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Obama to decide 'shortly' on troops for Afghan war
Washington (AFP) Feb 16, 2009 The White House on Monday promised that President Barack Obama would "shortly" make a decision on whether to pour thousands more US troops into the Afghan war. Spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters aboard Air Force One as Obama returned to Washington from a weekend in Chicago that the decision, the subject of intense speculation here, was still expected soon. "I would expect the presidential decision could come shortly." "I don't think it will go, without getting into broad timelines, I don't think this is anything that involves weeks," Gibbs said. Politico.com earlier reported that the president was refusing to be rushed into making a decision on the expected deployment, in what it said was a sign he may be more "independent minded" than military leaders had expected. In several leaks to newspapers in recent weeks, military leaders have said that they expected a decision to be finalized within days. US envoy Richard Holbrooke has been tracking through Pakistan and Afghanistan in recent days, as speculation mounts about the deployments and the results of Obama's Afghanistan policy review. "This is the first time that this president has been asked to deploy large numbers of troops overseas, and it seems to me a thoughtful and deliberative approach to that decision is entirely appropriate," Defense Secretary Robert Gates said last week. "The president will have several options before him," Gates told reporters, referring to the US-led effort to stabilize Afghanistan over the past seven years. "And I think he will make those decisions probably in the course of the next few days." Gates said he had made his recommendations to the president, and that the options under consideration "give him several ways of going forward." The US commander in Afghanistan, General David McKiernan, has requested up to 30,000 additional troops, including three more combat brigades and an aviation brigade and support troops. If they are approved for deployment, it would nearly double the size of the US force, which currently numbers around 37,000. Gates has said the combat brigades could be in Afghanistan by mid-summer, the season when insurgent attacks and military operations surge. Share This Article With Planet Earth
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