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McChrystal supports new strategy, drawdown
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McChrystal supports new strategy, drawdown
By ANNE GEARAN and PAULINE JELINEK,Associated Press Writers -
2 hours 23 minutes ago
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WASHINGTON – The general in charge of the war in Afghanistan said Tuesday he expects to know by this time next year whether the new troop buildup is reversing Taliban momentum and he believes he will be able to draw down forces in 2011 without asking for more.
Gen. Stanley McChrystal, appearing before the House Armed Services Committee a week after President Barack Obama announced his new surge-and-exit strategy, said he supports the plan. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, who had voiced misgivings previously, also endorsed the new approach at the Capitol Hill hearing.
The new battle strategy includes a plan to begin bringing some troops home in 18 months _ a number to be determined by conditions on the ground at that time.
"Results may come more quickly," McChrystal told lawmakers. "But the sober fact is that there are no silver bullets. Ultimate success will be the cumulative effect of sustained pressure."
Eikenberry said the course outlined last week by Obama "offers the best path to stabilize Afghanistan and to ensure al-Qaida and other terrorist groups cannot regain a foothold to plan new attacks against our country or our allies."
Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., the committee's chairman, said Obama did the right thing by ordering an additional 30,000 U.S. troops. But he opened the hearing by ticking off a series of questions, asking what success will look like, how it will be measured, "what risk are we accepting in the next 18 months and how can we mitigate it?"
McChrystal assured Skelton that the troop infusion will work. "I believe we will absolutely be successful," the general said.
The panel's highest-ranking Republican, Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon of California, told McChrystal he was waiting to hear how "the president is not under-resourcing his own strategy," since the general has sketched ways that as many as 80,000 additional U.S. forces could have helped turn the tide.
Under questioning later from McKeon, McChrystal said he did not think he would need to ask for any more troops in a year's time, but would not hesitate to recommend more if circumstances change.
He also told McKeon he did not recommend the July 2011 exit plan, but that he supports it. He said he made no recommendations at all about the exit plan.
"By the summer of 2011, it will be clear to the Afghan people that the insurgency will not win, giving them the chance to side with their government," McChrystal said. "From that point forward, while we begin to reduce U.S. combat force, levels, we will remain partnered with the Afghan security forces in a supporting role to consolidate and solidify their gains."
Eikenberry sought to clarify his stance during the three-month review, widely-reported as a hesitancy to support more troops at a time when there were still so many questions surrounding the corruption and mismanagement that have stained the Karzai administration.
"It was not a question of additional troops," he said Tuesday. "It was a question of the number of troops ... the timelines... the context that those troops would operate in."
Asked what his biggest challenges will be, McChrystal said growing the Afghan security forces in size and quality, bolstering the quality of Afghan government and convincing the Afghan people to support their government even as they are being "coerced by the Taliban."
McChrystal said in his opening statement that one of the reasons he believes he can accomplish his mission is that Afghans accept the U.S. role there.
"Afghans do not regard us as occupiers," he said. "They do not wish for us to remain forever, yet they see our support as a necessary bridge to future security and stability."
He said the nature of the Taliban and the way it ruled before being overthrown in late 2001 are among reasons he thinks this insurgency can be defeated, when others in history have often been immune to outside military efforts.
"They were not credible in power and they are not credible now," McChrystal said. "They are not the National Liberation Front of Afghanistan."
McChrystal predicted improvement in Afghan security forces, who eventually must take responsibility for protecting their own country.
"My expectation is the insurgency will be less robust in the summer of 2011, significantly so, and my expectation is that the Afghan national security forces will be more robust," McChrystal said, although "still imperfect." Defense Secretary Robert Gates last week said that the idea is to degrade the Taliban "to levels manageable" by the Afghan forces.
Visiting Afghanistan on Tuesday, Gates reiterated that the administration expects the withdrawal, beginning in July 2011, to be "a several-year process _ whether it's three years or two years or four years remains to be seen."
Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai said his country will need international help to build homegrown security forces well beyond that date. "For a number of years, maybe for another 15 to 20 years, Afghanistan will not be able to sustain a force of that nature and capability with its own resources," Karzai said during a joint news conference with Gates in Kabul.
McChrystal's congressional appearance followed a particularly pointed assessment of the stakes in Afghanistan from his boss, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen, on Monday.
"We are not winning, which means we are losing," Mullen told troops who will soon go to Afghanistan as part of the first wave of the surge. As the U.S. and its partners lose ground, insurgents gain new recruits, Mullen said. "That's why we need the 30,000" and the fast deployment calendar that Obama chose, Mullen told troops at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.
McChrystal was effectively barred from testifying earlier during Obama's long deliberation, with Gates and others in the administration saying the general should only speak after Obama had made his choice. That angered several Republicans, including Sen. John McCain of Arizona, but the prohibition stuck.
McChrystal himself angered some of his civilian bosses, including Gates, by describing his preferred strategy before Obama had chosen his. And Eikenberry caused perhaps the largest stir ahead of the announcement by firing off two strongly worded classified messages to Washington, in which he opposed a large troop increase and told Obama that Karzai could not be trusted.
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