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Yahoo! My Yahoo! Mail More Yahoo! Services Account Options New User? Sign Up Sign In Help Yahoo! Search web search Home Singapore Asia Pacific World Business Entertainment Sports Technology Weekend Edition Africa Europe Latin America Middle East North America US: no doubt Afghan war in better shape AFP - Wednesday, December 15 Send IM Story Print US: no doubt Afghan war in better shape WASHINGTON (AFP) - – The United States said Tuesday there was no doubt the Afghan war is now going better than it was a year ago, as President Barack Obama finalized a sweeping review of his high-stakes surge strategy. After a year of record bloodshed, public sparring with Afghanistan and Pakistan, and revelations of fierce internal debate in the administration over the way forward, Obama will unveil a public version of the review on Thursday. But the report's findings -- progress on slowing Taliban momentum and eradicating Al-Qaeda but with challenges remaining, not least with restive ally Pakistan -- have been well advertised in advance, and few surprises are expected. "Nobody expected we would come out a year into this and say, 'good news, all's well, and we can pack up,'" said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs. Obama met for nearly two hours Tuesday with his war cabinet including top generals, intelligence officers and civilian officials, and ordered several changes to a document summing up the current state of the war. The meeting opened on a somber note with tributes paid to Richard Holbrooke, the hard-charging US envoy who died on Monday after spending two gruelling years in a final mission -- shuttling between Washington, Kabul and Islamabad. "Our focus over the past almost 24 hours ... has been on what he would want us to focus on, and that is continuing to get this policy right," Gibbs said, saying Holbrooke's veteran diplomatic shoes would be impossible to fill. Nevertheless, Gibbs said, the policy which Holbrooke helped to implement had recorded gains. "There has been some important progress in halting the momentum of the Taliban in Afghanistan," Gibbs said. "We have seen through counterterrorism, success at degrading senior Al-Qaeda leaders and we've seen greater cooperation over the course of the past 18 months with the Pakistani government." "You will also see in the review an enumeration of the continued challenges that we have in that region," said Gibbs, before confirming that as expected, the review would not recommend any additional troops for the war. In fact, Gibbs said, the strategy would show sufficient progress for Obama to sign off on his promised start to a conditions-based drawdown of US surge troops -- 30,000 of whom were sent to Afghanistan a year ago. Asked whether US strategy was in better shape than before that announcement last December, Gibbs answered: "I don't think there is any doubt." But there is some evidence that while US forces have degraded the Taliban in its eastern and southern heartlands, the militia has gained ground in northern and western districts where there is less of a US troop footprint. And the review may leave fundamental questions over the future of the war unanswered, including: are US gains sustainable? Will Afghan forces merge into a true fighting force? Will the Taliban simply outwait foreign soldiers? Despite the promised start to the drawdown, the key date for US Afghan policy is now 2014, which NATO partners agreed at a summit last month to set as the target to cede full control to Afghan security forces. Gibbs said the report would also highlight improved cooperation in the fight against extremism with the Pakistani government -- but added it would also state the need for Islamabad to do more. An administration report to Congress this year charged Pakistani forces were avoiding "direct conflict" with the Afghan Taliban and Al-Qaeda forces in some areas of lawless regions along the rugged Afghan border. Limited progress in Afghanistan has come at a high cost: more foreign troops -- nearly 700 -- died in 2010 than in any year of the nine-year conflict, and Washington has waged public spats with Kabul and Islamabad. US officials have frequently complained about pervasive corruption in the Afghan government, and leaked US documents have lifted the lid on infighting within the Obama administration over the way forward and prospects for success. Legendary reporter Bob Woodward quoted US ambassador to Kabul Karl Eikenberry as saying Afghan President Hamid Karzai was "off his meds" while documents leaked by the WikiLeaks website accused him of fostering corruption. Holbrooke was also quoted by Woodward in his book "Obama's Wars" as saying that a US strategy to escalate the war "can't work" despite his efforts to implement it. The legend of Holbrooke was further embroidered when the Washington Post reported Tuesday that in his last words before being sedated for an operation, he told his Pakistani surgeon "You've got to stop this war in Afghanistan." 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