a statement.
Between the Lines, an Expansion in Pakistan
NewYorkTimes.
WASHINGTON — President Obama focused his speech on Afghanistan. He left much unsaid about Pakistan, where the main terrorists he is targeting are located, but where he can send no troops.
Mr. Obama could not be very specific about his Pakistan strategy, his advisers conceded on Monday evening. American operations there are classified, most run by the Central Intelligence Agency. Any overt American presence would only fuel anti-Americanism in a country that reacts sharply to every missile strike against extremists that kills civilians as well, and that fears the United States is plotting to run its government and seize its nuclear weapons.
Yet quietly, Mr. Obama has authorized an expansion of the war in Pakistan as well — if only he can get a weak, divided, suspicious Pakistani government to agree to the terms.
In recent months, in addition to providing White House officials with classified assessments about Afghanistan, the C.I.A. delivered a plan for widening the campaign of strikes against militants by drone aircraft in Pakistan, sending additional spies there and securing a White House commitment to bulk up the C.I.A.’s budget for operations inside the country.
The expanded operations could include drone strikes in the southern province of Baluchistan, where senior Afghan Taliban leaders are believed to be hiding, officials said. It is from there that they direct many of the attacks on American troops, attacks that are likely to increase as more Americans pour into Afghanistan.
“The president endorsed an intensification of the campaign against Al Qaeda and its violent allies, including even more operations targeting terrorism safe havens,” said one American official. “More people, more places, more operations.”
That was the message delivered in recent weeks to Pakistani officials by Gen. James L. Jones, the national security adviser. But the Pakistanis, suspicious of Mr. Obama’s intentions and his staying power, have not yet agreed.
General Jones was one of a series of American officials who arrived in Pakistan in recent weeks with the same message: no matter how many troops the president commits to Afghanistan, the strategy will founder unless the safe haven inside Pakistan is dealt with.
However, the United States does not have much leverage and is counting on a new attitude and a huge acceleration of efforts from a weak government. Making matters worse, the president, Asif Ali Zardari, is often at odds with the nation’s powerful military and intelligence establishment.
The question about Mr. Obama’s Pakistan strategy is whether the new commitment of troops and resources can ultimately make America safer at a time of an evolving terrorist threat. Mr. Obama insisted that was his central focus.
“This is the epicenter of the violent extremism practiced by Al Qaeda,” he said to the cadets at West Point, speaking of both Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the murky border area between the two that offers refuge to extremists of many stripes. The region was the birthplace of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, he said, and “it is from here that new attacks are being plotted as I speak.” Many times in the speech he returned to that threat, saying it was what made this war different from Vietnam.
And he referenced another threat, one that focuses the attention of Mr. Obama’s national security team daily, but which it speaks about rarely.
“The stakes are even higher within a nuclear-armed Pakistan, because we know that Al Qaeda and other extremists seek nuclear weapons, and we have every reason to believe that they would use them,” he said.
Mr. Obama’s decision to raise the nuclear specter was notable because a succession of American officials have publicly stated recently that the Pakistani arsenal is secure. In private, however, they have commissioned new intelligence studies on how vulnerable Pakistani warheads and laboratories would be if insurgents made greater inroads, with one official saying recently, “It is the scenario we spend the most time thinking about.”
Even if Mr. Obama is successful in lessening the terrorist threat in the region, many analysts say that Al Qaeda has changed into a transnational movement beyond Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“There is no direct impact on stopping terrorists around the world because we are or are not in Afghanistan,” said Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, the former C.I.A. officer who was sent into Pakistan after 9/11 to determine if Osama bin Laden had access to the country’s nuclear technology. The nature of modern terrorism, Mr. Mowatt-Larssen, now at Harvard, argued, is that a safe haven can be moved to many different states, and the bigger threat exists in cells, including in Europe and the United States.
Even Janet Napolitano, the secretary of homeland security, acknowledged in an interview this evening that the steps announced by the president would not address Al Qaeda cells in Africa or the Middle East, or even homegrown extremists. But she argued that he had to begin somewhere.
“Can you totally eliminate the threat from Al Qaeda or Al Qaeda types in Yemen or Somalia? No,” she said. “But what you have done is taken a major action to limit their ability out of this major theater, from which their leaders and major actions emanate.”
Making the Pakistan plan even more complex was Mr. Obama’s effort to reconcile two seemingly contradictory messages on Tuesday evening. He had to convince the Pakistanis that he was not planning to leave the region — as the United States did 20 years ago, after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan — while reassuring American citizens that after an 18-month buildup, he would begin to head for the exits.
The United States, he said, simply could not afford an open-ended war. Unlike President Bush, he suggested, he would not set “goals that are beyond what we can achieve at a reasonable cost, and what we need to achieve to secure our interests.”
WASHINGTON — President Obama focused his speech on Afghanistan. He left much unsaid about Pakistan, where the main terrorists he is targeting are located, but where he can send no troops.
Mr. Obama could not be very specific about his Pakistan strategy, his advisers conceded on Monday evening. American operations there are classified, most run by the Central Intelligence Agency. Any overt American presence would only fuel anti-Americanism in a country that reacts sharply to every missile strike against extremists that kills civilians as well, and that fears the United States is plotting to run its government and seize its nuclear weapons.
Yet quietly, Mr. Obama has authorized an expansion of the war in Pakistan as well — if only he can get a weak, divided, suspicious Pakistani government to agree to the terms.
In recent months, in addition to providing White House officials with classified assessments about Afghanistan, the C.I.A. delivered a plan for widening the campaign of strikes against militants by drone aircraft in Pakistan, sending additional spies there and securing a White House commitment to bulk up the C.I.A.’s budget for operations inside the country.
The expanded operations could include drone strikes in the southern province of Baluchistan, where senior Afghan Taliban leaders are believed to be hiding, officials said. It is from there that they direct many of the attacks on American troops, attacks that are likely to increase as more Americans pour into Afghanistan.
“The president endorsed an intensification of the campaign against Al Qaeda and its violent allies, including even more operations targeting terrorism safe havens,” said one American official. “More people, more places, more operations.”
That was the message delivered in recent weeks to Pakistani officials by Gen. James L. Jones, the national security adviser. But the Pakistanis, suspicious of Mr. Obama’s intentions and his staying power, have not yet agreed.
General Jones was one of a series of American officials who arrived in Pakistan in recent weeks with the same message: no matter how many troops the president commits to Afghanistan, the strategy will founder unless the safe haven inside Pakistan is dealt with.
However, the United States does not have much leverage and is counting on a new attitude and a huge acceleration of efforts from a weak government. Making matters worse, the president, Asif Ali Zardari, is often at odds with the nation’s powerful military and intelligence establishment.
The question about Mr. Obama’s Pakistan strategy is whether the new commitment of troops and resources can ultimately make America safer at a time of an evolving terrorist threat. Mr. Obama insisted that was his central focus.
“This is the epicenter of the violent extremism practiced by Al Qaeda,” he said to the cadets at West Point, speaking of both Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the murky border area between the two that offers refuge to extremists of many stripes. The region was the birthplace of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, he said, and “it is from here that new attacks are being plotted as I speak.” Many times in the speech he returned to that threat, saying it was what made this war different from Vietnam.
And he referenced another threat, one that focuses the attention of Mr. Obama’s national security team daily, but which it speaks about rarely.
“The stakes are even higher within a nuclear-armed Pakistan, because we know that Al Qaeda and other extremists seek nuclear weapons, and we have every reason to believe that they would use them,” he said.
Mr. Obama’s decision to raise the nuclear specter was notable because a succession of American officials have publicly stated recently that the Pakistani arsenal is secure. In private, however, they have commissioned new intelligence studies on how vulnerable Pakistani warheads and laboratories would be if insurgents made greater inroads, with one official saying recently, “It is the scenario we spend the most time thinking about.”
Even if Mr. Obama is successful in lessening the terrorist threat in the region, many analysts say that Al Qaeda has changed into a transnational movement beyond Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“There is no direct impact on stopping terrorists around the world because we are or are not in Afghanistan,” said Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, the former C.I.A. officer who was sent into Pakistan after 9/11 to determine if Osama bin Laden had access to the country’s nuclear technology. The nature of modern terrorism, Mr. Mowatt-Larssen, now at Harvard, argued, is that a safe haven can be moved to many different states, and the bigger threat exists in cells, including in Europe and the United States.
Even Janet Napolitano, the secretary of homeland security, acknowledged in an interview this evening that the steps announced by the president would not address Al Qaeda cells in Africa or the Middle East, or even homegrown extremists. But she argued that he had to begin somewhere.
“Can you totally eliminate the threat from Al Qaeda or Al Qaeda types in Yemen or Somalia? No,” she said. “But what you have done is taken a major action to limit their ability out of this major theater, from which their leaders and major actions emanate.”
Making the Pakistan plan even more complex was Mr. Obama’s effort to reconcile two seemingly contradictory messages on Tuesday evening. He had to convince the Pakistanis that he was not planning to leave the region — as the United States did 20 years ago, after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan — while reassuring American citizens that after an 18-month buildup, he would begin to head for the exits.
The United States, he said, simply could not afford an open-ended war. Unlike President Bush, he suggested, he would not set “goals that are beyond what we can achieve at a reasonable cost, and what we need to achieve to secure our interests.”
Pakistan to closely engage with U.S. on new Afghan strategy
ISLAMABAD, Dec. 2 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan on Wednesday said it would closely engage with the United States in understanding the full import of its new strategy on Afghanistan and to ensure that there would be no adverse fallout on Pakistan.
"There is certainly a need for clarity and coordination on all aspects of the implementation of this strategy," the Foreign Office of Pakistan said in a statement issued here.
The statement said Pakistan and the United States need to closely coordinate their efforts to achieve shared objectives. The Foreign Office said that Pakistan has taken careful note of the important announcement by U.S. President Barack Obama of the U.S.-Afghanistan strategy.
"Pakistan is committed to uprooting terrorism from our region and in advancing the cause of peace and stability in Afghanistan," it said.
Foreign Office said President Obama correctly mentioned that the struggle against violent extremism extends well beyond the region.
"We welcome President Obama's reaffirmation of partnership between the two countries built on a foundation of mutual interest, mutual respect and mutual trust and also the United States' strong support for Pakistan's security and prosperity," it said.
After months of review, the Obama administration on Tuesday renewed its strategy for Afghanistan by sending 30,000 additional troops to the country in a decisive war against the al-Qaeda network and extremists.
"There is certainly a need for clarity and coordination on all aspects of the implementation of this strategy," the Foreign Office of Pakistan said in a statement issued here.
The statement said Pakistan and the United States need to closely coordinate their efforts to achieve shared objectives. The Foreign Office said that Pakistan has taken careful note of the important announcement by U.S. President Barack Obama of the U.S.-Afghanistan strategy.
"Pakistan is committed to uprooting terrorism from our region and in advancing the cause of peace and stability in Afghanistan," it said.
Foreign Office said President Obama correctly mentioned that the struggle against violent extremism extends well beyond the region.
"We welcome President Obama's reaffirmation of partnership between the two countries built on a foundation of mutual interest, mutual respect and mutual trust and also the United States' strong support for Pakistan's security and prosperity," it said.
After months of review, the Obama administration on Tuesday renewed its strategy for Afghanistan by sending 30,000 additional troops to the country in a decisive war against the al-Qaeda network and extremists.
US commander: Offer Taliban chance to end fight
Associated Press
KABUL – The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan said Wednesday that the Afghan government and its international partners should use the coming 18 months to convince the Taliban they can't win and offer militants a way to quit the insurgency "with dignity."
Gen. Stanley McChrystal made the call after President Barack Obama announced he was sending 30,000 more U.S. troops to the unpopular war. If conditions are right, Obama said American troops could begin leaving Afghanistan in 18 months.
The Afghan government welcomed Obama's announcement but cautioned against setting a deadline for handing over security to Afghan forces and starting to withdraw.
In a statement, the Taliban said Obama's plan was "no solution for the problems of Afghanistan" and would give the insurgents an opportunity "to increase their attacks and shake the American economy which is already facing crisis."
Reaction among Afghans and U.S. soldiers was mixed, with many wondering whether the Afghan government can meet the challenges of fighting both corruption and the insurgents and whether the surge means more Afghan civilians will die.
