Officials Try to Unite on Afghan Plan

WASHINGTON — On a seven-hour trip from Kabul to a NATO meeting in Brussels last week, the two men in Kabul most responsible for American policy in Afghanistan exchanged few words, according to administration officials, holing up in separate compartments on their military plane.

The quiet flight of the two officials, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal and Karl W. Eikenberry, the United States ambassador to Afghanistan, reflects a chill between the two men that officials said took hold even before they staked out conflicting positions in the debate over how many added American troops to send to Afghanistan.

When General McChrystal and Ambassador Eikenberry sit down next to each other on Tuesday to testify before the House and Senate about President Obama’s new Afghan policy, they will have to work hard to project the image of lockstep unity so valued by this White House.

How the military commander and the diplomatic envoy reconcile their positions promises to be one of the most eagerly watched spectacles in Washington this week — one that may give a glimpse into a process that was more divisive than the White House would like outsiders to believe.

On Sunday, General McChrystal and Ambassador Eikenberry spent three hours in intense debate preparation at the Pentagon, taking questions from a mock panel of lawmakers. Among the most pointed, a military official said, was how they are getting along, in the wake of the ambassador’s now famous cable questioning the wisdom of sending a large influx of troops.

“It would be fair to say that those two aren’t exactly in a happy place right now,” said another Pentagon official who has worked with both men and also spoke on condition of anonymity to characterize their relationship.

Rumors that they dislike each other are exaggerated, this official said, but aides to General McChrystal said he was surprised and angered by Ambassador Eikenberry’s cables, especially since he had not voiced his reservations in their frequent meetings.

For his part, the ambassador has been rankled since General McChrystal handed in his strategic assessment of Afghanistan to the White House without sharing it with him first, another official said. That report formed the basis of the general’s request for 40,000 troops.

Beyond the bruised feelings over lack of consultation, some officials insist there is actually less of a rift over substance. Ambassador Eikenberry’s views about troops, they insist, are more complex and nuanced than suggested by news accounts, which were based on a selective characterization of the cables by unidentified administration officials, rather than on the full cables themselves.

In fact, a senior official said, the two men have a remarkably similar diagnosis. Only their remedies differ: General McChrystal recommended a hefty infusion of soldiers, while Ambassador Eikenberry worried that such an infusion would increase the dependency of the Afghan government, and should be conditioned on the government’s meeting certain benchmarks.

“I suspect Eikenberry is going to say he’s been a bit misquoted, that he wanted to use the leverage of more troops to get something more short-term,” said Bruce O. Riedel, a former intelligence official who helped coordinate the administration’s initial review of Afghanistan policy in March.

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“But it’s going to be live and in color,” he said of the testimony, which begins in the House. “Let’s wait and see.”

The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Representative Ike Skelton, Democrat of Missouri, said spectators would not have to wait long to hear the two men quizzed about their relationship. “They’ll get about 15 questions about that,” Mr. Skelton said in an interview on Monday.

Still, he said that their personal history was less important than their working relationship in the future. “It doesn’t matter what they said before, it’s what they do now,” he said.

“That’s the way it has to be,” Mr. Skelton added. “You cannot fight a bifurcated war.”

The record of relations between American military and civilian leaders during wartime is decidedly mixed. In Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus developed a good rapport with Ryan C. Crocker, then the ambassador. But earlier in that war, the top American civilian in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer III, had a deeply strained relationship with the coalition commander, Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez.

In part, the friction between General McChrystal and Ambassador Eikenberry reflects a natural difference in perspective between military and civilian officials. But there is an added wrinkle: Ambassador Eikenberry, a retired lieutenant general, was himself the commander in Afghanistan in 2006 and 2007. He retired from the Army and was appointed envoy last April.

As soldiers, the two men are very different.

Lean and wiry, General McChrystal is known as an ascetic who operates on a few hours of sleep and usually eats just one meal a day. In Iraq, where he oversaw secret commando operations for five years, former intelligence officials say that he had an encyclopedic, even obsessive, knowledge about the habits of terrorists, and pushed his troops relentlessly to kill as many as possible.

Ambassador Eikenberry, a tall, broad-shouldered man, has degrees from Harvard and Stanford, as well as from Nanjing University in China. He speaks Chinese and has written on ancient Chinese military history. Though more comfortable in political circles than General McChrystal, he has a mixed reputation among soldiers, with some saying he can be high-handed.

The two men have labored to project a united front. Last month, at a meeting of American civilian and military officials in Kabul with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, they squeezed into chairs next to each other along a back wall, giving the seats around the table to their deputies.

But the ambassador’s confidential cable, which officials said was solicited by the White House, infuriated General McChrystal’s aides, who said he had never expressed those views to the general, even though they met, on average, three times a week. General McChrystal himself tried to take the high road, military officials said, telling his staff, “Let’s move on.”

Other administration officials say that Ambassador Eikenberry made no secret of his skepticism about troops, which is why he was asked to put his thoughts into writing by the National Security Council.

As they go before Congress, General McChrystal and Ambassador Eikenberry share one burden. Unlike Mrs. Clinton or Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, at least some of their views have been made public. That will make it more difficult for them to paper over differences in opinion.

On the flight to Brussels, an official said, both men were busy in their cabins, working on their own testimony. But after three hours of joint preparation, they are ready to appear together.