On August 29, 2009, Commander of U.S. and NATO Forces in Afghanistan General Stanley McChrystal delivered a confidential Initial Assessment on the situation in Afghanistan. It read: ” ‘Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near-term (next 12 months)–while Afghan security capacity matures–risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible.’ In other words, the U.S. could lose the war by September 2010.”
– Bob Woodward, Obama’s Wars, Page 176