Afghan drone mission at risk

[unhappycamper]

http://www.adn.com/2014/01/26/3293106/afghan-drone-mission-at-risk.html#navlink=subnav

Afghan drone mission at risk
By DAVID E. SANGER and ERIC SCHMITT
The New York Times
January 26, 2014

WASHINGTON -- The risk that President Barack Obama may be forced to pull all U.S. troops out of Afghanistan by the end of the year has set off concerns inside the U.S. intelligence agencies that they could lose their air bases used for drone strikes against al-Qaida in Pakistan and for responding to a nuclear crisis in the region.

Until now, the debate here and in Kabul about the size and duration of an U.S.-led allied force in Afghanistan after 2014 had focused on that country's long-term security. But these new concerns also reflect how troop levels in Afghanistan directly affect long-term U.S. security interests in neighboring Pakistan, according to administration, military and intelligence officials.

The concern has become serious enough that the Obama administration has organized a team of intelligence, military and policy specialists to devise alternatives to mitigate the damage if a final security deal cannot be struck with the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, who has declined to enact an agreement that U.S. officials thought was completed last year.

If Obama ultimately withdrew all U.S. troops from Afghanistan, the CIA's drone bases in the country would have to be closed, according to administration officials, because they could no longer be protected.

[bemildred]

1. Oh noes!!!! nt