President-elect Barack Obama intends to sign off on Pentagon plans to send up to 30,000 more US troops to Afghanistan to gain time to review the conflict, the Washington Post reported Tuesday. The new deployments would nearly double the current US force in Afghanistan of 32,000 troops.
According to the Post, which cites unnamed senior Obama team members and Bush administration officials, the goal is not for an Iraq-like "surge" but rather to gain time for a fresh look at US goals and develop a comprehensive new strategy for Afghanistan. Obama, who takes office on January 20, has vowed to boost development in Afghanistan and shift the focus of the "war on terror" from Baghdad to Kabul. A US troop increase in Afghanistan was anticipated.
"We have no strategic plan. We never had one," an unnamed senior US military commander told the Post, describing the Afghan strategy under President George W. Bush. According to the Post, the outlines of the new strategy will not likely emerge before early April, when Afghanistan and Pakistan will top the agenda at a Nato summit in France.