By McClatchy-Tribune
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama told a national television audience Tuesday that he would swiftly deploy 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan. But he said the new forces would begin withdrawing from the embattled nation in July 2011, because Americans “have no interest in fighting an endless war.”
The troop buildup Obama has ordered will raise the U.S. commitment to 98,000 troops by next summer, at an estimated added cost of $30 billion a year. The pace of the subsequent draw-down, however, remains uncertain and depends, administration officials said, on “conditions on the ground.”
Both the military boost and announced start of a planned withdrawal are intended to weaken and ultimately defeat the Taliban and to train Afghan security forces, administration officials said.
The goal, the president said, is “to seize the initiative,” finally, in a war that started after Sept. 11, 2001, and is not going well after eight years. The president said he wants to build Afghanistan’s capacity to secure itself and then allow for “a responsible transition of our forces out of Afghanistan.”
“After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home,” the president said before an audience of cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. “The absence of a time frame for transition would deny us any sense of urgency. ... It must be clear that Afghans will have to take responsibility for their security.” Acknowledging the price of the deployment, the president said, “Our troop commitment in Afghanistan cannot be open-ended — because the nation that I am most interested in building is our own.”
The president has in mind a time frame of 18 to 24 months for the new mission, one senior administration official said. Senior administration officials referred to the new strategy as a “surge” — a term familiar from the previous administration’s renewed Iraq war strategy.
“While we have achieved hard-earned milestones in Iraq, the situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated,” Obama said. “Afghanistan is not lost, but for several years it has moved backwards.”
Already this year, the president has nearly doubled the U.S. military force in Afghanistan, with 33,000 of the existing 68,000 troops added this year. The additional force of 30,000 will include two or three combat brigades and one brigade-sized group dedicated to the training of Afghan forces.
The president conducted a three-month-long strategy review before announcing his plans Tuesday night. During the review, the military proposed sending in additional forces over the course of a year, with Gen. Stanley McChrystal, U.S. commander in Afghanistan, seeking 40,000.
Administration officials said the deployment of additional troops would occur quickly. “The force option that the president has chosen gets more troops into Afghanistan faster than any option that was previously presented to him,” one administration official said.
While trying to prevent al-Qaida from returning to Afghanistan, the administration also is intent on helping neighboring Pakistan with its own security and economic issues.
“We did not ask for this fight,” Obama said, pointing to the al-Qaida-run attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that claimed nearly 3,000 lives. “We must keep the pressure on al-Qaida. ... We are in Afghanistan to prevent a cancer from once again spreading through that country.”
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Monday, October 26, 2009
Recent News
By HEIDI VOGT, Associated Press Writer Heidi Vogt, Associated Press Writer
–
14 mins ago
KABUL
– Helicopter crashes killed 14 Americans on Monday — 11
troops and three drug agents — in the deadliest day for the U.S.
mission in Afghanistan in more than four years. The deaths came as President Barack Obama prepared to meet his national security team for a sixth full-scale conference on the future of the troubled war.
In
the deadliest crash, a helicopter went down in the west of the country
after leaving the scene of a firefight, killing 10 Americans —
seven troops and three Drug Enforcement Administration agents. Eleven American troops, one U.S. civilian and 14 Afghans were also injured.
In a separate incident, two U.S. Marine helicopters — one UH-1 and an AH-1 Cobra — collided in flight before sunrise over the southern province of Helmand, killing four American troops and wounding two more, Marine spokesman Maj. Bill Pelletier said.
It
was the heaviest single-day loss of life since June 28, 2005, when 16
U.S. troops on a special forces helicopter died when their MH-47 Chinook helicopter
was shot down by insurgents. The casualties also mark the first DEA
deaths in Afghanistan since it began operations there in 2005.
U.S. authorities have ruled out hostile fire in the collision but have not given a cause for the other fatal crash in the west. Taliban spokesman Qari Yusuf Ahmedi claimed Taliban fighters shot down a helicopter in northwest Badghis province's Darabam district. It was impossible to verify the claim and unclear if he was referring to the same incident.
Military
spokeswoman Elizabeth Mathias said hostile fire was unlikely because
the troops were not receiving fire when the helicopter took off.
NATO
said the helicopter was returning from a joint operation that targeted
insurgents involved in "narcotics trafficking in western Afghanistan."
"During
the operation, insurgent forces engaged the joint force and more than a
dozen enemy fighters were killed in the ensuing firefight," a NATO
statement said.
Afghanistan is the world's largest producer of opium — the raw ingredient in heroin — and the illicit drug trade is a major source of funding for insurgent groups.
U.S.
forces also reported the death of two other American service members a
day earlier: one in a bomb attack in the east, and another who died of
wounds sustained in an insurgent attack in the same region. The deaths
bring to at least 46 the number of U.S. service members who have been
killed in October.
This has been the deadliest
year for international and U.S. forces since the 2001 invasion to oust
the Taliban. Fighting spiked around the presidential vote in August,
and 51 U.S. soldiers died that month — the deadliest for American
forces in the eight-year war.
The Obama
administration is debating whether to send tens of thousands more
troops to the country, while the Afghan government is rushing to hold a
Nov. 7 runoff election between President Hamid Karzai and challenger Abdullah Abdullah after it was determined that the August election depended on fraudulent votes.
