No easy options as Obama agonises over Afghan war
By Chris Otton (AFP)
KABUL — With Hamid Karzai confirmed as Afghan president for another five years, the pressure is on Barack Obama to declare his plans for winning a war which commanders say is in danger of being lost.
Top aides have said it would be “irresponsible” for the US president to take a decision on committing tens of thousands more troops to battle the Taliban before it was clear who would be in power in Kabul.
Stanley McChrystal, the US general with overall command of the more than 100,000 troops already in Afghanistan, wants up to 40,000 reinforcements — a line strongly backed by his senior lieutenants.
But with US and European enthusiasm for the war waning, experts say Obama may opt for a more limited boost in troop numbers. They warn that other options are fraught with difficulties.
In a speech last month, McChrystal warned: “The situation is serious and… neither success nor failure can be taken for granted.”
The message was even starker from a commander in the NATO-led security force which provides some two-thirds of the West’s troops in Afghanistan.
“The clock is ticking in Afghanistan,” the officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“We are losing the support of the population day by day and from a military point of view I am not able to make further progress” with current troop levels.
“If we want to join with the population, live with them in the villages, we have to have more soldiers.”
In a new report, the International Crisis Group (ICG), a think tank, warned the Taliban were at their strongest since being overthrown in 2001.
“The insurgents believe that they now have the upper hand,” it said.
Many military officers feel a lack of numbers prevents them from keeping rural areas onside.
But other powerful voices such as John Kerry, who heads the US Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee, argue that combating terrorism does not require the coalition to “defeat the Taliban in every corner of the country”.
Kabul-based analyst Waheed Mujda said the Soviet Union had found piling in soldiers was no guarantee of success. Its army was forced from Afghanistan in 1989, 10 years after invading the country, after being run ragged by mujaheddin rebels.
“History has shown us that more foreign troops is not a solution,” said Mujda. “The Soviets, who were our neighbours, deployed 120,000 troops.”
In a sign a decision is imminent, leaks have appeared in US media suggesting Obama could opt for a limited increase in troops deployed to big cities.
Mark Schneider, a vice president of the ICG, said Obama could roll out a limited plan which would be ramped up later.
“We could easily see the administration making the judgement that right now we have to send in trainers, mentors at an accelerated pace to train the Afghan military,” he said.
Stephen Biddle, part of McChrystal’s assessment team that drew up recommendations earlier this year, says putting the emphasis on training would still require many more troops.
“To build an indigenous security force in the middle of a war is not like teaching maths to high school students — it cannot be done successfully by a handful of teachers in classrooms with chalk and blackboards,” he wrote in The New Republic journal.
“This requires Western troops, in large numbers, living and fighting together with Afghan forces at all levels.”
Obama himself has hinted at talking to “moderate” Taliban elements and, in his first appearance since his re-election, Karzai proffered an olive branch to his Afghan “brothers”.
While Mujda agreed “the solution to the Afghan problem is negotiations with Taliban,” Biddle said such an approach was doomed as the Taliban feel they have momentum.
“Taliban leaders appear to believe that they are winning the war,” he said.
“This is hardly unreasonable. Why should Taliban leaders compromise for half a loaf when the whole bakery is available?”
In the first couple of years after taking power, Karzai often dismissed the Taliban as a spent force but is now acutely aware of their threat.
Taliban leader Mullah Brader Akhund warned recently that US-led forces would never triumph.
“This war will come to an end when all invaders leave our country and an Islamic government based on the aspirations of our people is formed in the country,” he said.
Obama wraps up Afghan review, eyes final options
* Obama decision on troops, strategy near
* Final options include roughly 30,000-troop increase
By Adam Entous
WASHINGTON, Nov 7 (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama is wrapping up deliberations on war strategy in Afghanistan and is considering final Pentagon options that include sending about 30,000 more troops, officials said on Saturday.
A deployment of that size would be less than the 40,000-troop increase recommended by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, but more than many of Obama’s Democratic allies may support.
Record combat deaths have eroded U.S. public support for the war, and a decision to expand troop levels could become a political liability for the president ahead of congressional elections next year.
