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Shift To Afghanistan Expected

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The Associated Press

Published: July 24, 2008

WASHINGTON - Top Pentagon leaders are expected to recommend soon that Defense Secretary Robert Gates order hundreds of additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan over the next month or so, according to a senior military official.

The units are likely to be small and could include engineers, ordnance disposal troops and other support forces needed to shore up fighting needs and the training of Afghan forces. Officials have not ruled out identifying a larger, brigade-sized unit before the end of the year that could either be shifted to Afghanistan from a planned deployment to Iraq or moved from some other location.

U.S. commanders in Afghanistan have been asking for three combat brigades, or about 10,000 more troops, to help quash rising violence there.

The senior official, who requested anonymity because the proposals are not public, said the recommendations have not yet been approved by Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, or delivered to Gates. Last week, Gates said he is hoping to address some of those requirements sooner rather than later.

Any decision to shift large units such as combat brigades into Afghanistan after they've been preparing to go to Iraq later this year would take additional training and time, a Pentagon spokesman said.

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