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US surge likely in Afghan conflict
The Australian - September 5, 2009
Amanda Hodge, South Asia correspondent – The US looks poised to buck rising public opposition to its war in Afghanistan by boosting troop numbers after Defence Secretary Robert Gates backed his commander in the region.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown also faced down anger over the death toll in Afghanistan yesterday, vowing that UK troops would stay in the country until it could look after its own security.
Mr Gates admitted yesterday he had changed his view – that adding to the 68,000 US troops in Afghanistan would create an oversized US "footprint" – after reading the assessment of the US regional commander, Stanley McChrystal.
General McChrystal, who commands more than 100,000 US and NATO soldiers fighting a resurgent Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan, called for a new approach to the war on Monday. He is expected to request up to 20,000 additional US troops.
While his assessment has yet to be made public, General McChrystal said this week the situation in Afghanistan was "serious, but success is achievable and demands a revised implementation strategy, commitment and resolve, and increased unity of effort".
Responding to the assessment yesterday, Mr Gates said: "I take seriously General McChrystal's point that the size of the footprint depends... on the nature of the footprint and the behaviour of those troops and their attitudes and their interactions with the Afghans.
"If they interact with the Afghans in a way that gives confidence to the Afghans that we're their partners and their allies, then the risks that I have been concerned (with), about the footprint becoming too big... is mitigated."
Mr Gates denied the US was losing the war against Taliban and al-Qa'ida militants, who have entrenched their positions in the south and east of the country and are spreading the insurgency across the north and west. But he conceded there was "limited time" to show military success and warned that the danger posed by Islamic militants was the main reason for a continuing US presence.
In a speech intended to shore up British support for the war, Mr Brown emphasised the security threat posed by an early withdrawal from Afghanistan, saying: "When the security of our country is at stake, we cannot walk away.
"People ask what success in Afghanistan would look like. The answer is, we will have succeeded when our troops are coming home because the Afghans are doing the job themselves."
The US and British administrations face rising public anger over casualties in Afghanistan, and divisions within their ranks over how to turn the situation round.
A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released this week found that close to six in 10 Americans oppose the war.
US President Barack Obama has made Afghanistan the cornerstone of his foreign policy and in March sent an extra 21,000 troops.
Hours before Mr Brown delivered his speech, Labor MP and senior defence ministerial aid Eric Joyce tendered his resignation and called on Mr Brown to set a five-year timetable for withdrawal.
This year is the deadliest for foreign troops in Afghanistan since the US-led invasion ousted the Taliban in 2001.
Western nations had hoped the August 20 presidential poll would aid security by shoring up an elected government in the ethnically divided nation, but evidence of vote rigging has overshadowed the ballot.
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