WASHINGTON - With the recent Afghan civilian shooting on his mind, the top commander of US-led forces in Afghanistan told Congress Tuesday that he had no intention of recommending further American troop reductions until late this year - meaning after the November elections.
“There is no part of our strategy that intends to stay in Afghanistan forever,” General John Allen told the House Armed Services Committee.
Gen Allen said that he remained optimistic about eventual success there but it was too early to begin shifting the forces. He also acknowledged the deep sensitivities, especially given the current diplomatic crisis with Afghanistan, of handing over complete security control to Afghan forces - including over the commando night-raids that American commanders say are critical to the war effort. These are the subject of intense negotiation, he testified.
The general said that only after reviewing the results of the next six months of fighting - at the end of which there would be 68,000 American troops remaining - would he turn his attention to the pace of further reductions in the force.
But he repeatedly said that by the end of next year, Afghan forces would have taken over full responsibility for the fight, allowing Nato’s combat role to be finished by the end of 2014, as currently scheduled.
His testimony came after a troubling, violent period on the ground, beginning with public protests - and a series of murders of American troops by Afghan security forces - following the burning of the copies of Holy Quran by the US military personnel. That was followed by an American soldier’s rampage that left 16 civilians dead, most of them children.
Allen said that in addition to the criminal inquiry into the massacre, there would be an administrative investigation into the command climate and headquarters organization of the soldier’s unit.
In his opening statement, he did not stray from the line taken by the White House and the Pentagon in recent weeks: that the progress toward what the Obama administration calls an “orderly and responsible” transfer of the fight against insurgents from the US-led alliance to the fledgling Afghan Army is going smoothly and that the schedule should not be altered.
He said that he recognized the challenges, and deplored the Quran-burnings and the massacre. But he and members of the House Armed Services Committee both described those events as isolated, if unfortunate, and there was little discussion of them at the hearing.
Instead, it focused on the schedule and the mechanics of the withdrawal that lies ahead, a subject that is being reviewed by Nato, whose member states are assembling their leadership in May in Chicago, and in talks between the Karzai government and Washington.
On one sensitive subject, the night-raids carried out by the Special Operations Forces that have unsettled the Afghans but are credited with weakening the Taliban’s command structure, Allen said the Afghans would be taking over control of them, too, eventually. Twelve Afghan teams are being trained for that purpose, he testified.
But he refused to discuss, when asked, a report in the Wall Street Journal that in negotiations with the Kabul government, the US was considering subjecting American operations to review by some kind of Afghan tribunal.
He said that it was important not to rob the surprise raids of “their momentum, which gives them their effectiveness”. And he said it was “very premature” to say what would be the outcome of the talks.
Ultimately, he said, as the Afghans take control of operations, the requirements of the Afghan constitution would need to be respected.
“Throughout history, insurgencies have seldom been defeated by foreign forces,” Allen said. “Instead, they have been ultimately beaten by indigenous forces. In the long run, our goals can only be achieved and then secured by Afghan forces. Transition, then, is the linchpin of our strategy, not merely the ‘way out’.”
The possibility of an accelerated withdrawal order by President Obama angered senior Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee. The chairman, Congressman Howard McKeon of California, said, “With our eyes at the exits, I am uncertain whether we will be able to achieve the key tenets of president’s own strategy, due to the constraints that the president, himself, has put in place.”