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Hundreds could be Afghanistan-bound soon

WASHINGTON — Top Pentagon leaders are expected to recommend soon that Defense Secretary Robert Gates order hundreds of additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan over the next month or so — before bad weather hinders fighting in the fall, according to a senior military official.

“Commanders want to take advantage of this fighting season and would like more troops to do so,” said Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell. “The window of opportunity is closing quickly.”

The units are likely to be small and could include engineers, ordnance disposal troops and other support forces needed to shore up fighting needs and the training of Afghan forces. Officials have not ruled out identifying a larger, brigade-sized unit before the end of the year that could either be shifted to Afghanistan from a planned deployment to Iraq or moved from some other location.

That, however, would take additional training and time, Morrell said.

“You can’t snap your fingers and make this happen, unfortunately,” he said.

U.S. commanders in Afghanistan have been asking for three combat brigades, or roughly 10,000 more troops, to help quash rising violence there. Two would be fighting brigades and one would be for training.

Morrell said Wednesday a commitment of that size would not be possible until next year.

He added that the Pentagon is not kicking any decisions down the road to the next White House. Rather, he said, decisions made now may require months to execute. While no decisions have been made yet, the issue was likely among those discussed when President Bush met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Wednesday in a classified briefing at the Pentagon, Morrell said.

Bush has made the Iraq war, now in its sixth year, the Defense Department’s top priority, and defense officials have been candid about the fact that the focus on Iraq has meant fewer troops and other military assets available for the campaign in Afghanistan.

“That is the war which we have focused on,” Morrell said of Iraq, asserting, “That is the war we are now winning.”

Officials have said that if improved security conditions in Iraq hold, they hope to be able to devote more troops to Afghanistan, where the Taliban is resurgent following its ouster by a U.S.-led invasion in late 2001.

Iraq’s ambassador to the U.S. said Wednesday that al-Qaida’s foreign fighters who have for years bedeviled Iraq are increasingly going to Afghanistan to fight instead.

“We have heard reports recently that many of the foreign fighters that were in Iraq have left, either back to their homeland or going to fight in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is now seeming to be more suitable for al-Qaida fighters,” Ambassador Samir Sumaida’ie said.