In the face of rising public outcry on defense spending, but the US and the UK are fighting a losing battle for the funding of the war. Neither McChrytal’s request, nor of the British generals can be met physically or financially. The mini surge if it happens next week will be followed by an exit strategy—withdraw to Kabul and cosmopolitan centers. This is of course the first step for a total withdrawal—leaving the Afghan to figure out things for themselves. the insurgents have already pledged a “safe exit” to ISAF and NATO. Mr. Karzai will have to find asylum in Delhi, because there is no vacancy for him in his last place of residence—in Quetta. The Bharatis will leave Afghanistan in a week after the US withdraws—that how long it took them to withdraw after the Russians left.
As the war in Afghanistan is in its eighth year, it will cost the American taxpayers just under $250 billion, according to Cost of War. Senior administration officials recently stated that the war in the region does have serious budget implications as officials in the White House discuss of adding an additional 40,000 troops as per the request of the top American and allied commander in Afghanistan; General Stanley McChrystal. The total cost of such an increase would be between $40 billion and $54 billion Digital Journal
The New York Times reports that there is serious opposition to the war because of the economic situation and because of budgetary constraints.
While President Obama’s decision about sending more troops to Afghanistan is primarily a military one, it also has substantial budget implications that are adding pressure to limit the commitment, senior administration officials say.
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Pool photo by Alex Brandon
Defense Secretary Robert Gates watching a mine-resistant troop carrier in motion. Analysts say vehicles like these and surveillance equipment are increasing the cost of troops in Afghanistan.
Graphic The latest internal government estimates place the cost of adding 40,000 American troops and sharply expanding the Afghan security forces, as favored by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top American and allied commander in Afghanistan, at $40 billion to $54 billion a year, the officials said.
Even if fewer troops are sent, or their mission is modified, the rough formula used by the White House, of about $1 million per soldier a year, appears almost constant.
So even if Mr. Obama opts for a lower troop commitment, Afghanistan’s new costs could wash out the projected $26 billion expected to be saved in 2010 from withdrawing troops from Iraq. And the overall military budget could rise to as much as $734 billion, or 10 percent more than the peak of $667 billion under the Bush administration.
Such an escalation in military spending would be a politically volatile issue for Mr. Obama at a time when the government budget deficit is soaring, the economy is weak and he is trying to pass a costly health care plan.
Senior members of the House Appropriations Committee have already expressed reservations about the potential long-term costs of expanding the war in Afghanistan. And Mr. Obama could find it difficult to win approval for the additional spending in Congress, where he would have to depend on Republicans to counter defections from liberal Democrats.
One senior administration official, who requested anonymity in order to discuss the details of confidential deliberations, said these concerns had added to the president’s insistence at a White House meeting on Wednesday that each military option include the quickest possible exit strategy.
“The president focused a lot on ensuring that we were asking the difficult questions about getting to an end game here,” the official said. “He knows we cannot sustain this indefinitely.”
Sending fewer troops would lower the costs but would also place limitations on the buildup strategy. Sending 30,000 more troops, for example, would cost $25 billion to $30 billion a year while limiting how widely American forces could range. Deploying 20,000 troops would cost about $21 billion annually but would expand mainly the training of Afghans, the officials said.
The estimated $1 million a year it costs per soldier is higher than the $390,000 congressional researchers estimated in 2006.
Military analysts said the increase reflects a surge in costs for mine-resistant troop carriers and surveillance equipment that would apply to troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan. But some costs are unique to Afghanistan, where it can cost as much as $400 a gallon to deliver fuel to the troops through mountainous terrain.
Some administration estimates suggest it could also cost up to $50 billion over five years to more than double the size of the Afghan army and police force, to a total of 400,000. That includes recruiting, training and equipment.
At a stop at a military base in Alaska on Thursday, Mr. Obama told a gathering of soldiers that he would not risk more lives “unless it is necessary to America’s vital interests.” He added during his visit to Tokyo on Friday that he wanted to avoid taking any step that could be seen as an “open-ended commitment.”
