Obama: Decision 'soon' on troops for Afghanistan

By Anne E. Kornblut, Blaine Harden and Debbi Wilgoren
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, November 13, 2009 10:54 AM

TOKYO -- President Obama said Friday that his drawn-out deliberations over military options in Afghanistan -- unresolved after eight high-level war council meetings -- are focused not on nailing down any specific piece of missing information but on trying to determine what actions will enhance U.S. security.

Obama said he is committed to shutting down networks that plot terrorist activity against the United States, while also avoiding an "open-ended" troop commitment and ensuring that the government of Afghanistan is a reliable partner.

"It's a matter of making certain that when I send young men and women into war, and when I devote billions of dollars of U.S. taxpayer money, that it's making us safer, and that the strategies that are placed not just on the military side but also on the civilian side are coordinated and effective in our primary goal," Obama said.

He said his decision will be made "soon," and said those who have been critical of the lengthy process "tend not to be folks who, I think, are directly involved in what's happening in Afghanistan. Those who are recognize the gravity of the situation and recognize the importance of us getting this right."

Obama appeared before reporters with newly elected Japanese prime minister Yukio Hatoyama a few hours after arriving in Tokyo for the start of a week-long trip to Asia. The trip will span four countries and is Obama's first to the region as president.

During a 90-minute meeting at the Kantei, the Japanese equivalent of the White House, Obama and Hatoyama discussed climate change, Afghanistan and nuclear proliferation. Both leaders exchanged warm praise for each other, embracing the close relationship of the two countries. They minimized their differences, such as the location of a Marine Corps airfield on the Japanese island of Okinawa, emphasizing instead their hopes for peace and stability in the region.

Declaring that the United States "is a Pacific nation," Obama said the future of the United States and Asia is "inextricably linked" and said his administration "will be deepening our engagement in this part of the world."

The joint news conference was brief, with only one Japanese journalist and one American journalist allowed to ask questions. Obama was queried about Afghanistan, North Korea and his administration's decision -- revealed Friday -- to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed and other alleged masterminds of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in federal court rather than military commissions.

"Both Yukio and I were elected on a promise of change. But there should be no doubt as we move our nations in a new direction our alliance will endure," Obama said, adding, "The issues that matter most to our people -- economic growth and job creation, nonproliferation, clean energy, these are all issues that have to be part of a joint agenda."

The Japanese reporter, from Fuji television, asked Obama whether he believed that the United States had done the right thing by dropping nuclear weapons during World War II on Hiroshima and Nagasaki -- cities that many Japanese have urged the Nobel Peace Prize-winning president to visit.

Obama, who will remain in Tokyo during his 24-hour stay in Japan, did not answer the question directly. Instead, he expressed his aspirations for a nuclear-free world and said "it would be meaningful for me to visit those two cities in the future."

The U.S. president made a point of noting that Japan was the first stop of his Asian tour -- a source of pride here amid growing national anxiety that Japan's importance as a player on the world stage is being eclipsed by the rise of China. Early this year, Hillary Rodham Clinton also chose Japan as the first stop on her overseas travels as secretary of state.

But despite that attentiveness, the Obama administration faces sensitive challenges in its dealings with Japan, including what has become a heated bilateral dispute over the location of the Marine airfield in Okinawa. The dispute is part of a key political commitment -- greater Japanese assertiveness in U.S. relations -- that helped Hatoyama and his left-of-center Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) win a landslide election in August.

While acknowledging the fundamental importance of Japan's alliance with the United States, Hatoyama wants to change what he has said has been his country's "somewhat passive" relationship Washington, as Japan builds stronger ties with China and other Asian countries. To that end, Japan will soon end an eight-year mission in the Indian Ocean to refuel warships supporting U.S.-led forces fighting in Afghanistan -- offering $5 billion in aid to Afghanistan instead.

Without setting a deadline for a decision, Hatoyama has also said that he would try to relocate the unpopular Marine airfield out of Okinawa or even outside of Japan. But the United States has stoutly resisted Japanese efforts to reopen a $26 billion military package that was agreed to in 2006 and commits Japan to allowing the Marine airfield to relocate to a new site in Okinawa.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates stunned many in Japan last month by saying that if Tokyo stops the base relocation, the U.S. military would scuttle other parts of the military package.

Before Obama's arrival, officials in Washington and Tokyo agreed that he and Hatoyama would skate over the details of the issue, and that a committee created by Clinton and Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada would try to sort it out.

While the base issue has dominated headlines in Japan, it has not appeared to have hurt Obama's personal popularity here. A Pew Research Center survey found in July that 85 percent of Japanese were confident that Obama would do the right thing in world affairs. A year earlier, only a quarter of those polled had similar confidence in President George W. Bush.

Elsewhere in Asia, other issues are also vying for U.S. attention, including tensions on the Korean peninsula. North and South Korea fought a naval skirmish along a disputed sea border Tuesday, with an aging North Korean patrol boat retreating in flames from an exchange of cannon fire that reportedly killed one its sailors and injured three others. South Korea reported no casualties in the brief shootout, which was the third naval clash in the past decade over the border drawn by the American military in 1953 after the Korean war.

Shortly before Obama landed in Tokyo, North Korea said it does not recognize the border and threatened "merciless" military action to defend what it considers to be its territory. The timing of the threat suggested that the government of Kim Jong Il does not want to be ignored during Obama's Asia visit.

But a South Korean defense official dismissed the threat as "rhetoric," telling reporters in Seoul that the North has made no significant military moves since Tuesday's clash.

The Obama administration announced this week that it will soon send an envoy to Pyongyang to try to persuade North Korea to return to stalled six-nation nuclear disarmament talks. It would be the highest-level direct contact with the North since Obama took office.

Obama is scheduled to travel from Japan to Singapore, Indonesia, on Saturday, then head to Chinese cities of Shanghai and Beijing Sunday through Wednesday. He will visit Seoul on Wednesday night and Thursday before heading back to the United States.

Wilgoren reported from Washington.