KABUL — On the first visit to Afghanistan by Senate Democrats since President Barack Obama’s decision to send more than 30,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan, Carl Levin of Michigan and Al Franken of Minnesota reported signs of progress Wednesday and expressed optimism that a Taliban takeover of the U.S.-backed government can be averted.
Unlike two Republican delegations that visited last week, however, neither Levin nor Franken endorsed Obama’s troop surge, and Levin, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he would have done things differently.
“It’s a reasonable decision, though not one that I would have made,” he said, adding that he favored sending additional troops to train and support Afghan forces, but not for combat. Still, he said he expected Democrats would back Obama when he comes to request a supplemental appropriation to pay for the rising cost of the Afghan war.
This was Franken’s first visit to Afghanistan as a senator. The comedian and author, who was elected by a razor-thin margin, had been in Afghanistan on four previous occasions to entertain U.S. troops.
Both senators said they were told that Afghans are now volunteering for the Army and police in record numbers — with 11,000 now in training, compared with 3,000 to 4,000 in November. Others are being turned away due to a severe shortage of trainers.
NATO reported that four U.S. service members were killed Wednesday in Afghanistan. The deaths raised to 14 the number of U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan so far this year, according to an Associated Press count.
One American service member was killed in fighting with insurgents in eastern Afghanistan, while another died of wounds suffered in a roadside bombing in the south. NATO said the two other U.S. troops died in a bomb blast Wednesday but disclosed no other information.
Obama has ordered 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan but said they would start to leave in 2011.
