Congressional opposition is gaining steam, especially among
Republicans but also among some senior Democrats, to the
potential transfer to Qatar of five senior Taliban prisoners, a
good-faith move that could set the stage for eventual political
talks between the Taliban and Afghan government.
One Republican lawmaker said public opposition would
escalate sharply if and when the administration formally
notified Congress it intends to transfer the prisoners, who come
from the highest ranks of the Afghan militant movement.
"If they do that, then all hell breaks loose. There's just
no way," the lawmaker said on condition of anonymity.
While Congress does not approve such transfers, a 30-day
waiting period is required before they take place. The White
House might rethink such a risky move if serious bipartisan
friction emerged in a presidential election year.
Yet efforts to broker a peace deal between the government of
Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the Taliban have become
central to US strategy in Afghanistan, where insurgents remain
capable of launching damaging attacks even after more than a
decade of foreign military efforts.
Western nations have long planned to pull most combat troops
from Afghanistan by the end of 2014. But as fatigue and the
financial burden of the war mount, it appears NATO nations will
seek to curtail their Afghan missions even earlier.
The Pentagon said US forces will stop taking a lead
role in combat operations next year but will continue to support
Afghan combat missions under a plan announced by Defense
Secretary Leon Panetta that has worried Afghans and surprised
allies.
A fast-approaching departure for foreign troops is one
reason why the congressional take on the reconciliation bid -
and especially the transfer of prisoners some lawmakers fear
will re-emerge on the battlefield - is so skeptical.
"It would seem that the Taliban are free to wait the
president out and recoup their senior leaders without obtaining
any real guarantee for a peaceful, stable or free Afghanistan,"
said Claude Chafin, a spokesman for Buck McKeon, the Republican
chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.
Lawmakers are also reluctant to accept a plan that, if
successful, would likely bring a hard-line Islamist group with a
history of oppressing women and committing human rights
violations back into power in some capacity.
"If this happens, we have crossed a red line that we
will never be able to get back. It is a serious doctrinal change
for the United States government," Mike Rogers, chairman of the
House Select Committee on Intelligence, said during a hearing
that included senior intelligence officials.
Recent intelligence analysis has suggested that while the
Taliban has been weakened, militants are not ready to abandon
their fight against Western troops.
"In fact it's saying we're all in deep kimchi, and
(administration officials) feel like this is their last grasp at
a straw to put something together," said the Republican lawmaker
speaking on condition of anonymity.
The administration has said a transfer, if it occurs, will
be a "national decision" made in consultation with Congress.
Doubts about dangerous detainees
Administration officials briefed select lawmakers from both
houses of Congress this week on the heels of a round of shuttle
diplomacy led by Marc Grossman, Obama's envoy for Afghanistan
and Pakistan. The flurry of meetings was aimed at enacting a
series of confidence-building measures, including a detainee
transfer, which could lead to substantive peace talks.
Speaking in Kabul last month, Grossman said the
administration had not made a decision to move the five
prisoners, whose fate has been a priority for the Taliban. He
said any transfer would first have to be agreed upon with
Congress.
Some Democrats are also deeply worried.
"We have an agreement that we won't negotiate with
terrorists," Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne
Feinstein, a Democrat, told Reuters last week.
The White House has laid out conditions that the Taliban
would have to respect if any final deal were to be struck -
which officials acknowledge is a long shot - including
renouncing violence and embracing the Afghan constitution.
Some members of Congress and the US intelligence community
have raised questions about the potential hand-over of one
detainee in particular, Mullah Mohammed Fazl, a "high-risk"
detainee held at Guantanamo since early 2002.
As a senior commander of the Taliban army, Fazl is alleged to
be responsible for the killing of thousands of Afghanistan's
minority Shi'ite Muslims between 1998 and 2001.
According to US military documents made public by
WikiLeaks, he was also on the scene of a November 2001 prison
riot that killed CIA operative Johnny Micheal Spann, the first
American to die in combat in the Afghan war.
A senior administration official, speaking on condition of
anonymity last month, said he knew of no evidence Fazl was
involved in the death of Spann, who was surrounded and killed by
rioting prisoners.
"Do we have footage of him pulling the trigger? No. Do we
know he was involved in the uprising that led to (Spann's)
death? Yes," said a Republican lawmaker who spoke on condition
of anonymity. "They're trying to parse words there."
The administration said this week it had asked intelligence
agencies for additional assessments of the risks of transferring
the five detainees to a third country.
COMMENTS
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