'No quick success' in Afghanistan 9/12/09

		'No quick success' in Afghanistan 9/12/09
Il generale David Petraeus (Centcom) sui facili entusiasmi Source: Bbc
	9 Dicembre 2009	news
'No quick success' in Afghanistan BBC 9 dec 2009 A top US general has warned that military success in Afghanistan is likely to be slower than in Iraq after the troop surge there. Testifying before the US Congress, Gen David Petraeus said, as in Iraq, the situation in Afghanistan was "likely to get harder before it gets easier". Gen Petraeus was speaking a week after President Barack Obama ordered 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. The general said he supported the announced increase in forces. Gen Petraeus, who oversaw the troop surge in Iraq in 2007, said "while certainly different and, in some ways tougher than Iraq, Afghanistan is no more hopeless than Iraq was", when he assumed command there in February of that year. He said success in Afghanistan was attainable, but warned that "achieving progress... will be hard and the progress there likely will be slower in developing than was the progress achieved in Iraq". The general urged lawmakers to "withhold judgment on the success or failure of the strategy in Afghanistan until next December". TROOPS FIGHTING THE TALIBAN US: More than 100,000 by July 2010 Other foreign (mainly Nato): 32,000 Afghan National Army: 94,000 Afghan National Police: 81,000 President Obama's policy, he said, "will over the next 18 months enable us to make important progress" in Afghanistan. Gen Petraeus said the new strategy would help "set the conditions" for a possible withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan by mid-2011. The extra forces will be deployed to Afghanistan as quickly as possible, bringing US troop strength there to more than 100,000. Gen Petraeus' remarks, to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, came a day after the top US commander in Afghanistan, Gen Stanley McChrystal, told legislators the troop boost would make success there possible. Gen McChrystal said the mission was "undeniably difficult" and the next 18 months would be crucial. Story from BBC NEWS: