UK to Send More Troops to Afghanistan
LONDON — British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is sending 500 more British troops to Afghanistan, deepening the U.K.’s commitment to the unpopular war.
Mr. Brown announced in the House of Commons on Wednesday that the increase depends on a number of conditions, including a North Atlantic Treaty Organization strategy for the training of Afghan civil and military personnel, proper equipment, and a new Afghan government being in place.
The planned deployment is a rare bit of good news for the White House, which has struggled to persuade European countries to send more troops to Afghanistan.
Britain has 9,000 troops in Afghanistan, the second-largest force after the U.S. Mr. Brown’s said the total would be raised to 9,500.
Earlier in the Commons, Mr. Brown read out the names of 37 British soldiers killed in Afghanistan since Parliament recessed on July 21.
The British troop increase comes as the Obama administration weighs an urgent request from the top American commander in Kabul, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, for tens of thousands of new U.S. soldiers and Marines.
Mr. Obama is to gather his war council Wednesday for a session devoted to a continuing dissection of the pessimistic assessment of the war that Gen. McChrystal sent to Washington in August in advance of his recent troop request.
White House officials said the review will last at least into next week, which means final decisions on what strategy to employ in Afghanistan may not come before next month.
—Alistair MacDonald, Yochi J. Dreazen, Peter Spiegel and the Associated Press contributed to this article.
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January 7th, 2010 at 6:50 pm
Why punish 500 men …
Why punish 500 men with an illegal war?