Gates Says Afghan Plan Will Mix Various Proposals - NYTimes.com

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By ELISABETH BUMILLER and MARK LANDLER

President Obama hopes to combine the best elements from among the several proposals he is studying on sending additional troops to Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said on Thursday.

“I would say it was more, how can we combine some of the best features of several of the options to maximum good effect?” Mr. Gates told reporters.. “So there is a little more work to do, but I think we’re getting toward the end of the process.”

The president is known to be weighing at least four options for deploying more soldiers to Afghanistan: sending 10,000 to 15,000 troops, 20,000, or as many as 30,000 or 40,000. But Mr. Gates’s remarks on a flight from Washington to Wisconsin, where he was to tour a factory that makes armored vehicles, were a strong signal that the president is leaning toward more flexibility than the speculation about specific numbers might indicate.

Mr. Gates said a central focus in Mr. Obama’s deliberations was “how do we signal resolve, and at the same time signal to the Afghans, as well as the American people, that this is not an open-ended commitment?”

The latest clues about the president’s thinking, as provided by Mr. Gates, came a day after it was disclosed that 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.

The position of the ambassador, Karl W. Eikenberry, a retired lieutenant general, 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.

General Eikenberry sent his reservations to Washington in a cable last week, three senior American officials said on Wednesday. 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 at 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, the three officials said.

Mr. Obama asked General Eikenberry about his concerns during the meeting on Wednesday, officials said, and raised questions about each of the four military options and how they might be tinkered with or changed. Mr. Gates’s comments on Thursday reinforced the impression that Mr. Obama’s eventual choice may involve far more than just picking a certain number.

A central focus of Mr. Obama’s questions, officials said, was how long it would take to see results and be able to withdraw.

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

The president pushed for revisions in the options to clarify how — and when — American troops would turn over responsibility to the Afghan government. He raised questions, officials said, about the exit strategy for American troops and sought to make clear that the commitment by the Untied States would not be open-ended.

One of the biggest obstacles in reaching a decision, an official said, is uncertainty surrounding the credibility of the Afghan government.

The officials, who requested anonymity in order to discuss delicate White House deliberations, did not describe General Eikenberry’s reasons for opposing additional American forces, although he has recently expressed strong concerns about President Hamid Karzai’s reliability as a partner and corruption in his government. Mr. Obama appointed General Eikenberry as ambassador in January.

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 — General 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 areas of territory. And it would limit the number of population centers the United States could secure, officials said.

General Eikenberry 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 General Eikenberry, who participated in the Afghanistan policy meeting on Wednesday by video link from Kabul, the Afghan capital, 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 General Eikenberry in Kabul could not be reached for comment late Wednesday.

Administration officials say 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 training the Afghan security forces and persuading them to fight more on their own.

As Mr. Obama nears a decision, the White House is sending 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.

Mr. Obama is expected to mull over his options during a trip to Asia that begins Thursday. He is due back in Washington on Nov. 19 and could announce the policy before Thanksgiving, officials said, but is more likely to wait until early December.

General Eikenberry has been an energetic envoy, traveling widely around Afghanistan to meet with tribal leaders and to inspect American development projects.

He has been pushing the State Department for additional civilian personnel in the country, 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 number of civilians in Afghanistan at roughly 1,000.

He played a significant role, along with Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, in persuading Mr. Karzai last month to accept the results of an election commission, which called for a runoff presidential ballot.

That vote never took place because Mr. Karzai’s main opponent, Abdullah Abdullah, subsequently withdrew from the contest.

But General Eikenberry also angered Mr. Karzai early in the campaign when he appeared at news conferences called by three of Mr. Karzai’s opponents. American officials said Mr. Karzai 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 Veterans 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,” Mr. Obama said.

Mark Mazzetti, David E. Sanger, Jeff Zeleny and Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.

Gates, Police Officer Share Beers, Histories With President

By Cheryl W. Thompson, Krissah Thompson and Michael A. Fletcher
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, July 31, 2009

Two weeks after a noted black scholar accused a white police sergeant of racial profiling for arresting him at his home near Harvard University, the men hoisted mugs of beer Thursday evening at the White House with President Obama and Vice President Biden.

Henry Louis "Skip" Gates Jr. and Sgt. James Crowley of the Cambridge, Mass., police sat at a round table in the Rose Garden with Biden and Obama talking, sipping beer and munching peanuts and pretzels out of silver bowls. News cameras and reporters were kept 50 feet away and allowed to view the meeting for less than a minute before being shooed away as the men began their conversation.

It was an extraordinary scene that Obama's aides hoped would convey a hopeful message about race relations and end a controversy that has ballooned into a major distraction for a president pushing an ambitious agenda.

After the meeting, Crowley and a lawyer speaking for Gates said the two men were satisfied with the tone of the discussion. Speaking to reporters at a brief news conference, Crowley said that while there was "no tension" at the meeting, no apologies were offered either. "Two gentlemen agreed to disagree on a particular issue," he said.

