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Bush study favors bigger Afghan army
The Bush administration, in the midst of a wide review of its war strategy in Afghanistan, is likely to recommend soon to the incoming Obama administration that the U.S. push for further expansion of the Afghan army as the surest path to an eventual U.S. withdrawal, The Associated Press has learned.... Under a plan adopted by the U.S. and Afghan governments in September, the Afghan army is to grow to 134,000 soldiers by 2014. The previous goal was 80,000, and the actual number in uniform now is about 67,000, according to Lt. Col. Christian Kubik, spokesman for the Combined Security Transition Command in Afghanistan, which is responsible for training and equipping Afghan forces. The price tag for getting to the new target of 134,000 by 2014 is an estimated $17 billion, Kubik said. Gates noted there is broad support for getting to the 134,000 goal quickly. "It may well not stop there," he added, noting that the size of the Afghan security forces is vastly smaller than Iraq's. A rapid increase in the size of Iraqi security forces over the past two years was a key element along with an altered U.S. counterinsurgency strategy in drastically reducing the level of violence and opening the door to American troop withdrawals this year. Barry McCaffrey, a retired four-star Army general, wrote recently after a July visit to Afghanistan that one of the keys to winning in Afghanistan is expanding the Afghan army to 200,000 soldiers. "Afghanistan will not be solved by the addition of two or three more U.S. combat brigades from our rapidly unraveling Army," McCaffrey wrote in a paper for the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. Gates said he does not expect NATO allies or others to contribute significant additional troops in Afghanistan, even though he and other U.S. officials have pleaded for many months for more help. In his remarks last week, Gates alluded to a behind-the-scenes debate about the wisdom of deepening U.S. involvement, beyond the extra brigades McKiernan already has requested. "I think it remains to be seen whether there is a need or value to significantly more troops than that," the defense secretary said. Posted by: ed 2008-11-07 |
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