US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said any new forces that US President Barack Obama might send to Afghanistan could move into the country swiftly, despite logistical hassles that force almost all major deliveries of troops and supplies to go by air.
His wording suggested that, as expected, Obama will soon approve an increase in the already record US force of 68,000 in Afghanistan. Months of deliberations over the flagging war are ending, with an announcement of a substantial troop increase expected in the next two weeks.
“I anticipate that as soon as the president makes his decision, we can probably begin flowing some forces pretty quickly after that,” Gates said on Thursday.
Gates and Vice Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the coming troop infusion was a bigger logistical challenge than the Iraq “surge,” which added forces at the rate of roughly one brigade a month.
Afghanistan’s forbidding terrain, lack of roads and other infrastructure and the fact that forces and equipment are still tied up in Iraq are all complicating factors.
“It’s not going to be a brigade a month because of the infrastructure piece, the ability to receive it, literally, in Afghanistan, as well as all the other moving parts,” Mullen said.
Gates and Mullen spoke at a Pentagon news conference.
Gates did not give a direct answer to a question whether the US could hold out more troops as leverage toward an overhaul of Afghanistan’s shaky, corrupt government. Afghan President Hamid Karzai, inaugurated on Thursday for a second five-year term, wants more US help to secure his country against the Taliban-led insurgency.
“My personal view is that you do have to exercise what leverage you have,” Gates said.
Earlier on Thursday, Germany’s visiting defense chief told Gates that Germany would maintain its military commitment in Afghanistan but did not promise to increase it for now. Germany’s force of more than 4,000 is among the largest from any nation apart from the US.
Germany will hold off on any decision about adding troops to Afghanistan at least until the US makes a move, German Minister of Defense Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg said after meetings at the Pentagon.
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