BY YOCHI J . D REAZEN ·························
WASHINGTON
Top Pentagon officials gave Congress pessimistic assessments of the war in Afghanistan, with the nation’s highest-ranking military officer warning that the U.S. is “running out of time” to stabilize the country.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified one day after President George W. Bush announced a plan to gradually withdraw some 8,000 U.S.
troops from Iraq while sending an additional 4,500 troops to Afghanistan. The Pentagon believes the Iraq war has begun winding down while the Afghanistan conflict is intensifying.
Speaking to the House Armed Services Committee Wednesday, Mr. Gates said the U.S. had entered the “endgame” in Iraq. “We are reducing our commitments in Iraq and we are increasing our commitments in Afghanistan,” he told the lawmakers.
The administration’s handling of the two wars has reemerged as a key issue in the presidential campaign. Democratic candidate Barack Obama, who has long called for deploying at least 10,000 more troops to Afghanistan, criticized Mr. Bush’s redeployment plan as inadequate. Republican rival John McCain said Senator Obama’s call for large-scale troop withdrawals from Iraq would endanger recent gains there.
Wednesday, Mr. Gates called for a cautious withdrawal from Iraq, noting that commanders didn’t yet believe the country’s security improvements were “necessarily enduring.” He also said some U.S. forces likely would remain in Iraq for “many years to come.” The testimony came during a bloody period in Afghanistan. Seven years into the war, the resurgent Taliban have launched a wave of attacks on U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces. Suicide bombings, once a rarity in Afghanistan, are now a common occurrence, and more U.S.
troops are being killed in Afghanistan than in Iraq.
“I’m not convinced we’re winning in Afghanistan,” Adm.
Mullen said, adding that he was “convinced we can.” Mr. Gates and Adm. Mullen detailed an array of worrisome dynamics in Afghanistan, from persistent shortages of Western military personnel to what they described as the corruption and ineffectiveness of the fragile Afghan government.
The two leaders also blamed much of Afghanistan’s instability on neighboring Pakistan, with Adm. Mullen asserting that insurgents were crossing into Afghanistan from “safe havens” in Pakistan’s lawless border regions.
Adm. Mullen told lawmakers that he was planning to develop a new strategy for the war that would focus on the situation in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. “These two nations are inextricably linked in a common insurgency that crosses the border between them,” he said.
The two men faced skeptical questioning from Democratic lawmakers, who accused the Bush administration of shortchanging Afghanistan by lavishing American military and financial resources on Iraq. There are 146,000 U.S.
troops in Iraq and 34,000 in Afghanistan.
House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (Democrat, Missouri) said top U.S. commanders in Iraq were given “every resource needed” while senior American officials in Afghanistan had “to plead publicly” for additional troops.
“No one has been able to explain to me why Iraq is our first priority based on national-security interests,” Rep. Skelton said. “How can it be when those most likely to attack us are in Afghanistan?” Gen. David McKiernan, the top American commander in Afghanistan, has repeatedly called for three additional combat brigades, or about 10,500 to 12,000 more troops.
Adm. Mullen acknowledged that the 4,500 troops slated to deploy to Afghanistan in coming months wouldn’t “adequately meet” Gen. McKiernan’s request but described them as a “good start.” —wsj@livemint.com
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