(KCPW News) With the death of the world’s most wanted terrorist, one Utah congressman is again calling on the U.S. to re-evaluate its military presence in Afghanistan. Republican Representative Jason Chaffetz says the war has gone on for too long, and it’s time to think about why so many troops are on the ground in that country.
“I believe we should pull our troops out of Afghanistan, not because Osama bin Laden has been killed, but because it’s the right public policy,” he told KCPW. “I think it demonstrates that what happened with Osama bin Laden that terrorists are out there, we’re going to have to find them and hunt them down, and I think you do that with intelligence. When you have actionable intelligence then you take it, but I don’t think it requires 100,000 people with boots on the ground in Afghanistan.”
Chaffetz says he knows no one wants the reputation of being “soft of terror,” but he expects more people to re-examine the war in Afghanistan with Osama bin Laden’s death.
“Where I think the President has failed is he has failed to define success in Afghanistan,” says Chaffetz. “Why are we there? It’s the longest war in the history of the United States of America. I think it’s a worth while exercise to go back and ask ourselves ‘What are we doing there?” he says.
Chaffetz says he has wanted to pull U.S troops out of Afghanistan since October 2009. He wrote a commentary on the issue that appeared on CNN’s website today. The Republican has gotten national attention for being one of very few in the GOP to support troop withdrawal.
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