The Torch: Afstan: The McChrystal watch (video at 2)) and the president/ <b>Update</b>: "War, D.C.-style"

1) Some fast leak spinning in the Washington Post:

White House Eyeing Narrower War Effort
Top Officials Challenge General's Assessment

Senior White House officials have begun to make the case for a policy shift in Afghanistan that would send few, if any, new combat troops to the country and instead focus on faster military training of Afghan forces, continued assassinations of al-Qaeda leaders and support for the government of neighboring Pakistan in its fight against the Taliban.

In a three-hour meeting Wednesday at the White House, senior advisers challenged some of the key assumptions in Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal's blunt assessment of the nearly eight-year-old war, which President Obama has said is being fought to destroy al-Qaeda and its allies in Afghanistan and the ungoverned border areas of Pakistan.

McChrystal, commander of the 100,000 NATO and U.S. forces in Afghanistan, has asked Obama to quickly endorse his call for a change in military strategy and approve the additional resources he needs to retake the initiative from the resurgent Taliban.

But White House officials are resisting McChrystal's call for urgency, which he underscored Thursday during a speech in London, and questioning important elements of his assessment, which calls for a vast expansion of an increasingly unpopular war. One senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the meeting, said, "A lot of assumptions -- and I don't want to say myths, but a lot of assumptions -- were exposed to the light of day."

Among them, according to three senior administration officials who attended the meeting, is McChrystal's contention that the Taliban and al-Qaeda share the same strategic interests and that the return to power of the Taliban would automatically mean a new sanctuary for al-Qaeda...

Senior White House officials asked some of the sharpest questions, according to participants and others who have been briefed on the meeting, while the uniformed military, including Gen. David H. Petraeus, head of U.S. Central Command, did not take issue with McChrystal's assessment...

McChrystal, whom Obama sent to Afghanistan in May after firing his predecessor, is making his case for additional resources publicly. In a speech Thursday at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, McChrystal said that "we must show resolve" and warned that "uncertainty disheartens our allies [see end of this post] and emboldens our foes [emphasis added, amazingly frank given the presidential deliberations]."

Asked whether a more limited counterterrorism effort would succeed in Afghanistan, he said, "The short answer is: no. You have to navigate from where you are, not where you wish to be. A strategy that does not leave Afghanistan in a stable position is probably a short-sighted strategy."

2) The general does stand fast:

McChrystal Rejects Scaling Down Afghan Military Aims

LONDON — The top American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, used a speech here on Thursday to reject calls for the war effort to be scaled down from defeating the Taliban insurgency to a narrower focus on hunting down Al Qaeda, an option suggested by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. as part of the current White House strategy review.

After his first 100 days in command in Kabul, General McChrystal chose an audience of military specialists at London’s Institute for Strategic Studies ["Watch the Address and the Q&A Session", plus text] as a platform for a public airing of the confidential assessment of the war he delivered to the Pentagon in late August, parts of which were leaked to news organizations. General McChrystal, 55, did not mention Mr. Biden or his advocacy of a scaled-down war effort during his London speech, and referred only obliquely to the debate within the Obama administration on whether to escalate the American commitment in Afghanistan by accepting his request for up to 40,000 more American troops on top of the 68,000 already deployed there or en route.

But he used the London session for a rebuttal of the idea of a more narrowly focused war. When a questioner asked him whether he would support scaling back the American military presence over the next 18 months by relinquishing the battle with the Taliban and focusing on tracking down Al Qaeda, sparing ground troops by hunting Qaeda extremists and their leaders with missiles from remotely piloted aircraft, he replied: “The short answer is: no.”

“You have to navigate from where you are, not from where you wish to be,” he said. “A strategy that does not leave Afghanistan in a stable position is probably a short-sighted strategy.”

In Washington on Thursday, Gen. David H. Petraeus told an audience that he had “not yet endorsed” General McChrystal’s specific request for additional troops, even though he has said he supports General McChrystal’s grim assessment of the war.

General Petraeus, the American commander who oversees the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and works closely with General McChrystal, was sounding a careful note in public [emphasis added] after participating in a three-hour strategy meeting with Mr. Obama and the administration’s national security team at the White House on Wednesday. For now, his aides say he does not want to get ahead of the president and the continuing deliberations...

In an oblique acknowledgment of the tricky political terrain, General McChrystal said there had been no pressure on him from military superiors to scale down his troop request — a pattern that developed at points during the Iraq war, when American generals hesitated to call for more troops after the defense secretary, Donald H. Rumsfeld, ruled them out...

3) Now the tête-à-tête:

President Barack Obama meets with Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the Commander of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan, aboard Air Force One in Copenhagen, Denmark on Oct. 2, 2009. Mtg on Air Force One with Gen. McChrystal (Official White House photo by Pete Souza)

COPENHAGEN - President Barack Obama summoned his top commander in Afghanistan for a 25-minute meeting aboard Air Force One on Friday as part of his review of a war strategy that has divided the president's national security team.
Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal and Obama met just before the president returned to Washington from Copenhagen, where he was pitching the International Olympic Committee on Chicago's bid to host the 2016 games [oops!].
McChrystal had been in London, where he said in a speech Thursday that insurgents are gaining strength in Afghanistan and more troops are needed to "buy time" for the Afghan military and police forces to prepare to take control of the country in 2013.
A White House spokesman said the meeting was part of the ongoing discussion about Afghanistan and no decisions were made. The pair met in the president's cabin.
"The president wanted to take the opportunity to get together with Gen. McChrystal," spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters aboard the presidential aircraft just before takeoff.
The meeting was the third conversation between the two since McChrystal disclosed in a television interview that aired Sunday that he had spoken with Obama only once since taking over the U.S. military efforts in Afghanistan. Obama tapped McChrystal in May to replace ousted Gen. David McKiernan.
Obama and McChrystal spoke on Wednesday before Obama convened a meeting later that day of his war council, which McChrystal joined by video conference. When Obama learned McChrystal would be in London, he asked him to meet him on the tarmac in Copenhagen after Obama made a last-minute pitch for Chicago's bid, Gibbs said...

Oh, to be the fly in the fuselage.

Update: Gates swinging one way?

Defense Secretary Robert Gates is leaning toward the view that a significant number of additional combat forces will be needed for the war in Afghanistan [noted before], sources tell CNN.
Gates is inclined to back Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top commander in Afghanistan, in pursuing a counterinsurgency strategy, defense and administration officials said Thursday.
Both officials stressed that Gates does not necessarily support sending all the additional forces McChrystal would want, which sources have said could be as many as 40,000 troops.
But they said Gates will likely agree with Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Michael Mullen, who told Congress last week that he expects more troops will be needed.
Another senior military official separately told CNN any final strategy Gates endorses may not be solely a counterinsurgency plan...

Whole lot of leakin' and spinnin' goin' on. War, D.C.-style.

Upperdate: This post should also be read for, er, context: