Obama Meets Top Afghan Commander as He Mulls Change in War Strategy
President Obama and Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal conferred on Air Force One on Friday in Copenhagen, their first meeting in person since the general took command in Afghanistan. Pete Souza/White House, via Associated Press
COPENHAGEN — President Obama held an unannounced meeting here on Friday with Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, his Afghanistan commander, to discuss a possible change in strategy and a proposed troop buildup in the eight-year-old war.
General McChrystal flew here from London, where he gave a speech [ http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/02/world/asia/02general.html ] on Thursday affirming the need for a military buildup in Afghanistan. He joined Mr. Obama in the forward cabin of Air Force One on the tarmac of the Copenhagen airport for 25 minutes after the president finished his presentation to the International Olympic Committee on behalf of Chicago’s bid to host the 2016 Games.
It was the men’s first meeting in person since General McChrystal took over all American and NATO forces [ http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/11/world/asia/11command.html ] on the ground in June. They spoke only once after that, in a videoconference call in August, until this week, when the general joined a video conference with the president to discuss the situation in Afghanistan. Mr. Obama spoke with the general by phone on Wednesday and suggested they meet in Copenhagen.
General McChrystal has requested as many as 40,000 more troops for the effort in Afghanistan and issued a dire report warning that without more forces the mission there would fail. Mr. Obama already sent an additional 21,000 troops earlier this year, for a total of 68,000 by this fall, and the prospect of even more reinforcements prompted a wholesale review [ http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/23/world/asia/23policy.html ] of his policy.
The fact that Mr. Obama had not talked with General McChrystal since his report was submitted at the end of August generated criticism from some who thought he was too distant from his own top commander. The White House argued that the president did not want to bypass the chain of command regularly and got plenty of information through weekly meetings with Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Mr. Obama met [ http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/01/world/asia/01policy.html ] with Mr. Gates, Admiral Mullen and the rest of his national security team on Wednesday, the second of five planned meetings to chart a new course in the war in Afghanistan. While General McChrystal pushes for a buildup of forces, others, including Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., are advocating the opposite approach, a scaled-back presence with a new focus on hunting cells of Al Qaeda, primarily through unmanned aerial aircraft strikes and Special Operations raids.
But the marred Afghan elections have called into question in the minds of many Obama advisers whether that strategy can work. Though President Hamid Karzai won the preliminary count, fraud on a wide scale has put those results into question, and they remain under review.
Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, said the president’s meeting with General McChrystal “was very productive” and underscored “many of the reasons why he picked him” to take command in Afghanistan. “General McChrystal expects that the president and others are going to ask him questions about the assessment that he’s made,” Mr. Gibbs said.
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