"I am asking America `What did you do for the last eight years against your enemies? You have killed Afghans and your enemies have killed Afghans. It seems you are weak and the enemy is strong. Will you defeat the enemy this time?" said Haji Anwar Khan, a white-bearded resident of Kandahar in Afghanistan's violent south.
Shortly after Obama's speech, McChrystal told reporters the 18-month timetable was enough time to build up Afghan forces and convince the people of this war-ravaged country that they can eventually take care of their own security.
He said the Afghan government and the coalition should also use that period "to convince the Taliban and the people from whom they recruit that they cannot win — that there is not a way for the insurgency to win militarily."
At the same time, he said the U.S. should support the Afghan government in a reintegration program to allow insurgents a way to return to society.
"I think they should be faced with the option to come back if they are willing to come back under the constitution of Afghanistan — that they can come back with dignity," he said. "If you look at the end of most civil wars and insurgencies, I think that everybody needs a chance to come back with dignity and respect and rejoin society. I think that will be important for us to look forward to."
McChrystal said he met Wednesday with President Hamid Karzai for nearly an hour and described the Afghan leader's reaction as "really positive."
"The president was very upbeat, very resolute this morning," he said. "I really believe that everybody's got a focus now that's sharper than it was 24 hours ago."
But Interior Minister Hanif Atmar said 18 month timeframe was too short for a complete handoff from international forces.
"That kind of time frame will give us momentum," Atmar said. "We are hoping that there will be clarity in terms of long-term growth needs of the Afghan national security forces and what can be achieved in 18 months."
In neighboring Pakistan, Obama's speech drew a lukewarm reaction. Key al-Qaida leaders including Osama bin Laden are believed to have taken refuge in Pakistan, and Obama's announcement of a tentative date to begin withdrawing U.S. troops could deter Pakistan from cracking down on Taliban fighters using Pakistani territory as a safe haven.
"The Americans would like to keep the pressure on the Pakistan army to chase the militants all over the tribal regions, but Pakistan of course has to see whether it's feasible," said Dr. Riffat Hussain, a professor of Defense Studies at Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad. "It seems Pakistan prefers the incremental approach."
In Brussels, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said he expects the allies to boost the NATO-led force by more than 5,000 soldiers. He said the best way to overcome widespread public opposition to the war in Europe is by demonstrating progress on the battlefield.
Capt. Mark Reel from Norfolk, Virginia, U.S. military civil affairs officer deployed in Wardak province, west of Kabul, said more troops mean nothing unless they can give local Afghans a sense of perceived security.
"They have to believe they are more secure. You get thousands of troops on some of these bases here, but what are they really doing? The troops just have to get out there (in the field)." The reason the surge worked in Iraq, he said, is because troops were able to get into the field and make Iraqis feel safer.
More than 850 members of the U.S. military have died in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan as a result of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, according to the Defense Department. Of those, the military reports nearly 660 were killed by hostile action. NATO reported that the latest member of the U.S. forces to die was killed in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday when his patrol was attacked by insurgents.
Davood Moradian, senior adviser to the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, welcomed Obama's statement but cautioned against comparing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
"We are very pleased and support President Obama's analysis that Afghanistan is not Vietnam. But I think Afghanistan is not Iraq. Therefore, we have to be very careful about that," he said.
Ghulam Haider Hamidi, the mayor of Kandahar in southern Afghanistan where a large chunk of the new U.S. forces will be deployed, cited corruption — which Karzai has pledged to fight — as the worst problem facing his nation.
"The biggest problem is corruption in the Afghan government, police and military but also in some of the companies coming from the United States, Canada and England and Germany," Hamidi said. "There is corruption and drug dealing by the people who are in power, within the police and the military."
Hamidi said just last month he was told that Taliban were sleeping in the police barracks.
"The police are taking money from both sides — the government and the Taliban," he said. "When we have this kind of police and military, the Afghan problem won't be solved in 20 years."
He also said that safe havens next door in Pakistan have to be shut down if Afghanistan's insurgency is to be curbed. On Wednesday, a suicide attacker struck Pakistan's naval headquarters in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, which has been hit with a series of bombings in recent months by Islamist militants.
"More American troops will mean more violence," said Pakistani engineering student Ammar Ahmed, 20. "It will worsen the situation both in Afghanistan and Pakistan."
KABUL – The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan said Wednesday that the Afghan government and its international partners should use the coming 18 months to convince the Taliban they can't win and offer militants a way to quit the insurgency "with dignity."
Gen. Stanley McChrystal made the call after President Barack Obama announced he was sending 30,000 more U.S. troops to the unpopular war. If conditions are right, Obama said American troops could begin leaving Afghanistan in 18 months.
The Afghan government welcomed Obama's announcement but cautioned against setting a deadline for handing over security to Afghan forces and starting to withdraw.
In a statement, the Taliban said Obama's plan was "no solution for the problems of Afghanistan" and would give the insurgents an opportunity "to increase their attacks and shake the American economy which is already facing crisis."
Reaction among Afghans and U.S. soldiers was mixed, with many wondering whether the Afghan government can meet the challenges of fighting both corruption and the insurgents and whether the surge means more Afghan civilians will die.
"I am asking America `What did you do for the last eight years against your enemies? You have killed Afghans and your enemies have killed Afghans. It seems you are weak and the enemy is strong. Will you defeat the enemy this time?" said Haji Anwar Khan, a white-bearded resident of Kandahar in Afghanistan's violent south.
Shortly after Obama's speech, McChrystal told reporters the 18-month timetable was enough time to build up Afghan forces and convince the people of this war-ravaged country that they can eventually take care of their own security.
He said the Afghan government and the coalition should also use that period "to convince the Taliban and the people from whom they recruit that they cannot win — that there is not a way for the insurgency to win militarily."
At the same time, he said the U.S. should support the Afghan government in a reintegration program to allow insurgents a way to return to society.
"I think they should be faced with the option to come back if they are willing to come back under the constitution of Afghanistan — that they can come back with dignity," he said. "If you look at the end of most civil wars and insurgencies, I think that everybody needs a chance to come back with dignity and respect and rejoin society. I think that will be important for us to look forward to."
McChrystal said he met Wednesday with President Hamid Karzai for nearly an hour and described the Afghan leader's reaction as "really positive."
"The president was very upbeat, very resolute this morning," he said. "I really believe that everybody's got a focus now that's sharper than it was 24 hours ago."
But Interior Minister Hanif Atmar said 18 month timeframe was too short for a complete handoff from international forces.
"That kind of time frame will give us momentum," Atmar said. "We are hoping that there will be clarity in terms of long-term growth needs of the Afghan national security forces and what can be achieved in 18 months."
In neighboring Pakistan, Obama's speech drew a lukewarm reaction. Key al-Qaida leaders including Osama bin Laden are believed to have taken refuge in Pakistan, and Obama's announcement of a tentative date to begin withdrawing U.S. troops could deter Pakistan from cracking down on Taliban fighters using Pakistani territory as a safe haven.
"The Americans would like to keep the pressure on the Pakistan army to chase the militants all over the tribal regions, but Pakistan of course has to see whether it's feasible," said Dr. Riffat Hussain, a professor of Defense Studies at Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad. "It seems Pakistan prefers the incremental approach."
In Brussels, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said he expects the allies to boost the NATO-led force by more than 5,000 soldiers. He said the best way to overcome widespread public opposition to the war in Europe is by demonstrating progress on the battlefield.
Capt. Mark Reel from Norfolk, Virginia, U.S. military civil affairs officer deployed in Wardak province, west of Kabul, said more troops mean nothing unless they can give local Afghans a sense of perceived security.
"They have to believe they are more secure. You get thousands of troops on some of these bases here, but what are they really doing? The troops just have to get out there (in the field)." The reason the surge worked in Iraq, he said, is because troops were able to get into the field and make Iraqis feel safer.
More than 850 members of the U.S. military have died in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan as a result of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, according to the Defense Department. Of those, the military reports nearly 660 were killed by hostile action. NATO reported that the latest member of the U.S. forces to die was killed in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday when his patrol was attacked by insurgents.
Davood Moradian, senior adviser to the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, welcomed Obama's statement but cautioned against comparing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
"We are very pleased and support President Obama's analysis that Afghanistan is not Vietnam. But I think Afghanistan is not Iraq. Therefore, we have to be very careful about that," he said.
Ghulam Haider Hamidi, the mayor of Kandahar in southern Afghanistan where a large chunk of the new U.S. forces will be deployed, cited corruption — which Karzai has pledged to fight — as the worst problem facing his nation.
"The biggest problem is corruption in the Afghan government, police and military but also in some of the companies coming from the United States, Canada and England and Germany," Hamidi said. "There is corruption and drug dealing by the people who are in power, within the police and the military."
Hamidi said just last month he was told that Taliban were sleeping in the police barracks.
"The police are taking money from both sides — the government and the Taliban," he said. "When we have this kind of police and military, the Afghan problem won't be solved in 20 years."
He also said that safe havens next door in Pakistan have to be shut down if Afghanistan's insurgency is to be curbed. On Wednesday, a suicide attacker struck Pakistan's naval headquarters in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, which has been hit with a series of bombings in recent months by Islamist militants.
"More American troops will mean more violence," said Pakistani engineering student Ammar Ahmed, 20. "It will worsen the situation both in Afghanistan and Pakistan."
Suicide bomber targets Naval Complex, one dead
ISLAMABAD: A suicide bomber struck near the naval headquarters Islamabad on Wednesday, police said, killing a navy official.
The attacker walked up to a checkpoint at the entrance to the complex and detonated his explosives when challenged by security forces, scattering bits of flesh across a busy road in central Islamabad, police and witnesses said.
‘The bomber was about 17 to 18 years old. He was wearing a suicide jacket. He came to the gate and tried to enter the complex,’ Fazeel Asghar, Islamabad’s top administration official, told reporters.
‘Security officials checked him and one navy police constable, Mohammad Ashraf, asked him to take off his coat. The bomber then blew himself up and the navy constable died in the blast,’ he said.
Two other navy personnel were critically wounded, he added.
Witnesses described the scene in the aftermath of the blast.
‘I was in a nearby street when I heard a loud explosion,’ said witness Imtiaz Ali.
‘When I reached the main Margalla Road there was smoke near the navy complex. I saw three soldiers lying wounded.’
Navy officials were seen rushing towards the gate. Two ambulances reached the blast site and shifted the injured to the navy hospital inside the complex.
The windows of several cars were shattered in the powerful blast, and police sealed the road and diverted traffic.
The attacker walked up to a checkpoint at the entrance to the complex and detonated his explosives when challenged by security forces, scattering bits of flesh across a busy road in central Islamabad, police and witnesses said.
‘The bomber was about 17 to 18 years old. He was wearing a suicide jacket. He came to the gate and tried to enter the complex,’ Fazeel Asghar, Islamabad’s top administration official, told reporters.
‘Security officials checked him and one navy police constable, Mohammad Ashraf, asked him to take off his coat. The bomber then blew himself up and the navy constable died in the blast,’ he said.
Two other navy personnel were critically wounded, he added.
Witnesses described the scene in the aftermath of the blast.
‘I was in a nearby street when I heard a loud explosion,’ said witness Imtiaz Ali.
‘When I reached the main Margalla Road there was smoke near the navy complex. I saw three soldiers lying wounded.’
Navy officials were seen rushing towards the gate. Two ambulances reached the blast site and shifted the injured to the navy hospital inside the complex.
The windows of several cars were shattered in the powerful blast, and police sealed the road and diverted traffic.
Allies support U.S.-led buildup in Afghanistan
U.S. President Barack Obama's new strategy for Afghanistan earned quick support from NATO, which pledged its partners would also make a "substantial increase" in troops.
"As the U.S. increases its commitment, I am confident that the other Allies, as well as our Partners in the mission, will also make a substantial increase in their contribution," said NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen. "Taken together, the new force contributions from across the Alliance, as well as the new approach agreed by all the ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) countries, will help create a new momentum in the mission in 2010."
Rasmussen called Obama's decision to send an additional 30,000 troops in Afghanistan "a broader political strategy for success."
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said France called on "all countries that want to help the Afghan people to adhere to it," saying its nearly 4,000 personnel there were focused on stabilizing the Kapisa-Surobi province and training Afghan security forces.
