Obama vows not to rush Afghan decision

 

JACKSONVILLE, October 27 (Reuters): President Barack Obama, accused by some of dithering over a new strategy for Afghanistan, vowed not to be rushed into a decision over whether to send more U.S. troops to the war zone. Obama spoke to U.S. Navy personnel in Jacksonville on the same day 14 Americans were killed in helicopter crashes in Afghanistan and shortly after he met top advisers for a sixth time about a new Afghan strategy that the White House said was still weeks away.
Obama is debating whether to follow the advice of his military commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, who wants to send at least 40,000 more U.S. forces there. Just last week, the White House rejected former Vice President Dick Cheney's charge that Obama was "dithering" over the strategy review and needed to send more troops. "I will never rush the solemn decision of sending you into harm's way," Obama said to applause from the sailors at the event and their families. "I won't risk your lives unless it is absolutely necessary. And if it is necessary, we will back you up to the hilt."
"Because you deserve the strategy, the clear mission, the defined goals as well as the equipment and support you need to get the job done," Obama said, vowing not to have a situation where troops in the field are not supported by people at home. Opinion polls show flagging public support for the war effort and members of Obama's own Democratic Party are divided over whether to send more troops. The United States now has 65,000 troops in Afghanistan, which is expected to reach 68,000 later this year. Other countries, mainly NATO allies, have some 39,000 troops there.
Obama expressed condolences to the families of the latest 14 Americans killed in Afghanistan. Three special agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration were among those who died in the helicopter crash in western Afghanistan, said U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, who hailed their work in fighting the drugs trade there. On the Air Force One flight from Washington, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama met with Vice President Joe Biden and other senior advisers at the White House for the latest session on Afghanistan.
Gibbs said Obama's decision on a new strategy will take place "in the coming weeks." ABC News cited unnamed sources as saying Obama's decision likely will come between Afghanistan's run-off election on Nov. 7 and his departure for Japan on Nov. 11. The Pentagon carried out internal assessments of the two main proposals for troop levels -- sending roughly 40,000 more troops or a far smaller number, an option McChrystal and other defense officials see as having a higher risk of failure. The reviews were overseen by Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, one military official said.
Senator John Kerry, who heads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, gave conditional support for additional troops. He told the Council on Foreign Relations he would support more troops only if there were enough "reliable" Afghan forces to partner with as well as local leaders who could deliver basic services to the people. "What we need, above all, what our troops deserve -- and what we haven't had -- is a comprehensive strategy, military and civilian combined," Kerry said.
Obama is also looking at a "civilian surge" of boosting staff in areas stabilized by the military and seeking to improve the capacity of the Afghan government. Kerry, who was in Afghanistan last week to put pressure on President Hamid Karzai to accept a run-off election, was scathing of the U.S. civilian effort so far. "Our civilian presence there is disgraceful compared to what it ought to be relative to the challenge," Kerry said. But Deputy Secretary of State Jacob Lew sought to squash criticism, telling reporters earlier that the State Department was on track to get nearly 1,000 people in place by year-end.
There are now just over 600 U.S. civilians in Afghanistan, including specialists from the treasury and agriculture departments and the U.S. Agency for International Development, said Lew. The Bush administration struggled to find enough civilians for its mission in Iraq during the height of the conflict there but Lew said this was not a problem in Afghanistan. "We have many more people applying than there are positions," said Lew.

 

Washington, October 27 (Agencies): A STATE Department diplomat disillusioned with US involvement in Afghanistan has become the first US official known to resign in protest over the eight-year war, The Washington Post has reported. Matthew Hoh, 36, was the senior State Department official in Afghanistan's Zabul province, a hotbed for Taliban militants, until he resigned last month. His background in both civil and military fields may have seemed the perfect fit for President Barack Obama's administration as it steps up its counterinsurgency efforts in the war-torn country.
But in a September 10 letter to the State Department's personnel chief, Hoh wrote: "I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States' presence in Afghanistan. "I have doubts and reservations about our current strategy and planned future strategy, but my resignation is based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end," added the former Marine Corps captain, according to comments carried by the Post.
The resignation, the newspaper said, "sent ripples all the way to the White House", and Government officials scrambled to convince Hoh to stay, concerned that he could become a prominent critic of the fledgling administration's Afghanistan policy. Hoh was offered a senior staff-level job at the US embassy in Kabul, which he turned down, and was flown to Washington to meet one-on-one with the US special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke.
"We took his letter very seriously, because he was a good officer," Holbrooke said in an interview with the daily. Holbrooke initially convinced Hoh - who had also served in uniform at the Pentagon and as a civilian in Iraq - that by remaining in government, he could more effectively change US policy in Afghanistan. But the diplomat changed his mind a week later and again tended his resignation. Staying on "wasn't the right thing to do", he told the Post.
As Obama weighs a decision to potentially dispatch tens of thousands more US troops to the Afghanistan cauldron, Hoh said he decided to speak out to influence public opinion. "I'm not some peacenik, pot-smoking hippie who wants everyone to be in love," he said. "I want people in Iowa, people in Arkansas, people in Arizona, to call their congressman and say, 'Listen, I don't think this is right.'"