U.S. Commander's Aide: Taliban Not Winning

A spokesman for the commanding general in Afghanistan, Stanley McChrystal, admits the Taliban is gaining momentum in new areas, but he denies insurgents are winning the war, reports CBS News correspondent Mandy Clark.

Gen. McChrystal told the Wall Street Journal for an interview published Monday that coalition forces face "a very aggressive enemy," and that Taliban militants are gaining momentum in new areas, particularly northern and western Afghanistan.

"The commander did not say the Taliban was winning in his interview with the Wall Street Journal, as suggested by the headline," said Rear Admiral Gregory J. Smith in a statement Tuesday.

"He explained that International Security Assistance Forces are facing an aggressive enemy, employing complex tactics that are gaining momentum in some parts of Afghanistan. During the course of the interview he also observed that insurgents in Afghanistan face their own problems in terms of popularity, cohesiveness and ability to sustain morale and fighting capacity," Smith, the communications director for coalition forces in Afghanistan.

CBS News chief foreign affairs correspondent Lara Logan spoke to one of McChrystal's top aides on Monday about the Journal's report. He emphasized that the commander was speaking about Taliban advances in a very specific context.

"In certain parts of the country, in the eyes of the people, the Taliban have gained the upper hand, but this does not apply to the whole of Afghanistan," .

"They hold greater sway over some places, looking at all of that in concert, one may say that the Taliban is doing quite well," said CBS News security analyst Juan Zarate.

Gen. McChrystal warned that casualty figures would remain high for months as forces push further into Taliban strongholds in the South.

Driving that point home, NATO announced Tuesday morning that three American troops had been killed in Afghanistan's southern Helmand province in unrelated incidents. No further information on the latest casualties was immediately available.

The U.S. commander's comments came as a top military adviser called for 45,000 additional troops to combat the insurgency - that would bring the American military presence in Afghanistan to about 100,000.

Insurgent attacks have increased by almost 60 percent during the last eight months alone, and with the Afghan presidential elections just nine days away, the threat is only expected to increase.

Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, told Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith on Tuesday that President Obama really doesn't have any good options right now on the Afghan battlefront, "if by good you mean something in the short run that is going to turn this thing around. That's simply not in the cards."

"We're looking at something very long and very difficult," added Haass.

Haass said that, with his policy of ramping up America's troop presence in Afghanistan, Mr. Obama is "trying to push the Taliban back."

"He wants to buy time and space to build up the police forces and the armed forces of the government of Afghanistan. The real question is how well does this work?

Will the Afghans prove able to be built up, and will we, the United States, have the staying power? We're not talking about months. We're talking about years, conceivably even a decade," said Haass.