Sarkozy said a meeting of NATO ministers this week and an international conference on Afghanistan in London next month will "underscore the international community's unity."
The January 28 conference in London will tackle the transfer of provinces and districts to Afghan control, civilian coordination, Afghan security and international aid, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said in a statement.
"Britain will continue to play its full part in persuading other countries to offer troops to the Afghanistan campaign," Brown said.
In his speech, Obama said it was in the "vital national interest to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan" next year and that a drawdown would occur beginning in July 2011.
About 68,000 U.S. troops already are in Afghanistan, bolstered by around 50,000 troops from 42 nations, including all 28 NATO members.
The nine-year war came on the heels of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States by al Qaeda, which had been given safe haven in Afghanistan by the Taliban government. Nearly 3,000 people died in the attacks on New York and Washington. Since being overthrown in 2001, the Taliban have been trying to regain strength in Afghanistan as well as Pakistan.
Human Rights Watch said Obama's plan needed to strengthen civilian protection with a "clear strategy for combating corruption, removing warlords and holding rights violators accountable."
The human rights organization called the U.S. emphasis on rule of law in Afghanistan "long overdue" but said sufficient training of Afghan security was needed to "ensure basic human rights protections."
The U.S. State Department said it was tripling the number of civilian staff deployed to Afghanistan and plans to have 974 staff members there by early next year.
Experts from the U.S. Department of Agriculture are embedded with the U.S. military, said U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday in an address to the Business Executives for National Security Gala in New York. In addition, "rule of law" experts are working to extend a system of justice "so that the Taliban would not offer the only form of justice in Afghanistan," she added.
In his speech, Obama emphasized that the U.S. troop commitment in Afghanistan was not open-ended, saying, "the nation that I am most interested in building is our own."
"As the U.S. increases its commitment, I am confident that the other Allies, as well as our Partners in the mission, will also make a substantial increase in their contribution," said NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen. "Taken together, the new force contributions from across the Alliance, as well as the new approach agreed by all the ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) countries, will help create a new momentum in the mission in 2010."
Rasmussen called Obama's decision to send an additional 30,000 troops in Afghanistan "a broader political strategy for success."
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said France called on "all countries that want to help the Afghan people to adhere to it," saying its nearly 4,000 personnel there were focused on stabilizing the Kapisa-Surobi province and training Afghan security forces.
Sarkozy said a meeting of NATO ministers this week and an international conference on Afghanistan in London next month will "underscore the international community's unity."
The January 28 conference in London will tackle the transfer of provinces and districts to Afghan control, civilian coordination, Afghan security and international aid, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said in a statement.
"Britain will continue to play its full part in persuading other countries to offer troops to the Afghanistan campaign," Brown said.
In his speech, Obama said it was in the "vital national interest to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan" next year and that a drawdown would occur beginning in July 2011.
About 68,000 U.S. troops already are in Afghanistan, bolstered by around 50,000 troops from 42 nations, including all 28 NATO members.
The nine-year war came on the heels of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States by al Qaeda, which had been given safe haven in Afghanistan by the Taliban government. Nearly 3,000 people died in the attacks on New York and Washington. Since being overthrown in 2001, the Taliban have been trying to regain strength in Afghanistan as well as Pakistan.
Human Rights Watch said Obama's plan needed to strengthen civilian protection with a "clear strategy for combating corruption, removing warlords and holding rights violators accountable."
The human rights organization called the U.S. emphasis on rule of law in Afghanistan "long overdue" but said sufficient training of Afghan security was needed to "ensure basic human rights protections."
The U.S. State Department said it was tripling the number of civilian staff deployed to Afghanistan and plans to have 974 staff members there by early next year.
Experts from the U.S. Department of Agriculture are embedded with the U.S. military, said U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday in an address to the Business Executives for National Security Gala in New York. In addition, "rule of law" experts are working to extend a system of justice "so that the Taliban would not offer the only form of justice in Afghanistan," she added.
In his speech, Obama emphasized that the U.S. troop commitment in Afghanistan was not open-ended, saying, "the nation that I am most interested in building is our own."
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Obama: Afghanistan not lost, remains challenge..FULL SPEECH
www.msnbc.msn.com
U.S. casualties in Afghanistan
The number of American troops killed and wounded since the beginning of the war
YEAR KILLED WOUNDED
2001 11 33
2002 49 74
2003 45 99
2004 52 214
2005 98 268
2006 98 401
2007 117 752
2008 155 790
2009 299 1,803
Total 924 4,434
Source: Defense Manpower Data Center
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
U.S. casualties in Afghanistan
The number of American troops killed and wounded since the beginning of the war
YEAR KILLED WOUNDED
2001 11 33
2002 49 74
2003 45 99
2004 52 214
2005 98 268
2006 98 401
2007 117 752
2008 155 790
2009 299 1,803
Total 924 4,434
Source: Defense Manpower Data Center
Obama announces 30,000 additional troops for Afghanistan
Washington Post
President Obama outlined a plan Tuesday night to speed the deployment of an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan early next year, nearly tripling the force he inherited at the start of his presidency, and then to start withdrawing American personnel in July 2011 as a way to prod the Afghan government to accept greater responsibility for fighting the radical Islamist Taliban movement and securing the country.
"As commander in chief, I have determined that it is in our vital national interest to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan," Obama said in a speech at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. "After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home. These are the resources that we need to seize the initiative, while building the Afghan capacity that can allow for a responsible transition of our forces out of Afghanistan."
Laying out what he called the "huge challenges" facing U.S. and allies forces, Obama said: "Afghanistan is not lost, but for several years it has moved backwards. There is no imminent threat of the government being overthrown, but the Taliban has gained momentum." Al-Qaeda "has not reemerged in Afghanistan in the same numbers" as before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, "but they retain their safe havens along the border," he said. "And our forces lack the full support they need to effectively train and partner with Afghan security forces and better secure the population."
Obama linked the effort in Afghanistan to U.S. support for a battle against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in neighboring Pakistan, and he offered assurances to the people of both countries.
"We will act with the full recognition that our success in Afghanistan is inextricably linked to our partnership with Pakistan," he said. "We are in Afghanistan to prevent a cancer from once again spreading through that country. But this same cancer has also taken root in the border region of Pakistan. That is why we need a strategy that works on both sides of the border."
He rejected criticism that he has dawdled in setting out a new war plan for Afghanistan. "There has never been an option before me that called for troop deployments before 2010, so there has been no delay or denial of resources necessary for the conduct of the war," he said.
Obama said his new approach in Afghanistan is likely to cost an additional $30 billion this year. But he pledged to work closely with Congress to address these costs.
"The 30,000 additional troops that I am announcing tonight will deploy in the first part of 2010 -- the fastest pace possible -- so that they can target the insurgency and secure key population centers," Obama said.
He said the reinforcements would "increase our ability to train competent Afghan security forces," allowing more Afghans to "get into the fight" and creating conditions for U.S. withdrawal.
In his long-awaited announcement of a new war plan for Afghanistan -- where 68,000 U.S. troops are currently deployed, about 33,000 of them sent there this year -- Obama said he has asked for additional contributions from U.S. allies. Those troops are intended to help make up the difference between the U.S. reinforcements and the 40,000 troops that the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan has requested to deal with the threat of a resurgent Taliban.
"Some have already provided additional troops, and we are confident that there will be further contributions in the days and weeks ahead," Obama said. "Our friends have fought and bled and died alongside us in Afghanistan. Now, we must come together to end this war successfully. For what's at stake is not simply a test of NATO's credibility. What's at stake is the security of our allies, and the common security of the world."
According to Obama, the extra U.S. and allied troops would "allow us to accelerate handing over responsibility to Afghan forces and . . . begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011." He said this withdrawal will be executed "responsibly" by "taking into account conditions on the ground," as he said has been the case in drawing down U.S. troops in Iraq.
The United States would continue to help Afghan security forces "to ensure that they can succeed over the long haul," he said. "But it will be clear to the Afghan government -- and, more importantly, to the Afghan people -- that they will ultimately be responsible for their own country."
Speaking before an audience of West Point's cadets, Obama addressed the nation a little more than eight years after U.S.-backed Afghan forces drove the Taliban from power in Kabul, ending five years of brutal rule marked by warfare against ethnic minorities and strict imposition of an extremist version of Islamic law. During that period, the Taliban harbored Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda organization, allowing it to set up bases and safe houses to train militants and plot attacks against the West.
In a briefing before Obama's speech, a senior administration official told reporters that the U.S. goal in Afghanistan is "to prevent the return of . . . al-Qaeda and to prevent the Taliban from overthrowing the Afghan government." He said the "surge" of U.S. forces ordered by Obama was aimed at reversing Taliban momentum that has been building steadily for three or four years, securing population centers in the south and east and training Afghan forces as quickly as possible so they can assume responsibility and allow U.S. forces to withdraw.
"This surge . . . will be for a defined period of time," the official said. "We do not intend . . . to commit American combat forces indefinitely to Afghanistan."
Obama's announcement that he is simultaneously escalating the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan and setting a starting date for withdrawal reflected the divisions that arose within his administration during a three-month strategy review and the difficult politics he faces in selling his plan on Capitol Hill.
Many Democrats oppose sending more U.S. troops to wage a war that most Americans now believe is not worth fighting, according to recent polls.
Tackling arguments against his decision, Obama rejected the idea that "Afghanistan is another Vietnam," an argument he said "depends on a false reading of history," and that the United States should cut its losses and pull out now.
"To abandon this area now -- and to rely only on efforts against al-Qaeda from a distance -- would significantly hamper our ability to keep the pressure on al-Qaeda and create an unacceptable risk of additional attacks on our homeland and our allies," he said.
He said going ahead with the troops already in Afghanistan "would simply maintain a status quo in which we muddle through and permit a slow deterioration of conditions there," ultimately proving more costly.
To those who oppose identifying a timeline for withdrawal, he said, an "open-ended escalation of our war effort" would commit the United States to "goals that are beyond what we can achieve at a reasonable cost" and would remove "any sense of urgency in working with the Afghan government."
Obama declared: "It must be clear that Afghans will have to take responsibility for their security, and that America has no interest in fighting an endless war in Afghanistan."
Explaining Obama's plan to start drawing down U.S. troops in July 2011, the officials said that date marks "the beginning of a process which is not yet defined in terms of the length of the process or the end point." The pace of the withdrawals and the final pullout will be determined by "conditions on the ground," he said.
By setting a date to start the withdrawals, Obama hopes to prod Afghan President Hamid Karzai to crack down on official corruption, build his government as an alternative to the Taliban and establish a well-trained Afghan army.
Asked if publicly announcing the date would simply encourage insurgents to lie low, the official said, "if the Taliban thinks they can wait us out, I think that they're misjudging the president's approach." The timeline "may be misinterpreted, but the Taliban will do that at its own risk," he said.
He insisted that "there's a value in setting a date like this as a sort of strategic inflection point, because it does put everyone . . . under pressure to do more sooner."
Among those supporting Obama's decision was Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), who made headlines three months ago when he shouted "You lie!" at Obama during a presidential speech to Congress on health care. In a statement Tuesday, Wilson said he was "pleased that the president has listened to our commanders on the ground as they aggressively pursue a multidimensional counterinsurgency strategy to secure Afghanistan."
NATO ministers are scheduled to meet later this week in Brussels to secure new commitments of additional forces for Afghanistan.
According to the French newspaper Le Monde, Obama is asking four major European NATO allies to contribute about 6,000 troops to the Afghan war effort. In one of a series of phone calls Monday to explain the U.S. strategy to leading allies and major powers, the newspaper reported, Obama asked French President Nicolas Sarkozy to send 1,500 additional troops.
Le Monde said Washington also is requesting 2,000 additional troops from Germany, 1,500 from Italy and 1,000 from Britain. NATO's military mission in Afghanistan, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), currently includes about 4,500 troops from Germany, 9,000 from Britain, 3,750 from France and nearly 2,800 from Italy.
