Tom Donilon Is New National Security Adviser! Jones Resigns

More White House Shakeup: Donilon To Replace Jones As National Security Adviser


President Obama is announcing Friday that retired Marine Gen. Jim Jones is stepping down as White House National Security Adviser and will be replaced by his current deputy, Tom Donilon, according to two senior administration officials.

The move has been long anticipated because senior officials say Jones never quite clicked with other key members of Obama's inner circle. Jones was not an active part of the Obama presidential campaign and two people close to Jones tell CNN that when he accepted the appointment in 2009 he only agreed to stay on for two years.

The turnover comes after a slew of other top Obama aides have left the White House or signaled their plans to leave the administration either later this year or in early 2011, including Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, senior adviser David Axelrod, and top economic aides Larry Summers and Christina Romer.

But the choice of Donilon, a well-known quantity inside the West Wing, signals that even during a time of turnover Obama is someone who prefers to replenish the ranks with people from his inner circle. Given that approach, top Democratic advisers privately say it is highly unlikely that Obama will go far outside the circle when he eventually settles on a permanent chief of staff, despite expected pressure on the President to widen the circle after the midterm elections.

Continuity has reigned so far in the musical chairs of staff moves. Romer was replaced as chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers by White House economic aide Austan Goolsbee, while Axelrod is expected to be replaced next year by someone already in the fold like Press Secretary Robert Gibbs or former Obama campaign manager David Plouffe while Axelrod moves to Chicago but stays on as an informal adviser on the expected 2012 re-election effort.

Earlier this month, Emanuel was replaced as chief of staff on a temporary basis by longtime Obama aide Pete Rouse. Donilon had been rumored to be a possible permanent successor to Emanuel, but two sources familiar with the conversation told CNN that Donilon recently told the President he wanted to take himself out of the running for chief of staff and instead stay at the National Security Council, knowing full well that Jones was likely to leave soon and he was expected to move up.

Jones' exit brings to a close a somewhat-tumultuous time as National Security Adviser, after he clashed with Emanuel and other top White House officials, in part because of a hands-off style that did not sit well with administration officials who were expecting a more take-charge leader at a time of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as a slew of thorny national security challenges.

In his defense, Jones allies note he is a highly-respected former Marine Commandant and NATO's Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. These allies note that Obama, a commander in chief who came to the job without military experience, benefited from the credibility within the military that Jones brought to the table.

Jones will now be replaced by Donilon, who is widely hailed in Democratic circles as a sharp foreign policy mind, including his tenure as chief of staff to then-Secretary of State Warren Christopher in the Clinton administration.

But Donilon has himself clashed with some in the Obama orbit as well. Journalist Bob Woodward, in his new book "Obama's Wars," suggests there has been tension between Donilon and Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

"Gates felt that Donilon did not understand the military or treat its senior leadership with sufficient respect," Woodward wrote. "The secretary later told Jones that Donilon would be a 'disaster' as Obama's national security adviser."

But a senior Defense official told CNN that "the Woodward characterization is just way out of date" because Gates and Donilon now have a "strong working relationship" within the administration.

Nevertheless, the Defense official acknowledged "they had some issues" during the sometimes-contentious internal "Af-Pak" debate last fall that resulted in the President crafting a new policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan, which resulted in Obama announcing a surge of 30,000 more U.S. troops being sent to Afghanistan.

"They have long since been overcome," the senior Defense official said of the tensions.

Gates himself told reporters on Friday, "I have thoroughly enjoyed working with General Jones and I have and have had a very productive and very good working relationship with Tom Donilon, contrary to what you may have read. And I look forward to continuing to work with him."

Donilon's appointment, however, may ruffle some other feathers within the administration. Several of Obama's foreign policy advisers during the campaign, who were angling for the National Security Advisor job after the election but did not get the nod in 2008, were also considered contenders to replace Jones this time and might have been considered more inspired choices than Donilon.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, a former Assistant Secretary for African Affairs and scholar at the Brookings Institution, was one of Obama's most public foreign policy voices during the campaign. She is said to be disappointed with the New York job because she was lobbying hard to be National Security Adviser after Obama's election victory and aides have said she would have wanted to move back to Washington to take the post if Jones left.

Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg, who was Deputy National Security Adviser in the Clinton administration, also wanted the job before it was given to Jones. Instead he was sent to the State Department and there has been speculation he wants out, hoping to land a top staff job at the White House.


Sources: CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, Youtube

General McChrystal Apologizes After Slamming Obama During Interview

General McChrystal Apologizes But Recalled To Washington After Controversial Remarks About Pres. Obama


Gen. Stanley McChrystal, America's top military commander in Afghanistan, has been recalled to Washington amid his controversial remarks about colleagues in a Rolling Stone article, officials said.

McChrystal was summoned to attend a meeting on Afghanistan and Pakistan in person rather than by video conference, a senior administration official said Tuesday.

"He has been recalled to Washington," another official said.

McChrystal apologized Tuesday for the profile, in which the general and his staff appear to mock top civilian officials, including the vice president. The article is set to appear in Friday's edition of Rolling Stone.

"I extend my sincerest apology for this profile. It was a mistake reflecting poor judgment and should never have happened," McChrystal said in a Pentagon statement. "Throughout my career, I have lived by the principles of personal honor and professional integrity. What is reflected in this article falls far short of that standard."

