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The Other Quagmire
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In a Daily Beast exclusive, Judith Miller reveals new details about the new president’s plans for Afghanistan: She confirms the rumored appointment of Richard Holbrooke as special envoy. Plus she reveals the promise of more NATO troops from France, the new administration’s commitment to President Hamid Karzai (despite grumblings about corruption and incompetence), and worries among Obama’s closest advisers that this war may be—contrary to earlier assumptions—as much of a quagmire as Iraq.
For two years now, as a candidate and as president-elect, Barack Obama has steadfastly called Afghanistan the “central front in the war against terror” and vowed to make defeating Al Qaeda and the Taliban “the top priority it should be.” Tackling foreign policy on Day One, he has invited Gen. David Petraeus, the recently installed Central Command chief responsible for the Middle East and much of South Asia, to the Oval Office today.
But as the new president takes charge of the Afghan conflict, to which George W. Bush recently committed additional troops, his foreign-policy team is getting nervous.
“You’re beginning to hear the word ‘quagmire’ being whispered in the corridors,” said one transition-team adviser. “What’s the definition of victory? What’s our exit strategy?”
Richard Holbrooke, tipped as special envoy to the region, has called the US foreign-aid program in Afghanistan “the single worst” he’s seen since Vietnam. “It is a recruiting tool for the Taliban.”
Bruce Riedel, a Middle East analyst and 29-year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency, has emerged as a key adviser on Afghanistan and Pakistan. His assessment of the options, says a source working with the transition team, is likely to be filtered into the broader, government-wide policy review that Obama’s team will commission as its first order of foreign policy business.
Obama also urged Vice President-elect Biden to visit Afghanistan and Pakistan in his final days as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee because he wanted a fresh, independent view of what a flood of studies have warned is a dire and deteriorating situation. Sure enough, both Biden and his fellow traveler, Lindsey Graham, concluded that “things are going to get tougher in Afghanistan” before they get better, with casualties likely to increase as the 30,000 more troops are deployed.
Meanwhile, Petraeus is conducting his own policy review of his entire region, which is scheduled to be completed in late February, but he will do doubt share its conclusions so far with the president when they meet.
In her confirmation hearings last week, Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton dubbed the administration’s new approach to Afghanistan a “more for more” strategy, involving not only more American forces (some military analysts predict that as many as eight to ten brigades, or 60,000 to 75,000 troops, will ultimately be required for five to ten years), but also more support from America’s NATO allies and better governance from Afghan president Hamid Karzai.
Pentagon sources say it’s likely that France will announce after Obama’s inauguration that it will add a “significant” number of troops to the roughly 3,500 deployed in Afghanistan as part of the NATO alliance effort.
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Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
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Jacob Bernstein is a senior reporter at The Daily Beast. Previously, he was a features writer at WWD and W Magazine. He has also written for New York magazine, Paper, and The Huffington Post.
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Judith Miller is an author and a Pulitzer Prize-winning former investigative reporter for the New York Times. She is now an adjunct fellow at Manhattan Institute, a contributing editor to its magazine, City Journal, and a Fox News commentator.
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Judith Miller is an author and a Pulitzer Prize-winning former investigative reporter for the New York Times. She is now an adjunct fellow at Manhattan Institute, a contributing editor to its magazine, City Journal, and a Fox News commentator.
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Judith Miller is an author and a Pulitzer Prize-winning former investigative reporter for the New York Times. She is now an adjunct fellow at Manhattan Institute, a contributing editor to its magazine, City Journal, and a Fox News commentator.
JUDITH MILLER? As a reliable investigator and reporter? Citing to anonymous 'advisers?" That is rich.
The Beast seems to have come all-over irony-deaf.
are you kiddin me! judith miller. how could you possibly buy anything she has to say. did you put her article in just to stir things up? what a sleasy sell out.
As I solemnly promised after reading her first article here, one more "exclusive" from this woman, and it is my last TheDailyBeast read. She represents everything I loath about the war in Iraq, or anywhere else. Ms. Brown, how could you? Let me retract my earlier ill-wish, though; I do not want your website to go the way Talk has. That is rather too mean, but I no longer want to be a part of it.
An "exclusive with Judith Miller"?
Your only choice now is to put a big mea culpa on your main page saying, "We're sorry we were so stupid. We realize Judith Miller not particularly honest, credible or accurate in her reporting, but we thought she'd be a lot of fun. Our bad."
Otherwise, you've just placed a big blinking sign on your website that says, "No news, just unsubstantiated rumors and un-sourced silliness."
I'm considering chucking you from my daily news ritual because of this. I'm pretty sure a lot of other folks are too.
To run a story by Judith Miller as genuine news, it takes balls...or massive stupidity.
But what about the WMDs?
