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Title: Mullen Says Close to 30,000 New Soldiers Likely for Afghanistan
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URL Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news? ... d=afll.9YZiyUY&refer=worldwide
Published: Jan 30, 2009
Author: Ken Fireman
Post Date: 2009-01-30 19:14:52 by Jethro Tull
Keywords: None
Views: 475
Comments: 19
Mullen Says Close to 30,000 New Soldiers Likely for Afghanistan By Ken Fireman Jan. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Admiral Michael Mullen, the most senior American military officer, said the U.S. will probably deploy close to 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan to shore up deteriorating security there. In an interview, Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, also said he is hopeful that other NATO nations will contribute additional military and civilian resources this year to the fight against a resurgent Taliban. The Islamist militia, which once ruled Afghanistan and sheltered al-Qaeda, is threatening large areas of the country with mounting attacks. Mullen said the new resources are needed to buy time for a broad, long-term buildup of Afghan security forces that will allow the U.S. to “put an Afghan face” on the effort and dispel perceptions of a foreign occupation. “It’s fine for me to say this isn’t an occupation,” Mullen told Bloomberg editors and reporters yesterday. “But it’s important that the people of Afghanistan don’t think it’s an occupation.” Mullen, 62, has said in recent weeks that the U.S. will probably send between 20,000 and 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan in response to a request from Army General David McKiernan, the American commander there. Yesterday, he said he anticipates the final level will “tend toward the higher number of those two” figures. “I believe it’s not going well,” Mullen said of the Afghan conflict, “which is one of the reasons it’s important that we get these forces moving.” Election Delayed Afghanistan’s presidential election was postponed this week to Aug. 20 from May 22 because of security concerns and logistical difficulties. U.S.-backed President Hamid Karzai has been unable to extend his authority much beyond the capital, Kabul, which itself is now menaced by the Taliban. Defense Secretary Robert Gates told a Jan. 27 Senate hearing that Afghanistan is “our greatest military challenge.” “There is no purely military solution,” Gates said. “But it is also clear that we have not had enough troops to provide a baseline level of security in some of the most dangerous areas.” Mullen said the military’s capacity to fulfill McKiernan’s request remains dependent on its ability to keep withdrawing forces from Iraq. And that, he said, will in turn be shaped by whether Iraq continues to draw back from the sectarian violence that convulsed the country in 2006 and progresses toward political reconciliation along milestones like tomorrow’s provincial elections, which he called “absolutely vital.” Improving Conditions “It would be very difficult to slip back to the chaos that was there in 2006,” Mullen said. “The longer we are able to see conditions continue to improve, those words ‘fragile and reversible’ start to disappear.” He cautioned that hard-core insurgents such as the group Al-Qaeda in Iraq still pose a danger. “They’re very much diminished, but there are still pockets of al-Qaeda, and the potential for major events is still there.” In addition, he said, Iraqi leaders must still resolve some difficult political issues, such as passage of a law that gives all regions and ethnic groups a share of energy revenue and a dispute between Arabs and Kurds over control of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk. As a consequence, Mullen said, “we are in great part dependent on how the politics play out in 2009” as U.S. leaders consider prospects for new troop withdrawals from Iraq. Deployed Troops There are currently about 142,000 U.S. soldiers in Iraq and about 36,000 in Afghanistan, according to the Defense Department. Other North Atlantic Treaty Organization countries have about 30,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, although some of those nations bar their forces from deployment in areas of intense combat. The goal of the buildup in Afghanistan, Mullen said, is to enable the U.S.-led coalition to execute what he called the “classic counter-insurgency” strategy of expelling enemy fighters from an area, holding the territory against new incursions and then building up the area’s economic and physical infrastructure. At present, the coalition has only enough resources to accomplish the first of those three stages, he said. “When we’ve been in situations where we’ve been in combat, we’ve actually been able to significantly impact the Taliban,” he said. “The problem is, we haven’t had enough forces there once that occurs to hold the territory, so that we would then build in the classic counter-insurgency mode.” Tribal Areas Mullen said the situation in Afghanistan is closely linked to events in Pakistan, where Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters are roosting in the rugged mountains of that country’s northwest tribal areas. Mullen has made eight trips to Pakistan in the past year to prod military leaders to take action against the fighters. He said he is encouraged that Pakistani leaders now are serious about battling the insurgents. Even the country’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency, which is often accused of collaborating with Islamic extremists, is “evolving in the right direction,” at least at the leadership level, he said. Mullen also said the Pakistanis have taken new and significant steps in recent weeks to crack down on Lashkar-e- Taiba, an Islamic extremist group blamed by India for the November terrorist attacks in Mumbai. ‘More Steps’ Needed “There are still more steps to be taken” against the group, Mullen said, adding that Pakistani authorities were “working to get those who have been arrested into their judicial system.” U.S. and Indian officials have previously asserted that Pakistani intelligence authorities have assisted and turned a blind eye to the group’s violent activities and training camps. Lashkar-e-Taiba, or “Army of the Good,” is dedicated to overthrowing Indian control of the disputed, Muslim-majority territory of Kashmir. The group is classified as a terrorist organization by the U.S. It was outlawed by Pakistan in 2002, although its training camps in the Pakistani part of Kashmir continued to operate, according to U.S. and Indian intelligence officials. In the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks, Pakistani authorities arrested several alleged Lashkar militants.
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#8. To: Jethro Tull (#0)
30K more isn't going to make it go well either. get out now.
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