Rift? What Rift? Rivals Agree on Afghanistan

WASHINGTON (Dec. 8) -- The two top U.S. officials in Kabul closed ranks on Capitol Hill Tuesday, testifying shoulder-to-shoulder as if their widely reported rift over sending more troops to Afghanistan was just a misunderstanding.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the senior military commander in Afghanistan, told the House Armed Services Committee that he welcomed a chance to testify beside his "old friend," U.S. ambassador Karl Eikenberry.

The ambassador, a retired three-star general who once commanded troops in Afghanistan, said he and McChrystal were "unified" on the plan announced by President Obama last week to send 30,000 new troops there.

But what about those leaked cables in which Eikenberry advised against sending more troops until the corrupt government of President Hamid Karzai cleaned up its act?

"I can say without equivocation that I totally support this approach," said Eikenberry, whose classified memos contrasted sharply with a private assessment by McChrystal -- also leaked -- that without a massive troop buildup the mission in Afghanistan was doomed to "failure."

Eikenberry said despite media reports to the contrary, "at no point" did he oppose sending more troops to Afghanistan.

"It was a question of the number of those troops, the time lines for those troops, the context those troops would operate in," he said. Over the course of a three-month review, "The mission was refined, the ways forward were clarified and the resources now have been committed to allow us to achieve the refined mission. With that.... I am unequivocally in support of this mission and exactly aligned with Gen. McChrystal here to my right."

The two men also agreed that the main force of al-Qaida insurgents taking sanctuary in neighboring Pakistan wasn't their problem. Under questioning from Rep. Rob Andrews, D-N.J., who pointed out the "bi-national problem" that knows no borders, McChrystal said, "I have no direct responsibility for operations in Pakistan."

Added Eikenberry: "That's not my domain."

If the duo were watching their words to avoid rhetorical roadside bombs, Defense Secretary Robert Gates appeared to set out a major semantic marker on his way to Kabul Tuesday. The Pentagon chief said the U.S. intends to "win" in Afghanistan. It was a word he and other Obama administration officials have until now studiously avoided in favor of mushier verbiage about achieving "success."