Key Senate Democrats signaled Friday that any push by the White House to send more troops to Afghanistan is likely to hit resistance. And their unease was fueled by another bombing, that left as many as 70 dead, including civilians who were killed when the U.S. blew up tanker trucks hijacked by the Taliban.
That deadly U.S. airstrike in Afghanistan Friday complicates the debate over the need for more U.S. troops, bolstering arguments that Afghan leaders must increasingly fend for themselves.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin said the United States must focus more on building Afghanistan's security forces. His cautionary stance was echoed by Sen. Jack Reed, who is also on the committee and spent two days in Afghanistan this week with Levin.
The senators will return to Washington next week, just as President Barack Obama receives a new military review of Afghanistan strategy that officials expect will be followed up by a request for at least a modest increase in U.S. troops battling insurgents in the 8-year-old war.
Obama came into office pledging to shift U.S. focus from the war in Iraq to the Afghan fight, which had long been a secondary priority. But as war-weary Americans have watched another 21,000 troops go to Afghanistan this year, and U.S. casualties rise, support for the war has waned.
As a result, lawmakers say they want the U.S. to more quickly train and equip the Afghan Army and police so the embattled country can take over its own security needs.
"There are a lot of ways to speed up the numbers and capabilities of the Afghan army and police. They are strongly motivated," Levin said from Kuwait. "I think that we should pursue that course ... before we consider a further increase in combat forces beyond what's already been planned to be sent in the months ahead."
Levin said there is a growing consensus on the need to expedite training and equipping the Afghan army to improve security in Afghanistan, where 51 U.S. troops died in August, making it the bloodiest month for American forces there since the U.S.-led invasion in late 2001.
Still, the airstrike comes just as U.S. defense leaders insisted this week that troops were making great progress in stemming civilian deaths.
"All I can really do is assure you that they recognize the gravity of these events when they happen and it has the full attention of the leadership," Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman said of forces in Afghanistan that were investigating the Friday attack.
Afghan and German officials said a total of 50 to 70 people died early Friday morning after German forces called in an American airstrike on Taliban insurgents who had hijacked two fuel tankers in northern Kunduz province. There were reports that some of the dead were civilians who swarmed around the trucks to siphon fuel.
