Afghan war gets post-bin Laden review

WASHINGTON, May 4 (UPI) -- Afghanistan doesn't have the strategic value to the United States that justifies the billions of dollar spent on the war, a U.S. lawmaker said.

The war in Afghanistan that started in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks by al-Qaida on the United States is under scrutiny following the death of Osama bin Laden at the hands of U.S. Navy SEALs.

U.S. Sen. Dick Lugar, R-Ind., ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said al-Qaida is a franchise different from the one that attacked American nearly a decade ago.

He said that "with al-Qaida largely displaced from the country, but franchised in other locations, Afghanistan does not carry a strategic value that justifies 100,000 American troops and a $100 billion per year cost, especially given current fiscal restraints."

U.S. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., chairman of the committee, said U.S. forces in Afghanistan could expect an increase in violence in Afghanistan after the death of bin Laden and as spring begins.

He stressed, however, that there wasn't a purely military solution to the conflict in Afghanistan.

"What we face is a political resolution," he said.

U.S. forces are expected to start to wind down their mission in Afghanistan as Afghan national forces take on more of the fight.