In the past two days, several news reports have indicated that President Obama plans to add tens of thousands of new U.S. troops to the 67,000-member contingent that is already in the country. McClatchy first reported the supposed decision on Saturday and other media outlets, including CBS News, the Associated Press and others.
But a chief White House advisor said absolutely no decision has yet been made.
"Reports that President Obama has made a decision about Afghanistan are absolutely false," James Jones, US national security adviser, said in a statement.
"He has not received final options for his consideration, he has not reviewed those options with his national security team, and he has not made any decisions about resources," said Jones, a retired general.
"Any reports to the contrary are completely untrue and come from uninformed sources."
Reporters for McClatchy Newspapers with a solid record for accurate reporting on the Iraq war wrote the decision had been all but made to send three army brigades and a marine brigade for a total of 23,000 combat troops, 7000 troops to run the operations at the new Regional Command South in Kandahar, the heart of the original Taliban's stronghold, and 4000 additional trainers for the Afghanistan National Army. If that turned out to be true, it would put the combined U.S. and NATO forces at 143,000.
Republicans have pressed for a decision, and many at the Pentagon and in conservative political circles argue that Obama, who has little experience in military affairs, should back his commander and send him whatever troops he's requested. The president, they note, called McChrystal the best general the military had to tackle Afghanistan when he appointed him to his post last summer.
Other military officers, particularly in the Army, warn that committing more troops to Afghanistan could risk "breaking" the force by reducing the time soldiers can spend at home between deployments, overtaxing equipment and destroying families. Those problems could worsen if Iraq's January elections are delayed or disrupted, and with them the administration's timetable for withdrawing U.S. forces from that country.
Many Democrats, meanwhile, are urging Obama not to send more troops to Afghanistan. Some in his own administration, notably Vice President Joe Biden, aren't convinced that more troops would guarantee success and advocate instead more drone attacks and more training for Afghan forces.
Obama told ABC News in an interview today:
"I have gained confidence that there’s not an important question out there that has not been asked, and that we haven’t asked -- that we haven’t answered to the best of our abilities."
No announcement of his decision - which will include details about far more than how many more troops will be added, according to several sources - is likely to be made until the President returns from his eight-day trip to Asia, which begins Thursday.
Meanwhile, on Sunday, The Independent reported that General Stanley McChrystal wants to keep UK troops in Afghanistan out of harm's way so that casualties there do not inflame the British public in the run-up to the election there.
Senior defence strategists fear that the death toll of British soldiers, currently 230, could be as high as 400 by the time of the election in six months, as Taliban fighters try to exploit UK public concerns about the war.
The McChrystal plan would be welcomed by those arguing for a phased withdrawal in the face of rising British casualties. But it could be seen as a humiliating downgrading of Britain's status. A senior military source said: "Given the risks of a UK strategic withdrawal prompted by the high casualty rate over the summer, McChrystal feels the need to keep Britain 'in the fight' by withdrawing British forces from harm's way, by firstly pulling them back into a smaller area of operations commensurate with their resources; and secondly by transferring them to a 'capacity-building' rather than a 'frontline mission'."
Such a move, of course, if it is part of McChrystal's plan, would mean more American troops in harm's way. So far, 916 American military personnel have been killed in Afghanistan since 2001, 286 of them since January.
Whether or not a decision about a precise number of troops has been chosen, it seems increasingly clear that a general decision - the generals' decision has, in fact, been made. And that decision is to initiate a second surge in Afghanistan to match the one begun last spring. If the increase is what McClatchy and others have suggested, at some point, sometime around late January, the number of U.S. troops remaining in Iraq will match the number by then in Afghanistan.
All of them to continue an occupation in favor of a tainted government that is corrupted by drug money at the highest levels and in league with war criminals such as the warlord Adbul Rashid Dostum. The counterinsurgency fight that General David Petraeus and General McChrystal have signed off on requires many times as many troops as Obama will announce he is sending no matter how many that is. The back-up plan of holding the cities and the major roads with occasional strikes against the Taliban in the countryside is an upgraded Soviet model, another loser.
As for Iraq in 2003 (and years afterward), there is no timetable, no exit plan, just the endless grind of civilian casualties and a stream of flag-draped coffins flying into Dover Air Force Base. To what end? With what hope of success?
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jlms qkw has posted the Overnight News Digest.