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War, War, War See other War, War, War Articles Title: Congress demands testimony from Nato commander in Afghanistan The US Congress is demanding the senior Nato commander in Afghanistan appear to explain the worsening situation in the country following a series of bleak warnings from the international community. General David Petraeus, the senior US commander in Baghdad, and Ryan Crocker, the top US envoy in Iraq, are due to testify in April at hotly anticipated hearings on the Iraq war. The two senators who will lead those hearings today asked the state department to make the same offer for public testimony on Afghanistan. "Hearing directly from the commanding general in theatre and the US ambassador to Iraq is critically important … the conflict in Afghanistan must also be a priority," Democratic senators Carl Levin, who chairs the armed services committee, and Joseph Biden, who chairs the foreign relations committee, wrote in letters to the state department and the Pentagon. Levin and Biden asked for General Dan McNeill, Nato's chief commander in the troubled nation and William Wood, the US ambassador to Afghanistan, to appear in Washington by April 18. That timeframe would set up a double skirmish between congressional Democrats and the administration over the simultaneous US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Leading Democrats, including presidential hopefuls Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, have accused George Bush of allowing Afghanistan to backslide while the US continues prodding Nato allies to increase their military presence there. A withdrawal of international troops from Afghanistan could throw the already foundering state into violent chaos, according to an independent report released last month by former Nato commander James Jones. More recently, US director of intelligence Mike McConnell admitted that the Taliban controls 10% of the country and the government of Hamid Karzai only 30%. "[W]e are concerned that the United States and the international community lack a strategy for success in Afghanistan," Levin and Biden wrote. "We want to hear firsthand from our leaders on the ground what they believe they need to succeed." Clinton has made Afghanistan a centrepiece of her campaign against Obama this week, releasing a broad plan to heal the troubled country and hammering her rival for failing to hold hearings on the war there in a Senate panel that he leads. Clinton's plan for Afghanistan would include a special envoy to increase cooperation with the Pakistani government; a revamped drug interdiction plan that would offer farmers relief in exchange for ending their poppy growth; and greater involvement by Middle Eastern nations in the economic revitalisation of Afghanistan. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
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