Gates Backs Generals' Afghan Distress Call

Team Infidel

Forum Spin Doctor
New York Times
January 18, 2007
Pg. 12

By David S. Cloud
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, Jan. 17 — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Wednesday that American and NATO military commanders in Afghanistan, worried about a resurgent Taliban insurgency, had asked for additional troops and that he was sympathetic to the request.
Speaking to reporters after a two-day visit to Afghanistan and before heading here for meetings with Saudi officials, Mr. Gates said commanders had “indicated what they could do with different force levels,” but he would not divulge the size of the increases under consideration. A senior Defense official said late Tuesday that the commanders were seeking fewer than 3,500 more American troops as well as about 1,000 more troops from NATO allies.
He said that the request would be studied by Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who will make a recommendation on troop levels after consulting with the other service chiefs.
The appeal follows the Bush administration’s announcement last week that it was sending more than 20,000 additional troops to Iraq, where the United States already has about 132,000 troops.
Any significant increase in the current force levels in Afghanistan of 21,000 American troops and 20,000 from other NATO countries could be problematic for the United States Army, which has been strained by deployments over the last five years and is struggling to come up with the new forces for Iraq.
Mr. Gates’s openness to adding troops to Afghanistan as well as Iraq is a sharp contrast to the approach of his predecessor, Donald H. Rumsfeld, who argued for holding down force levels to speed two countries toward taking the lead in military operations on their soil.
Mr. Gates has indicated that he favored aggressive action to root out the Taliban, the country’s ousted former rulers. American officials have said in recent days that Taliban fighters are mounting increasingly brazen cross-border attacks from Pakistan and are preparing to intensify attacks in the spring.
“There’s no reason to sit back and let the Taliban regroup,” Mr. Gates said. “I think it’s very important that we not let this success in Afghanistan slip away from us.”
General Pace, who accompanied Mr. Gates during his stopover in Afghanistan, has also seemed open to troop increases. “Clearly any kind of deployment of force is going to add to the short-term strain,” he said Wednesday. But it was possible, he said, that additional troops for Afghanistan would produce “a success, so you have to have less stress on the force for a longer period of time.”
Mr. Gates said military planners needed to examine “what role additional forces might play and where they would be assigned” in Afghanistan. Pentagon officials would have to look at whether more forces were available, he added.
Lt. Gen Karl Eikenberry, the top American commander in Afghanistan, told reporters this week that he wanted a 1,200-soldier battalion on a four-month deployment to remain beyond its planned departure date. Officials would not say how many more American troops General Eikenberry was seeking.
Mr. Gates met with Gen. David J. Richards of Britain, the NATO commander in Afghanistan, who has complained that unmet pledges of troops and equipment from NATO countries have left him 10 to 15 percent short of the forces he needs.
“Clearly there is a need to fulfill those commitments, and I’ll be asking them to do that,” General Richards said.
NATO is especially short of helicopters and airplanes for evacuating the wounded and moving supplies. In addition, General Richards still has not received 1,200 troops for a reserve force that can be deployed on short notice. A Polish battalion to arrive in March was originally designated for that task, but officials said that it would be sent to eastern Afghanistan instead.
Mr. Gates met late Wednesday with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia at the king’s hunting lodge outside Riyadh. A senior Defense official traveling with Mr. Gates said he had described the White House plan to send more troops to Iraq and reassured the king that President Bush was committed to stabilizing Iraq.
 
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