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Udall: Afghanistan is "the right fight"

By M.E. Sprengelmeyer, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published January 23, 2008 at 4:22 p.m.
Updated January 23, 2008 at 4:22 p.m.

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WASHINGTON — Sending 3,200 reinforcement troops is a start, but more needs to be done to "finish the job" in the Afghanistan conflict, Rep. Mark Udall said Wednesday after a trip to the war zone.

Udall, D-Eldorado Springs, returned to Washington late Tuesday night after a bipartisan congressional delegation made a 36-hour stop in Afghanistan to survey ongoing attempts to stabilize the country.

"I returned believing more than ever that we have to finish the job in Afghanistan...that we have to return our focus — which I think has been fuzzy — to the importance of the effort underway there," Udall told reporters in a conference call Wednesday.

Udall, a longtime opponent of the Iraq war, calls Afghanistan "the real central front in the war on terror."

U.S. and allied forces helped drive the country's Taliban leadership out of power in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks because of their role sheltering al-Qaeda. Since then, stability has been elusive in various parts of the country and Taliban backers have regrouped and reportedly are behind a sharp increase of insurgent attacks, particularly in southern Afghanistan.

Udall said he agreed with the Pentagon's recent decision to add 3,200 U.S. Marines to the battlefield, bringing the U.S. commitment to more than 30,000 troops. But he said more forces would be available if the military began a phased redeployment of troops currently stationed in Iraq.

"This is the right fight," Udall said of Afghanistan. "It's a war of necessity as opposed to the war of choice."

The delegation trip included meetings with NATO officials in Brussels, Belgium, and a return stop in Germany.

Udall said he does not want to see an open-ended military involvement in Afghanistan, but that it could take five years before the fledgling government can take complete control over the nation's security.

"At this point, because of the instability in Afghanistan, and frankly the increase over the last year of violence and the (rebuilding) of the Taliban presence in the south, I think we have no choice but to continue our presence there and even build on it," he said.