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October 24, 2009

Senator: Bush, Cheney neglected Afghanistan for years

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Former Vice President Dick Cheney was wrong to accuse President Barack Obama of "dithering" while weighing whether to send tens of thousands more U.S. troops into Afghanistan, because the Bush administration neglected the conflict for years, Sen. Jack Reed said Thursday.



The U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, has sent Obama a still-secret troop request contemplating adding anywhere from 10,000 to 80,000 additional troops but favoring a compromise of 40,000 more forces, officials have told The Associated Press. Obama hasn't made a decision yet.



"Many of the same politicians who are demanding that the current president 'stop dithering' and do whatever his generals suggest forget that the previous administration ignored and under-resourced our commanders and soldiers in Afghanistan for nearly eight years," Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat, said in a conference call with reporters. He was joined by Sen. Ted Kaufman, a fellow Democrat from Delaware.



Reed, a member of the Armed Services Committee, was responding to comments by Cheney, who said Wednesday night that Obama should "do what it takes to win."



"Make no mistake," Cheney said, speaking to a conservative national security group. "Signals of indecision out of Washington hurt our allies and embolden our adversaries."



White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel said this week that the Bush administration had been adrift concerning the war in Afghanistan and that the Obama administration had to start from the beginning.



Reed said Republicans were fixated on the request for more soldiers, while he believes that success requires the right combination of troops, civilian support, international assistance and effort to build the Afghan government.



"They haven't talked about the cost of the civilian surge," Reed said. "They haven't talked about the governance issue that they let fester and become more problematic."

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