Obama leaning toward 34,000 more troops for Afghanistan

[Johnny Asia]

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/78516.html

* Saturday, November 7, 2009

Obama leaning toward 34,000 more troops for Afghanistan

By Jonathan S. Landay, John Walcott and Nancy A. Youssef | McClatchy
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WASHINGTON � President Barack Obama is nearing a decision to send more
than 30,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan next year, but he
may not announce it until after he consults with key allies and
completes a trip to Asia later this month, administration and military
officials have told McClatchy.

As it now stands, the administration's plan calls for sending three
Army brigades from the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Ky.
and the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum, N.Y. and a Marine
brigade, for a total of as many as 23,000 additional combat and
support troops.

Another 7,000 troops would man and support a new division headquarters
for the international force's Regional Command (RC) South in Kandahar,
the Taliban birthplace where the U.S. is due to take command in 2010.
Some 4,000 additional U.S. trainers are likely to be sent as well, the
officials said.

The first additional combat brigade probably would arrive in
Afghanistan next March, the officials said, with the other three
following at roughly three-month intervals, meaning that all the
additional U.S. troops probably wouldn't be deployed until the end of
next year. Army brigades number 3,500 to 5,000 soldiers; a Marine
brigade has about 8,000 troops.

The plan would fall well short of the 80,000 troops that Army Gen.
Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan,
suggested as a "low-risk option" that would offer the best chance to
contain the Taliban-led insurgency and stabilize Afghanistan.

It splits the difference between two other McChrystal options: a
"high-risk" one that called for 20,000 additional troops and a
"medium-risk" one that would add 40,000 to 45,000 troops.