Robert Gates said goodbye to the Pentagon yesterday after serving two presidents and spending nearly five years as defense secretary. On his final day, President Obama surprised Gates with a Medal of Freedom. Leon Panetta takes over today after serving as CIA director since February 2009. He’ll be replaced at the CIA by Gen. David Petraeus, who won Senate confirmation on a 94-0 vote Thursday.
The nation’s two highest-ranking military commanders have gone on record raising serious concerns about President Obama’s flawed plan to bring 33,000 troops home from Afghanistan by September 2012. The outgoing Commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, said during Senate hearings last week that the troop withdrawal was “a more aggressive formulation…than what we had recommended.” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen echoed Petraeus when he noted the danger in moving U.S. troops out of Afghanistan too quickly, saying it will “incur …
General David Petraeus testified before Congress last week that progress is being made on the ground in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, American public support for the war is at an all time low. In the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on March 15, the mood was generally optimistic. General Petraeus expressed the need for a continued commitment to the counter-insurgency strategy that is proving effective. U.S. strategy in Afghanistan is not only centered on military actions to eradicate al-Qaeda and Taliban safe havens; it is designed to build the infrastructure and democratic …
Today’s front-page Washington Post story on Bob Woodward’s book, Obama’s Wars, scheduled for release next week, provides disturbing revelations about President Obama’s views on terrorism and his lack of commitment to securing Afghanistan. The book apparently details how Obama is desperately seeking to get out of the war in Afghanistan, regardless of the consequences for U.S. national security, and is quoted as telling Woodward, “We can absorb a terrorist attack.” The article reveals that during the drawn-out Afghanistan strategy review last fall, Obama was more interested in mapping out an …
General Petraeus laid out clear-cut benchmarks that would indicate signs of progress with the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan in the lead up to the December review at an inter-agency meeting at the White House on Monday, according to today’s New York Times. In addition to the number of Afghan forces trained and military operations against key Taliban strongholds, he pointed to local security initiatives run by the Afghan police, the pace of reintegration of former members of the Taliban, and success of attacks carried out by U.S. Special Operations Forces …
In December 2009, President Barack Obama delivered his long-awaited decision on the way forward in the War in Afghanistan and pledged 30,000 additional troops for the effort under the condition that they would begin to come home in 18 months. While praising the President’s decision to send more troops, conservative lawmakers blasted the President’s announcement of a deadline for withdrawal, arguing that it would undermine our allies and embolden our enemies. Yesterday, the President’s policy met with another high profile critic, retiring U.S. Marine Gen. James Conway, who told reporters …
The posting of over 90,000 classified US government documents by Wikileaks has raised fresh questions about the US strategy in Afghanistan. Leaking of classified information, particularly on this scale, has the potential to damage US national security interests and in general should be discouraged. Much of the information from the classified US government documents released over the weekend by Wikileaks was already known to those observing the war over the last nine years. The challenges the US faces in fighting a counterinsurgency war in Afghanistan and in obtaining full Pakistani …
Gen. David Petraeus, former commander of Multi-National Force-Iraq and soon-to-be commander of U.S. Central Command, spoke at Heritage this morning. The full video of his presentation is available below. Live Videos by Ustream UPDATE — Oct. 9, 2:25 p.m. For those of you who had a hard time reading the PowerPoint presentation on the screen, we’ve embedded it below. Gen. David Petraeus Presentation At Heritage View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: military surge)
At the Presidential debate Friday in Oxford, Mississippi, John McCain emphasized “how tough that terrain is” on the Pakistan Afghan border, and that “we have to get the cooperation of the people in those areas.” An incident last week underscored how right he was on both counts. On Thursday two U.S. helicopters supporting a U.S.-Afghan ground patrol inside Afghanistan’s Khost Province were fired upon by Pakistani forces who believed they had crossed into Pakistan airspace. Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he was …
