Dems want clearer benchmarks from Obama on Afghanistan

Senior Democratic senators fear the war in Afghanistan could become a quagmire and want to define an endpoint for U.S. involvement in the conflict during an upcoming debate over military spending.

Senators’ concerns over the murkiness of the mission in Afghanistan will come to the fore when they consider President Obama’s request for emergency funds to pay for a surge in American troops. Obama requested $83 billion last week to fund operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

{mosads}While Democrats and Republicans agree broadly that the war in Afghanistan is necessary to prevent radical Islamic groups such as al Qaeda from establishing a stronghold, they are uncertain whether Obama has set a clear enough goal for U.S. troops to depart.

Democratic senators are contemplating a variety of metrics that could be used to measure progress and ultimately form the basis for declaring victory and withdrawing. They include measuring civilian casualties; the strength of the Afghan national army and police force; the decrease in poppy exports and the increase of non-poppy agriculture.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) wants clear benchmarks established to assess the usefulness of billions the president plans to spend in Afghanistan. But it’s not clear whether Democrats would be willing to hold up funding without the benchmarks.

“Sen. Reid believes sound criteria are necessary to measure the effectiveness of both our strategy in Afghanistan and the resources we spend in that effort,” said a Reid spokesman in a statement to The Hill.

“He expects that the administration and the Congress will consult extensively on how to best hold the Afghans accountable for taking responsibility for Afghanistan’s future.”

When he announced his strategy for Afghanistan in March, Obama said there would be clear benchmarks for U.S. progress. “Going forward, we will not blindly stay the course,” he said at the time. “Instead, we will set clear metrics to measure progress and hold ourselves accountable.”

He said the benchmarks would assess efforts to train Afghan Security Forces, combat insurgents, grow Afghanistan’s economy and limit its illicit-narcotics production.

But some lawmakers believe the criteria so far lack specificity.

Without defined criteria for success, some worry, the seven-year war may stretch into an interminable conflict of attrition, raising the specter of Vietnam.

Democratic lawmakers have resisted liberal activists’ call to set a timeline for withdrawing troops from Afghanistan. But the creation of benchmarks is a subtle way to begin setting the stage for withdrawal.

“What we still need and what we don’t have is an articulation of how this is going to end. What is the ultimate objective of putting our military in larger scale in Afghanistan?” Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.), a member of the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees, said at a talk hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations immediately before the April recess.

Webb, who served as a combat Marine in Vietnam and later went on to become secretary of the Navy, is one of most influential voices on military issues in his conference.

{mospagebreak}Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), another member of the Armed Services Committee, also supports benchmarks for Afghanistan.

Nelson sent a letter Friday to Undersecretary of Defense Michele Flournoy proposing a variety of tests to gauge the trajectory of the U.S. mission.

{mosads}“At the onset, some broad progress measures contemplating defense, diplomacy and development could be utilized to evaluate our progress,” Nelson wrote.

Nelson proposed metrics to evaluate the “growth, training and capabilities” of the Afghan army and police, as well as to measure “the participation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries.”

Nelson helped author benchmarks the Senate passed in 2007 to begin winding down U.S. troop levels in Iraq.

Obama called for a clear exit strategy during an interview on “60 Minutes,” but many centrist and liberal Democrats want precise details.

Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.), co-chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and an outspoken critic of both wars, said Obama had failed to set forth clear benchmarks in his request for emergency military funding.

Woolsey said she “wrote to the president asking for clarity and I’m not sure they’ve formed that clarity and if they have, they have not shared with members of Congress.”

Rep. James McGovern (D-Mass.) said he has read the administration’s policy papers and attended its briefings but is “still not sure what the benchmarks are.”

“Put me in the category of being very concerned,” he said in a telephone interview. “On this issue I have deep reservations. I get this sinking feeling that we’re getting sucked into something that we won’t be able to get out of.”

The administration and Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill have also felt pressure from liberal activists and bloggers.

“Obama was right when he said there needs to be an exit strategy. Congress needs to ask, ‘Where is the exit strategy?’ and ‘What is the timeframe for deployment and withdrawal of U.S. forces in Afghanistan?’ ” said Tom Andrews, the national director of Win Without War. “A major concern for many of us is that this is a one-way ticket to a disastrous quagmire.”

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the chairman of the Armed Services panel, shares concerns about an exit strategy. He is one of a growing number of Democrats calling for benchmarks to measure the progress of the mission and to lay the groundwork for withdrawal.

“We need metrics and we need benchmarks to measure progress to report to the American people and, importantly, to hold people accountable,” Levin told Flournoy during a hearing earlier this month.

At the same hearing, Webb asked Flournoy about finding ways to measure the true motivations of the Pakistani government toward the Taliban. Webb suspects elements of Pakistani intelligence support the Taliban and has questioned relying on them as a partner.