In the profile written by Michael Hastings, the author writes that McChrystal and his staff had imagined ways of dismissing Vice President Joe Biden with a one-liner as they prepared for a question-and-answer session in Paris in April. The general had grown tired of questions about Biden since earlier dismissing a counterterrorism strategy the vice president had offered.

"'Are you asking about Vice President Biden?' McChrystal says with a laugh. 'Who's that?'"

"'Biden?' suggests a top adviser. 'Did you say: Bite Me?'"

McChrystal and his aides do not directly criticize President Barack Obama in the article, but Hastings writes that the general and Obama "failed to connect" from the outset after the president took office. Sources familiar with the meeting said McChrystal thought Obama looked "uncomfortable and intimidated" by the room full of top military officials, according to the article.

Later, McChrystal's first one-on-one meeting with Obama "was a 10-minute photo op," Hastings writes, quoting an adviser to McChrystal. "Obama clearly didn't know anything about him, who he was. Here's the guy who's going to run his f---ing war, but he didn't seem very engaged. The Boss (McChrystal) was disappointed."

The article goes on to paint McChrystal as a man who "has managed to piss off almost everyone with a stake in the conflict," including U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, Special Representative to Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke and National Security Adviser Jim Jones. Obama is not named as one of McChrystal's "team of rivals."

Of Eikenberry, who railed against McChrystal's strategy in Afghanistan in a cable leaked to The New York Times in January, the general said, "'Here's one that covers his flank for the history books. Now if we fail, they can say, "I told you so.'"

Hastings writes in the profile that McChrystal has a "special skepticism" for Holbrooke, the official in charge of reintegrating Taliban members into Afghan society.

"At one point on his trip to Paris, McChrystal checks his BlackBerry. 'Oh, not another e-mail from Holbrooke,' he groans. 'I don't even want to open it.' He clicks on the message and reads the salutation out loud, then stuffs the BlackBerry back in his pocket, not bothering to conceal his annoyance."

"'Make sure you don't get any of that on your leg,' an aide jokes, referring to the e-mail."

The White House could not immediately be reached for comment on the article.

"I have enormous respect and admiration for President Obama and his national security team, and for the civilian leaders and troops fighting this war and I remain committed to ensuring its successful outcome," McChrystal said in the closing to his apology.


Sources: CNN

Kill Osama Bin Laden! Mcchrystal's Afghan Mission

McChrystal: Bin Laden is key to defeating al-Qaida

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McChrystal: Afghanistan will be decisive, successful. Gen. Stanley McChrystal told lawmakers he's totally on board with President Obama's Afghanistan strategy, and that the U.S. military could successfully wage war against the Taliban with 30,000 thousand troops. NBC’s Jim Miklaszewski reports.

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General: Bin Laden capture key to U.S. efforts


The U.S. General in charge of the war in Afghanistan says capturing Osama bin Laden is the ultimate key to defeating the al-Qaida terror network.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal told Congress on Tuesday that bin Laden is an "iconic figure" whose very survival eight years after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S. serves as a recruiting tool for al-Qaida. U.S. intelligence officials believe bin Laden is in hiding in Pakistan, along that country's rugged border with Afghanistan.

McChrystal says finding bin Laden is not the key to winning the war in Afghanistan. But he says he does not think that the United States will defeat the terror network outright until bin Laden is found and brought to justice.

The general also said Tuesdy he did not get as many troops as he wanted and must work under a schedule he did not recommend, but he insisted the Obama administration's revamped strategy is the best way to win.

Comments by Afghanistan's president and the U.S. defense secretary suggested a long, slow effort.

As McChrystal defended President Barack Obama's new surge-and-exit strategy in Washington, the U.S. challenge was underscored in Kabul. Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai said, with Defense Secretary Robert Gates standing at his side, that it probably will be five years before Afghan forces can take the lead in the fight against Taliban insurgents. Karzai predicted it would be at least 15 years before his government could pay for its own forces.

In congressional committee rooms, McChrystal declared under questioning that "I'm comfortable with the entire plan." But in lengthy sessions before Senate and House panels, the four-star general cautioned against expectations of immediate results and said the strategy must show progress within 18 months, Obama's deadline for beginning to bring U.S. troops home.

"The sober fact is that there are no silver bullets," McChrystal said. "Ultimate success will be the cumulative effect of sustained pressure."

More uncertainty

Karzai's comments, following a meeting with Gates, added more uncertainty to the planned exit of American troops. They also lowered expectations of any quick progress by shrunken Afghan security forces, which long have been expected to be equal partners with U.S. forces and troops from 42 other countries stationed in Afghanistan.

In announcing last week his decision to order 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, Obama said they would begin coming home in July 2011.

Gates, in remarks to reporters in Kabul, reiterated that the administration expects the U.S. withdrawal to be "a several-year process — whether it's three years or two years or four years remains to be seen."

Karzai's repetition Tuesday of his earlier warnings of a five-year buildup of the Afghan army and police make it likely that the American pullout could be a slow-motion drawdown that could extend through 2014. He said Afghanistan will need international help to build homegrown security forces well beyond that date.

Administration officials have said the length and speed of the withdrawal will depend on the results of the military campaign against the Taliban, as well as the success of efforts to build up Afghan forces and strengthen the Kabul government.

In exchanges with lawmakers, both McChrystal and Karl Eikenberry, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, said the July 2011 date for starting the U.S. withdrawal provides a "forcing function" to pressure the Afghans to get their own forces ready to handle security.

