President George W. Bush, eight years ago today, in his first press conference after launching the Afghan war, conceded he didn’t know when the conflict would end. “People often ask me, ‘How long will this last?’ ” he said 96 hours after the invasion began. “It may happen tomorrow, it may happen a month from now, it may take a year or two, but we will prevail.”
President Obama told Congressional leaders on Tuesday that he would not substantially reduce American forces in Afghanistan or shift the mission to just hunting terrorists there, but he indicated that he remained undecided about the major troop buildup proposed by his commanding general.
Meeting with leaders from both parties at the White House, Mr. Obama seemed to be searching for some sort of middle ground, saying he wanted to “dispense with the straw man argument that this is about either doubling down or leaving Afghanistan,” as White House officials later described his remarks.
Congress must approve any additional resources that Obama would need if he accepts the recommendations of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, who favors a broad expansion of the effort on the battlefield and the push to build a stable national government. But much of the president’s party is resisting calls for more combat troops after eight years of war, forcing him to seek support from Republicans who favor McChrystal’s strategy.
“I think a lot of senators and congressmen need to ask themselves how much money they are willing to put on the table, for how long and for what strategy,” said Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who attended Tuesday’s meeting. “This is a tough set of interrelated questions. And I think there have been some unfortunate straw men set up.”
On Saturday, Taliban militants attacked American and Afghan troops in the Nuristan province in eastern Afghanistan. Eight American troops and two members of the Afghan national security forces were killed, according to the Pentagon.
It was the largest number of Americans killed by hostile action in a single day since July 13, 2008, when nine troops died, according to CNN records.
Image via The U.S. Army.
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