The Obama administration is hoping the runoff will produce a legitimate government. In Washington, Obama was to meet with his national security team Monday in what was to be the sixth full-scale Afghanistan conference in the White House Situation Room.
Abdullah on Monday called for election commission chairman Azizullah Lodin to be replaced within five days, saying he has "no credibility."
Lodin has denied accusations he is biased in favor of Karzai, and the election commission's spokesman has already said Lodin cannot be replaced by either side.
Abdullah
made the demand in a news conference during which he spelled out what
he said were "minimum conditions" for holding a fair second round of
voting, including the firing of any workers implicated in fraud and the
suspension of several ministers he said had campaigned for Karzai in
the first round before the official campaigning period began.
Abdullah
did not say what would happen if his demands were not met. "I reserve
my reaction if we are faced with that unfortunate situation," he said.
Abdullah said he was willing to meet with Karzai to discuss the conditions, but repeated that he would not discuss a coalition government as some have suggested, nor compromise on his recommendations out of concerns that they are difficult to implement.
"These are not impossible things," Abdullah said, stressing that his
team had pared them down to what they considered essential to a fair
vote and possible to put in place before the runoff.
Another flawed election would cast doubt on the wisdom of sending in more U.S. troops.
With less than two weeks to go until the vote, disagreements have emerged between the U.N. and the Afghans on how to conduct the balloting.
Lodin said the commission hopes to open all 23,960 polling stations
from the first round. The U.N. wants to open only 16,000 stations to
cut down on the number of "ghost polling stations" that never opened
but were used to stuff ballot boxes.
Elsewhere Monday, Nangarhar province Gov. Gul Agha Sherzai
survived an assassination attempt after a gunman fired automatic
weapons at his convoy in Jalalabad, according to his spokesman Ahmad
Zia Abdulzai. Sherzai's bodyguards killed the gunman, as well as
another attacker wearing a suicide vest and carrying grenades.
Meanwhile, security forces in Kabul fired automatic rifles
into the air for a second day Monday to contain hundreds of
stone-throwing university students angered over the alleged desecration
of Islam's holy book, the Quran,
by U.S. troops during an operation two weeks ago in Wardak province.
Fire trucks were also brought in to push back protesters with water
cannons. Police said several officers were injured in the mayhem.
U.S. and Afghan authorities have denied any such desecration and insist that the Taliban are spreading the rumor to stir up public anger. The rumor has sparked similar protests in Wardak and Khost provinces.
___
Associated Press Writers Rahim Faiez, Todd Pitman and Robert H.
Reid contributed to this report from Kabul; Noor Khan reported from Kandahar and Devlin Barrett from Washington.
More on Barack Obama
- Correction: Obama-Presidential Unit Citation story AP
- Bank regulator sees risk in pay czar rulings Reuters
- White House: resolution authority principles soon Reuters
Most Viewed - World
Top Stories
- 14 Americans killed in 2 Afghan helicopter crashes
- Disgraced cloning expert convicted in South Korea
- Baghdad steps up security after bombs kill 155
- Yanks beat Angels in 6 to advance to World Series
- Pakistan arrests 11 Iranian guards close to border
- Karadzic boycotts opening of his war crimes trial
- HHS' Sebelius: Ample flu vaccine will be available
Saturday, October 24, 2009
The Erin O'Brien Owner's Manual for Human Beings: The American Dream on a budget#links
The Erin O'Brien Owner's Manual for Human Beings: The American Dream on a budget#linkshttp://sticcythewebpublisher.wordpress.com
OBAMA WINNING THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE GOOD OR BAD?: Does Barack Obama really deserve a peace prize when there is a new war brewing up in Afghanistan?
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Friday, October 9, 2009
Does Barack Obama really deserve a peace prize when there is a new war brewing up in Afghanistan?
Hey I am a firm believer in the "Yes We Can"slogan and I am proud and honored to call this educated man(race doesn't matter)my President. Does he deserve the same prize that an Atlanta Reverend in the post slavery era fought for,suffered, died and deserved?
Afghanistan and it's allies are brewing another war that is going to take millions of lives if you dont believe me just read your newspapers or go online(ie yahoo.com CNN.com) and check it out. NATO recently reported that 2 US soldiers and a fellow serving member were killed in a bombing in South Afghanistan bringing the death toll of US soldiers this month to 32. The keyword in Nobel Peace Prize is "Peace", how can we give a man who is still being rejected for his healthcare reform plan like Hilary Clinton in 93 a nobel Peace prize?I guess what I am trying to say is Too Soon...
Afghanistan and it's allies are brewing another war that is going to take millions of lives if you dont believe me just read your newspapers or go online(ie yahoo.com CNN.com) and check it out. NATO recently reported that 2 US soldiers and a fellow serving member were killed in a bombing in South Afghanistan bringing the death toll of US soldiers this month to 32. The keyword in Nobel Peace Prize is "Peace", how can we give a man who is still being rejected for his healthcare reform plan like Hilary Clinton in 93 a nobel Peace prize?I guess what I am trying to say is Too Soon...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)