Afghanistan

McChrystal: More Troops Now, Please

Top general says new soldiers needed.

President Obama may not be sure whether the United States needs more troops in Afghanistan, but his top general is: The Washington Post has obtained a confidential memo to the White House from Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, in which he warns that failure to add more troops in the next year “will likely result in failure.” McChrystal says he wants to implement a new counterinsurgency strategy, like the Iraqi surge, in which troops spend “as little time as possible in armored vehicles or behind the walls of forward operating bases." The White House is considering his plan among several others.