White House Struggles to Gauge Afghan Success

This article is by David E. Sanger, Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker.

WASHINGTON — As the American military comes to full strength in the Afghan buildup, the Obama administration is struggling to come up with a long-promised plan to measure whether the war is being won.

Those “metrics” of success, demanded by Congress and eagerly awaited by the military, are seen as crucial if the president is to convince Capitol Hill and the country that his revamped strategy is working. Without concrete signs of progress, Mr. Obama may lack the political stock — especially among Democrats and his liberal base — to make the case for continuing the military effort or enlarging the American presence.

That problem will become particularly acute if American commanders in Afghanistan seek even more troops for a mission that many of Mr. Obama’s most ardent supporters say remains ill defined and open-ended.

Senior administration officials said that the president’s national security adviser, Gen. James L. Jones, approved a classified policy document on July 17 setting out nine broad objectives for metrics to guide the administration’s policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan. Another month or two is still needed to flesh out the details, according to officials engaged in the work.

General Jones and other top National Security Council aides, including Lt. Gen. Douglas E. Lute, gave an update to top Congressional leaders over recent days.

But as the Bush administration learned the hard way in Iraq, poorly devised measurements can become misleading indicators — and can create a false sense of progress.

That is especially difficult in a war like the one in Afghanistan, in which eliminating corruption, promoting a working democracy and providing effective aid are as critical as scoring military success against insurgents and terrorists.

For instance, some of the measures now being devised by the Obama administration track the size, strength and self-reliance of the Afghan National Army, which the United States has been struggling to train for seven years. They include the number of operations in which Afghan soldiers are in the lead, or the number of Afghan soldiers who have received basic instruction.

White House officials say they are taking the time to get the measurements right.

In some cases, old measurements are being thrown out. Commanders in Afghanistan say they no longer pay much attention to how many enemy fighters are killed in action. Instead, they are trying to count instances in which local citizens cooperate with Afghan and allied forces.

And in drafting a metric important to senior members of Congress, the administration is considering conducting an opinion poll to determine Afghan public perception of official corruption at national, provincial and district levels. This would give insight into how Afghan citizens view police performance at the neighborhood level all the way up to the quality of national political appointments.

But as the architects of similar metrics in Iraq learned, even the best-constructed measures can miss the larger truth.

In 2005 and 2006, for example, the White House was often citing the “rat rate” in Iraq, a measure of good tips from Iraqis about the location of insurgents or the planting of roadside bombs.

“We thought this was a good measure of how well the public was turning against” Al Qaeda and other insurgents, said Peter D. Feaver, a professor at Duke University who served in the National Security Council at the time. “What we discovered was that the rat rate numbers steadily improved over the course of 2006 — and the violence was rising.”

That experience helps to explain why the Obama administration has taken so much time. But some frustrated lawmakers said the delay might prove costly.

“We have been in Afghanistan now for more than seven and a half years,” said Representative Ike Skelton, a Democrat of Missouri and the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. “These metrics are required to help make the case for the American people that actual progress is being made, or if we need to change the course to another direction. I think that time is not on our side.”

When President Obama unveiled his new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan in March, he emphasized the importance of these measures.

“We will set clear metrics to measure progress and hold ourselves accountable,” Mr. Obama said. “We’ll consistently assess our efforts to train Afghan security forces and our progress in combating insurgents. We will measure the growth of Afghanistan’s economy and its illicit narcotics production. And we will review whether we are using the right tools and tactics to make progress towards accomplishing our goals.”

All that now seems unlikely to be completed before his field commanders finish their proposals for carrying out their marching orders. Their recommendations were originally due at the Pentagon within the next two weeks, but Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates issued expanded instructions for the assessment to the commanders last weekend and gave them until September to complete their report.

Skeptical lawmakers have implored Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Mr. Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to produce what Mr. Obama promised, and they have made specific recommendations of their own.

“The metrics are critically important to keep everyone’s feet to the fire on this and for the public to know how we’re doing and have some ways to measure it and not have just rhetoric,” said Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“We all share the president’s goal of succeeding in Afghanistan,” said Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts and chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. “The challenge here is how we are going to define success in the medium term, given the difficult security environment we face.”

Senior White House officials say their objectives are grouped in three main categories: counterterrorism, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The counterinsurgency objectives are highly classified and cover a “full range” of efforts to help Pakistan combat the militant threat in its tribal areas.

Others address Pakistan’s ability to maintain and strengthen democratically elected civilian government; the country’s ability to confront and defeat an internal insurgent threat; and international support for Pakistan, including international donors, the United Nations and the World Bank.

In Afghanistan, they would assess suppression of the insurgency; building and strengthening Afghan security forces; shoring up support for the government and reviving the economy; and garnering support from NATO, the European Union, the United Nations and international donors.