WASHINGTON – As the Pentagon prepares for a major buildup of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned Tuesday that the United States cannot become bogged down in the unrealistic goal of turning the war-torn country into an economically prosperous nation.
Instead, the U.S. must limits its focus to ensuring terrorists don’t regain control of the region and use it to coordinate attacks, Gates said.
“If we set ourselves the objective of creating some sort of Central Asian Valhallah over there,” Gates said, referring to the mythic haven of purity, “we will lose because nobody in the world has that kind of time, patience or money to be honest.”
Gates testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee as President Barack Obama considers his options for drawing down operations in Iraq and doubling the force size in Afghanistan. Obama planned to meet Wednesday with the service chiefs.
Gates told lawmakers that the Pentagon could send two more brigades to Afghanistan by late spring and a third by mid-summer in an effort to try to salvage a country besieged by corruption and increasing violence.
More troops could be sent after that but that would hinge on the Defense Department’s ability to build a larger infrastructure, he added.
When asked by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., whether he expects casualties to rise with the uptick in military operations, Gates responded that it was “likely.”
“This is going to be tough, it’s going to be difficult and in many ways more difficult than Iraq. Do you agree with that?” Graham asked Gates.
“Yes,” Gates responded.
The defense chief said the Pentagon is preparing for Obama various scenarios for winding down the war in Iraq, including a plan that would cease U.S. involvement in combat within 16 months. Gates said military planners are looking at later dates as well and are prepared to brief Obama on all his options and the their associated risks.
“I believe the president will have had every opportunity to hear quite directly from his commanders about what they can accomplish and what the attendant risks are under different options,” Gates said.
Gates said he does not expect the military buildup in Afghanistan to put an additional strain on troops. By the end of September, soldiers deployed for 12 months should be allowed 15 months at home. In the 2010 budget year, that ratio will stretch further, giving troops two years at home for every one year deployed. By 2011, they should see 30 months at home, he said.
It was his first hearing since Obama took office and lawmakers were eager to hear details about how the administration plans to turn around the war in Afghanistan.
“This is a long, hard slog we’re in in Afghanistan,” said Sen. John McCain of Arizona, borrowing the phrase used frequently by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to describe the war in Iraq.
“It is complex,” added McCain, the top Republican on the Armed Services Committee. “It is challenging. And I don’t see frankly an Anbar wakening – a game changing event – in Afghanistan, such as we were able to see in Iraq.”
Security gains made in Iraq’s Anbar province are often seen as a turning point in the Iraq war.
In his prepared remarks, Gates said Afghanistan is America’s “greatest military challenge” and coordination of the fight against the insurgency has been “less than stellar.” He said it will take a long and difficult fight to rout militants and help develop a nation that rejects the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban and backs its own elected government.
When asked by McCain if terrorists are operating freely in the Helmand province in Afgahnistan and in Kandahar, Gates paused briefly and sighed before saying that he had been given conflicting reports from analysts in Washington and ground commanders.
Troops in the field say the situation is “no worse” but “different,” he said, adding that the Taliban’s ability to cross the border so freely clearly has enabled them to have “greater freedom of action than they’ve had in the last couple of years.”
Having recently undergone an operation to repair a damaged tendon in his left arm, Gates spoke with his arm in a sling, his coat half on.
Obama has vowed to shift military resources away from Iraq and move them toward Afghanistan and Pakistan, which he says is the central front in the struggle against terrorism and extremism. In a plan initiated during the Bush administration and endorsed by Obama, the Pentagon is planning to double the 34,000 contingent of U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
While lawmakers mostly support the plan to send more troops, lawmakers expressed the need for a clearer strategy.
Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama said that while Afghans were “wonderful people but they are not prepared to want to be like us now.”
“I do think this country ultimately will have to make it on its own. It will have to be true to its own history and its own culture,” Sessions said.
Gates said he agrees that a key to winning the war will be putting an Afghan “face” on military operations to send the signal that they, not the U.S., control the country’s fate.
Lawmakers also were eager to hear details on Obama’s plans to close the military’s Guantanamo Bay prison and temporarily suspend the tribunals used to prosecute suspected terrorists.
“I believe the military commissions – after a long and difficult and arduous process – were starting to function effectively. I’m disappointed that they have been suspended,” said McCain.