CNN

Washington (CNN) – A top national security adviser to President Obama said Sunday that the administration needs to step up its efforts to capture Osama bin Laden, the alleged mastermind of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S. and the leader of the global terrorism network called al Qaeda.

“The best estimate is that [bin Laden] is somewhere in North Waziristan - sometimes on the Pakistani side of the border, sometimes on the Afghan side of the border,” National Security Adviser James Jones said Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union, “very, very rough mountainous area, generally ungoverned.

“And, we’re going to have to get after that to make sure that this very, very important symbol of what al Qaeda stands for is either once again on the run or captured or killed.”

“By, ‘we’re going to have to get after that,’ you mean a more determined, a more focused – some new effort to get him?,” queried CNN Chief National Correspondent John King.
Read the rest of this entry »

Washington (CNN) – President Obama’s national security adviser said Sunday that the administration’s announced date to begin the pull out of additional troops ordered by the president is a “glide slope” and a “ramp” to reducing forces, and not a “cliff” that would induce a precipitous decline in U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

“The president’s decision on 2011 has more do with a transition than anything else,” National Security Adviser James Jones said Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union.

Asked whether the White House was committed to removing troops even if the Afghan government and Afghan security forces weren’t fully capable by mid-2011, Jones explained that the date “is not a cliff, it’s a glide slope.”

“Certainly, the president has also said that we’re not leaving Afghanistan. We are here to see that Afghanistan succeeds. We can’t want this more than the Afghans do. If [Afghan] President Karzai leads his nation the way we think he can, [then] this is a very achievable objective.”

“2011 is not a cliff, it’s a ramp,” Jones reiterated when asked to respond to criticism that the president’s new strategy is flawed because it includes a withdrawal date, critical information for those who would do harm to U.S. interests in and around Afghanistan.

“Where’s the end of the ramp?” CNN Chief National Correspondent John King asked Jones.
Read the rest of this entry »

WASHINGTON (CNN) – A top military adviser to President Barack Obama said Sunday that politics does not play any role in the advice he gives to the president.

Last week, Sen. John McCain, R-AZ, the former Republican presidential hopeful, said on the floor of the Senate that Jones was one of the president’s advisers who doesn’t “want to alienate the left base of the Democrat [sic] Party” as the White House considers whether to send more troops to Afghanistan.

Asked to react to McCain’s comments Sunday, National Security Adviser James Jones said he “took exception” to McCain’s remark.

“Sen. McCain knows me very well,” Jones, a retired Marine Corps general, told CNN Chief National Correspondent John King, “I worked for Senator McCain when he was a captain. I’ve known him for many, many years. And he knows that I don’t play politics with national – I don’t play politics. And I certainly don’t play it with national security. And neither does anyone else I know. The lives of our young men and women are on the line. The strategy does not belong to any political party and I can assure you that the President of the United States is not playing to any political base. And I take exception to that remark.”

WASHINGTON (CNN) – One of President Obama’s top military advisers said Sunday that the United States is at a crossroads in its strategic approach to Afghanistan.

“This is a strategic moment,” National Security Adviser James Jones said on CNN’s State of the Union.

In March, the president announced a plan to send additional troops to the country in order to provide security for a national election and to begin to lay the groundwork for a larger footprint for the U.S. military operation in the country. The Afghan effort, many military observers believe, was under-resourced during the Bush administration because of the focus on the war in Iraq.

Jones pointed out that since March three developments have led the White House to reconsider its overall Afghanistan strategy: the national election occurred where there are questions about the legitimacy of the outcome; General Stanley McChrystal was named the new top U.S. commander in the country and McChrystal has concluded that the Taliban is stronger than previously thought; across the border from Afghanistan, the Pakistani government is doing much better than anticipated, changing the overall dynamic in the Afghanistan-Pakistan regional theater.

Jones also said Sunday that he did not believe Afghanistan was in danger of falling back into the Taliban’s hands.

“I don’t foresee the return of the Taliban,” Jones told CNN Chief National Correspondent John King, “And I want to be very clear that Afghanistan is not in danger – imminent danger - of falling.”

“The key in Afghanistan,” Jones also told King, “is to have a triad of things happen simultaneously.” In addition to security, the country needs economic development and “good governance and the rule of law,” Jones said.

On the issue of “good governance,” Jones said, “We have a lot more work to do and the Karzai government is going to have to pitch in and do much better than they have.”

Echoing an approach championed by Michigan Democrat Sen. Carl Levin, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Jones also said Sunday that building up Afghanistan’s own police and army forces “will be an important part of whatever we decide to do.”
Read the rest of this entry »

WASHINGTON (CNN) – President Obama’s national security adviser walked a fine line Sunday when asked about Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s public comments about requiring more troops for Afghanistan.

McChrystal, the top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, has been recently outspoken in his belief that the White House should pursue a broad counterinsurgency strategy which could likely require the addition of as many as 40,000 more troops to the country. At the other end of the spectrum, Vice President Biden is reportedly advocating a narrower counterterrorism strategy that would likely not require additional troops and would focus on battling al Qaeda through drone attacks.

Speaking in London Thursday, McChrystal said he believes the situation in Afghanistan is serious and deteriorating. McChrystal suggested that focusing on al Qaeda, Biden's proposed strategy, would not be enough.

"I absolutely believe that al Qaeda and the threat of al Qaeda and Taliban senior leadership are critical to stability in the region," McChrystal said in a speech to London's International Institute for Strategic Studies. "But I also believe that a strategy that does not leave Afghanistan in a stable position is probably a shortsighted strategy."

Sunday on CNN's State of the Union, U.S. national security adviser Jim Jones, a retired Marine Corps general, said, “Ideally, it’s better for military advice to come up through the chain of command.” Jones added that he thought McChrystal and others in the chain of command would present Obama with “a range of options.”
Read the rest of this entry »

WASHINGTON (CNN) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley will host a private dinner Monday night for their likely successors, Sen. Hillary Clinton and Gen. James Jones, according to senior State Department officials.

Nobody else will be in attendance at the meeting.

Clinton and Rice have met a couple of times since Clinton was nominated by Obama for the position of secretary of state.