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GOP to send Veterans Day letter to Obama asking for troop increase to Afghanistan

By Tony Romm / The Hill

Top Republican lawmakers plan to press the president on Veterans Day to come to a decision about troop levels in Afghanistan.

In a letter to Obama, dated for tomorrow and first obtained by The Weekly Standard, 25 House and Senate GOPers urge the president to reach a conclusion in his strategy-making process and implement the troop increase Gen. Stanley McChrystal first proposed in September.

"It has been two months since you were given Gen. Stanley McChrystal's assessment of our success in achieving the national security objectives in Afghanistan you outlined so boldly and correctly in March," the Republicans wrote.

"We understand that sending men and women into harm's way is the most difficult decision that a commander-in-chief must make," they added. "However, over 68,000 Americans are already serving in harm's way in Afghanistan, and the sooner we can provide the reinforcements and resources they need, the safer and more successful they will be."

Republicans have long pressed the Obama administration to expedite its decision-making process -- and the White House has routinely fired back that it is taking as much time as it needs to get its strategy right.

That debate intensified this week, after a series of reports suggested the Obama administration was on the cusp of announcing a sizable, new round of troop deployments to Afghanistan. The alleged strategy, sourced only to anonymous Pentagon officials, included a new deployment of more than 30,000 more military members -- but less than the 40,000 troops McChrystal requested -- to Afghanistan by a specified time.

But White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs dismissed that story as an "amusing" rumor on Tuesday, and instead stressed the president had narrowed the discussion down to four courses of action. Gibbs did not elaborate, however, what those options might be.

"The president will have an opportunity to discuss four options with his national security team tomorrow," he said during a press briefing aboard Air Force One. "Anybody that tells you that the president has made a decision...  doesn't have, in all honesty, the slightest idea what they're talking about. The president has yet to make a decision."

Republicans today tried to capitalize on that, as evidenced by their letter, and they urged Obama to conclude his strategy sessions promptly and approve McChrystal's original troop request.

"Success in Afghanistan will emerge, as it did in Iraq, when local leaders and citizens are more and more able to take responsibility for governing and securing their own sovereign country without substantial international assistance," the 25 lawmakers wrote. "So we urge you to move now to fully support General McChrystal's call for additional resources and troops.