Currently, there are about 67,000 U.S. troops and 40,000 allied forces in Afghanistan.
Under one of the final Pentagon options presented to the White House, three additional combat brigades would be deployed and a division headquarters set up near Kandahar in southern Afghanistan, a Taliban stronghold, as part of a 30,000-troop increase.
U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said Obama has settled on a troop increase but has yet to make up his mind about its size.
Brigades generally include 3,500 to 4,000 troops, though they can swell to over 5,000 troops if other units are attached. Marine brigades can be larger.
Obama, who will visit Asia from Nov 12-19, is expected to announce his decision within a few weeks, possibly after Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s inauguration. Karzai was re-elected in a controversial poll tainted by fraud.
The timing may hinge on the extent to which Karzai embraces U.S. and European calls for a pact under which his government would commit to taking concrete steps to fight corruption and improve governance, including the delivery of public services.
Washington believes a successful counterinsurgency strategy against the Taliban hinges in large part on winning Afghan public support for the government in Kabul.
But Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, said earlier this week that the re-elected president’s legitimacy among the Afghan people was “at best, in question right now and, at worst, doesn’t exist.”
OPTIONS NARROW
Senior Obama administration officials have stepped up consultations with key allies, laying the ground for an announcement on strategy and troop levels.
In his confidential troop request, McChrystal said 40,000 additional troops were needed to help secure Afghan population centers and to give NATO some additional resources to take on Taliban and al Qaeda fighters in outlying areas.
Another option, deemed more risky by McChrystal, calls for between 10,000 and 15,000 more troops, which would enable the commander to focus on securing population centers but provide few additional resources to broaden the anti-Taliban campaign.
A third option — to send an additional 80,000 troops to mount a more robust counterinsurgency against the Taliban across the country — was widely seen as a non-starter from the onset of the White House review.
Support for continuing a counterinsurgency strategy with a greater focus on protecting major Afghan population centers has been growing within the Obama administration.
Counterinsurgency advocates include Defense Secretary Robert Gates and military leaders, including McChrystal.
Officials said this strategy could be combined with a stepped up counterterrorism campaign, advocated by Vice President Joe Biden, using unmanned aerial drones and special operations forces to combat Taliban and al Qaeda fighters in the Afghan countryside and near the border with Pakistan. (Additional reporting by Phil Stewart, Susan Cornwell and Steve Holland; Editing by Paul Simao)
All Afghan War Options by Obama Aides Said to Call for More Troops
WASHINGTON — Advisers to President Obama are preparing three options for escalating the war effort in Afghanistan, all of them calling for more American troops, as he moves closer to a decision on the way forward in the eight-year-old war, officials said Saturday.
The options include Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal’s request for roughly another 40,000 troops; a middle scenario sending about 30,000 more troops; and a lower alternative involving 20,000 to 25,000 reinforcements, according to the officials, who insisted on anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. Officials hope to present the options to Mr. Obama this week before he leaves on a trip to Asia.
While some civilian and military officials believe Mr. Obama is seeking a middle ground in the debate over Afghanistan, aides denied he has made any decision or is leaning toward any of the options. Still, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates appears to be supportive of the middle option, some officials said, and his view is thought to be pivotal because of Mr. Obama’s respect for him and his status as a holdover from a Republican administration.
The three options define the contours of a debate that has played out in public for more than two months. General McChrystal, the top American and allied commander in Afghanistan, and his advocates argue the war cannot be won without a major infusion of forces to protect the population and ultimately turn it against the Taliban. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and others oppose a buildup in a war they believe cannot be won through conventional means and that diverts attention from Pakistan, where Al Qaeda is primarily located. There are currently 68,000 American troops in Afghanistan.
The range of alternatives under discussion suggests that the president has rejected the extremes on either end. He appears inclined to send more troops — with the only question being how many — and seems not to be seriously considering General McChrystal’s highest proposal of 80,000 more troops.
