U.S. expects to spend billions for years training Afghan troops

WASHINGTON – The United States expects to spend about $6 billion a year training and supporting Afghan troops and police after it begins pulling out its own combat troops in 2011.

The previously undisclosed estimates of U.S. spending through 2015, detailed in a NATO training mission document, are an acknowledgment that Afghanistan will remain largely dependent on the United States for its security.

That reality could become problematic for the Obama administration as it continues to seek money for Afghanistan from Congress at a time of increasingly tight budgets.

In Brussels, a NATO official said Monday that alliance commander Gen. David Petraeus asked for 2,000 more soldiers, with nearly half to be trainers for the rapidly expanding Afghan security forces.

The NATO official requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the subject.

The training mission document, reviewed by the AP, outlines large scale infrastructure projects including a military hospital and military and police academies aimed at “establishing enduring institutions” and “creating irreversible momentum.”

Spending for training is projected to taper off from $11.6 billion next year to an average of $6.2 billion over the following four years. Much of the reduction reflects reduced spending on infrastructure.

The administration recently announced that it intends to ramp up the total Afghan army and police force from nearly 250,000 today to more than 300,000 by late next year. The mission will be largely paid for by the United States, with smaller contributions from NATO allies. The projected multibillion-dollar cost of maintaining those forces would be inconceivable for Afghanistan without foreign aid.

One of the arguments against dramatically increasing the size of Afghan security forces, even during George W. Bush’s administration, was that the Afghan government would be unable to pay for them for the foreseeable future. The NATO document shows that the U.S. will end up footing most of the bill.

The head of the NATO training mission, U.S. Lt. Gen. Bill Caldwell, says bolstering Afghanistan’s security forces is cost efficient.

“It will always be more expensive to have a coalition force doing something than an Afghan counterpart,” Caldwell said in a written response to questions from AP.

Caldwell said that he is sensitive to the concern that the United States is creating dependence and is looking for ways of cutting costs.

“This dependency is something that we think about all the time,” he said. “We know the sooner the Afghan systems are up and running the sooner coalition forces can transition responsibilities to the sovereign government.”