Losing "The Other War" because of Iraq

I assume you saw this in the NYTimes, but still....Wow.

How the ‘Good War’ in Afghanistan Went Bad

.....President Bush’s critics have long contended that the Iraq war has diminished America’s effort in Afghanistan, which the administration has denied, but an examination of how the policy unfolded within the administration reveals a deep divide over how to proceed in Afghanistan and a series of decisions that at times seemed to relegate it to an afterthought as Iraq unraveled.....

At critical moments in the fight for Afghanistan, the Bush administration diverted scarce intelligence and reconstruction resources to Iraq, including elite C.I.A. teams and Special Forces units involved in the search for terrorists. As sophisticated Predator spy planes rolled off assembly lines in the United States, they were shipped to Iraq, undercutting the search for Taliban and terrorist leaders, according to senior military and intelligence officials.

This is the provable core of the Democratic charges against the Bush administration, and the NYTimes has just filled out this narrative. Because of the "classified" nature of the chase for Al Qaeda, it is extremely difficult to create a similar story there, but this well documented story certainly allows that extrapolation.

Oh, and in case you might think this is somehow partisan, in the 3rd through 6th paragraphs of the second page, the first three Bush ambassadors to Afghanistan repeat the charge.

The vacationing White House cannot be happy about this. I would bet we'll see one of those "Setting the Record Straight" document blasts very quickly.

(And, Let me say clearly that I believe Afghanistan is still "winnable." It is unquestionably trending the wrong way, but because "the enemy" represents only one face (the Taleban) rather than the complex multisided civil war of Iraq, counterinsurgency could still work there.

But, for it to work, it needs alot more US attention, alot more US money, and alot more US/NATO presence. (and the US has to stop killing large numbers of civilians through the airstrikes currently used to amplify its undersized force.))