October 16, 2011 7:06 PM

Ten years in Afghanistan: Running the war

 

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As the war in Afghanistan hits 10 years, guerrilla tactics are still exacting a high human toll. Gen. John Allen, the man in charge of the war, tells Scott Pelley that some U.S. troops will need to be there longer than most Americans thought.

Web Extras

(CBS News) 

Ten years after the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, determined to root out the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11, Scott Pelley travels to the war zone to see where we stand. He interviews the two men now charged with running the war -- Ambassador Ryan Crocker and General John Allen -- about our gains against the Taliban, our troubled relationship with Pakistan, and why U.S. soldiers will remain in Afghanistan well beyond 2014.

The following script is from "Running the War" which aired on Oct. 16, 2011.

Ten years ago tonight, U.S. Special Forces prepared to land in Afghanistan to answer the attack on America. The Taliban fell in just six weeks. And with that swift victory, America began a war that doesn't seem to end. In the last few months U.S. casualties have reached some of their highest levels while America's relationship with a critical ally, Pakistan, has sunk to new lows. Why are we still in Afghanistan? What's the plan? No one knows the answers better than the two men that President Obama has just charged with running the war.

Over the forbidding landscape of central Afghanistan the new American ambassador, Ryan Crocker, is returning, out of retirement, to a diplomatic career shaped by Islamic terrorism.

His partner, Marine Corps General John Allen is a warrior scholar, four stars, three master's degrees. A combat commander who was Dean of Students at the Naval Academy. The pair arrived three months ago, called in by the president, because they're the same team that helped end the insurgency in Iraq.

Scott Pelley: What's your plan to get us out of here?

Gen. John Allen: Well the plan is to - is to win. The plan is to be successful and the United States is gonna be here for some period of time.

That's the message General Allen wanted friends and enemies to hear. The U.S. is scheduled to hand security over to Afghanistan in 2014, the 13th year of the war, but he told us that won't be the end of it.

Pelley: You're talking about U.S. forces being here after 2014?

Allen: Yes, there will be.

Pelley: How many?

Allen: We don't know. That's -- that's to be determined.

Pelley: Some analysts have suggested 20 - 25,000, does that sound about right?

Allen: Too early. It's too early to tell.

Pelley: Are we talking about fighting forces?

Allen: We're talking about forces that will provide an advisory capacity. And we may even have some form of counter-terrorism force here to continue the process of developing the Afghan's counter-terrorism capabilities. But, if necessary, respond ourselves.

Pelley: But what you're saying is that the United States isn't leaving Afghanistan in the foreseeable future?

Allen: Well that's an important message.

A message that might surprise people who remember that a third of our troops are scheduled to be withdrawn next September.

Pelley: And to the enemy that believes that they can wait perhaps in Pakistan until 2014?

Allen: It's a bad narrative. They're wastin' their time.

After the withdrawal in September America will still have almost 70,000 troops here. So far the war has claimed 1,800 American lives and cost half a trillion dollars - it runs about two billion dollars a week. Still, Ambassador Crocker told us there will be no rush to the exits.

Pelley: Is it gonna be an 'uh-oh' moment for the American people...

U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker: I don't think so.

Pelley: ...who are hoping that the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan can be wrapped up?

Crocker: Again I think the American people understand what's at stake here. This is where 9/11 came from.

No diplomat understands like Ryan Crocker, he was there at the beginning - the first time Islamic terrorists struck America in 1983, the U.S. embassy in Lebanon. Crocker, age 33, a junior officer, emerged from the wreckage in a blood-stained shirt. Later he became ambassador to Lebanon, Kuwait, Syria, Pakistan and Iraq.

Pelley: When you left as ambassador of Iraq you retired from the Foreign Service and you promised your wife you would never go to a war zone again. What are you doin' here?

Crocker: When the commander-in-chief asks you to serve in a time of war there is only one right answer, you say yes. And I believe that, with the right resources and the right approach we can stabilize this country to the extent that there never again is a 9/11 that comes at us from Afghan soil. I flew into New York that morning.

Robert Anderson and Daniel Ruetenik are the producers.