Hinting at a misgiving, McChrystal said the Taliban would make propaganda use of the withdrawal plan, presumably to encourage its fighters and their facilitators to believe the U.S. will is weakening. He added that he believed this could be overcome.

McChrystal said he had not recommended the 18-month deadline for beginning a pullout and had preferred that more fresh forces be sent in.

Friendly, frayed relations

Despite reports that McChrystal and Eikenberry have frayed relations and were at odds over the ambassador's opposition to a major troop surge, the two men took pains to say they are friends.

Both men fielded pointed questions about the viability of the Obama strategy, the reliability of the Afghan government and the wisdom of announcing the July 2011 withdrawal start.

McChrystal, who took over the top command job in Kabul in June, said the nature of the Taliban and the brutal way it ruled before being overthrown in late 2001 are among reasons he thinks the insurgency can be defeated.

"They were not credible in power, and they are not credible now," McChrystal said.

Eikenberry, who previously had privately expressed doubts about sending a large number of additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan, said he was now "100 percent" behind the strategy, which includes emphasis on a bigger role for U.S. civilian agencies to assist in strengthening the Afghan government and its economy.

Sen. John McCain, senior Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, praised the decision to send more troops but said that setting a firm date for beginning to send them home was a mistake.

"We have announced a date divorced from conditions on the ground," McCain said.

Eikenberry, himself a former U.S. commander in Kabul, said the course outlined last week by Obama "offers the best path to stabilize Afghanistan and to ensure al-Qaida and other terrorist groups cannot regain a foothold to plan new attacks against our country or our allies."

McChrystal spoke not of defeating the Taliban but of attempting to "disrupt and degrade" its fighting capacity. "Rolling back the Taliban," he said, "is a prerequisite to the ultimate defeat of al-Qaida."

The House panel's highest-ranking Republican, Howard "Buck" McKeon of California, told McChrystal he was waiting to hear how "the president is not under-resourcing his own strategy," since the general had sketched ways that as many as 80,000 additional U.S. forces could have helped turn the tide.

McChrystal said he did not think he would need to ask for any more troops in a year's time but would not hesitate to recommend more if circumstances changed.

He also told McKeon he did not recommend the July 2011 exit plan but supports it.

"By the summer of 2011, it will be clear to the Afghan people that the insurgency will not win, giving them the chance to side with their government," McChrystal said. "From that point forward, while we begin to reduce U.S. combat force levels, we will remain partnered with the Afghan security forces in a supporting role to consolidate and solidify their gains."

"Afghans do not regard us as occupiers," he said. "They do not wish for us to remain forever, yet they see our support as a necessary bridge to future security and stability."


Sources: MSNBC, Politico

McChrystal's Afghan War Strategy Plan Remains Intact

McChrystal's Afghanistan plan stays mainly intact


When he finishes testifying on Capitol Hill this week, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, will return to Kabul to implement a War Strategy that is largely unchanged after a three-month-long White House review of the conflict.

In interviews and congressional testimony last week, members of President Obama's national security team said the U.S. effort in Afghanistan would be more focused and limited. "A good part of the debate and the discussion," Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told the House Armed Services Committee, revolved around ways to "narrow the mission."

But other than a decision not to double immediately the size of Afghanistan's uniformed security forces and the president's pledge to begin withdrawing forces by July 2011, a deadline that has grown less firm since he announced it -- Gates said Sunday it might involve only a "handful" of troops -- the new approach does not order McChrystal to wage the war in a fundamentally different way from what he outlined in an assessment he sent the White House in late August.

"Stan's mission really hasn't narrowed," said a senior Pentagon official involved with Afghanistan policy. "There won't be a radical change in the way he executes."

McChrystal intends to use the 30,000 U.S. reinforcements authorized by Obama and as many as 7,000 soldiers pledged by other NATO nations to protect key cities and towns in southern and eastern parts of the country, where the Taliban insurgency is strongest. By focusing on securing population centers, he hopes to reverse enemy momentum, foster more responsive local government and, where possible, persuade Taliban fighters through a mixture of pressure and incentives to lay down their arms.

In his August assessment, McChrystal said his mission was "defeating the insurgency," which he defined as "a condition where the insurgency no longer threatens the viability of the state." But his use of the word "defeat" in slides displayed during a White House Situation Room presentation prompted concern among some participants that U.S. goals were too expansive. Eventually, according to U.S. officials familiar with the process, the participants decided to refine the goal to degrading the Taliban.

McChrystal's initial assessment was based on the administration's March strategy, which endorsed a counterinsurgency approach. "What troubled me fairly early on was that those decisions were being interpreted fairly broadly as full-scale nation-building and creating a strong central government in Afghanistan, neither of which was our intent," Gates told the House Foreign Affairs Committee last week. The military would now "focus our resources where the population is most threatened," he said.

But the narrower mission is unlikely to have much impact in Afghanistan, where a countrywide nation-building effort was never seriously pondered. Even before the strategy review, senior military officials spent most of the summer and early fall moving troops from remote mountain valleys to cities and towns where the Taliban still holds considerable sway.

The White House has shied away from labeling this phase of the war a counterinsurgency campaign because of concern that it connotes nation-building -- "counterinsurgency" was conspicuously absent from an administration fact sheet about the strategy issued after Obama's speech. But McChrystal has left little doubt that counterinsurgency is what he intends to do. He used the word multiple times in talking to his troops Wednesday morning in Kabul.

