War in Afghanistan: "Serious but Winnable" says US-NATO commander
Two articles on the status of the war so far according to General McChrystal and others. With Iraq winding down it's pretty much shaping up that Afghanistan is going to wind up considering all the requests for more troops.
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(CNN) -- Success is achievable in Afghanistan if the United States revises its strategy there, the top U.S. commander in that country said in a statement issued Monday.
The statement came as Gen. Stanley McChrystal submitted a long-awaited report on the state of the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan.
"The situation in Afghanistan is serious, but success is achievable and demands a revised implementation strategy, commitment and resolve, and increased unity of effort," McChrystal said in the statement.
The general's review -- which Pentagon officials consider "confidential," but not "classified" or "secret" -- was passed on to Gen. David Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command; Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Gen. Egon Ramms, senior NATO commander. Senior U.S. military officials said Mullen will share the report with the other service chiefs.
A scrubbed-down version suitable for public release will not be available for this report, Pentagon officials said, but could not say why.
The report will also be forwarded to Defense Secretary Robert Gates and NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
Gates told reporters Monday he has not yet seen the report. He is in Dallas, Texas, touring a plant where the new joint strike fighter is being produced.
The officials said Petraeus will add his remarks to the report, as will Mullen, who will then forward the report and corresponding remarks to Gates. Gates will review all of the remarks, add his, then brief President Obama.
Obama has called Afghanistan a "war of necessity" and has placed a great emphasis on defeating the Taliban and al Qaeda militants operating there and in Pakistan.
Questioned Monday about why things seem to be getting worse in Afghanistan six months after the president announced his new strategy for that country, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the country has been neglected for years.
"You can't under-resource the most important part of our war on terror ... and hope to snap your fingers and have that turn around in just a few months," he said.
"We'll see the general's assessment when it gets here. The president is focused on ensuring that we meet measurable benchmarks and that we disrupt, dismantle and ultimately destroy al Qaeda and its extremist allies."
U.S., British and other international forces under the NATO umbrella in Afghanistan bolstered their presence this year to improve security for the recent presidential and provincial elections.
Violence has been particularly fierce in the south, where U.S. Marines have targeted the militants, and in the east near the Pakistani border, where American soldiers have been operating.
Senior U.S. military officials have said the assessment shows that the Taliban exert "considerable influence" over a third of the country. Mullen, said recently that the situation in Afghanistan is "serious and deteriorating."
Two U.S. service members were killed Monday in incidents involving roadside bombs in southern Afghanistan, according to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.
August has been the deadliest month for U.S. troops in Afghanistan since the U.S.-led invasion began in 2001. The deaths Monday bring to 48 the number of U.S. service members killed in Afghanistan in August. The highest monthly death toll previously was in July, when 45 U.S. service members were killed.
The United States now has about 62,000 U.S. troops in the country, and NATO allies have another 35,000. The Pentagon is planning to add 6,000 troops by the end of the year.
There have been indications that Obama soon could be asked to commit more American troops. Gates, however, has signaled he would like to gauge the impact of the additional 6,000 troops before considering whether to send more.
Asked if the president is concerned there might not be enough troops in Afghanistan, White House spokesman Bill Burton has said that Obama laid out a "winning strategy" earlier this year and the administration would wait for McChrystal's assessment and "make a decision accordingly."
As for the Afghan presidential elections, Afghan President Hamid Karzai still leads his rivals, according to the latest partial election results released Monday.
Karzai has almost 46 percent of the vote, compared with slightly over 33 percent for his nearest challenger, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, the country's Independent Election Commission reported. Ramazan Bashardost is a distant third, with 12.5 percent.
The percentages reflect tallies from slightly less than half of the polling stations as the count of votes from the August 20 elections continues.
A candidate must win more than 50 percent of the vote to avoid a run-off. If no candidate wins an absolute majority, there will be a run-off between the top two contenders, most likely in mid-October.
Final results of the first round of voting are not expected until September.