Besides the United States, 42 other nations -- including all 26 NATO members -- have contributed troops to ISAF. By far the leading contributor to the NATO force has been the United States, with 34,800 troops. A similar number of American troops are under separate U.S. command. U.S. Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal heads both ISAF and the separate U.S. military contingent in Afghanistan.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown told lawmakers Tuesday that 500 more British troops would be sent to Afghanistan early this month, raising the country's total to 9,500. He said he has received assurances "that several other countries in the coalition will also provide additional troops" and that thousands of Afghan soldiers would be deployed to embattled Helmand province to work alongside NATO forces, the British Defense Ministry reported.
Sarkozy, who declared in October that no additional French soldiers would be sent to Afghanistan, is now prepared to help meet Obama's request for more allied troops, depending on the Afghan government's commitment to improve governance and fight corruption, French news media reported.
Germany, for its part, faces strong internal opposition to providing more troops, especially after a German-ordered airstrike near Kunduz in early September reportedly killed dozens of civilians. A controversy over the U.S. airstrike on two hijacked fuel tanker trucks already has led to the resignation of a German cabinet member who was defense minister at the time.
In an hour-long conversation via secure video teleconference Monday night, Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai "reaffirmed their commitment to work closely together to ensure stability in Afghanistan and to prevent the country from becoming a safe haven for terrorists," the White House said Tuesday. It said the two discussed a range of issues, including the rampant corruption that has helped the Taliban make inroads in recent years.
Obama urged more rapid development of Afghan security forces and stressed that "U.S. and international efforts in Afghanistan are not open-ended," but must be reevaluated within the next 18 to 24 months, the White House said.
In a separate call to Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, Obama pledged to continue assisting Pakistan in his fight against Islamist extremists and praised the country's "profound sacrifices" in its current offensive against the Taliban in northwestern Pakistan, the White House said.
President Obama outlined a plan Tuesday night to speed the deployment of an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan early next year, nearly tripling the force he inherited at the start of his presidency, and then to start withdrawing American personnel in July 2011 as a way to prod the Afghan government to accept greater responsibility for fighting the radical Islamist Taliban movement and securing the country.
"As commander in chief, I have determined that it is in our vital national interest to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan," Obama said in a speech at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. "After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home. These are the resources that we need to seize the initiative, while building the Afghan capacity that can allow for a responsible transition of our forces out of Afghanistan."
Laying out what he called the "huge challenges" facing U.S. and allies forces, Obama said: "Afghanistan is not lost, but for several years it has moved backwards. There is no imminent threat of the government being overthrown, but the Taliban has gained momentum." Al-Qaeda "has not reemerged in Afghanistan in the same numbers" as before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, "but they retain their safe havens along the border," he said. "And our forces lack the full support they need to effectively train and partner with Afghan security forces and better secure the population."
Obama linked the effort in Afghanistan to U.S. support for a battle against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in neighboring Pakistan, and he offered assurances to the people of both countries.
"We will act with the full recognition that our success in Afghanistan is inextricably linked to our partnership with Pakistan," he said. "We are in Afghanistan to prevent a cancer from once again spreading through that country. But this same cancer has also taken root in the border region of Pakistan. That is why we need a strategy that works on both sides of the border."
He rejected criticism that he has dawdled in setting out a new war plan for Afghanistan. "There has never been an option before me that called for troop deployments before 2010, so there has been no delay or denial of resources necessary for the conduct of the war," he said.
Obama said his new approach in Afghanistan is likely to cost an additional $30 billion this year. But he pledged to work closely with Congress to address these costs.
"The 30,000 additional troops that I am announcing tonight will deploy in the first part of 2010 -- the fastest pace possible -- so that they can target the insurgency and secure key population centers," Obama said.
He said the reinforcements would "increase our ability to train competent Afghan security forces," allowing more Afghans to "get into the fight" and creating conditions for U.S. withdrawal.
In his long-awaited announcement of a new war plan for Afghanistan -- where 68,000 U.S. troops are currently deployed, about 33,000 of them sent there this year -- Obama said he has asked for additional contributions from U.S. allies. Those troops are intended to help make up the difference between the U.S. reinforcements and the 40,000 troops that the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan has requested to deal with the threat of a resurgent Taliban.
"Some have already provided additional troops, and we are confident that there will be further contributions in the days and weeks ahead," Obama said. "Our friends have fought and bled and died alongside us in Afghanistan. Now, we must come together to end this war successfully. For what's at stake is not simply a test of NATO's credibility. What's at stake is the security of our allies, and the common security of the world."
According to Obama, the extra U.S. and allied troops would "allow us to accelerate handing over responsibility to Afghan forces and . . . begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011." He said this withdrawal will be executed "responsibly" by "taking into account conditions on the ground," as he said has been the case in drawing down U.S. troops in Iraq.
The United States would continue to help Afghan security forces "to ensure that they can succeed over the long haul," he said. "But it will be clear to the Afghan government -- and, more importantly, to the Afghan people -- that they will ultimately be responsible for their own country."
Speaking before an audience of West Point's cadets, Obama addressed the nation a little more than eight years after U.S.-backed Afghan forces drove the Taliban from power in Kabul, ending five years of brutal rule marked by warfare against ethnic minorities and strict imposition of an extremist version of Islamic law. During that period, the Taliban harbored Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda organization, allowing it to set up bases and safe houses to train militants and plot attacks against the West.
In a briefing before Obama's speech, a senior administration official told reporters that the U.S. goal in Afghanistan is "to prevent the return of . . . al-Qaeda and to prevent the Taliban from overthrowing the Afghan government." He said the "surge" of U.S. forces ordered by Obama was aimed at reversing Taliban momentum that has been building steadily for three or four years, securing population centers in the south and east and training Afghan forces as quickly as possible so they can assume responsibility and allow U.S. forces to withdraw.
"This surge . . . will be for a defined period of time," the official said. "We do not intend . . . to commit American combat forces indefinitely to Afghanistan."
Obama's announcement that he is simultaneously escalating the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan and setting a starting date for withdrawal reflected the divisions that arose within his administration during a three-month strategy review and the difficult politics he faces in selling his plan on Capitol Hill.
Many Democrats oppose sending more U.S. troops to wage a war that most Americans now believe is not worth fighting, according to recent polls.
Tackling arguments against his decision, Obama rejected the idea that "Afghanistan is another Vietnam," an argument he said "depends on a false reading of history," and that the United States should cut its losses and pull out now.
"To abandon this area now -- and to rely only on efforts against al-Qaeda from a distance -- would significantly hamper our ability to keep the pressure on al-Qaeda and create an unacceptable risk of additional attacks on our homeland and our allies," he said.
He said going ahead with the troops already in Afghanistan "would simply maintain a status quo in which we muddle through and permit a slow deterioration of conditions there," ultimately proving more costly.
To those who oppose identifying a timeline for withdrawal, he said, an "open-ended escalation of our war effort" would commit the United States to "goals that are beyond what we can achieve at a reasonable cost" and would remove "any sense of urgency in working with the Afghan government."
Obama declared: "It must be clear that Afghans will have to take responsibility for their security, and that America has no interest in fighting an endless war in Afghanistan."
Explaining Obama's plan to start drawing down U.S. troops in July 2011, the officials said that date marks "the beginning of a process which is not yet defined in terms of the length of the process or the end point." The pace of the withdrawals and the final pullout will be determined by "conditions on the ground," he said.
By setting a date to start the withdrawals, Obama hopes to prod Afghan President Hamid Karzai to crack down on official corruption, build his government as an alternative to the Taliban and establish a well-trained Afghan army.
Asked if publicly announcing the date would simply encourage insurgents to lie low, the official said, "if the Taliban thinks they can wait us out, I think that they're misjudging the president's approach." The timeline "may be misinterpreted, but the Taliban will do that at its own risk," he said.
He insisted that "there's a value in setting a date like this as a sort of strategic inflection point, because it does put everyone . . . under pressure to do more sooner."
Among those supporting Obama's decision was Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), who made headlines three months ago when he shouted "You lie!" at Obama during a presidential speech to Congress on health care. In a statement Tuesday, Wilson said he was "pleased that the president has listened to our commanders on the ground as they aggressively pursue a multidimensional counterinsurgency strategy to secure Afghanistan."
NATO ministers are scheduled to meet later this week in Brussels to secure new commitments of additional forces for Afghanistan.
According to the French newspaper Le Monde, Obama is asking four major European NATO allies to contribute about 6,000 troops to the Afghan war effort. In one of a series of phone calls Monday to explain the U.S. strategy to leading allies and major powers, the newspaper reported, Obama asked French President Nicolas Sarkozy to send 1,500 additional troops.
Le Monde said Washington also is requesting 2,000 additional troops from Germany, 1,500 from Italy and 1,000 from Britain. NATO's military mission in Afghanistan, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), currently includes about 4,500 troops from Germany, 9,000 from Britain, 3,750 from France and nearly 2,800 from Italy.
Besides the United States, 42 other nations -- including all 26 NATO members -- have contributed troops to ISAF. By far the leading contributor to the NATO force has been the United States, with 34,800 troops. A similar number of American troops are under separate U.S. command. U.S. Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal heads both ISAF and the separate U.S. military contingent in Afghanistan.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown told lawmakers Tuesday that 500 more British troops would be sent to Afghanistan early this month, raising the country's total to 9,500. He said he has received assurances "that several other countries in the coalition will also provide additional troops" and that thousands of Afghan soldiers would be deployed to embattled Helmand province to work alongside NATO forces, the British Defense Ministry reported.
Sarkozy, who declared in October that no additional French soldiers would be sent to Afghanistan, is now prepared to help meet Obama's request for more allied troops, depending on the Afghan government's commitment to improve governance and fight corruption, French news media reported.
Germany, for its part, faces strong internal opposition to providing more troops, especially after a German-ordered airstrike near Kunduz in early September reportedly killed dozens of civilians. A controversy over the U.S. airstrike on two hijacked fuel tanker trucks already has led to the resignation of a German cabinet member who was defense minister at the time.
In an hour-long conversation via secure video teleconference Monday night, Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai "reaffirmed their commitment to work closely together to ensure stability in Afghanistan and to prevent the country from becoming a safe haven for terrorists," the White House said Tuesday. It said the two discussed a range of issues, including the rampant corruption that has helped the Taliban make inroads in recent years.
Obama urged more rapid development of Afghan security forces and stressed that "U.S. and international efforts in Afghanistan are not open-ended," but must be reevaluated within the next 18 to 24 months, the White House said.
In a separate call to Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, Obama pledged to continue assisting Pakistan in his fight against Islamist extremists and praised the country's "profound sacrifices" in its current offensive against the Taliban in northwestern Pakistan, the White House said.
Obama wants Afghan war over in 3 years
CNN.COM
Washington (CNN) -- President Obama is sending 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan but plans to conclude the war and withdraw most U.S. service members within three years, senior administration officials told CNN Tuesday.
The president is ordering military officials to get the reinforcements to Afghanistan within six months, White House officials said.
Obama will travel to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, later Tuesday to officially announce his plans. It would be his second escalation of U.S. forces in the war-torn Islamic country since he came to power in January.
The president also is seeking further troop commitments from NATO allies as part of a counterinsurgency strategy aimed at wiping out al Qaeda elements and stabilizing the country while training Afghan forces.
The expected new troop deployment would increase the total U.S. commitment to roughly 100,000 troops in Afghanistan, bolstered by about 45,000 NATO forces.
Watch what the new troops will do in Afghanistan
Obama, whom Republicans had accused of "dithering" over the decision, came to the conclusion that the deployment needs to be accelerated to knock back the Taliban, the officials said.
The push for a speedy deployment surprised some observers, because White House officials who defended Obama's slow pace of coming to a decision had said the Pentagon wouldn't be able to get new troops to Afghanistan that quickly.
Asked to explain that seeming contradiction, a White House official told CNN: "The president is saying this has to happen, so the military will make it happen."
A Pentagon official acknowledged Obama's six-month timeline for sending the new troops is "very aggressive" and will be challenging for the military to fulfill. The official expressed confidence, however, that the military would successfully carry out the order.
The official noted that, under the new strategy, Obama is "trying to do it faster" than the 12-month timeline initially requested by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan.
McChrystal wrote in a report in August that a "failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near-term (next 12 months) -- while Afghan security capacity matures -- risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible."
In addition to reviewing new timelines, the president's speech, according to White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, will also explain why the United States is involved in Afghanistan, the new American mission in the war-torn country and the process that led to Obama's decision.
