Kerry would reject a Petraeus request for more time, troops at drawdown deadline

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.) said Sunday that he would say no if Gen. David Petraeus wanted more time or more troops to get the job done in Afghanistan.

Speaking on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS,” Kerry said that President Obama’s strategy with a transitional point in mind was underscoring to Afghans and the Pakistanis “that they need to begin to make this their
battle.”

{mosads}”And the only way to get them to do that is for them not to believe you’re there forever,” Kerry said. “Now there is a delicate balance, obviously. But you don’t need 150,000 troops on the ground, at a million dollars a troop or whatever it is, in order to be able to achieve the goals that we have.”

Kerry said that next July’s drawdown deadline shows that the president “is determined to begin to turn a corner,” and demurred when asked what would happen if Petraeus asked for more time or troops when the 2011 deadline rolled around.

“I personally would say, no, I don’t think troops are the answer,” Kerry said. “The answer is a political resolution. And that political resolution has to come about by engaging to a greater degree with India, with Pakistan itself.”

Kerry said the surge had not yet taken hold, so it was too early to judge the strategy.

About the WikiLeaks controversy surrounding the 92,000 secret Afghanistan war documents posted online a week ago, the senator said he was concerned about the aspects revealing suspicions about Pakistan’s security service but in all didn’t find the documents to be “particularly revelational.”