Feinstein: 'Failure is not an option' in Afghanistan despite setbacks

Key Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein (Calif.) on Sunday said "failure is not an option" in Afghanistan.

Asked to respond to the growing defiance on the part of the Taliban in the war-torn country, the Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman told CNN host Candy Crowley "failure is not an option. ... Either the Taliban becomes a force for good, participates in government -- we're not there yet -- or it has to be defeated. And I think there are consequential steps that have been made. We very carefully track the taking down of leadership and I think that's moving along."

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on "Fox News Sunday" that the Afghan army "will be ready to assume primary responsibility for security in certain areas of Afghanistan" by the July 2011 goal.

Gates called the Kandahar operation a "a tough pull, and we are suffering significant casualties. We expected that."

Gates stressed that progress was being made despite the mounting casualties.

The top-ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Richard Lugar (Ind.), noted that the U.S. hasn't defined success in Afghanistan, thus making a withdrawal deadline a tricky decision.

"That's a part of our problem, that we're going to have to, as a government, whether it be the president or the Congress, define success in a way in which the American people find this to be satisfying. Otherwise, we'll continue to argue about the date of withdrawal or how fast or how -- whether we surge more or less -- without ever having defined exactly what it is we hope from Afghanistan," Lugar told Crowley on CNN's "State of the Union" Sunday morning.

Further, Lugar said, "we have a lot of troops still there after July 1."