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By DEXTER FILKINS
Published: August 31, 2009
KABUL, Afghanistan — The top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, said Monday that conditions on the ground were “serious” but that the war here is still winnable, part of a long-awaited assessment of the American-led war.
Officials in Washington say that while the general’s classified report did not request additional American troops, it effectively lays the groundwork for such a request in coming weeks.
The change in strategy envisioned by General McChrystal would invest the United States more extensively in Afghanistan than it has been since toppling the Taliban government in 2001, Washington officials said. For President Obama, who already ordered another 21,000 troops to Afghanistan this year, the prospect of an even more extensive commitment of American troops would test his political commitment to the war at a time when he is already trying to tamp down discontent in his liberal base.
In recent weeks, senior American officers here have said that they do not have enough troops to succeed. The American commanders and officials in Kabul were ordered to neither reveal the details of the assessment nor talk about them.
General McChrystal took over American and NATO forces in Afghanistan in June, with an explicit charge to reverse the course of the war. Though it is still only August, 179 American soldiers have already been killed this year, making it the deadliest yet since the war began nearly eight years ago. Still, the general said that the war can still be won.
“The situation in Afghanistan is serious, but success is achievable and demands a revised implementation strategy, commitment and resolve, and increased unity of effort,” General McChrystal said in a statement.
As the overall commander here, General McChrystal oversees about 68,000 American soldiers and marines, and about 40,000 from NATO and other countries.
American commanders say that General McChrystal’s initial assessment does call for a large expansion of Afghan security forces, and an acceleration of their training. There are currently about 134,000 Afghan police, and about 82,000 Afghan soldiers. Many of these units are inadequately equipped and have little logistical capability to sustain themselves.
Just how many more Afghan police and soldiers General McChrystal wants is unclear. In Iraq, where conditions have stabilized markedly over the past two years, the American-trained Iraqi security forces number about 600,000.
The main thrust of General McChrystal’s strategy has been illuminated by him and other commanders in recent weeks. The overriding goal of American and NATO forces is not so much to kill Taliban insurgents as it is to make ordinary Afghans feel secure, and by so doing, isolate the insurgents. That means using force less and focusing on economic development and good governance.
General McChrystal also intends to try to unify the effort of America’s allies, including Britain, Canada, Germany and France, all of which have troops deployed here. He may also ask those allies to contribute more troops, money and training.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told reporters Monday that while he had not yet seen the report, he expected it to portray a “mixed picture” of the operations there. He was quick to add, however, that he thought “some of the doom and gloom perhaps is somewhat overdrawn.” Speaking in Fort Worth, Tex., he also said Afghan forces may have to grow beyond the planned level of 230,000 personnel to make headway, news services reported.
The White House appeared to be preparing for the possibility that he would send more troops. “There’s broad agreement that for many years, our effort in Afghanistan has been underresourced politically, militarily and economically,” said Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary. He went on to use the word “underresourced” several more times during his daily briefing.
In Brussels, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said he would not rule out the necessity of more international troops in Afghanistan, but like Mr. Gates, he focused on what he called the need for additional Afghan forces.
“I would not exclude the possibility that we need more combat troops, but first and foremost I would say that we need to increase significantly the number of Afghan soldiers,” Mr. Rasmussen said in an interview at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Bloomberg reported.
As the deadliest month yet of the war for American forces came to an end, the United States military announced Monday that two American soldiers had died in separate incidents involving improvised explosive devices. The British Ministry of Defense announced separately that two British soldiers had been killed Monday in an explosion in southern Afghanistan.
Peter Baker contributed reporting from Washington, and Sharon Otterman from New York.
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Originally Posted by OneArmedScissor
ing off and leaving them to a rather dodgey fate is just as selfish as what u consider the 'imperialist' motives for entering the country in the first place (though that argument again, lacks real credibility in afghanistan at least in the short/medium term, as the country is one of the poorest in the world and only has its location astride pipelines and heroin to list for advantages - building pipelines and converting the poppy trade into something legal will take a very long time and a lot of resources from the West, namely the US - the world's largest aid contributer by a very, very large margin.)
