Afghan unrest won’t derail U.S. plan

WASHINGTON – Anti-U.S. protests and other deadly attacks roiling Afghanistan have deepened concern at the Pentagon and White House about plans to wind down the war by withdrawing U.S. combat troops in close coordination with Afghan security forces, several officials and military officers said.

Pentagon officials scrambled Monday to contain the damage, insisting that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and top military commanders had not lost faith in a strategy that envisions a steady U.S. pullout over the next three years as small teams of military advisers train Afghan army and police forces.

Panetta and Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “believe we have achieved significant progress in reversing the Taliban’s momentum and in developing the Afghan security forces, and they believe that the fundamentals of our strategy remain sound,” said Pentagon spokesman George Little.

In private, other officers and U.S. officials said riots and attacks after U.S. personnel threw copies of the Quran into a trash burning pit at the Bagram military base have renewed a debate at the highest levels of the Obama administration and are expected to affect internal deliberations on the pace of the U.S. drawdown.

“Too many people are asking, ‘Why are we still doing this if the guys you’re supposed to be helping keep murdering your soldiers?’ ” said a senior U.S. general, who spoke on condition of anonymity in sharing internal discussions.

Officials said the turmoil is unlikely to derail the U.S. plan to pull out troops while small teams of advisers focus on training Afghan security forces and diplomats pursue peace talks with the Taliban. But mistrust between U.S. and Afghan forces may hamper the training and add to security risks, several officials said.

Still, a senior Defense Department official said the anti-American backlash is likely to embolden those in Washington who long have argued that more U.S. troops should leave sooner.

“There’s no question that this is going to spur debate, and that people who already have fairly dire views will have those reinforced,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to reporters.

The number of U.S. troops is scheduled to drop from 90,000 to 68,000 by September. U.S. commanders in Kabul, the capital, have sought to persuade the White House to slow further withdrawals in hopes of locking in gains before Afghan troops are scheduled to take full control of security in 2014.