Petraeus Says Afghan Pullout Is Beyond What He Advised

Nytimes
June 23, 2011
By MARK MAZZETTI and SCOTT SHANE

WASHINGTON — Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American commander in Afghanistan, said Thursday that President Obama’s new schedule for drawing down forces there was “more aggressive” than he had recommended and increased the risk that the military would not meet all its goals.

But General Petraeus, pressed for his personal views at a Senate hearing on his nomination as director of central intelligence, said the president had to consider many factors beyond the battlefield and that he fully accepted Mr. Obama’s plan. It would bring home 33,000 troops by September 2012 and withdraw the remaining 68,000 by the end of 2014.

“There are broader considerations beyond those just of a military commander,” General Petraeus told the Senate Intelligence Committee. “The commander in chief has decided, and it is then the responsibility, needless to say, of those in uniform to salute smartly and to do everything humanly possible to execute it.”

He said he had received some e-mails suggesting that he resign if he disagreed with the president’s decision, which would require troops to depart before the end of next year’s fighting season. “I’m not a quitter,” he said, noting that the troops under his command do not have the option of walking off the job, and that a general should take such a step only in a “dire” situation.

The general’s comments echoed those earlier in the day of Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, about the military’s preference for a slower withdrawal. But Admiral Mullen added, “No commander ever wants to sacrifice fighting power in the middle of a war.”

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who other officials said had also expressed concern about the speed of the withdrawal, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Mr. Obama’s decision had followed “a very open, candid discussion within the national security team” in which “people forthrightly presented their own views.”

She said the United States was able to withdraw the troops from “a position of strength” because of the progress that had been made. She cited a large increase in school enrollment — from 900,000 boys under the Taliban to more than seven million children today, 40 percent of them girls — and a 22 percent decrease in infant mortality.

“Despite the many challenges that remain,” she said, “life is better for most Afghans.”

As his aides defended his decision in Washington, Mr. Obama traveled to Fort Drum, N.Y., to meet with about 200 members of the 10th Mountain Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team, briefly addressing soldiers before posing for photographs and shaking hands.

“Now, last night, I gave a speech in which I said that we have turned a corner where we can begin to bring back some of our troops,” Mr. Obama said. “We’re not doing it precipitously. We’re going to do it in a steady way to make sure that the gains that all of you helped to bring about are going to be sustained.”

He added, “Because of you, we’re now taking the fight to the Taliban instead of the Taliban bringing the fight to us.”

As Mr. Obama’s nominee to take over the C.I.A., General Petraeus faced the Senate panel in an awkward position: he is the leading champion of a counterinsurgency strategy, which requires large numbers of troops, from which the White House is gradually turning away.

Yet in moving to the C.I.A., he will take command of the spy agency that has become central to the Obama administration’s counterterrorism efforts, carrying out hundreds of missile strikes from unmanned drone aircraft over Pakistan. Administration officials have hailed the drone program’s achievements in weakening Al Qaeda as part of the justification for drawing down troops in Afghanistan.

Because the drone program remains classified, it was barely discussed at the hearing. One of the few surprises in three hours of testimony came when Senator Roy Blunt, Republican of Missouri, said he wanted to discuss drones.

There was a hush as aides and senators whispered about the potential security breach. General Petraeus then answered by reference to the military’s drone strikes in Afghanistan, which are not classified.

General Petraeus, who is expected to win Senate confirmation easily, would take over the C.I.A. at a time of close collaboration between the spy agency and the Pentagon, so close that some have raised concerns about the blurring boundaries between soldiers and spies.

He pledged that he would maintain “relentless pressure” on Al Qaeda as C.I.A. director, continuing close collaboration between the agency and the military’s Joint Special Operations Command, which carried out the raid last month that killed Osama bin Laden.

“Needless to say, support for ongoing efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as for missions in other locations such as Yemen, Iraq, and parts of Africa, will remain critical,” he said.

He addressed head-on concerns that have been raised about his move to the spy agency, including the worry that he will be in the position of “grading his own work” in shaping C.I.A. assessments of conditions in Afghanistan.

He conceded that twice in recent years he offered more optimistic assessments about Iraq and Afghanistan than those of the C.I.A., but he said that on two other occasions he had offered a bleaker view than those of civilian intelligence analysts. “My goal has been to speak truth to power,” he said.

Some experts have questioned whether his career ascending through the military’s rigid hierarchy makes him ill equipped to run a spy agency populated by eccentrics who resent authority and bristle at direct orders. His time at Princeton earning a doctorate, General Petraeus assured the senators, made him comfortable with “vigorous debate and discussion.”

He went out of his way to praise the “quiet professionals and unsung heroes” of the C.I.A. and said he would work to defuse any resentment of his military background. He said he would formally retire from the military before arriving at C.I.A. headquarters, would not bring his military aides to the agency and would make a point of eating lunch in the cafeteria and soliciting the opinions of rank-and-file analysts.

Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California and chairwoman of the Intelligence Committee, praised General Petraeus’s letter to American forces in Iraq in 2007 directing them to uphold American values by treating prisoners humanely. At the time, the letter was interpreted by some as implicitly critical of the C.I.A.’s earlier use of waterboarding and other brutal interrogation methods, in a program now under criminal investigation by the Justice Department.

But General Petraeus said he wanted to be an “advocate” for the agency and that it was “time to take the rear-view mirrors off the bus” and stop rehashing the debate over torture, a position also taken by Leon Panetta, who is stepping down as C.I.A. director to become secretary of defense.

“I, as the potential leader of the agency, would like us to focus forward,” General Petraeus said.

Thom Shanker, Steven Lee Myers and Jackie Calmes contributed reporting.