WASHINGTON — A new top-secret U.S. intelligence assessment warns that Taliban leaders haven’t abandoned their goal of reclaiming power and reimposing harsh Islamic rule on Afghanistan, raising doubts about the success of any peace deal that the Obama administration tries to broker between Kabul and the insurgents.
The National Intelligence Estimate presented to President Barack Obama last month also concluded that security gains won since last year’s 30,000-strong U.S. troop surge may be unsustainable, a finding that top U.S. commanders and the White House dispute, according to U.S. officials and people familiar with the report’s findings.
“We have heard that the report offers a very dire assessment. We don’t agree,” said a senior U.S. defense official, who like all of those whom McClatchy Newspapers interviewed for this report spoke only on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
The NIE came as the White House is examining ways to boost “reconciliation” — the U.S.-backed initiative to start peace talks — as an American troop drawdown and a phased handover of security responsibilities to Afghan forces are completed by December 2014, the officials and knowledgeable people said. The assessment is expected to be finished before a NATO summit in Chicago in May, at which the alliance will review plans for the security transition.
Obama has said repeatedly that the longest war in U.S. history can be settled only through negotiations between the Afghan government and the insurgents — not by force.
