30 days ago
WASHINGTON,DC (WUSA) --- Secretary of Defense Robert Gates says a decision on new American policy in Afghanistan can not wait until the resolution of an election runoff in there, a process that could take months.
Some veterans are becoming frustrated by the delay, as the Obama Administration weighs requests by military commanders to send more troops.
"We have 22-year-old year old soldiers and Marines who are sitting in foxholes or remote outposts somewhere in Afghanistan. They are under-manned and they are outgunned. Their commanders have asked for additional forces. We think Washington owes it to them to send those additional forces," said Joseph Davis, a national spokesman for the Veterans of Foreign Wars.
All presidents say they will listen to commanders on the ground. Now is the time to do that listening," he told 9News Now.
Veteran Pentagon journalist Jamie McIntyre, who now blogs at Thelineofdeparture.com agrees there is a danger in delayed decision-making.
"But, there is a bigger danger in making a bad decision...One person's dithering is somebody else's deliberate consideration, and the president really has to decide if he wants to commit the additional forces to Afghanistan to something that may produce the same result.
"That's what he is agonizing over, whether he should follow the advice of his commanders or whether he should change the strategy and try something different.
"Ultimately he has to make that decision and it's a big decision. It's a decision that's going to result in the loss of additional American lives and he has to decide whether giving those lives is worth it.
"You have to remember that what the President is trying to accomplish is to make sure Afghanistan is not a safe haven for attacks on the United States.
The goal is to make the United States safer, not to rebuild Afghanistan. If the President and his advisors decide that can do that with a different strategy, they can give the military a different mission," McIntyre told 9News Now.
