(White House weighs Afghan strategy. The White House says the U.S. will not walk away from Afghanistan as President Obama considers whether to add more troops to the region. NBC’s Chuck Todd reports.)
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(Meredith Vieira talks to Republican Sen. John McCain about the debate over troop levels in Afghanistan.)
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(Liz Cheney says that Gen. McChrystal was not criticizing Pres. Obama)
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Afghan troop decision bedevils Obama
President Barack Obama will confer Tuesday with a bipartisan group of congressional leaders on the Afghanistan war as he faces increasing pressure to make a decision on whether to send more U.S. troops there.
Obama's top defense and diplomacy advisers said the United States retains the Afghanistan war goal that Obama outlined just two months into his presidency — to sideline al-Qaida — but changing circumstances require a reassessment of how to get there.
In the face of rising casualties and souring public opinion, his administration is split over whether to boost U.S. forces or take an alternative path.
At issue is whether U.S. forces should continue to focus on fighting the Taliban and securing the Afghan population or shift to more narrowly targeting, with unmanned spy drones and covert operations, al-Qaida terrorists believed to be hiding in Pakistan.
The narrower approach would require fewer troops.
Republican Sen. John McCain, Obama's opponent in last year's presidential election and one of the lawmakers expected at Tuesday's meeting, said he thinks it's critical that the administration avoid thinking of the insurgent Taliban and al-Qaida terrorist network as separate enemies.
"If the Taliban returns, they will work with al-Qaida," he told NBC's TODAY on Tuesday. "It's just a historical fact. You can't separate the two. ... I strongly disagree with those who allege those are separate problems. They have worked together in the past and they will work together in the future."
However, senior officials told NBC News that al-Qaida and the Taliban shouldn't be seen as one entity. While al-Qaida is viewed as a global terror threat, the Taliban is viewed by the administration as an "indigenous extremist organization" focused on destabilizing Afghanistan and Pakistan.
As one administration official put it: The goal is to defeat the Taliban but the goal is to destroy al-Qaida.
Advisers split
Vice President Joe Biden has privately proposed narrowing the mission in Afghanistan, concentrating instead on attacking al-Qaida targets that are based primarily in neighboring Pakistan.
But General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, last week told the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London such a strategy would probably be "shortsighted."
Congressional officials said that McChrystal was seeking up to 40,000 more troops and trainers for the Afghan war and has cautioned that Afghanistan could again become a sanctuary for terrorism if its government were to fall to the Taliban.
Amid the intense debate, Defense Secretary Robert Gates made the point Monday that Obama needs elbow room to make strategy decisions about the war — even as internal White House discussions go increasingly public.
Gates' remarks stood as an implicit rebuke of McChrystal, the man he helped install as the top commander in Afghanistan, for lobbying in public for additional troops Obama may decide to forgo.
"It is important that we take our time to do all we can to get this right," Gates said at an Army conference. "In this process, it is imperative that all of us taking part in these deliberations — civilians and military alike — provide our best advice to the president candidly but privately."
Gates has not said whether he supports McChrystal's recommendation to expand the number of U.S. forces by as much as nearly 60 percent. He is holding that request in his desk drawer while Obama sorts through competing recommendations and theories from some of his most trusted advisers.
In a TV program taped at George Washington University on Monday, Gates conceded that the Taliban has built up some momentum.
"Because of our inability and the inability, frankly, of our allies to put enough troops in Afghanistan, the Taliban do have the momentum right now," Gates said.
Gates went on to praise McChrystal and said no matter what Obama decides the general will execute it faithfully.
Deaths add pressure
The fierce Taliban attack that killed eight American soldiers over the weekend added to the pressure.
The assault overwhelmed a remote U.S. outpost where American forces have been stretched thin in battling insurgents, underscoring the appeal from the top Afghanistan commander for as many as 40,000 additional forces — and at the same time reminding the nation of the costs of war.
The fighting Saturday marked the biggest loss of U.S. life in a single Afghan battle in more than a year. It also raised questions about why U.S. troops remained in the remote outposts after McChrystal said he planned to close down isolated strongholds and focus on more heavily populated areas as part of his new strategy to focus on protecting Afghan civilians.
NATO forces said Tuesday they had killed more that 100 insurgent fighters in the weekend battle — much higher than previous estimates.
The revised enemy death toll gives an idea of the scale of the 13-hour battle, one of the biggest of the war, in which hundreds of fighters armed with machine guns, rifles and rocket-propelled grenades attempted to storm remote outposts.
Gibbs: Leaving not an option
Obama may take weeks to decide whether to add more troops, but the idea of pulling out isn't on the table as a way to deal with a war nearing its ninth year, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said.
"I don't think we have the option to leave. That's quite clear," Gibbs said.
A hybrid strategy could preserve the essential outline of an Afghan counterinsurgency campaign that McChrystal rebuilt this summer from the disarray of nearly eight years of undermanned combat, while expanding the hunt for al-Qaida next door.
The top three U.S. military officials overseeing the war in Afghanistan favor continuing the current fight against the Taliban, and have concluded they need tens of thousands more U.S. troops beyond the 68,000 already there.
Officials across the Obama administration have acknowledged that the Taliban is far stronger now than in recent years, as underscored by the U.S. deaths over the weekend.
Complicating the White House discussions are allegations of vote fraud in Afghanistan's August presidential election, mostly aimed at incumbent and provisional winner Hamid Karzai.
Some say if Karzai is declared victor despite the charges it will undermine his government's legitimacy. U.S. officials have cited the fraud allegations as a reason for the policy review.
A final result from the poll will likely come next week.
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Sources: MSNBC, Huffington Post, TIME, Foreign Policy.com, Google Maps
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