WASHINGTON — While in Denver on Tuesday, President Barack Obama approved adding about 17,000 U.S. troops for the war in Afghanistan, his first significant move to change the course of a conflict that his closest military advisers have warned Washington is not winning.
“This increase is necessary to stabilize a deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, which has not received the strategic attention, direction and resources it urgently requires,” Obama said in a statement.
The White House said a Marine unit and one additional Army brigade would be heading to Afghanistan this spring and summer. About 8,000 Marines are expected to go first, followed by an Army brigade, totaling about 4,000 troops, and 5,000 support forces. The U.S. has slightly more than 30,000 troops in the country now.
Obama’s decision will shift the service members from already approved deployments to Iraq later this year to new destinations in southern Afghanistan. As a result, the number of combat brigades in Iraq will probably drop from 14 to 12 by the summer, unless other units are identified to fill those slots.
A decision on that troop cut in Iraq hasn’t been made, but Obama campaigned on a pledge to get combat troops out of Iraq.
The new units are the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade from Camp Lejeune, N.C., and the 5th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, an Army Stryker brigade from Fort Lewis in Washington state.
The Pentagon outlined an addition of 12,000 combat forces and said 5,000 support troops would be identified later.
Among the forces recently notified of deployment is a Marine unit of infantry and ground troops from Camp Pendleton in California, said Kurt Bardella, a spokesman for Rep. Darrell Issa, who represents the congressional district where the base is located.
Ahead of his first foreign trip this week, Obama told a Canadian news organization that the U.S. will seek a more comprehensive, diplomatic approach to Afghanistan, where the U.S. has been engaged in war since 2001. “I am absolutely convinced that you cannot solve the problem of Afghanistan, the Taliban, the spread of extremism in that region solely through military means,” the president said in an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the lone holdover from the Bush administration, recommended the increase.
While Colorado troops were not included in Tuesday’s announcement, the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division from Fort Carson already was set to report to Afghanistan in May or June, said base spokeswoman Karen Connelly.
U.N. report
