Top U.S. Lawmakers Seek Expanded Afghanistan Role

Leading lawmakers voiced concern Wednesday that Afghanistan could again become a haven of chaos and terrorism unless the United States expands its peacekeeping role--a proposal that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld firmly resisted during congressional testimony that included several testy exchanges.

“We don’t want to win this war and then lose the peace in the sense of seeing a return to chaos,” said Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The two-hour hearing reflected growing concern on Capitol Hill that the stability of Afghanistan’s fledgling government is being undermined by fighting among regional warlords.

The session also demonstrated that many in Congress are increasingly comfortable criticizing aspects of the war effort, in sharp contrast to the early months of the conflict when members feared that raising even minor questions would make them appear unpatriotic.

Several lawmakers not only challenged White House reluctance to deploy American soldiers as peacekeepers, but they also argued that the military made a major blunder by not using U.S. troops to seal off Al Qaeda escape routes during the major battles of the war.

“For me, Operation Enduring Freedom has become Operation Enduring Frustration,” said Sen. Max Cleland (D-Ga.). “We still haven’t killed or captured Osama bin Laden and his terrorist cadre. Do you happen to know where he is?”

Rumsfeld bristled at the line of questioning. “You can be frustrated if you want--I’m not,” he said. He acknowledged that the United States does not know the terrorist mastermind’s whereabouts, but he argued that Bin Laden’s capture was not the paramount goal of the war.

“He may be dead. He may be seriously wounded. He may be in Afghanistan, he may be somewhere else,” Rumsfeld said. “But wherever he is, if he is, you can be certain he is having one dickens of a time operating his apparatus.”

Though the hearing was billed as a status report on the war in Afghanistan, much of the discussion centered on Iraq, widely perceived as the Bush administration’s next military target.

Asked how the administration will decide which countries should be targeted by preemptive military action in the war on terrorism, Rumsfeld stopped short of pointing to Iraq, but he said that some nations “obviously elevate themselves as problems.”

“If we sat down and looked at what they are doing to their own people -- starvation, repression, butchery, use of chemicals,” Rumsfeld said, “pretty soon people have to nod and say, ‘Well, they’re nominating themselves.’ ”

In Wednesday’s hearing, Rumsfeld and Gen. Tommy Franks, the U.S.-based commander of the operation in Afghanistan, defended the military decision to rely heavily on Afghan troops during a December assault on Tora Bora. Many in Washington believe that Bin Laden was in the cave-pocked region in eastern Afghanistan at the time but escaped.

Franks said Afghan forces, and not U.S. commanders, pushed for the invasion of Tora Bora.

He also said he was eager to avoid the mistakes made by the Soviets in their 1978-89 occupation of Afghanistan, which left more than 15,000 Soviet soldiers dead and 55,000 wounded.

“I was very mindful of the Soviet experience,” Franks said. He said he did not know how many Al Qaeda network fighters escaped Tora Bora, but he said hundreds were probably killed.

Much of the hearing focused on ongoing tensions between the White House and members of Congress over the appropriate scope of U.S. involvement in safeguarding the Afghan government and rebuilding the war-torn country’s infrastructure.

President Bush scoffed at such “nation-building” efforts during his 2000 presidential campaign, and the U.S. has refused to contribute troops to an international security force in Afghanistan.

The recent assassination of an Afghan vice president prompted the United States to begin providing a security detail for Afghan President Hamid Karzai. But lawmakers Wednesday pressed Rumsfeld to go further and begin supplying U.S. troops to an international security force currently run by Turkey.

“Right now, outside of Kabul we are bordering to some degree on chaos,” said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). “The fact is we need to expand the peacekeeping force. We’re the world’s superpower. We have to step up.”

Rumsfeld all but rejected that notion, saying the United States wants to keep its focus on hunting down remnants of Al Qaeda and training the Afghan military. He said the United States is encouraging other countries to contribute troops to an international security force in Afghanistan but is finding few takers.

“I don’t agree that the situation in Afghanistan outside of Kabul is bordering on chaos,” Rumsfeld said. “I think it is reasonably secure. It is an untidy place, but it’s a lot tidier than it used to be.”