Petraeus diplomatic over UK troop levels
General Petraeus is one of the US' most senior soldiers
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Monday, 29, Sep 2008 08:15
Senior US soldier General David Petraeus refused to be drawn outside Downing Street this afternoon about whether he wants more British forces in Afghanistan.
Gen Petraeus heads the US central command, which deals with the wider Middle Eastern region including both Iraq and Afghanistan, after overseeing the successful troop surge in Iraq during 2007.
Following talks with Gordon Brown in Downing Street he told reporters it was up to the coalition how to "source the forces" and that the UK had already responded with a "very good contribution".
"The job of soldiers on the ground in Afghanistan is to make the requests known," he said.
"Now it is up to national capitals to determine how to generate the additional forces."
Britain has doubled the number of its troops in Afghanistan in the last two years and currently has around 7,800 personnel in the country. The US has increased its troop levels in the country by 10,000 in the same period as the Taliban threat continues to rise.
Assessing progress against the Taliban in recent months, Gen Petraeus admitted that trends in terms of violence were heading in the "wrong direction" and "spiralling downwards".
"All those involved want to arrest that and then get that going back up again," he added, suggesting the way to achieve this was an escalation of fighting against the Taliban.
"We think we'll see a continuation of fighting even through the winter season – perhaps a bit more than in the past," Gen Petraeus continued.
"We are going to endeavour to continue to a higher level of operational tempo throughout so there's not a lull in the fighting season but that we continue in fact to take the fight to the enemy."