Former Iraq Ambassador Crocker says change in Afghanistan strategy ‘essential’ for US

Ex-Iraq ambassador: Afghan strategy ‘essential’

FORT LEAVENWORTH, Kan. — The former U.S. ambassador to Iraq tells Army officers says sending 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan and a change in strategy there are essential.

But Ryan Crocker says it’s not just a matter of how many additional forces are sent to Afghanistan, but how they are used.

Crocker was the top U.S. diplomat in Iraq when a surge of forces were sent to tamp down rising sectarian violence.

He told the officers at the Army’s Command and General Staff College on Tuesday that success in Afghanistan can’t be expected to look like Iraq.

He says the terrorist forces that brought the 9/11 attacks are still in Afghanistan but “all the dumb ones are dead.”

Crocker says the United States had to change those dynamics for the new strategy to work.