Obama Bets Big On Brief Surge

US PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA. Photo: Reuters.

Extra 30,000 U.S. Troops for 18 Months; Republicans Say Timetable Poses Risk

President Barack Obama announced Tuesday a surge of 30,000 troops to Afghanistan, along with plans to begin withdrawing the reinforcements in 18 months -- a potentially high-risk political and military strategy.

Such a firm date for troop drawdowns was unexpected. Administration officials hope that will pressure Kabul to reform its notoriously corrupt government. At the same time, it allows the White House to begin bringing soldiers home ahead of the 2012 elections.

With Tuesday's address, Mr. Obama made Afghanistan his war. He spoke at the grand and stately Eisenhower Hall, before a sea of gray-uniformed cadets, who face their own turn at war.

"The 30,000 additional troops that I am announcing tonight will deploy in the first part of 2010 -- the fastest pace possible -- so that they can target the insurgency and secure key population centers," the president said. "They will increase our ability to train competent Afghan Security Forces, and to partner with them so that more Afghans can get into the fight. And they will help create the conditions for the United States to transfer responsibility to the Afghans."

A year from now, the administration plans to assess progress in the war and decide when to withdraw the 30,000 troops in the surge.

By increasing U.S. forces to nearly 100,000 -- while limiting their deployment -- Mr. Obama appeared to be trying to thread a middle path between a plan proposed three months ago by his commander in Kabul, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, which sought an open-ended commitment, and proponents of a more limited engagement. Mr. Obama traveled here, to the U.S. Military Academy, to announce what will likely be the defining foreign-policy decision of his term.

During the 2008 campaign, then-Sen. Obama derided the war in Iraq as a senseless and costly diversion from the "right" war in Afghanistan, which harbored Osama Bin Laden before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Earlier, Mr. Obama voted against the 2007 troop surge ordered by President George W. Bush in Iraq.

Senior U.S. officials emphasized that the speed of an eventual troop drawdown, which is to begin with the transfer of authority to Afghan forces in July 2011, has yet to be determined. "Those variables, pace and end [of the withdrawal], will be dictated by conditions on the ground," said a senior administration official.

But in choosing a date to begin withdrawals, Mr. Obama said he was trying to limit U.S. involvement in Afghan affairs.

"I believed it was very important for us to define the mission in a way that speaks to the very real security interests that we have in keeping the pressure on al-Qaeda, but to do so in a way that avoids...a nation-building commitment in Afghanistan," Mr. Obama said in an interview with newspaper columnists Tuesday.

Gen. McChrystal had requested more than 40,000 reinforcements. And while the Obama administration is hoping to get more than 5,000 additional troops from North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies, which would edge closer to Gen. McChrystal's total, the Afghan commander hadn't proposed a deadline for withdrawals.

On the political front, Mr. Obama's decision risks angering critics on the left wing of the Democratic Party, as well as national security-minded Republicans, who initially were enthusiastic about the White House ordering a large number of reinforcements.

Liberal Democrats were quick to criticize the plan, saying it would worsen the violence in Afghanistan. And after initial support for the size of the surge, several Republicans questioned its timeline.

"I'm very concerned about whether there is a date certain for withdrawal," said Arizona Sen. John McCain, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee. "Success is what causes us to withdraw. You don't want to tell the enemy that you're coming and you're leaving."

Timelines had been one of the central disputes within the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill during the debate over Iraq. Several senior Bush administration officials -- including Defense Secretary Robert Gates -- argued that publicizing firm dates would encourage insurgents to wait out allied troops. But Mr. Obama and senior administration officials dismissed such concerns in Afghanistan, arguing that the Taliban was an unpopular insurgency that could be isolated and degraded relatively quickly.

"Afghanistan is not lost, but for several years it has moved backwards," the president said in his speech. "There is no imminent threat of the government being overthrown, but the Taliban has gained momentum. Al Qaeda has not reemerged in Afghanistan in the same numbers as before 9/11, but they retain their safe-havens along the border... In short: the status quo is not sustainable."

Administration officials believe that increasing Afghan military and government capacity over the next 18 to 24 months will allow Kabul to spearhead the fight once the U.S. begins to withdraw troops.

The president's announcement will set off a frenzy of military activity. The plan calls for a rapid deployment -- all new troops are to be in Afghanistan by summer -- a strategy that senior administration officials hope will lead to a quick start and finish.

The Military Toll

U.S. and coalition casualties in Afghanistan

The first reinforcements, thousands of Marines stationed at Camp Lejeune, N.C., will receive their orders within days and start streaming into southern Afghanistan -- a Taliban stronghold -- by Christmas.

U.S. officials say the full complement of Marines will be in place by the end of the month. The remaining troops, as many as three brigades of soldiers from the Army's 101st Airborne Division and 10th Mountain Division, will start heading to Afghanistan in spring.

Several military and defense officials questioned the White House's insistence that all 30,000 new troops be in Afghanistan by summer. They said it would be difficult to get the troops there quickly because everything must be flown into Afghanistan; the country is landlocked and lacks adequate roads. The U.S. will have to expand existing bases and build new ones to house the new forces.

Although Gen. McChrystal will get most of the new troops he requested, Mr. Obama will not meet all the commander's requests. In the bleak war assessment that he delivered to Mr. Obama earlier this year, Gen. McChrystal called for doubling the size of the Afghan army and police to a total of 400,000 men.

Senior administration officials said Tuesday that the White House wouldn't try to meet those goals. Instead, they said, the U.S. would focus on expanding its efforts to mentor existing Afghan forces.