Pentagon Doubts Grow on McChrystal War Plan

Pentagon Doubts Grow on McChrystal War Plan

Analysis by Gareth Porter*

WASHINGTON, May 10 (IPS) - Although Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal's plan for wresting the Afghan provinces of Helmand and Kandahar from the Taliban is still in its early stages of implementation, there are already signs that setbacks and obstacles it has encountered have raised serious doubts among top military officials in Washington about whether the plan is going to work.

Scepticism about McChrystal's ambitious aims was implicit in the way the Pentagon report on the war issued Apr. 26 assessed the progress of the campaign in Marja. Now, it has been given even more pointed expression by an unnamed "senior military official" quoted in a column in the Washington Post Sunday by David Ignatius.

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The same military official is also quoted as pointing out that parts of Helmand that were supposed to have been cleared by the offensive in February and March are in fact still under Taliban control and that Afghan government performance in the wake of the offensive had been disappointing, according to Ignatius.

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But the failure to clear Taliban guerrillas from areas where they have been strongest, along with the inability to break the power of Karzai's brother in Kandahar and the absence of support from the population and tribal elders for military occupation in the province, is likely to make administration officials highly sceptical of such a case.

McChrystal's staff has made no secret of their hope to convince the U.S. public that his strategy is making such progress in Helmand and Kandahar that it should be extended past mid-2011, when President Obama has said he would begin a U.S. military withdrawal and transition to Afghan responsibility for security.

After interviewing members of McChrystal's team in Kabul, pro-war journalist Robert Kaplan wrote in the April issue of Atlantic magazine, "The very prospect of some success by July 2011 increases the likelihood that U.S. forces will be in Afghanistan in substantial numbers for years."

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