[R-G] US plan for Afghan troop surge

[Anthony Fenton]

February 3, 2008
US plan for Afghan troop surge
Michael Smith
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article3295444.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=797093

THE
conservative Washington think tank that devised the “surge” of US
forces in Iraq has come up with a plan to send 12,000 more American
troops into southern Afghanistan.
A panel of more than 20 experts
convened by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) has also urged the
administration to get tough with Pakistan.
The US should threaten
to attack Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters in lawless areas on the border
with Afghanistan if the Pakistan military did not deal with them
itself, the panel concluded.
The AEI’s “Afghanistan Planning
Group”, set up at the request of US officials, spent last weekend
putting together preliminary proposals that centre on a surge of US
troops in the south.
Senior
officials have been briefed on the proposals in the past few days,
according to one source. He refused to discuss whether it was the
Pentagon or the White House that had asked for the report.
But he
pointed out that Robert Gates, the defence secretary, had lobbied hard
for extra troops, sending a sharply worded letter to all Nato member
countries last week asking for several thousand more.
Gates
provoked anger last month with an attack on countries operating in
southern Afghanistan that were not deploying enough troops and “don’t
know how to do counter-insurgency operations”.
Although other US
think tanks have compiled reports on Afghanistan, the AEI’s proposals
are significant because they are closest to White House thinking. The
institute can also claim success for its proposals for the surge of
25,000 troops in Iraq. Many of the experts who sat on the Iraq panel
took part in the Afghan group.
An Afghanistan surge is seen as
the only way of ensuring that elections due in April and May next year
can go ahead without Taliban intimidation leading to a boycott.
US
pressure for more European troops will continue at a meeting of Nato
defence ministers in Lithuania this week. But the AEI concludes it is
time to accept that the Europeans will not deliver. German troops in
the north are not even allowed to patrol at night.
The
Afghanistan group said America should send three extra US brigades � up
to 12,000 men � into the south. The US has already said it will soon
send in an additional 3,200 US marines, some to back up British troops
in the southern province of Helmand.
The government will announce
this week that British paratroopers will be sent to Afghanistan next
month to replace troops there now, but it has no plans to raise numbers
above the current 7,800