Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top allied military commander in Afghanistan, sat gazing at maps of Marjah as a Marine battalion commander asked him for more time to oust Taliban fighters from a longtime stronghold in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province.
"You've got to be patient," Lt. Col. Brian Christmas told McChrystal. "We've only been here 90 days." "How many days do you think we have before we run out of support by the international community?" McChrystal replied.
A charged silence settled in the stuffy, crowded chapel tent at the Marine base in the Marjah district.
"I can't tell you, sir," the tall, towheaded, Fort Bragg, N.C., native finally answered. "I'm telling you," McChrystal said. "We don't have as many days as we'd like."
The operation in Marjah is supposed to be the first blow in a decisive campaign to oust the Taliban from their spiritual homeland in adjacent Kandahar province, one that McChrystal had hoped would bring security and stability to Marjah and begin to convey an "irreversible sense of momentum" in the U.S.-led campaign in Afghanistan.
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