Still, any of the options on the table would generate opposition on either the political left or right. If he approves anything less than General McChrystal’s 40,000-troop option, Mr. Obama could face criticism from Republicans and some moderate Democrats, while any troop increase would provoke anger among liberals and others who have increasingly soured on the war.
McClatchy Newspapers reported Saturday that Mr. Obama is nearing a decision to approve the middle option being drawn up by advisers, citing unnamed administration and military officials. White House officials denied Mr. Obama has made a decision or favors any of the options at this point, noting that they have not been formally presented to him. But administration officials confirmed that the 30,000-troop plan is under consideration.
If he were to go with that, Mr. Obama could try to make up the difference in what General McChrystal wants by pressing NATO allies to do more. Britain has already agreed to send another 500 troops, and four senior American officials flew to Brussels last week to brief representatives of other nations that have forces in Afghanistan, to solicit their views and build support for more help.
There could be variations within each of the three options as well that could increase or decrease the number of troops needed, officials said. Troop levels would hinge, for instance, on the administration’s assessment of how many former Taliban fighters can be peacefully reintegrated into Afghan society and to what extent improved governance at various levels could prevent disaffected Afghans from siding with insurgents.
Officials are focusing on an approach predicated on the belief that the Taliban cannot be entirely eradicated in Afghanistan and that Al Qaeda is the real threat to American interests. The main goal for American forces, then, would be to protect the 10 most important population centers in Afghanistan and keep the Taliban isolated long enough to train Afghan security forces to take over the fight.
Mr. Obama has met with his national security advisers seven times since General McChrystal sent his assessment Aug. 31. Officials hope to schedule another meeting this week.
The president’s departure for Asia was delayed a day until Thursday so that he can fly to Fort Hood on Tuesday for a service commemorating the victims of last week’s mass shooting.
War support flagging as nation remembers fallen
By Robin Millard (AFP) – 4 hours ago
LONDON — Foreign Secretary David Miliband and the country’s top commander in Afghanistan on Sunday tried to revive support for the fight against the Taliban as thoughts on Remembrance Sunday turned to those killed.
Public support for the war in Afghanistan is falling, while more than 40 percent do not understand why the troops are fighting there, a ComRes poll showed.
Some 64 percent agreed that “the war in Afghanistan is unwinnable”, up six percent from July, while 27 percent disagreed, down four percent.
Similar numbers said British forces should be withdrawn as quickly as possible, with 63 percent agreeing and 31 percent disagreeing.
Some 54 percent felt they had “a good understanding of the purpose of Britain’s mission in Afghanistan”, with 42 percent disagreeing.
Adding to the pressure on Prime Minister Gordon Brown as the nation pauses to remember the fallen, The Independent on Sunday called for a withdrawal of British forces.
“The threat is hard to see and more complex to understand” than previous wars, Miliband wrote in The Mail on Sunday.
“This war is every bit a war of necessity.
“If the international forces were to pull out before the Afghan government was able to provide security, global terrorism would have free rein again.
“Success will come when the enemy is weakened enough for the Afghan army and government to contain it.
“Afghanistan is not a campaign without end. Nor is it one we can walk away from.”
Meanwhile Lieutenant General Jim Dutton, the most senior British commander in Afghanistan, told BBC television: “collectively we have not been as good at explaining this as we ought to be.”
He said that public support was “crucially important” for the mission.
“There may be those who don’t support the policy… (but) I sense public support for what soldiers are doing,” he added.
A total of 230 British troops have died in the Afghanistan mission since operations began against the Taliban extremists in October 2001. Of those, at least 199 were killed as a result of hostile action.
Britain’s 9,000 troops in Afghanistan, largely battling Taliban insurgents in the troubled southern Helmand Province, are trying to train up local forces to take over security control for themselves.
“We can achieve a level of security within three to four years that allows the Afghans to take over,” Dutton said.
“I have to say yes, it is worth some soldiers having to die for because the consequences of it going wrong are far greater.
“All our populations back home will put up with the cost of this sort of operation — and I mean the cost in human and financial terms — if they believe two things: one, that we’re right, and two, that we can win.”
On Tuesday, a “rogue” Afghan policeman shot dead five British troops and wounded others in an attack which underscored the increasing complexity of the war.
