WASHINGTON POST: TOP MILITARY OFFICER SAYS U.S. DOESN'T HAVE ENOUGH TROOPS TO SEND TO AFGHANISTAN.

The war in Afghanistan is now the "hot spot" in the Middle East, but because the U.S. has 160,000 troops in Iraq the top military commander says there are not enough troops to send to Afghanistan.

President Bush wants 30,000 troops sent to Afghanistan, but nobody knows where they are going to get them.

A Shortage Of Troops in AfghanistanIraq War Limits U.S. Options, Says Chairman of Joint Chiefs

By Josh WhiteWashington Post Staff WriterThursday, July 3, 2008; A01

http://tinyurl.com/5e3mk2

The nation's top military officer said yesterday that more U.S. troops are needed in Afghanistan to tamp down an increasingly violent insurgency, but that the Pentagon does not have sufficient forces to send because they are committed to the war in Iraq.

Navy Adm. Michael G. Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said insurgent Taliban and extremist forces in Afghanistan have become "a very complex problem," one that is tied to the extensive drug trade, a faltering economy and the porous border with Pakistan. Violence in Afghanistan has increased markedly over recent weeks, with June the deadliest month for U.S. troops since the war began in 2001.

"I don't have troops I can reach for, brigades I can reach, to send into Afghanistan until I have a reduced requirement in Iraq," Mullen told reporters at the Pentagon. "Afghanistan has been and remains an economy-of-force campaign, which by definition means we need more forces there."
Mullen has raised similar concerns over the past several months, but his comments yesterday were more pointed and came amid rising concern at the Pentagon over the situation in Afghanistan, where insurgents have regrouped in the south and east.