Gates: Afghanistan Review Won’t Include Request for More Troops « The Washington Independent

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The U.S. commander in Afghanistanwill not make a specific request for more troops when he submits a review of the situation there in the coming weeks, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Thursday.

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Instead, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal will assess conditions on the ground and make recommendations based on whether the mix and number of forces he has been allotted — 68,000 by the end of the year — is sufficient to execute U.S. strategy there, Gates told reporters at a Pentagon briefing held with Joint Chiefs of Staff Vice Chairman Gen. James Cartwright.

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“We’ve made clear to General McChrystal that he is free to ask for what he needs,” Gates said. But “any future resource request will be considered separately and subsequent to his assessment of the security situation.”

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At a recent meeting with McChrystal in Brussels, Gates told the commander to concentrate on tasks that needed to be performed and the type of troops necessary to accomplish them rather than specific numbers, according to senior military officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss internal Pentagon deliberations.