White House holds off on decisions on Afghanistan

[September 17, 2009]  WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama is holding off on a decision to send more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, exasperating lawmakers who say his administration's latest road map for winning the war skimps on details and amounts to too little, too late.

The White House's newly released list of benchmarks for grading U.S. progress in the war focuses heavily on Pakistan -- and efforts to hunt down terrorists hiding there.

Both the delay and the scant information are frustrating Democrats and Republicans alike, prompting some to demand that the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, return to Washington and provide answers that the White House and Pentagon so far have avoided giving. Military officials say McChrystal has no plans to brief Congress anytime soon.

"It doesn't have to be done next week, but it doesn't need to be a lot longer either," Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., said Wednesday.

Obama said he will finish his broad assessment of military, diplomatic, civilian and development efforts in Afghanistan before deciding his next steps -- including on troop strength.

"I'm going to take a very deliberate process in making those decisions," Obama said Wednesday while meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, whose 2,500 troops will leave Afghanistan in 2011.

"And so I just want to be absolutely clear, because there's been a lot of discussion in the press about this: There is no immediate decision pending on resources," Obama said.

For months, Washington's focus on the eight-year war in Afghanistan has been on whether the U.S. will commit more troops to the fight. Congress is divided over the question, and the president faces mounting pressure on what do next, both from a war-weary public and from members of his own Democratic Party.

Obama already has ordered 21,000 more troops to Afghanistan, increasing the U.S. commitment there to 68,000 by year's end.

Yet violence in Afghanistan has soared to record levels. More U.S. troops -- 51 -- died in Afghanistan in August than in any other month since the U.S.-led invasion in October 2001.

Instead of answers, the White House offered Congress a draft of the long-awaited benchmarks and a classified briefing about an on-the-ground assessment of Afghanistan that McChrystal prepared for the Pentagon last month. Lawmakers said they were unimpressed by both.

"Basically, they didn't tell us anything we don't already know," said Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich.

That panel's top Republican, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, called the benchmarks "a start," but not specific enough.

On the other side of Capitol Hill, House Armed Services Chairman Ike Skelton echoed the president's calls for patience.

"We need to give the general and our military and civilian counterparts time necessary to show that progress is being made," Skelton, D-Mo., said in an interview. "We actually have a strategy that, if given time and resources and good leaders, which I know we have, we'll have a solid conclusion."

The list of 46 benchmarks outlines seven objectives and emphasizes Pakistan's importance. An administration official who spoke anonymously to discuss sensitive information said there is an eighth counterterror objective that is classified. The draft obtained by The Associated Press did not include an annex of classified benchmarks specifically measuring ways to disrupt terrorist networks in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Most of the benchmarks are intuitive, spelling out ways to stabilize the rugged region that al-Qaida has long used as a haven. A quarterly report card will use the benchmarks to publicly grade U.S. progress -- or failure -- made in each of the unclassified objectives.

One of the objectives calls for defeating extremists, securing the Afghan people and training Afghan security forces to fight "with reduced U.S. assistance." It was not immediately clear whether that forecasts the White House's reluctance to send more U.S. troops to Afghanistan or if it merely underscores the administration's eventual exit plan.

The document also requires a progress update by March 30 and at regular intervals thereafter.

[Associated Press; By LARA JAKES]

Associated Press writers Anne Gearan and Jennifer Loven contributed to this report.

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