Military officials also maintain that he has been emphasizing since he arrived in Afghanistan in June many of the issues and initiatives now deemed priorities by the White House. They include accelerating the training of uniformed Afghan security forces, development of community-defense militias and targeting of development projects to key population centers.

In southern Afghanistan, where the Obama administration dispatched nearly 22,000 troops last spring, military commanders and State Department civilians have already focused their largely limited reconstruction resources on areas where the new forces are operating.

"Many of the things we are talking about, we have already started," said Brig. Gen. John Nicholson, who until last summer oversaw the military reconstruction effort in southern Afghanistan. "We've already begun a more focused approach."

Even the most specific change by the White House in McChrystal's war plan -- that U.S. forces begin leaving Afghanistan by July 2011 -- may be less of a turning point than envisioned. Senior administration officials said in television interviews broadcast Sunday the date would be only the beginning of a gradual withdrawal.

"We will have 100,000 forces, troops there," Gates said on NBC's "Meet the Press," "and they are not leaving in July of 2011. Some handful or some small number, or whatever the conditions permit, we'll begin to withdraw at that time."

Speaking on CNN's "State of the Union," national security adviser James L. Jones said that "2011 is not a cliff, it's a ramp."

The fundamentals of the Obama administration's approach largely mirror the counterinsurgency effort that was mounted in Iraq in the latter months of the Bush administration. In Iraq, as in Afghanistan, senior commanders focused primarily on driving enemy troops from key population centers and then safeguarding the locals in those areas from insurgent attacks.

"Iraq validated our beliefs that we know how to do this stuff," said a senior general involved in the strategy review.

The parallels to Iraq, however, caused unease among some Obama administration officials who had opposed Bush's surge and maintained during the presidential campaign that the sudden drop in violence in 2007 and 2008 was attributable largely to al-Qaeda's campaign of terror, which alienated its Sunni Arab allies in the country. "The reality is that there is a narrative that emerged during the campaign . . . that we bought off the Sunnis and got lucky," said one senior military official. "That is not what happened."

Vice President Biden was one of the biggest early skeptics that the counterinsurgency tactics employed in Iraq could work in Afghanistan, which has little history of a strong central government, few natural resources and almost no infrastructure.

Even if the United States makes strides in Afghanistan, the gains will be fleeting without help from Pakistan to snuff out havens on their side of the border. As an alternative to a soldier-intensive counterinsurgency strategy, he advocated using air power and smaller numbers of Special Operations troops to attack Taliban havens. "The range of choices got progressively narrower as the minimalist options got dropped, until you ended up with something very close to what McChrystal proposed initially," said Stephen Biddle, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who participated in McChrystal's initial strategy review.

In the end, the comprehensive counterinsurgency strategy that McChrystal advocated for in August was embraced as the best of several difficult choices.

"There are no silver bullets," Michele Flournoy, the undersecretary of defense for policy, said at a Council on Foreign Relations presentation last week. "We looked for them."


Sources: Washington Post, Politico

Inside Pres. Obama's Aghan War Strategy Plan...Deadlines

Secretary of Defense Dr. Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton both state: "US Troop withdrawal reduction plan is not an abrupt withdrawal".

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Problems with the Afghan strategy. Sen. John Thune explains why he feels setting up a troop withdrawal deadline will undercut U.S. efforts in Afghanistan.

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The art of the "tick-tock"



A long reconstruction of President Barack Obama’s Afghanistan “surge” deliberations, splashed on the front page of Friday’s Los Angeles Times, featured the sort of journalistic candy that is the rarest treat on the White House beat: a behind-the-scenes anecdote (from the Situation Room, no less) – with an actual quote from the president.

“To emphasize his desire to speed up the deployment, the president held up a printout copy of the bell curve [a graph projecting a troop buildup over time] and pointed to its apex, indicating the peak of the flow,” the article says, then quotes “one official” as reporting that the president said: “I want to move this to the left. … We need more troops in sooner.”

The front page of Sunday’s New York Times features a much longer reconstruction of Obama’s Afghanistan deliberations, with the same Veterans Day scene and (nearly) the same quote: “‘I want this pushed to the left,’ he told advisers, pointing to the bell curve. In other words, the troops should be in sooner, then out sooner.”

The tidbit neatly serves both the press and the White House: The reporters appear to be getting a juicy scoop – the sort of take-you-there detail that might turn up in a Bob Woodward book years after the fact. And the president’s aides are dishing an irresistible illustration of a take-charge president’s proactive approach to his decision to commit 30,000 more troops to a war that has begun to look like a quagmire.

This type of story – known in the trade as a “tick-tock,” for its heavy reliance on chronology – has become de rigueur for the big papers in the days after a major Washington event. Sunday’s Washington Post also has an Afghanistan tick-tock that posted on the web Saturday afternoon, five minutes after The New York Times’ opus. The L.A. editors rushed the piece into type after a sit-down White House briefing on Thursday, knowing that competitors were working on their own versions.

The White House gets a “mission accomplished” grade for all three stories, each of which amplifies the West Wing’s desired storyline: A smart, probing president cuts through the fog of competing visions to come up with his own unique version of a surge — the in-and-out version that he announced at West Point on Tuesday night.

The implicit message of the material fed to the three papers: This was not just a Potemkin debate over a foregone conclusion. Unlike President George W. Bush, we took a long, hard look at the options and alternatives. And unlike the armchair warriors in the Bush administration, we didn’t let ideology drive strategy. This president knows the cost of war, and wasn’t taking the troop commitment lightly.

