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By ROBERT BURNS, AP National Security Writer


      COMBAT OUTPOST ANDAR, Afghanistan (AP) — In encounters with
troops in Afghanistan this past week, the question Defense
Secretary Robert Gates heard more than any other was this: What
does Osama bin Laden's death mean for the war?


      Soldiers on the front lines of a conflict that began when many
were pre-teens seemed to be wondering: Must we keep fighting and
dying in this country if the terrorist who was the reason we came
here is dead?


      Gates said emphatically, yes, because Afghanistan could yet
again revert to a haven for terrorists bent on perpetrating another
9/11 attack.


      But it's a question that hangs over an intensifying debate in
Washington about charting the next steps in a war, now in its 10th
year, that is growing more costly and less popular among the
American public and in Congress.


      The bin Laden factor arguably has put Gates and other advocates
of sticking to the current war strategy on the defensive. Although
he is retiring June 30, Gates clearly is not shying away from a
Washington policy debate that will come to a head this month with
President Barack Obama's decision on how many troops to withdraw in
July and, perhaps, how quickly to pull out the rest of the 30,000
"surge"' forces the commander in chief sent here last year.


      There are now 100,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan - three times
the total when Obama took office in January 2009.


      A budget-cutting mood in Congress, coupled with the imminence of
the first troop withdrawals, has left Gates pitching a
stay-the-course argument: It will take some months more to see how
bin Laden's death in Pakistan might affect the Taliban in
Afghanistan. In the meantime it would be premature to let up on
U.S.-led combat offensives that have begun to put the Taliban on
their heels. Keeping up the military pressure may, by winter, yield
a true breakthrough: a Taliban leadership willing to enter serious
peace talks.


      Others in the Obama administration, however, are pushing behind
the scenes for an accelerated wrap-up of the troop-intensive
counterinsurgency campaign. Many in Congress are making a similar
case.


      It's clear where Gates stands. At a U.S. base called Sharana on
a bleak and barren stretch of land in remote Paktika province, not
far from the Pakistan border, a soldier on Monday asked what bin
Laden's demise meant for U.S. strategy.


      "It's too early to tell what the impact of bin Laden's death is
on the situation here in Afghanistan," Gates replied. "I think
we'll have a better idea by the end of the year." In the meantime,
he said later, "We shouldn't let up on the gas too much - at least
for the next few months."


      Given that bin Laden and the top Afghan Taliban leader, Mullah
Omar, were "very close, personally," Gates said, more Taliban
members may be wondering what's to be gained by keeping up their
alliance with al-Qaida.


      "So, my hope is that if we can keep the military pressure up
through the remainder of this year, keep what we've captured from
these guys in the south, and keep this up, and they see that they
are not going to win, that then increases the opportunity for" a
peace settlement, he said.


      "But I don't expect it to make much difference here in
Afghanistan, in the short term," he said.


      Peace talks are in their infancy, at best, without clear
negotiating partners with whom the Afghans, with U.S. backing,
would start to cut a deal.


      Army Lt. Gen. David Rodriguez, the No. 2 U.S. commander in
Afghanistan, told reporters Monday he agrees with Gates'
assessment. "We have not seen any effects on the ground yet,"
from bin Laden's demise, he said.


      There are relatively few al-Qaida fighters in Afghanistan; they
are located mainly in Pakistan, although they support the Taliban
and other insurgents who are fighting U.S. and Afghan government
forces. That is one point stressed by those in the administration
who believe the U.S. should scale back its military presence and
focus more - if not exclusively - on hunting down al-Qaida leaders
rather than investing heavily in helping Kabul improve governance
of the war-weary country.


      Gates sees the bin Laden question from an unique perspective. He
was deputy national security adviser to President George H.W. Bush
in 1989 when Soviet forces withdrew from Afghanistan, ending an
almost decade-long war. The Americans covertly armed the
anti-Soviet Afghan forces during the 1980s, then walked away to
leave Afghanistan on its own, figuring the country no longer held
strategic importance for the U.S. or the West.


      Looking back, Gates said Saturday at a Kabul news conference,
"That tragic miscalculation was exposed by the attacks of
September 11, 2001."


      Gates argues that a rush to the exits now could again backfire
on the United States, although bin Laden's al-Qaida has been
weakened considerably in the years since hijacked airplanes struck
the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.


      The bin Laden question arose again when Gates stopped on Monday
at Combat Outpost Andar, in the eastern province of Gazni, where a
soldier asked: "How does the death of Osama bin Laden affect us
out here?"


      Gates responded by noting that a commander in southern Helmand
province, when asked a similar question a day earlier, had told
reporters that bin Laden's death "has been noted," by ordinary
Afghans. "But it hasn't made much difference."
      

Gallery

In encounters with troops in Afghanistan this past week, the question Defense Secretary Robert Gates heard more than any other was this: What does Osama bin Laden's death mean for the war?

Troops: What does bin Laden's death mean to war?

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