Obama set to boost Afghanistan force

Obama set to boost Afghanistan force
By Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Published: March 26 2009 23:49 | Last updated: March 26 2009 23:49
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f11061ee-1a5e-11de-9f91-0000779fd2ac.html


Barack Obama will on Friday announce a new strategy for Afghanistan that will include sending another 4,000 troops and hundreds of new civilian officials to the war-torn country.

The president’s strategy is expected to shift the focus of operations in Afghanistan to ensuring that al-Qaeda cannot attack the US, which represents a ratcheting down of the ambitious goals of George W. Bush, the former US president, who pledged to instill democracy in Afghanistan.

US military and state department officials briefed Congress on Friday on the strategy which is the product of several months of review.

Earlier, Dennis Blair, the new director of national intelligence, said the US needed to improve its intelligence on Afghanistan to gain a better understanding of the ­country regardless of whatever strategy Mr Obama chose.

“We know a heck of a lot more about Iraq on a very granular basis than we know about Afghanistan,” said Mr Blair.

“We need to ramp up the level of intelligence support in Afghanistan and that would be a lot more than just making sure the villages were on the maps. It would be a granular understanding of local power structures, individuals . . . ”

Mr Obama is on Friday expected to detail the new direction for policy in Afghanistan, which will place a greater focus on dealing with al-Qaeda and Taliban militants operating from havens inside Pakistan.

The Pentagon is also examining whether the US and Afghanistan can peel local Taliban away from the hard-core extremists linked to Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader who fled Afghanistan after the 2001 invasion.

“There are Taliban and Taliban,” said Mr Blair. “Some of them have local issues . . . some of them have pretty hard core aggressive ideas which are unlikely to be ever compatible with American interests.”

Mr Blair said that about two-thirds of the Taliban were locally focused militants who “can be defeated if the government with international assistance can provide them the basics of a good life and that particularly valley or district”.

He said: “Mullah Omar is certainly a tough case. He thinks he ought to be running Afghanistan and doesn’t show many signs of settling for anything less.”

Some US officials have pushed for an effort to reach out to Mullah Omar, but other officials believe that he falls into the category of hardcore militants where accommodation could not be reached.

Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan, last week said that Mr Omar must “speak for peace, accept the Afghan constitution, denounce violence and say that he’s not enemies with the rest of the world, that he wants to co-exist with the rest of the world” before the Afghan government would reconcile with him.

However, Mr Karzai suggested that Washington needed to reach out to Mr Omar, telling PBS television that “it has to be a two-way thing”.

“One is the announcement by President Obama; the next is the responsibility that falls on the Taliban leaders to take this opportunity.”