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The Bush Administration "dithered" on Afghanistan - UPDATED
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On Thursday, Former Vice-President Dick Cheney accused the White House of "dithering" on Afghanistan strategy while "American armed forces were in danger."
It was a typical criticism for Cheney (or his daughter Liz, a new cable darling), who has accused the White House from the beginning of making America less safe. Even though these charges are completely baseless, they are heavily reported and worth refuting.
This charge, in particular, applies to his own White House. The Bush Administration--to use Cheney's effeminate verb--dithered on Afghanistan strategy on multiple occasions.
The White House was preoccupied with invading Iraq when Afghanistan needed an influx of American troops to defeat the Taliban and stabilize the country. Pakistani Journalist Ahmed Rashid wrote about their lack of focus in an essay last January:
Already intent on confronting Saddam Hussein, the Americans had no strategy for the day after the fall of the Taliban, for the moment when Afghanistan needed to be stabilised and rebuilt. Between 2001 and 2004 Washington did not have any comprehensive strategy for rebuilding the country or providing adequate security to its citizens beyond attempting to capture al Qa’eda fighters. The renascent Taliban in their Pakistani safe havens were ignored by America for too long, while the US lavished $12 billion on Pervez Musharraf, who pursued a dual strategy: going after al Qa’eda, but clandestinely supporting the Taliban.
And again the Administration "dithered" last spring, when the a renascent Taliban posed a threat to the country's security, Rashid wrote again in an essay earlier this month in The New York Review of Books:
US officials told me in April 2008 that President Bush had been warned by his military commanders that Afghanistan was going from bad to worse. More troops and money were needed; reconstruction was at a standstill; pressure had to be put on Pakistan; the elections in April 2009 should be indefinitely postponed. Bush ignored all the advice except for asking the Afghans to postpone the elections until August. He left everything else to his successor to sort out.
Though the former Vice-President says that Obama needs "to do what it takes to win," the Bush Administration--even when Afghanistan was starting to fall apart and Iraq looked relatively stable--did nothing. And the Afghan people bear the brunt of their inattentiveness.
UPDATE:
John Podesta, CEO and President of the Center for American Progress, went on ABC's This Week this morning, and said, "I have it from reliable sources that the principals in the Bush Administration spent one hour on that report before they handed it off to Obama." Cheney trumpeted this report as one that Obama had "dithered on." According to him, it was very thorough: "we dug into every aspect of Afghanistan policy, assembling a team that repeatedly went into the country, reviewing options and recommendations...They asked us not to announce the findings publicly, and we agreed, giving them the benefit of our work and the benefit of the doubt." Some report.
Questions? Comments? Rants? E-mail me at foreignpolicyexaminer@gmail.com