The administration said Friday that it planned to cut up to 5 percent at domestic agencies in fiscal 2011 as part of an effort to reduce the federal budget deficit, which rose to $1.4 trillion with the economic stimulus and financial bailouts.
Several leading Republicans have criticized Mr. Obama’s willingness to spend more freely on domestic programs and urged him to provide General McChrystal with the resources he is seeking in Afghanistan.
“Keeping our country safe: Isn’t that the first job of government?” said Senator Christopher S. Bond, a Republican from Missouri and the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. “If we have just a minimalist counterterrorism strategy, the Taliban will come back over the mountains from Pakistan, and they will be followed by their co-conspirators from the Al Qaeda organization.”
Cost is far from the only concern about escalating the war. The debate intensified last week amid disclosures that the United States ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl W. Eikenberry, had sent cables to Washington expressing his reservations about deploying additional troops, citing weak Afghan leadership and widening corruption.
That kind of doubt could also make some in Congress hesitant to support an expansion of the war, especially with the midterm elections coming next year
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Representative David R. Obey, a Democrat from Wisconsin who heads the House Appropriations Committee, said recently that sending more troops to Afghanistan could drain the Treasury and “devour virtually any other priorities that the president or anyone in Congress had.”
Representative John Murtha, Democrat of Pennsylvania and chairman of a subcommittee on defense appropriations, said in an interview that because of concerns about President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, he thought a majority of the 258 Democrats in the House would vote against any bill to pay for more troops. “A month ago, I would have said 60 to 70,” he said.
“Can you pass one?” Mr. Murtha said. “It depends on the Republicans.”
The UK is in a similar soup. It too cannot afford to continue the war in Afghanistan.
THERE is no doubt the war in Afghanistan has caused many nations sleepless nights. Several governments in Europe have come under serious domestic criticism and threat of instability has become associated with most of them over the war in Afghanistan.In view of the fact that democracy is well entrenched in most of the countries in the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) which include the U.S., the opposition groups have used the war in Afghanistan as a campaign tool against sitting governments.
The situation is not different here in Britain where the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown has come under very severe domestic pressure to do one of three things, One , pull out of the war, two, stop the killing of British soldiers and or three, equip the soldiers there with more helicopters. The Prime MinisterÕs ordeal is more apparent and a little bit more difficult because of the system of government they practise Ð parliamentary democracy. In the British parliamentary democracy, the Prime Minister is a Member of Parliament and all his Ministers or Secretaries. This parliament also includes the die-hard conservatives led by David Cameron, a man who many Britons believe will take over the job of Prime Minister in the next elections. There is a serious concern and debate over the necessity or otherwise of the British GovernmentÕs continued participation in the on-going North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) onslaught against the Talibans in Afghanistan. Why?
The British recently suffered a serious setback in terms of the number of its soldiers killed in the war. Between November 5 and 9 2009, the UK lost seven soldiers in a row in Afghanistan. Five of them were killed by a rogue policeman they were training for the Afghan police. Unknown to the Afghan Police, the rogue policeman was wrongly recruited as he belongs to the radical Islamic sect the Taliban, who have been battling the NATO forces. In the wake of this manslaughter, Gordon Brown the Prime Minister was very upset and in a nation-wide broadcast openly castigated the Ahmed Kazhai-led Government in Afghanistan for aiding and abetting corruption amidst the war and the risks being taken by the British Forces. He further warned the Afghan Government of the possibility of losing international support and solidarity if steps were not taken to curb corruption within the government.
In the meantime, support for the war in Afghanistan has waned considerably in Britain and this is giving the government very serious concern in view of its historic influence in NATO and the European Union, even though David Cameron the Conservative Party leader was recently accused by France of attempting to castrate British Influence in the Politics of the European Union (EU).
