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WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama's planned troop buildup in Afghanistan came in for more skepticism on Capitol Hill Thursday with lawmakers zeroing in on how the U.S. will deal with terrorist havens in neighboring Pakistan."What happens in Pakistan ... will do more to determine the outcome in Afghanistan than any increase in troops or shift in strategy," said Sen. John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Obama has depicted the effort to defeat al-Qaida as the center of his war strategy, but his national address Tuesday contained little detail on how he planned to deal with the terror networks hiding in Pakistan territory. The U.S. has relied largely on drone-launched missile strikes inside Pakistan in recent months, and those CIA operations are classified.
Opening a hearing on Afghan strategy, Kerry, D-Mass., said that it is the "presence of al-Qaida in Pakistan, its direct ties to and support from the Taliban in Afghanistan and the perils of an unstable, nuclear-armed Pakistan that drive our mission"....
