Bush Pledges More Troops for Afghanistan in 2009

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday that the Bush administration is pledging to send more combat forces to Afghanistan in 2009 regardless of the troop levels in Iraq.

President Bush made the pledge at the NATO summit in Bucharest on Thursday, Gates told reporters.

Bush did not give specifics concerning the increases. The U.S. currently has about 31,000 troops there -- the most since the war began in 2001 -- and has been pressing allies to contribute more.

One of the questions raised by this statement is where these additional troop will come from. Another is raised by Frank James of The Swamp:

. . .the Bush Administration ends on Jan. 20, 2009. It won't exactly be in a position to send any servicemember anywhere after that date.

Maybe the plan is to send them in the roughly three weeks before Inauguration Day? Or perhaps he's counting on whoever is elected the next president will keep a Bush Administration commitment to send additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan since there has been concern for some time about there not being enough troops there, especially in the south where Taliban forces have been resurgent.

-Dippold

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