Lead Senate Appropriator Backs McChrystal’s COIN Strategy « The Washington Independent
Jul 31, 2020597 Shares597.4K Views
Both Greg Grantand Josh Roginreport that Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, has endorsed Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s counterinsurgency strategy for Afghanistan and troop requests. Well, sort of. McChrystal gave President Obama a palette of resource options, including different sorts of troop requests — reportedly, one of them ran as high as 80,000 troops! — so it’s not clear if Inouye is saying anything more than “Whatever McChrystal wants, give him.” Indeed, Inouye said yesterday on the Senate floor that he would “await specific recommendations from the military and the Administration” before endorsing any specific troop number. But that’s probably all, politically, he needs to say.