AF-PAK

THE WHITE HOUSE'S REPORT ON AF-PAK: HOLD THE OPTIMISM

David Ignatius

The Washington Post, October 8, 2010

What's notable about the new White House report on Afghanistan and Pakistan sent to Congress this week is its bleak assessment of the security picture. You could almost read President Obama between the lines warning the military: This strategy isn't working the way we hoped. Don't ask me for more troops.

"The report doesn't paint an optimistic picture of the security situation," said a White House official. He described the 27-page document as "very candid and very frank." Government officials always say that about reports, but in this case, it's actually true.

You can sense in this report the tension that lies ahead between Obama and his commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David Petraeus. The military didn't write this assessment (one top military leader hadn't even read it before it was leaked to the Wall Street Journal).

The White House knows that Petraeus might offer a somewhat different account of where things are heading in Afghanistan. "The military would not dispute that the situation is challenging," said the White House official. "They'd say, 'Yeah, it's bleak, but we're working full speed on all fronts to get ahead of it.' "

What drew a front-page headline in the Journal was the report's discussion of the deteriorating political situation in Pakistan and the refusal of the Pakistani military to mount a new offensive against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in North Waziristan, as the United States wants. "This is as much a political choice as it is a reflection of an under-resourced military prioritizing its targets," the report notes, although it concedes that after the devastating floods in August, the Pakistani military was swamped with relief work.

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