Petraeus avoids taking sides in Afghan debate - Air Force News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Air Force Times

Petraeus avoids taking sides in Afghan debate

Gen. David Petraeus, the head of U.S. Central Command, steered clear of controversy during an 84-minute briefing on his command’s area of responsibility to a large audience at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual symposium.

In his speech Tuesday, Petraeus broke little new ground as he gave his listeners a PowerPoint tour of the CentCom area of responsibility and he was at pains to make it clear that the military’s view was being solicited by the administration.

“We’ve had ample opportunity to provide our best professional military advice,” Petraeus said.

Washington is abuzz over a supposed rift between senior military officials who support Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s desire to pursue a counter-insurgency strategy that would require a large troop increase on one hand, and factions within the White House — reportedly led by Vice President Joe Biden — who favor a scaled back mission in Afghanistan that would revolve around developing more Afghan security forces and intensifying air strikes on terrorist hideouts on the other,

The closest he got to taking sides was when he said that “clearly any Taliban taking of control [in Afghanistan] would certainly be a reversal for our interests, for NATO, for the region and would cause significant problems for the effort in Pakistan most likely as well,” but he was careful to note that these views had already been voiced by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton.

“It is a fact that the Taliban were the host to al-Qaida in Afghanistan,” Petraeus said. “A key objective is to ensure that they are not able to return to sanctuaries in Afghanistan of the type in which … they did the original planning for the attacks of 9/11.”

In order to prevent that from happening, “the effort in Afghanistan requires a sustained, substantial commitment,” Petraeus said, before quickly adding that “I’m not going to get into whether that means more or less or what number of forces, enablers, partners and civilians.”

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