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Congresswoman Chellie Pingree asks if sending more troops is “worth the cost” during a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee

Congresswoman Chellie Pingree questioned General Stanley McChrystal today as the top commander in Afghanistan testified in front of the House Armed Services Committee.  Excerpts from the question-answer session are below:
 
“As a Member of Congress, respecting the concerns of my own state, I worry about the long term costs in lives and financially to this country,” Pingree said.  “As I look over the troop levels over the last four years I see…a steady increase over time in the number of American troops on the ground and during this same time period we’ve seen a great increase in the number of lives lost and a continued increase in resources spent, with no net improvement in the security situation.”
 
“In my opinion,” Pingree said, “we’ve reach a security plateau where no matter how many troops we commit, no matter how many dollars we spend, no matter how many aid workers we send or no matter how many elections we have or re-have in Afghanistan, we cannot significantly improve the security situation.  So when I hear proposals about adding more troops in Afghanistan my immediate question is what historic success do we have?  How do you convince me that this will work and is worth the cost?”
 
“Insurgencies are very difficult to deal with,” McChrystal  said.  “And if you go back and study counterinsurgency, you’ll find a number of unsuccessful efforts to defeat an insurgency.”   But, McChrystal said, he thinks this effort will be different.  He said that as Taliban presence grew in Afghanistan, coalition and Afghan troop levels did not keep up. “Counterinsurgency is not a game in which you can play catch up ball.  I think we can get ahead of it this time.”
 
Some samples of news coverage today of Pingree’s question are below:
 
NPR
Some of the strongest criticism came from Rep. Chellie Pingree, a Democrat from Maine, who said that she sees more U.S. troops dying and more funding being committed without any improvement in the security situation in Afghanistan. "In my opinion, we've reached a security plateau where no matter how many troops we commit, how many dollars we spend, how many aid workers we send, or elections that we have or re-have in Afghanistan, we cannot significantly improve the security situation," she told McChrystal.
 
Washington Independent
Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) doesn’t buy into the new Afghanistan strategy. She worries that if Gen. McChrystal doesn’t make the progress he thinks he needs to make in six months, a year or 18 months, he’ll just come back to Congress and make minor adjustments — that he’ll never say the situation is hopeless even if it ultimately is. What, she asks candidly, could McChrystal tell a skeptic like her?
 
Stars and Stripes
Those comments drew criticism from Democrats who said insurgent havens in Pakistan and continued failings of the Karzai government mean no increase in foreign troops can fix the situation. “We’ve seen greater numbers of American casualties ... but no improvement in the security situation,” said Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine. “In my opinion, we’ve reached a security plateau.”