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More US troops for Afghan war

WASHINGTON – Confronting an inherited and faltering war, President Barack Obama plans to dispatch thousands more military and civilian trainers to Afghanistan by the fall on top of the 17,000 combat troops he has already ordered, senior administration officials said Thursday.

Obama's war strategy, which he plans to announce Friday, includes no timeline for withdrawal of troops. The war began more than seven years ago.

As he plans to put more U.S. lives and money into the war zone, Obama will set benchmarks for progress in Afghanistan and neighboring, troubled Pakistan. The goal is to show Congress and the American people that the strategy is working — and to set a clear framework for making corrections as needed.

Obama also will call for increasing aid to Pakistan as long as its leaders confront militants in the border region. The U.S. will launch an intensive and expanded diplomatic effort to gain international cooperation, including reaching out to Russia, China, India, Saudi Arabia and even Iran.

The overriding goal is to disrupt and eventually destroy the terrorist havens in Pakistan while trying to beef up Afghanistan's military and basic society. As Obama put it last week, "It is not acceptable for us to simply sit back and let safe havens of terrorists plan and plot to kill Americans."

Yet his strategy includes no timeline for the war, according to administration sources, who outlined the strategy ahead of Obama's announcement only on condition of anonymity. One official said the plan assumes the only way to bring Americans home was to build up Afghan forces to a degree that they can counter the threats.

Obama called Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari on Thursday to brief them on his plans.

"He made it very clear there are no blank checks," one administration official said.

Obama plans to send 4,000 more U.S. military troops whose mission will be to train and expand the Afghan army to take the lead on counterterrorism and counterinsurgency. The troops will come from 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg in North Carolina.

The president also plans to send in hundreds more U.S. civilians to help the people of Afghanistan rebuild their nation.

Obama will support legislation that aims to pump billions of dollars aid into Pakistan, considered to be the primary haven for terrorists since U.S.-led forces toppled the Taliban government in Afghanistan in 2001. The president will work with Congress on language to attach conditions to aid, sources said.

Several sources told The Associated Press the strategy includes 20 recommendations for countering a persistent insurgency that spans the two countries' border.

The plan will cost billions of additional dollars. Obama's aides say they don't have a specific budget figure.

"It is an integrated military-civilian strategy," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told reporters in Monterrey, Mexico. "We are convinced that the most critical underpinning of any success we hope to achieve, along with the people and government of Afghanistan, will be looking at where civilian trainers, aid workers, technical assistance of all kinds can be best utilized."

Obama discussed his plans on Thursday with members of Congress. His rollout caps two months of what his aides called unprecedented cooperation with leaders on Capitol Hill, Pakistan and Afghanistan, and allies around the globe.

There are roughly 65,000 international forces in Afghanistan and more than half are Americans.

All of the new military trainers, plus the additional combat forces Obama has already approved, will be in Afghanistan by the fall.

In broad terms, Obama will define U.S. objectives as eliminating the threat from al-Qaida to undermine or topple U.S.-backed elected governments or to launch attacks on the United States, its interests and allies, the sources said.

The new plan identified al-Qaida as the target in a larger network of insurgents who threaten U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan, often from sanctuaries across the border in Pakistan.

The written outline of Obama's plan describes a "strategy for success," as opposed to an exit strategy, but the goal is the same: stability on both sides of the border that would allow a reduction and eventual withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from Afghanistan.

Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the training group is needed because there aren't enough U.S. military advisers there now.

As a candidate, Obama said the Afghan war should have been the U.S. priority all along, and that the Bush administration wrongly diverted U.S. attention and resources to the war in Iraq. As president, Obama has been under pressure to say how he plans to address the sharp increase in violence in Afghanistan while prodding anti-terrorism ally Pakistan to deal with the militant threat on its soil.

A pillar of the strategy for Afghanistan will be greater engagement with local and provincial leaders, as opposed to a focus on the central government, according to officials familiar with the document.

Officials said there will be a directed campaign to focus attention on tribal and provincial leaders across the expansive country. With the bulk of the population living outside urban centers in small, far-flung villages, U.S. officials believe it will be more productive to build support, foster development and break down extremist ties district by district.

The plan will not abandon the central government in Kabul, said officials, but it will also not rely on bolstering efforts to govern from the capital.

The hundreds of additional civilian advisers being sent to Afghanistan will concentrate on improving life for ordinary Afghans and will include experts in agriculture in a country where subsistence farming is the norm. The civilians are also meant to help extend government services and the administration of justice.

The plan notes that the top U.S. general in Afghanistan still wants some 10,000 or 11,000 additional U.S. forces next year, but it does not say whether Obama intends to fulfill that request now, sources said. That decision would come by the end of this year.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090327/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_afghanistan