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Republicans seek Afghan war information

WASHINGTON — Republican lawmakers turned up the pressure Thursday for more details on the war in Afghanistan, but Defense Secretary Robert Gates said “everybody should take a deep breath” and let the administration devise strategy at its own pace.

House Minority Leader John Boehner said at a press conference that the U.S. and NATO battlefield commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, was not being allowed by the administration to testify to Congress.

“We need to hear from him soon,” the Ohio Republican said, adding that he believes McChrystal doesn’t have enough troops to turn around the faltering war effort. Boehner said McChrystal’s testimony was needed to “help all Americans and the Congress better understand the situation on the ground.”

Gates urged that Obama be allowed to take his time.

“There has been a lot of talk this week and the last two or three weeks about Afghanistan and frankly, from my standpoint, everybody ought to take a deep breath,” Gates told a Pentagon press conference.

Gates was answering a question on why a war assessment by McChrystal hasn’t been made public. He said the assessment is part of a larger re-evaluation on how to handle the war and that President Barack Obama deserves the right to absorb it and have any questions answered before the assessment is made public.

“I think that we need to understand that the decisions the president faces on Afghanistan are some of the most important he may face in his presidency,” Gates said.

Sen. Dick Lugar, the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a frequent Obama ally, complained that the administration declined invitations to speak at committee hearings this week about Afghanistan.

“I hope that the administration will soon decide on the time for its views to reach the American people,” Lugar said in a statement. “In any event, it is critical that the full force and voice of the president lead the discussion around this national strategic priority with so many American lives and hundreds of billions of U.S. dollars at stake.”

Lugar urged the president to describe his thinking on the war, now that he has received assessments from commanders and the Pentagon.

Democrats’ criticism

Democrats also have been critical of the Obama administration’s handling of the war and have spoken out against the prospects of sending more troops. McChrystal is expected to submit a second assessment in coming weeks that is widely believed to ask for more troops to fight the stalemated war.

Obama earlier this year approved sending 17,000 more warfighters and 4,000 military trainers to Afghanistan, bringing the total number of U.S. forces there to 68,000 by the end of 2009.

The president on Wednesday said he would “take a very deliberative process” in making decisions on Afghanistan. Obama said he will finish his broad assessment of military, diplomatic, civilian and development efforts there before moving on to his next step — mulling additional deployments.

At his news conference, Boehner said “no one here has any clue how many more troops are necessary.” But without more, “the troops that we have are in greater danger,” he said.

Afghan elections

Also Thursday, Gates also said the president made it clear when he announced his Afghan strategy at the end of March that he would reassess the war’s strategy decisions after the Afghan elections that were held Aug. 20.

The administration maintains that an important part of defeating the Taliban is helping build a government that serves the nation and is respected by its population. But last month’s still unresolved vote has been marred by charges of widespread fraud.

The final, but uncertified, vote count released Wednesday gives President Hamid Karzai more than 54 percent of the ballots. But ongoing recounts and fraud investigations could drive Karzai’s total below 50 percent, forcing him into a runoff.

“There is no question that the nature of the election in Afghanistan has complicated the picture for us,” Gates said of the Aug. 20 election.

Karzai insisted Thursday that the Afghan vote was “true and fair,” though he acknowledged “there’s bound to be irregularities. There’s also bound to be cases of fraud.”

In an interview on CNN, Karzai deflected claims from his main rival, Abdullah Abdullah, that he was behind any vote fraud. “I’m not going to get into a dialogue or complaint exchange between two Afghans,” he said.

Congress is divided over the question of more troops and the American public has grown tired of the war as violence in Afghanistan has soared to record levels and record numbers of U.S. troop deaths. Fifty-one troops were killed in August, making it the deadliest month since the U.S. invasion in October 2001.

A senior military official said Thursday that any forces Obama might approve would not be sent until next year, and there really are not any forces to spare until January because of the heavy troop commitment in Iraq. There are about 130,000 U.S. troops currently in Iraq.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because Obama has made no decision, said that still gives him enough time to consider his options. Although troops headed overseas typically know their orders months ahead of time, in this case the Pentagon probably could switch the assignments of troops now training for eventual deployment to Iraq, the official said, and send them to Afghanistan next year instead.