The killings heightened concerns as the government is hoping to shift troops away from front-line fighting to training such local forces.
The attack was a “monstrous” act of treachery, the commanding officer of some of the murdered men told The Sunday Telegraph.
But despite the shock and disgust, the incident was probably a “one-off”, said Lieutenant Colonel Roly Walker, the commanding officer of the 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards.
“If we were to allow any wedges to form between us, they (the police) would wither and they would fall prey to the Taliban,” he added.
“So I have said to the boys: ‘it’s no change’.”
Queen Elizabeth is set to lead the annual Remembrance Sunday service and parade in central London, paying tribute to the thousands of men and women who died in world conflicts.
This time, alongside the victims of previous wars, Britons must also think about “all those who have been killed in Afghanistan this year — heroes who have lost their lives on Afghan streets so that we might be safer on Britain’s streets,” Brown said.
ComRes surveyed 1,009 adults of different ages and social classes nationwide for BBC television’s “The Politics Show”.
Prospect of More U.S. Troops Worries Afghan Public
CHARIKAR, Afghanistan — As Americans, including President Obama’s top advisers, tensely debate whether to send more American troops to Afghanistan, Afghans themselves are having a similar discussion and voicing serious doubts.
In bazaars and university corridors across the country, eight years of war have left people exhausted and impatient. They are increasingly skeptical that the Taliban can be defeated. Nearly everyone agrees that the Afghan government must negotiate with the insurgents. If more American forces do arrive, many here say, they should come to train Afghans to take over the fight, so the foreigners can leave.
“What have the Americans done in eight years?” asked Abdullah Wasay, 60, a pharmacist in Charikar, a market town about 25 miles north of Kabul, expressing a view typical of many here. “Americans are saying that with their planes they can see an egg 18 kilometers away, so why can’t they see the Taliban?”
Such sentiments were repeated in conversation after conversation with more than 30 Afghans in Kabul and nearby rural areas and with local officials in outlying provinces. The comments point to the difficulties that American and Afghan officials face if they choose to add more foreign troops.
If the foreign forces are not seen so by Afghans already, they are on the cusp of being regarded as occupiers, with little to show people for their extended presence, fueling wild conspiracies about why they remain here.
The feeling is particularly acute in the Pashtun south, but it is spreading to other parts of the country. More American troops could tip the balance of opinion, particularly if they increase civilian casualties and prompt even more Taliban attacks.
The grass-roots view among Afghans is at odds with those of top Afghan officials, as well as many American military commanders, who strongly endorse a full-blown counterinsurgency strategy, including a large troop increase.
The aim of sending more troops would be to help secure Afghanistan’s biggest cities and towns to make the population feel safe and in doing so to show that the foreign presence can bring benefits.
At the same time, the Americans support the idea of negotiating with moderate members of the Taliban, but would prefer to do so once the insurgency has been weakened. And, that, in turn, may also require more troops.
Interior Minister Hanif Atmar said he was in “full agreement” with Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the American commander of forces in Afghanistan, that a full-blown counterinsurgency strategy was necessary, including more forces.
“One piece of that strategy is a troop increase as a stopgap measure that will create an environment in which Afghan security forces can continue to grow and people will be protected against insurgents,” he said.
The mood on the street is darker and more wary. Mr. Wasay and several friends visiting his pharmacy were discussing the Taliban’s killing of a police chief in a rural part of the province. The rumor was that Taliban fighters had severed his head and delivered it to his son, according to one of Mr. Wasay’s friends.
True or not, the anecdote was part of a growing mythology of Taliban power and a general perception that neither the Afghan government nor American troops were protecting Afghans.
Daily life continues to be so precarious for many people interviewed, especially those outside Kabul, that they have come to believe that the United States must want the fighting to go on.
“In the first days of the war, the Americans defeated the Taliban in just a few days,” said Mohammed Shefi, a graduate student in the pharmacy school at Kabul University. “Now they have more than 60,000 forces and they cannot defeat them.”
