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 The advisors didn't work for Obama's White House, however. They
were veterans of President Bill Clinton's administration and they
peppered Obama's secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, with messages
urging a robust counter-insurgency effort in Afghanistan and a
tougher U.S. stance toward Pakistan, according to emails released by
the State Department late on Tuesday.
The emails reveal how, even as Obama ran a highly formalized Afghan
policy review of near-endless meetings and position papers, Hillary
Clinton was receptive to outsiders' sometimes off-the-cuff views
delivered through back-channels.
How much they influenced Clinton, who was also getting plenty of
advice on Afghanistan and Pakistan from officials at her State
Department, remains unclear. But Clinton eventually threw her
support behind a troop "surge" and there is some evidence the
external advisors formed part of her thinking.
Some had more national security expertise than others, but all
appeared to have Clinton's ear - and her private email address.
 In one missive on Oct. 11, 2009, retired Gen. Wesley Clark, a
confidant of the Clintons, warned against repeating in Afghanistan
the "incrementalism" of gradual troop increases during the Vietnam
War.
"Hopefully, we can be more decisive: lean harder on the Pakistanis,
provide more troops to (Afghanistan commander Gen. Stanley)
McChrystal ... and raise the heat on al Qaeda," Clark wrote.
Others in the Clintons' orbit weighed in with similar advice,
including former national security adviser Sandy Berger, Clinton
pollster Mark Penn and a consigliere to both Bill and Hillary,
Sidney Blumenthal.
On Oct. 3, Berger emailed Clinton with a provocative proposal: the
United States should take targeted measures against military
officials in Pakistan, nominally a U.S. ally, who support al Qaeda.
"Assuming we have adequate intelligence, we can go after bank
accounts, travel and other reachable assets of individual Pakistani
officers, raising the stakes for those supporting the militants
without creating an inordinate backlash," he wrote.
"Thanks, Sandy. This is very helpful," Clinton replied. Through a
spokesman, Berger declined comment on Wednesday.
There's no evidence Berger's idea gained traction. But on a trip to
Pakistan later that month, Clinton came close to accusing Pakistan
of sheltering terrorists, publicly voicing a U.S. suspicion normally
whispered in private.
"I find it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows
where they are, and couldn’t get to them if they really wanted to,"
she told Pakistani journalists. The email exchanges took place
during a wrenching Obama White House debate over sending more U.S.
troops to Afghanistan. Obama, elected on a promise to end U.S.
ground wars, had already deployed 21,000 additional troops to
Afghanistan and was weighing the military's request for tens of
thousands more.
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Critics charged Obama with dithering as the debate dragged on for
months, pitting the U.S. military and its allies against White House
advisers who favored a narrower mission that would target al Qaeda
and ignore the Afghan Taliban.
Penn, the pollster, wrote to Clinton to denounce the latter course
as "dangerous morally and politically."
"Obama maintained throughout the campaign and the start of his
presidency that this (Afghan war) is the one to fight and backing
down here makes him and the administration vulnerable to losing
moderate support and seeming weak and indecisive," Penn wrote.
"A single terrorist incident would be blamed on the admin(istration)
for failing to do the job right," he added.
Penn may have been reacting to a front-page New York Times article
that morning quoting those who favored the narrowed mission. That
camp was led by Vice President Joe Biden.
Neither Penn nor Clark could be reached for comment.
Clinton, in her book, "Hard Choices," says she laid out her thinking
in a Nov. 23 White House Situation Room meeting, supporting a
proposed troop increase but arguing against "an open-ended
commitment."
Obama announced On Dec. 1 he was sending 30,000 more troops to
Afghanistan - temporarily - to pursue a broader counter-insurgency
strategy.
About 9,800 U.S. troops remain in Afghanistan today.
The 2009 troop increase may have prevented even worse instability in
Afghanistan at a time when the Taliban were resurgent and
Washington's focus had been distracted by the Iraq war. But it
failed to pacify the Taliban, who continue to launch deadly attacks
as the international presence wanes and Afghanistan's political
leaders feud.
(Additional reporting by Jonathan Allen. Editing by Stuart Grudgings)
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