Obama’s Afghanistan Strategy To Include “Benchmarks” and “Off-Ramps,” Announcement Next Week

By Devin Dwyer
@devindwyer
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After a final two-hour meeting of his war council last night that an official described as “intense…everyone got to say their final peace,” President Obama is expected to address the nation in prime time a week from today, Tuesday, December 1, to announce his new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. “After completing a rigorous final meeting, President Obama has the information he wants and needs to make his decision and he will announce that decision within days,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said early Tuesday morning. The president told aides he has a “pretty good idea of where I want to go,” a senior White House official told ABC News. Though the president has yet to pull the final trigger, officials expect him to select a strategy of sending approximately 34,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan, officials said.  Troops would begin deploying early next year. NATO is also expected to kick in troops — maybe 5,000 to 10,000. There is a NATO force conference in early December. “This is not a nation-building strategy,” a senior White House official says. Key to the president’s decision, this official underlined: the off-ramps the President pressed the Pentagon for a couple weeks ago. The strategy will have benchmarks measuring Afghanistan’s political and military progress, and if those standards are not met, there are exit strategies for the withdrawal of US troops that can and will be enacted. The last three war council meetings have “not been just about sending more troops in, they’ve been about getting them out,” the official says. As is customary, the announcement is expected to be followed by lobbying and testimony on Capitol Hill by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen.
Of note in this photo from last night’s meeting: Office of Management and Budget director Peter Orszag’s presence, second from the right, reflecting budgetary concerns raised in recent weeks. President Obama has been insisting that the cost of each strategy is included, and House Ways & Means Chair David Obey, D-Wis., and Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., have in recent days discussed a war tax to pay for the new operation. Budget officials say the overall average cost for sending new troops to Afghanistan works out to approximately $1 million per troop. Here is my report from “Good Morning America” this morning: -jpt