US likely to expand Afghan military action

US Defence Secretary Gates said that once the ongoing review process was complete, the Pentagon may ask the president to send more troops to the war-torn country. — Photo by AP 

By Anwar Iqbal
Monday, 07 Sep, 2009 | 06:03 AM PST | 

WASHINGTON: As senior US commanders prepare to send their evaluations of the situation in Afghanistan to President Barack Obama this week, there are indications that Washington may increase its efforts to destroy Al Qaeda safe havens in Fata.
 

The Obama administration hopes to show some ‘real progress’ in its efforts to uproot Al Qaeda and catch or kill its leaders within 12 to 18 months.

This new approach was discussed threadbare at a two-day review of the first six months of the Obama administration, The Washington Post reported on Sunday.

Senior White House officials, who met at the Blair House to review the administration’s performance, noted that America’s real objective was to destroy Al Qaeda safe havens and to go after its leaders.

In the recent past, senior US officials also have stated publicly that Al Qaeda and its leaders are their real targets and they are hiding in Pakistan’s tribal territories, not in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates told reporters in Washington that senior US commanders would send their evaluations of the situation in Afghanistan to President Obama early this week who would then decide how to cope effectively with the rising insurgency in that country.

‘I’ve asked General David Petraeus, the commander of Central Command, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the chairman to provide me with their evaluation of the assessment and the situation in Afghanistan,’ the secretary told a recent briefing in Washington. ‘I will send their views plus my own thoughts to the president early this week.’

On Sept 1, Secretary Gates received a copy of a much-awaited report on the situation in Afghanistan from his top commander in the country, Gen Stanley McChrystal. He has already sent that report to President Obama.

‘All of this is being done as part of a systematic, deliberative process designed to make sure the president receives the best military information and advice on the way ahead in Afghanistan,’ Mr Gates said.

‘My request and General McChrystal’s response both are intended to help us effectively implement the president’s March strategy, not launch a new one.’

Secretary Gates, however, indicated that once the review process was complete, the Pentagon may ask the president to send more troops to the war-torn country. ‘I expect that any request for additional resources would follow after this process and be similarly discussed by the president’s national-security team,’ he said.

President Obama has already promised to send 21,000 additional troops but US military commanders and independent observers have said that this may not be enough.

Secretary Gates also said that the administration has developed ‘measures of effectiveness’ to assess its performance in the Pak-Afghan region.

The Pentagon, he said, would share these measures with the members of Congress this week.

The administration, he said, has set the Sept 24 deadline for completing the review process after which ‘those that are unclassified will be made public’.

The need to reassess the US policy for the Pak-Afghan region follows a series of recent public opinion polls revealing a growing angst and disappointment over the administration’s present course.

The opinion polls show that the majority of Americans believed that President Barack Obama’s decision to expand the war in Afghanistan by deploying thousands of additional US troops is not working. Many Americans now want the administration to come up with a clear plan for how and when to leave Afghanistan.

At a recent briefing, Secretary Gates and Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen rejected the suggestion that the US should start planning a withdrawal but they backed the suggestion for clearly defining Washington’s goals in the Pak-Afghan region.