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In a busy news week, with Japanese radiation, Libyan fighting and Gulf States’ protests dominating the headlines, new factual information delivered during hearings on Capitol Hill often gets lost in the mix.

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Here is a sampling from Senate and House hearings on elements of the Defense Department’s fiscal 2012 budget:

Eye on Afghanistan: Gen. David Petraeus, appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, said that persistent surveillance of Afghanistan has sharply increased and will continue growing. “We have increased the number of various types of persistent surveillance systems — essentially blimps and towers with optics — from 114 this past August to 184 at the present, with plans for continued increases throughout this year.”

The prime system is the Aerostat, a blimp-like vehicle that is held 1,000 feet in the air by a tether, which also supplies electric power to its cameras and sensors. They are not highly pressurized so bullets won’t immediately shoot them down. They, along with systems based on towers, provide day and night monitoring of a wide area over towns and military bases.

Battling Afghan corruption: Petraeus defended President Hamid Karzai on the subject of Afghan corruption. He said Karzai’s concern with private security contractors was based on ownership “in some cases of former warlords or members of what he — and we — have agreed to call criminal patronage networks. .?.?. Again, these are criminals. They’re breaking the law. They have political protection in some respects. And they’re not just acting as individuals; they are part of networks. ”

Petraeus told the story of the firing in December of former Afghan surgeon general Ahmad Zia Yaftali and three officials from the country’s top medical facility, Dawood National Military Hospital in Kabul. A U.S.-Afghan investigation discovered about $43-million worth of American-supplied drugs for military hospitals were missing, and expensive diagnostic equipment was found in private medical offices.

“When he heard the evidence on his surgeon general, for example, he fired him on the spot,” Petraeus told the senators about Karzai.

Recruiting facts: The Air Force, which has its newly established U.S. Cyber Command, is looking to recruit professionals in this discipline “who do this work on a daily basis but that are willing to serve and share their expertise with the service,” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz told Congress. One approach: building Air Force Reserve units in Silicon Valley in California and the Northwest, where Microsoft and other Web giants are located.

Military construction excess: A $50-million Navy fitness center and two working dog facilities — at $4.9 million and $3.5 million each — drew the attention of Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), who chairs the Senate Armed Services military construction subcommittee. “Those are expensive working dog facilities,” she volunteered, but never pursued them.

“I understand that fitness is a requirement of the job, and we will always need fitness centers for our military,” she said, “but at a time when our nation is facing fiscal cuts, I have trouble seeing how we can justify spending $50 million on a single fitness center and I want to examine that more fully.”

She said she thought “this must be in a very, very difficult part of the world. This must be a fitness center someplace where there is no other access to easy and affordable and accessible PT [physical training] activities.” But her interest increased when she found it was to be built at Naval Base Coronado near San Diego and is to include a $7.5?million swimming pool, a $4?million recreation center for single sailors and a close to $20?million gym facility.

“I’m anxious to hear what we’re replacing and certainly I want our men and women to have the best,” McCaskill said. “But this is the most beautiful place in the world and certainly the outdoors lends itself for exercise almost every day there.”

Jackalyne Pfannenstiel, assistant secretary of the Navy for Energy, Installations and Environment, diplomatically agreed that San Diego was most beautiful and the area lends itself to being outdoors. “But,” she added, “the reason that this facility is at the price that it is, is that it will have something like 80,000 patrons.” She explained San Diego is a major hub for the Navy and Marines, and the expectation is the $50?million building “will be the central facility for that entire area.”

Coronado Naval Base lists on its Web site 12 Navy fitness centers and gyms located throughout the San Diego region, including one, the Admiral J.G. Prout Field House, that has strength and cardiovacular machines, a trained staff and “includes a 50 meter outdoor pool, jacuzzi, an indoor basketball court and locker rooms complete with sauna.”

pincusw@washpost.com

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At a time when our political system is said to be incapable of rising above poisonous partisanship to promote the national interest, Gen. David Petraeus’s visit to Capitol Hill last week was instructive.

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What — you didn’t know Petraeus was in town for make-or-break hearings on President Obama’s Afghanistan policy? Well, in a way that proves the point.

In September 2007 Petraeus returned from Baghdad at a comparable moment in the Iraq war. The week he was in town Iraq filled 42 percent of the newshole monitored by the Pew Research Center’s News Coverage Index — mostly with stories that Petraeus is unlikely to want in his scrapbook.

A full-page MoveOn.org ad branded him “General Betray Us.” Protesters jeered him and the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker. Then-Sen. Hillary Clinton said that Petraeus’s claims of progress were not credible.

Like Iraq then, the Afghanistan war today is unpopular; the president has ordered a surge in U.S. troops that has aroused skepticism; and most Americans want U.S. troops home.

Yet Petraeus’s appearances last week, this time accompanied by Defense Undersecretary Michle Flournoy, could hardly have been more different.

The Democratic chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Carl Levin (Mich.), kicked off the week by saying that Petraeus’s counterinsurgency strategy had been “instrumental in turning the tide in Afghanistan.” The panel’s ranking minority member, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), agreed: “We are turning around the war in Afghanistan.”

On the House side it was the same story, but with the Republican going first. “Our forces have made significant gains in the past year and have reversed the Taliban’s tactical momentum,” said House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.). “I want to start by concurring with the chairman’s remarks about the progress that has been made in Afghanistan in the last year to 18 months,” said ranking Democrat Rep. Adam Smith (Wash.).

Many members went on to probe aspects of U.S. policy, often skeptically, just as you’d hope legislators would: about Afghan corruption, Pakistani instability, suicide prevention and brain-injury treatment, the war’s high cost in lives and money, and the perceived free-riding of allies. But the questioning was respectful and directed at improving U.S. policy, not proving that it had failed.

