Recognizing the US can neither win in Afghanistan nor succeed more broadly against al-Qaeda without it, US President Barack Obama’s war council is weighing Pakistan’s role in the eight-year-old struggle in the region.
Obama planned sessions yesterday in the Oval Office with US Vice President Joe Biden and US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to continue their intense discussion about the increasingly unpopular war in Afghanistan.
The White House scheduled another, larger war council session, the fifth of five announced, when the focus may finally shift to just how many additional troops would be needed to execute Obama’s vision for a war he inherited but now must execute.
Obama’s national security team marked the war’s eighth anniversary on Wednesday with a three-hour session in a secure room in the White House basement, briefing in detail a still-undecided Obama.
The White House also disclosed that Obama has in hand, and has had for almost a week, the troop reinforcements request prepared by the top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal. It is said to include a range of options, from adding as few as 10,000 additional combat troops to — McChrystal’s strong preference — to as many as 40,000.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama asked for McChrystal’s request last Thursday before he flew to Copenhagen where he lobbied for Chicago’s bid to host the Olympics and met with the general on the sidelines. The numbers could become the focus of concentrated White House attention as early as today, Gibbs said.
When former US president George W. Bush ordered the US-led invasion of Afghanistan less than a month after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, that country’s Taliban government was providing a haven for Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda fighters. Eight years later, the Taliban government is no more, and al-Qaeda is scattered and weakened. But the Afghan government is considered corrupt and ineffective, Taliban insurgents hoping to retake control are gaining strength and the US government says terrorists continue to plan attacks.
This uncertain progress has come at a cost of nearly 800 US lives.
With this and Americans’ dwindling patience in mind, Obama is engaged in a methodical review of how to overhaul the war.
Wednesday’s nearly three-hour meeting in the Situation Room between Obama and more than a dozen of his top advisers on the war was the third of five currently scheduled. The next is today, concentrating on Afghanistan — though it could also include McChrystal’s report. The final discussion is slated for next week, although aides have said more could come.
Gibbs said Obama’s decision was still weeks away.
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