Rethinking Strategy in Afghanistan

U.S. Officials Want More Afghan Forces to Fight Alongside Marines

(CBS)  Four thousand U.S. Marines pounded into Afghanistan's hostile Helmand province this month to take back territory from the Taliban.

But they only had 600 Afghan troops fighting alongside them, reports CBS News correspondent Kimberly Dozier.

The Marine commander there said he cannot hold this territory unless he gets more Afghan forces to help win the people's trust.

The top U.S. General in Afghanistan, Stanley McChrystal, agrees, according to defense officials in Washington. He's told the Pentagon he needs to create even more local forces than now planned to provide Afghans security.

"We must protect them from violence, whatever its nature," McChrystal said.

U.S. officials tell CBS News that General McChrystal hasn't decided how many extra troops he's going to need, U.S. or Afghan. They say this is simply a snapshot of his ongoing review, which he's due to report to the White House by early August.

There is currently a surge of 21,000 U.S. troops, which will bring the total to 68,000 in country by the fall. That includes 4,000 U.S. forces devoted to training more Afghan security forces. That training brigade is supposed to boost Afghanistan's army from 85,000 to 134,000, by 2011, at a cost of $7.5 billion a year.

Some of those now advising McChrystal say that's not enough.

"General McChrystal's going to have a tough time figuring out how he's going to protect as much of the population as possible," said Andrew Exum, with the Center for New American Security. "We simply don't have enough troops to surge into all areas."

In an interview with Britain's SKY TV from Africa, the President Barack Obama said depending on how Afghan elections go next month, he hopes to focus on a different type of surge.

"It may not be on the military side, it may be on the development side," Mr. Obama said.

Another group of experts advising McChrystal says you have to have both.

"The problem is you can't have economic development and you can't have good governance if you don’t have security," said Arturo Munoz with the Rand Corporation. "They are all interrelated."