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FORT WORTH — Retired Army Gen. Tommy Franks, the four-star who oversaw the initial invasions of both Afghanistan and Iraq, doesn’t believe that the central question facing President Barack Obama in Afghanistan is how many troops might be needed in the coming months.
What is required, Franks said during a visit to Fort Worth sponsored by a conservative think tank, is a national strategy for Afghanistan, not a troop count. That decision, he said, does require some soul-searching because it is not fair to ask young men and women in uniform to die for an ill-defined goal."We don’t need the president to decide whether to send 40,000 more people or 60,000 more people," Franks said. "What we need is for the president to define the desired end-state for Afghanistan. We need to have a national objective. What do you want?"Franks, who labeled himself as neither Republican nor Democrat, gave no indication, though, on what he personally believes is the right course as the nation enters its ninth year of war there — commit more troops, pull back or do some other variation.He did say that he is willing to give Obama the benefit of the doubt on such weighty matters."On the day that our president identifies the objective, the strategy, for Afghanistan, he’ll be identifying what it takes to win," Franks said. "At the same time, he’ll be identifying what it takes to lose, which is anything less than a win. That’s a pretty heavy rock to carry on your shoulder. . . . I’m going to support him until he is able to make the decision. Then, I may agree with him, and I may not."Franks, a graduate of the University of Texas at Arlington, is highly decorated for service in three wars, retired in 2003 and now lives in his native Oklahoma. He was commander of U.S. Central Command from 2000 to 2003, the period leading up to and immediately after 9-11.He has been sharply criticized by some experts, including Army historians, for what they said was a severe lack of planning for the occupation and stabilization of Iraq, decisions they say allowed the insurgency to blossom.Invited by the Dallas-based National Center for Policy Analysis, which encourages "private-sector solutions to public policy problems," Franks was "interviewed" by conservative talk-show radio host Mike Gallagher after the luncheon at the Omni Hotel downtown.But if anyone showed up for a sharp-tongued, harsh critique of the president and his policies, Franks surely disappointed. Even Gallagher said he was "being diplomatic up here."A believer in being able "to disagree without being disrespectful," Franks said he didn’t "want to put myself in a position of judging the decision-making of a man who has enormous responsibility."Instead, he spent much of the 50-minute interview discussing his leadership style, his father’s role in his life, what lessons the military taught him and a soldier’s obedience to the Constitution and the commander-in-chief.CHRIS VAUGHN, 817-390-7547
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