Behind-the-scenes push to focus goal for Afghanistan

WASHINGTON — President Obama's plan to widen U.S. involvement in Afghanistan came after an internal debate in which Vice President Joseph Biden warned against getting into a political and military quagmire, while military advisers argued that the Afghanistan war effort could be imperiled without even more troops.

All of the president's advisers agreed the goal should be narrow: taking aim at al-Qaida as opposed to the vast nation-building the Bush administration had attempted in Iraq. The question was how.

Field commanders wanted more combat troops beyond the 17,000 Obama had already pledged, plus billions of dollars to significantly expand the number of Afghan security forces.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, pressed for an additional 4,000 troops to be sent to Afghanistan, but only to serve as trainers. They tempered the commanders' request and agreed to put off any decision to order more combat troops to Afghanistan until the end of this year.

During these discussions, Biden was the voice of caution, reminding the group it would have to sell the plan to a skeptical Congress.

This article is based on interviews with six officials involved in the debate. All requested anonymity.

Obama left a final White House meeting March 20, signaling that he was close to a decision on how to proceed in a war that has lasted more than seven years. He had mulled the issue over a weekend at the Camp David, Md., presidential retreat.

Troop stipulations

In announcing a plan Friday that is likely to be his signature foreign-policy effort, Obama said he would send more troops — some 4,000 — but stipulated they would not carry out combat missions and would instead be used to train the Afghan army and the national police. He left himself open to the possibility of sending more as warranted.

When currently scheduled deployments are completed this summer, U.S. troops in Afghanistan will total more than 60,000, twice as many as the non-U.S. NATO contingent.

Obama also indicated the United States expects to continue to carry the bulk of the combat load and would seek other forms of assistance from allies, a departure from the Bush administration's effort in the past two years to persuade NATO partners to send more combat troops to Afghanistan.

"We seek not simply troops," Obama said, "but rather clearly defined capabilities: supporting the Afghan elections" scheduled for August, "training Afghan security forces, and a greater civilian commitment to the Afghan people."

Neither Obama, nor the senior officials who fanned out Friday to explain the plan, provided cost details.

Decision-making

The debate over the past few weeks offered a glimpse into how Obama makes decisions. He chose a compromise between his political and military advisers that some critics said includes strategic holes, such as a reliance on the same sort of vague guidelines that proved difficult to carry out in Iraq.

At a White House news conference Friday in which he invoked concerns of another possible terrorist attack on U.S. soil, Obama framed the issue as one that relies on a central tenet: protecting Americans from attacks like the one that occurred on Sept. 11, 2001.

To do so, he said he would increase aid to Pakistan and would, for the first time, set bench marks for progress in fighting al-Qaida and the Taliban in both countries. "The United States of America did not choose to fight a war in Afghanistan," Obama said.

"So let me be clear: Al-Qaida and its allies — the terrorists who planned and supported the 9/11 attacks — are in Pakistan and Afghanistan," he said. "We have a clear and focused goal to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaida in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future."

Security team's take

As the White House touted its intention to create bench marks to measure progress made by the Afghan and Pakistani governments in combating al-Qaida, the Taliban and other militant groups, some congressional officials voiced skepticism about how realistic those goals were.

During the 90-minute debate March 20, Obama, flanked by national-security adviser Gen. James Jones and Biden, went around the table to elicit the final views of his national-security team.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Richard Holbrooke, the president's top aide on Afghanistan and Pakistan, favored wide-ranging coordinated efforts that would concentrate on corruption in Afghanistan and focus on training local officials and transforming agriculture in the country away from the notorious poppy fields that have fueled the Taliban insurgency.

During the debate, the senior administration officials said, Biden sought to put strict parameters on the size of the additional force deployed to Afghanistan and to ensure there was a specific mission for them. Biden also cast the debate in terms of what was achievable in Obama's first term, administration officials said.

"No foreign policy is sustainable without the informed consent of the American people," a senior White House official said. "You make sure you're clear with Congress what you're trying to do and how you're trying to do it."

Material from The Washington Post is included in this report