Washington - US President Barack Obama and NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen met Tuesday and pledged a firm commitment to prevailing in Afghanistan, but stopped short of saying whether more troops are needed. The two met amid the Obama administration's strategic review of the approach in Afghanistan following a report by the top commander there that outlined a bleak situation. Rasmussen vowed the alliance is committed to standing with the United States and defeating the Taliban.
"This alliance will stand united and will stay in Afghanistan as long as it takes to finish our job," said Rasmussen, who took charge of NATO in August.
Although the United States has more troops in Afghanistan than any other NATO partner, Obama emphasized that "this is not an American battle. This is a NATO mission as well."
The top US commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, reportedly warned the president earlier this month that without a swift revamping of the approach to Afghanistan, NATO was at risk of losing.
Obama is weighing whether to add as many as 40,000 additional US forces to Afghanistan on top of the roughly 60,000 already there.
Obama and Rasmussen also discussed the plans to drop the deployment of a long-range missile-defence system to Eastern Europe and replace it with more modest and capable medium- and short-range systems, and improving NATO relations with Russia.