There are many reasons for the contrast. Historic events from Japan to Libya overshadow news from Kandahar. Petraeus’s success in Iraq, combined with his deft political touch, has made him as close to bulletproof as anyone can be in this town, and he obviously wasn’t counting on that alone; it was astonishing how many members seemed to have just returned from the front.

Most important, the progress in Afghanistan is real — but, then, that was true in Iraq in 2007 and had little impact on the political debate, when there was such bitterness between President George W. Bush and Democrats that Iraqi reality was almost irrelevant. Bush had played the “soft on homeland security” card mercilessly and effectively, and Democrats were looking for payback.

Obama’s escalation, when 73 percent of Americans want substantial numbers of troops brought home, would seem to open fertile ground to Republicans. But from their leaders on down, they haven’t sought to plow there. In this instance at least, politics really has stopped at the water’s edge.

Meanwhile, the president has cocooned his activist policy in minimalist rhetoric. He never speaks of victory or idealistic goals, certainly not for the Afghan people. When he announced the surge in December 2009, he simultaneously emphasized a July 2011 withdrawal. When he nudged that withdrawal clock to the end of 2014, there was no address to the nation marking the new emphasis.

There are costs to this reticence. It’s hard to build support for an unpopular war if you leave that job to Petraeus and Flournoy, as capable as both are. Already, Congress is threatening to reduce funding for the civilian side of U.S. efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq, which could undercut both missions.

On the other hand, by doing as much as he thinks necessary while talking as little as he thinks possible, Obama may make it easier for all kinds of politicians to stay on board — Republicans who vilify him in almost every other context and liberal Democrats who dislike the policy, whose supporters hate the policy and who therefore would rather talk about almost anything else.

It may not be exactly how textbooks say leaders are supposed to lead — and if you believe the war is a mistake, it’s a picture of democracy failing to respond. But if, like Obama, you believe we need “an enduring, long-term commitment to Afghanistan,” as Flournoy paraphrased last week, “having made the mistake historically of walking away and then paid a very dear price for that,” then it is reassuring to see that Washington can stick with something hard, in a bipartisan and civil way.

Given the alternative still fresh in his memory, that’s probably good enough for Petraeus as he flies back to the war this week.

fredhiatt@washpost.com

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Two new Washington Post/ABC News poll stories on Tuesday highlight public opinion on the war in Afghanistan and the broad uncertainty over the direction of the U.S. government. Digging deeper into the numbers finds differing reactions from Democrats, Republicans and independents.

Almost three-quarters of the public thinks the United States should withdraw substantial combat forces from Afghanistan this summer. Republicans are much less likely than Democrats and independents to think troops should be withdrawn on this timetable. Far fewer overall — just 39 percent — believe troops will actually be drawn down starting in the summer. Democrats are more optimistic than Republicans and independents in this regard.

In the second poll story, just over a quarter express optimism over the future of our system of government and how well it works. Nearly half are uncertain about the future. Unlike most attitudes about the government and politics in Washington, there is less political division on this question. Three in 10 or fewer Democrats, Republicans and independents express optimism about the future.

By Peyton M. Craighill  |  06:41 PM ET, 03/14/2011

 

 

 

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Doug Mills/The New York Times President Obama arrived at Bagram Air Force Base after a secret overnight flight.

11:31 a.m. | Updated President Obama made an unannounced visit to Afghanistan on Friday as he sought to smooth over a troubled relationship with President Hamid Karzai and take stock of a nine-year-old American-led war that he hopes to begin winding down next summer.

Mr. Obama planned to travel to Kabul and head to the presidential palace to meet with Mr. Karzai, who has complained vocally about American military tactics in recent weeks. The president also planned to consult with his commanding general and visit American troops heading into another holiday season far from home. But due to weather concerns, the president is expected to stay at Bagram Air Field and conduct meetings from there.

Wrapped in a tight security cocoon, Mr. Obama is scheduled to be on the ground only for several hours in his second trip in nine months to a country ravaged by war. But his arrival came at critical juncture as he and other NATO allies are putting in place a transition plan intended to hand over control of the battlefield to Afghan forces starting in the new year with the hope of formally ending foreign combat operations there by the end of 2014.

Mr. Obama’s administration is also in the midst of conducting its own review of the counterinsurgency strategy he approved a year ago when he ordered the latest surge of troops that brought American forces to about 100,000, or roughly triple the number there when he took office 22 months ago. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the commander of American and NATO forces, has highlighted signs of progress, but others have expressed skepticism.

The president’s visit came at a time of renewed tension between American and Afghan allies. Mr. Karzai has spoken out lately against special operations raids that American officers believe have proved especially effective in rooting out insurgents. His government is also embroiled in a conflict over fraud in recent parliamentary elections that Western diplomats hoped would show improvement in a flawed democracy.

Mr. Obama’s plane touched down even as State Department cables obtained by the group Wikileaks and made available to a number of news organizations laid out a devastating portrait of a society awash in corruption and graft that has been fostered by Mr. Karzai’s own government. The cables questioned whether Mr. Karzai will ever be “a responsible partner” and depicted him as “erratic” and “indecisive and unprepared.”

But unlike his March trip, when Mr. Obama pressed Mr. Karzai over corruption and the frictions were on display, the president arrived in Kabul this time intent on working around the divisions. The White House shifted its approach to Mr. Karzai after that March trip, concluding that public divisions were doing more harm than good.

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As I watched the trailer for the coming-soon (and preposterously premised) movie, “Cowboys & Aliens,” I thought about Afghanistan. Yes, there’s a showdown looming between two different worlds. President Barack Obama has promised to start significantly withdrawing troops by next July, and the military (led by Superman-Gen. David Petraeus) is working on a counterinsurgency strategy [...]

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