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Monday, July 21, 2008
Obama vows vigorous fight against Taliban, al-Qaida (9:03 a.m.)
WASHINGTON -- Democrat Barack Obama has vowed if he wins the presidency to send about 7,000 more US troops to Afghanistan.
After a two-day visit he urged the Bush administration to get those forces into the pipeline now to deal with what he said was a "precarious and urgent" situation.
Obama was in the South Asian country at the start of a journey that was also taking him to Iraq, Israel, Jordan and Europe. It is a tour meant to burnish his international credentials after heavy criticism from Republican opponent Sen. John McCain, who has said the Illinois senator is wrong to plan for troop withdrawal from Iraq within 16 months of taking office without having visited since January 2006.
McCain, who has represented Arizona in the US Senate for four terms, does not lose any opportunity to contrast his military background and long experience in foreign affairs with Obama's limited time on the national stage. McCain has said Obama's foreign policy plans are naive and that he is untested.
"In a time of war, the commander-in-chief's job doesn't get a learning curve," the former Navy pilot and Vietnam prisoner of war, said in his weekly radio address on Saturday.
Obama said in a CBS television interview from Kabul on Sunday that the deteriorating security situation was "precarious and urgent here in Afghanistan, and I believe this has to be our central focus, the central front on our battle against terrorism."
The 46-year-old freshman senator said the Bush administration's decision to begin the Iraq war rather than to stay focused on fighting the Taliban and al-Qaida in Afghanistan was "one of the biggest mistakes we made strategically after" the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States.
As President George W. Bush and his military officials begin talking about further drawdowns of American forces in Iraq, Obama says it is time to making preparations to put more troops in Afghanistan.
"I think what's important for us to do is to begin planning for those brigades now. If we wait until the next administration, it could be a year before we get those additional troops on the ground here in Afghanistan. And I think that would be a mistake. I think the situation is getting urgent enough that we've got to start doing something now," he told CBS.
While in Afghanistan, Obama met US troops, the nation's military leaders and President Hamid Karzai, whose spokesman said: "Sen. Obama conveyed ... that he is committed to supporting Afghanistan and to continue the war against terrorism with vigor."
After the two-hour session with Karzai, Obama made no public comment, but said in a written statement that the main purpose of the Afghan visit was to see US troops, thank them for their "extraordinary service" and let them know the United States is proud of them.
Obama said he and his colleagues were consulting about whether the US has the right strategy and resources to defeat the resurgent Taliban and al-Qaida.
"Our message to the Afghan government is this: We want a strong partnership based on 'more for more' - more resources from the United States and NATO, and more action from the Afghan government to improve the lives of the Afghan people," Obama and Sens. Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican, and Jack Reed, a Democrat of Rhode Island, said in a joint statement. "We need a sense of urgency and determination."
US military officials say the number of attacks in eastern Afghanistan, where most of the U.S. forces in the country operate, has gone up by 40 percent so far in 2008, compared to the same period in 2007.
Al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden and his top associates are believed hiding in the rugged mountains along the Afghan-Pakistan border, and Obama has frequently claimed Pakistan is not doing enough to dislodge the terrorists from their sanctuary.(AP) |
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