USA: U.S. lawmakers call for end to U.S. presence in Afghanistan during Crocker confirmation hearing

Record ID: 722332

  • Title: USA: U.S. lawmakers call for end to U.S. presence in Afghanistan during Crocker confirmation hearing
  • Date: 9th June 2011
  • Summary: UNIDENTIFIED LOCATION IN AFGHANISTAN) (FILE) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF MILITARY GUNFIRE
  • Embargoed: 24th June 2011 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Usa, Usa
  • Country: USA
  • Topics: War / Fighting,Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA1HRV45E551T6E81X049B5S83O
  • Story Text: U.S. lawmakers called for a reduced U.S. role in Afghanistan on Wednesday (June 8) piling pressure on the Obama administration to accelerate the end to a long, costly war as it debates an initial drawdown this summer.
    Ryan Crocker, the one-time U.S. ambassador to Iraq and Pakistan whom President Barack Obama tapped as the new envoy in Kabul, described military progress that Obama's surge of 30,000 troops had enabled in the Taliban's southern heartland but said gains were reversible.
    Crocker, who earned a reputation for effective diplomacy and granular knowledge of a complicated region at the height of Iraq's sectarian war, vowed to work to improve the record of U.S. aid in Afghanistan and to endeavor to curb corruption.
    "If Iraq was hard -- and it was hard -- Afghanistan in many respects is harder." Crocker said.
    He told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee if confirmed, "I will give you an honest assessment of what conditions and situations are, what are achievable ways forward and what may not be achievable."
    The appointment of Crocker, whose predecessor Karl Eikenberry had strained ties with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, is part of Obama's bid to boost U.S. leverage in Kabul and to energize nascent peace talks with the Taliban.
    A multibillion-dollar U.S. aid program will be a major focus for Crocker, especially as the administration seeks to defend costly civilian efforts there against budget cuts.
    The hearing comes a day after Senate Democrats released a report that warned the benefits of U.S. foreign aid for Afghanistan could melt away with the planned troop drawdown.
    Crocker called for realistic goals about what can be achieved in Afghanistan, one of the world's poorest countries.
    "There is no intention to produce the perfect society. We can't," Crocker said. "But through a judicious use of resources ... we can get to that sustainable stability."
    Senate Foreign Relations committee members voiced concern about the durability of soldiers' successes in southern Afghanistan and noted that attacks had surged along the eastern border with Pakistan.
    "Despite ten years of investment ... we remain in a cycle that produces relative progress but fails to deliver a secure political or military resolution," said Senator Richard Lugar, the committee's ranking Republican.
    Senator James Risch told Corcker "I'm very skeptical about how we're going to be able to end this." "This is very very difficult and to articulate what our objectives are and what our goals are and how this is going to end with us achieving those is very very difficult to grasp."
    After the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, congressional opposition has quickly grown to a war that now costs over 110 billion U.S. dollars a year and has yet to yield decisive results on the battlefield or in marathon aid efforts.
    Against that backdrop, Obama looks set to announce that he will bring a sizable number of the 100,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan home starting in July.
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