Obama to urge more global support in Afghanistan (1st Lead)

Dec 1, 2009, 18:12 GMT

(FILE) A file picture dated 19 November 2009 shows US President Barack Obama waving to US troops during a rally at Osan Air Base in Songtan, South Korea, 19 November 2009. EPA/SHAWN THEW

Washington - US President Barack Obama will detail his plans for the eight-year war in Afghanistan during prime time television later Tuesday, when he is expected to announce a boost of at least 30,000 US troops and ask allies for another 5,000 soldiers.

The speech from the elite West Point Military Academy in New York state comes after months of meeting with his war council to weigh options for stepping up the fight against the Taliban and stabilizing Afghanistan.

Obama has spent the past 24 hours briefing Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai and other world leaders on the details.

On Monday, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown confirmed Britain's readiness to commit another 500 troops to the NATO mission and said he was confident that Europe's NATO partners would be prepared to muster an additional 5,000 soldiers.

The Washington Post, citing unnamed officials, reported that Obama will ask for another 5,000 international troops.

'Obviously, this has to be an international force, we hope, as happened in Britain,' White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told NBC news.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd of Australia, which has 1,200 soldiers in Afghanistan, Monday pledged his country's commitment to the 'long haul' in Afghanistan.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who spoke with Obama Monday, has not 'excluded' the possible deployment of added soldiers, a Sarkozy advisor told the Paris daily Le Figaro. The US has reportedly asked France for an added 1,500 troops.

Gibbs told CNN that Obama will also announce an 'accelerated timeline ... so that we can talk about transitioning our forces out of there quickly.'

The way forward is to be discussed in late January at an international conference in London. Brown has proposed strict timelines for a district-by-district plan for handing over responsibility to Afghan security, starting in Helmand, with the goal of completing the transition for at least five Afghan provinces by the end of 2010.

'The president will reiterate tomorrow ... that this is not an open-ended commitment,' Gibbs said Monday.

As Obama prepares to give details of the long-awaited strategy, US Congress is gearing up for hearings with General Stanley McChrystal, the top commander in Afghanistan, Defence Secretary Robert Gates and US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton starting Wednesday.

While Republicans have been impatient over Obama's 'dithering' on Afghanistan, some support the ramped-up efforts in that country, which fell to second priority under former president George W Bush, also a Republican.

Obama and his administration have been openly critical of how Afghanistan was neglected in favour of Bush's second war in Iraq.

But Bush's vice president Dick Cheney in an interview with the daily Politico slammed Obama for projecting 'weakness' to adversaries and warned that ordinary Afghans will be pushed into the Taliban's arms if they think the US is laying the groundwork to leave.

Cheney dismissed the suggestion that the Bush administration bore any responsibility for Afghanistan's disintegration.

There are about 68,000 US troops already in Afghanistan, plus thousands more from NATO allies.

Obama's long-awaited decision could be a pivotal moment for his young presidency and he will have to sell his plan to an American public that has grown sceptical about the prospect for success in Afghanistan.