Brits Sending More Troops to Afghanistan, Will the U.S. Follow?
EmailABC's Jordyn Phelps reports:
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced Wednesday that Great Britain is sending 500 additional troops to Afghanistan.
The question now is whether Brown's announcement signals that President Obama will also decide to send more troops to the war-torn nation. President Obama is currently undergoing a review of U.S. strategy in the region with his National Security team, and it is expected that the President will announce a decision in the coming weeks.
Brown suggested in his announcement that the British decision is not out of line with what U.S. decision-makers are considering.
"I believe the decision we are announcing is consistent with what the Americans will decide," Brown said yesterday.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs denies that Brown's statement signals that the United States has decided upon a troop increase as well, reiterating that the administration is still in the review process.
Speculation was increased over whether President Obama had made a decision on troop levels when the BBC reported yesterday that the Obama administration had already told the UK government it would soon announce a substantial increase to its military forces in Afghanistan.
The White House denies the accuracy of this report.
"The president has not made a decision, and when he does I think you can assume that the BBC will not be the first outlet for such a decision," Gibbs said yesterday. "I would not…throw weight behind the fact that a decision has been made when the president has yet to make a decision."
Gibbs did say that the U.S. has been coordinating with Britain in reviewing U.S. Afghanistan policy and that the White House is thankful for their efforts to strengthen the coalition.
"We're happy for their increase in contributions," Gibbs said.
On the day of Brown's announcement, President Obama held a fifth meeting with his National Security team on Afghanistan and Pakistan. During the three hour long meeting, Gibbs said that troop levels were discussed.
–Jordyn Phelps
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Of course, just for context Obama has already sent 17,000 more troops back in Feb and has quietly started sending in 13,000 support troop as a shift in focus from Iraq to Afghanistan shift the supply lines and logistical support.
Bush left office with about 40,000 US troops in Afghanistan. Obama has already sent in almost 30,000 and is considering a surge of 40,000 more on top of that. This is why anyone paying attention is not chastising Obama for ‘neglecting’ Afghanistan, but rather observing that he owns the Afghanistan for better or worse.
Iraq, the economy, North Korea, the deficit, Iran, etc – Bush left those in a flaming sack on his doorstep. But Afghanistan is all Obama’s now regardless of whether he approves *another* massive troop increase.
Posted by: jhw539 | October 15, 2009, 2:30 pm 2:30 pm
More context
“ROVE: No, I’m not. No. No. No. I’m saying that the United States had what, at the time, the military felt was an appropriate level of resources, and in retrospect, everybody now, says, I suspect, I wish we would have been doing more because the enemy, particularly as Iraq got better, the jihadists and al Qaeda needed a place to go, and they went to the Horn of Africa and they went to Pakistan and began to revitalize the efforts to attack Afghanistan.”
Hmmmmmmm
” “There was a saying when I got there: If you’re in Iraq and you need something, you ask for it,” McKiernan said in his first interview since being fired. “If you’re in Afghanistan and you need it, you figure out how to do without it.” By late last summer, he decided to tell George W. Bush’s White House what he knew it did not want to hear: He needed 30,000 more troops. He wanted to send some to the country’s east to bolster other U.S. forces, and some to the south to assist overwhelmed British and Canadian units in Helmand and Kandahar provinces.
The Bush administration opted not to act on McKiernan’s request and instead set out to persuade NATO allies to contribute more troops.”
The lesson as always? Right wingers lie.
Posted by: Ryan C | October 15, 2009, 5:36 pm 5:36 pm