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Obama Announces Plans for More Funding for Afghan War

By Karen DeYoung / Washington Post

President Obama this morning announced a new Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy that will require significantly higher levels of U.S. funding and thousands more military and civilian personnel to reverse what he called an "increasingly perilous" situation.

"I do not ask for this support lightly," Obama said in a White House speech before regional ambassadors, aid officials and his senior national security team. "These are challenging times, and resources are stretched. But the American people must understand that this is a down payment on our own future."

Among the resources required, he said, are an additional 4,000 troops, beyond the 17,000 he authorized last month, that will bring total U.S. deployments to more than 60,000. U.S. military expenses for Afghan operations this year, White House aides said, will increase about 60 percent from the current toll of $2 billion a month. The newly announced forces, from the Army's 82nd Airborne Division, will serve as trainers and advisers to an Afghan army expected to double to 134,000 by 2011.

Obama called on Congress to pass legislation to provide $1.5 billion a year for five years in economic assistance to Pakistan, along with a bill creating "opportunity zones" for exports. Additional development aid is also planned for Afghanistan, and Obama said he would launch a "dramatic increase," expected to number in the hundreds, of U.S. civilian officials on the ground there. The United States also plans to provide additional equipment, including transport helicopters, to the Pakistani military.

In outlining his plan after a two-month review that began the week of his inauguration, Obama sought to separate both his methods and his objectives from those of the Bush administration. "It's been more than seven years since the Taliban was removed from power" in Afghanistan, he said, "yet war rages on and insurgents control parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan." During most of that period, he said, "Afghanistan has been denied the resources that it demands because of the war in Iraq."

"In going forward," he said, "we will not blindly stay the course," but will monitor progress with a series of benchmarks and metrics imposed on Pakistan, Afghanistan and U.S. efforts. "And after years of mixed results, we will not provide a blank check. Pakistan must demonstrate its commitment to rooting out al-Qaeda and the violent extremists within its borders," Obama said.

In an indication that U.S. covert and overt operations against insurgent hideouts in Pakistan will continue -- including missile attacks launched by Predator drones, Obama said that "we will insist that action be taken -- one way or another -- when we have intelligence about high-level terrorist targets."

Obama couched his remarks as a response to a "simple question" asked by the American people. "What is our purpose in Afghanistan? After so many years . . . why do our men and women still fight and die there? They deserve a straightforward answer."

"Al-Qaeda and its allies -- the terrorists who planned and supported the 9/11 attacks -- are in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Multiple intelligence estimates have warned that al-Qaeda is actively planning attacks on the U.S. homeland from its safe-haven in Pakistan. And if the Afghan government falls to the Taliban -- or allows al-Qaeda to go unchallenged -- that country will again be a base for terrorists who want to kill as many of our people as they possibly can."

"We have a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future," Obama said. "That is the goal that must be achieved."

Lawmakers and the administration itself have questioned the ability and will of the Afghan government to fight corruption and the narcotics trade and have criticized the Pakistani military's performance against al-Qaeda and other insurgent groups. U.S. intelligence officials believe that elements of Pakistan's intelligence service continue to actively collaborate with the Taliban.

"We'll consistently assess our efforts to train Afghan security forces, and our progress in combating insurgents," Obama said. "We will measure the growth of Afghanistan's economy, and its illicit narcotics production. And we will review whether we are using the right tools and tactics to make progress toward accomplishing our goals."

Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and sponsor, along with ranking minority member Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), of legislation authorizing increased aid to Pakistan, said today that the bill is scheduled for introduction next week. The total amount, he said, "might be a little more" than the $1.5 billion annually mentioned by Obama.

"The metrics are very clear," Kerry said. Congress and the administration, he said, will be measuring "if the Pakistanis are not openly and in ways that we can measure moving to deal with the [intelligence service]; if they are not dealing with the FATA [the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region where al-Qaeda and other groups are headquartered]; and engaged in a proactive effort to develop the capacity to go in there and take on some of those forces."

