The 33,000-man surge of U.S. forces into Afghanistan has achieved the goal set for it, and it will end on schedule at the end of the month, says the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The end of the surge means only 68,000 American troops will remain in Afghanistan, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey told American Forces Press Service on Tuesday aboard a C-40 returning to Washington from Ankara, Turkey.
The intended purpose of the military personnel surge was "to buy us some time to push back on some Taliban initiatives -- particularly in the south and southwest -- and to buy us some space to grow the Afghan security forces," Dempsey said. That objective clearly has been met, he added.
"During the surge, we grew the Afghan security forces by more than 50,000," Dempsey said. Afghan soldiers and police now number about 340,000, and the Afghans are in the lead in providing security in most of the country. Afghan forces will grow to 352,000 soon.
Surge forces allowed the coalition to stop, and then to reverse, momentum the Taliban had established, the Chairman said.
"The surge had its intended effect. I think it was an effort that was worth the cost -- and don't forget, it did have its cost. But I think it will prove, as we look back on it, to have set the conditions necessary for us to achieve the objectives by the end of 2014," Dempsey said.
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told journalists in Brussels that the coalition was fully committed to its strategy of seeing the Afghans fully in charge of their own security by the time the foreign forces withdrew despite recent challenges.
The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) is scheduled to wind up its security operations in the war-torn country by the end of 2014. A NATO summit in Chicago earlier this year had decided on a new NATO-led mission which will focus on training, advising and assisting Afghan forces after they have assumed full security responsibility across the country by the deadline.
by RTT Staff Writer
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