“Inside the Situation Room: How a War Plan Evolved” is the dramatic, two-column headline of Sunday’s New York Times, with the article spread over two ad-free pages inside.

The White House Press Office (sorry, no Deep Throat) coordinated a series of tick-tock briefings for individual reporters with top players late last week, explaining the similarity in themes and color among the pieces.

Obama aides pushed — “shopped,” as reporters cynically put it — to multiple reporters a description of a chastened president returning to his deliberations after a visit to Arlington National Cemetery. One reporter, who had resisted the description as too pat, was amused to find it as the lead of The New York Times account.

White House officials were most delighted by The New York Times story, both because it emphasized their desired themes and “moments,” and because it was the most thorough. The Times story was written by Peter Baker, with feeds from 10 other well-sourced reporters in the paper’s Washington Bureau.

The Washington Post had three bylines (Anne E. Kornblut, Scott Wilson and Karen DeYoung and credited two other reporters and a researcher. The L.A. Times version is the most spare -- 1,600 words, compared with 4,500 for The New York Times and 3,330 for The Post -- and carried two bylines (Christi Parsons and Julian E. Barnes), with a credit for one other journalist.

The Post lacks visibility into the thinking of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, an essential player in the deliberations. The New York Times, which Obama reads, got by far the most access. One official who gave tick-tock briefings said he took The Times the most seriously, and was pleased with the result. “It’s the one to stick in the time capsule,” the official said.

A former New York Times editor who helped pioneer the format recalled in an e-mail how the tick-tock became so popular with the paper’s brass: “We realized forcefully that on Sundays we could cream the newsweeklies' inevitable Monday cover stories, and we delighted in doing it. In general terms, the form developed as an antidote to the hyping of minor spot developments to look like big news, and thereby fill out the front page on mostly news-free Sundays.”

White Houses quickly learn to exploit this hunger, and serve up details that bolster the message they’re trying to send. In Bush’s first term, both The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post became suspicious of his aides’ string of accounts of how detail-oriented and take-charge Bush was behind the scenes, and pulled back from writing tick-tocks that relied too heavily on White House anecdotes that could not be verified.

None of the Obama accounts is hostile – all of them hew, more or less, to the line that Obama took his time to make a difficult decision that reflected his priorities and a rigorous internal debate. The Los Angeles Times story reflects that favorable narrative most exactly.

The New York Times and Post are slightly more critical, for different reasons. Baker makes it implicitly clear just how divided the Team of Rivals was. But he closes by emphasizing consensus and the president's serenity in his decision. In the Post's narrative – which starts with an annoyed POTUS telling his advisers he feels less-than-usually “sedate” about the need to speed up the war plan -- Obama comes off as a more impatient leader, and his lack of enthusiasm for a no-holds-barred war plan seems to receive greater attention.

The Post and, to a lesser extent, The New York Times indicate that the administration had to navigate serious civilian-military tensions as Obama shaped his strategy. In Baker's narrative, the leaks of Gen. Stanley McChrystal's initial report on troops and Ambassador Karl Eikenberry's memo recommending against a surge represented the most explosive conflicts between uniformed and civilian staff. But in The Post's telling, there are hints of a more basic level of misunderstanding between an administration that didn't quite grasp how to talk to military leaders

Only the Los Angeles Times hints at the political considerations that were on the minds of some advisers. And none of the stories discerns what sort of internal disagreement about the war may persist.

Each of the three Obama tick-tocks contains buzzy morsels. Here are some key passages:

--N.Y. Times: Vice President Joe Biden “quickly became the most outspoken critic of the expected McChrystal troop request, arguing that Pakistan was the bigger priority, since that is where Al Qaeda is mainly based. ‘He was the bull in the china shop,’ said one admiring administration official. But others were nodding their heads at some of what he was saying, too, including General Jones and Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff.”

--N.Y. Times: “Mr. Obama had read ‘Lessons in Disaster,’ Gordon M. Goldstein’s book on the Vietnam War. The book had become a must read in the West Wing after Mr. Emanuel had dinner over the summer at the house of another deputy national security adviser, Thomas E. Donilon, and wandered into his library to ask what he should be reading. Among the conclusions that Mr. Donilon and the White House team drew from the book was that both President John F. Kennedy and President Lyndon B. Johnson failed to question the underlying assumption about monolithic Communism and the domino theory — clearly driving the Obama advisers to rethink the nature of Al Qaeda and the Taliban.”

--N.Y. Times: “After a meeting where the Pentagon made a presentation with impressive color-coded maps, Mrs. Clinton returned to the State Department and told her aides, ‘We need maps,’ as one recalled. She was overseas during the next meeting on Oct. 14, when aides used her new maps to show civilian efforts but she participated with headphones on from her government plane flying back from Russia.”

--N.Y. Times: Defense Secretary Robert “Gates’s low-wattage exterior masks a wily inside player, and he knew enough to keep his counsel early in the process to let it play out more first.”

--Washington Post: “‘What was interesting was the metamorphosis,’ said national security adviser James L. Jones, the only senior official who agreed to discuss the deliberations on the record. ‘I dare say that none of us ended up where we started.’”

--L.A. Times: “The president wanted to know when the effects of the new strategy would become apparent, based on an ongoing Pentagon analysis of its own plans. ‘When will we know that our concept is working?’ Obama asked, recalled one official who was present. ‘Our best sense,’ replied Gates, ‘will be in late 2010 and into mid-2011.’”


