Projo 7 to 7 News Blog

By John E. Mulligan
Journal Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- "The burden of proof" will be on military leaders if they ask President Obama in the coming days to send more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, Sen. Jack Reed said Tuesday, as the political lines of battle on the issue sharpened.

But Reed stopped short of the declaration by his longtime ally, Senate Armed Services
Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Michigan, that a further increase in U.S. combat troops should not be undertaken until the military attempts a vigorous training program to boost the numbers of Afghanistan's own security forces.

Levin thus put himself at odds with Admiral Michael G. Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who told the committee in forceful terms that the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, is likely to ask soon for additional combat U.S. troops -- on top of the 17,000 that Mr. Obama ordered into the war effort in March.

Reed said, "I would not exclude" supporting such a request by McChrystal, but the Rhode Island Democrat stressed that he will not take a position until he studies the details of the recommendation that McChrystal is preparing for his Pentagon superiors and for the president.

Reed said, for example, that he wants to know many specifics about where additional troops would be deployed, how their efforts would be coordinated with those of Afghan fighters, and whether a sufficient emphasis is being placed on the rapid training of more Afghan forces.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., was one of several Republicans who spoke in support of sending more troops to Afghanistan. The forum was an Armed Services Committee hearing on Mr. Obama's nomination of Mullen for another term as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

"We need more U.S. forces in Afghanistan, not less," said McCain.

Mullen, while stressing that McChrystal's likely request for more troops is not yet complete, said that if the U.S. counterinsurgency effort in Afghanistan is to score some of the successes that have marked the Iraq war in recent years, it must "be properly resourced."

 Tags  Jack Reed Obama

Comments

D said:

Bring all our troops home and send Reed, Whitehouse, Kennedy, and Langevin instead. Obama and Biden can carry their bags.

Link | September 15, 2009 6:29 PM
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