The president will emphasize the limit on U.S. resources in manpower and budget, Gibbs added.
Gibbs said Obama has been briefing top aides, military officials and foreign leaders about this decision. The president previously ordered more than 20,000 additional troops to Afghanistan.
The decision to send another 30,000 troops carries significant political risk for Obama, who will announce it nine days before he travels to Oslo, Norway, to accept the Nobel Peace Prize.
His liberal base, which helped him win last year's presidential election, opposes another troop deployment to Afghanistan.
"I think he's made up his mind that there needs to be a troop increase, and I have to say I'm very skeptical about that as a solution," said Rep. Janice Schakowsky, D-Illinois, a longtime Obama ally who now worries Afghanistan will become what she calls another quagmire.
In addition, the deployment -- expected to cost an extra $30 billion a year -- comes amid high unemployment as the economy emerges from a recession. That concerns Democrats and Republicans faced with competing domestic priorities such as health care reform and job creation.
House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wisconsin, recently proposed a special war surtax to finance the conflict.
Gibbs told reporters Monday that he had "not heard extensive discussion" at the White House about a possible surtax.
"I know the president will touch on costs" during Tuesday's address, he said, but "I don't expect to get overly detailed [about that issue] in the speech."
In Afghanistan, reaction to the possibility of more U.S. troops ranges from outright opposition to a willingness to see what happens.
"We welcome their arrival if they really expel the Taliban, terrorists, and al Qaeda from the borders of Afghanistan," said Mohammad Zia, 40, in Kabul, the capital. "But if they come and kill more civilians and destroy villages, then they shouldn't come."
Back home, Obama's allies said the president must convince the American public that sending more troops will help achieve the goals of the mission.
"The president needs to explain how more combat troops will speed up training of Afghan forces," Sen. Carl Levin, D-Michigan, said Sunday on the CBS program "Face the Nation."
The deployment won't work if the mission is for the United States to take on the Taliban on its own, Levin said.
As for why the president chose West Point as the venue, the White House officials noted the Army has borne an extremely heavy burden in the Afghan war, so the school is an important symbol.
The officials said West Point not only is where cadets train, but also where they study counterinsurgency principles at the heart of the new U.S. strategy in Afghanistan.
Watch people in West Point town talk about the war
The decision to send 30,000 additional soldiers to Afghanistan could delay the Army's promise of ensuring all troops get at least two years home between deployments, a senior Army official told CNN.
The Army's goal was to implement such a policy by 2011, the official noted.
U.S.-led troops first invaded Afghanistan in response to the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and the Pentagon by the al Qaeda terrorist network. The invasion overthrew the ruling Taliban, which had allowed al Qaeda to operate from its territory -- but most of the top al Qaeda and Taliban leadership escaped the onslaught.
Taliban fighters have since regrouped in the mountainous region along Afghanistan's border with Pakistan, battling U.S. and Afghan government forces on one side and Pakistani troops on the other. Al Qaeda's top leaders, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, remain at large and are suspected to be hiding in the same region.
The conflict has claimed the lives of more than 900 Americans and nearly 600 allied troops.
Obama Briefs Karzai on War Plans
Afghan President Hamid Karzai and President Obama discussed the new U.S. policy for Afghanistan during an hour-long video conference call Tuesday morning, a spokesman for the presidential palace said.
The video conference came ahead of Mr. Obama's planned speech Tuesday night at the U.S. Military Academy West Point, N.Y., where he will outline a new U.S. war plan and dispatch between 30,000 and 35,000 more American troops to Afghanistan. Karzai's office says the two leaders discussed in detail the security, political, military and economic aspects of the strategy. The call was one of several Mr. Obama was making to world leaders, including Asif Ali Zardari, the president of neighboring Pakistan.
Mr. Obama's war escalation includes sending more American forces into Afghanistan in a graduated deployment over the next year. They will join the 71,000 U.S. troops already on the ground. Mr. Obama's new war strategy also includes renewed focus on training Afghan forces to take over the fight and allow the Americans to leave.
Thirty thousand more troops would be 10,000 fewer than Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander in Afghanistan, requested, reports CBS News correspondent David Martin. The president hopes to make up at least some of the difference with contributions from NATO allies.
"I think NATO will come through with a couple thousand and so I think we'll still be somewhat short of what Gen. McChrystal proposed," Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution told CBS News.
Mr. Obama also is expected to explain why he believes the U.S. must continue to fight more than eight years after the war was started following the Sept. 11 attacks by al Qaeda terrorists based in Afghanistan.
He will emphasize that Afghan security forces need more time, more schooling and more U.S. combat backup to be up to the job on their own, and he will make tougher demands on the governments of Pakistan as well as Afghanistan.
Gunman attacks house of Pakistani columnist
ISLAMABAD — A gunman opened fire on the house of a newspaper columnist critical of Pakistan's army and spy agencies in an attack the writer alleged on Tuesday was carried out by elements linked to the country's powerful security establishment.
Kamran Shafi recounted the attack and a death threat he received the following day in his weekly column in the respected Dawn newspaper. He and his family were not injured in the incident in the garrison town of Rawalpindi on Friday.
The army spokesman declined to comment.
Shafi, a former army major, is a prominent critic of the military and its influence over the country's weak civilian leadership. The issue has been in the spotlight in recent weeks amid rising pressure on President Asif Ali Zardari from within the military.
Shafi said a gunman fired six times at his house before collecting the bullet casings and fleeing.
Shafi, his wife and daughter were in the house during the late night attack, but in a room below the one where the bullets entered.
Yasin Farooq, a senior police officer in Rawalpindi, said officers were investigating the shooting, but no progress had been made.
The day after the shooting, Shafi received a call from a woman who said what happened was a "trailer" and that the complete movie would be shown soon.
"One does not spit in the plate one eats from," she allegedly said.
In his column, Shafi said he had filed a police complaint in which he alleged suspects linked to unidentified state security agencies were involved. He did not give any evidence to back up the allegation.
Pakistan has several powerful spy agencies, which operate independently of state control. They have been accused of targeted killings and abductions in the past, including suspected Islamist terrorists allegedly handed over to the United States.
Pakistan's freewheeling media often contains criticism of the army and the spy agencies, but Shafi is especially vocal.
He said a recent column calling for the country's main spy agency to be headed by a civilian drew several e-mails containing the "vilest abuse."
In a telephone interview Tuesday, he said he would continue criticizing the army's role in the affairs of the state.
"Absolutely, there is no other way to go," he said. "We have to have democracy in the country if we are to succeed."
Kamran Shafi recounted the attack and a death threat he received the following day in his weekly column in the respected Dawn newspaper. He and his family were not injured in the incident in the garrison town of Rawalpindi on Friday.
The army spokesman declined to comment.
Shafi, a former army major, is a prominent critic of the military and its influence over the country's weak civilian leadership. The issue has been in the spotlight in recent weeks amid rising pressure on President Asif Ali Zardari from within the military.
Shafi said a gunman fired six times at his house before collecting the bullet casings and fleeing.
Shafi, his wife and daughter were in the house during the late night attack, but in a room below the one where the bullets entered.
Yasin Farooq, a senior police officer in Rawalpindi, said officers were investigating the shooting, but no progress had been made.
The day after the shooting, Shafi received a call from a woman who said what happened was a "trailer" and that the complete movie would be shown soon.
"One does not spit in the plate one eats from," she allegedly said.
In his column, Shafi said he had filed a police complaint in which he alleged suspects linked to unidentified state security agencies were involved. He did not give any evidence to back up the allegation.
Pakistan has several powerful spy agencies, which operate independently of state control. They have been accused of targeted killings and abductions in the past, including suspected Islamist terrorists allegedly handed over to the United States.
Pakistan's freewheeling media often contains criticism of the army and the spy agencies, but Shafi is especially vocal.
He said a recent column calling for the country's main spy agency to be headed by a civilian drew several e-mails containing the "vilest abuse."
In a telephone interview Tuesday, he said he would continue criticizing the army's role in the affairs of the state.
"Absolutely, there is no other way to go," he said. "We have to have democracy in the country if we are to succeed."
Provincial Politician Is Slain in Pakistan
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A suicide bomber killed a provincial lawmaker in the northern Swat Valley on Tuesday, according to government officials.
Swat, a picturesque valley 100 miles north of the capital Islamabad in North-West Frontier Province was the focus of heavy fighting earlier this year. While the military was able to wrest the region from the control of Taliban militants, most of the insurgent leadership managed to escape and sporadic violence has continued.
Shamsher Ali, 59, the slain legislator, was a member of the provincial assembly from the Awami National Party, a liberal, secular political party that heads the ruling coalition in the province. The party has taken a tough stand against Taliban militants and its members have been the targets of several assassinations and attacks.
Mr. Ali was receiving guests at his house Tuesday afternoon when a suicide bomber entered the compound and detonated explosives, killing Mr. Ali and his brother. At least 15 people were wounded in the attack, police officials said.
Swat, a picturesque valley 100 miles north of the capital Islamabad in North-West Frontier Province was the focus of heavy fighting earlier this year. While the military was able to wrest the region from the control of Taliban militants, most of the insurgent leadership managed to escape and sporadic violence has continued.
Shamsher Ali, 59, the slain legislator, was a member of the provincial assembly from the Awami National Party, a liberal, secular political party that heads the ruling coalition in the province. The party has taken a tough stand against Taliban militants and its members have been the targets of several assassinations and attacks.
Mr. Ali was receiving guests at his house Tuesday afternoon when a suicide bomber entered the compound and detonated explosives, killing Mr. Ali and his brother. At least 15 people were wounded in the attack, police officials said.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Obama set to send 30,000 extra troops
With a determination to "finish the job" in Afghanistan, US President Barack Obama will announce his new Afghan strategy Tuesday in a prime-time address at the West Point Military Academy, including a deployment of 30,000 or more US troops as part of an "escalation and exit" policy.
Before the public speech, Obama has already ordered his new Afghan strategy implemented, a White House spokesman said Monday.
In his speech, Obama will articulate both the timeframe for the military maneuver and the goal of this action, which aims to destroy the enemy and bring the troops back home, senior administration officials were quoted Monday by the Telegraph as saying.
Apart from the additional 30,000 to 35,000 troops, Obama will also advocate the sending of 10,000 more soldiers by NATO allies.
The military alliance, which has already contributed 42,000 soldiers to Afghanistan, still adopts a cautious attitude toward military build-up.
"There are real questions in our publics about the way forward, politically and not just militarily," NATO spokesman James Appathurai said.
Currently, only Britain has committed to sending about 500 extra troops.
However, the other major European powers, notably Germany and France, are reluctant to commit any, the AP reported last week.
After eight years engaged in an increasingly unpopular war in Afghanistan, the American president is besieged with tremendous pressure from different aspects.
The US had lost more than 900 troops in Afghanistan, and October was the deadliest month since 2001, with 74 US soldiers killed.
Apart from the human toll, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have cost $768.8 billion, and by the end of this fiscal year (October 2010) the price tag will approach $1 trillion.
The war has also taken its toll on Obama's personal approval rating, which has suffered the sharpest drop of any president in the past 50 years during the same stage of their first terms.
Washington hopes the buildup, expected to be phased in over the next 12 to 18 months, will create conditions to allow the US troop presence to eventually be scaled back, leading to a complete withdrawal from the country by 2017-2018.
However, conservative attitude still exists.
"No one has any illusions that this is the campaign, that you can just turn this thing around with a speech. A lot of this strategy depends on things we can't control – the Afghan government, the Taliban, the role of Pakistan. This is one of those issues that defines the extent and the limits of the president's power," a senior administration official was quoted by the Washington Post as saying.
Chelsea Clinton to Wed Long-Time Boyfriend
Chelsea Clinton, the only child of former President Bill Clinton and current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, has announced her engagement to long-time boyfriend Marc Mezvinsky.
Clinton, 29, the last child to grow up in the White House and who now works at a New York-based hedge fund, said in a mass email to friends that she and Mezvinsky, an investment banker, plan to marry next summer.
The announcement followed widespread but false reports over last summer that the pair had planned an August wedding at the resort island of Martha's Vineyard.
"We're sorry for the mass email but we wanted to wish everyone a belated Happy Thanksgiving! We also wanted to share that we are engaged!.