There will be "accountability on the expenditure of funds" and checks on whether Pakistan is moving its forces away from the eastern border with India to concentrate on the insurgent threat emanating from the west.

The metrics, which are still to be worked out, will include proven Pakistani efforts on "education, civilian construction and job creation," Kerry said.

Obama will deliver the strategy to NATO allies fighting with U.S. forces in Afghanistan at an April 3-4 alliance summit. But his remarks made clear that the administration -- with the United States bearing most of the cost of the conflict -- expects to take the lead in both the civilian and military aspects.

Administration officials have said they would welcome additional NATO troops, and European alliance members have been asked to temporarily send four new brigades to provide security during the Afghan electoral period this summer. But Obama emphasized that what is now required from the Europeans is help in training the Afghan security forces, money and "a greater civilian commitment to the Afghan people."

The administration plans to expand regional outreach to Russia, China and other countries in the region, including Iran, Obama said, and will work to forge a new "contact group for Afghanistan and Pakistan that brings together all who should have a stake in the security of the region."

A senior administration official said that initial overtures to Iran will begin at an international meeting next week in The Hague attended by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. At the conference, the administration will seek indications that Iran "wants to be a productive player" in Afghanistan, the official said.

Iran yesterday accepted an invitation to the gathering, although U.S. officials said the Iranian foreign minister is not likely to attend. The administration has not yet determined whether Clinton, or a lower-level U.S. official, would attend any talks with Iran. Special envoy Richard C. Holbrooke will also be at the conference.

Obama briefed House and Senate leaders on the strategy at the White House yesterday afternoon, while Holbrooke and other officials met with lawmakers on Capitol Hill. The president also telephoned Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his Pakistani counterpart, President Asif Ali Zardari.

"The situation in Afghanistan is increasingly difficult, and time is of the essence," Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, Obama's nominee as ambassador to Afghanistan, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at his confirmation hearing yesterday. "There will be no substitute for more resources and sacrifice."

While additional U.S. combat troops will enhance the ability of the multinational coalition force to hold ground in southern Afghanistan's Taliban strongholds, increased training and equipping of Afghan security forces is the ultimate exit strategy for the United States and NATO, administration officials said.

Afghanistan's defense minister has said he plans to double the size of the Afghan army to 134,000 by 2011, but coalition forces until now have been unable to provide trainers and mentors, equipment and transport for the existing force.

The extra 4,000 U.S. troops, expected to deploy in early fall, are to fill that gap. In a sign of the new importance the administration is placing on the mission, a brigade of the Army's vaunted 82nd Airborne Division is being broken up into 10-to-14-member advisory teams, a Pentagon official said. Until now, the military has relied heavily on inexperienced National Guardsmen to fill out the teams.

"The change couldn't be more dramatic," said retired Lt. Col. John A. Nagl, president of the Center for a New American Security, a nonpartisan defense think tank. "The 82nd Airborne Division is the nation's shock force."

"We want to move as aggressively and as quickly as possible to build up the Afghan national army," one administration official said. "It's much cheaper in the long run to train Afghans to fight" than to send U.S. forces "halfway around the world."

The total of 21,000 new troops, added to a combat brigade authorized by the Bush administration and deployed in January, will exceed the 30,000 that Gen. David D. McKiernan, the U.S. and NATO commander, had requested for this year in Afghanistan and will bring the total U.S. force to more than 60,000. Non-U.S. NATO troops there currently total about 32,000.

The new strategy will also include efforts to draw low-level Taliban fighters -- but not the insurgent leadership -- into reconciliation talks with the Afghan government. "We're not in the business of negotiating with Mullah Omar, and Mullah Omar doesn't want to negotiate with us," an official said. "But we think there are fractures" in the Taliban forces, he said. The goal is to "break the momentum of the Taliban in the next fighting season" that begins this spring and begin to exploit the fractures.

The administration's director of national intelligence, Dennis C. Blair, estimated yesterday that as many as two-thirds of the Taliban groups are motivated by local concerns and might be defeated or pacified through addressing problems such as inadequate water supplies or access to education.