Obama wants more troops for Afghan mission
By Jeff Zeleny Published: July 14, 2008
SAN DIEGO: Senator Barack Obama is proposing that the United States deploy about 10,000 more troops to battle resurgent forces in Afghanistan, a plan intended to shift the U.S. military focus from the Iraq war to the marked rise in violence from the Taliban.
"As president, I would pursue a new strategy and begin by providing at least two additional combat brigades to support our effort in Afghanistan," Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, wrote in an Op-Ed article (See Page 8).
"We need more troops, more helicopters, better intelligence-gathering and more nonmilitary assistance to accomplish the mission there," he wrote.
Obama, who is among those who maintain that Afghanistan has been neglected because of the administration's Iraq policy, has not previously offered such a specific plan for how to strengthen troop levels in Afghanistan. His proposal comes as he prepares to visit U.S. commanders to assess progress in Iraq and needs in Afghanistan.
He said a new round of violence Sunday, in which nine U.S. soldiers died in fierce fighting with the Taliban in eastern Afghanistan, underscored the military challenges ahead for the United States.
As the Bush administration considers withdrawing additional combat troops from Iraq in September, the military needs in Afghanistan are coming into sharper focus. Obama and other Democrats have said that the balance of troops in the two war zones should be adjusted. At the same time, a downturn in Iraqi violence has complicated their arguments that a surge of U.S. troops was a flawed strategy.
"I continue to believe that we're under-resourced in Afghanistan," Obama said Sunday, speaking to reporters after addressing a Latino group. "That is the real center for terrorist activity that we have to deal with and deal with aggressively."
Later this summer, Obama said he would be joined on a trip to Iraq, and possibly Afghanistan, by Senators Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska, and Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island. All three senators share critical views of the Bush administration's Iraq policy.
The visit to Iraq, and his findings from briefings with military commanders, represents an important moment for Obama's general election candidacy. While he said that he still supported removing U.S. combat troops within 16 months, he has struggled to explain how he would balance that plan if conditions on the ground were not suitable for that goal.
He said that he was not going to Iraq to promote his withdrawal plan but to gather facts.
"We have one president at a time, so I'm not going to be traveling to negotiate anything or make promises," Obama said aboard his campaign plane Saturday evening. "I am there to listen, but there is no doubt that my core position, which is that we need a timetable for withdrawal, not only to relieve pressure on our military but also to deal with the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan and to put more pressure on the Iraqi government."
Obama has not visited Iraq since his first trip there in January 2006, which Senator John McCain, the likely Republican nominee, and Republicans have used to suggest that he is not sufficiently aware of the military progress that has been made. McCain has been to Iraq at least eight times. Asked about the criticism Sunday, Obama grew defensive.
"John McCain has been in Congress 25 years - no doubt about that - if this is a longevity measure, then John McCain wins," Obama said.
"On the other hand," he added, "before we went into Iraq, I knew the difference between Shia and Sunni."
The comment referred to a misstatement by McCain earlier this year, when he struggled to explain the distinction between the majority and minority ethnic groups in Iraq.
Obama plans West Bank visit
A Palestinian official said that Barack Obama would visit the West Bank during a swing through the Middle East next week, The Associated Press reported Monday from Paris.
Saeb Erekat, a Palestinian negotiator with Israel, said that Obama would travel to Ramallah on July 23. He also said that Obama was scheduled to meet with the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas. |
