Sestak al-Qaeda speech distances candidate from Obama

HARRISBURG - Rep. Joe Sestak, Pennsylvania's Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate, said Monday that President Obama must release a clear assessment of U.S. forces' progress toward the goal of denying al-Qaeda sanctuary in Afghanistan and the tribal border regions of Pakistan.

The administration has not been forthcoming with useful benchmarks for its strategy of increasing troop strength and taking the fight to al-Qaeda and the Taliban with counterinsurgency measures, Sestak, a retired Navy admiral, said, speaking in the rotunda of the state Capitol.

"We need a tangible way to assess whether we're winning or losing ground," Sestak said, addressing about 75 people three days shy of the ninth anniversary of the U.S. attack on Afghanistan's Taliban regime.

Military forces must have a "clear, narrowly defined mission" focused on neutralizing the threat of al-Qaeda and removing the terrorists' havens along Pakistan's border, Sestak said.

He was apparently trying to draw a distinction between himself and a president whose foreign policy he has generally supported but whose slide in popularity seems to weigh on Sestak's campaign.

Now a member of the House from suburban Philadelphia in his second term, Sestak supported Obama's orders to deploy more troops to Afghanistan with a goal of cutting off Islamist extremists from their safe havens in Pakistan.

Sestak said Monday that he was concerned that the strategy would become an open-ended commitment.

"Do we have the enemy being set back? Are we impeding their ability to operate?" Sestak asked. "And, if not, what can we do to be more effective? Or can't we be [effective] under this strategy? We can't know unless we measure it."

It was one of the few times in the campaign that he has devoted an entire event to issues of foreign and military policy.

His contest with Republican Pat Toomey has revolved around their diametrically opposed views on economics, which by far is the paramount issue in most voters' minds during a slow recovery period marked by a stubbornly high jobless rate.

Even so, Sestak's long career in the Navy - he attained the rank of three-star admiral - has been a significant theme of his campaign, and the speech allowed him to highlight that experience again.

As a senior officer, Sestak was director of defense policy on the National Security Council staff under President Bill Clinton, and he was the first head of the Navy's antiterrorism unit after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Sestak also commanded an aircraft-carrier battle group in support of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Toomey, a former congressman from Allentown, has alleged that the Obama administration and Sestak have been soft on Iran, which Western officials suspect is trying to develop nuclear weapons.

"From very early on, I have argued for the most stringent possible economic sanctions in the hope that imposing them would dissuade this regime from pursuing these very dangerous weapons," Toomey said last week during an endorsement event in Harrisburg. "Joe Sestak refused to support that approach. I think this administration was late in coming to the imposition of the most aggressive possible sanctions."

Sestak said Monday that he had voted for a number of tough sanctions against Iran, including restrictions on its vital gasoline imports, after first giving diplomatic talks a chance.

"In diplomacy, you have carrots and sticks," he said. "That's why, once what the Obama administration tried wasn't working . . . I voted for the sanctions."