Alex Thier, an analyst at the United States Institute of Peace, who has spent years working in Afghanistan, said the country’s mood was shifting. “What’s changed fairly recently was the confidence of the population as to whether we can actually achieve the job, even with more resources,” he said.
These doubts do not tally with some surveys, like the poll taken by the International Republican Institute, in which a majority of Afghans appeared to be positive about Americans and said they thought that the country was going in the right direction. However, the security environment in Afghanistan makes it a difficult place in which to conduct polls, and the survey by the institute, a pro-democracy group affiliated with the Republican Party and financed by the American government, was taken in July before the rampant fraud in the presidential election.
Zia Ahmet, a seller of tea kettles and pots just down the street from Mr. Wasay, was positive about the current international presence, but dubious about increasing it. “Instead of increasing foreign troops, it’s better to equip the Afghan National Army and the Afghan police,” he said, a view that was shared by almost everyone interviewed. “The local army are known in the villages, and they are more useful than foreign troops.”
A tribal elder in Balkh Province, in the remote north, said the insurgency had disrupted life for farmers and herders, and he repeated one of a growing number of conspiracy theories about the Americans’ intentions. In his version, the Americans were transporting Taliban fighters to the north and dropping them from helicopters at night, on the theory that the Americans wanted more fighting so they could stay in the country. Other versions have the British transporting the insurgents.
There is no truth to the accounts, according to American military officials in Kabul.
Graduate students at Kabul University were no less suspicious. “Those countries that are working with the U.S. and are friends of theirs are Saudi and Pakistan and those are the same countries the insurgents are coming from,” said Abdullah, a graduate student in the Faculty of Islamic Law who, like many Afghans, has only one name.
While the notions may seem absurd to Americans, they have added to an increasingly volatile public mood here. A story that American forces burned a Koran in Wardak Province brought hundreds of young people into the streets last month to protest the American presence, even though the story was roundly disputed by Afghan and American officials.
With less certainty about America’s continued commitment, there is a growing sense that the only sure way to peace is through negotiations with the Taliban. “They are the sons of this country, it is right to negotiate with the Taliban,” said Mohammed Younnis, a shopkeeper in Charikar who sells tea, sugar and grains.
“This government is Afghan, and the Taliban are Afghan; they should build the country together,” he said.
United Kingdom:
Some 93 UK service personnel have been killed so far in 2009
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Public backing is “crucial” to military success in Afghanistan, a top British commander has warned as a poll suggests support for the mission is ebbing away.
The survey for the BBC’s Politics Show found 64% of Britons believe the war is “unwinnable”, up from 58% in July.
And 42% said they did not understand the mission’s purpose, according to the ComRes poll of 1,009 adults.
The senior UK commander in Afghanistan, Lt Gen Jim Dutton, said the public “have to believe that we can win”.
Serious reminder
In response to the poll, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said a chain of terror linked Afghanistan with the streets of Britain.
But the study’s findings are likely to make uncomfortable reading for the government.
It found that 63% of those surveyed felt UK troops should be withdrawn as soon as possible, and 52% agreed that levels of corruption in Afghanistan’s government meant the war was “not worth fighting for”.
Researchers said that two-thirds of people categorised as working class believed the war could not be won.
Andrew Hawkins, ComRes’s chief executive, said this suggested that Labour’s “core supporters” were most strongly opposed to the conflict and that this would have an impact on support for the party.
He added: “Overall, there is the sense that Afghanistan is becoming for Gordon Brown what Iraq became for Tony Blair.”
BBC political correspondent Carole Walker said that on Remembrance Sunday, the survey would serve as a serious reminder to the prime minister of how difficult it would be to keep public opinion on board for this difficult and dangerous mission.
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 I think collectively we have not explained it as well as we should  Lt Gen Jim Dutton
ComRes |
In an interview for the Politics Show, Lt Gen Dutton – the deputy commander of the international forces in Afghanistan – said the UK public needed to understand that British troops were not being sacrificed simply for the sake of Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s government.
He said: “There is much more to the provision of stability in this area of the world, which is a project for which I have to say, yes, it is worth some soldiers having to die for because the consequences of it going wrong are far greater.
