Afghanistan Surge Looking More Likely
The Swamp:
The Pentagon continues to inch towards shifting troops from Iraq to Afghanistan.
Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, today said he continues to be pleased by the progress on the ground in Iraq and was hopeful that he could recommend further troop reductions early in the fall.
“I won’t go so far as to say that progress in Iraq, from a military perspective, has reached a tipping point, or it is irreversible,” Mullen said. “It has not, and it is not. But security is unquestionably and remarkably better. Indeed, if these trends continue, I expect to be able early in the fall to recommend to the secretary and to the president further troop reductions.”
Mullen’s statement, which did not include any specific numbers, is not new. Gen. David Petraeus, who is the top commander in Iraq, told Congress back in May that he was hopeful of recommending a further reduction in troops before he takes off for his new job in September as head of U.S. Central Command.
But Mullen and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who spoke with reporters this afternoon, acknowledged that the situation in Afghanistan has become increasingly volatile in recent months. Last week, nine U.S. troops were killed when hundreds of militants attacked them at a remote outpost in eastern Afghanistan.
The incident, which occurred on Sunday near the village of Wanat, was deadliest attack on American forces in Afghanistan in more than three years. U.S. troops have since abandoned the outpost. Mullen said the attack underscored that the militants have “grown bolder, more sophisticated and more diverse.”
June marked the deadliest month for U.S. troops since the start of the war in Afghanistan, and in May the monthly U.S. death toll in Afghanistan exceeded the American death toll in Iraq for the first time.
Gates said that he’d like to send more troops to Afghanistan before the end of the year. Yet, it remains difficult to see how that can be done without a significant cut in troops in Iraq. The defense secretary reiterated today that he doesn’t want to a reverse a policy of capping troop tours at 12 months.
“I think that we are clearly working very hard to see if there are opportunities to send additional forces [to Afghanistan] sooner rather than later,” Gates said.
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Too many of our so-called allies are sitting on their cans while we and some of our best allies (Like the Aussies) are out in the field doing the dirty work.
More troops is a good plan, so long as we also have a plan for dealing with haji bases in Waziristan.
July 17th, 2008 at 6:17 am