NATO urges Afghanistan buildup

SEVILLE, Spain – The new American commander of NATO on Thursday presented a new list of military requirements for Afghanistan that included a request for more combat troops for the country’s restive southern provinces.

U.S. officials said Army Gen. John Craddock, who took over as alliance supreme commander in December, drew up the revised requirements last week amid growing concerns that current forces are not sufficient to counter an expected spring offensive by the Taliban.

Craddock presented the list at a meeting of alliance defense ministers here.

According to a senior Pentagon official traveling with Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates to the meeting, Craddock’s new “statement of requirements” is already about 90 percent filled by existing forces.

But a European official familiar with Craddock’s plan said the remaining forces still needed about 2,000 additional combat troops and helicopters. The reinforcements would be used to increase forces in the south and for a stepped-up effort to interdict fighters and weapons crossing into Afghanistan from Pakistan.

Close-air-support missions flown by U.S. Air Force pilots increased more than 70 percent in the first five weeks of 2007 compared with the same period last year, records show. The Air Force plans to send in dozens more precision bomb-targeting systems that allow troops on the ground to call in airstrikes within a few hundred yards of their own position.

Craddock’s requirements statement is part of a renewed effort by the Bush administration to breathe additional life into the Afghan mission.

Other than Britain, however, which recently committed to adding 800 troops to its current 5,200-man contingent in the south, several European officials appeared to be lukewarm to the idea of increasing force levels.

German Defense Minister Franz-Josef Jung told reporters here from his nation that he felt the alliance should be focusing on economic and reconstruction efforts.

“I do not think it is right to talk about more military means,” Jung was quoted as saying. “When the Russians were in Afghanistan, they had 100,000 troops and didn’t win.”

In addition to Britain’s additional troops, Gates has ordered a four-month extension for a brigade of the U.S. Army’s 10th Mountain Division and sped up the deployment of a unit of the 82nd Airborne Division, giving the U.S. 3,200 more soldiers in the country. The changes would take U.S. troop levels to near 25,000, their highest levels ever.