34,000 Troops Will be Sent to Afghanistan - Karen DeYoung and Scott Wilson, Washington Post.
President Obama will outline Tuesday his intention to send an additional 34,000 US troops to Afghanistan, according to US officials and diplomatic sources briefed Monday as Obama began informing allies of his plan. The new deployments, along with 22,000 troops he authorized early this year, would bring the total US force in Afghanistan to more than 100,000, more than half of which will have been sent to the war zone by Obama. The president also plans to ask NATO and other partners in an international coalition to contribute 5,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, officials said.
The combined US and NATO deployments would nearly reach the 40,000 requested last summer by US Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the coalition commander in Afghanistan, as part of an intensified counterinsurgency strategy. The new troops are to be sent in stages beginning in January, with options to delay or cancel deployments, depending on the performance of the Afghan government and other factors. Defense officials said that, beyond Marine units deploying next month, no final decisions have been made about specific units or the order in which they would be sent...
More at The Washington Post.
US Opts for Limited Surge - Jonathan Weisman and Peter Spiegel, Wall Street Journal.
President Barack Obama has ordered a revamped war plan for Afghanistan that appears to endorse the military strategy of his top generals but will set limits on US involvement in terms of duration, manpower and money, White House officials said Monday. After a three-month review, the president delivers a televised prime-time address at the US Military Academy at West Point, NY, Tuesday to publicly define his plan for the war. He is widely expected to announce he's committing around 30,000 new troops to fighting the Taliban. Eight US allies also have committed to sending additional troops, which could total some 5,000, according to European and US officials.
That level of additional manpower comes close to the preferred option of top US commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal, which called for an additional 40,000 troops. Aides familiar with the new policy insist that Mr. Obama hasn't ended up where he started his review, planning for an an open-ended escalation. He will lay out benchmarks for the US and Afghan governments to meet on the recruitment and training of Afghan security forces, as well as on rooting out corruption that has bedeviled the country...
More at The Wall Street Journal.