Monday November 30, 2009

Lawmakers pressure Obama ahead of Afghanistan speech

By Jeff Mason

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama faces pressure from fellow Democrats, opposition Republicans and the international community even before he announces long-awaited plans on Tuesday for a big U.S. troop increase in Afghanistan.

U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House in Washington October 7, 2009. Obama faces pressure from fellow Democrats, opposition Republicans and the international community even before he announces long-awaited plans on Tuesday for a big U.S. troop increase in Afghanistan. (REUTERS/Jim Young/Files)

Members of both parties laid out their expectations and concerns on Sunday about the president's upcoming speech, to be broadcast live at 8 p.m. EDT on Tuesday (0100 GMT on Wednesday) from the West Point Military Academy.

Obama is widely expected to say he will add some 30,000 troops to the eight-year war effort, but lawmakers and an increasingly war-weary American public want answers to several open questions.

How long will the United States stay in Afghanistan and how does it plan to leave? How will Washington cover the war's expensive price tag? What demands will be made on Afghan President Hamid Karzai?

Many lawmakers focused on the cost of a troop increase in interviews on U.S. television Sunday news shows.

"What is the capacity of our country to finance this particular type of situation as opposed to other ways of fighting al Qaeda and the war against terror?" Richard Lugar, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said on CNN's "State of the Union" program.

Obama "really has to regain the approval of the American people as well as people around the world that we are on the right course," Lugar said.

The rising federal deficit is a growing political liability for Obama ahead of congressional elections in November 2010 and increased war spending will add to concerns about the cost of pending legislation to overhaul the U.S. healthcare system, his top domestic priority.

The White House estimates it will cost about $1 million per year for each additional soldier sent to Afghanistan, meaning a 30,000- to 40,000-troop increase would add about $30 billion to $40 billion per year to the war's costs.

The United States now has about 68,000 soldiers in the war zone, with Britain, Germany, Canada, Australia and other allies making up the remaining 42,000 members of the multinational force.

THE WORLD'S RESPONSIBILITIES

Democrats -- who are generally less supportive of a troop increase than Republicans -- want assurances that Obama will press Karzai to clamp down on corruption and speed the process of Afghans taking over responsibility for their own security.

"The key to success in Afghanistan is the Afghan army taking on the Taliban," Carl Levin, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said on CBS' "Face the Nation."

"The issue is how would additional combat forces ... increase the speed of the buildup of the Afghan army. And that's what I think the president is going to need to explain."

Representative David Obey, a Democrat who chairs the House Appropriations Committee that oversees a large chunk of government spending, said the money has better uses than in Afghanistan.

"I have to see what $400 billion or $500 billion, $600 billion, $700 billion, over a decade, for this effort, will cost us on education, on our efforts to build the entire economy. And -- and when you look at it that way, I come to a different conclusion than he does," Obey, appearing on CNN, said of the troop increase.

Others said Obama needed to spell out the demands for other nations if he commits more U.S. forces and funds to the war.

"I've got a real problem about expanding this war where the rest of the world is sitting around and saying 'Isn't it a nice thing that the taxpayers of the United States and the U.S. military are doing the work that the rest of the world should be doing?'" Independent Senator Bernie Sanders said on ABC's "This Week" program.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has called on Pakistan to take tougher action against al Qaeda and step up its efforts to track down the group's leader, Osama bin Laden.

On Saturday, Brown offered to host a conference early next year to set out a timetable for transferring security responsibilities to Afghan forces from 2010.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who supports a troop increase, said Obama needs to show forcefully that the United States aims to win the war.

"The whole world is watching what we're doing there," Graham said on ABC. "We're going to put measurements and benchmarks on the Afghan government but we're going to have troops in Afghanistan to win the conflict. I hope he says that, without any uncertain terms."

(Additional reporting by John O'Callaghan and Donna Smith; Editing by Vicki Allen)

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