Photo originally posted by www.army.mil From CBS News:
CBS Exclusive: Sources Say Force Will Grow to 100,000 - Nearly Filling Gen. McChrystal's Request; Long-Term Stay Planned.
(CBS) Tonight, after months of conferences with top advisors, President Obama has settled on a new strategy for Afghanistan. CBS News correspondent David Martin reports that the president will send a lot more troops and plans to keep a large force there, long term.
The president still has more meetings scheduled on Afghanistan, but informed sources tell CBS News he intends to give Gen. Stanley McChrystal most, if not all, the additional troops he is asking for.
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My Comment: CBS is very cocky that their story is a valid one. If true, I am surprised that President Obama is willing to commit this many soldiers .... I was of the opinion that he would be trying his best minimize the number of soldiers going into Afghanistan. I guess I was wrong. But there is something that caught my eye which would have a serious impact on the success or failure of this mission.
The time delay for implementing this surge is significantly longer than what many have been expecting. But we should not be surprised .... U.S. forces are stretched, the infrastructure is non-existent to take care of so many troops, and the terrain of Afghanistan does not make it possible to drop tens of thousands of soldiers on a whim into the country. It will take time to organize who would be going there, the infrastructure that must be built to accommodate this influx of troops, and to insure that the funding and support for this increase in troop levels can be met and accepted by everyone involved.
I am sure that we will know more details of this surge when President Obama comes back from Asia in the middle of this month.