Updated on
Summary
Lawmakers are taking sides in a debate unfolding at the White House and on Capitol Hill over the wisdom and cost of deploying thousands more US combat troops to Afghanistan. Senator Carl Levin, the Armed Services Committee chairman, yesterday joined House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other prominent Democrats in expressing opposition to sending more combat forces. He urged the Obama administration instead to focus on expanding Afghan security forces and persuading insurgents to abandon anti-government militias, as was done in Iraq. Levin said he came away from a meeting with General Stanley McChrystal with the impression that the US commander in the war will seek more American combat troops. Levin yesterday called for the target date to be moved up to 2012, saying that step is both possible and essential. He also said more US military trainers for the Afghan Army and police will be necessary. Levin, Lieberman and McCain have advocated doubling the target size of the Afghan Army to 240,000 and the Afghan police to 160,000 by 2013. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi of California was more unequivocal when she ruled out sending more troops -- not just more combat troops -- on Thursday, saying, I don't think there's a great deal of support for sending more troops to Afghanistan -- in the country or the Congress.
