Report: Still not enough troops for Afghanistan operations

[unhappycamper]

Report: Still not enough troops for Afghanistan operations
By Jeff Schogol, Stars and Stripes
Stars and Stripes online edition, Wednesday, April 28, 2010

ARLINGTON, Va. – Despite the addition of more than 50,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan over the past year, there still aren’t enough forces to conduct operations in the majority of key areas, according to a congressionally mandated report released Wednesday on progress in Afghanistan.

Coalition forces have decided to focus their efforts on 121 key districts in Afghanistan, but right now, NATO has enough forces to operate in only 48 of those districts, the report said.

There are currently 86,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, up from about 30,000 when President Obama took office. By August, there will be 98,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

With the rest of the U.S. and foreign partner troops that will arrive in Afghanistan this year, coalition and Afghan security forces will be able to focus on all 121 districts “over coming months,” a senior Defense official said Wednesday, declining to be more specific.

The 150-page progress report said that Afghanistan’s deteriorating situation has leveled off, but violence still increased 87 percent between February 2009 and March 2010. A senior Defense official attributed the increase to the presence of more troops in Afghanistan moving into tougher areas.



unhappycamper comment: $98 billion dollars of boots on the ground and we don't have enuf boots on the ground to do the 'job'?

You can read the 150 page report here.

From page 73 of the report:

The CN Strategy reflects lessons learned from CN activities from 2004 through 2008 —the most significant being that large-scale eradication targeted toward Afghan poppy farmers was counterproductive and drove farmers to the insurgency. The new strategy places primary focus on interdiction of the nexus between narco-trafficking and the insurgency, but also places a heavy emphasis on agricultural assistance to farmers, with the aim of transitioning them to licit crops, creating jobs, and revitalizing Afghanistan’s historically vibrant agricultural sector. The new strategy carries over activities that have proven to be important in a multi-pronged, whole of-government CN campaign, including capacity building for Afghan CN capabilities, assistance in promoting the rule of law, support for governor-led eradication and public information campaigns, and drug treatment and demand reduction activities. Strategic communications and
counterpropaganda, and regional engagement with countries and international organizations, are also features of the new strategy.

Why does this remind me of Westmoreland?

[MadHound]

1. One would hope that this would serve as a wake up call to the Obama administration

To get the fuck out of there now. Instead it probably means that we'll double down again on this illegal, immoral war, and thus we will further drain our economy, spending money on the military and letting everybody and everything else go to hell. Meanwhile, more lives on both sides of the conflict will be wasted needlessly.

This is Obama's war now, hopefully he does the right thing and gets us the hell out of there.