Obama decides to send 30,000 more troops to Kabul

WASHINGTON US President Barack Obama, who will unveil his plans for US involvement in Afghanistan Tuesday night, has decided to expedite the deployment of 30,000 additional American troops to Afghanistan over the next six months, according to administration officials.
The move is aimed at reversing the momentum of Taliban gains and create urgency for the government in Kabul to match the American surge with one using its own forces, The New York Times cited the officials as saying.
Obama has offered Pakistan an expanded strategic partnership, while insisting that Pakistani troops take action against al-Qaeda and Afghan Taliban sanctuaries in the country. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, whom Obama contacted, said that Coalition and Afghan efforts must be matched by actions not simply to isolate but defeat Al-Qaeda within Pakistan.
Officials said Obama would give the American people some sort of time frame for getting out of Afghanistan. White House aides had said earlier this week there would not be a timetable in the speech.
After months of deliberations, Obama informed senior war advisers Sunday evening of his decision in an Oval Office meeting attended by Vice-President Biden; National Security Adviser James Jones; Defence Secretary Robert Gates; Admiral Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Gen James Cartwright, the Vice-Chairman; Gen David Petraeus, head of US Central Command; and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.
In bringing the total American force to nearly 100,000 troops by the end of May, the administration will move far faster than it had originally planned, The Times said. Until recently, discussions focused on a deployment that would take a year, but Obama concluded that the situation required more, sooner, the newspaper said, citing an official who explained some of the central conclusions reached at the end of a nearly three-month review of American war strategy.
The strategy aims to prevent Al-Qaeda from returning to Afghanistan, whose territory it used to prepare for the Sept 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, and to keep Taliban insurgents from toppling the government there. The 30,000 new American troops will focus on securing a number of population centres in Afghanistan where the Taliban are strongest, including Kandahar in the south and Khost in the east, the officials said. The American forces, they said, will pair up with specific Afghan units in an effort to end eight years of frustrating attempts to build them into an independent fighting force.
Obama has concluded that the strategy for dealing with the Taliban should be to degrade its ability, in the words of one of the officials deeply involved in the discussions, so that the Afghan forces are capable of taking them on. At the same time, the Presidents strategy calls for carving away at the bottom of the Talibans force structure by reintegrating less committed members into tribes and offering them paid jobs in local and national military forces.
We want to knock the Taliban back, giving us time and space to build the Afghans up mainly in the security front but also in governance and development as well, one senior administration official was quoted as saying. By weakening the Taliban through a quick infusion of troops, the official said, the administration hopes to make it a more manageable enemy for the Afghans to take on themselves.
For Obama, the strategy is a huge gamble in a war that has already gone on for eight years, The Times said. Polls show that Americans are increasingly tired of the conflict and doubtful of American goals.
Success, the administration officials said in their fullest discussion yet of the thinking behind Obamas approach, depends in large part on the cooperation of an Afghan government whose legitimacy is more in question than ever in the wake of elections marred by extensive fraud.
It also hinges on the success of a renewed relationship with a Pakistani government whose civilian leadership is exceptionally weak, whose military and intelligence services are distrustful of the US and its commitment, and whose willingness to take on elements of the Taliban directing attacks against American troops from Pakistani territory is still unproven, the dispatch said.
While the number of troops Obama is deploying falls short of the figure sought by General Stanley McChrystal, his commander in Afghanistan, Obama is also counting on reinforcements from American allies. Those allies currently have nearly 40,000 troops in Afghanistan, but European and Canadian officials have said they doubt Obama will get more than a few thousand more.
The new strategy draws heavily on lessons learned from former president George W Bushs surge and strategy shift in Iraq in 2007, which Obama opposed as a senator and presidential candidate. Obamas advisers are even referring to his troop buildup as an extended surge.
However officials said Obama in his speech will give a time frame - something Bush did not do - for when the US will start pulling the reinforcements out and begin turning over security responsibilities to Afghan forces one province at a time.
Obamas aides would not say how specific he would be on Tuesday night about the time frame of the American presence. But clearly it would be well more than a year. That would take him to 2011 or 2012 - when Obama is up for re-election - before the troop levels would begin to fall again to fulfil the Presidents oft-repeated assertion that he would offer no open-ended commitment to the Afghan government.
It is that date, the dispatch said, that is bound to be the focus of attention for his own party, at a time many Democrats are openly opposed to sending more troops. Some have questioned how Obama can simultaneously argue for a troop increase and a relatively quick pull-back. But in interviews, administration officials said without the accelerated deployment, there was little hope of being able to stabilise the situation in the region sufficiently to start withdrawals.
This is to speed the process, one said.
The plan envisions that some troops would remain as a light footprint - a force that would probably stay behind in a reserve or supporting role for years to come - in a way similar to what the US has done in Germany, Japan, South Korea and Bosnia.
Vice-President Joseph Biden initially opposed any substantial increase in troops in Afghanistan, arguing that Pakistan was the far more important priority since that is where Al-Qaeda is now largely based. He was joined in that view by Lt-Gen Karl Eikenberry, the retired commander now serving as American ambassador to Afghanistan, who described the growing resentment of the American military among the Afghan people.
On the other side of the deliberations were Gen McChrystal, who warned that the American mission would fail without more troops and sought another 40,000, and military leaders who supported him, like Gen Petraeus, Adm Mullen. Among those who helped steer the review towards the eventual result was Defence Secretary Robert Gates, a Republican.
The President will travel to the US Military Academy in West Point, about 100 miles from New York, for a speech to the American nation that is expected to unveil his second escalation of US forces in Afghanistan since he came to power in January.
The officials said the President will give the American people some sort of time frame for getting out of Afghanistan. White House aides had said earlier this week there would not be a timetable in the speech.
He will talk about specific dates to withdraw from the war, according to the officials.
In the speech, Obama is expected to announce hell seek further troop commitments from NATO allies as part of a counterinsurgency strategy to wipe out Al-Qaeda elements and stabilise the country, while training Afghan forces.
The expected new troop deployment would increase the total US commitment in Afghanistan to almost 100,000 troops, bolstered by about 45,000 NATO forces.
According to White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, the Presidents speech will explain why the US is involved in Afghanistan, the new American mission in the war-torn country, and the process that led to Obamas decision.
Obama also will emphasize the limit on US resources in manpower and budget, and stress that the Afghan mission is not open-ended, Gibbs said.
The decision carries significant political risk for Obama, who will announce it nine days before he travels to Oslo, Norway, to accept the Nobel Peace Prize.
His liberal base, which helped him win last years presidential election, opposes another troop deployment to Afghanistan.
In addition, the deployment - expected to cost $30 billion a year - comes amid high unemployment as the economy emerges from a recession. That concerns Democrats and Republicans faced with competing domestic priorities such as health care reform and job creation.
Meanwhile, Republican opponents have been pressuring Obama to fulfil the request made more than three months ago by his commanding officer in Afghanistan, Gen Stanley McChrystal, for 40,000 additional troops to carry out a counterinsurgency strategy.
The troops would be dispatched throughout Afghanistan but would be focused mainly on the southern and southeastern provinces, where much of the recent fighting has taken place.