US may send about 45,000 more troops to Afghanistan
By ANIThursday, October 15, 2009
WASHINGTON/LONDON - The US is expected to send about 45,000 extra troops for Afghanistan after Gordon Brown said that 500 more British troops would be sent to the country.
The Obama administration is understood to have told the British government that it could announce, as early as next week, the substantial increase to its 65,000 troops already serving there, The Telegraph reports.
The decision from Obama comes after he considered a request from General Stanley McChrystal, the US commander in Afghanistan, to send tens of thousands of extra American troops to the country.
Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, the British Chief of the Defence Staff, said: “I don’t want to put words in the mouths of the Americans but I am fairly confident of the way it is going to come out.”
An announcement next week could coincide with a meeting of NATO defence ministers in Bratislava, Slovakia, due next Thursday and Friday.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, however, dismissed the claims, after President Obama met with his war council for the fifth time to map out a new strategy in Afghanistan. (ANI)
