Obama Leaning Toward 34,000 More Troops for Afghanistan [View All]

Obama Leaning Toward 34,000 More Troops for Afghanistan
by Jonathan S. Landay, John Walcott and Nancy A. Youssef
November 7, 2009

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama is nearing a decision to send more than 30,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan next year, but he may not announce it until after he consults with key allies and completes a trip to Asia later this month, administration and military officials have told McClatchy.

As it now stands, the administration's plan calls for sending three Army brigades from the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Ky. and the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum, N.Y. and a Marine brigade, for a total of as many as 23,000 additional combat and support troops.

Another 7,000 troops would man and support a new division headquarters for the international force's Regional Command (RC) South in Kandahar, the Taliban birthplace where the U.S. is due to take command in 2010. Some 4,000 additional U.S. trainers are likely to be sent as well, the officials said.

The officials, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss internal administration planning, cautioned that Obama's decision isn't final, and won't be until after administration officials discuss it with the NATO allies at a Nov. 23 meeting of the alliance's North Atlantic Council and its Military Committee.

Although the administration privately is holding out little hope of persuading Canada or the Netherlands to abandon their plans to withdraw combat troops, much less getting additional allied troops, it wants to avoid creating the impression - at home and abroad - that the U.S. "is going it alone" in Afghanistan, said one military official.


ESCALATION OF OBAMA'S WAR: Barack Obama salutes as US soldiers carry the coffin of US Army Sgt. Dale R. Griffin at Dover Air Force Base on October 29, 2009.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/11/07-5