The most powerful military alliance in the world can't muster any more troops for its ground commander? From AFP:
NATO troops in Afghanistan are insufficient to guarantee a swift victory for coalition troops there, the organisation's commander in the Asian country said in interviews for the British press published. Lieutenant-General David Richards, the British leader of the NATO troops in Afghanistan, also said that coalition soldiers would focus more attention on reconstruction within the country than on fighting the Taliban militia over the winter. "If you said to me, if your aim is to win, I'd say no. I haven't got enough (to) win this, say, in the next six months, but I can continue to make sufficient improvements to keep the people here confident in us and in their government," Richards said, speaking to the Financial Times from Kabul…. Richards, who commands about 31,000 International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troops from 37 countries, said that it would be possible to "persuade through substantive improvement, the people of this country that we are making real progress." "Something that really hit me in the eye was just how important it was for the Afghan people for us to prove that we could fight and defend their areas," Richards told The Times.