Why doesn't Obama tell tell the public how many troops he really sends to Afghanistan? The official announcements were for 59,000 U.S. troops deployed. The real number now crept up to 68,000.
This was the news on February 18:
President Obama has ordered the first combat deployments of his presidency, saying yesterday that he had authorized an additional 17,000 U.S. troops "to stabilize a deteriorating situation" in Afghanistan.
…
The new deployments, to begin in May, will increase the U.S. force in Afghanistan by nearly 50 percent, bringing it to 55,000 by mid-summer, along with 32,000 non-U.S. NATO troops.
…
Months ago, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, Gen.
David D. McKiernan, requested more than 30,000 additional troops this
year, and an initial 6,000 arrived last month under orders signed by
the Bush administration.
Note the 55,000 include the 6,000 Bush sent.
That number was still valid on March 21:
The United States is adding 17,000 troops to the 38,000 it has in Afghanistan, and may send further reinforcements when a policy review by Obama's administration is finished.
Note: 38,000 + 17,000 = 55,000. Fine.
On March 27 an additional 4,000 troops deployment was announced:
Along with the 17,000 additional combat troops authorized last month, he said, Obama will send 4,000 more this fall to serve as trainers and advisers to an Afghan army expected to double in size over the next two years.
…
The total of 21,000 new troops, added to a combat brigade authorized by the Bush administration and deployed in January, will exceed the 30,000 that Gen. David D. McKiernan, the U.S. and NATO commander, had requested for this year in Afghanistan and will bring the total U.S. force to more than 60,000. Non-U.S. NATO troops there currently total about 32,000.
Note: 55,000 + 4,000 suddenly added up to "more than 60,000" !?!
And only five days later the March 27 numbers magically increased again:
The U.S. military has 38,000 troops in Afghanistan, and the number is projected to rise to 68,000 with deployments scheduled for this year. Those deployments include a 4,000-strong contingent of trainers from the 4th brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division, 17,000 other combat troops, a 2,800-strong combat aviation brigade and thousands of support forces whose placement was not publicly announced, the Pentagon said.
What was 55,000 + 4,000 = "more than 60,000" is now suddenly 68,000.
Those are 9,000 more troops than officially announced. That is the strength of more than two full fledged combat brigades that somehow were ordered into Afghanistan without any public notice. How come?
And yesterday Petraeus requested even more troops:
If approved, the additional 10,000 troops — including a combat brigade of about 4,000 troops and a division headquarters of about 2,000 — would bring the total approved for next year to 78,000, officials say.
Seeing such mission creep I find it more likely that next year will see a total of 120,000+ U.S. troops in Afghanistan. The number known to the public then might well be somewhat different.
But what are the troops to do and what would be considered a success in Afghanistan? Can we measure that? No:
Michele Flournoy, the undersecretary of defense for policy, said the administration hasn't yet developed benchmarks to measure progress, but she predicted high human and financial costs for the U.S. in the campaign against Islamic militants in the two countries.
So there are more troops in Afghanistan than was known to fight Al-Qaeda which is said to be in Pakistan and without any benchmark to measure success.
Again my question:
Why doesn't Obama tell tell the public how many troops he really sends to Afghanistan?