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 Under Pressure To Do More Sooner - Press Briefing by Senior Administration Officials on the President's West Point Speech on Afghanistan 12/1/09 — Tuesday, December 01, 2009 —  Q Thank you very much. Two quick questions, related. One, on the issue of the timetable, I know you want to make sure this is not misinterpreted, but even the July 2011 timeframe there have been arguments that setting up any date just encourages the Taliban, the insurgents to lay low and to wait people out. Can you address that criticism? And point two, the ability to get to 30,000 into theater by the summer -- there's been some noise already out of the Pentagon this morning that that may be logistically impossible. Can you address that? Is it actually doable to get that many troops into an infrastructure-free country that quickly?SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Let me, again, take them in reverse sequence. As for the deployment timeline, first of all, this is, as you know, an imprecise science in terms of exactly which units flow when based on the infrastructure available and so forth. So I think the best -- as precise as we wish to get here, and we refer you to the Pentagon for greater precision, is that the 30,000 troop surge is due to arrive in Afghanistan in the summer of 2010. For additional precision you'll have to go to the experts in the Pentagon. I'm sorry, the first point had to do with? SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: The Taliban -- SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Oh, yes. Well, remember what July 2011 represents. It represents the beginning of a process which will be conditions-based. So if the Taliban thinks they can wait us out, I think that they're misjudging the President's approach. On the other hand there's a value in setting a date like this as a sort of strategic inflection point because it does put everyone on pressure -- under pressure to do more sooner. And that pressure of the timeline begins with the U.S. government itself, but also extends to our allies and our Afghan and Pakistani partners. So, you know, it may be misinterpreted, but the Taliban will do that at its own risk. SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Let me add to each of those just real quickly, again in reverse order. Let me simply say what I think you've seen administration officials say today. The force option that the President has chosen gets more troops into Afghanistan faster than any option that was previously presented to him. That's point number one. By the way, that's more U.S. troops faster and more NATO troops faster than any other option presented. Secondly, the logic of the Taliban waiting anybody out would subscribe to the logic that we will all be there forever. And the President's viewpoint on that is, as you've heard my colleague say, this is not an open-ended commitment on behalf of the President. Afghanistan | Military | President Obama | Press Briefing | War on Terror | White House Press Corps Labels: Afghanistan, Military, President Obama, Press Briefing, War on Terror, White House Press Corps >> Full Story
Posted by White House Press Corps @ 5:36:00 PM
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