By DPA
Washington : President George W. Bush has approved the deployment of 3,200 Marines to Afghanistan to meet a shortfall that US officials say was caused by the reluctance of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies to send more troops to the war-torn country.
Bush approved the recommendation by Defence Secretary Robert Gates, the Pentagon said Tuesday. Gates has been mulling sending more troops there ahead of a possible offensive by the Taliban on the southern part of the country. NATO commanders have requested an additional 7,500 soldiers.
About 2,200 of the Americans will by placed under NATO’s International Security Assistance Force command, while 1,000 will operate under US command to assist in the training of Afghan security forces, the Pentagon said. Both groups are scheduled for a seven-month deployment after arriving in March or April.
“As a member of NATO, we are doing our part to provide ISAF with the forces necessary to ensure the hard-fought gains of the past six years become irreversible,” Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said.
There are already 26,000 US soldiers in Afghanistan, about half of them under NATO command. There are about 54,000 allied troops in the country in total, Morrell said.
Gates decided to proceed with the deployment though last week he expressed concerns that doing so would take the pressure off NATO allies to play a greater role in Afghanistan. Gates and other US officials have previously expressed frustrations over some European countries that have refused to increase their forces.
“It is our hope that our allies in NATO and other partners who were involved in the efforts in Afghanistan will see what more they can do to add forces to bring down the shortfall that will exist even after we deploy these additional Marines,” Morrell said.
“At the very least, we would hope they would take a serious look at back-filling this deployment after the Marines leave at the end of this year,” he added.
Germany and France have deployed several thousand troops to Afghanistan, but restrict their use to peacekeeping roles in relatively safe areas of the country, while US, British, Dutch, Danish and Canadian forces take casualties in the heavy fighting against Taliban and Al Qaeda militants in southern Afghanistan.