Sources: Politico, NY Times, MSNBC

Operation "Cobra's Anger" & Drones...War Against The Taliban

U.S. launches Afghan offensive to combat the Taliban and interrupt Afghanistan's illegal drug trade.

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Drones and their purpose in the Afghan War.

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U.S. surge is big, but Afghan army is crucial


President Barack Obama has his troop surge. Afghanistan's beleaguered security forces have theirs.

While the new U.S. war strategy was unveiled with worldwide fanfare, Afghan's defense force has been quietly planning its own troop buildup to break the Taliban's tightening grip on swathes of the nation. The Afghan surge is the one to watch because the success of Obama's new war plan is inextricably hinged to Afghanistan's ability to recruit, train and retain security forces that can eventually take the lead in defending the nation.

Afghan Defense Minister Gen. Abdul Rahim Wardak told The Associated Press in an interview Saturday that he's already assigned one brigade to a new three-brigade seventh corps of the Afghan National Army. Corps 215 Maiwand is based in the Helmand capital of Lashkar Gah, where most of the 30,000 U.S. reinforcements will be deployed.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown says the Afghans have promised to send 5,000 members of the new corps to partner with British troops in Helmand. Wardak insists that will be achieved with ease. He said he's already begun staffing the command's second brigade.

Moreover, he said nearly 44 additional companies of Afghan soldiers are being added to battalions in the south and east. Another Afghan commando battalion, which will graduate in January, is also headed to Helmand — the scene of a major weekend offensive by 1,000 Marines and 150 Afghan soldiers.

117 percent strength levels vowed

"We are bringing the strength level of every unit in the south to 117 percent of its authorized strength so there will be a significant increase in the number of troops," Wardak said in his office at the Ministry of Defense.

Building up the Afghan army, plagued by inefficiency, a lack of trainers and corruption, is a precursor to a U.S. troop pullout. While Obama set July 2011 as the date for the beginning of a withdrawal, he said it would happen "taking into account conditions on the ground."

That caveat was what Afghan leaders needed to hear.

"It is in the speech," Wardak said. "I don't believe the international community will just leave us like they did once before — after all these sacrifices. This enemy is not only terrorizing Afghanistan, it is terrorizing the whole international community. The nature of the threat is such that no one country will be able to deal with it."

Initially, the size of the Afghan army was scheduled to swell from 85,000 to 134,000 by 2013. That target now is expected to be reached earlier — by Oct. 31, 2011.

"We are increasing our level of recruitment and there are going to be improvements in retention," he said. "We are going to go at a very fast speed."

Goal of 240,000 not easy

However, even the defense minister acknowledges that 134,000 will not be enough. He agrees with Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, who has recommended a 240,000-member Afghan army.

Getting there will be a steep uphill battle, says retired. Marine Col. Jeff Haynes, who in 2008 headed a command that advised the Afghan National Army.

"The rapid expansion of the Afghan National Army will likely undermine the fragile success that has been achieved to date," Haynes wrote in an essay on the Web site defpro.com. "It will also set back, not hasten, its assumption of the lead role in defeating a resurgent Taliban.

Unfortunately, too many of the people who are developing Afghan security strategy have never worked with the Afghan National Army and do not have a clear understanding of their strengths and weaknesses.

"The reality is that ANA effectiveness is already suffering because of an inadequate number of competent leaders and staff officers. ... Growing the army too fast will only exacerbate this leadership deficit."

Candace Rondeaux, senior Afghan analyst for the International Crisis Group, said the army is facing a a shortage of military trainers and is fighting endemic corruption. The question is how many troops can the Afghan government sustain in an aid-dependent country where the annual budget is under $10 billion.

"If the goal is to build a quality force of some 134,000 Afghan army soldiers by the end of 2011, then the addition of some 4,000 U.S. military trainers under the new troop levels will certainly help," she told the Council on Foreign Relations Web site. "But when it comes to expanding the Afghan National Army to 250,000 ... then stress on the system is inevitable and may blunt the positive impact that extra U.S. troops will have in the long term."



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US Troop Withdrawal Deadline May Undercut Afghan War Efforts...Is 2011 Realistic?

Problems with the Afghan strategy. Sen. John Thune explains why he feels setting up a troop withdrawal deadline will undercut U.S. efforts in Afghanistan.

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NATO Is Sending 7,000 Troops To Afghanistan...Global War

There are still many skeptics of Pres. Obama's Afghan War Strategy Plan.

The skeptics doubt Pres. Obama's Timeline for exiting Afghanistan is realistic for his goal and they don't trust Karzai.

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NATO to add 7,000 troops to Afghan effort


While acknowledging "our people are weary of war," U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told her NATO counterparts Friday that an infusion of allied troops in Afghanistan is crucial to turning the tide in a war that has been deteriorating for years.

Before Clinton spoke, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen of Denmark told reporters at NATO headquarters that at least 25 countries would provide an estimated 7,000 more troops in Afghanistan in 2010, "with more to come." And he said the 44 countries now involved are "absolutely united" in their commitment to seeing the eight-year war through to a successful outcome.

"The strongest message in the room today was solidarity," he said. "Nations are backing up their words with deeds."

