Afghanistan: General Petraeus v. President Obama, Part 542 (Bumiller)

While EA today is looking at the complications of the US counter-insurgency campaign, killing its allies and strengthening the "hard-line" Taliban, Elisabeth Bumiller of the New York Times is looking at the chatter in Washington, "Some Skeptics Questioning Reports in War Zone".

There's a wicked irony in Bumiller's article. It is pretty clear that her piece is fed by the White House and its allies, fighting back against military "spin", but the Times reporter never mentions how the media effort of US commander David Petraeus --- which has caused the fidgeting in the Obama camp --- was re-launched three weeks ago.

The reporter who trumpeted that the US military was "routing" the Taliban in southern Afghanistan was Carlotta Gall. Her newspaper? The New York Times.

The recent reports circulating in Washington’s national security establishment about the Afghan battleground of Marja show glimmerings of progress: bazaars are open, some 1,000 children are in school, and a new (and only) restaurant even serves goat curry and kebabs.

In Kandahar, NATO officials say that American and Afghan forces continue to rout the Taliban. In new statistics offered by American commanders in Kabul, Special Operations units have killed 339 mid-level Taliban commanders and 949 of the group’s foot soldiers in the past three months alone. At the Pentagon, the draft of a war assessment to be submitted to Congress this month cites a shift in momentum in some areas of the country away from the insurgency.

But as a new White House review of President Obama’s strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan gets under way, the rosy signs have opened an intense debate at the Defense Department, the White House, the State Department and the intelligence agencies over what they really mean. Are they indications of future success, are they fleeting and not replicable, or are they evidence that Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top United States and NATO commander in Afghanistan, is simply more masterful than his predecessor at shaping opinion?

At the White House, so far there is uncertainty and skepticism. “There are tactical cases which seem promising as discrete bits of evidence,” a senior White House official said in an interview over the weekend. “What’s not clear is whether those cases can be put together to create a strategic trend.” Marja, he added, “looks a lot better than two years ago. But how many Marjas do we need to do and over what time frame?”

The debate centers on the resiliency of the Taliban and the extent to which the group can rebuild from the hammering it is taking. Most involved say that there are positive trends for the Americans, but that the real answer will not be clear until a new fighting season begins as the weather warms next year.

“The fundamental question is how deep is their bench,” said Bruce Riedel, a former C.I.A. official and now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, who led last year’s extended White House review of Afghan strategy that resulted in Mr. Obama’s ordering 30,000 additional United States forces to the country. “By next summer we should have a pretty good idea. If they’re having trouble replacing people that we’re killing on the battlefield, then we’re on the right track. But if by next summer they’re producing new cadres that are on the same order of quality, then we’re in deep trouble.”

A related variable is the uneven quality of more than 250,000 members of the Afghan Army and police. “There’s absolutely no question that where Petraeus’s troops have moved, they have done the Taliban immense damage,” said Richard C. Holbrooke, the administration’s special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan. “What is not yet clear is whether it will be sustainable, and that will depend on the success of the effort to train the Afghan security forces.”

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