Dems Counterattack on 'Dithering' Charge: Cheney, Bush Left Afghanistan in Chaos

From the White House to Capitol Hill, Democrats responded angrily Thursday to former Vice President Dick Cheney's charge that President Obama is putting U.S. troops at risk by "dithering" on Afghanistan.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs called it a "curious" comment. "I think it's pretty safe to say that the vice president was for seven years not focused on Afghanistan," Gibbs said. "Even more curious, given the fact that (an) increase in troops sat on desks in this White House, including the vice president's, for more than eight months, a resource request filled by President Obama in March."

Gibbs added: "I find it interesting that he's blaming us for something that he didn't see fit to do over, best I can tell, seven years of a war in Afghanistan."

Democrats have been chafing at Republican demands that Obama finish his policy review and quickly send thousands more troops to Afghanistan. White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said over the weekend that the new administration is having to formulate an Afghanistan strategy from scratch because former president George W. Bush did not have one.

Cheney escalated the GOP critique to a new level Wednesday night when he suggested in a speech to the conservative Center for Security Policy that Obama's strategy review is endangering U.S. troops. Obama "seems afraid to make a decision, and unable to provide his commander on the ground with the troops he needs to complete his mission," Cheney said. "The White House must stop dithering while America's armed forces are in danger. It's time for President Obama to do what it takes to win."

Cheney added that "signals of indecision out of Washington hurt our allies and embolden our adversaries. Waffling, while our troops on the ground face an emboldened enemy, endangers them and hurts our cause."

The former vice president denied that the Bush team had no strategy. He said the administration did a review of the war before leaving office and, at the request of the Obama transition team, did not release the findings publicly. Instead, he said, Obama's team was briefed and given "the benefit of our work" in private.

Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., a former Army Ranger who has made eight trips to Afghanistan, said it was "preposterous" of Cheney to claim that because his administration reviewed the war right before stepping down, it had bequeathed a strategy to Obama. Bush and Cheney were adamant about invading Iraq, he said, and adamant about things that did not materialize -- weapons of mass destruction, ties to the 9/11 attacks, an al-Qaida presence in Iraq in 2001. "As a result, we are now trying to put together the pieces in Afghanistan," he told reporters on a conference call.

As for Cheney's demand that Obama quickly send troops, Reed said Bush and Cheney "ignored and under-resourced" the Afghanistan war for nearly eight years. "Why didn't the former vice president ask George Bush to just 'Do what it takes to win in Afghanistan?' for the seven years when he was in office instead of blindly rushing into Iraq and allowing Afghanistan to drift into chaos?" Reed asked.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said U.S. troops are at greater risk because "for the entire Bush administration, we looked the other way on Afghanistan. There was never a plan." The result, she said at her weekly news conference, is a Taliban comeback, corruption in the Afghan government and virtually no reconstruction of the country.

"Matters are so much worse because of the missed opportunities for seven and a half years. It's really tragic," she said, and added Obama should take whatever time he needs to think it through. "The president should not make a decision any sooner than he has the right information to do so."

Update: At least one Republican, Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander, said he disagrees with Cheney's comment. "I think President Obama is entitled to take sufficient time to decide what our long-term role ought to be in Afghanistan," he said on MSNBC. "I want him to take the time to get it right."

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