Chairman Ike Skelton Keynotes ASP Conference and Panel Discussion Assessing President's Strategy in Afghanistan
Washington, DC – On Friday, December 4, 2009, the American Security Project (ASP) hosted a conference and panel discussion entitled “Beyond the Surge: Assessing the President’s Strategy for Afghanistan.” Congressman Ike Skelton (D-MO), Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, delivered the keynote address.
Chairman Skelton’s full written comments are below:
First, let me take a moment to thank Admiral Gunn for that introduction. You’re too kind. I’d like to extend that thanks to Senator Hart and the American Security Project as a whole. You’re doing great work, and I appreciate your efforts. I’d also like to say happy birthday to Evelyn Farkas, here at ASP. I would also like to thank our brave men and women in uniform. We have asked much of them in the past decade, and they have not failed to deliver.
Two months ago, I wrote a letter to the President saying, essentially, that he should listen to his commanders in the field. Being a member of Congress, it took six pages to say that, but that was the basic message. I made that same point in private conversations with the President. And so it pleased me the other night when the President agreed to provide General McChrystal with additional forces needed to make this new strategy work.
But before assessing the overall strategy, I think we should take a moment to remind ourselves why we’re in Afghanistan and the threat we face there.
Al Qa’ida presents a serious threat to our nation. Osama bin Laden and his minions have attacked us or attempted to attack us many times over the years. The most remarkable attack involved the murder of 3000 civilians—men, women, and children—but it was hardly the only attack. And I do not believe that anyone has a good reason to believe that they have given up their attempts to attack us.
Following our invasion of Afghanistan in response to this attack, al Qa’ida largely fled to the border regions of Pakistan. Their Taliban allies, meanwhile, continue to escalate their attacks in an attempt to overthrow the Afghan government and drive out the international coalition.
Others have differing opinions on this, but I do not believe that we can ultimately destroy al Qa’ida if we cannot prevent them from recreating a safe haven in Afghanistan. I also do not believe that we can be successful in rooting them out of Pakistan if we fail in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan and Pakistan have some inherent advantages for al Qa’ida that other places may not. Having been in the region for over 20 years, they have married into local tribes and made contacts with other extremist organizations. These connections have allowed the senior leaders to hide successfully for many years.
Afghanistan is also of strategic value to al Qa’ida. In losing Afghanistan, they lost not only the support of a government and the use of an entire country as a safe haven, but suffered a tremendous blow to their image. Reestablishing a safe haven in Afghanistan could rehabilitate this image among those who resent or oppose the United States, leading to increases in recruiting and funding.
Nor can we consider Afghanistan and Pakistan in isolation—the security situation in Afghanistan can have a negative impact on the stability of Pakistan. It is foolish to think that if the Taliban and al Qa’ida were able to reestablish themselves in all or part of Afghanistan, they would not lend support to those militants seeking to overthrow or destabilize the Pakistani state. Al Qa’ida has already assisted the Pakistani Taliban in carrying out attacks on the Pakistani government, and I would expect this aid to increase if al Qa’ida regained a base in Afghanistan. There was an attack at a mosque earlier today that killed dozens. With a secure base for al Qa’ida, I would expect many more such attacks. And the only thing worse than al Qa’ida loose in Afghanistan again is a destabilized, nuclear-armed Pakistan.
On Tuesday night, the President proposed what I think is a good way ahead as we address this threat. From the extensive media reporting on the process, we all know how thorough a review was conducted by the White House, lasting months and including somewhere around 10 cabinet secretary level meetings and extensive consultation with every expert they could find.
President Obama’s strategy rightly focuses on seizing the initiative from the enemy, building Afghan capacity, and ultimately allowing the Afghan government and security forces to take the lead in fighting this war.
The President has appropriately called for additional troops from our allies—this is not just America’s war, and we must not allow it to become that. Perhaps more importantly, the President has put the burden of reform squarely on the Afghan government, laying out clear expectations of performance and promising support for those ministries and local leaders that perform.
The President has also rightly acknowledged the importance of Pakistan. Pakistan remains a challenge, playing a key and often contradictory role in the region. Pakistan, by assisting in the pursuit of al Qa’ida and Afghan Taliban leaders, could help bring the war in Afghanistan to an end. Conversely, if Pakistan were to return to old habits of supporting the Afghan Taliban, the war may be almost impossible to win. More concerning, the continued ascendency of militant movements in the region could destabilize Pakistan, a country with nuclear weapons. This could be disastrous for all of us.