U.S. Navy Adm. James Stavridis, the top NATO and U.S. commander in Europe, said in an Associated Press interview during a break in the talks that he believes several thousand non-U.S. troops may be contributed next year, in addition to the 7,000 cited by Fogh Rasmussen.

"What we are all underlining to potential troop contributors is that we are truly asking for emphasis in the training area," Stavridis said. "And what I'm hearing is that we'll get very good responses."

Clinton: "Urgent Need"

Clinton told allied foreign ministers that it was essential that contributions to the war effort be provided as quickly as possible. She thanked Italy and Britain for their announcements of new troop contributions and said non-military assistance is equally important.

"The need for additional forces is urgent, but their presence will not be indefinite," she told the North Atlantic Council, NATO's highest political council.

She cited President Barack Obama's pledge on Tuesday to begin withdrawing U.S. forces in July 2011.

"At that time, we will begin to transfer authority and responsibility to Afghan security forces removing combat forces from Afghanistan over time with the assurance that Afghanistan's future, and ours, is secure," Clinton said, according to a copy of her prepared remarks to the closed-door meeting.

"The pace, size, and scope of the drawdown will be predicated on the situation on the ground. If things are going well, a larger number of forces could be removed from more areas. If not, the size and speed of the drawdown will be adjusted accordingly."

In his remarks to reporters, Fogh Rasmussen made a similar point.

"Transition (to Afghan control) does not mean exit," he said.

"Our people are weary of War"

Clinton acknowledged the sacrifice, in blood and treasure, that many allied countries have paid in Afghanistan over the past eight years.

"Today, our people are weary of war," she said. "But we cannot ignore reality. The extremists continue to target innocent people and sow destruction across continents. From the remote mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan, they plot future attacks. As Secretary General Rasmussen said earlier this week, `This is our fight, together.' And we must finish it together."

She thanked Italy for its announcement that it will send another 1,000 troops, and for Britain's pledge of another 500.

"I look forward to discussing further commitments with many of you today and in the coming days," she said. "Additional troops, enhanced support for the vital training mission, and added civilian assistance will help deny al-Qaida a safe haven, reverse the Taliban's momentum, and strengthen the capacity of the Afghans to take responsibility for their own security."

Clinton sought to strike a delicate balance between stiffening allied resolve for hard combat in Afghanistan while also promising that it will not last for decades.

"Even as we signal resolve through the deployment of additional forces and a long-term civilian commitment, we want to send a signal that our combat presence is not permanent, and to provide a sense of urgency to the Afghans to do for themselves what we know they're capable of doing," she said.

"But I want to stress that this timeframe does not mean that we can or will end our commitment to Afghanistan, Pakistan, or the region. Our political, economic, and diplomatic presence in the region will endure. I know that this has not always been the case in the past, but we intend the future to be different than the past."

The central theme of her remarks was a need for unity of purpose.

"We are in this together. And only together can we succeed," she said.


McChrystal prepares for testimony

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top American commander in Afghanistan, also attended the meeting of NATO's main political council to explain the 43-nation military mission, which he has sought to revise and reinforce since he took over command last June. He has described conditions in the fight against Taliban extremists as serious and deteriorating.

McChrystal was headed to Washington afterward to prepare for congressional testimony next week — his first since assuming command in Kabul last June.

Allied governments need to be able to sell their publics on the idea of enlarging the war, and particularly those countries in which political parties share power have to be sure "the political stars are in alignment" before they announce new commitments, Clinton told reporters before she arrived in Brussels.

The British foreign secretary, David Miliband, sketched out the threat to Europe posed by Afghanistan's instability.

"We all know that in the 1990s, Afghanistan was the incubator of international terrorism, the incubator of choice for global jihad," he said. "The badlands of the Afghan-Pakistan border are a threat to people everywhere, whatever their religion, and that's why it's very important that we make progress."



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Obama Promises "To Finish The Job" In Afghanistan...Will He Regret These Words?

Pres. Obama states his administration will "Finish the Job" in Afghanistan.

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Barack Obama is now only days away from announcing his Afghan War Strategy decision.

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General McChrystal states that 34,000 more U.S. Troops will add renewed energy for the US Armed Forces already serving in the Afghan theatre.

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President Obama stuck in muck with pledge to "Finish the Job" in Afghanistan


President Obama hinted Tuesday that the cavalry is coming when he boldly stated he intends to "finish the job" in Afghanistan's eight-year war.

But he may live to regret setting such a high bar with his mystery war plan, much like his predecessor George W. Bush did by pledging to nail Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive."

It's almost impossible to imagine any Afghan strategy this President could unveil next week, short of an immediate withdrawal, that will bring peace before he faces American voters again in 2012.

It might even prove impossible to "finish the job" by 2016 if he wins reelection.

"The idea we can wave a magic wand over the place and fix it quickly is not realistic," said Afghanistan analyst Peter Bergen.

It's worrisome that Obama might be ready to spring yet another quick-fix plan.

Since 2001, the problem hasn't just been that the Afghan fight was shamefully shortchanged of resources as the Iraq war's ugly stepchild. It also has suffered from arrogant military and civilian leaders who fought every year of the war as if it was the last.

In 2003, ex-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the U.S. had "moved from major combat activity to a period of stability and reconstruction."

His top commander, Army Lt. Gen. Dan McNeill, even predicted withdrawing some of his 8,000 U.S. troops by 2004.

Instead, the Taliban rallied with cash from opium-producing poppy crops and Al Qaeda expertise - and the American body count rose.

