Bush pushing effort to combat Taliban

WASHINGTON – After the bloodiest year in Afghanistan since the U.S. invasion, the Bush administration is preparing a series of new military, economic and political initiatives aimed partly at pre-empting an expected offensive this spring by Taliban insurgents, according to senior U.S. officials.

Even as it trumpeted a change of course in Iraq this month, the White House has also completed a review of U.S. policy in Afghanistan. It will ask Congress for $7 billion to $8 billion in new funds for security, reconstruction and other projects in Afghanistan as part of the upcoming budget package, officials said.

That would represent a sizable increase in the U.S. commitment to the strife-torn country; since the 2001 invasion that toppled the Taliban, the U.S. has provided a little more than $14 billion in assistance for Afghanistan, according to the State Department.

The U.S. military said Wednesday that some 3,500 soldiers in the Army’s 10th Mountain Division would have their tours in Afghanistan extended by four months as part of an effort to beef up U.S. troop strength. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will meet with other NATO foreign ministers in Brussels on Friday to discuss Afghanistan, part of a new diplomatic offensive U.S. officials say is aimed at securing more international support for the government of President Hamid Karzai.

While U.S. officials say they believe the Taliban insurgency does not pose an immediate threat to the Karzai government, they say they are anxious to nip in the bud a potentially bloody Taliban spring offensive that could erode Afghan confidence in the central government and in the staying power of the international coalition that is trying to establish security across the country.

Violence escalated last year in Afghanistan as allied forces confronted an emboldened Taliban movement in the south, and the central government encountered continuing problems providing basic services. Many government and outside experts on Afghanistan are also worried that the border regions between Pakistan and Afghanistan are once again turning into safe havens for Taliban militants and their al-Qaida allies.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., a leading Democratic presidential contender for 2008, returned from a trip to Afghanistan and Iraq last week saying U.S. priorities are “upside down” in the focus on Iraq. She told reporters, “We should be adding more American military forces (in Afghanistan), and we should be requiring the NATO countries to fulfill their commitments to the forces that they had promised us.”