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U.S. AMBASSADOR TO AFGHANISTAN WARY OF ADDITIONAL TROOPS DEPLOYMENT

U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl W. Eikenberry previsiously served
as the top military commander in Afghanistan.

BY ELISABETH BUMILLER and MARK LANDLER
The New York Times

WASHINGTON — The United States ambassador to Afghanistan, who once served as the top American military commander there, has expressed in writing his reservations about deploying additional troops to the country, three senior American officials said Wednesday.

The position of the ambassador, Karl W. Eikenberry, puts him in stark opposition to the current American and NATO commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who has asked for 40,000 more troops.

Mr. Eikenberry sent his reservations to Washington in a cable last week, the officials said. In that same period, President Obama and his national security advisers have begun examining an option that would send relatively few troops to Afghanistan, about 10,000 to 15,000, with most designated as trainers for the Afghan security forces.

This low-end option was one of four alternatives under consideration by Mr. Obama and his war council in a meeting in the White House Situation Room on Wednesday afternoon. The other three options call for troop levels of around 20,000, 30,000 and 40,000, these people said.

Mr. Obama asked Mr. Eikenberry about his concerns during the meeting Wednesday, officials said, and also raised questions about each of the four military options and how they might be tinkered with or changed. A central focus of Mr. Obama’s questions, officials said, was how on long it would take to see results and be able to withdraw.

“He wants to know where the off-ramps are,” said one official.

The officials, who requested anonymity to discuss delicate White House deliberations, did not describe Mr. Eikenberry’s reasons for opposing additional American forces. Mr. Eikenberry was appointed ambassador to Afghanistan by Mr. Obama in January.

But during two tours in Afghanistan — from 2005 to 2007, when he served as the top American commander, and from 2002 to 2003, when he was responsible for building and training the Afghan security forces — Mr. Eikenberry encountered what he later described as the Afghan government’s dependence on Americans to do the job that then-President George W. Bush was urging the Afghans to begin doing themselves.

Pentagon officials said the low-end option of 10,000 to 15,000 more troops would mean little or no significant increase in American combat forces in Afghanistan. The bulk of the additional forces would go to train the Afghan army, with a smaller number focused on hunting and killing terrorists, the officials said.

The low-end option would essentially reject the more ambitious counterinsurgency strategy envisioned by General McChrystal, which calls for a large number of forces to protect the Afghan population, work on development projects and build up the country’s civil institutions.

It would largely deprive General McChrystal of the ability to send large numbers of American forces to the southern provinces in Afghanistan where the Taliban control broad swaths of territory. And it would limit the number of population centers the United States could secure, officials said.

Mr. Eikenberry, a retired lieutenant general, crossed paths with General McChrystal during his second tour in Afghanistan, when General McChrystal led the military’s Joint Special Operations Command, which conducted clandestine operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Their relationship, a senior military official said last year, was occasionally tense as General McChrystal pushed for approval for commando missions, and General Eikenberry was resistant because of concerns that the missions were too risky and could lead to civilian casualties.

It was unclear whether Mr. Eikenberry, who participated in the Afghanistan policy meeting at the White House on Wednesday by video from Kabul, had been asked by the White House to put his views in writing. It was also unclear how persuasive they will be with Mr. Obama.

A spokesman for the State Department declined to comment, while a spokesman for Mr. Eikenberry in Kabul could not be reached for comment late Wednesday.

Administration officials say that that in recent meetings on Afghanistan at the White House, the president has repeatedly asked whether a large American force might undercut the urgency of the training of the Afghan security forces and persuading them to fight more on their own.

As Mr. Obama nears a decision, the White House is dispatching officials to brief allies and other countries on an almost weekly basis. The administration’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard C. Holbrooke, is heading to Paris, Berlin, and Moscow. Other officials in his office are meeting with Chinese officials in Beijing.

While the meeting on Wednesday was viewed as important in leading to a decision, one senior official cautioned that Mr. Obama could always change his mind before announcing the new policy. He is expected to mull over his options during a trip to Asia that begins Thursday.

Mr. Obama is due back in Washington on Nov. 19. He could announce the policy before Thanksgiving, officials said, but is more likely to make the announcement in early December.

Mr. Eikenberry, a retired lieutenant general, has been an energetic envoy, traveling widely around the country to meet with tribal leaders and to inspect American development projects.

He has been pushing the State Department for additional civilian personnel in Afghanistan, including in areas like agriculture, where the United States wants to help wean farmers off cultivating poppies. The State Department has tried to accommodate his requests, according to a senior official, but has turned down some because of budget constraints and its desire to cap the overall civilian numbers in Afghanistan at roughly 1,000.

He played a significant role, along with Senator John F. Kerry, in persuading Mr. Karzai to accept the results of an election commission, which called for a run-off ballot. That vote never took place because Mr. Karzai’s main opponent, Abdullah Abdullah, subsequently withdrew from the contest.

But Mr. Eikenberry also angered Mr. Karzai early in the campaign when he appeared at news conferences called by three of the president’s opponents. Mr. Karzai, American officials said, viewed that as an inappropriate intrusion into Afghanistan’s domestic politics.

The White House Afghanistan meeting lasted from 2:30 p.m. to 4:50 p.m., and was Mr. Obama’s eighth session in two months on the subject.

A few hours before the meeting began, the president walked through the rain-soaked grass at Arlington National Cemetery, stopping by Section 60, where troops from Iraq and Afghanistan are buried.

It was Mr. Obama’s first Veteran’s Day since taking office, and in an address at the cemetery he hailed the sacrifice and determination of the nation’s military.

“In this time of war, we gather here mindful that the generation serving today already deserves a place alongside previous generations for the courage they have shown and the sacrifices that they have made,” he said.

Mark Mazzetti, David E. Sanger, Jeff Zeleny and Eric Schmitt contributed to this report.

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