Although Karzai several years ago declared that the era of warlordism was over and offered several warlords influential posts in the central government, they remain extremely powerful forces in the country. Many enjoy great influence in their home provinces, with some fielding private militias or gaining wealth from the opium trade.
Any broad effort to train tribal militias probably would have U.S. military forces working with Taliban sympathizers. But Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who is in Budapest, Hungary, to discuss the Afghanistan war with North Atlantic Treaty Organization defense ministers, said Thursday that the U.S. would be open to reconciling with the Taliban.
"There has to be ultimately, and I'll underscore ultimately, reconciliation as part of a political outcome to this," Gates said. "That's ultimately the exit strategy for all of us."
The new Afghanistan strategy is being crafted as new intelligence assessments conclude that the nation is spiraling downward in part because of the government's shortcomings and widespread corruption. Those findings, contained in an upcoming U.S. National Intelligence Estimate, pose new concerns for American forces in Afghanistan, which have reported record casualties in 2007 and 2008.
The impending strategy shift is emerging from reviews set in motion this year and now nearing completion. The Pentagon and the White House are conducting such reviews, and U.S. Central Command, the military headquarters in charge of U.S. forces in the Middle East, is crafting its own recommendations.
Results of the White House review, conducted under Army Lt. Gen. Douglas E. Lute, deputy national security advisor for Iraq and Afghanistan, are weeks away, an administration official said.
The military reviews, one ordered by Mullen and the other by Gen. David H. Petraeus, the incoming head of Central Command, may be more significant because they could guide options presented to the next administration.
"My whole focus is on how to get this right," Mullen said, "not just for the next few months, but for the foreseeable future."
There are more than 30,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, far fewer than the 146,000 in Iraq. Military officials hope to send as many as 15,000 new troops in 2009, but some members of the Joint Chiefs have insisted that no additional forces should be deployed until a new strategy is in place.