Obama is likely to add at least 30,000 to a force that will total 100,000 in Afghanistan. An equal number will remain in Iraq, meaning last year's anti-war candidate will ironically have more soldiers in harm's way - 200,000 - than Bush did at the height of the Iraq "surge."

And don't call this boost a "surge" because insiders know that's a misnomer.

It will be an escalation without any plan on the horizon to draw down the additional forces, like in Iraq.

Bergen says the extra troops can secure more roads and pockets thick with Taliban in the next two years, but ending the war "is a long-term project."

It's not just how many boots are on the ground, it's how they're used.

That's why many strategists are embracing the idea of hiring Pashtun tribal militias or embedding Special Forces to "go native" for years and win tribal allies by spilling blood with them side by side.

But the wisest ideas all involve facing the hard truth that we will be in the fight for many more years amid polls that show the public - American and Afghan - losing patience.

That hard dose of reality required to win gives the enemy plenty of ammo in the meantime for their propaganda denouncing Americans as occupiers who refuse to leave.



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The Obama White House Has A Leak...Is It Intentional?

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Commander-In-Chief Obama Rejects All Afghan War Options...Is He "Dithering"?

Obama Afghanistan advisers back to drawing board. Anne Gearan, national security writer for the AP, discusses with Rachel Maddow the news that President Obama has rejected all of the options presented to him on Afghanistan.

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Pres. Obama weighs US Troops increase options.

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Cheney criticizes Obama on Afghanistan. Former Vice President Dick Cheney accused President Barack Obama of “waffling” on sending more U.S. troops in Afghanistan and warned him to stop “dithering.” Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy and Air America’s Ron Reagan discusses.

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Official: Pres. Obama rejects all Afghan war options

President Barack Obama does not plan to accept any of the Afghanistan war options presented by his national security team, pushing instead for revisions to clarify how and when U.S. troops would turn over responsibility to the Afghan government, a senior administration official said Wednesday.

Obama still is close to announcing his revamped war strategy, most likely shortly after he returns from a trip to Asia that ends on Nov. 19.

The president raised questions at a war council meeting on Wednesday, however, that could alter the dynamic of both how many additional troops are sent to Afghanistan and what the timeline would be for their presence in the war zone, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss Obama's thinking.

The president is considering options that include adding 30,000 or more U.S. troops to take on the Taliban in major areas of Afghanistan and to buy time for the Afghan government's small and ill-equipped fighting forces to take over. The other three options on the table are ranges of troop increases, from a relatively small addition of forces to the roughly 40,000 that the top U.S. general in Afghanistan prefers, according to military and other officials.

No open-ended commitment

The main sticking points appear to be timelines and mounting questions about the credibility of the Afghan government.

Administration officials said Wednesday that Obama wants to make clear that the U.S. commitment in Afghanistan is not open-ended. The war is now in its ninth year and is claiming U.S. lives at a record pace as military leaders say the Taliban has the upper hand in many parts of the country.

The options presented to Obama by his war council are likely to be amended.

Military officials say one approach is a compromise battle plan that would add 30,000 or more U.S. troops atop a record 68,000 in the country now. They described it as "half and half," meaning half fighting and half training and holding ground so the Afghans can regroup.

The White House says Obama has not made a final choice, although military and other officials have said he appears near to approving a slightly smaller increase than war commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal wants at the outset.

Among the options for Obama would be ways to phase in additional troops, perhaps eventually equaling McChrystal's full request, based on security or other conditions in Afghanistan and in response to pending decisions on troop levels by some U.S. allies fighting in Afghanistan.

The White House has chafed under criticism from Republicans and some outside critics that Obama is dragging his feet to make a decision.

Pres. Obama's top military advisers have said they are comfortable with the pace of the process, and senior military officials have pointed out that the president still has time since no additional forces could begin flowing into Afghanistan until early next year.

Range of possibilities

Under the scenario featuring about 30,000 more troops, that number most likely would be assembled from three Army brigades and a Marine Corps contingent, plus a new headquarters operation that would be manned by another 7,000 or more troops, a senior military official said. There would be a heavy emphasis on the training of Afghan forces, and the reinforcements Obama sends could include thousands of U.S. military trainers.

Another official stressed that Obama is considering a range of possibilities for the military expansion, and his eventual decision would cover changes in U.S. approach beyond the addition of troops. The stepped-up training and partnership operation with Afghan forces would be part of that effort, the official said, although expansion of a better-trained Afghan force long has been part of the U.S. objective and the key to an eventual U.S. and allied exit from the country.

With the Taliban-led insurgency expanding in size and ability, U.S. military strategy already has shifted to focus on heading off the fighters and protecting Afghan civilians. The evolving U.S. policy, already remapped early in Obama's tenure, increasingly acknowledges that the insurgency can be blunted but not defeated outright by force.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Wednesday he expects Obama to announce his decision on sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan within days.

Brown: Announcement in days

Brown told lawmakers in the House of Commons on Wednesday that he had recently spoken to Obama, "and I expect him to announce in a few days what his numbers for Afghanistan will be."

Asked about Brown's comment, the White House referred to press secretary Robert Gibbs' statement Tuesday that Obama's decision was still weeks away.

The head of the U.S. Central Command also said a decision is near.

Gen. David Petraeus spoke to CNN television on Wednesday shortly before heading into the White House war council session, where troop numbers were under discussion.

"I think we are indeed nearing a decision on this very important topic," Petraeus said.



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