(RTTNews) -  President Barack Obama has issued the orders for a new phase in the U.S. campaign in Afghanistan to begin, the White House announced Monday.

Obama gave the go ahead for what is believed to be a 30,000 troop increase in a meeting in the Oval Office with his senior military and national security advisors late Sunday, said White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.

Gibbs, who did not confirm the reported troop increase number, said that Obama would be spending Monday and Tuesday making calls to key allied foreign leaders to inform them of his plans.

He will meet with Congressional leaders Tuesday before making an address to the nation in prime time from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

Gibbs said that Obama plans to lay out a series of stricter benchmarks for both Afghanistan and Pakistan moving forward, emphasizing the need for strong regional partners in combating the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

"This is not an open-ended commitment," Gibbs said. "We are there to partner with the Afghans, to train the Afghan national security forces, the army and the police, so that they can provide security for their country and wage the battle against an unpopular insurgency in their country."

He added, "That's, I would say, first and foremost our primary mission."
Obama will reiterate his calls on the Afghan government to do more than it has to address corruption, and to address the security situation.

"Without partners that are willing to do stuff in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, no number of American troops can solve all of those problems unless or until those steps are taken in both of those countries," Gibbs said. "We have to have a partner that can identify, recruit, retain a security force and a police force that are able to take an improved security environment and eventually hold that area."

He added, "Ultimately the strategy will be to transfer the security responsibility of an area to the Afghans. That is a big part of what you will hear the President talk about tomorrow."

Gibbs said that Obama was keenly aware that adding more U.S. and allied troops to the region might increase casualties.

"The amount of sacrifice that we've seen from the men and women we have there already is something that I know the President is [aware of] each and every day," Gibbs said. "He signs letters of condolence. He meets with the families of those that have been killed."

He added, "The President will reiterate the importance of why we're there but also very early on acknowledge the tremendous cost and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform."

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