NATO allies pledge 7,000 more troops for Afghanistan mission

Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 5, 2009

BRUSSELS — NATO allies welcomed President Obama’s new Afghanistan strategy Friday, as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton received pledges of 7,000 extra troops to back up the U.S. escalation.

Twenty-five countries have announced that they will deploy additional troops next year, and more contributions are expected “during the coming weeks and months,” said NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

However, officials were still trying to nail down some of the promises.

In addition, U.S. diplomats have some heavy lifting ahead, with Germany and France uncertain about increasing their forces. In addition, the U.S. government hopes to dissuade two other major contributors — Canada and the Netherlands — from their plans to pull out within two years.

Friday’s meetings marked a sort of roadshow for Obama’s new Afghanistan strategy, which was announced Tuesday and features the deployment of 30,000 additional U.S. troops to fight the Taliban and train Afghan security forces. Clinton and Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, briefed the 44 NATO and non-NATO countries involved in providing security in Afghanistan.

Although the war has become increasingly unpopular in Europe, Rasmussen said the nations made clear that they supported the mission.

“The strongest message in the ministerial room today was solidarity,” he said.

U.S. officials said some Europeans were initially confused by reports that portrayed Obama’s strategy as including a U.S. pullout in 2011. Clinton emphasized that troops would only start to leave that year — and that the size and speed of the drawdown would depend on prevailing conditions.

“Once they saw what the policy really was . . . they were quite comfortable with it,” one senior U.S. official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. Some countries could find the plan for a drawdown helpful in selling the strategy to their publics, officials said.

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Comments by America Reclaimed: There is much debate as to how many troops should be sent, when the real question that should be asked is “Why is Obama going against his campaign promises?” Not only did he not bring the troops home, but he is now sending more to war in Afghanistan. Why send 34,000 troops somewhere that has only 100 supposed al-Qaeda? These are the questions that must be asked, and must be answered.

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Tags: 000 troops, 7, afghanistan, mission, nato

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