On the public affairs shows yesterday the main topic was Afghanistan, which the President will address tomorrow night in a prime time address from West Point.
Although the emphasis in the media has been on how many additional troops the President will call for (with published reports indicating somewhere between 30,000 to 35,000), the question on many Senators minds is: how do we pay for this? and what's the exit strategy?
Just the idea of speaking about an exit strategy when announcing a new escalation of troops is troubling for some Republicans, such as Arizona's Jon Kyle, who said yesterday on Fox News Sunday that "Talk of an exit strategy is exactly the wrong way to go . I certainly hope the president doesn’t do that, because all that does is signal to the enemies and also to our allies, to the folks in Pakistan as well as the Afghanis, that we’re not there to stay until the mission is accomplished.”
But who picks up the tab? Especially in light of reports that it now costs the military (and thus the American taxpayer) $1 million a year per soldier. And since everybody is so concerned about the deficit, it makes sense to put that into the calculus.
Vermont independent Senator Bernie Sanders said on ABC's "This Week"that "“I’ve got a real problem about expanding this war where the rest of the world is sitting around and saying, ‘Isn’t it a nice thing that the taxpayers of the United States and the U.S. military are doing the work that the rest of the world should be doing?’"
There have been discussions about a surtax proposed by Wisconsin Representative David Obey, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, who said on CNN's "State of the Union" that "If we wind up being committed in Afghanistan for eight to 10 years, that’s also going to approach $800 billion to $900 billion. And if we’re going to do that, it seems to me that if we’re being told we have to pay for health care, we certainly ought to pay for this effort as well.”
But his fellow Democrat from Indiana, Senator Evan Bayh, sounded unenthusiastic about the plan, and South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham was plain dismissive of it, saying, "“This whole idea of, have we been spending enough — and the Afghan war is the problem — to me is ridiculous."
The Chairman of the Senate Armed Forces Committee, Michigan's Carl Levin, was insistent yesterday about the big picture in Afghanistan, which is: can that government and their military take care of themselves, ultimately?
In discussing what Obama will say Tuesday night, Levin said on CBS's "Face The Nation" that "“The key here is an Afghan surge, not an American surge. And if the president lays out the case for why our combat forces that are going particularly to the south will increase the speed-up of the Afghan Army, it seems to me that that would be very, very important. "
Levin said that he'd like more trainers, and less U.S. troops going into Afghanistan next year.
It is a big week for the President. Along with tomorrow night's speech, the Senate will resume this week discussions on the health care reform legislation that has been the signature domestic policy goal of the Administration this year, prompting White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel to tell the NY Times that, "“This is a momentous week within a momentous year. They’re not just challenges we’re faced with. They are challenges the country is faced with.”
Meanwhile, just in time for the Afghanistan speech, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is poised to release a new report which confirms what has been published in a variety of publications over the years: That the U.S. had a solid chance of capturing Osama Bin Laden in Tora Bora in December of 2001.
Like several previous accounts, the committee’s report blames Gen. Tommy R. Franks, then the top American commander, and Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the defense secretary, for not putting a large number of American troops there lest they fuel resentment among Afghans. General Franks, who declined to comment for the committee’s report, has at times questioned whether Mr. bin Laden was even at Tora Bora in late 2001.
When asked about this yesterday, Senator Levin said "there would be a good chance we would not have forces or need to have forces [in Afghanistan]."
This article appears in Nov 25 – Dec 1, 2009.