Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Wall Street Journal (wsj.com)
January 31, 2008 BERLIN (AP)--U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has written to his German counterpart urging Berlin to send an additional 3,200 troops to Afghanistan, warning that the NATO-led force there could lose credibility without reinforcement, a Defense Ministry spokesman confirmed Thursday.
According to the German Sueddeutsche Zeitung daily, the one-and-a-half-page-long, undated letter to Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung arrived last week. In it, Gates specifically asks Germany to drop caveats limiting its troops to the north of Afghanistan and to send helicopter units, infantry and paratroopers that could join the fight against Taliban militants in the south, the paper reported without citing the letter.
Thomas Raabe, a spokesman for Jung, said the minister had received such a letter, adding that similar correspondence was sent to the other NATO partners ahead of an informal meeting of Alliance defense ministers in Vilnius, Lithuania, next month, where the force in Afghanistan is to be discussed.
Gates has been trying recently to persuade NATO allies to contribute more troops and equipment to the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, without much success.
Yet such a direct request from Washington is sure to spark fierce debate in Germany, which already has some 3,000 troops serving in the relatively peaceful north, amid growing public skepticism about the mission.
In October, German lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to continue the country's involvement in the NATO-led ISAF in Afghanistan, but only after intense debate led by pacifist contingents in several opposition parties that insist Germany should instead concentrate its efforts on humanitarian and reconstruction efforts in the central Asian nation.
Earlier this week, Jung made an unannounced visit to Afghanistan, where he held talks with top officials. That visit coincided with a request from NATO for Germany to send a so-called quick reaction force to Afghanistan.
While all 26 NATO allies have units in Afghanistan, France, Turkey and Italy, as well as Germany, refuse to send significant numbers to the southern combat zone.
January 31, 2008 BERLIN (AP)--U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has written to his German counterpart urging Berlin to send an additional 3,200 troops to Afghanistan, warning that the NATO-led force there could lose credibility without reinforcement, a Defense Ministry spokesman confirmed Thursday.
According to the German Sueddeutsche Zeitung daily, the one-and-a-half-page-long, undated letter to Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung arrived last week. In it, Gates specifically asks Germany to drop caveats limiting its troops to the north of Afghanistan and to send helicopter units, infantry and paratroopers that could join the fight against Taliban militants in the south, the paper reported without citing the letter.
Thomas Raabe, a spokesman for Jung, said the minister had received such a letter, adding that similar correspondence was sent to the other NATO partners ahead of an informal meeting of Alliance defense ministers in Vilnius, Lithuania, next month, where the force in Afghanistan is to be discussed.
Gates has been trying recently to persuade NATO allies to contribute more troops and equipment to the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, without much success.
Yet such a direct request from Washington is sure to spark fierce debate in Germany, which already has some 3,000 troops serving in the relatively peaceful north, amid growing public skepticism about the mission.
In October, German lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to continue the country's involvement in the NATO-led ISAF in Afghanistan, but only after intense debate led by pacifist contingents in several opposition parties that insist Germany should instead concentrate its efforts on humanitarian and reconstruction efforts in the central Asian nation.
Earlier this week, Jung made an unannounced visit to Afghanistan, where he held talks with top officials. That visit coincided with a request from NATO for Germany to send a so-called quick reaction force to Afghanistan.
While all 26 NATO allies have units in Afghanistan, France, Turkey and Italy, as well as Germany, refuse to send significant numbers to the southern combat zone.