[southnews] Obama meets war cabinet on Afghanistan

[Dave Muller]

US President Barack Obama has been huddling with his war cabinet for
what officials indicated could be the final time before he decides
whether to dispatch tens of thousands more US troops to Afghanistan.

Obama meets war cabinet on Afghanistan

AFP - 1 hour 44 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) - President Barack Obama has been huddling with his
war cabinet for what officials indicated could be the final time before
he decides whether to dispatch tens of thousands more US troops to
Afghanistan.

Top officials at the meeting, the ninth gathering of Obama's national
security team to review Afghan strategy since August, included Defense
Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

An administration official said Monday could "possibly" be the last time
Obama will consult his team before making an announcement, though he
cautioned "that's not something we can say definitively."

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters there would be no
announcement before the weekend, but said Obama could reach a decision
on the biggest strategic move of his young administration sooner.

"It may be tonight, it may be over the course of the next several days,"
Gibbs said.

Attending Monday's war meeting via videoconference were two men very
much at odds over the decision: General Stanley McChrystal, commander of
US and NATO troops in Afghanistan, and Karl Eikenberry, US ambassador in
Kabul.

McChrystal has asked for around 40,000 more US troops, cautioning that
the intensifying Taliban insurgency could win out if he does not get the
reinforcements within a year. Currently, there are 68,000 US troops in
Afghanistan.

In leaked cables earlier this month, Eikenberry, a retired army general
who commanded US forces in Afghanistan from 2005 to 2007, warned against
sending more troops until Afghan President Hamid Karzai gets a grip on
the rampant corruption in his administration.

While Karzai has earned the opprobrium of the international community
since a fraud-tainted election in August highlighted the massive levels
of official graft in Afghanistan, his inauguration speech Thursday
generally won praise.

He pledged to clean up corruption, eradicate drug production and
trafficking, work towards ending a Taliban-led insurgency, and see that
Afghan security forces can take over from international forces in five
years.

Clinton, attending the inauguration, sought to turn the page and hailed
the speech as a "new starting point" for the war-torn country.

But some of America's allies in the war, now in its ninth year, are no
longer willing to wait for the tide to turn: Canada and the Netherlands
have announced plans to pull their troops out in 2010 and 2011 respectively.

Gates in a speech in Canada Friday said US forces could provide a
"sustainable" replacement in the south for the departing Dutch and
Canadian troops.

But he called on other allies to step forward, saying the Afghan effort
will "require more commitment, more sacrifice, and more patience from
the community of free nations."

Obama also faces opposition to the dispatch of more troops from members
of his own Democratic Party who question the wisdom of deploying
additional soldiers.

Polls show the American public is becoming increasingly disillusioned
with the war, and some fear a deepening military commitment could
sidetrack his presidency, as Vietnam did Lyndon Johnson's in the 1960s.

But the military strongly favors a so-called surge, and Obama risks
being denounced by Republican critics as weak on national security if he
refuses McChrystal's request.

More than 800 US soldiers have lost their lives in Afghanistan and the
number of casualties is rising. October was the deadliest month for US
forces there since 2001 and another four US fatalities were reported Monday.

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