Gates left without speaking to reporters, but his lawyer offered an upbeat assessment of the gathering. "Everybody left with the sense that we learned some things and we can make important changes," said Charles Ogletree, Gates's attorney and a professor at Harvard Law School. "It was a chance to make sure we hear the law enforcement and the community, and out of that will come more acceptance and realizing the differences are not that far apart."

Crowley said he and Gates agreed to be in touch by telephone and to meet again in the future.

"I am thankful to Professor Gates and Sergeant Crowley for joining me at the White House this evening for a friendly, thoughtful conversation," Obama said in a statement.

Before the meeting, the president said he had invited the men to the White House in an effort to lower the temperature on an incident that has become "so hyped and so symbolic."

Obama characterized the meeting as "having a drink at the end of the day and hopefully giving people an opportunity to listen to each other," Obama said. "That's really all it is."

But, aides acknowledged, the White House also saw it as an opportunity to quell a controversy that was beginning to eclipse coverage of important initiatives, including Obama's proposal to restructure the nation's health-care system.

The incident began to dominate news coverage after Obama accused police in Cambridge of "acting stupidly" when he was asked about the arrest of his friend Gates at a prime-time news conference July 22. Obama's comment catapulted the episode into a national controversy and cast the nation's first African American president in the uncomfortable role of taking sides in a racially tinged incident about which he acknowledged he did not know all the facts.

Obama's remarks prompted police union officials in Cambridge to call for an apology from the president, while civil rights leaders applauded him for addressing a problem that has touched the lives of many African Americans.

After initially dismissing the clamor over his remarks, Obama came before reporters less than 48 hours later to "recalibrate" his statement and make clear that he thought that both Crowley and Gates had "overreacted" during their confrontation.

Apparently, however, the president had already suffered some political damage. A new poll by the Pew Research Center found that 41 percent of Americans disapprove of the president's comments, compared with 29 percent who approve.

Gates, 58, was arrested in his Cambridge home on July 16 after Crowley responded to a 911 call about a possible burglary there. Gates had just returned from a trip to China and had trouble getting in his front door, and he and the Moroccan driver who retrieved him from the airport jimmied the lock and forced open the door. A woman who saw the men called police to report a possible break-in.

When Crowley arrived, he questioned whether Gates lived in the home and demanded identification. Gates became upset and the two got into a verbal altercation that ended with Gates's arrest on disorderly conduct charges. The charges were later dropped.

Thursday evening, the two men were in suit coats enjoying a beer with Obama and Biden, who were both in shirt sleeves as they sat in the Rose Garden. The men were served beer in glass mugs by White House butlers: Sam Adams Light for Gates and Blue Moon for Crowley, Bud Light for the president and Buckler for Biden.

Before the meeting, the men spent time getting to know each other and were accompanied by their families for a joint tour of the White House. As they talked, the two men focused on their families and their histories in Cambridge, Ogletree said. "It was forward-looking, not focused on the past," Ogletree said. "They were just trying to find some common ground. It was a very warm, frank and quite open discussion."

As Gates and Crowley met with Obama, Ogletree met with Alan McDonald, the lawyer for the police unions in Massachusetts, and other law enforcement representatives from Cambridge to talk about how both camps can work together.

The incident not only forced the issue of race and law enforcement into the national spotlight, but it also prompted police departments around the country to take a closer look at their training protocols.

"I will go over our racial profiling orders just to make sure we're doing everything according to the rules and regulations," said Atlanta Police Chief Richard Pennington. "It doesn't mean that anything's wrong with our rules, but this is a good time to go back and make sure officers are . . . affording people their civil rights."

John Foust, director of academic training for the D.C. police, said the Cambridge incident made the agency reassess its curriculum.

"It made us take a second look to make sure we have the important topics covered," Foust said.

The D.C. police department requires recruits to take courses in diversity and racial profiling, as well as hate and bias crimes.

Maj. Huey Thornton of the Montgomery, Ala., police said the Gates-Crowley incident is being discussed among officers and in staff meetings.

"I don't think any department would like to find themselves in a situation like that," Thornton said. "It shows the scope of what you're subject to get involved in while responding to calls for service. And whatever training you've received, it's what you should always rely on. That's the teachable moment."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/30/AR2009073003563.html

Obama Voices Regret to Policeman

By Michael A. Fletcher and Michael D. Shear
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, July 25, 2009

President Obama, attempting to quell a mushrooming racial controversy that threatened to eclipse his top domestic initiative, expressed regret Friday for saying that police "acted stupidly" by arresting black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. at his home near Harvard University.

Making a surprise appearance before reporters at the White House, Obama said that he had unwittingly fanned smoldering racial resentment with his response to a question at a news conference Wednesday night. The president said he conveyed that sentiment in a five-minute telephone call to Sgt. James Crowley, the police officer who arrested Gates after being called to the Harvard professor's home to check out a suspected burglary.

