Democrats hit Bush on troop plan for both wars

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush's plan to modestly reduce U.S. troops in Iraq and send a few thousand others to Afghanistan drew criticism on Tuesday from top Democrats, led by presidential hopeful Barack Obama.

Obama and other Democrats argued the Pentagon should shift more quickly to Afghanistan, where NATO says it needs 12,000 more troops, to combat escalating violence.

Bush, an unpopular president fighting an unpopular war in Iraq, said a dramatic drop in violence in that war zone would allow the U.S. military to refocus its efforts on Afghanistan, where he acknowledged that "huge challenges" remain.

He said some 8,000 combat and support personnel would return from Iraq by February 2009 while a fresh Marine battalion and an Army combat brigade totaling just over 4,000 would go to Afghanistan by January to respond to soaring attacks by Islamist militants.

"For all the good work we have done in that country, it is clear we must do even more," Bush said at the National Defense University. "As we learned in Iraq, the best way to restore the confidence of the people is to restore basic security -- and that requires more troops."

The drop in violence in Iraq will also allow other countries with troops there to start pulling out. A senior U.S. official said the number of countries with troops in Iraq would drop from about 29 to "a handful" by the end of the year.

But for the United States, any large-scale shift in forces in both Iraq and Afghanistan will be left to Bush's successor -- either Republican Sen. John McCain or Obama. Bush will leave office in January after the November 4 election.

NATO commanders in Afghanistan have said they need about 12,000 more troops to quell violence, and experts agree a larger force is needed. But experts also warn Washington should not lose focus on Iraq.

Obama, who has pledged to withdraw combat troops from Iraq within 16 months of taking office, said Bush's plan takes too long to shift resources to Afghanistan and its border region with Pakistan, where U.S. officials say they believe al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is hiding.

'NOT ENOUGH URGENCY'

"His plan comes up short -- it is not enough troops, and not enough resources, with not enough urgency," Obama told reporters in Ohio, a hotly contested state in the election.

"I will finally have a comprehensive strategy to finish the job in Afghanistan -- with more troops, more training of Afghan security forces ... and more focus on eliminating the Taliban and al Qaeda sanctuary along the Pakistan border," he said.

A senior U.S. official briefing reporters after Bush's speech said the extra American troops sent to Afghanistan would be a "bit of a down payment on what will eventually be an ... even larger U.S. commitment."

McCain has backed Bush's strategy of refusing to set a timeline for pulling troops out of Iraq and withdrawing forces only as security conditions in the war zone allow. But he has also called for more combat troops for Afghanistan.

"It is clear that we need additional forces in Afghanistan, and I support the new deployments," McCain said. "Sen. Obama believes we must lose in Iraq to win in Afghanistan. I want to win in Iraq and in Afghanistan."

Obama and McCain are in a statistical dead heat in the race for the White House with the economy and two wars the top voter concerns. The United States has 146,000 troops in Iraq and 33,000 in Afghanistan.

MORE THAN TROOPS NEEDED

Bush's troop plan followed advice from top U.S. defense officials, including Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Gen. David Petraeus, top commander in Iraq.

Bush, who will meet with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani on Wednesday afternoon at the White House, said Petraeus held open the door to more troop cuts in Iraq in the first half of 2009 but also acknowledged gains were "fragile and reversible."

Security analysts agreed, and some cautioned the Pentagon against losing focus on Iraq. Kenneth Pollack, an analyst at the Brookings Institution, said Iraq has "far greater strategic importance to the United States."

"The United States has not won in Iraq; as much as the situation has improved, the country is far from sustainable stability and large numbers of American troops are required for a broad range of responsibilities," he said.

Others said that politicians should also address Taliban and al Qaeda safe havens inside neighboring Pakistan, and the complicated NATO command structure in Afghanistan.

In a move to simplify command structures, the Pentagon said U.S. Army Gen. David McKiernan, the commander of NATO-led forces there, had been nominated to take charge of almost all other U.S. troops in the country as well.

Democrats in Congress including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vietnam War veteran Sen. John Kerry also criticized Bush's plan. The House Armed Services Committee will on Wednesday hear from top military and Pentagon officials about the two wars.

Kerry, the failed Democratic presidential hopeful in 2004, said one brigade for Afghanistan was "far short of the three additional brigades that our commanders in Afghanistan have said they urgently need."

(Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick, Andy Sullivan, Andrew Gray and David Morgan in Washington and Deborah Charles in Ohio; editing by Kristin Roberts and Cynthia Osterman)