General Petraeus Recommends Taking Some Time On Afghan Strategy

by: Chris LeJeune

Sat Nov 14, 2009 at 13:53:17 PM EST

WASHINGTON, Nov. 13, 2009 - The time President Barack Obama is taking to nail down the strategy in Afghanistan is time well spent, the commander of U.S. Central Command said today.

Army Gen. David H. Petraeus spoke at the Navy Memorial here as part of the American Veterans Center Annual Conference. He based his words not only on his current experiences, he said, but also on his experiences as the commander in Iraq.

In Iraq, getting the right strategy was just as important as the surge in personnel, the general said. "The real key in Iraq was the surge of ideas, not just the surge of troops," Petraeus said. "Yes, the 30,000 additional troops that ended up being deployed during the surge enabled us to ... implement time-honored counterinsurgency concepts more effectively and more rapidly than we could have."

As attention shifts to Afghanistan, Petraeus said, people must remember that Afghanistan is not Iraq.

At the same time, General Petraeus recognized the various difficulties and unique issues faced in Afghanistan, some of the mistakes of the past, and the need to take all of these situations into account.

All this goes into the president's decision on the strategy in Afghanistan and the number of forces needed to institute it, Petraeus said, and he added that the decision-making process is good and healthy for the leaders and the country.

When the Iraq and Afghan strategies were first formulated in this administration in March, he said, the process was rushed. The current process has allowed Obama to engage in forming the process in a way he did not before, the general said.

"There have been very good debates, very good discussion," he said. "This is the kind of intellectual discourse you want. It does sharpen your thinking. It does expose differences of opinion. It helps you come to grips with the assumptions."

The president has committed an enormous amount of time to the process, and it is an appropriate use of his time, Petraeus said. "This decision will be forthcoming pretty soon, perhaps when he comes back from the Asia trip, and then we will all press forward," he said. "And I think we will do so with enormous benefit from having had these discussions."