US President Barack Obama won’t accept any of the Afghanistan war options before him without changes, a senior administration official says, as concerns soar over the ability of the Afghan government to secure its own country one day.
Obama’s stance comes as his own ambassador in Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, is voicing strong dissent about a US troop increase, a second administration official said.
Eikenberry’s misgivings center on a concern that bolstering the US presence in Afghanistan could make the country more reliant on the US, not less. He expressed them in forcefully worded cables to Washington just ahead of Obama’s latest war meeting on Wednesday.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss administration deliberations.
The developments underscore US skepticism about the leadership of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, whose government has been dogged by corruption. The emerging administration message is that Obama will not do anything to lock in an open-ended US commitment.
Obama is still expected to send in more troops to bolster a deteriorating war effort.
He remains close to announcing his revamped war strategy — troops are just one component — and likely will do so shortly after he returns from a trip to Asia that ends on Nov. 19.
Yet in Wednesday’s pivotal war council meeting, Obama wasn’t satisfied with any of the Afghanistan war options presented by his national security team, one official said.
The president instead pushed for revisions to clarify how and when US troops would turn over responsibility to the Afghan government. In turn, that could change the dynamic of both how many additional troops are sent to Afghanistan and what the timeline would be for their presence in the war zone, according to the official.
Military officials said Obama has asked for a rewrite before and resisted what one official called a one-way highway toward war commander General Stanley McChrystal’s recommendations for more troops.
The sense that he was being rushed and railroaded has stiffened Obama’s resolve to seek information and options beyond military planning, officials said, though a substantial troop increase is still likely.
The president is considering options that include adding 30,000 or more US forces to take on the Taliban in key areas of Afghanistan and to buy time for the Afghan government’s small and ill-equipped fighting forces to take over. The other three options on the table are ranges of troop increases, from a relatively small addition of forces to the roughly 40,000 that McChrystal prefers, according to military and other officials.
The war is now in its ninth year and is claiming US lives at a record pace as military leaders say the Taliban has the upper hand in many parts of the country.
Eikenberry, the top US envoy to Kabul and a former commander of US troops in Afghanistan, is a prominent voice among those advising Obama, and his sharp dissent is sure to affect the equation.
The options given to Obama will now be altered, although not overhauled.
Military officials say one approach is a compromise battle plan that would add 30,000 or more US forces atop a record 68,000 in the country now. They described it as “half and half,” meaning half fighting and half training and holding ground so the Afghans can regroup.
The White House says Obama has not made a final choice, though military and other officials have said he appears near to approving a slightly smaller increase than McChrystal wants at the outset.
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