"We didn't get married this past summer despite the stories to the contrary, but we are looking toward next summer and hope you all will be there to celebrate with us. Happy Holidays! Chelsea & Marc," said the email, which was sent out on Friday and provided on Monday by Bill Clinton's charitable foundation.
There were no details on the wedding plans.
Chelsea Clinton has kept a low-profile since her father left the White House in January 2001 but she campaigned for her mother Hillary during her unsuccessful run for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.
Pakistani president remains vulnerable but defiant
www.washingtonpost.com
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- President Asif Ali Zardari, fighting to keep his job amid pressure from opponents in the media, the courts, the parliament and the military, appears to have reasserted his grip on the presidency for the time being, according to analysts here.
But Zardari's government remains caught between pressure to support Washington in the war against Islamic insurgents in Afghanistan and the need to improve its tenuous relations with the army, which is focused on fighting domestic Taliban extremists and mistrusts the Obama administration's friendship with India, Pakistan's neighbor and arch-rival.
On Monday, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani -- who reports to Zardari but is also a political rival -- warned in a television interview that any sizeable increase in U.S. troops in Afghanistan would lead to a spillover of insurgents into Pakistan, further destabilizing the border area where troops are now conducting a ground and aerial war against domestic Taliban forces.
The warning from Gillani came one day before President Obama is scheduled to announce his long-awaited new Afghan strategy, which is likely to include adding tens of thousands more troops.
In the past week, the embattled president has had to relinquish a number of executive powers to Gillani in order to placate his adversaries. He agreed Friday to transfer control of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal to the prime minister, and has also given up his right to dissolve parliament, an authority he inherited from a decree by his military predecessor, Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
Now, Zardari's opponents in parliament are demanding that he give up even more authority, and some have called on him to resign. Zardari cannot be impeached because his Pakistan People's Party dominates the legislature, but it is now being widely predicted that he will serve out his term with greatly reduced powers.
Meanwhile, the president has also become vulnerable to legal action by the Supreme Court. An amnesty for past corruption charges against Zardari and a host of other officials expired Saturday, and although the president cannot be prosecuted while in office, the high court could also rule that his election was illegitimate and then pursue the original cases against him.
But Zardari, backed into a corner by multiple adversaries, has come out swinging. In a defiant speech last week, he lashed out at "political actors" seeking to dethrone him, and sharply criticized certain opponents in the media. He also forced the cancellation of a cable TV show whose host often criticized him.
Such clumsy actions drew further ridicule from the anti-Zardari press. Shaheen Sehbai, editor of the News International newspaper, wrote in a sarcastic column that he "laughed and laughed" at Zardari's "rants." Sehbai has called for the president to "step down with dignity," hand over his powers to Gillani or become a figurehead.
Zardari appears to have temporarily fended off a far more powerful opponent: the army. Analysts said that although the army is still unhappy about Zardari's concessions to Washington and soft stance on India, and has been working against him behind the scenes, it does not want to be linked to a messy or illegitimate change of government.
Moreover, military experts noted that the army is heavily dependent on U.S. spare parts and equipment to wage its current air war against the Taliban, and cannot afford to sabotage Zardari's ties with Washington just as U.S. officials are calling for a new "strategic relationship" with Pakistan.
"For Zardari to go, there has to be a definite push from somewhere, and it usually comes from Rawalpindi," the city where army headquarters is located, said Ayaz Amir, a political commentator and legislator from the rival Pakistan Muslim League. "I don't see that catalyst coming on the horizon."
The president has also received a political lifeline from a surprising source: his longtime rival, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif of the Muslim League. Until this month, Sharif had been seen as biding his time and waiting for Zardari to self-destruct so he could run for president in mid-term elections.
But in a high-profile TV interview recently, Sharif struck a more statesmanlike chord. He said he did not support a mid-term election or power-sharing formula. He warned that "time is running out for democracy" in Pakistan, and that obsessive partisan competition was partly to blame.
A third potential source of trouble for the president, Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, also seems less likely to pounce than he did just a few weeks ago. Analysts noted that the president has been careful not to antagonize the court, and that the judiciary could also be victimized in any forcible change of government.
"I don't think the chief justice wants to join hands with the army and bring Zardari down," said Rifaat Hussain, a professor of strategic and defense studies at Quaid-I-Azam University. Chaudhry was fired by Musharraf and then restored by a lawyers' crusade under Zardari. "He knows that the judiciary can only be strong in a democracy," Hussain said.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- President Asif Ali Zardari, fighting to keep his job amid pressure from opponents in the media, the courts, the parliament and the military, appears to have reasserted his grip on the presidency for the time being, according to analysts here.
But Zardari's government remains caught between pressure to support Washington in the war against Islamic insurgents in Afghanistan and the need to improve its tenuous relations with the army, which is focused on fighting domestic Taliban extremists and mistrusts the Obama administration's friendship with India, Pakistan's neighbor and arch-rival.
On Monday, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani -- who reports to Zardari but is also a political rival -- warned in a television interview that any sizeable increase in U.S. troops in Afghanistan would lead to a spillover of insurgents into Pakistan, further destabilizing the border area where troops are now conducting a ground and aerial war against domestic Taliban forces.
The warning from Gillani came one day before President Obama is scheduled to announce his long-awaited new Afghan strategy, which is likely to include adding tens of thousands more troops.
In the past week, the embattled president has had to relinquish a number of executive powers to Gillani in order to placate his adversaries. He agreed Friday to transfer control of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal to the prime minister, and has also given up his right to dissolve parliament, an authority he inherited from a decree by his military predecessor, Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
Now, Zardari's opponents in parliament are demanding that he give up even more authority, and some have called on him to resign. Zardari cannot be impeached because his Pakistan People's Party dominates the legislature, but it is now being widely predicted that he will serve out his term with greatly reduced powers.
Meanwhile, the president has also become vulnerable to legal action by the Supreme Court. An amnesty for past corruption charges against Zardari and a host of other officials expired Saturday, and although the president cannot be prosecuted while in office, the high court could also rule that his election was illegitimate and then pursue the original cases against him.
But Zardari, backed into a corner by multiple adversaries, has come out swinging. In a defiant speech last week, he lashed out at "political actors" seeking to dethrone him, and sharply criticized certain opponents in the media. He also forced the cancellation of a cable TV show whose host often criticized him.
Such clumsy actions drew further ridicule from the anti-Zardari press. Shaheen Sehbai, editor of the News International newspaper, wrote in a sarcastic column that he "laughed and laughed" at Zardari's "rants." Sehbai has called for the president to "step down with dignity," hand over his powers to Gillani or become a figurehead.
Zardari appears to have temporarily fended off a far more powerful opponent: the army. Analysts said that although the army is still unhappy about Zardari's concessions to Washington and soft stance on India, and has been working against him behind the scenes, it does not want to be linked to a messy or illegitimate change of government.
Moreover, military experts noted that the army is heavily dependent on U.S. spare parts and equipment to wage its current air war against the Taliban, and cannot afford to sabotage Zardari's ties with Washington just as U.S. officials are calling for a new "strategic relationship" with Pakistan.
"For Zardari to go, there has to be a definite push from somewhere, and it usually comes from Rawalpindi," the city where army headquarters is located, said Ayaz Amir, a political commentator and legislator from the rival Pakistan Muslim League. "I don't see that catalyst coming on the horizon."
The president has also received a political lifeline from a surprising source: his longtime rival, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif of the Muslim League. Until this month, Sharif had been seen as biding his time and waiting for Zardari to self-destruct so he could run for president in mid-term elections.
But in a high-profile TV interview recently, Sharif struck a more statesmanlike chord. He said he did not support a mid-term election or power-sharing formula. He warned that "time is running out for democracy" in Pakistan, and that obsessive partisan competition was partly to blame.
A third potential source of trouble for the president, Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, also seems less likely to pounce than he did just a few weeks ago. Analysts noted that the president has been careful not to antagonize the court, and that the judiciary could also be victimized in any forcible change of government.
"I don't think the chief justice wants to join hands with the army and bring Zardari down," said Rifaat Hussain, a professor of strategic and defense studies at Quaid-I-Azam University. Chaudhry was fired by Musharraf and then restored by a lawyers' crusade under Zardari. "He knows that the judiciary can only be strong in a democracy," Hussain said.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Pakistan surprised over demand of ‘do more’
ISLAMABAD: The spokesman to foreign office Abdul Basit said Pakistan is surprised over UK demand of do more, Geo news reported Sunday.He said those posing statements regarding whereabouts of Osama Bin Ladin had better share with Pakistan information about him if the possessed.FO spokesman said Pakistan has either killed or arrested as many as 700 members of Al-Qaeda during last seven years and none must doubt Pakistan efforts to curb terrorism.No body knows the whereabouts of Osama Bin Ladin and if any one knows, he ought to inform Pakistan at government level, he concluded.
Prosecute the White House gate-crashers
New York (CNN) -- The gate crashers Michaele and Tareq Salahi want to be famous as stars of reality television. I am all for that. Give them a reality television series and call it "Trial and Jailtime" in the D.C. criminal justice system. This despicable, desperate, duplicitous couple disgraced the Secret Service and embarrassed the president in his home.
They totally overshadowed the president's meeting with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the leader of an important ally. The incident made the Obamas' first state dinner, honoring the prime minister and his wife, Gursharan Kaur, fodder for comedians -- and it certainly raises security concerns for other world leaders visiting at later dates.
The gate-crashers need to be held accountable and not glorified.
Unless they have some excuse we haven't heard yet, the Salahis deserve to be charged with criminal trespassing and lying to federal officers for starters. Yes, they dressed for the occasion, but the Salahis are no different, and shouldn't be regarded any differently, than a nut case who jumps over the White House fence and tries to run in the front door. The only difference is that the fence-jumper would be shot ten feet from his entrance point.
I worked in a couple of White Houses and have always had the greatest respect for the Secret Service. These men and women put their lives on the line daily and often serve in long and tedious tours of duty.
I worked in the White House when President Reagan was shot and I saw the extraordinary bravery of Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy, who was critically wounded when he took a bullet in the stomach after turning and putting his body between the president and the shooter, John Hinckley. But for all the bravery of its agents, the Secret Service lives in a world that demands zero defects.
So I have to tell you I am appalled at the comments by the Secret Service spokesman who was described as saying it hadn't been determined whether party-crashing is technically illegal. He went on to say he didn't believe the Salahis posed a security risk. Spin control is not needed now. Responsibility is the key word.
Trespassing is illegal. How does the Secret Service know whether the Salahis were a risk or not? The service apparently had not done a background check on them -- unlike every other guest and government employee in the tent that night -- because they weren't on the invitation list.
Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan issued a rare apology, saying the service took full responsibility for the episode and was "deeply concerned and embarrassed." Not good enough! He needs to determine who was responsible for letting the Salahis onto the White House grounds and fire whoever it was, before he thinks about offering his own resignation.
Public servants have to be held accountable and now is a good time to start.
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has fired some of the top people in the military because they were not performing at the level he expected. Can Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, whose department oversees the Secret Service, expect any less? Can an agency, Homeland Security, that has responsibility for securing our borders be trusted if it cannot even secure the White House?
We live in a world of reality television in which egotists try to be famous for three minutes and land an appearance on the talk shows. The bigger question is what example this sets for our kids. If we glorify the actions of people like the Salahis and don't hold them accountable, how do we teach our kids what is right and what is wrong?
The Salahis claim there's more to the story. Their lawyer says they weren't crashing the party, but the Secret Service says otherwise.
Based on the facts as we know them so far, there's a simple way to deal with this case.
Charge them, prosecute them, and if a D.C. jury finds them guilty, jail them. Make an example out of them. Then next November when the president is pardoning the Thanksgiving turkey, he can pardon them too.
And after the pardon, as is traditional for the turkeys whose lives are spared, they can go live in Disney World -- a fantasy world that seems to be the perfect place for this pair.
Donald Rumsfeld blamed for failing to kill cornered Osama bin Laden
www.timesonline.co.uk
Osama bin Laden was cornered and within reach of US troops in the Afghanistan mountains of Tora Bora in late 2001 when America's military leaders made the costly decision not to attack the terror leader with the massive force at their disposal, according to a US Senate report.
