WASHINGTON, Nov 11, (Agencies): President-elect Barack Obama plans major changes in US policy on the war in Afghanistan and intends to renew the commitment to hunt for Osama bin Laden, underscoring the fight against al-Qaeda as the nation’s highest priority, a newspaper reported Tuesday. The Washington Post said Obama, who takes office on Jan. 20, wants to explore a more regional strategy in Afghanistan, including the possibility of negotiations with Iran. “This (al-Qaeda) is our enemy,” the Post quoted an unnamed senior adviser as saying. “And he (bin Laden) should be our principal target.” Unidentified national security advisers to the president-elect were quoted as saying Obama believes the Bush administration has played down the hunt for the al-Qaeda leader after years of failing to apprehend him.

The report also quotes US intelligence officials saying the search for bin Laden is as intensive as ever but al-Qaeda’s threat would remain large even if bin Laden were neutralized. Members of Obama’s transition team “have yet to examine available military and intelligence resources and how they are currently being used,” the Post reported. Additionally, it said, they have yet to plot a diplomatic approach to Pakistan, where bin Laden is thought to be in hiding. Obama has said he would be receptive to unconditional talks with Iran but later said such episodes would be impossible without proper groundwork. The newspaper report quoted a US military official as saying in the future an intermediary could be used to establish the groundwork for such talks.

President George W. Bush has made talks between the United States and Iran contingent upon the Islamic republic stopping its uranium enrichment program that the Bush administration believes is intended for nuclear weapons. Iran maintains its enrichment program is solely for the generation of energy.
The Post says Obama plans to add thousands of troops to the campaign in Afghanistan, but might also seek to find common ground with Iran, which shares a border with the south central Asian nation.
The unidentified official was quoted as saying the Iranians do not want Sunni extremists in charge of Afghanistan any more than the United States does. Most Iranian Muslims belong to the Shiite sect of Islam, not the rival Sunni.
On the Taleban question, the report quoted advisers as saying Obama might support discussions between the Afghan government and elements of Taleban which have agreed to abandon violence and respect the country’s Constitution.
Covert US strikes against al-Qaeda, authorized and employed aggressively by President George W. Bush, look set to continue when Barack Obama takes office despite expected protests from allies and adversaries.
“This is perhaps the thorniest issue of Obama’s foreign-policy initiation,” said Brian Glyn Williams, a University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth professor who has testified on al-Qaeda at the Guantanamo war crimes trials.

Covert military operations around the globe, including in countries with which Washington is not at war, have been a part of US policy for decades and have been mounted against the stateless al-Qaeda since the Sept 11, 2001, attacks.
During his election campaign, premised on the need for change after eight years of Bush policies, Obama condemned Bush’s counterterrorism operations as ineffective and advocated more international diplomacy to isolate militant groups.
But he also vowed to strike al-Qaeda leaders in Pakistan if the United States had good intelligence and Islamabad failed to act — setting the stage for a continuation of Bush’s policy there.

Strikes
When he takes over in January he will have to balance the opportunities and risks of covert strikes and manage delicate relations with countries where the secret US forces operate, analysts said.
“I don’t see any president of the United States giving up covert operations as an option,” said Brian Michael Jenkins, a terrorism expert for the Rand Corp think tank and a former US Army Special Forces captain.
Bush has given the military new authority to fight al-Qaeda on its own and in coordination with the CIA. The New York Times reported on Monday that a classified order issued in 2004 by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, with Bush’s approval, authorized military strikes on al-Qaeda around the world,

It said that the order identified some 15 to 20 countries where militants were operating and that more than a dozen previously undisclosed attacks have taken place under it.
Meanwhile, Obama, returned to Chicago to work on setting up his new administration after getting his first look at the Oval Office during a nearly two-hour meeting with Bush to discuss the transfer of power at a time of war and financial crisis.
As the 43rd and 44th US presidents held their first face-to-face talks since Election Day last week, the next first lady, Michelle Obama, talked with Laura Bush about raising daughters in the White House.
At the end of their highly symbolic visit, Bush walked Obama to a waiting black limousine for the trip to the airport and the return flight by jet charter to his transition headquarters in Chicago. His team is working there to put together the next Cabinet and to fill the hundreds of jobs that come open in a change of administrations.
Neither Bush nor Obama made a statement before or after their meeting.

