Joint Chiefs say US should pare Afghanistan goals

[David]

AP


WASHINGTON – Sharing a grim view of developments in Afghanistan, top Pentagon military leaders are recommending that President Barack Obama overhaul U.S. strategy there.

A report prepared by the Joint Chiefs of Staff advises focusing more on squeezing Taliban and al-Qaida sanctuaries inside neighboring Pakistan while de-emphasizing longer-term goals for bolstering democracy.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has seen the report, but it has not yet been presented to the White House, officials said Tuesday. It is one piece of a broad policy reassessment under way, along with recommendations from the commander of U.S. Central Command, Gen. David Petraeus, and other military leaders.

A senior defense official said Tuesday that it would probably be several weeks before the Obama administration rolls out its long-term strategy for Afghanistan. Obama is likely very soon, however, to approve a request from the top commander in Afghanistan for three more U.S. combat brigades, numbering roughly 14,000 troops.

Obama said Tuesday night in an interview with NBC News' Brian Williams that there is already "convergence between myself and the Joint Chiefs and my national security team about what we have to do." Obama added that "there's a shared view that Afghanistan is getting worse, not getting better."

"Afghanistan is really hard," Obama told NBC. "And we're going to have to bring all the elements of American power to bear in order to solve the problems."

The Joint Chiefs' plan reflects growing worries that the U.S. military was taking on more than it could handle in Afghanistan by pursuing the Bush administration's broad goal of nurturing a thriving democratic government.

The plan calls for a more narrowly focused counterinsurgency effort in Afghanistan and operations to root out militant strongholds along the Pakistani border and inside the neighboring country, according to officials who confirmed the essence of the classified report. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the plan publicly.

The recommendations are broadly cast and provide limited detail, meaning to help develop the overarching strategy for the Afghanistan-Pakistan region rather than propose a detailed military action plan.

During a news conference Tuesday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs noted ongoing reviews of Afghan policy but did not say when they would be made public. Obama intends to "evaluate the current direction of our policy and make some corrections as he goes forward," Gibbs said.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman would not comment Tuesday on the details of the Joint Chiefs' report but acknowledged that the U.S. relationship with Pakistan is a critical component for success in Afghanistan.

Part of the recommended approach is to search for ways to work more intensively and effectively with the Pakistanis to root out extremist elements in the border area, the senior defense official said.

The heightened emphasis on Pakistan reflects a realization that the root of the problem lies in the militant havens inside its border — a concern outlined last week to Congress in grim testimony by Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen.

But the report does not imply more incursions by U.S. combat forces inside Pakistan or accelerating other forms of U.S. military involvement, the senior defense official emphasized. Pakistani officials repeatedly raised alarms after a surge of U.S. Hellfire missile strikes from drone predators in recent months, and they renewed those complaints after a new strike killed 19 people inside Pakistan days after Obama took office.

The Joint Chiefs' report advises a greater emphasis on U.S. military training of Pakistani forces for counter-terror work. The training efforts also would expand and develop the Afghan army and police force, while at the same time work to improve Afghan governance.

The report also stresses that Afghan strategy must be driven by what the Afghans want and that the U.S. cannot impose its own goals on the Afghanistan government.

During discussions about a new Afghanistan strategy, military leaders expressed worries that the U.S. ambitions in Afghanistan — to stabilize the country and begin to build a democracy there — were beyond its ability.

And as they tried to balance military demands in both Iraq and Afghanistan, some increasingly questioned why the U.S. continued to maintain a war-fighting force in Iraq, even though the mission there has shifted to a support role. Those fighting forces, they argued, were needed more urgently in Afghanistan.

Military leaders have been signaling for weeks that the focus of U.S. efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan would change.

Gates told armed services committees in Congress last week that the U.S. should keep its sights on one thing: preventing Afghanistan from being used as a base for terrorists and extremists who would harm the U.S. or its allies.