U.S. needs more troops in Afghanistan, commander says
But with Petraeus set to recommend slowing the drawdown in Iraq, more forces are unlikely to be available soon to deal with rising bloodshed.
WASHINGTON — A top commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan said Friday that he needed thousands of additional troops to combat violence along the border with Pakistan, a requirement that appears to be at odds with recommendations from Army Gen. David H. Petraeus on future troop levels in Iraq.
Because of strains on the military, plans to boost the number of troops in Afghanistan depend on reducing the force in Iraq. Petraeus' plan, which President Bush is expected to approve Tuesday in an appearance at the National Defense University, would slow the reduction of combat troops in Iraq, freeing up only one full Army combat brigade for redeployment to Afghanistan. That move would not happen until early next year.
In addition to the combat brigade of about 3,500 to 4,000 troops, U.S. officials also plan to withdraw about 2,000 non-combat support personnel from Iraq and transfer about 1,300 Marines from Iraq's Anbar province to western Afghanistan.
Some in the Pentagon had been pushing for a faster and larger reduction of combat forces from Iraq and a more aggressive troop buildup in Afghanistan. They preferred withdrawing as many as three combat brigades so that additional forces could be sent to Afghanistan before the end of the year.
Pressure from U.S. commanders in Afghanistan for more troops has become the central point in a public debate among senior U.S. military officers and a source of tension among Pentagon planners, who are at odds over how quickly to shift forces from an increasingly stable Iraq to an increasingly violent Afghanistan.
Army Gen. Jeffrey J. Schloesser, who took command of American-controlled eastern Afghanistan in April, said that coalition forces were at no risk of losing in Afghanistan without additional brigades. But he said that continuing with the current level of about 34,000 U.S. troops for an extended period would result in a "slow win."
"It's not the way that I think the Afghans, the international community and the American people would like to see us conduct this war," Schloesser said in a video conference with reporters at the Pentagon. "It will take longer, the way we are doing it right now. . . . I'd like to speed that up."
Petraeus, reluctant to risk hard-won security gains in Iraq, had wanted to maintain troop levels there at 15 brigades through next June, according to a Pentagon official who described the internal deliberations on condition of anonymity.
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