Obama, legislators hear of Afghan progress

The metrics, which Obama promised in a high-profile speech in March, were meant to send the message that the White House has narrowly tailored its objectives in Afghanistan to focus on terrorism.

At the time, Obama revealed he was sending 21,000 more US troops, bringing the force to about 68,000 by year’s end, and said he would demand measurable progress.

But yesterday some of the 40 or so lawmakers who attended the briefing complained that the administration’s benchmarks describe a far more open-ended commitment in Afghanistan.

“The stated goal is rhetorically narrowing the mission but it is anything but that,’’ said Senator Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican who serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “There is no question in my mind based on the metrics that have been laid out that this is nation-building.’’

Senator Robert Casey Jr., a Pennsylvania Democrat who serves on the same committee, offered a more generous assessment, but said he, too is “not yet satisfied.’’

He also said the metrics, which were developed with input from Congress, should make public as soon as possible. “The American people need frequent reporting,’’ he said.

The list of 46 metrics, obtained by the Globe, includes some obvious measures of success, such as the percentage of the population living under insurgent control and the capabilities and size of the Afghan national army. But the list also contained some nontraditional measures, such as support for human rights, the ability of the Afghan government to collect taxes, and the ability to hold credible elections.

The success of that measure is in jeopardy after widespread allegations of fraud marred the apparent election victory of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Yesterday, Afghan officials issued full preliminary results showing that Karzai received 54.6 percent of the vote, making him an outright winner, but a United Nations-backed commission supervising the election has ordered a recount in about 10 percent of polling stations.

At the same time, US casualties are spiking with two consecutive months of record deaths. The latest deaths were announced yesterday - three US service members were killed after their vehicle hit a roadside bomb on Tuesday.

After delivering a military assessment to the White House, the top US commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, is expected to formally request reinforcements. On Tuesday, Admiral Michael Mullen, the joint chiefs chairman, told a Senate hearing that about 4,000 more trainers were needed in Afghanistan. But a wave of skepticism from both Democrats and Republicans in Congress has created a problem for Obama’s plans to intensify the war effort.

The president stressed yesterday that he would make no decisions until after analyzing the election and diplomatic and civilian efforts to come up with the right strategy.

“My determination is to get this right,’’ Obama said after meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who has pledged to withdraw his country’s troops from Afghanistan by 2011.

“You don’t make determinations about resources, and certainly you don’t make determinations about sending young men and women into battle, without having absolute clarity about what the strategy’s going to be,’’ Obama added.

After yesterday’s briefing, Corker said the presentation was “incredibly superficial’’ and no numbers were presented. He said he asked the administration to make Karl Eikenberry, the US ambassador to Afghanistan, and McChrystal available for hearings in the coming weeks, just as senior officials in Iraq were grilled on Capitol Hill about the troop surge in 2007.

Senator John F. Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat who heads the Foreign Relations Committee, also said “there were still questions left open’’ after the administration’s briefing.

Kerry spoke after holding a hearing he called on the way forward in Afghanistan, during which he and other members of Congress questioned a panel of specialists on whether there were viable alternatives to a large-scale military buildup, such as a reliance on drone attacks to kill terrorists from afar.

The panel, which included Rory Stewart, a former British official, and counterinsurgency expert John Nagl, seemed divided.

Kerry himself seemed on the fence about increasing troops. He noted that a senior Al Qaeda operative was killed in Somalia earlier this week without a significant US presence there.

But Stephen Biddle, a defense specialist at the Council on Foreign Affairs, said that effectiveness of such strikes declines drastically if there is no human intelligence on the ground.

Concern over the mounting costs of the Afghan war, which have so far topped $200 billion, appeared to be at the heart of congressional skittishness about sending more troops.

“We’re borrowing from other countries to finance this war,’’ Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, the senior Republican on the committee, said at the hearing. “This is why some unorthodox thinking may be involved.’’

Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.