The report by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee asserts that the failure to kill or capture bin Laden in December 2001, three months after the September 11 attacks, has had lasting and disastrous consequences. Bin Laden's escape laid the foundation for today's reinvigorated Afghan insurgency and inflamed the internal strife now endangering Pakistan, it says.
In an introduction to the report, which will be published on Monday, Senator John Kerry, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, writes: "When we went to war less than a month after the attacks of September 11, the objective was to destroy Al Qaeda and kill or capture its leader, Osama bin Laden and other senior figures ... Our inability to finish the job in late 2001 has contributed to a conflict today that endangers not just our troops and those of our allies, but the stability of a volatile and vital region."
The report, entitled: "Tora Bora revisited: how we failed to get Bin Laden and why it matters today" will offer some support to President Obama as he prepares to announce this week that he is to send another 30,000 troops to Afghanistan.
Senator Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, has argued for some time that the Bush administration missed a chance to get the al-Qaeda leader and his top deputies when they were holed up in the forbidding, mountainous area of eastern Afghanistan only three months after September 11. He commissioned the report as Mr Obama was trying to decide whether he should boost troop numbers in Afghanistan.
The report lays the blame for the state of Afghanistan and Pakistan today at the feet of the military leaders who served former President Bush, notably Donald Rumsfeld, the then Defence Secretary, and his most senior military commander General Tommy Franks.
"Removing the al-Qaeda leader from the battlefield eight years ago would not have eliminated the worldwide extremist threat," the report says. "But the decisions that opened the door for his escape to Pakistan allowed bin Laden to emerge as a potent symbolic figure who continues to attract a steady flow of money and inspire fanatics worldwide. The failure to finish the job represents a lost opportunity that forever altered the course of the conflict in Afghanistan and the future of international terrorism."
It states categorically that bin Laden was hiding in Tora Bora when the US had the means to mount a rapid assault with several thousand troops. A review of existing literature, unclassified Government records and interviews with central participants "removes any lingering doubts and makes it clear that Osama bin Laden was within our grasp at Tora Bora" it adds.
"Cornered in some of the most fobidding terrain on earth, he and several hundred of his men endured relentless pounding by American aircraft, as many as 100 air strikes a day," it says. "Bin Laden expected to die," it claims. "His last will and testament, written on December 14, reflected his fatalism. He instructed his wives not to remarry and apologised to his children for devoting himself to jihad."
But the expected final attack never came. "Requests were turned down for US troops to block the mountain paths leading to sanctuary a few miles away in Pakistan," it says. "The vast array of American military power, from sniper teams to the most mobile divisions of the Marine Corps and the Army was kept on the sidelines."
Instead of a massive attack, fewer than 100 US commandos, working with Afghan militias, tried to capitalise on air strikes and track down their prey it says.
"On or around December 16, two days after writing his will, bin Laden and an entourage of bodyguards walked unmolested out of Tora Bora and disappeared into Pakistan's unregulated tribal area. Most analysts say he is still there today.
"The decision not to deploy American fores to go after bin Laden or block his escape was made by Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld and his top commander, General Tommy Franks."
It stresses that there were more than enough US troops in Afghanistan to capture the terror leader and although the ensuing battle would be difficult and dangerous, "commanders on the scene and elsewhere in Afghanistan argued that the risks were worth the reward."
At the time, Mr Rumsfeld expressed concern that a large US troop presence might fuel a backlash and he and some others said the evidence was not conclusive about bin Laden's location.
Osama bin Laden was cornered and within reach of US troops in the Afghanistan mountains of Tora Bora in late 2001 when America's military leaders made the costly decision not to attack the terror leader with the massive force at their disposal, according to a US Senate report.
The report by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee asserts that the failure to kill or capture bin Laden in December 2001, three months after the September 11 attacks, has had lasting and disastrous consequences. Bin Laden's escape laid the foundation for today's reinvigorated Afghan insurgency and inflamed the internal strife now endangering Pakistan, it says.
In an introduction to the report, which will be published on Monday, Senator John Kerry, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, writes: "When we went to war less than a month after the attacks of September 11, the objective was to destroy Al Qaeda and kill or capture its leader, Osama bin Laden and other senior figures ... Our inability to finish the job in late 2001 has contributed to a conflict today that endangers not just our troops and those of our allies, but the stability of a volatile and vital region."
The report, entitled: "Tora Bora revisited: how we failed to get Bin Laden and why it matters today" will offer some support to President Obama as he prepares to announce this week that he is to send another 30,000 troops to Afghanistan.
Senator Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, has argued for some time that the Bush administration missed a chance to get the al-Qaeda leader and his top deputies when they were holed up in the forbidding, mountainous area of eastern Afghanistan only three months after September 11. He commissioned the report as Mr Obama was trying to decide whether he should boost troop numbers in Afghanistan.
The report lays the blame for the state of Afghanistan and Pakistan today at the feet of the military leaders who served former President Bush, notably Donald Rumsfeld, the then Defence Secretary, and his most senior military commander General Tommy Franks.
"Removing the al-Qaeda leader from the battlefield eight years ago would not have eliminated the worldwide extremist threat," the report says. "But the decisions that opened the door for his escape to Pakistan allowed bin Laden to emerge as a potent symbolic figure who continues to attract a steady flow of money and inspire fanatics worldwide. The failure to finish the job represents a lost opportunity that forever altered the course of the conflict in Afghanistan and the future of international terrorism."
It states categorically that bin Laden was hiding in Tora Bora when the US had the means to mount a rapid assault with several thousand troops. A review of existing literature, unclassified Government records and interviews with central participants "removes any lingering doubts and makes it clear that Osama bin Laden was within our grasp at Tora Bora" it adds.
"Cornered in some of the most fobidding terrain on earth, he and several hundred of his men endured relentless pounding by American aircraft, as many as 100 air strikes a day," it says. "Bin Laden expected to die," it claims. "His last will and testament, written on December 14, reflected his fatalism. He instructed his wives not to remarry and apologised to his children for devoting himself to jihad."
But the expected final attack never came. "Requests were turned down for US troops to block the mountain paths leading to sanctuary a few miles away in Pakistan," it says. "The vast array of American military power, from sniper teams to the most mobile divisions of the Marine Corps and the Army was kept on the sidelines."
Instead of a massive attack, fewer than 100 US commandos, working with Afghan militias, tried to capitalise on air strikes and track down their prey it says.
"On or around December 16, two days after writing his will, bin Laden and an entourage of bodyguards walked unmolested out of Tora Bora and disappeared into Pakistan's unregulated tribal area. Most analysts say he is still there today.
"The decision not to deploy American fores to go after bin Laden or block his escape was made by Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld and his top commander, General Tommy Franks."
It stresses that there were more than enough US troops in Afghanistan to capture the terror leader and although the ensuing battle would be difficult and dangerous, "commanders on the scene and elsewhere in Afghanistan argued that the risks were worth the reward."
At the time, Mr Rumsfeld expressed concern that a large US troop presence might fuel a backlash and he and some others said the evidence was not conclusive about bin Laden's location.
Gordon Brown Urges Timetable For Afghan Reforms
Gordon Brown has told Sky News that the President of Afghanistan risks losing international support if he fails to implement crucial reforms.
The Prime Minister says he wants an extra 5,000 Afghan forces trained in Helmand province by next year, and he wants details on reform of the police and government.
Mr Brown told Sky's political editor Adam Boulton that more progress must be made in Pakistan to defeat the Taliban and al Qaeda, adding that Britain is prepared to help re-build its education system.
Britain will host an international conference on January 28 to decide a timetable for the withdrawal of British troops from Afghanistan.
Mr Brown said: "I will want to know that by the time we get to January 28 we have a credible plan in place from President Karzai so that we can train Afghan troops.
"Within three months of that I feel we should also have a credible plan about how he's going to reform the police service in Afghanistan... and within six months he has got to have appointed district and provincial governors."
Mr Brown said the milestones would create the conditions for control of the country to be handed over, district by district, to home-grown authorities and for UK troops to come home.
He also told Sky News that people in Pakistan know where Osama Bin Laden is and the country's government must take action against al Qaeda within its borders.
:: Nine thousand US Marines will be deployed to Afghanistan within days of Barack Obama's announcement of his new war strategy, it is being reported.
The Washington Post claims the extra troops will double the size of the US force in the southern province of Helmand, where large numbers of British forces are based.
President Barack Obama will outline his latest strategy on Afghanistan on Tuesday.
The Prime Minister says he wants an extra 5,000 Afghan forces trained in Helmand province by next year, and he wants details on reform of the police and government.
Mr Brown told Sky's political editor Adam Boulton that more progress must be made in Pakistan to defeat the Taliban and al Qaeda, adding that Britain is prepared to help re-build its education system.
Britain will host an international conference on January 28 to decide a timetable for the withdrawal of British troops from Afghanistan.
Mr Brown said: "I will want to know that by the time we get to January 28 we have a credible plan in place from President Karzai so that we can train Afghan troops.
"Within three months of that I feel we should also have a credible plan about how he's going to reform the police service in Afghanistan... and within six months he has got to have appointed district and provincial governors."
Mr Brown said the milestones would create the conditions for control of the country to be handed over, district by district, to home-grown authorities and for UK troops to come home.
He also told Sky News that people in Pakistan know where Osama Bin Laden is and the country's government must take action against al Qaeda within its borders.
:: Nine thousand US Marines will be deployed to Afghanistan within days of Barack Obama's announcement of his new war strategy, it is being reported.
The Washington Post claims the extra troops will double the size of the US force in the southern province of Helmand, where large numbers of British forces are based.
President Barack Obama will outline his latest strategy on Afghanistan on Tuesday.
Zardari claims success against Taliban
ISLAMABAD — Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has claimed "considerable success" in a military offensive against the Taliban, but criticism of his rule mounted Sunday threatening further instability.
Zardari, who is battling a Taliban insurgency, increasing unpopularity and strained relations with the military, made the remarks during a telephone conversation late Saturday with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
They come as an amnesty protecting Zardari and key aides from corruption cases expired, and after he handed over control of the country's nuclear arsenal to the prime minister in an apparent move to appease his critics.
"Referring to the ongoing drive against militancy in the tribal areas of South Waziristan, the president said that considerable success had been achieved," presidential spokesman Farhatullah Babar said in a statement.
"The operation would continue until the area is cleared of terrorists and the objectives are achieved," Zardari told Brown.
Pakistan sent about 30,000 troops backed by fighter jets and helicopter gunships into South Waziristan on October 17, in the most ambitious operation yet against the Taliban in their mountain stronghold near the Afghan border.
Although there has been some resistance in the region, many officials and analysts believe most of the estimated 10,000 Taliban guerrillas in the district have escaped into neighbouring Orakzai and North Waziristan.
Pakistan is also facing political uncertainty after the legal amnesty protecting dozens of politicians from prosecution expired Saturday.
Zardari enjoys immunity as president, but his government is seen as too weak to secure an extension of the ordinance in parliament, and its expiration opens the door for possible legal cases against senior cabinet ministers.
The president on Saturday gave control of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, widely seen as a move to fend off criticism by making good on electoral promises to devolve greater power to parliament.
"Now the time has come to fulfil promises and Mr President should keep his promises," said opposition politician Shahbaz Sharif, brother of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and chief minister of Punjab province.
"He has been making promises to repeal the 17th amendment and now the time has come that finally he should honour his promises," he told reporters.
The 17th amendment to the constitution was introduced by former military ruler Pervez Musharraf, and gives the president the power to dissolve parliament and sack the prime minister.
Zardari replaced Musharraf as president last year after his Pakistan People's Party won elections, but his approval ratings are at rock bottom as the nation struggles with Taliban violence and a recession.
Security has drastically deteriorated in Pakistan since Islamabad joined the US-led "war on terror". Hundreds of Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked militants fled into the tribal belt after the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan.
The South Waziristan offensive, which followed a spring offensive in Swat valley, has also seen a retaliatory surge in suicide attacks targeting civilians and security officials, particularly in Pakistan's northwest.
The United States has welcomed Pakistan's military efforts but is reportedly pressuring the civilian government to also counter militants on Pakistani soil who attack NATO and US troops across the border in Afghanistan.
On Sunday, eight militants were reported killed in clashes with troops in the tribal districts of Khyber -- the main supply route for NATO trucks heading to Afghanistan -- and in South Waziristan, military officials said.
