McChrystal leak backlash

Via LR/ here

"The NYT reports that Obama is looking at changing the strategy from the one McChrystal proposed of using U.S. troops to protect the Afghan population, to basically focusing them on targeting Al Qaeda.

President Obama is exploring alternatives to a major troop increase in Afghanistan, including a plan advocated by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to scale back American forces and focus more on rooting out Al Qaeda there and in Pakistan, officials said Tuesday. 

The options under review are part of what administration officials described as a wholesale reconsideration of a strategy the president announced with fanfare just six months ago. Two new intelligence reports are being conducted to evaluate Afghanistan and Pakistan, officials said. 

The sweeping reassessment has been prompted by deteriorating conditions on the ground, the messy and still unsettled outcome of the Afghan elections and a dire report by Mr. Obama’s new commander, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal. Aides said the president wanted to examine whether the strategy he unveiled in March was still the best approach and whether it could work with the extra combat forces General McChrystal wants.

The WaPost report notes that as McChrystal's advice to focus on protecting the Afghan population over targeting insurgents has taken effect, the number of U.S. troop deaths has sharply risen:

On July 2, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, issued a directive restricting the military's use of airstrikes and artillery bombardments. In July and August, the number of Afghan civilians killed by coalition forces was 19, compared with 151 for the same two months last year. 

Over the same period, U.S. troop deaths in the war more than doubled -- 96 this year, compared with 42 last year -- prompting worries that McChrystal's constraints and other tactical changes are creating advantages for a resurgent Taliban. Of the deaths this year, about a third are known to be from roadside bombs, and about 21 troops were killed in attacks involving small-arms fire or grenades and in some cases bombs, according to the Defense Department. The cause of death for another third is listed by the military only as combat operations, while the rest died from nonhostile incidents, airplane crashes or other causes. 

McChrystal, in a major assessment disclosed by The Washington Post on Monday, castigated the U.S. military in Afghanistan for being "preoccupied with protection of our own forces." .... Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, have also acknowledged recently that the new strategy has elevated the risk for U.S. troops.