WASHINGTON, March 27, 2009
Obama On Al Qaeda: Defeat And Dismantle
President Outlines New Afghanistan Strategy; Thousands More Soldiers Sent To Meet "Increasingly Perilous" Threat
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Play CBS Video Video Obama On Troops In Afghanistan Saying war in Iraq distracted from the effort in Afghanistan, President Obama announced his strategy to combat the Taliban and al Qaeda insurgents.
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Video Afghanistan 2.0 Thousands more U.S. soldiers will head to Afghanistan to train military there for the fight against al Qaeda now joining with forces in Pakistan, reports Bill Plante.
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Video Policy Change In Afghanistan President Obama will soon outline a new strategy for the war in Afghanistan. As Chip Reid reports, Obama wants to shift more responsibility to the Afghan army.
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President Barack Obama, accompanied by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, announces a new comprehensive new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Friday, March 27, 2009, in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House campus in Washington. (AP)
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Fast Facts Afghanistan Learn about the people, economy and history.
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Special Report First 100 Days Follow the Obama administration as it gets to work after the inauguration.
In a war that still has no end in sight, Mr. Obama said the fresh infusion of U.S. forces is designed to bolster the Afghan army and turn up the heat on terrorists that he said are plotting new attacks against Americans. The plan takes aim at terrorist havens in Pakistan and challenges the government there and in Afghanistan to show more results.
Mr. Obama called the situation in the region "increasingly perilous" more than seven years after the Taliban was removed from power in Afghanistan.
"If the Afghanistan government falls to the Taliban or allows al Qaeda to go unchallenged," Mr. Obama said, "that country will again be a base for terrorists."
(Read text of President Obama's remarks.)
He announced the troop deployment, as well as plans to send hundreds of additional civilians to Afghanistan, with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and top intelligence and national security figures at his side. The announcement followed a policy review Obama launched not long after taking office.
The 4,000 troops bolster the dispatch of an additional 17,000 forces to the war-weary nation.
Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai welcomed the additional help to train his country's army and police force, saying in a statement that Obama's strategy "will bring Afghanistan and the international community closer to success."
In Afghanistan, Taliban forces are preparing a "surge" of their own - in response to U.S. plans, reports CBS News chief foreign affairs correspondent Lara Logan. Here, they're practicing for a planned ambush on U.S. forces - parading their weapons for CBS News' camera.
Asked about U.S. plans to send more troops, the senior Taliban commander warned: "We don't care if they send 20,000 or 50,000. The more troops they send, the more casualties they suffer."
A consultant to the president's national security team, Dr. John Nagel, says they are well aware of the sacrifices it will take, Logan reports.
"They understand how hard this is going to be," Nagel said. "They understand this is going to be a long fight."
There are clear risks and costs to Mr. Obama's strategy.
Violence is rising. The war in Afghanistan saw American military deaths rise by 35 percent in 2008 as Islamic extremists shifted their focus to a new front with the West. Mr. Obama's plan will also cost many more billions of dollars.
And the president's plan includes no timeline for withdrawal of U.S. troops.
Yet Mr. Obama bluntly warned that the al Qaeda terrorists who masterminded the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks were actively planning further attacks on the United States from safe havens in Pakistan. And he said the Afghanistan government is in peril of falling to the Islamic militants of the Taliban once again.
"So I want the American people to understand that we have a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future," the president said.
"That is the goal that must be achieved," Mr. Obama added. "That is a cause that could not be more just. And to the terrorists who oppose us, my message is the same: we will defeat you."
Mr. Obama's plan will put more U.S. troops and money on the line. He said Pakistan and Afghanistan will be held to account, using benchmarks for progress, although those measures are just being developed and the consequences if not met remain unclear.
The president spoke just hours after a suicide bomber in Pakistan demolished a mosque packed with hundreds of worshippers attending Friday prayers near the Afghan border, killing at least 48 people and injuring scores more, in the bloodiest attack in Pakistan this year. Rising violence in Pakistan is fueling doubts about the pro-Western government's ability to counter Taliban and al Qaeda militants also blamed for attacks on Western troops in Afghanistan.
The Pakistani central government has relatively little control in some areas bordering Afghanistan and has tolerated or even ignored the creation of Taliban and al Qaeda havens inside Pakistan.
In a direct challenge, Mr. Obama said Pakistan must show a commitment to hunt down the extremists within its borders.
"We will insist that action be taken one way or another when we have intelligence about high-level terrorist targets," Mr. Obama said.
Mr. Obama called the mountainous border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan "the most dangerous place in the world."
"This is not simply an American problem - far from it," Mr. Obama said. "It is, instead, an international security challenge of the highest order. Terrorist attacks in London and Bali were tied to al Qaeda and its allies in Pakistan, as were attacks in North Africa and the Middle East, in Islamabad and Kabul. If there is a major attack on an Asian, European, or African city, it, too, is likely to have ties to al Qaeda's leadership in Pakistan."
The president added: "The safety of people around the world is at stake."
That strategy fits with Mr. Obama's operating premise - that the U.S. failed mightily in the years following the Sept. 11 terror attacks by focusing on Iraq instead of Afghanistan. He said he is sending in the 4,000 military trainers after military commanders watched their demand for such help go unmet for years.
His moves come ahead of a U.N. conference on Afghanistan next Tuesday in The Hague, where Clinton will join representatives from more than 80 countries. And Mr. Obama himself is attending a NATO meeting next week in France and Germany.
At that meeting, the U.S. expects some NATO coalition members to commit more forces to the flagging war in Afghanistan, Obama officials said Thursday. They did not provide specifics.
Roughly 65,000 international forces are in Afghanistan, more than half from the U.S.
