Petraeus: US to boost counterterrorism effort

December 11, 2009 at 12:00a.m.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The rapid U.S. buildup in the Afghan war will include more terrorist- hunting forces to chase down militants deemed too extreme to change sides, a top U.S. general revealed on Wednesday.

“There’s no question you’ve got to kill or capture those bad guys that are not reconcilable,” Gen. David Petraeus, the chief of U.S. Central Command, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “And we are intending to do that.”

In his first congressional testimony on President Barack Obama’s announced plan to send an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan, Petraeus also cautioned that progress against the insurgency probably will be slower than during the buildup of U.S. forces in Iraq two years ago, and the war will be “harder before it gets easier.”

Petraeus said that in addition to an effort to “reintegrate” Taliban and other insurgents into mainstream Afghan society, there will be a harder push to eliminate the most hard-core extremists.

“In fact, we actually will be increasing our counterterrorist component of the overall strategy,” Petraeus said. He provided no details beyond saying that additional “national mission force elements” would be sent to Afghanistan next spring.

Petraeus appeared to be referring to classified units such as the Army’s Delta Force that specialize in counterterrorism and that have been used extensively in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who now oversees the Afghan war and is scheduled to testify today before a House committee, previously headed up those units inside Iraq and Afghanistan.

In an interview with PBS’ Charlie Rose on Wednesday, McChrystal cited a formula for success in the counterterrorism effort he led in Iraq, saying the point is to eliminate the middle levels of terrorist networks such as al-Qaida rather than focusing on killing only the most-senior leaders.

“You cause the network to collapse on itself,” McChrystal said. “And that’s what I saw happen in Iraq, and that’s one of the things we’re working on in Afghanistan.” He did not mention sending more counterterrorism forces to Afghanistan.

Much of Wednesday’s Senate hearing focused on the link between instability in Afghanistan and the presence of Taliban, al-Qaida and other extremist groups in neighboring Pakistan.

Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, the ranking Republican on the committee, said he’s confident allied forces will improve security in Afghanistan but that the biggest question is whether that will help root out Taliban and al-Qaida havens across the border in Pakistan.

“The president has said that the United States did not choose this war, and he is correct,” he said. “But with these troop deployments to Afghanistan, we are choosing the battlefield where we will concentrate most of our available military resources.”

“The risk is that we will expend tens of billions of dollars fighting in a strategically less important Afghanistan, while Taliban and al-Qaida leaders become increasingly secure in Pakistan,” Lugar said.

Committee Chairman John Kerry agreed. “Pakistan is in many ways the core of our challenge,” said the Massachusetts Democrat.

He praised Pakistan’s military for taking on Pakistani insurgents in offensives of recent months. “Now we are looking for Pakistan to also take on the Afghan Taliban,” al-Qaida and other insurgents in their territory, Kerry added.