As he drove to his confirmation hearing Tuesday morning, Gen. David H. Petraeus had his third phone conversation in less than a week with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. After his unanimous approval as the new Afghan war commander by the Senate Armed Services Committee, Petraeus flew home to Tampa, where he hosted Vice President Biden and his wife for dinner.Symbolism and the force of Petraeus's reputation as the nation's premier warrior-diplomat may help bridge internal disagreements and dispel doubts about President Obama's Afghanistan strategy. Petraeus told lawmakers he has also reached out to Richard C. Holbrooke, the administration's top diplomat on Afghanistan and Pakistan, and will pick up Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry en route to Kabul so that the two can arrive there together.
"We are all firmly united in seeking to forge unity of effort," Petraeus said.
But while he may have won early skirmishes in the political war, the general acknowledged that the shooting war against "an industrial-strength insurgency" is likely to get worse before it gets better. "My sense is that the tough fighting will continue," he said. "Indeed, it may get more intense."
Senators from both parties praised Petraeus and said they expect easy confirmation by the full Senate. A spokesman for Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said a vote is expected Wednesday.
Obama has indicated that he will make no other immediate personnel changes. Petraeus said Tuesday that members of his personal staff had agreed to accompany him to Kabul, but he made no mention of the status of senior officers, including those in charge of operations, intelligence and other key tasks, who worked for McChrystal. Officials said Petraeus wants to assess the situation at the Afghanistan headquarters before making any decisions.
Petraeus said he would continue McChrystal's strategy of trying to avoid civilian deaths in Afghanistan, a keystone of the U.S. military's counterinsurgency strategy. But in a nod to U.S. troops who have complained that McChrystal tied their hands by limiting tactics, Petraeus said he would "look very hard" at how directives issued by the former commander were being implemented.
"I will continue the emphasis on reducing the loss of innocent civilian life to an absolute minimum in the course of military operations," he said. The rules of engagement for U.S. troops are "fairly standard," he said. A separate "tactical directive," he said, was designed to govern the use of air-launched weapons "because, of course, if you drop a bomb on a house, if you're not sure who's in it, you can kill a lot of innocent civilians in a hurry."
He said that it is imperative that the directives are implemented uniformly throughout the force, and that "when our troops and our Afghan partners are in a tough spot . . . it's a moral imperative that we use everything we have to ensure that they get out."