Surge Size

Lawmakers at a House Armed Services Committee hearing this morning on Afghanistan weighed in on the effectiveness of the 30,000-troop surge to that country ordered by the Obama administration six months ago.

Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-MO) had this to say, particularly about the contribution of allied forces to Afghanistan:

While we have increased forces in Afghanistan, our allies have also begun to send additional troops. To date, they have added about 50 percent of the 9000 new troops they pledged after President Obama's December speech. But serious concerns remain about our ability to train the Afghan security forces who will have to assume the burden of providing security and combating terrorism in Afghanistan without more international trainers. I am pleased that Secretary Gates has decided to send additional U.S. military personnel to fill this gap, but this is a short term solution and not a long-term fix.

This concern relates to another. In a recent meeting, NATO endorsed a process to transition the lead for security in some districts from U.S. and allied troops to Afghan National Security Forces. I think all of us would like to know more about this process and its implications -- what progress do we have to see in a district before it can transition to Afghan lead, and what does this mean for the international troops in that district? Are we talking about progress among the Afghan security forces or must the district also need a competent and honest government?

Ranking Member Howard "Buck" McKeon (R-CA), however, was more worried about the number of U.S. troops:

The '30,000 troop cap' put in place by this Administration was a decision based on political considerations -- not mission calculus. The unfortunate result is that it is sending the wrong signal to our commanders and forcing military planners to make difficult tradeoff decisions between combat troops and key enablers. I am particularly concerned that we are under resourcing force protection capabilities. These life-saving combat enablers -- and others -- were already under resourced prior to the president’s troop surge.