"I want to make clear that in my choice of words I think I unfortunately gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department or Sergeant Crowley specifically -- and I could have calibrated those words differently," Obama said. "And I told this to Sergeant Crowley."

The Wednesday comment had become politically costly for the nation's first African American president, who has sought to cast himself as a clear-eyed arbiter of the nation's racial divisions.

That image was challenged once before, in a controversy surrounding another Obama friend. When the racially charged sermons of the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. became a lightning rod, candidate Obama gave a rare speech that directly addressed the country's racial wounds, and he cast aside Wright, someone he had once called a father figure.

This week, as a growing clamor from conservative critics and police representatives painted Obama as siding with his friend Gates in a battle with the police in Cambridge, Mass., Obama moved swiftly to remove himself as a combatant.

The president said he continues to think the arrest was an "overreaction" by the officer, but he said Gates "probably overreacted as well."

"My sense is you've got two good people in a circumstance in which neither of them were able to resolve the incident in the way that it should have been resolved," Obama said, adding that he hoped the controversy would become a "teachable moment" for improving racial understanding.

Though he tried to remove the bite from his earlier statement, Obama described an uneasy relationship between African Americans and law enforcement.

"Because of our history, because of the difficulties of the past, you know, African Americans are sensitive to these issues," said Obama, who sponsored legislation to track the racial breakdown of drivers stopped by police when he was an Illinois state senator. "And even when you've got a police officer who has a fine track record on racial sensitivity, interactions between police officers and the African American community can sometimes be fraught with misunderstanding."

But the president rejected the notion that, as Crowley said Thursday, he was wrong to take a position on the incident. Any president, he insisted, has a responsibility to contribute constructively to the discussion of racial discord, which he called "a troubling aspect of our society."

"There are some who say that as president I shouldn't have stepped into this at all because it's a local issue. I have to tell you that that part of it I disagree with," he said. "Whether I were black or white, I think that me commenting on this and hopefully contributing to constructive -- as opposed to negative -- understandings about the issue is part of my portfolio."

The controversy has become a lesson for Obama's young presidency, reminding him of the raw sensitivities surrounding race and its ability to distract. Determined not to let the issue distract from the discussion of health care, his top domestic priority, Obama moved within 48 hours from shrugging off the controversy surrounding his comments to coming before the cameras to recalibrate them.

From the moment the word "stupidly" slipped through Obama's lips Wednesday night, debate over Gates's arrest became a polarizing national issue. Obama's top advisers said the president quickly became aware that his words had been received in a way he had not intended.

"We all read the newspapers," said David Axelrod, a senior adviser to Obama. "It was obvious from [Thursday] morning on that this discussion had taken on a life of its own."

The morning after the news conference, conservative blogs and police union representatives pummeled the president for not being more supportive of law enforcement. At first, the White House was publicly dismissive of the controversy.

In an interview with ABC News's "Nightline" on Thursday, Obama defended his words, saying that he was surprised at the controversy they had stirred. "I thought it was a pretty straightforward commentary that you probably don't need to handcuff a guy, a middle-aged guy who uses a cane, who's in his own home," he said.

On Thursday, just hours before Obama spoke to reporters, press secretary Robert Gibbs said the president had not made any attempt to talk to Gates, Crowley or anyone else involved in the case.

"If he realized how much of a overall distraction and obsession it would be, I think he would probably regret distracting you guys with obsessions," Gibbs said.

He added: "I think he's said what he's going to say on this."

Aides would not say what finally convinced Obama to revisit the issue.

Shortly after Gibbs's remarks, police officers in Cambridge denounced the president's statement and demanded an apology in a news conference carried live on cable news channels. Dennis O'Connor, president of the Cambridge Police Superior Officers Association, said the Cambridge police "deeply resent the implication" that race was a factor in the decision to take Gates into custody.

"The president used the right adjective but directed it to the wrong party," O'Connor said.

Axelrod hinted that the police news conference at least in part prompted Obama's remarks.

"We live in a dynamic world. You can see issues evolving and how they are evolving. He was well aware of that," Axelrod said. "His reaction is: 'You know what? Let's deal with it. Let's confront it.' "

It was not the first time that Obama has been forced to quell a public relations storm he created with comments that, in retrospect, seemed less than well considered. Early in his term, he said huge bonuses awarded to executives by companies that had taken bailout money were "shameful" and "the height of irresponsibility."

But when his words helped fuel a congressional effort that almost resulted in legislation banning bonuses, Obama quickly moved to tamp down the criticism.

In March, he drew criticism for jokingly invoking the Special Olympics in describing his bowling skills to Jay Leno on "The Tonight Show."

On Friday, Obama said he and Crowley had talked about "having a beer" at the White House with Gates. Later in the day, he called Gates and invited him to join them.

"I think the president is doing the right thing by trying to lower the temperature in this matter and trying to make sure that this leads to an opportunity for constructive dialogue," said Charles Ogletree, Gates's attorney and a friend and confidant to Obama.

Ogletree said: "I don't think that Skip drinks beer, but I think he would welcome the invitation."