US military says Afghan force numbers no secret

[David]

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The Pentagon said on Tuesday it had made no secret about the expanding US force in Afghanistan, despite a report suggesting troop numbers had been downplayed by the Obama administration.

The Defense Department had consistently said the number of US forces would reach 68,000 by the end of the year, a Pentagon spokesman said.

"Nothing's missing. Nothing's hidden," Colonel Dave Lapan told reporters.

His comments came after the Washington Post reported on Tuesday that Obama had approved the deployment of 13,000 troops beyond the 21,000 he announced publicly in March.

But at least half of those 13,000 troops were authorized by former president George W. Bush, including a brigade from the 10th Mountain Division and an aviation brigade from the 82nd Airborne Division, Lapan said.

"Technically, did they all flow into Afghanistan under Obama's watch? Yes, but they have been approved previously," he said.

Apart from the dispatch of 21,000 extra troops announced by Obama, the size of the force swelled with thousands of support troops backing up combat brigades as well as units approved by the previous administration, Lapan told reporters.

The US force in the NATO-led mission was at about 34,000 when Obama was sworn in on January 20, he said.

Troop numbers in the troubled war effort have become the focus of intense debate in Washington as Obama carries out a wide-ranging review of war strategy and weighs a request for reinforcements from the US and NATO commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal.

Troop buildup skeptics worry that the US military is already under strain and would be hard pressed to provide enough support troops or "enablers" if big reinforcements are planned.

The support troops -- which include explosive experts, engineers, medical teams and intelligence analysts -- are deemed vital for US military operations.

Defense officials often announce major deployments involving brigades of several thousand troops without specifying how many support troops are expected to be accompany them.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates had said previously he would be sending more support troops to Afghanistan even as Obama weighs the best war strategy going forward.

The Pentagon and the White House in the past have tended not to publicize or highlight support troop deployments.

When Bush announced a US troop "surge" in Iraq, he only referred to 20,000 combat forces and not the 8,000 support troops backing them up.

There are now more US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan than during the peak of the surge in Iraq in late 2007 and early 2008.

About 65,000 US forces are stationed in Afghanistan and about 124,000 in Iraq, according to the Pentagon.

At the height of the Iraq surge, 26,000 US troops were in Afghanistan and 160,000 in Iraq.