Wants and Needs
January 26th, 2007Bush is asking for an additional ten point six billion dollars in Afghanistan, yet I dislike it, despite my longstanding calls for further funds.
The aid request would come before what is expected to be another spring offensive by resurgent forces linked to the Taliban, the former rulers of Afghanistan. In Washington, the Pentagon announced Thursday that it was delaying the departure of a 3,200-soldier combat brigade from Afghanistan for as long as three months, increasing the American force level there to around 24,000. An additional 20,000 soldiers from other NATO countries are also deployed there. The aid request would include $8.6 billion for training and equipping Afghan security forces and would go toward increasing the size of Afghanistan’s national army by 70,000 and its local police forces by 82,000, said a senior American official familiar with the issue.
An additional $2 billion would go to reconstruction projects like building roads, laying down electric power lines, development in rural areas, and counternarcotics efforts, administration officials said. The officials said that they planned to use some of the money to help Afghanistan and Pakistan battle the Taliban and other insurgents along the Afghan-Pakistan border. President Bush is expected to make a formal request for the funds next month, after a year in which Taliban forces have carried out fierce attacks across the country, particularly in the south.
Before Bush asks for more money, he needs to send more troops. I’m willing to take it a little easier on him, too: he can ask for money as he sends more troops, but more troops — and more than just an additional three thousand troops — are needed. It’s not surprising, though, to see the President ask for big money but lowball on soldiers. It’s like the man that covers a pizza with sausage but forgets the cheese.