New Afghan violence makes Obama decision tougher

[November 06, 2009]  WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama's next move on Afghanistan is growing more difficult by the day. Deadly attacks this week deepened British and U.N. alarm over their commitments, and fresh worries about Iraq could delay the exit of U.S. troops there, squeezing an already overstretched military.

The White House says Obama's answer on whether to expand the U.S. fighting force in Afghanistan by as much as 60 percent will be announced "in the coming weeks," the same vague timetable it has offered for much of the fall.

Obama has brushed off criticism that he is taking too long to decide whether to meet his war commander's request to provide about 40,000 more troops at the end of this year, atop a record 68,000.

But the longer the decision hangs fire, the more complications mount. The latest violence against foreign civilians and soldiers was unprecedented in scope. And that was on top of Afghanistan's perilous politics, an ongoing headache for the White House.

Obama is "taking into account the political situation, the security situation, the health of our force and all that needs to be done" to make good on the promise of dismantling the al-Qaida terror network, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Thursday.

The deliberations are taking place under an assumption that the Army and Marine Corps will have greater flexibility as U.S. forces are drawn down in Iraq. The withdrawal plan is hinged to Iraqi elections that are scheduled for January but now are in question.

In an e-mail this week to top Pentagon officials, the U.S. commander in Iraq, Army Gen. Ray Odierno, warned that the elections could be delayed -- potentially delaying the exit of U.S. troops with each passing day.

Odierno in September told Congress that he would keep the number of troops in Iraq -- currently about 117,000 -- steady until about two months after the election to safeguard against any surge in attacks or violence following the vote.

Barring a significant increase in violence, U.S. commanders have said about two-thirds of the troops will begin heading home almost immediately after that two-month period, bringing the number of American forces in Iraq to between 35,000 and 50,000 by the end of August 2010.

Iraqi lawmakers ended their session Thursday without agreeing to terms for the vote. They plan to try again on Saturday.

Senior Obama officials have reached out to the Iraqi government over the past two days and urged them to resolve the impasse quickly.

If Obama increases the size of the U.S. force in Afghanistan, the first of the fresh soldiers would probably begin to arrive in January or February. That could be done whether the planned withdrawal from Iraq goes forward on schedule or not, but things would get trickier in the months that follow.

The Army, the service most affected by the strain of fighting two wars at once, is only now getting some breathing room, with soldiers given longer periods at home between deployments and an end to the unpopular "stop-loss" practice of keeping troops beyond their expected date of departure.

The Pentagon approved a temporary increase in the size of the Army earlier this year, but keeping very large numbers of troops in Iraq while shipping tens of thousands more to Afghanistan in the spring could strap the service anew.

In an interview this week, the Army's No. 2 military official said the troop drawdown in Iraq still could happen on time, even if the elections are delayed.

"The fact that the elections could slip one way or the other doesn't surprise any of us who have had any experience with Iraq," said Army Vice Chief of Staff Peter W. Chiarelli. "The fact that something doesn't get done, or pass on the day it's supposed to get passed, doesn't mean that somebody won't find a way around it or find a way to fix something later on. If the elections are delayed, then we'll deal with that."

Chiarelli did not rule out sending troops home after Iraq's elections faster than is now expected if violence is low. He said any number of still-undecided factors -- if Obama approves sending fewer forces to Afghanistan than requested by the commander, for example, or if they can be deployed later -- could let the Iraq drawdown stay on pace without a personnel crunch.

On Capitol Hill, some lawmakers are questioning whether American forces should stick to an Iraqi withdrawal schedule before knowing what the level of security -- or violence -- will be after the elections.

Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon, top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, said Obama's August 2010 deadline gives Odierno "little room to maneuver" should massive and continued attacks across Iraq start anew. In a letter this week, McKeon asked the president to cancel the deadline if necessary.

The United States contributes the vast majority of soldiers fighting a difficult war, but relies on NATO allies and others, including the United Nations, for other troops, supplies and a network of contributions such as election administration.

In Kabul, the head of the U.N. mission warned that Afghanistan cannot count on international support indefinitely unless the government tackles corruption and bad governance. The U.N. abruptly announced Thursday it will temporarily relocate more than half of its international staff while it looks for safer accommodation for them. An attack last week on a U.N. guesthouse killed five staffers.

The deaths of five British soldiers gunned down by an Afghan policeman as they made tea after a patrol has shaken public support for the war in the nation that has been the largest contributor of forces after the United States.

Demands are intensifying for a pullout three weeks after Prime Minister Gordon Brown made an unpopular decision to add 500 British forces. Brown's move was seen as a gesture to Obama as the president weighs a much larger U.S. increase.

If British troops can't trust the Afghan colleagues they are supposed to be training, analysts and newspapers asked Thursday in Britain, how can they fight the Taliban? And where does it leave an exit strategy that depends on handing over control to Afghan forces?

Asked the Daily Mail: "What kind of war is this?"

That's stronger opposition than Obama faces at home, but a worrisome sign as the United States looks ahead to assuming a larger share of the burden in Afghanistan whether Obama adds significant forces or not. Several allies plan to leave in 2010 and 2011.

[Associated Press; By ANNE GEARAN and LARA JAKES]

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