Iraq crisis stirs fears Afghanistan could be next

The deteriorating situation in Iraq is giving Congress pause about President Barack Obama's plan to withdraw US forces from Afghanistan by the end of 2016, with fears that hard-fought gains could be wiped out by a resurgent Taliban.

Senior Obama administration officials insist that Afghanistan is not Iraq, with a population far more receptive to a continued US presence and the promise of a new unity government.

But the officials could offer no assurances that Afghanistan won't devolve into chaos after Americans leave, as Iraq has.

"There's no guarantee," Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told a Senate panel yesterday.

"It is up to the people of Afghanistan to make these decisions, their military, their new leadership that will be coming in as a result of their new government."

The US military mission in Iraq ended in December 2011 after eight years of war that cost hundreds of billions of dollars and more than 4,400 US lives, a conclusion welcomed by a war-weary nation.

The Obama administration had proposed keeping a residual US force in Iraq to continue training Iraqis, but Baghdad rejected Washington's demand that its troops be granted immunity for prosecution while in the country.

In the absence of the Americans, the fast-moving Sunni insurgency of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant has prevailed over Iraqi security forces, conquering several cities, and is threatening the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, described for Congress yesterday how some Iraqi security forces abandoned the fight against the ISIL.

"Two divisions and part of two, and one national police organization did in fact throw down their arms and, in some cases collude with and in some cases simply desert in northern Iraq," Dempsey said.

Lawmakers fear a replay in Afghanistan after 2016 when U.S. Forces leave. Last month, Obama announced that about 10,000 troops would stay in Afghanistan at the end of this year but be fully withdrawn by the end of 2016.

In a private White House meeting yesterday, Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell pressed Obama about his definitive timetable for drawing down American troops, especially in light of the crisis in Iraq.