© 2011 CBS Interactive Inc.. All Rights Reserved.
Add a Comment See all 57 Comments
by bbglow October 19, 2011 7:18 PM EDT
Considering the mission in Afghanistan was actually linked to 9/11, the question should be if we had concentrated on Afghanistan instead of diverting too Iraq would we be done with it by now? Was that real concern I perceived when the question of how many teachers in America were losing their employment? Does deployment = unemployment? 5 billion a month in Afghanistan ... 10 billion a month in Iraq ... how much in Africa? Are corporation paying for any of this or are they only profiting?
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by Bur2eau October 19, 2011 1:45 PM EDT
The measure of any successful military intervention is to destroy the subjects ability to continue it's objective while sustaining minimum loss to your own forces, resources and treasure. By this measure the conflicts we find ourselves in today are not now nor will they ever be successful.
In the interview with Gen. Allen he told of a credible threat known by him days prior to it's discovery, of a truck loaded with explosives intended to inflict harm on either our troops or our interests was eminent. Yet this vehicle was eventually able to position it self against a wall of one of our fortified outposts and detonate, wounding 77. How does something as large as a truck that everyone is looking for and knows is coming make it's way to a position to inflict damage on 77 of our brave men and women.
The problem is systemic. A soldier waiting to ply his trade isn't the same as one that is. At least to the soldier. The Military needs war to test it's tactics and hone it's tools. Ending a conflict swiftly limit's the opportunity. Yet an undefined enemy, suicide bombers, and IEDs have turned our brave sons and daughters from patriots to cannon fodder.
The CIA together with Special Opps and the Air Force demonstrated at the beginning of the Afghan conflict how being creative can get the job done. Then additional resources were denied that would have completed the job and ten years later here we are.
We are now just playing war for the sake of playing war. Osama is dead. It's time to leave.
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by elbe57 October 19, 2011 12:28 AM EDT
Has the United States ever been successful in transforming any foreign government into a democratic government? And if not, to any practical degree, how can we continue to make this same mistake other than, as many of you have written, it's simply about money. What a dreadful time we live in. When will we all take to the streets?
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by cbthlfl October 18, 2011 4:35 PM EDT
A very informative 60 Minute segment that would have been improved if it had ended 15 seconds earlier. Scott Pelly's question, playing the cost of the war against the layoff of teachers at home, is an appropriate policy or value judgment question when addressed to someone acting in a capacity where those choices can be considered as alternatives. General Allen and Ambassador Crocker have been asked to do a specific job for our country and we are fortunate to have men of this caliber available for the President to call to service. One has to assume that Mr. Pelley, by electing to bring a political question to a combat zone, was looking for a Rolling Stone/Gen McChrystal moment with the intent of marginalizing these two men and the personnel they lead.
Bring the question back to Washington and use it where it is appropriate. All of us need to hear the answer or more likely the evasive non-answers we seem willing to accept from our elected leaders.
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by GOPeconomicterror October 18, 2011 7:33 AM EDT
OK, boys. Here's the ton of poop General Westmoreland, and McNamara, sold us during Vietnam. Memorize it, and repeat as needed, to ensure Halliburton and Blackwater keep their profits growing.
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by ramos1129 October 17, 2011 5:29 PM EDT
It is a very good thing that General Allen has no real say so as to when we leave Afghan. I watched the entire 60 minutes interval. Allen conceded that we are powerless to do anything remotely looking like we will win and yet he maintains we will. He concdes that Pakistan is a major part of the problem but knows he cannot do anything about that. He very much resembles a man up to his legs in quicksand and unable to do anything about it except to sink slower.
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by Anotheryahoo October 17, 2011 4:53 PM EDT
You want to end this crap vote Ron Paul he will end these false wars for corporate interests. We have no business policing the entire world at our expense. If countries want us to play world cop then they should pay for it not the U.S. tax payer!
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by Molly-Pchr October 17, 2011 4:28 PM EDT
Religious wars. Time to come home, spend the money here, at HOME, on our infrastructure, put these men and women to work here at home.
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by sandiegopete October 17, 2011 12:49 PM EDT
What is the point of still being there? Al qaeda is pretty much done for and that was the one and only reason we went there in the first place.
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by web6242a October 17, 2011 11:33 AM EDT
The Israeli's learned long ago that it is senseless to send a conventional army to fight a civilian entrenched, loosely knit, terrorist organization, ( without National affiliation, or borders). Instead, it is far better( and a heck of a lot cheaper) to send in clandestine operatives, to infiltrate, then assassinate, the enemy. This gives the enemy no fodder for recruit as they have no visible enemy to blame or attack. After the Israeli Olympic attack --- Israel sent out anonymous death squads, who took out the perpetrators one by one. Sending out conventional forces to fight terrorists is like using machine guns to kill swarming bees --- It makes no military sense.
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