I think this is a good strategy. Perhaps most importantly, it is a strategy that I believe has a good chance of success. In the past, I have often said that we lacked a strategy for the first seven years of the war in Afghanistan. Some of my colleagues have suggested that this assertion may not be entirely fair. But, the result of whatever the prior Administration thought it was doing, ultimately resembled conducting combat operations without any thought of what we were trying to accomplish. So having a strategy, much less a good one, is a great start.
President Obama also, I am pleased to say, took my advice. He listened to his military leaders, including Generals McChrystal and Petraeus, Admiral Mullen, and Secretary Gates. Ultimately, the President endorsed adding 30,000 troops to carry out his strategy. This is on top of the 21,000 he dispatched to Afghanistan earlier this year. In January 2009, there were about 33,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. In about 7 months, there will be three times that. That is, I believe, a clear sign of the President’s resolve and willingness to do what it takes to be successful in Afghanistan.
Yesterday, the House Armed Services Committee, which I have to honor to chair, hosted Secretary Gates, Admiral Mullen, and Deputy Secretary of State Lew. Next Tuesday, we will hear from General McChrystal and Ambassador Eikenberry. Members, properly, have a lot of questions about the strategy, and we want to make sure that the details have been thought through. I’ll list a few of the areas we have explored or will next week.
Many members are concerned about the July 2011 date to begin redeployment. So far, most have focused on that date as being set, rather than completely conditions based, but to me it looks like this is a case where there isn’t much to complain about. Secretary Gates and Admiral Mullen were pretty clear that not only were they comfortable with the date, but that they thought it served the useful purpose of motivating the Afghans.
To me, what happens after that date is at least as important as the date itself. Secretary Gates testified that the process of transition that begins on that date would itself be slow and conditions-based, so that while the start of the process was fixed in time, the end could be adjusted as required. And I think that flexibility and realistic approach to a difficult process is exactly right.
One other concern, and one that in my mind might be more realistic, is the unintended consequences of setting out such a message. The message of a gradual, conditions-based transition may not be understood the same way by all audiences. The Pakistanis may well believe that it signals that the United States is once again leaving the region, and that might undermine our hopes of gaining their cooperation. Various ethnic groups in Afghanistan, fearing a civil war after we begin to depart, could start stockpiling weaponry or hedge their bets in other unhelpful ways. I think we have to keep our eyes open for this possibility and be creative in reassuring the Afghans and the Pakistanis that we are not abandoning them.
Corruption in the Afghan government, and the legitimacy or illegitimacy of that government, is also frequently a subject of questioning. It’s a concern I share, and one that President Karzai’s recent election reinforced. On the positive side, there are ministers and ministries in Afghanistan that have functioned well—Minister Wardak at the Defense Ministry and Minister Atmar at the Interior Ministry are honest effective ministers. The Health Ministry, Education Ministry, and the National Solidarity Program, run by the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development, all seem to be functioning well.
But there are also legitimate concerns. High level corruption among ministers and governors; shakedowns by police, judges, and other authorities; and perceptions that warlords are untouchable by the law feed the belief among the Afghan people that their government does not serve them. And President Karzai has not always been helpful—his family is perceived to be part of the problem, and his unwillingness to remove the immunity from some ministers so the Afghan Attorney General can indict them is not helpful.
There are ways we can help push for reform—for example, not working with those leaders who prove to be corrupt so that their ability to deliver for their followers or to make money is hampered–but we have to take this seriously. President Karzai, in his inauguration speech also promised to crack down on corruption and to hold a loya jirga of national reconciliation. I would like to hear from General McChrystal and Ambassador Eikenberry how we can hold him to these promises and push to have the jirga also help develop a compact of what the Afghan people have a right to expect from their government.
Members will also likely ask about the promised assessment of efforts in December 2010. I think that is a good time to begin such an assessment—six months after all the promised troops arrive in country—but members will likely have many questions about it. What will we assess? What is an acceptable level of progress? What are the options if progress is insufficient? These are all obvious questions. The one thing I would say is that I think it will behoove all of us to offer the Administration some breathing space before we make judgments about the success of the plan. Asking questions is fair, drawing conclusions about the success or failure of the strategy before it is really implemented probably isn’t.
So, in the first few days after the announcement of the new strategy, those are some of my thoughts. I think the President is to be commended for the strategy and the resolve he is showing. I believe he is fully aware of the threat posed by al Qa’ida and the potential posed by a sanctuary for terror in Afghanistan and a possibly destabilized Pakistan. These are serious threats we are facing, and the President is clearly prepared to take realistic, effective and fully resourced steps to address them.
So I conclude as I started, by thanking all of you for what you do, and by asking you to think of the brave men and women in uniform, and the civilians who will assist them, who will have to do the hard, dangerous work to make this strategy a success. We owe them a great deal, and we should never forget it.
Thank you.
