U.S. to deploy hundreds of civilian officials to Afghanistan

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Thursday, March 19, 2009

President Barack Obama's aides are weighing a range of options to shift policy in Afghanistan, including a full-scale counter-insurgency push to protect civilians nationwide, officials said on Wednesday.

Among the ideas are scaling back the U.S. mission to focus on counter-terrorism and the training of Afghan forces; making a focused counter-insurgency push in the violent south and east; and pursuing a wider campaign to protect civilians across the country, said a U.S. official who asked not to be named.

Hundreds of civilian officials from across the U.S. government would be deployed to Afghanistan as part of the new strategy in a sort of "civilian surge," said another official, including veteran U.S. diplomat Peter Galbraith, who would be a deputy to the top United Nations official on the ground.

One official said each option would require different levels of U.S. troops, suggesting they presented a sort of sliding scale with the most resources needed for a national program of population security and counter-insurgency.

http://www.geo.tv/3-19-2009/37701.htm


Officials recommend civilian boost in Afghanistan

Top aides to President Barack Obama are recommending that the United States combine a boost in military deployments with a steep increase in civilian experts to combat a growing insurgency in Afghanistan, senior U.S. officials said Wednesday.

Several hundred civilians from various U.S. government agencies - from agronomists to economists and legal experts - will be deployed to Afghanistan to reinforce the nonmilitary component in Kabul and the existing provincial reconstruction teams in the countryside, officials said.

Members of Obama's Principals' Committee, which is made up of the national security adviser, the secretaries of state and defense and the country's intelligence chiefs, met at the White House on Tuesday to complete their recommendations.

Officials said counterinsurgency, reconstruction and development in Afghanistan would be top priorities.

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2009/03/18/ap6185388.html


One part of the plan will involve naming former senior American diplomats to key posts in Afghanistan. One key official will be Francis Riccardione, a former envoy to Egypt, who will serve as deputy to the recently-nominated new U.S. ambassador to Kabul, Gen. Karl Eikenberry, the official said.

Another appointment will see Peter Galbraith, a former American diplomat who has served in various hotspots, take the No. 2 U.N. job in Afghanistan, the administration official said.

The move to add hundreds of civilian aides under Eikenberry and his top staffers is similar to President George W. Bush's "surge" in Iraq but will be on a smaller scale, the officials said.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday before meeting with British Foreign Secretary David Miliband that the administration was working on "an integrated strategy" to train the Afghan military and police as well as to support "governance, rule of law, judicial systems (and) economic opportunities."

Similarly, defense officials said Wednesday they expect Obama to stress the importance of the Afghanistan review's nonmilitary components.

http://www.etaiwannews.com/etn/news_content.php?id=896652&lang=eng_news