11 seconds ago 2009-11-26T18:15:03-08:00
Nov. 13 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama is seeking an approach to eventually ending U.S. involvement in Afghanistan even as he weighs a possible expansion of the American military role in the conflict, administration officials said yesterday.
“An exit strategy is as important as ramping up troops,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters aboard Air Force One as Obama headed for a trip through Asia. Gibbs echoed comments earlier in the day by Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
“How do we signal resolve and at the same time signal to the Afghans as well as to the American people that this isn’t an open-ended commitment?â€
Obama may decide this month whether to grant a request by his commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, to increase the U.S. force of 68,000 by as many as 40,000 personnel next year. The decision has been complicated by allegations of corruption in Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s government and concerns the Afghan leadership may not be able to extend its authority nationwide.
“Our success in Afghanistan is most dependent on the Afghan government being a true partner,” Gibbs said. “It’s time to start a new chapter in Afghanistan when it comes to governance and that’s obviously going to play a big part in the decision he makes.”
Public Support
Americans are divided over the value of the war to the U.S. and whether as many as 40,000 extra troops should be sent into the conflict, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll released last month.
En route to Asia yesterday, Obama told troops at an air base in Alaska that he wouldn’t put their lives at risk without a clear strategy and mission and “public support back home.”
Karzai was declared the winner when the Afghan election commission canceled a Nov. 7 runoff after the other candidate, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, dropped out.
Obama met for more than two hours on Nov. 10 with advisers in their eighth strategy session in the White House Situation Room. The participants included McChrystal via remote link, Gates, Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen, General David Petraeus, who commands U.S. forces in the Middle East and Central Asia, and Richard Holbrooke, the special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Obama is looking for a combination of military and civilian power, seeking a solution that melds the best elements from a range of options presented to him so far, Gates said. The options cover varying troop levels and tactics, along with a civilian reconstruction push, to confront the Taliban insurgency.
Gates on Leaks
Gates criticized leaks in the two months that Obama has been considering strategy since a McChrystal assessment of the security situation in Afghanistan was given to the Washington Post. The leaks have emerged from around the administration, including the Defense Department, Gates said.
The Pentagon chief said if he discovers the identity of anyone in his department sharing such information, “that would probably be a career-ender.”
Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island said Obama is looking for stability in the long term in Afghanistan, where the Taliban ruled and harbored al-Qaeda before being ousted by the U.S. in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and the Pentagon. Reed, a Democrat and Obama confidant, sits on the Armed Services Committee and is a former U.S. Army officer.
‘Take the Burden’
“This is about a strategy that will stabilize the country, give the Afghan security forces the chance to take the burden from us, and essentially down the road feel some confidence that we can withdraw our military presence in large part,” Reed told the Bloomberg Washington Summit yesterday.
The U.S. leads a coalition of 43 countries in Afghanistan. Obama administration officials have said the president wants to confer with allies during his Asia trip. Holbrooke is doing the same this week during visits to Berlin, Paris, Munich and Moscow before traveling on to Afghanistan.
An assessment by the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, retired General Karl Eikenberry, that Obama not send more troops to the country for now because of uncertainty with the Afghan government “is pointing out what the president already understood,” Reed said.
General David Petraeus, the overall commander of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, told the same conference that a buildup in Afghanistan would be more difficult than President George W. Bush’s 2007 surge of troops into Iraq because of infrastructure gaps.
Iraq Flow
“We put 6,000 additional troops into Iraq each of five straight months” during the 2007 deployment of reinforcements to quell violence, Petraeus said. “That’s an extraordinary logistical accomplishment but we had Kuwait” as a staging area for forces.
Obama’s budget director, Peter Orszag, told the Bloomberg conference that it would cost about $10 billion a year for every 10,000 troops added in Afghanistan.
The number of troops will determine how much more equipment the U.S. and NATO-led forces will need in Afghanistan, including the blast-proof all-terrain trucks that Oshkosh is building in the city of the same name on the shores of Lake Winnebago.
The vehicles, called Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected All- Terrain Vehicles, or M-ATV’s, are an element of Gates’s drive to protect soldiers in Afghanistan, where improvised explosive devices account for more than 80 percent of casualties.
To contact the reporters on this story: Edwin Chen at Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska, at 1844 or Echen32@bloomberg.net ; Viola Gienger in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, at vgienger@bloomberg.net .
