Bob Corker: U.S. Military Leaders Frustrated With War In Afghanistan

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) believes that the discovery and killing of Osama bin Laden in Abottabad, Pakistan has provided the United States with a "relationship-changing opportunity" to reassess its dealings with Pakistan and perhaps Afghanistan.

In an interview with the Memphis Flyer published Tuesday, Corker expressed some of his strongest skepticism to date about the direction of the war in Afghanistan.

"The fact is, if you travel through Afghanistan, as I've done many times, and you talk to our military leaders, they're unbelievably frustrated, because they're fighting a war in a country where our enemies are not," said Corker. "And on the other hand we're providing aid to a country where our enemies are. To me, and this is what I really pressed hard in this last hearing on, this is where our focus needs to be."

Corker noted that he has been "very skeptical about the efforts there [in Afghanistan] for some time," but he is willing to show patience through the summer fighting season, as Gen. David Petraeus has requested.

"But -- our men and women in uniform, I hold them in highest esteem in carrying out their mission, but much of what they're fighting there is just criminality," added Corker. "I mean, one of the areas I was in, there was a prison nearby, there was about 1500 folks locked up there, and only 80 of them were extremists. The other 1420 were there because of criminality. So much of what our soldiers are fighting there is criminality. Again, the head of the monster, if you will, exists in Pakistan."

In January, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said that "virtually all" of the Republican members of the Senate stood with the President and his strategy in Afghanistan. But with comments like those coming from Corker and Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), cracks may be forming in McConnell's caucus.

Corker, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also commented during a hearing last week on the exorbitant cost of the war in Afghanistan.
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Posturing! I don’t know that the death of one man should change our entire strategy in Afghanistan. This is simply a headline grabbing moment. Please just go to work! Are you serious? Do you really think the death of one man, albeit a very inspiring leader to some should give cause to ending the war in Afghanistan? I don’t know which insults me more; that you think bin Laden and his death are that important, or that you think I am foolish enough to believe your bulls**t.