Decision on Afghanistan Strategy Weeks Away as Obama Meets With Advisers

[Purveyor]

By Hans Nichols and James Rowley

Oct. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Barack Obama’s decision on troop strength and the way forward in Afghanistan is likely weeks away after the president convened his top national-security and military advisers for another round of strategy sessions.

Yesterday’s meeting was the second of five planned as Obama assesses the war strategy and considers whether to add as many as 40,000 more U.S. forces into the battle in Afghanistan. White House officials said no decision about whether to send more U.S. combat forces to Afghanistan is imminent.

“Let’s get a firm strategy, let’s discuss that, let’s poke and prod it and ensure that we’ve done it the right way,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said yesterday. “Then implement tactics to achieve that strategy.”

Political pressure is building on Obama as Republicans, including Arizona Senator John McCain, the party’s 2008 presidential nominee and a leading voice on defense matters, urge the president to act quickly and send in more forces. Democrats including Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts are expressing skepticism about rushing more troops to the war.

Public support for the war is slipping. Fifty-one percent of adults said the war in Afghanistan isn’t worth fighting and 46 percent said it is in a Sept. 10-12 ABC News/Washington Post poll. That is the reverse of the result of a March poll in which 56 percent said the war is worth fighting and 41 percent said it isn’t. Just 26 percent favored increasing U.S. forces.

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BLOOMBERG: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=az0rq183UKxw

[still_one]

1. From the British to the Russians, history should be a guide to Obama on Afghanistan /nt