After a 60-day strategic review of Afghan operations, advisors to McChrystal concluded that more troops are needed.
Afghanistan commander General Stanley McChrystal to call for more US troops
Afghanistan commander General Stanley McChrystal to call for more US troops
1 Aug [Times] The top US commander in Afghanistan is on a collision course with the White House after it emerged that he plans to ask for more American troops to bolster dangerously under-resourced operations there.
General Stanley McChrystal was brought in as the Nato commander in Afghanistan after the unprecedented dismissal of his predecessor, General David McKiernan, who had successfully pressured the Administration to deploy 21,000 extra troops in the current Afghan “surge”. ....
.. advisers who worked with him on a 60-day strategic review of Afghan operations, the first drafts of which emerged this week, say that General McChrystal concluded that more US troops would be needed to support a vast parallel surge in the number of Afghan security forces fighting the Taleban.
Anthony Cordesman, of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, who spent a month in Afghanistan on behalf of the advisory board, argued that without a doubling in the number of Afghan troops the conflict could be lost.
Significantly increasing Afghan forces would require a major bolstering of the existing coalition force to provide enough troops to train and support them. ....
Senior military officials told the Washington Post that General McChrystal was waiting for a recommendation from a team of military planners in Kabul before deciding exactly how many extra troops were needed. ....
Such a request may prove politically tricky for President Obama, who has questioned whether “piling on more and more troops” would make a difference and faces opposition on troop increases from his own party.
Jim Jones, the President’s National Security Adviser, warned American commanders in Afghanistan a month ago that no more troops would be forthcoming and that the strategy should focus on economic development. ....
General McChrystal’s new strategy also calls for such an approach, with an intensified military effort to root out corruption among local officials. This may also put the military on a collision course with the Afghan Government led by President Karzai, members of which are heavily implicated in much of the country’s paralysing corruption, including the illegal drug trade.
The aim would be to take the Afghan National Army from a size of 134,000 to about 240,000. The police force would be increased from about 92,000 to about 160,000. But Afghan police have long been identified as one of the weakest links in the security chain and highly prone to corruption and officials from several Nato countries have questioned how such a vast increase could be paid for given Afghanistan’s inability to fund even the existing force.
For American and Nato troops, the new strategy foresees a major shift in their operational “culture”, forcing them into closer contact with locals in a bid to identify and befriend local power brokers and win them over to the government side.
Counter-insurgency experts say that foreign troops in Afghanistan have failed to exploit local discontent with the Taleban and need to show civilians that they are capable of protecting them from attack. ....
General Stanley McChrystal was brought in as the Nato commander in Afghanistan after the unprecedented dismissal of his predecessor, General David McKiernan, who had successfully pressured the Administration to deploy 21,000 extra troops in the current Afghan “surge”. ....
.. advisers who worked with him on a 60-day strategic review of Afghan operations, the first drafts of which emerged this week, say that General McChrystal concluded that more US troops would be needed to support a vast parallel surge in the number of Afghan security forces fighting the Taleban.
Anthony Cordesman, of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, who spent a month in Afghanistan on behalf of the advisory board, argued that without a doubling in the number of Afghan troops the conflict could be lost.
Significantly increasing Afghan forces would require a major bolstering of the existing coalition force to provide enough troops to train and support them. ....
Senior military officials told the Washington Post that General McChrystal was waiting for a recommendation from a team of military planners in Kabul before deciding exactly how many extra troops were needed. ....
Such a request may prove politically tricky for President Obama, who has questioned whether “piling on more and more troops” would make a difference and faces opposition on troop increases from his own party.
Jim Jones, the President’s National Security Adviser, warned American commanders in Afghanistan a month ago that no more troops would be forthcoming and that the strategy should focus on economic development. ....
General McChrystal’s new strategy also calls for such an approach, with an intensified military effort to root out corruption among local officials. This may also put the military on a collision course with the Afghan Government led by President Karzai, members of which are heavily implicated in much of the country’s paralysing corruption, including the illegal drug trade.
The aim would be to take the Afghan National Army from a size of 134,000 to about 240,000. The police force would be increased from about 92,000 to about 160,000. But Afghan police have long been identified as one of the weakest links in the security chain and highly prone to corruption and officials from several Nato countries have questioned how such a vast increase could be paid for given Afghanistan’s inability to fund even the existing force.
For American and Nato troops, the new strategy foresees a major shift in their operational “culture”, forcing them into closer contact with locals in a bid to identify and befriend local power brokers and win them over to the government side.
Counter-insurgency experts say that foreign troops in Afghanistan have failed to exploit local discontent with the Taleban and need to show civilians that they are capable of protecting them from attack. ....
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