29 March,2009 07:22 AM IST | | AFP
President Barack Obama's plan for a much broader US involvement in Afganistan includes boosting troop deployment, though military advisers pressed him for even more troops, The New York Times reported today.
"Obama's plan to widen United States involvement in Afghanistan came after an internal debate in which Vice President Joseph R Biden Jr warned against getting into a political and military quagmire, while military advisers argued that the Afghanistan war effort could be imperiled without even more troops," the Times reported.
The US president's new strategy was drawn up after a major review of the "war on terror" that was launched with the 2001 invasion that ousted Afghanistan's Taliban regime, but has failed to curb rising extremism. Obama also said that building the Afghan security forces was a priority and he would send 4,000 US soldiers to train their Afghan counterparts in addition to an extra 17,000 he has already committed this year. "All of the president's advisers agreed that the primary goal in the region should be narrow taking aim at Al Qaeda, as opposed to the vast attempt at nation-building the Bush administration had sought in Iraq. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen pressed for an additional 4,000 troops to be sent to the war-torn country, but to only serve as trainers," the Times added.
