Afghanistan Corrected: US Officials "Did We Say Victory? We May Have Exaggerated."
Wednesday, October 27, 2010 at 13:41
Was it really only 11 days ago that Carlotta Gall of The New York Times, fed the line by the US military, was declaring that the Taliban had been "routed" and that high-profile pundits like Slate's Fred Kaplan were effusive about the superiority of US intelligence and rockets?
Was it only this past weekend that General David Petraeus, the US commander in Afghanistan, was proclaiming a key victory in southern Afghanistan?
Oops.
This from Greg Miller in today's Washington Post:
An intense military campaign aimed at crippling the Taliban has so far failed to inflict more than fleeting setbacks on the insurgency or put meaningful pressure on its leaders to seek peace, according to U.S. military and intelligence officials citing the latest assessments of the war in Afghanistan.
Escalated airstrikes and special operations raids have disrupted Taliban movements and damaged local cells. But officials said that insurgents have been adept at absorbing the blows and that they appear confident that they can outlast an American troop buildup set to subside beginning next July.