2009 sees Mary Louise Kelly take up a new beat: the Pentagon. As part of NPR's national security team, she reports on a range of defense and foreign policy issues. Kelly chronicles the Obama administration's tactics and strategy for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. She is particularly interested in how the U.S. projects its military muscle overseas, how it will respond to rising military powers such as China, and how U.S. foreign policy is often conducted through defense and intelligence channels.
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Defense Secretary Robert Gates traveled to a factory line in Oshkosh, Wis., which is making a new kind of armored vehicle for the war in Afghanistan. Gates personally thanked the company's workers.
President Obama gathered his war council for an eighth strategy session on Wednesday. The White House says four final options are on the table. Each would require a different level of U.S. troops — and each would involve a different goal for U.S. efforts.
President Obama is pushing his national security team for more detail about an exit strategy for U.S. forces fighting in Afghanistan. After a 2 1/2 hour meeting Wednesday, administration officials said the president does not plan to accept any of the options that were on the table in their current form.
Media reports, quoting sources, are naming one of the suspects in the massive shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, as Maj. Malik Nadal Hasan. He was killed, and two other suspects were apprehended. All are U.S. Soldiers. Twelve people were killed and 31 wounded in the attack.
In the eight years since the invasion of Afghanistan, the U.S. has spent $156 billion on the war there. But that figure only includes the Defense Department's price tag. The human cost has been high, too. The Pentagon says that since 2001, more than 900 U.S. servicemembers have been killed.
The Army says at least 12 were killed and 31 people wounded in a pair of shootings at the Fort Hood Army base in Texas. An Army spokesman said three shooters were apparently involved.
One of the factors President Obama must weigh as he decides whether to send more troops to Afghanistan is the cost — not just in lives, but in dollars. With the economy still struggling, questions exist about how much the U.S. can afford to spend in Afghanistan — and for how long.
Pakistan is believed to have at least 60 nuclear weapons, and the country's leaders say security measures protecting them are "foolproof." But recent terrorist attacks against a Pakistani police post and the army's headquarters have raised serious questions about that security.
The White House says the latest meeting of the president's war council focused on efforts to train Afghan security forces. At least one more meeting is planned, and Obama says he will decide on a war strategy "in the coming weeks." Meantime, events on the ground keep shifting.
It's now looking unlikely that President Obama will back the major troop increase that his top commander in Afghanistan is calling for. What Obama appears to be steering toward is middle ground: a troop increase, but perhaps not all 40,000, something more in the range of 10,000 or 20,000 new troops.
President Obama huddled with his war advisers in the White House situation room again Wednesday, trying to chart a new strategy for the war in Afghanistan. More meetings are planned. Aides say the president hasn't made up his mind on the best way forward, but there are signs that he's narrowing his options.
In Saudi Arabia, a suicide bomber failed in his attempt to kill a prince, but the episode sent a chill through Western security circles nonetheless. The bomb — which some say the would-be assassin swallowed and carried inside his body — was detonated by a cell phone call. Experts say the incident shows al-Qaida is still innovating.
President Obama is weighing whether to send more troops to Afghanistan — even as polls show support for the war declining. In what's known as the Powell Doctrine, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who also is a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, argued that military force should be used only if there was a clear exit strategy. He said the force used should be overwhelming and the operation must have strong public support.
Gen. Stanley McChrystal's bleak assessment of the Afghan war has reopened debate in the Obama administration on the way forward. President Obama has indicated he's rethinking the counterinsurgency approach he put in play back in March. So what are his options at this point?
The insurgency in Afghanistan is getting stronger. According to a leaked assessment of the war, Taliban-led insurgents either control or are fighting in a "significant portion of the country." It's hard to understand why because insurgent fighters are vastly outnumbered by U.S., NATO and Afghan security forces, and their technology is inferior.
