Obama briefs skeptical lawmakers about his new Afghanistan strategy
Several lawmakers from both sides of the aisle told President Obama directly Tuesday afternoon they are concerned about his July 2011 time frame for beginning the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, according to Sen. Kit Bond. Bond briefed The Cable exclusively upon exiting Tuesday afternoon’s meeting between several senior lawmakers and the president ahead ...
Several lawmakers from both sides of the aisle told President Obama directly Tuesday afternoon they are concerned about his July 2011 time frame for beginning the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, according to Sen. Kit Bond.
Bond briefed The Cable exclusively upon exiting Tuesday afternoon's meeting between several senior lawmakers and the president ahead of tonight's strategy announcement. Obama called on the legislators to support his new strategy both rhetorically and financially, Bond said, but lawmakers pushed back on Obama's plan to announce that he intends to begin handing off security responsibility to the Afghan government in only 18 months' time.
Several lawmakers from both sides of the aisle told President Obama directly Tuesday afternoon they are concerned about his July 2011 time frame for beginning the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, according to Sen. Kit Bond.
Bond briefed The Cable exclusively upon exiting Tuesday afternoon’s meeting between several senior lawmakers and the president ahead of tonight’s strategy announcement. Obama called on the legislators to support his new strategy both rhetorically and financially, Bond said, but lawmakers pushed back on Obama’s plan to announce that he intends to begin handing off security responsibility to the Afghan government in only 18 months’ time.
"I was concerned about beginning the exit in July 2011 because we need a success strategy and not an exit strategy," Bond said, adding that "several others from both sides raised that as well."
Among the other senior senators Bond identified as speaking about their concerns over the withdrawal timeline were Senate Armed Services Committee ranking Republican John McCain, R-AZ and Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-CA. Bond is the top Republican on the intel panel.
Obama acknowledged the senators’ concerns but explained the time-frame decision as reflecting the administration’s desire to "make sure that [Afghan President Hamid] Karzai knew he had to get the security forces built up quickly," according to Bond.
The president also reiterated that the pace and endpoint for the drawdown would be determined by the conditions on the ground, to which Bond said senators asked Obama whether he or the commanders on the ground would make that call. Obama indicated such details were still tentative, according to Bond.
Regardless, Obama asked the lawmakers to get behind the new strategy despite their reservations and "said he expected support from everybody," Bond said. Obama’s argument was that the United States spends so much for national security that there was no good reason to short-change this important effort now.
The meeting lasted for about an hour and some but not all of the lawmakers present had opportunities to speak for a couple minutes only. Shortly after, Obama boarded Air Force One on the way to West Point, where he will announce his new strategy to the world at 8 p.m. tonight.
Josh Rogin covers national security and foreign policy and writes the daily Web column The Cable. His column appears bi-weekly in the print edition of The Washington Post. He can be reached for comments or tips at josh.rogin@foreignpolicy.com.
Previously, Josh covered defense and foreign policy as a staff writer for Congressional Quarterly, writing extensively on Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay, U.S.-Asia relations, defense budgeting and appropriations, and the defense lobbying and contracting industries. Prior to that, he covered military modernization, cyber warfare, space, and missile defense for Federal Computer Week Magazine. He has also served as Pentagon Staff Reporter for the Asahi Shimbun, Japan's leading daily newspaper, in its Washington, D.C., bureau, where he reported on U.S.-Japan relations, Chinese military modernization, the North Korean nuclear crisis, and more.
A graduate of George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs, Josh lived in Yokohama, Japan, and studied at Tokyo's Sophia University. He speaks conversational Japanese and has reported from the region. He has also worked at the House International Relations Committee, the Embassy of Japan, and the Brookings Institution.
Josh's reporting has been featured on CNN, MSNBC, C-Span, CBS, ABC, NPR, WTOP, and several other outlets. He was a 2008-2009 National Press Foundation's Paul Miller Washington Reporting Fellow, 2009 military reporting fellow with the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism and the 2011 recipient of the InterAction Award for Excellence in International Reporting. He hails from Philadelphia and lives in Washington, D.C. Twitter: @joshrogin
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