Dems call for an Afghanistan study group

Three of the Senate’s four Democratic presidential candidates, with the notable absence of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), joined together Tuesday in asking the Bush administration to create a bipartisan Afghanistan Study Group.

Citing growing problems in Afghanistan, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), Joe Biden (Del.) and Chris Dodd (Conn.) joined Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) in petitioning the White House for the establishment of a commission along the lines of the Iraq Study Group. Such a panel, the senators argued, would help find solutions for the mounting problems there.

{mosads}“Addressing Afghanistan’s myriad and interrelated military, political, diplomatic and economic problems poses a significant challenge,” the senators wrote in a letter to Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, the deputy national security adviser for Iraq and Afghanistan.

Biden is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, of which all the senators except Clinton are members. Obama also has a seat on the panel but did not sign the letter. An Obama aide said that the senator had already laid out his Afghanistan policy in a speech earlier this month.

Dodd and Biden, at a recent Democratic presidential debate, both criticized Obama for foreign policy comments that the presidential candidate, who trails only Clinton in the race for the Democratic nomination, had made.

“Afghanistan is winnable — but we’re not winning because this administration took its eye off the ball and diverted our energy and resources to Iraq,” Biden said in explaining the need for a study group.

Kerry warned that Afghanistan should not “become the forgotten war,” as the U.S. focuses its resources on Iraq, and Boxer accused the administration of treating Afghanistan like an “afterthought.”

The office of the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee did not respond to an inquiry as to why Obama did not co-sign the letter.