It said there was progress against insurgents, but that these security gains remain “fragile and reversible.”
The review said US strategy will continue to focus on defeating Al-Qaeda and the Taleban. The momentum of both Taleban and Al-Qaeda fighters has been weakened, according to the review, despite continued planning of large-scale attacks on the Western targets.
The report said consolidating those gains will require more cooperation from Pakistan to eliminate extremist safe havens along the border with Afghanistan.
The review came one year after President Barack Obama announced a surge of 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. It said US strategy is setting the conditions to begin withdrawing US forces as planned, in 2011.
While the strategy is showing progress across all three assessed areas of Al-Qaeda, Pakistan and Afghanistan, the challenge remains to make our gains durable and sustainable,” the assessment states.
“While the momentum achieved by the Taleban in recent years has been arrested in much of the country and reversed in some key areas, these gains remain fragile and reversible,” it continued. “Consolidating those gains will require that we make more progress with Pakistan to eliminate sanctuaries for violent extremist networks.”
The long-awaited review of US war efforts marked a different tone from other recent US assessments, which have caused friction with Pakistan by questioning its willingness to fight extremists.
A portion of the report’s overview said that areas in relations with Pakistan “are headed in the right direction, both in terms of US focus and Pakistani cooperation.”
“Progress in our relationship with Pakistan over the last year has been substantial, but also uneven,” it said, calling for efforts in 2011 to “strengthen our dialogue with both Pakistan and Afghanistan.”
The US and Pakistan worked over the past year “to disrupt the threat posed by Al-Qaeda, and Pakistan has made progress against extremist safe havens, taking action in six of seven agencies of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas,” the review said.
“These gains came at great cost, as Pakistan has endured thousands of casualties in their military ranks and among their civilian population from terrorist attacks,” it said.
The assessment comes as some analysts warned of a less rosy picture, saying the international effort to stabilize Afghanistan will unravel “unless Pakistan can be persuaded to stop backing the Taleban,” the Financial Times reported, citing Bill Harris who stepped down as the chief US civilian in Kandahar last month.
The strategy paper confirmed plans for President Barack Obama to visit Pakistan next year and for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to hold a three-way dialogue with Afghan and Pakistani foreign ministers in early 2011.
The assessment called for the United States to pursue its strategy of aid for Pakistan. The US Congress last year approved a $7.5 billion package and the United States has since been a leading provider of relief after Pakistan’s devastating floods.
The White House released the report a day after two newspapers said that US intelligence agencies believed the US-led war effort would be doomed unless Pakistan cracks down on militant sanctuaries inside its border.
Meantime, a new poll from The Washington Post and ABC News shows support for the war in Afghanistan has reached a new low.
The survey says a record-high 60 percent of Americans think the war is not worth fighting, compared to 34 percent who say it is. At the same time last year, 44 percent of Americans said they do not think the war is worth fighting.
