US Afghan envoy rejects more troops

Nov 12 2009

The US envoy in Afghanistan has objected strongly to emerging plans to send tens of thousands of additional forces to the country, a senior American official has revealed.

Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, who quit as an army general take the job as US ambassador in Kabul earlier this year, is an influential voice among those advising President Barack Obama on Afghanistan.

He has sent multiple classified messages to Washington over the past week that question the wisdom of adding forces when the Afghan political situation is unstable and uncertain, the official said.

Mr Eikenberry made the point that the administration should step cautiously in planning any further troop deployments while there are still so many questions surrounding Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

The envoy intervened at a time when observers believed Mr Obama's long decision-making process on how to revamp his strategy in Afghanistan were coming to a conclusion.

News of Mr Eikenberry's advice emerged hours after Mr Obama attended the latest of several war council sessions with his senior advisers.

A senior US official is reported to have said that Mr Obama has rejected all four options presented to him at the session, what had been expected to be the last.

Those options started from the premise that some addition of US forces are necessary, and included ways that Mr Obama could meet or nearly meet war commander Gen Stanley McChrystal's preference for about 40,000 additional troops.

It is not clear whether Mr Eikenberry's objections played a part in Mr Obama's decision not to accept any of the choices prepared by the military planners.

At his Senate confirmation hearing in March, Mr Eikenberry stressed what he called the urgency of the requirement to turn around the war effort, which has evolved into a stalemate in key parts of Afghanistan as the Taliban-led insurgency has gained clout. "Time is of the essence," he said at the time. "There will be no substitute for more resources and sacrifice," he said.