Soviets' Afghan Ordeal Vexed Gates on Troop-Surge Plan
By YAROSLAV TROFIMOV
WSJ
KABUL -- The future of the war in Afghanistan was on the line as Gen. Stanley McChrystal met with Defense Secretary Robert Gates in a secret rendezvous at a Belgian airbase in August.
Gen. McChrystal, the top Western commander in Afghanistan, pushed for more U.S. troops to roll back the spreading Taliban-led insurgency. Mr. Gates, officials say, was skeptical.
A quarter-century ago, he was a top Central Intelligence Agency officer aiding the anti-Soviet rebels in Afghanistan, and he remembered how a 1985 decision by the Soviet Union to widen that earlier war had failed to turn the tide.
In a speech to the nation Tuesday from West Point, President Barack Obama will announce his decision on a request by Gen. McChrystal for 40,000 more U.S. troops, to join some 100,000 Western soldiers already here. Washington is also prodding reluctant allies to send as many as 10,000 additional soldiers.
(More here.)
WSJ
KABUL -- The future of the war in Afghanistan was on the line as Gen. Stanley McChrystal met with Defense Secretary Robert Gates in a secret rendezvous at a Belgian airbase in August.
Gen. McChrystal, the top Western commander in Afghanistan, pushed for more U.S. troops to roll back the spreading Taliban-led insurgency. Mr. Gates, officials say, was skeptical.
A quarter-century ago, he was a top Central Intelligence Agency officer aiding the anti-Soviet rebels in Afghanistan, and he remembered how a 1985 decision by the Soviet Union to widen that earlier war had failed to turn the tide.
In a speech to the nation Tuesday from West Point, President Barack Obama will announce his decision on a request by Gen. McChrystal for 40,000 more U.S. troops, to join some 100,000 Western soldiers already here. Washington is also prodding reluctant allies to send as many as 10,000 additional soldiers.
(More here.)
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