Economic situation
Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said the two men “talked extensively” about the economic situation and foreign policy. Obama inherits from Bush an economy in deep crisis and wars that are far from won in Iraq and Afghanistan, among other problems, when he takes office on Jan 20. Topics between them included the housing industry, foreclosures, the auto industry in crisis, as well as “the need to get the economy back on track,” Gibbs said. Obama’s aides said the president-elect discussed with Bush the need for urgent action to help struggling US automakers. Gibbs said “it was a discussion about the broad health of the industry” that was not just limited to any one of the three largest US car makers.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid asked the administration this weekend to consider expanding the $700 billion bailout for financial firms to include car companies. At a news conference Friday, Obama said he hoped the Bush administration would “do everything it can to accelerate the retooling assistance for the industry that Congress has already enacted.”
The White House did not reject such an idea. Presidential spokeswoman Dana Perino said Bush would listen to lawmakers if, when they come back for a post-election session, “they decide to try to do something more on the auto industry.”
As for Obama’s first glimpse of the Oval Office, Gibbs said, “He said it was a very, very nice office.”
Perino said Bush described the meeting as “constructive, relaxed and friendly,” covering problems at home and abroad, and said he personally pledged a smooth transition. Bush gave Obama a sneak peek at White House highlights, such as the Lincoln Bedroom and the president’s office in the residence, after their hour-plus in the Oval Office.
Obama, mindful of his role as next American commander in chief, was to place a wreath Tuesday at a Chicago memorial to fallen US warriors, marking Veterans Day in a nation fighting two wars.

Orders
Obama’s team cautioned on Monday he had not yet decided whether to reverse executive orders on topics such as stem cell research and oil drilling imposed by President George W. Bush.
Members of Obama’s transition team had said on Sunday that he would move swiftly once in office from Jan 20 to strike down some of the Bush executive orders that Democrats have long battled.
“Across the board, whether it’s national security, the economy, the senior leadership that will manage health care, energy and the environment, I think he intends to move very quickly,” Obama transition co-chairman John Podesta had said on “Fox News Sunday.”
But Obama spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter issued a statement on Monday pledging that Obama would discuss any executive orders with both Democrats and Republicans as well as with nominees of his Cabinet, none of whom has been selected yet.
“President-elect Obama will honor the commitment he made during the campaign to review all executive orders, but this process has not yet begun and no decisions have been made,” she said.
“The president-elect has pledged to run an open and inclusive government, so before he makes any decisions on potential executive or legislative actions, he will be conferring with congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle, as well as interested groups.”

A Republican congressman from the southern US state of Georgia said Monday he fears that Obama will establish a Gestapo-like security force to impose a Marxist or fascist dictatorship.
“It may sound a bit crazy and off base, but the thing is, he’s the one who proposed this national security force,” Rep Paul Broun said of Obama in an interview Monday with The Associated Press. “I’m just trying to bring attention to the fact that we may — may not, I hope not — but we may have a problem with that type of philosophy of radical socialism or Marxism.”
Broun cited a July speech by Obama that has circulated on the Internet in which the then-Democratic presidential candidate called for a civilian force to take some of the national security burden off the military.
“That’s exactly what Hitler did in Nazi Germany and it’s exactly what the Soviet Union did,” Broun said. “When he’s proposing to have a national security force that’s answering to him, that is as strong as the US military, he’s showing me signs of being Marxist.”
Obama’s comments about a national security force came during a speech about building a new civil service corps. Among other things, he called for expanding the US foreign service and doubling the size of the Peace Corps “to renew our diplomacy.”

Appointments
In another development, Obama’s short-list for Treasury secretary includes one man with a reputation for being too blunt and another whose genial manner makes some wonder if he is tough enough.
Neither Lawrence Summers’ nor Timothy Geithner’s expertise is in doubt, but there are questions about who is better suited for the sensitive post with global markets mired in the worst turmoil since the Great Depression.
Summers is tough but possibly too outspoken. Geithner is even-tempered but possibly too nice.
The two are the most often publicly mentioned among several candidates Obama is believed to be considering.

Obama has said he wants to move quickly but deliberately to pick US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s successor to take over early next year.
Summers, 53, and Geithner, 47, are veterans of the Clinton administration who worked together on a series of crises from the Mexican peso devaluation in the mid-1990s to the Asian financial contagion a few years later.
Since Obama’s Nov 4 election victory, markets have waited anxiously for his choice to head a department that has been granted wide powers to try to pull the nation back from the financial brink.
In an interview in September, Obama told Reuters he wanted “somebody with extraordinary credentials who knows the marketplace, knows the players and knows government.” He also said the candidate must share his support for a tax code that gives more benefits to the middle class.