Afghan Strategy Not Working? Narrow Mission, Report Recommends

WASHINGTON, Nov. 13, 2010— -- As the Obama administration begins to review its Afghan war strategy, an independent task force on U.S. policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan is recommending a "more significant drawdown to a narrower military mission" if the current strategy does not begin showing signs of progress.

"To continue the current course in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and the sacrifices it entails, progress must be visible and timely," a report released Friday by the task force stated.

Although the task force, directed by the Council on Foreign Relations, offered a qualified endorsement of President Obama's approach to the region, including the expansion of U.S. assistance to Pakistan, the troop surge and July 2011 conditions-based drawdown, it highlighted "a number of potential problems with the policy."

"If the December 2010 review of U.S. strategy in Afghanistan concludes that the present strategy is not working, the Task Force recommends that a shift to a more limited mission at a substantially reduced level of military force would be warranted," CFR president Richard Haass wrote in the report's foreword.

However, the recommendation comes amid a recent drumbeat of positive assessments of the nine-year-old war effort by top Pentagon officials.

"I would hope that it would be that people would recognize that we're making progress in Afghanistan -- that this is worth doing and that the sacrifices our young men and women are making is, in fact, producing success," Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told ABC News earlier this week.

"It is just now that the strategy has been adequately resourced. Now it is being executed," Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen said Thursday in Los Angeles. "It is fairly chaotic in some areas and yet we've started to see some progress."