The United States will not have enough forces available to meet a request for more troops from Nato's top commander in Afghanistan until next spring at the earliest, the US defence chief said today.
"Without changing deployment patterns, without changing length of tours, we do not have the forces to send three additional brigade combat teams to Afghanistan at this point," Defence Secretary Robert Gates told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
"My view is that those forces will become available probably during the spring and summer of 2009," he said.
Mr Gates also said overall levels of violence in Iraq have fallen 80 per cent, but he cautioned against using the improved security to speed up the withdrawal of US troops.
US Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has called for US troops to be withdrawn within 16 months while his Republican rival, John McCain, has warned that pulling out the troops too quickly could undo the progress made in stabilising Iraq.
"I worry that the great progress that our troops and the Iraqis have made have the potential to override a measure of caution born of uncertainty," Mr Gates told the congressional hearing in Washington.
"The continuing but carefully modulated reductions the president has ordered represent the right direction and the right of course of action," he said.
US president George W. Bush announced earlier this month that 8,000 troops would be withdrawn by February without being replaced. Mr Gates said the withdrawal was already under way.
Reuters