Obama wants boost in troops

Says threat grows in Afghanistan

Barack Obama arrived yesterday at Midway International Airport in Chicago. His campaign said his Washington speech today will focus on how missteps in Iraq have hurt US security. (Jae C. Hong/Associated Press)

WASHINGTON - Democrat Barack Obama said yesterday that as president he would send at least two more combat brigades to Afghanistan, where US soldiers face rising violence and endured their deadliest single attack in three years on Sunday.

The proposed increase of about 7,000 troops is part of Obama's plan to pull combat troops out of Iraq and focus on the growing threat from a resurgent Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

"We need more troops, more helicopters, better intelligence-gathering and more nonmilitary assistance to accomplish the mission there," Obama wrote in an op-ed published yesterday in The New York Times, previewing what his campaign calls a major speech today in Washington on his vision for Iraq and Afghanistan. "I would not hold our military, our resources and our foreign policy hostage to a misguided desire to maintain permanent bases in Iraq."

Obama's campaign said his speech today will focus on how missteps in Iraq have hurt efforts to strengthen US security. He will also discuss his plans for the new brigades in Afghanistan, call for Pakistan to step up efforts dealing with terrorists, discuss the need for diplomacy to address Iran's nuclear program, and address other global challenges such as climate change and energy security.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain is planning to speak about his plan for Afghanistan on Thursday. He told reporters yesterday, "I think we need to do whatever is necessary and that could entail more troops."

There are 36,000 US forces in Afghanistan, including 17,500 serving with the NATO-led coalition and 18,500 others conducting training and counterinsurgency. The recent spike in US troops there resulted largely from the overlap of one brigade moving into the country, as another is preparing to leave.

US commanders have said they need up to three more brigades in Afghanistan - or as many as 10,000 additional troops - to both train Afghan forces and battle the insurgency. Violence is on the rise in Afghanistan. Monthly death tolls of US and NATO troops in Afghanistan surpassed US military deaths in Iraq in May and June, and a militant attack Sunday on a remote military outpost killed nine American soldiers, the deadliest single assault on US forces in Afghanistan in three years.

President Bush and Defense Secretary Robert Gates have promised to beef up the US force in Afghanistan next year, but military leaders have made it clear they won't be able to do that until they can reduce forces in Iraq.

Obama says he will do that, redeploying combat brigades out of Iraq by summer 2010. He wrote that he would leave in place a residual force of undetermined size behind to "perform limited missions."

"Ending the war is essential to meeting our broader strategic goals, starting in Afghanistan and Pakistan," Obama wrote. "Iraq is not the central front in the war on terrorism, and it never has been."

McCain took issue with that point. "He was wrong when he said we've lost the war, and he is wrong today when he says that Iraq is not the central battleground," the Arizona senator said. "We are winning there and his proposals would jeopardize the fragility of the success we've achieved. And his refusal to acknowledge that success is remarkable."