Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Senators question Afghan war plans

Jonathan S. Landay McClatchy

WASHINGTON – Democratic and Republican senators voiced deep concern Wednesday over the direction of the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, questioning whether the Obama administration can begin withdrawing U.S. troops next summer.

“We need a better definition of exactly what the definition of success is in Afghanistan,” Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, D-Mass., said in opening a hearing at which U.S. special envoy Richard Holbrooke was grilled on U.S. policy. “We absolutely need to know what a political solution looks like and how we get there.”

There are currently some 100,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. U.S. commanders have warned that casualties would rise as 30,000 additional U.S. troops arrive as part of a drive to clear the Taliban strongholds of southern Kandahar and Helmand provinces and build local governments.

Kerry said he worries that despite the U.S. troop surge, the force won’t be sufficient to pacify the city of Kandahar, the Taliban’s spiritual capital.

Kerry said he was “unsure” of the U.S. strategy for Kandahar, and asked Holbrooke “if you can help us understand exactly where we’re heading in this regard?”

Holbrooke declined to answer, but he disclosed that the new commander of the U.S.-led international force, Army Gen. David Petraeus, is now conducting “his own strategic review.”

Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, the panel’s senior Republican, said there is “substantial concern” about the course of the war in part due to the “disruption” caused by President Barack Obama’s firing last month of Petraeus’ predecessor, Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal.

“Absent a major re-alignment on the ground, it’s unrealistic to expect a significant downsizing of U.S. forces could occur without security consequences,” he continued, referring to Obama’s December announcement that U.S. forces would begin turning over areas deemed stable to the Afghan government in July 2011, and start returning home.

Holbrooke insisted that the deadline was being misconstrued as the start of a wholesale U.S. departure. “An endpoint for combat troop presence has not been decided upon,” he said, adding that the pace of withdrawals would depend on ground conditions.