US plans to put more money, men into Afghan

Washington, Jan 23: The United States hopes to fend off a resurgent Taliban by putting more money and manpower into Afghanistan, US officials and analysts said.

Some aspects of the effort may be unveiled this week when US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice attends a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels on Friday.

The push reflects a US policy review that concluded Afghanistan needs more resources from the United States and others both to fight the Taliban and to win local support with tangible benefits like roads, schools and electricity.

''We are going to have to make a more concerted effort in that regard, on infrastructure,'' said a senior US official yesterday.

''It's all part of the whole idea of counterinsurgency -- you need to demonstrate some benefits to them.'' US officials said the Bush administration could seek 5 billion dollars to 6 billion dollars in a supplemental budget request to Congress that would cover a stepped-up effort to train the Afghan military and police as well as improve infrastructure.

Last year was the bloodiest in Afghanistan since US-led forces drove the Taliban from power in 2001. The violence, particularly in the South and East near the Pakistan border, has eased since winter but is expected to revive in spring.

The fighting in Afghanistan, where the ousted Taliban regime harbored Osama bin Laden, has raised questions about the effectiveness of the Bush administration's ''war on terrorism'' and whether the Iraq war has undermined this effort.

At NATO, Rice may highlight the intensified US effort to urge others in the 26-member alliance, which assumed responsibility for security across Afghanistan in October, to do more for the country militarily and economically.

''There is going to be a spring offensive and it ought to be our offensive,'' said another US official who asked not to be named, alluding to the widespread assumption that the Taliban will resume fighting when spring comes.

''It's not just the military but the whole ball of wax,'' he added. ''You have to keep pushing this ball forward. If you don't have the troops, build the schools. If you can't build the schools, then help wherever it's possible.''

GATES MULLS MORE TROOPS

Many analysts have criticized the administration for not putting even more money and troops into Afghanistan earlier and questioned whether it would get sufficient high-level attention given the extent to which Iraq dominates US policy-makers.

NATO's top general last year called for another 2,000 to 2,500 more troops to go to Afghanistan.

NATO members did not jump to fill the request and there is reluctance on the part of some nations to send troops to join the fight in the South, where British, Dutch and Canadian forces have confronted the revived Taliban insurgency.

US officials say they are waging a constant battle to get other countries to send more troops with fewer ''caveats'' -- rules that limit how and where their soldiers can fight.

Visiting Kabul last week, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the commander of Afghanistan's NATO force and others had made a case for more troops and he would consider it, saying he was ''sympathetic to that kind of a request.'' There are more than 40,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, the most since 2001. About 23,000 of them American.

A US official who asked not to be named said any increase in US forces may not be large but may show US commitment.

''The United States has to lead by example,'' said this official who asked not to be named. ''We are the guys the Taliban are scared of and it's useful to put some extra US troops in there ... to take the fight to the enemy.'' James Dobbins, a Rand Corporation analyst and former US special envoy for Afghanistan, said the administration takes ''the renewed challenge by the Taliban seriously'' and it has been searching for ''a more effective, more robust response.'' ''The allies ... are making their commitments conditional on increased US commitments and so, to the extent we want them to increase, we are probably going to have to show some increases of our own,'' he said. ''I would guess this would take the form mostly of additional money rather than additional manpower because of the constraints imposed by Iraq.''

Reuters

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