Forward Observer: A Second Chance

Neither Congress nor the press asked the president, the secretary of Defense, the secretary of State and military leaders the kind of tough questions that might have kept our commander-in-chief from sending thousands of young American men and women to die in the quagmires of Vietnam, Iraq and now Afghanistan.

But our lawmakers, who at bottom are the hired hands of the taxpayers, have a new chance to assert the war-making powers the Constitution gave them. They can worst-case the plans to wade deeper into the Afghan quagmire.

Here are some questions that need to be asked of the principals:

* Defense Secretary Robert 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 Pakistan? 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 Hillary 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." Are we headed down the same path?