Obama faces challenges in Afghan strategy shift

WASHINGTON — One of the most difficult challenges President-elect Obama's national-security team faces is Obama's vow to send thousands of U.S. troops to help defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Military experts agree more troops are needed, but they also caution the reinforcements aren't likely to bring the sort of rapid turnaround the so-called troop surge in 2007 produced in Iraq.

After seven years of war, Afghanistan presents a unique set of problems: a rural-based insurgency, an enemy sanctuary in neighboring Pakistan, the chronic weakness of the Afghan government, a thriving narcotics trade, poorly developed infrastructure, and forbidding terrain.

U.S. intelligence reports underscore the seriousness of the threat. From August through October, the average number of daily attacks by insurgents exceeded those in Iraq, the first time violence in Afghanistan outpaced the fighting in Iraq since the start of the U.S. occupation in May 2003.

"Afghanistan may be the 'good war,' but it is also the harder war," said David Kilcullen, a former officer of the Australian army who recently left his job as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's senior adviser on counterinsurgency issues.

During the Bush administration, the Afghan conflict has taken a back seat to Iraq, where the U.S. military struggled to combat insurgency and tamp down sectarian violence. According to the latest data from the military command in Baghdad, violence in Iraq has been rolled back to the levels of early 2004.

But violence in Afghanistan has climbed. The 267 allied military deaths this year are the highest ever. Declaring Afghanistan to be the central front in the struggle against terrorism, Obama talked during the campaign of sending at least two more combat brigades there — in effect staking the reputation of his new national-security team on the outcome of that war.

Obama and his aides have yet to outline how many reinforcements would be sent and how specifically they would be employed.

But the Pentagon already is planning to send more than 20,000 additional troops. Pentagon officials say that force would include four combat brigades, an aviation brigade equipped with attack and troop-carrying helicopters, reconnaissance units, support troops and trainers for the Afghan army and the police.

The first of the combat brigades is to deploy in eastern Afghanistan, while the rest are expected to be sent to southern and southwestern Afghanistan. All told, it would increase the number of U.S. troops there to 58,000 from 34,000, and add to the 30,000 other foreign troops who are operating under a NATO-led command.

The Pentagon schedule for sending the troops bears little resemblance to the 2007 buildup in Iraq. Pentagon officials said it would take 12 months to 18 months to deploy the reinforcements. (In contrast, more than five brigades were sent to Iraq for the surge within five months.)

Poor roads and limited military infrastructure in Afghanistan complicate the task.

Military officers say some general lessons can be carried over from Iraq, like the paramount importance of protecting the population. However, conditions in Iraq were more conducive to a successful surge than in Afghanistan.

"Afghanistan is not Iraq," said Ali Jalali, a former Afghan interior minister, who projects it will take 10 years to have stability in the country. "It is the theme park of problems."

One major difference is Iraq is a heavily urbanized society. In Afghanistan, while there are important cities like Kandahar that experts say need to be protected, much of the population lives in rural areas.

Also

Ayman al-Zawahri, al-Qaida's No. 2 leader, praised the three Bali bombers recently executed in Indonesia and criticized Arab leaders for participating in a U.N. interfaith conference in a recording posted on the Web on Monday. It was al-Zawahri's third recording in two weeks.

Seattle Times news services