Missed Opportunities in Afghanistan and Beyond

MISSED OPPORTUNITIES IN AFGHANISTAN AND BEYOND -- (House of Representatives - March 02, 2006)

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, President Bush's brief stopover in Afghanistan yesterday gives us an opportunity to take stock of the progress that has been made there. It also provides an opportunity to reflect on what the world might look like today if the United States had adopted a wiser foreign and national security policy after the terrible attacks on our country on September 11, 2001.

After that tragic day, the world united behind the United States and our determination to destroy Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, and the terrorists responsible for those attacks. We sometimes forget here that within days of the attack the United Nation's General Assembly, friends and foe alike, unanimously adopted a resolution condemning the attacks on the United States. And NATO, for the first time in its history, invoked article 5 of the Washington Treaty stating an attack against one is an attack against all.

When the brutal Taliban regime refused to support action against al Qaeda, the United States took appropriate military action to force out the Taliban and attempt to destroy the al Qaeda terror network. That was the right action and had the strong backing of the American people. And Afghanistan is a much better place today.

However, while we succeeded in driving out the Taliban from the capital city of Kabul and killed a number of al Qaeda leaders, we have not finished the job. Indeed, Osama bin Laden, the man responsible for masterminding the 9/11 attacks, is still alive and likely to be somewhere along the Afghan-Pakistan border, less than 100 miles from where President Bush stood just yesterday.

And the continued presence of active Taliban and al Qaeda resistance in Afghanistan and along the Pakistan border represents a lost opportunity. Instead of finishing the job against al Qaeda, the President decided instead to attack Iraq, a nation with no weapons of mass destruction and a government that was actually an ideological adversary of al Qaeda.

As a result of invading Iraq, the Bush administration squandered a huge opportunity to keep both our forces and the international community focused on defeating al Qaeda and its brand of radical Islam. The goodwill that the United States had developed throughout the world in the aftermath of 9/11 evaporated as we switched our focus from the enemy that attacked us to one that had not. As a result, our invasion of Iraq has fueled radical Islamic and anti-American forces and allowed al Qaeda to gain new recruits around the world.

Today, the United States is tied down in an increasingly volatile Iraq, and the man actually responsible for launching the attacks on the United States, Osama bin Laden, remains at the top of his terrorist network.

Meanwhile, the United States continues to make mistakes that will hamper our ability to put the Taliban and al Qaeda out of business permanently. First, the United States is sending the wrong message by reducing the number of our forces in Afghanistan. Just yesterday, as President Bush was arriving in Afghanistan, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, General Maples, told Members of this Congress that the insurgency in Afghanistan is growing and will increase this spring, presenting a greater threat to the central government's expansion of authority than at any point since 2001. And the greatest threat of Taliban resurgence is in southern Afghanistan, the area from which the United States will be withdrawing more than 2,000 troops.

While we welcome the additional NATO forces in Afghanistan, it would be far wiser to use these NATO troops to supplement rather than replace the U.S. forces in the region. We should not be sending the wrong signal to the Taliban and al Qaeda at this delicate time. We are still living with the consequences of neglecting Afghanistan in the past.

Second, Mr. Speaker, the United States must end the abuse of the detainees at the prison at the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. Recent evidence suggests that the abuses that have taken place there are even worse than those that occurred at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad.

The United States must lead by example. The abuse of prisoners is wrong and will only strengthen the hands of al Qaeda and the extremists. We cannot credibly demand that others adhere to the rule of law if we are flouting international human rights standards. The President's stopover in Afghanistan gave him a chance to declare that such abuse is unacceptable.

Like so much else, however, it was another missed opportunity. As a result of many missed opportunities since 9/11, the United States is less secure than we could be. Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda are still in operation. The Taliban are feeling emboldened. We are bogged down in Iraq, and our weakened moral standing around the world has made it more difficult for us to influence events and protect our security. Let us stop missing opportunities to strengthen our security. We must not reduce our commitment to the people of Afghanistan, and we must increase our commitment to human rights.

Mr. Speaker, we can and should do better, much better.

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