WASHINGTON — Details of President Barack Obama’s plan in Afghanistan emerged on the eve of his prime-time address tonight, in which he will explain his strategy to an American public that is increasingly pessimistic about the war after eight years and rising casualties.
Even as he escalates U.S. involvement, Obama will lay out in his address, given from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., what amounts to an exit strategy, centered on measures to strengthen the Afghan government so that its security forces can take control of their own country.
He is expected to specify benchmarks for Afghan progress on both the military and political fronts, according to U.S. and allied officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity about the strategy.
Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, declined to say how many additional U.S. troops Obama had approved, but senior administration officials have said that about 30,000 would be sent in phased deployments over the next 12 to 18 months, bringing the total U.S. presence in Afghanistan to about 100,000.
U.K.’s Brown offers a preview
White House officials remained tight-lipped, but British Prime Minister Gordon Brown — with whom Obama spoke Monday — offered a preview of aspects of the strategy when he addressed Parliament.
The military objective, Brown said, is “to create the space for an effective political strategy to work, weakening the Taliban by strengthening Afghanistan itself.”
Over the next year, he said, the Afghan army will be expanded from 90,000 to 134,000 troops, with 10,000 of them going to Helmand province, where U.S. Marines and British forces have focused their fight against the Taliban. Further increases are envisioned for later.
The number of Afghan police officers in Helmand will increase immediately to 4,100, Brown said, and the size of the police training academy in Helmand is to be doubled. Within six months, the coalition is to finalize a plan for overall police reform with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
Brown said that the strategy calls for “transfer of lead security responsibility to the Afghans — district by district, province by province — with the first districts and provinces potentially being handed over during the next year,” depending on “the Afghans’ being ready.”
Gibbs said Monday that transferring security responsibility for specific Afghan areas will be “a big part of what you’ll hear the president talk about tomorrow.”
Allied governments have pressed Karzai to remove warlords and cronies from senior government positions. Over the next nine months, Brown said, the Afghan president “will be expected to implement . . . far-reaching reforms to ensure that, from now on, all 400 provinces and districts have a governor appointed on merit, free from corruption, with clearly defined roles, skills and resources.”
Strategy objectives, Brown said, also include encouraging “a new set of relationships between Afghanistan and its neighbors, based on their guarantee of noninterference in Afghanistan’s affairs,” increased economic and cultural links, and “immediate confidence-building security measures.”
Obama has offered Pakistan an expanded strategic partnership, while insisting that Pakistani troops take action against al-Qaeda and Afghan Taliban sanctuaries in that country.
War advisers informed Sunday
After months of deliberations, Obama informed senior war advisers Sunday evening of his decision in an Oval Office meeting. Obama also telephoned Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and spoke with U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the coalition commander in Afghanistan, and Karl Eikenberry, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, and ordered ground commanders to begin carrying out his plan.
On Monday, the president began a carefully orchestrated strategy rollout with calls to allied leaders, including Brown, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
He met at the White House with Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who increased the Australian contingent in Afghanistan to more than 1,500 soldiers this year.
Gibbs said Obama also would brief Karzai and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari before delivering his address, as well as the leaders of India, China, Poland and Germany.
Before he departs for West Point late this afternoon, Obama is scheduled to meet with congressional leaders on his plan. Gibbs said that so far a “bipartisan, bicameral” group of legislators, numbering 31, has been invited to the White House, representing the committees that would consider Obama’s Afghan strategy and the funding request to pay for it.
Gibbs said that he did “not have anything conclusive” on how Obama intends to pay for the escalation and that it would not be detailed in the speech.
Equally uncertain is whether NATO and other allies will contribute additional troops to a war that is deeply unpopular in Europe. Britain has authorized 9,500 troops; France has 3,750 on the ground.
Among other NATO allies with forces in Afghanistan, Canada and the Netherlands have set withdrawal dates. Clinton will leave Thursday for Brussels to brief NATO allies, and the alliance will hold a “force generation conference” next week.
Tonight’s speech
Time: Coverage scheduled to begin at 6 p.m.
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