Lugar questions Afghanistan withdrawal plan
Washington (CNN) - Republican Sen. Richard Lugar, the ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations committee, on Sunday outlined his own plan for the drawdown of troops in Afghanistan, saying the removal of 10,000 to 25,000 troops after about 18 months would “satisfy our ability to fight terror.”
The Indiana senator said he would like to see more carefully defined objectives from the administration regarding U.S. troops in Afghanistan. A target date of 2014 was set by the Obama administration for ending U.S. and NATO combat in the country.
“I would like to see this administration defining this much more precisely as opposed to the fact that we’re simply going to have a general review and 2014 is out there in some fashion,” Lugar said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
He also said America’s goals in Afghanistan could be accomplished for “a great deal less money.”
“In the front room we discuss money every single day, we discuss the debt of our nation, the catastrophic situation fiscally. But in the back room we talk about foreign policy as if there was nothing in relationship to this. There is a big relationship,” Lugar said. “We are overstretched in terms of our defense budget on our military and so we’re going to have to think very carefully about our objectives.”
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Withdraw from Afghanistan and occupied Pakistan
Enemy’s friend our buddy NO
We should come home. I will leave it up to the President to decide. He has done a good job so far. What I would really like to see is everyone from Iraq come home now. No more bases. Leave the one we built already and make it a school and a hospital.
Dumbest war ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Pull out tomorrow and nothing will change those people been durn the same thing every few years for the last thirty thousand or more years.
Bring our troops home. There is no longer a need to support the corruption in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the republican party.
Bring 50% of the troops home, but place the rest on the Pakistan and Afghanistan border.
Yes, pull out quickly and let the Afghan government collapse, the Taliban take control and AQ return to their training bases. Very smart and intelligent long term strategic thinking on the part of the looney left. They want to return to the exact conditions that lead to 9-11 and which will threaten all of us. Pure insanity.
RE: 50-50 chance...
So how many times is this story going to change? Before it was 60% chance UBL was there. Every piece of US intelligence technology available was focused on that compound for months. Hard to believe it was only a 50-50 shot. If we found two of his trusted couriers there that should have easily pushed this into the 60-70% chance.
All of this talk about a "gutsy call" is pure spin generated by the Obama spin machine and his lackeys in the MSM. The only thing gutsy about this is what the SEALS did. Can you imagine the public reaction had Obama refused to act on this very actionable intelligence? A missile or bomb strike 31 miles from the Pakistan capital would have been sheer stupidity.
If this call was a tough one for Obama then that is indeed scary but to be expected from a "I Vote Present" guy and a president that wants to "lead from behind".