John McCormack points to this piece in the New York Times, which says that former Secretary of State Colin Powell, Senator John Kerry and Senator Jack Reed are the three people outside of the administration “considered by White House aides to be most influential in” the current debate over how to proceed in Afghanistan. “All have expressed varying degrees of doubt about the prospect of sending more forces to Afghanistan,” the Times says. Powell “expressed skepticism” in a meeting with President Obama earlier this month. Where have I heard such skepticism before? Oh, that’s right — during the debate over the surge in Iraq. Here is CBS News on Secretary Powell’s December 2006 interview with Bob Schieffer on Face The Nation:
The United States is losing the war in Iraq but sending more troops to Baghdad is not the best way to change course, former Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Face The Nation. … Powell, also a former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he did not see the military benefit of flooding Baghdad with American troops. “I am not persuaded that another surge of troops into Baghdad for the purposes of suppressing this communitarian violence, this civil war, will work,” he said, adding that the Iraqi government and security forces must take over. “It is the D.C. police force that guards Washington, D.C., not the troops that are stationed at Fort Myer,” Powell said. “And in Baghdad, you need a police force to do that, and in the other cities, you need a police force to do that, and not the American troops.” Powell also doubted that the U.S. Army and Marine Corps are large enough to support such an operation. “The current active Army is not large enough and the Marine Corps is not large enough for the kinds of missions they’re being asked to perform,” Powell said. “We need to let both the Army and the Marine Corps grow in size, in my military judgment.” Asked directly what the U.S. should do in Iraq, Powell said: “I think that what we should do is to work with the Iraqi government, press them on the political peace, do everything we can to provide equipment, advisers, and whatever the Iraqi armed forces need to become more competent, and to train their leaders so that those leaders realize their responsibility to the government.”
Here is Senator Kerry in February 2007:
Sen. John Kerry on Saturday blamed Republicans for squelching Senate debate on the Iraq war and warned that President Bush’s plan for more troops in Iraq is a mistake. … “Another 21,000 troops sent into Iraq, with no visible end or strategy, ignores the best advice from our own generals and isn’t the best way to keep faith with the courage and commitment of our soldiers,” the Massachusetts Democrat said in his party’s weekly radio address. Kerry branded Bush’s proposal for additional forces as “nothing more than the escalation of a misguided war.”
And here is Senator Jack Reed in September 2007 saying the surge isn’t working and “it is time to change course.” Reed wanted to focus on a strategy of “counter-terrorism and training the Iraqi army,” instead of sending more American troops–just like Kerry and Powell did at the time. This triumvirate was wrong just a couple of years ago when it came to the Iraqi surge. But of course, so was then Senator Obama. The future president emphasized the need to provide adequate resources in Afghanistan. That hasn’t changed. According to the Times, there are various administration insiders who share Powell, Kerry, and Reed’s “skepticism.” But none of them are the president. The ball is one man’s hands now.