One part of Mr. Obama's plan is to expose fractures in the Taliban in hopes of weakening it.
Administration officials say the most difficult part of their approach will be in dealing with Pakistan, an often chaotic place with an erratic relationship with the United States. The administration will seek to bolster the democratic government of Pakistan, and try to get the people of that country to see the U.S.-led effort as one that is in their interests.
Mr. Obama also will call for increasing aid to Pakistan as long as its leaders confront militants in the border region. The president will work with Congress on language to attach conditions to military aid, sources said.
The U.S. will launch an intensive and expanded diplomatic effort to gain international cooperation, including reaching out to Russia, China, India, Saudi Arabia and even Iran.
The 4,000 military trainers that Obama is sending to Afghanistan will come from 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. All the troops he is dispatching to Afghanistan, including the combat troops, will be there by fall.
© MMIX, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The secrets of tennis legend 
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See all 234 Commentssure there are so bad people that claim to be muslim. but the last time i checked,the people selling drugs,killing people in the street,stealing,raping babies,and molesting children in general,practicing homosexuality,and having abortions,were not muslim! take a look at yourself! nuff said.
sure there are so bad people that claim to be muslim. but the last time i checked,the people selling drugs,killing people in the street,stealing,raping babies,and molesting children in general,practicing homosexuality,and having abortions,were not muslim! take a look at yourself! nuff said.
Obama seeking Muslims for high administration positions
From the Denver Post:
In a bid to get more Muslim Americans working in the Obama administration, a book with resumes of 45 of the nation's most qualified - Ivy League grads, Fortune 500 executives and public servants, all carefully vetted - has been submitted to the White House.
The effort, driven by community leaders and others, including U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., was bumped up two weeks because White House officials heard about the venture, said J. Saleh Williams, program coordinator for the Congressional Muslim Staffers Association, who sifted through more than 300 names.
This is evidently the change Obama believes in.
Posted by hungry1968-15 at 6:00 AM : Mar 28, 2009
Well, thank goodness we're "pressing the reset button" and starting over with a clean slate now that we have Obama with Hillary backing him up.
We don't need to keep bringing up past presidents like Clinton anmore.
Or Reagan. Or Bush...
Obama is a nerd.
And Hillary is doing her best to look like Condi Rice during the Gulf War.
Talking about the treasury being plundered, have you seen the most massive spending spree ever for 66 days with not one thing to show for it but making freinds from AIG millionaires? Where have you been the last two months, One cabinet pick failure after another, most had the common sense to step down so more would not be dug up on them, but we still have Geithner, the tax crook, who will just not go away. He probley has a few more weeks before he is out of there himself. Hopefully Obama will have enough on the job training by then to get some people that know what they are doing.
Posted by specialty8 at 6:34 AM : Mar 28, 2009
Of the $2.3 TRILLION that you're claiming has been spent in the last 2 months, you do of course realize that $700 BILLION of that is Bush's TARP bailout, and the $500 BILLION 2009 appropriations bill that was SUPPOSED to be approved and passed LAST YEAR, but that Bush left for Obama to sign to appear to have spent less money on his watch, don't you? And you also realize that $210 BILLION was authorized to continue fighting "Bush's War" in Iraq, right?
Or do you oppose of the $800 BILLION dollar stimulus plan being spent on OUR infrastructure, that almost ALL economists said was a necessary evil?
Obama had no choice in accepting $1.4 TRILLION of what you're claiming "he spent". It was "spent" before he even took office.
Why don't you try getting ACTUAL information for a change?
Thank God the grownups are back in charge of our government!
Posted by specialty8 at 6:02 AM : Mar 28, 2009
Where the hell were you from 2001 - 2007, while our troops were being sacrificed, our diplomatic credibility squandered, and our treasury was being plundered?
that's right another "more of the same" from Obama. Lets spend our way to victory in Afghanistan with billions more dollars, escalating a religious civil war that history has proven we cannot win.
Posted by oftencensord at 6:01 AM : Mar 28, 2009
What "religious civil war" has been raging in Afghanistan and Pakistan?
that's right another "more of the same" from Obama. Lets spend our way to victory in Afghanistan with billions more dollars, escalating a religious civil war that history has proven we cannot win.
Posted by dongo3 at 4:16 AM : Mar 28, 2009
Maybe he should do like the traitor Reagan, and buy their favor with arms, ammo, and billions in foreign aid?
Thankfully, we have an AMERICAN president, and not some stumbling, bumbling redneck.
With the troops you have now committed to Afrans, we will have over 65,000 people there. You also intend to furnish billions in aid to both Pakistan and Afrans. Several points that need to be made: (1) virtually every time we have a military operation, there is collateral damage and innocents are killed or wounded. This really wipes out any good will our aid does cause. (2) There is widespread corruption in both governments. Very little of the funds sent to both countries will result in direct aid to the common folks there. Your own GAO has confirmed this fact. (3) If Afrans and Pakistan are so important why are not other countries making the same committment we are? Do they know something we do not?
(4) At some point, maybe it has already been reached, we are seen by the Afrans people as occupiers and they will (if they have not already) join the Taliban. This happened in Iraq. (5) Virtually all of the billions we will send will be borrowed funds. At what point is enough enough?
We do have the most military powerful forces in the world. Let's use this might to find and kill/kidnap OBL and punish the Taliban and then withdraw. Forget national building. We are lousy at that.
Posted by Thiefofhearts1 at 11:56 PM
I answered the call of a poet who moved me and touched my soul. I am glad for it and find myself anticipating the thief at my window's edge.
I must say goodnight now. Look for me in the stars as you rest. SnowgirlCoveredinDirt materializes for you only, no other.
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