While on his way to Tokyo today, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said that NATO/ISAF members should not wait on a runoff election in Afghanistan to increase troop levels, nor, he said, should they expect the US to provide all additional troops. RFU/RL reported today that Gates said that he did not need a US decision about increasing troop levels to talk to NATO allies about increasing their support in Afghanistan.
It is believed that General McCrystal, top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan, told president Obama that he needs somewhere between 10,000 and 40,000 additional troops to avoid failure of the NATO mission.
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