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WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is considering four options for realigning U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, his spokesman said Tuesday, and military officials said the choices involve several ways the president could employ additional U.S. forces next year.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama will discuss the four scenarios with his national security team today. Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One en route to Fort Hood, Gibbs would not offer details about those options.He insisted that Obama has not made a decision about troop deployments.Gibbs said anybody who says Obama has made a decision "doesn’t have in all honesty the slightest idea what they’re talking about. The president’s yet to make a decision" about troop levels or other aspects of the revised U.S. strategy in Afghanistan.Military officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the military services are developing presentations to explain how various force levels could be used in Afghanistan and how various deployment schedules could work, given recent promises to give soldiers more rest time at home.Military officials have said Obama is nearing a decision to add tens of thousands more forces to Afghanistan, though probably not quite the number sought by his top general there.Republican senators planned to send a letter to Obama today urging him to move quickly to fully answer Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s request for additional troops and resources. Officials have told The Associated Press that McChrystal prefers an addition of about 40,000 troops next year.
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