Afghanistan: Eikenberry and Biden vs. Everyone Else

Ray McGovern, former spy and now CIA critic, writes that Ambassador Eikenberry (along with Joe Biden) is about the only person in the Administration to come out looking good on the Afghanistan issue:

Before retiring from the Army, Lt. Gen. Eikenberry had done two tours in the thick of things there. During 2002-2003 he had the unenviable task of trying to rebuild the Afghan National Army and police forces. He then served 18 months (2005-2007) as commander of all U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

In a cable from Kabul on November 9, 2009, Eikenberry took strong issue with “a proposed counterinsurgency strategy that relies on a large, all-or-nothing increase in U.S. troops.” He noted that there were “unaddressed variables” in the Pentagon plan for further escalation, like “Pakistan sanctuaries and weak Afghan leadership,” that could “block us from achieving our strategic goals, regardless of the number of additional troops we may send.” Eikenberry specifically warned that there could be “no way to extricate ourselves.”

He insisted on the need to bring “all the real-world variables to bear in testing the proposed counterinsurgency plan.” Confident that an honest intelligence estimate would issue similar cautions, he pleaded for a “comprehensive, interdisciplinary analysis of all our strategic options.”

Eikenberry could hardly have been more blunt in warning against a premature decision for a troop increase, arguing, “there is no option but to widen the scope of our analysis and to consider alternatives beyond a strictly military counterinsurgency effort within Afghanistan.”

According to Woodward, Gen. David Petraeus dismissed Eikenberry’s proposal as “laughably late in the game.” Though the ambassador had “reasonable concerns,” Petraeus felt they had all been asked and answered.

Eikenberry had already incurred the wrath of Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen in a cable of November 6, in which he wrote, “ I cannot support [the Defense Department’s] recommendation for an immediate Presidential decision to deploy another 40,000 here.” Eikenberry went on to adduce six game-changing facts. Taking into account any one of them, much less all combined, showed such escalation to be a fool’s errand.

Mullen reportedly reacted very strongly, saying, “This is a betrayal of our system.” In Mullen’s world, if you dare cross what the top brass has already decided, you are a betrayer! No comment could point up better the pitfalls of ceding determining roles in strategic decision making to four-stars officers with died-in-the-wool notions of the requirements of military discipline—even in what should have been free brainstorming of possible alternative courses.