This article appeared in the Tarentum Valley News Dispatch on December 3, 2009. By Mike Wereschagin, Tribune-Review Staff-Writer.
As President Obama's aides arrived on Capitol Hill to sell the administration's Afghanistan war plan, a top House Democrat and defense appropriator questioned whether the United States should continue to focus on the country.
"I'm not sure there's a threat to our national security," said Rep. John Murtha, D-Johnstown.
Obama framed the war as one of necessity, saying the Asian nation cannot be allowed to again become the al-Qaida haven it was before 9/11. The military will deploy 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan by June and triple the number of civilian advisers there to more than 900.
Murtha, who chairs the powerful Defense Appropriations subcommittee through which the military gets money, spent Nov. 24 and 25 in Afghanistan, where he spoke with U.S. and British commanders.
He said they're changing their strategy from killing insurgents to winning over the population. It's the right method, Murtha said, but he doesn't believe Americans will support the war long enough for it to work.
"I do not see an achievable goal at this point," said Murtha. His concerns are that the war's cost weakens the country's economic influence and will lead to inflation, and that it's not an effective way to fight al-Qaida, whose diffuse network of terrorists can plot attacks in any number of countries.
The Taliban, which sheltered al-Qaida and which U.S. military and Afghan rebel forces ousted from power after the 9/11 attacks, has become resurgent in recent years. Pushed from the capital of Kabul to the rugged border region with Pakistan, a nuclear-armed state, the group threatens both countries.
"Defeating al-Qaida and enhancing Afghan security are mutually reinforcing missions," Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in prepared testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday. "They cannot be untethered from one another, as much as we might wish that to be the case."
Murtha will co-chair a hearing on Obama's war plan Dec. 10 at which Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and others are scheduled to testify.
"Maybe we will be with him, but I'm still not convinced," Murtha said.
According to the plan, troops would focus on population centers, partnering with Afghan forces and tribes to reverse Taliban fighters' momentum and give Afghans time to build their security capability.
Troops would begin to leave Afghanistan in July 2011, though the pace of withdrawal would depend on how the war is going, Obama said.
"This is too serious a situation for setting a timeline," said Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Upper St. Clair, who supports the troop buildup.
Though Murtha doesn't support the Afghan surge, he predicted Congress will not stand in the way. Murtha said the war likely will require a $40 billion supplemental spending bill next year.
By then, troops would be deployed, and the surge's foes don't want to vote against paying for them once they're overseas, said Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Forest Hills. He supports cutting the deployment and using targeted strikes against al-Qaida in Pakistan and elsewhere.
Some Democrats have asked House leaders for a vote to register their opposition, said Doyle, who fears the country is embarking on a campaign that will last interminably.
"I'm not prepared, and I don't think the American people are prepared, to see second-grade kids today fighting in Afghanistan 10, 15 years from today," Doyle said. "I just don't understand this strategy. ... I hope I'm wrong, but this just feels wrong to me."