ABOARD A US MILITARY AIRCRAFT (AFP) — President George W. Bush told NATO allies that the United States would send more troops to Afghanistan next year, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday.
Gates said Bush made the offer at a dinner with allied leaders at the just-concluded NATO summit in Bucharest.
"The president indicated that he expected in 2009 the United States would make a significant additional contribution," he said.
Gates said bipartisan support for such a move in the United States was strong enough to allow Bush to make the pledge even though he will no longer be president.
"I think no matter who is elected president they would want to be successful in Afghanistan. So I think this was a very safe thing for him to say," Gates told reporters traveling with him.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced at the summit that France would send an additional battalion, or about 700 troops, to Afghanistan, which would free up US troops already in the country to serve as reinforcements in the volatile south.
Bush has not been specific about the number of US troops that were likely to be sent, or when and where they would go, saying that would depend on conditions at the time.
"I'm still kind of still where I was in December. I don't want to make significant long-term commitments of additional US forces before giving the allies the opportunity to see what they do," he said.
"Let's get the French in place, others have talked about increasing by several hundred (troops)."
He said it was not linked to a continuing drawdown of US forces from Iraq.
"I put this in front of the president as a possibility as something he ought to be willing to say and do," he said. "From my perspective, it was to allow him to come in behind President Sarkozy at the dinner and say 'We're going to do more, too.'"
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