Feingold Set to Oppose Further Troop Boost for Afghanistan

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Feingold Set to Oppose Further Troop Boost for Afghanistan
Fears That More U.S. Forces Could Prompt Insurgents to Cross Into Pakistan
By Spencer Ackerman 8/5/09 2:12 PM

If Gen. Stanley McChrystal proposes, as expected, an increase in U.S. troops for the Afghanistan war, Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) is “likely to oppose it,” the senator told TWI.

Feingold’s opposition to what would be the second U.S. troop increase in Afghanistan this year is the most forceful Senate dissent so far to a war that President Obama has embraced. It represents a preemptive warning to both Obama and to McChrystal, the new commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, who is scheduled to give the Pentagon an assessment of what additional resources he requires for the war next week. And it highlights what some progressives also opposed to escalation see as an opportunity this summer to change public debate about the eight-year war.

“I don’t think the case has been effectively made for continuing to send more and more troops into Afghanistan,” Feingold said in a Wednesday interview. “I am very unhappy with the answers I’ve received about the issue of whether constantly increasing troops is helping the situation in Pakistan or making it worse. I suspect it could be making things worse.” Feingold fears that increasing troops in Afghanistan might lead insurgents to cross the border into Pakistan, which is engaged in its own fight against a distinct but affiliated insurgency, and he told The Nation magazine’s Jeremy Scahill recently that the administration has yet to address that concern.

Next week, McChrystal will present to Defense Secretary Robert Gates and NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen the results of a review compiled for him by a team of about a dozen outside advisers of what changes in tactics, emphasis and resources are necessary to reverse a deteriorating situation. At least one of those advisers, Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, stated last week that “additional brigade combat teams” were necessary to avert ultimate disaster. Bloomberg News reported Wednesday that McChrystal may defer a decision on additional troops for several more weeks.

As part of a campaign promise to refocus on a neglected war in Afghanistan, President Obama ordered troop levels increased in March by 17,000 combat forces, along with 4,000 troops to train and advise Afghan soldiers and police, and the new forces are scheduled to be in place by next month. Senior administration officials have expressed concern over a second troop increase this year. Reportedly, Jim Jones, the national security adviser, told McChrystal and his deputies that any such request would not be welcomed by Obama. In January, Gates told a Senate panel that he would be “very skeptical” of a troop increase much over what Obama ultimately approved.

Obama stated in March that the goal of the troop increase and a new intertwined civil-military strategy for both Pakistan and Afghanistan was to “disrupt, dismantle and defeat” al-Qaeda. Yet at his June confirmation hearing, McChrystal said little about al-Qaeda, and pledged to adopt what he called a “classic counterinsurgency” strategy of protecting the Afghan population from insurgent attacks to eventually deny the Taliban-led “syndicate” of insurgent groups — some of whom have marginal ties to al-Qaeda — popular support. Interviews granted by McChrystal and his deputies since arriving in Afghanistan have occasionally downplayed the counterterrorism goals of the strategy, with one anonymous official telling the Los Angeles Times’s Julian Barnes, “We have been overly counter-terrorism-focused.” Feingold said that he was “a little worried” that McChrystal’s focus for the war is “much broader” than Obama’s.

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http://washingtonindependent.com/53908/feingold-set-to-oppose-further-troop-boost-for-afghanistan