Yellowcake! Curveball! Chalabi! We remember Judith.
I, too, made that solemn promise never again to visit this site if they printed anything further from this disgraced "journalist." My next click will be to delete the Daily Beast forever from our bookmarks.
A judith Miller "exclusive", eh?
In a world always looking for a better, livelier, more accurate and more insightful source of news...you've just made the journalistic equivalent of a face plant.
Credible report by Judith Miller - oxymoron.
Please stop wasting our time with this senseless drivel from a person who has proven again and again that her words are just propaganda and not viable news.
I have to agree with the others - Ms Miller has done nothing to earn the right to the trust of readers. What in this article can be believed? Give the space to someone who does the work of a journalist.
Dear Tina,
Enough with Judith Miller!
JUDITH MILLER -- are you kidding me? I can't believe that anyone is giving this woman the chance to lie to anyone again. I agree with Jlongfr. I'm done with this site. Appalling after selling out the American people in the name of journalism.
Oh come on, people. Didn't you read Drumheller's piece last week? Judith's sources were the same as the CIAs - the anonymous source named, "Curveball" and everyone in the administration as well as the CIA fell for Curveball's claims. Why does everyone think there is some big conspiracy theory all the time? Miller was smeared by her own company, the NYT. If there is any conspiracy theory going on, it's NYT's not-so-hidden agenda.
I'm just glad I had a NYT subscription to cancel when the Times issued their worthless mea culpa regarding "Squeaky" and her dubious legs-up journalism. Even Arianna would pass on this crap. Goodbye Daily Beast!
Isn't it amazing how "complex" everything becomes when you're handed the reins of power and responsibility? Welcome to the real world, democrats. Note: the people in charge of foreign policy now, did not acquit themselves well the first time around...but, you never know.
This should be fascinating.
I understand you want to show both sides but "Judas" Miller, will it be Rush Limbaugh next week or Bill O of Shawn the mouth ??? Showing both sides is one thing, having someone who helped in the murder of thousands of US troops by helping in the lies that brought us to war. Judith Miller should have her writers license taken away if one existed to take away. Allowing her to show case whatever writing she does on the Beast would be as bad as asking our former VP to tell us the truth....
It's too bad, really. I'd like to hear a substantive report on Afghanistan, but I wouldn't believe Judith Miller if she told me her name was "Judith Miller."
"Isn't it amazing how "complex" everything becomes when you're handed the reins of power and responsibility?"
You mean like how the GITMO detainees suddenly became a real security threat and our criminal justice system not such a great conduit for them after all?
Nothing like a real world test to challenge those absolutes.
I'm not understanding this urge to remake Afghanistan. A simple posse to run down (or perpetually run after) Al-Qaeda types is certainly called for. But I think there has been an undue conflation of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The latter has a reprehensible ideology, but they are a long-standing tribe in the region. We appear to be mission-creeping into fighting their kind of war. I personally don't see it working.
Judith "I conspired with Scooter and Dick" Miller? Is this the same Judith Miller as the woman who took dictation from the Bush White House, reported it as "fact" in the NYT, and then enabled Cheney and others to go on the Sunday talk shows and cite her articles in the NYT as "proof" of the "threat" of Saddam Hussein, and thus the "reason" to attack and invade Iraq?
Judy Miller? Shame on you. Isn't there a real job you can go get somewhere? (Other than working for a right-wing "think tank"---an oxymoron if I've ever heard one.)
When I see that you're still writing, Judith, it's like hearing that Bernie Madoff is still doing investment deals. Give it up. You're never going to regain public trust or credibility. Never.
One more thing: Judith Miller expressing concern over a "quagmire" is like O.J. Simpson expressing concern over spousal abuse.
I thought you would be chilling out with Scooter.So any new war you want to shove down our throat.
Ms. Brown yr palling around with the miller's of the world is fine by me... but please down try to unload her on us. Cause if u do , this is the last I am coming to feed yr beast.
I am surprised that so many readers here can't accept Judith Miller. She deserves so much better.
Judith Miller has written an interesting, informative piece. If France commits more troops, that would be good. They would be very helpful on more than just the military fronts. I understand Germany is also willing to contribute more.
Efforts to destroy the opium cash crop will meet a lot of resistance. No doubt NATO has some kind of plan develop other agricultural earners. It sounds like Afghanistan will soon to be crawling with all sorts of experts and soldiers, mostly our own. I am glad President Obama is showing the desire to win in Afghanistan. He is putting a lot of power in the area.
Judith Miller and Kathryn Hughes? Holiday, you obviously you have no idea who she is. I don't know about god (none of us do), but sometimes I pray that there is one just so people like Miller, Hughes, etc. etc. will get their comeupance in hell.
Thank you.
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