“I think I can say without any doubt that support back home is crucially important but I don’t sense any lack of support for soldiers back home.”
Lt Gen Dutton acknowledged that “collectively we have not been as good at explaining” the mission, but said the public would support it if they believed it was justified and that the UK could win.
He said: “I think we could explain it better. Have I failed in doing that? Well, I’m not sure.
“I wouldn’t want to point the finger of blame specifically at myself or anybody else, but I think collectively we have not explained it as well as we should.”
‘Unwinnable and counter-productive’
The government’s strategy on Afghanistan has come under heavy scrutiny in a week in which five British soldiers were killed in an attack by an Afghan police officer and a soldier from 3rd Battalion, The Rifles died in a blast in Helmand province.
So far, 93 UK service personnel have been killed in 2009 – the highest toll in a single year since the Falklands campaign 27 years ago.
The Independent on Sunday has become the first British newspaper to call for British troops to leave Afghanistan.
Its front page carries the headline “Time to Leave”.
In an editorial, the paper says: “It is time to say that this war is ill-conceived, unwinnable and counter-productive”.
The Ministry of Defence, meanwhile, has insisted it had “no plans” to abandon the Afghan town of Musa Qala, which was recaptured from the Taliban amid heavy fighting in 2007.
A report in the Sunday Times had claimed that the Army was considering pulling out of the town as part of a plan to withdraw from outlying bases in Helmand province and focus on major centres of population.
The number of British military personnel killed on operations in Afghanistan since 2001 stands at 230.
The Politics Show is screened on BBC One at 1215 GMT on Sunday.
Is it time to pull out of Afghanistan?
After another bloody week in Afghanistan I stood in the Field of Remembrance by Westminster Abbey and wondered if the war was worth it.
The 60,000 small wooden crosses sent in by the public, each pinned with a red poppy representing the blood of the fallen, tell of a nation always willing to make sacrifices. This year a record number were sent in and, for the first time, there is a section marked Current Conflicts.
Among the crowds gathering on Friday morning to pay their respects after news of a seventh soldier killed in Helmand in seven days, few passed without wiping away a tear. Everyone seemed headed for the section marked War in Afghanistan.
There each cross carries a passport photograph, 229 young men and one woman, 93 of whom died this year. To me, having covered the war for its eight years, some of the names were familiar, guys with whom I had shared a joke or come under Taliban fire. To their families they were beloved husbands, fathers, daughter and sons — many just 18 years old.
It seemed a terrible irony that the symbol of the fallen — a poppy — should be partly what is fuelling and funding this deadly war.
As Big Ben struck 12 o’clock, I watched a young woman kneel and weep. “She lost her boyfriend in Sangin,” said her friend standing nearby. “Isn’t that enough now?”
Also watching was Maureen Ryle, who had come down from Yorkshire with her husband Derek. “It’s horrendous, all these young boys. It’s time we brought them home,” she said.
In a week where one of the policemen being trained by British soldiers to protect his own country turned on his mentors and shot dead five in cold blood, an increasing number of people are asking what we are doing in Afghanistan and whether it is worth it.
Public opposition to the war has risen sharply: in a ComRes survey for the BBC published today, 64% said the war was “unwinnable” and 63% thought British troops should be withdrawn “as soon as possible”. In a YouGov poll last week for Channel 4, 35% of people thought all UK troops should be withdrawn immediately, up from 25% two weeks ago.
On radio phone-in and news programmes, discussion has been of little else. “There is a real chance we will lose this struggle in the bars and front rooms of Britain,” warned Lord Ashdown, the former leader of the Liberal Democrats.
Among those now calling for a “fundamental rethink” is Kim Howells, chairman of the parliamentary intelligence and security committee and a former Foreign Office minister.
Howells last week wrote an article questioning whether spending £2.6 billion a year keeping troops in Afghanistan was the best way to protect national security. He called for a phased withdrawal and more focus on domestic spying.
(Read the remaining 9 pages of ‘Is it time to pull out of Afghanistan?’ by clicking here)
