 |
| Mission: Defense Secretary Robert Gates (l.) and Adm. Michael Mullen told Congress Tuesday they continue to press NATO to
send troops to Afghanistan. jose luis magana/ap |
In Europe, Gates to push for NATO help in Afghanistan
Defense Secretary Robert Gates heads to Scotland Wednesday to ask for more European troops.
By Gordon Lubold | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitorfrom the December 13, 2007 edition
Page 1 of 2
Washington - The deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan is putting new pressure on Defense Secretary Robert Gates to change course.
Mr. Gates travels to Europe this week to ask NATO allies again for more troops to help fight what has become a classic insurgency in Afghanistan, saying he doesn't want to let allies off too easy.
But Democratic lawmakers, calling Afghanistan "the forgotten war," are now pushing Gates to send more American forces to pick up the slack in the war-torn country, where an increase in suicide bombings and other violence threatens to undo progress made since US troops first invaded in 2001.
Gates has continually pushed NATO to send more troops. But as the mission there looks more like combat and less like the peacekeeping operation that many allies had signed up for, Gates has had trouble recruiting more assistance.
"It is a continuing effort with our NATO allies to get them to step up to the plate," Gates conceded to House lawmakers on Tuesday.
Gates wants more than 3,000 new trainers, three infantry battalions, and dozens of helicopters for the fight.
Democratic lawmakers called Gates and his top uniformed adviser, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to Capitol Hill Tuesday to raise awareness of the problems that have been mounting in Afghanistan for more than a year.
With the focus on Iraq, the Bush administration has taken its eyes off of Afghanistan, Democrats say. Currently about 50,000 coalition forces are in Afghanistan, of which about 25,000 are American troops, mostly from the US Army. About 165,000 US troops are stationed in Iraq.
"Afghanistan has been the forgotten war," said Rep. Ike Skelton (D) of Missouri, who leads the House Armed Services Committee. "Opportunities have been squandered, and now we're clearly seeing the effects. We must reprioritize and shift needed resources from Iraq to Afghanistan."
Admiral Mullen, who became chairman of the Joint Chiefs in October, told the panel that overall violence in Afghanistan is up 27 percent over one year ago with "a significant increase" in the number of suicide bombings. In Helmand Province in the south, where the Taliban has a strong foothold, violence has risen more than 60 percent, he said. And support for the Taliban in the southwestern part of the country is triple what it was in 2004.
RSS feed
