Sen. Jack Reed: ‘Emerging Consensus’ to Deploy More Training Troops in Afghanistan

ABC News’ Rick Klein reports:

With President Obama mulling a new strategy — and new force levels — in Afghanistan, a key Senate Democrat said today that he expects the administration to send additional forces to help train Afghan troops, separate from any decision the president makes on combat troops.

“There’s an emerging consensus that additional trainers have to be deployed, because the key in the long term to avoid the repetition of this cycle is an Afghani security force that is capable and can provide basic stability,” Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., said on ABCNews.com’s “Top Line” today.

“So that is something I think everyone can see to be increased. The real issue is brigade combat teams, the combat forces. My sense is that — as has been reported — the president is looking at several options, including an increase — I don’t know what the number is — but including an increase to those forces.”

The comments by Reed, a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and a former Army ranger, suggest that President Obama will be sending more troops to Afghanistan even if he rejects Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s recommendation for additional combat forces.

Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., has endorsed the concept of sending more training troops instead of boosting the number of US combat troops.

But any move to increase US troop levels in Afghanistan is likely to provoke strong opposition from some Democrats in Congress. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has said she doesn’t detect “a great deal of support for sending more troops to Afghanistan” in Congress.

Reed also said that Matthew Hoh’s resignation in protest over Afghanistan policy got his attention.

Hoh last month left his post as the senior US civilian in Zabul province, writing that he had “lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States’ presence in Afghanistan.”

“I think it underscores the need for evaluation of what’s been done there unfortunately,” Reed said. “And I’ve been over to the country on a number of occasions. You know, four or five years ago it was a much different place in terms of security, in terms of potential, in terms of what we could have done. But now, I think through the wrong-headed approach to Iraq by the Bush administration, we’re now in a situation in Afghanistan that’s much more complicated. The Taliban has re-formed. There is growing frustration by the people, not only with their government, but also with the fact that we haven’t produced the immediate benefits that they assume.”

“So I think it just reflects a great deal of frustration, but also underscores the need to step back and analyze our policy and our strategy.”

On health care, Reed applauded the decision by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to include a public option in the health care bill that will come to the Senate floor — even if that means not a single Republican will support the measure.

“I think the important issue is to try and do it right,” Reed said. “If we can get a bill through simply for the sake of being bipartisan, that doesn’t work. That’s not going to help the country — nor, particularly, our caucus. I think we have to do it right. I think the public option is a right thing to do.”

Though the provision Reid is backing in the Senate bill isn’t the “robust” public option many liberals are calling for, Reed said he thinks the plan — which would give states the opportunity to “opt out” of a public option — would do enough.

“I think it does enough,” Reed said. “I think with a public option, you will have an opportunity for people to go and to find health care and to do it in a way in which they will not be sort of unfairly dealt with.”

Click HERE to see the full interview with Sen. Jack Reed.

We also checked in with Republican strategist Kevin Madden, on the conservatives’ split in the race in an upstate New York House district, plus the latest on health care reform.

Click HERE to see that portion of today’s program.

Hoyer Seeks Social Security Consensus

ABC News’ Rick Klein reports: As if there weren’t enough high-profile issue out there for Congress to tackle, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer is launching an effort to get his colleagues to touch the traditional “third rail” of politics: Social Security.

Hoyer, D-Md., has been working behind the scenes with Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., to find a bipartisan group of lawmakers who are willing to commit to making Social Security reform a priority.

Their starting point: That nothing should be ruled in or out.

In a speech in Washington today, Hoyer expanded on his vision for reform.

“Of our entitlement programs, I believe we would have the easiest challenge in reforming Social Security,” Hoyer said at a Bipartisan Policy Center event on fiscal discipline, according to the text of his speech provided by his House office.

Hoyer outlined a few possibilities: “Here, the options are well and widely understood. We can bring in more revenues. We can restrain the growth of benefits, particularly for higher-income workers, while we strengthen the safety net for lower-income workers. And/or we can raise the retirement age, recognizing that our life expectancy is significantly higher today. What is missing here is not ideas — it is political will.”

Building that political will is no easy task. As President Bush’s failed attempt to create personal accounts inside Social Security showed, the issue is stuffed with politically perilous code words for members of both parties.

In the past, Democrats haven’t been able to whisper about private accounts or benefit cuts without getting hammered. Discussions with Republicans have gotten hung up on whispers of tax increases.

Hoyer is trying to break through that, according to a leadership aide.

“We’re in the process of seeing if there’s enough will and trust to go forward,” the aide said. “We don’t want to rule anything out, or anything in.”

That said, the aide cautioned, it’s “been assumed” that privatization won’t be part of the discussion. “Events have done that for us.”

Indeed, even Graham — who has supported private accounts in the past — told The Washington Post’s Lori Montgomery today that the concept is “off the table” because of the stock market’s recent volatility.

The discussions between Hoyer and Graham began at the White House fiscal summit in February. Since then, the White House has not been directly involved, according to Hoyer’s office, though the president has committed publicly to the broad goals of entitlement reform.

This is all very preliminary, and inaction is far more likely than action.

But if Hoyer and Graham are able to round up enough interested members of Congress, their next step would be setting up a process that would involve the president and members of both parties — a step that might just break a longstanding political logjam.