What rift? Eikenberry, McChrystal take vows of unity
They smiled at each other and publicly said “I do.”
General Stanley McChrystal and Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, widely reported to have had a falling-out over sending 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, on Tuesday pledged their support for President Barack Obama’s strategy and for each other.
The congressional hearing was on the Afghan war, but it had moments that almost seemed borrowed from a wedding ceremony.
“Do you support the president’s plan (for Afghanistan) in each of its elements?” asked Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin.
“I do, Mr. Chairman,” responded Eikenberry, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan.
Levin turned to General McChrystal, the U.S. battlefield commander. “General, do you fully agree with the July 2011 date which the president directed as the start of reduction of some U.S. forces?”
“Mr. Chairman, I do…” McChrystal said.
What really happened in Obama, McCain Afghan exchange
It sounded like a pretty sexy story — a clash of the titans between President Barack Obama and Republican Senator John McCain in the big White House meeting yesterday on Afghanistan.
But the McCain folks are pushing back against this notion that tempers were flaring between Obama and McCain as reported by major media outlets.
McCain has made no secret of what he feels is an urgent need to increase U.S. troops in Afghanistan, and he repeated that appeal in the meeting, saying he hopes the president will make his decision soon and “not in a leisurely fashion,” according to McCain spokeswoman Brooke Buchanan.
News accounts of the exchange behind closed doors have said Obama responded curtly that he was not acting in a leisurely fashion, but McCain, as relayed by Buchanan, said Obama made the comment in his wrapup remarks and that he in no way sounded irritated.
Buchanan told us that McCain is “astonished” that this has been blown up into a big hullabaloo and that the senator appreciated that Obama had the entire congressional leadership over to the White House to discuss Afghanistan.
Our Caren Bohan checked in with a senior administration official who confirmed that Obama’s comment that the decision-making process “won’t be leisurely” was made in the president’s wrapup comments and not immediately after McCain spoke.
Democratic Senator Carl Levin responded more directly to McCain’s comments, according to the official. Levin said that Obama was entitled to take the time he needs to make the decision and he pointed out that President George W. Bush took three months to make a decision about whether to boost troops in Iraq.
Isn’t it time to bring them home where they belong? I hope this doesn’t become the new Iraq….:(
FBI stresses that it gets along with NYPD
When U.S. law enforcement authorities launched a series of raids in New York City that culminated in the arrest of an Afghan-born airport shuttle driver (Najibullah Zazi) for an alleged bombing plot, there was a fair bit of speculation afterward questioning whether the FBI or the New York Police Department bungled the investigation by acting too early.
But at a Senate committee hearing, Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Robert Mueller insisted that the two organizations were getting along despite the reports which he said were exaggerated.
“I believe our relations are exceptionally good, as good as they’ve been in a long time,” he told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
However, Mueller got a bit heated when he was pressed by Democratic Senator Carl Levin on whether there was a problem and whether he would have done things differently given the chance.
At first Mueller tried to gently dodge the question, noting that in every investigation some steps they take may or may not work out, especially in a fast moving situation like the Zazi case.
But Levin persisted and Mueller’s replies got testier as they talked over each other.
Levin asked if there was something that someone should have done or not done, or any lessons to be learned.
McCain says troop increase in Afghanistan needed
Republican Senator John McCain is clashing with Democratic Senator Carl Levin over Levin’s comments that he does not want to send additional troops to Afghanistan.
McCain, the ranking minority member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told Reuters a surge is needed like was done in Iraq and that Levin’s recommendations remind him of how then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld tried to fight the Iraq war — “He thought that we could win on the cheap and at one point the entire Iraqi army collapsed,” McCain said.
“So in all due respect to Senator Levin and the others, we have to have a significant troop increase, otherwise we’re going to lose.”
McCain also took a dim view of the Obama administration’s lengthy deliberations on the issue, calling it “slow-rolling the whole issue.”
As for White House spokesman Robert Gibbs’ comment that no decision should be expected for “many, many weeks,” McCain called that “kicking the can down the road.”
“And they’re doing a disservice to the brave men and women who are there now, because right now we’re not winning and therefore we are losing. And we are putting Americans in harm’s way without a strategy for victory,” he said.
What about polls saying Americans have doubts about the Afghanistan war? “I understand their fatigue and I understood their fatigue before we changed the strategy in Iraq and we can win if we stay the course and we cannot afford to lose,” he said.
Eric. Well, that’s all fine and dandy. You were smart enough to be an intelligence officer. Well, I know a little bit about military intelligence (not just someone who was approached, but never experienced…) and it is an inexact science. It is an insult that you think intelligence officers are “dishonest” (I know many fine people in that line of work). You are quite the elitist fool. You have no idea what you are talking about. The reality is they make decisions and estimates from the “best” available information. I don’t really care if it was the Bush administration that briefed the democrats. You are smart enough to know they did their own due diligence to arrive at the same conclusion. It was not a “oh, okay George, if that’s what you say…”. I stand by my original statement that democrats and world leaders said the same thing. And that is a fact.
You have no idea whether or not we would be out of any conflict now had the US followed your line of thought on the war in Afghanistan. No war has ever been cut and dry and you know it. It’s always easy to 20/20 hindsight anything. Anyone who has studied and experienced military operations knows that. The “fog of war” is a fact of life in any confict.
As for always defending Bush. Well, once again you only see what you want to see. I said, and will not explain why agaiin, that criticizing the prosecution of the war is fair. But he didn’t lie about the WMDs. There are a lot of democrat and world leaders how are liars too. If you were fair, you would say they are all liars, but you won’t. Your “unbending” criticism of Bush is obvious…100 percent.
