Projo 7 to 7 News Blog

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Jack Reed today endorsed President Obama's new plan to send more U.S. troops to Afghanistan and to increase aid and other efforts to prod neighboring Pakistan to take on Taliban and Al Qaeda forces within its borders. But the Rhode Island Democrat said the new administration must quickly flesh out its war plans with more specific detail about its exit strategy and its methods of measuring progress.

Reed, who helped to guide candidate Obama on a tour of the war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq last summer, applauded the president's emphasis on the severity of the threat that Al Qaeda and its Taliban allies in Afghanistan and Pakistan continue to pose to the U.S. citizens and interests.

As Reed put it, ``Afghanistan was the place that was used to launch the attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C.'' on Sept. 11, 2001. Al Qaeda and its allies ``have now crossed the border into Pakistan, they are very active and they have reconstituted themselves in the past several years.'' Reed said the terrorist insurgency in Afghanistan and Pakistan ``make this probably the most challenging and difficult foreign policy problem that we face today -- a much more vital and strategically central conflict than we faced in Iraq.''

Reed acknowledged, however, that Mr. Obama's plan -- which he unveiled Thursday after extensive policy reviews by his miilitary commanders and civilian defense and foreign policy teams -- is short on such concrete detail as how to assess the work of a U.S. force that he has now ordered increased by a total of 21,000 troops and of the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Mr. Obama stressed in remarks at the White House that his decision to increase aid to both nations -- with an emphasis on the training of Afghan military and police forces -- is ``not a blank check.'' In a press briefing later, Richard Holbrooke, the veteran diplomat that Mr. Obama has assigned to oversee the effort in the region, was asked to spell our Mr. Obama's exit strategy for U.S. forces.

``The only exit strategy,'' Holbrooke said, is ``very basic. We can leave as the Afghans can deal with their own security problems.''

``That's a very general statement. I think I'd be more specific,'' Reed said later.

 Tags  Obama Richard Holbrooke U.S. Senator Jack Reed

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