Zardari, who is battling a Taliban insurgency, increasing unpopularity and strained relations with the military, made the remarks during a telephone conversation late Saturday with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
They come as an amnesty protecting Zardari and key aides from corruption cases expired, and after he handed over control of the country's nuclear arsenal to the prime minister in an apparent move to appease his critics.
"Referring to the ongoing drive against militancy in the tribal areas of South Waziristan, the president said that considerable success had been achieved," presidential spokesman Farhatullah Babar said in a statement.
"The operation would continue until the area is cleared of terrorists and the objectives are achieved," Zardari told Brown.
Pakistan sent about 30,000 troops backed by fighter jets and helicopter gunships into South Waziristan on October 17, in the most ambitious operation yet against the Taliban in their mountain stronghold near the Afghan border.
Although there has been some resistance in the region, many officials and analysts believe most of the estimated 10,000 Taliban guerrillas in the district have escaped into neighbouring Orakzai and North Waziristan.
Pakistan is also facing political uncertainty after the legal amnesty protecting dozens of politicians from prosecution expired Saturday.
Zardari enjoys immunity as president, but his government is seen as too weak to secure an extension of the ordinance in parliament, and its expiration opens the door for possible legal cases against senior cabinet ministers.
The president on Saturday gave control of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, widely seen as a move to fend off criticism by making good on electoral promises to devolve greater power to parliament.
"Now the time has come to fulfil promises and Mr President should keep his promises," said opposition politician Shahbaz Sharif, brother of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and chief minister of Punjab province.
"He has been making promises to repeal the 17th amendment and now the time has come that finally he should honour his promises," he told reporters.
The 17th amendment to the constitution was introduced by former military ruler Pervez Musharraf, and gives the president the power to dissolve parliament and sack the prime minister.
Zardari replaced Musharraf as president last year after his Pakistan People's Party won elections, but his approval ratings are at rock bottom as the nation struggles with Taliban violence and a recession.
Security has drastically deteriorated in Pakistan since Islamabad joined the US-led "war on terror". Hundreds of Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked militants fled into the tribal belt after the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan.
The South Waziristan offensive, which followed a spring offensive in Swat valley, has also seen a retaliatory surge in suicide attacks targeting civilians and security officials, particularly in Pakistan's northwest.
The United States has welcomed Pakistan's military efforts but is reportedly pressuring the civilian government to also counter militants on Pakistani soil who attack NATO and US troops across the border in Afghanistan.
On Sunday, eight militants were reported killed in clashes with troops in the tribal districts of Khyber -- the main supply route for NATO trucks heading to Afghanistan -- and in South Waziristan, military officials said.
Marines to target Taliban bastion
WashingtonPost.com
KABUL -- Days after President Obama outlines his new war strategy in a speech Tuesday, as many as 9,000 Marines will begin final preparations to deploy to southern Afghanistan and renew an assault on a Taliban stronghold that slowed this year amid a troop shortage and political pressure from the Afghan government, senior U.S. officials said.
The extra Marines will be the first to move into the country as part of Obama's escalation of the eight-year-old war. They will double the size of the U.S. force in the southern province of Helmand and will provide a critical test for Afghan President Hamid Karzai's struggling government and Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal's counterinsurgency strategy.
"The first troops out of the door are going to be Marines," Gen. James T. Conway, the Corps' top officer, told fellow Marines in Afghanistan on Saturday. "We've been leaning forward in anticipation of a decision. And we've got some pretty stiff fighting coming."
The Marines will be quickly followed by about 1,000 U.S. Army trainers. They will deploy as early as February to speed the growth of the Afghan army and police force, military officials said.
The new forces will not start moving until Obama outlines his new strategy in a speech at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. The revised plan, which faces a war-weary and increasingly skeptical American public, is expected to call for 30,000 to 35,000 new troops in a phased deployment over the next 12 to 18 months.
The parceling-out of reinforcements is driven in part by Afghanistan's lack of infrastructure, which cannot immediately support a larger U.S. force. The phased approach will also allow the president to cancel some of the additional reinforcements if the counterinsurgency strategy advocated by McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, does not show results or if the Karzai government does not meet goals for stamping out corruption and providing for the Afghan people, White House officials said.
The first place Obama will look for results is Helmand, a Taliban-dominated province that has been McChrystal's primary focus for much of this year and has been the site of some of the bloodiest fighting. Earlier this year, about 10,000 Marines moved into the area and pushed Taliban fighters out of several major cities there. The Marines then began to rebuild the long-absent Afghan government and police forces in the area.
The U.S. offensive, however, did not dislodge the Taliban from such places as Marjeh, a city of about 50,000 people in central Helmand that remains a major center for the opium trade. After several months of fighting, senior Marine officials concluded that they did not have enough troops to expand into Marjeh and a handful of other Taliban havens while holding on to the gains they had made in the province.
"Where we have gone, goodness follows," Conway said. "But the fact is that we are not as expansive as we would like to be, and those probable additional number of Marines are going to help us to get there."
The Marines' inability to push the Taliban out of these key sanctuaries led some Afghans in the area to doubt U.S. resolve. The Taliban has used its haven in Marjeh to produce roadside bombs and plan attacks on areas where Marines were trying to build the local government and police forces. This month, Taliban fighters from Marjeh killed three Afghan city council members in nearby Nawa, which Marines have held up as a major success story in the province.
"The two questions I get from Afghans are 'When are you leaving?' and 'Why aren't you going into Marjeh?' because that is where the real enemy is," said Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson, senior Marine commander in the province.
Marine commanders have little doubt that the additional 9,000 troops moving into the province will push the Taliban out of its remaining sanctuaries in Helmand. But the gains will be transitory if U.S. forces do not build effective local police forces and foster a government that is relatively free of corruption and can provide for the Afghan people, U.S. officials said. "This will be a credibility test for the [Afghan] government to see if it can deliver," said Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, a spokesman for McChrystal.
Already there is cause for concern. The Afghan government appears likely to commit only 60 percent of the troops that Marine and local Afghan commanders estimate that they need for the assault, a senior Marine official in Helmand said. That means more Marines will probably have to be posted in the city after the initial attack to ensure that the Taliban does not return.
"To have American Marines standing on a corner in a key village isn't nearly as effective as having an Afghan policeman or Afghan soldier," Conway said.
Karzai intervened to halt an attack into Marjeh by U.S. Special Operations forces and Afghan troops this year after residents in the area complained of excessive civilian casualties, senior military officials said. The coming assault on the city will be a measure of Karzai's willingness to buck allies with ties to the opium industry, these officials said.
The other major area of concern is whether the Afghan government and the U.S. military can meet the aggressive new growth targets laid out for the Afghan army and police force in the Obama administration's war strategy. "We have to increase recruiting. We have to increase retention, and we have to decrease attrition this year," said Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, who leads the U.S. training effort in Kabul, Afghanistan's capital.
Washington Post
The administration's new plans for the Afghan army and police, which will probably be a heavy focus of Tuesday's speech, call for increasing the size of the army to about 134,000 troops by October, four years earlier than the initial goal of 2014. To meet that target, the Afghan Defense Ministry must bring in about 5,000 new recruits a month and dramatically cut attrition in battalions.
This month, the ministry missed its monthly recruiting goal by more than 2,000 troops.
Afghan soldiers and police officers were recently given a 40 percent pay increase, but it is too early to tell whether the extra money will fix the recruiting problem, U.S. officials said.
"The extra pay literally brought us to parity with what the Taliban are offering," a senior military official in Kabul said.
KABUL -- Days after President Obama outlines his new war strategy in a speech Tuesday, as many as 9,000 Marines will begin final preparations to deploy to southern Afghanistan and renew an assault on a Taliban stronghold that slowed this year amid a troop shortage and political pressure from the Afghan government, senior U.S. officials said.
The extra Marines will be the first to move into the country as part of Obama's escalation of the eight-year-old war. They will double the size of the U.S. force in the southern province of Helmand and will provide a critical test for Afghan President Hamid Karzai's struggling government and Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal's counterinsurgency strategy.
"The first troops out of the door are going to be Marines," Gen. James T. Conway, the Corps' top officer, told fellow Marines in Afghanistan on Saturday. "We've been leaning forward in anticipation of a decision. And we've got some pretty stiff fighting coming."
The Marines will be quickly followed by about 1,000 U.S. Army trainers. They will deploy as early as February to speed the growth of the Afghan army and police force, military officials said.
The new forces will not start moving until Obama outlines his new strategy in a speech at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. The revised plan, which faces a war-weary and increasingly skeptical American public, is expected to call for 30,000 to 35,000 new troops in a phased deployment over the next 12 to 18 months.
The parceling-out of reinforcements is driven in part by Afghanistan's lack of infrastructure, which cannot immediately support a larger U.S. force. The phased approach will also allow the president to cancel some of the additional reinforcements if the counterinsurgency strategy advocated by McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, does not show results or if the Karzai government does not meet goals for stamping out corruption and providing for the Afghan people, White House officials said.
The first place Obama will look for results is Helmand, a Taliban-dominated province that has been McChrystal's primary focus for much of this year and has been the site of some of the bloodiest fighting. Earlier this year, about 10,000 Marines moved into the area and pushed Taliban fighters out of several major cities there. The Marines then began to rebuild the long-absent Afghan government and police forces in the area.
The U.S. offensive, however, did not dislodge the Taliban from such places as Marjeh, a city of about 50,000 people in central Helmand that remains a major center for the opium trade. After several months of fighting, senior Marine officials concluded that they did not have enough troops to expand into Marjeh and a handful of other Taliban havens while holding on to the gains they had made in the province.
"Where we have gone, goodness follows," Conway said. "But the fact is that we are not as expansive as we would like to be, and those probable additional number of Marines are going to help us to get there."
The Marines' inability to push the Taliban out of these key sanctuaries led some Afghans in the area to doubt U.S. resolve. The Taliban has used its haven in Marjeh to produce roadside bombs and plan attacks on areas where Marines were trying to build the local government and police forces. This month, Taliban fighters from Marjeh killed three Afghan city council members in nearby Nawa, which Marines have held up as a major success story in the province.
"The two questions I get from Afghans are 'When are you leaving?' and 'Why aren't you going into Marjeh?' because that is where the real enemy is," said Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson, senior Marine commander in the province.
Marine commanders have little doubt that the additional 9,000 troops moving into the province will push the Taliban out of its remaining sanctuaries in Helmand. But the gains will be transitory if U.S. forces do not build effective local police forces and foster a government that is relatively free of corruption and can provide for the Afghan people, U.S. officials said. "This will be a credibility test for the [Afghan] government to see if it can deliver," said Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, a spokesman for McChrystal.
Already there is cause for concern. The Afghan government appears likely to commit only 60 percent of the troops that Marine and local Afghan commanders estimate that they need for the assault, a senior Marine official in Helmand said. That means more Marines will probably have to be posted in the city after the initial attack to ensure that the Taliban does not return.
"To have American Marines standing on a corner in a key village isn't nearly as effective as having an Afghan policeman or Afghan soldier," Conway said.
Karzai intervened to halt an attack into Marjeh by U.S. Special Operations forces and Afghan troops this year after residents in the area complained of excessive civilian casualties, senior military officials said. The coming assault on the city will be a measure of Karzai's willingness to buck allies with ties to the opium industry, these officials said.
The other major area of concern is whether the Afghan government and the U.S. military can meet the aggressive new growth targets laid out for the Afghan army and police force in the Obama administration's war strategy. "We have to increase recruiting. We have to increase retention, and we have to decrease attrition this year," said Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, who leads the U.S. training effort in Kabul, Afghanistan's capital.
Washington Post
The administration's new plans for the Afghan army and police, which will probably be a heavy focus of Tuesday's speech, call for increasing the size of the army to about 134,000 troops by October, four years earlier than the initial goal of 2014. To meet that target, the Afghan Defense Ministry must bring in about 5,000 new recruits a month and dramatically cut attrition in battalions.
This month, the ministry missed its monthly recruiting goal by more than 2,000 troops.
Afghan soldiers and police officers were recently given a 40 percent pay increase, but it is too early to tell whether the extra money will fix the recruiting problem, U.S. officials said.
"The extra pay literally brought us to parity with what the Taliban are offering," a senior military official in Kabul said.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)