Washington, September 11: The top Democrat in the House of Representatives says that there is little support in Congress for sending more US troops to Afghanistan.
“I don’t think there’s a great deal of support for sending more troops to Afghanistan, in the country or in the Congress,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Thursday.
Another top Democrat, the chairman of the Senate Armed Forces Committee, Carl Levin, told the New York Times he was not ruling out sending more troops eventually.
However, he insisted that Washington should first expand and accelerate the training of Afghan forces.
“I just think we should hold off on a commitment to send more combat troops until these additional steps to strengthen the Afghan security forces are put in motion,” said Levin, the Michigan Democrat.
A formal assessment of the war from the top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan General Stanley McChrystal is expected to set the stage for a request by the military for more troops.
Pelosi said she had not yet seen this assessment, which was sent to the Pentagon last week.
“I hope that we will be briefed on the McChrystal (report) when the president receives it,” she said. “Perhaps next week we will see that.”
The United States is on track nearly to double its troop presence in Afghanistan to 68,000 by the end of this year. There also are 38,000 NATO troops from other countries in Afghanistan.
With US casualties mounting, unease about the war is growing in Obama’s Democratic Party.
Meanwhile, polls show declining support for the war. A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll last week showed 57% of respondents opposing the war, up 11 percentage points since April.
—–Agencies