Read the full interview here.
What intelligence did the U.S. lack when beginning military operations in Afghanistan? Was the war strategically misguided from the start?
Much of the criticism about the war in Afghanistan was understated, but there are many things we didn’t know. Among them was how exactly this tribal country functions, what role the warlords and others were playing vis-a-vis the United States and other countries. In other words, who to trust, what their actual goals were, how they viewed the Americans.
On Dec. 1, 2009, at West Point, President Obama announced a surge of 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan and his plan to end U.S. involvement by July 2011. At the time, was it possible for U.S. forces to complete a successful transfer of power to Afghan troops?
Why was the drawdown so hard? In part because there was such opposition to it by officials who wondered, “If we draw down in Afghanistan, then what will happen?” Will Al Qaeda be on the rise again? Will other Islamist terrorist groups will be able to take root? For the most part, Obama’s decision was to draw down, but among many military experts and national security figures, that was a problem. It takes time.
The question was, “How are they going to do it?”