The pain of the ordinary Briton was further amplified by the public castigation of the Prime Minister by one of the mothers of a slain soldier Jacqui Janes who lost her 20-year old son in the war. The Prime Minister had written a letter of condolence with his handwriting and signed it himself. Unfortunately for the PM the woman took time to read through the letter and discovered so many errors. The woman discovered that the PM failed to spell her sonÕs name correctly, her own name was also wrong, the PM also spelt "condolence" wrongly and this infuriated the woman who called the mediaÕs attention to this. She believed and argued that the mistakes in the letter were very disrespectful to her and her son who gave his life for the overall security of Britain and the European Union.
According to the Evening Standard of November 10, 2009, Mrs Jane had branded the PM condolence letter insulting as it misspelled her surname and JamieÕs (her son) appeared corrected. The womanÕs outcry got to the ears of 10 Downing Street and this was immediately followed by a phone call by the PM to apologise. The matter did not rest with the telephone call as the woman used the opportunity to ask the Prime Minister fundamental questions as far as the war in Afghanistan was concerned. She raised issues of adequate funding, inadequate helicopters and the issue of adequate kitting of soldiers in the war zones, etc.
The highly embarrassed Gordon Brown kept his cool and took time to explain to Mrs Janes the situation in Afghanistan "I would not send anybody abroad unless I felt that they were properly equipped. He denied that military chiefs had asked for 2,000 more British troops and stressed helicopters had to be re-equipped and pilots needed specialists training before being deployed to Afghanistan. Mr. Brown who had earlier been "mortified" over the errors in a letter of condolence he had written denied being disrespectful and insisted he had properly spelled her sonÕs name. The PM told the woman " I was trying to do the best by our country and trying to reflect the sadness that Sarah (his wife) and I have at the loss of your son".
The Prime Minister however got a relief from a grieving ex-wife of a soldier killed when she called for the British troops to remain in the country to "finish the job". Connie Chant, 41, spoke out as the bodies of her former husband Darren Chant and five others were being returned to Britain. According to the Daily Mirror, she was quoted to have said "I donÕt believe that we should pull out, despite DarrenÕs death. I donÕt want him or any others to have died in vain. They should be allowed to finish the job". That is how divided the British Society is over the war in Afghanistan.
The war in Afghanistan has cost the British Government a fortune. It has lost 232 soldiers since the war began in 2001. It has lost eight soldiers in November alone (Five in one day). The question in the lips of many Britons is: why are we still in Afghanistan? What is in it for us? How Democratic is the Afghan Government? This is in view of the fact that it took almost two months for the votes in Afghan elections to be collated amidst widespread voter-fraud and manipulation this is against the threat of the Taliban. The weak electoral system forced the main presidential challenger to President Ahmed Khazai, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah to pull out of the re-run. The legitimacy question still hovers round the new government led by incumbent Ahmed Khazai.
The turbulent domestic politics in Britain has not helped Gordon Brown. His rather colourless leadership disposition is further compounding the issues. The highly energetic David Cameron- the Conservative Tory leader is grabbing the opportunity to dig deep into the political firmament of Britain. The next elections will likely be a straight win for the conservatives. Gordon Brown is generally regarded as a technocrat (ostensibly b
ecause of the efficient way he ran the Exchequer as Chancellor under Tony Blair) rather than a politician.
He needs to cultivate the culture of a Labour Party leader and borrow some leaves from Tony Blair who many policy analysts believe handled the Afghanistan problem more maturely than Brown presently does. The debate within intellectual circles in Britain is for how long will the British Forces remain in Afghanistan and for what purpose? Most people believe that European Union politics and the strong diplomatic ties between the U.S. and the United Kingdom rather than the so much trumpeted "Internal Security" of Britain is the major reason for the continued participation of the UK in the Afghan war. The popular political thought is that it is better for Britain to pull out citing domestic pressure rather than waiting for the "Vietnamese effect" before a painful and disgraceful final exit. Gordon Brown and the war in Afghanistan By Taiwo Akerele
