George wants to know

George Wilson, a reporter of the old school, has some questions he'd like to ask our leaders about Afghanistan.

Defense Secretary Gates:

• Would you agree that today’s rela­tively small Army would be stretched to the breaking point by sending thousands more soldiers to Afghanistan on top of the 68,000 due to be on the ground there by year’s end?
• How many troopers within that 68,000 will be on their sec­ond and third tours to the region? How many of them are being held beyond the time they signed up for under stop-loss author­ity? How many of them are National Guardsmen and from what states? Where is a governor to go for backup if his state is hit by a terrorist attack, his police and firemen are overwhelmed and there is no Guard to call up because it is deployed overseas?
• What is your personal opinion of how many U.S. troops should be deployed to Afghanistan? How long should they stay there? What is your definition of victory or success in Afghani­stan?
• You have talked about the need to send more anti-bomb spe­cialists to reduce casualties from improvised explosive devices. It takes 11 months of intense training at Florida’s Eglin Air Force Base to train a soldier, sailor, marine or airman in the intricacies of finding, disarming and destroying an IED. These explosive ordnance disposal specialists are already in short supply. Where are you going to get additional ones for Afghanistan?

Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff:

• What is your personal opinion, not the administration’s party line, of how many U.S. troops would be required to pacify Af­ghanistan and protect civil affairs workers who would be in re­mote villages digging wells, building schools, providing health care? How many non-U.S. NATO protec­tors can you count on getting and where are they willing to serve in Afghanistan? How long would pacifying and protect­ing forces have to stay in Afghanistan? How would you meet emergencies else­where in the world with so many troop­ers tied down in Afghanistan? What is your definition of suc­cess in Afghanistan?

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, new field commander in Afghani­stan.

• What is your personal opinion on how many U.S. troops would be required to beat back the Taliban and al-Qaida and pacify Afghanistan? How long would the American force have to stay in Afghanistan? How many civil affairs workers would you need to improve life in Afghan villages? Where are they going to come from and in what number? How many armed Afghan sol­diers and police would you need to protect the villagers and the people digging wells, building schools and running health clin­ics? Do you trust the Afghan protectors or would you salt their units with U.S. soldiers and Marines to train the Afghans and keep them from getting out of line? Do you have the authority to pursue the Taliban and/or al-Qaida into Pakistan? Would the Pakistani government allow you to wipe out their base camps in Pakistan? If not, how can you hope to win?

Secretary of State Clinton:

• Do U.S. ground forces have the right to pursue the Taliban and al-Qaida into Pakistan? To wipe out their base camps? If the Taliban and/or al-Qaida moved their bases into Saudi Arabia, what could we do about it? Is that a possibility? Do you think Afghan villagers feel a loyalty to their central government or to warlords who can protect them? Many of your employees said “Hell no, we won’t go” when asked to go into the Iraqi countryside. What will you do if they refuse to go into Afghanistan?

After trying to win hearts and minds in South Vietnamese villages, the Marines wrote this in one of their many learned reports: “One overriding fact continually presented itself about the success or failure of civic action in rural construction pro­grams: No success was possible without adequate security. The peasant in the rural areas, who must live with the VC (Vietcong) both night and day, is reluctant to overtly support any program that does not provide adequate security for himself and his fam­ily against VC terrorist tactics.”

• Madam Secretary, if you agree that Afghan villagers do not trust their central government or its forces, where is that kind of security going to come from? Do you agree that the follow­ing statement by one of your predecessors, Colin Powell, about the Vietnam of yesterday applies to the Afghanistan of today? “When we go to war, we should have a purpose that our people understand and support. … In Vietnam we had entered into a half-hearted, half-war with much of the nation opposed or indifferent while a small fraction carried the burden.”

It would be nice to hear the answers.