Obama's got McChrystal's Afghan numbers/Update: McChrystal plan the right way to go?

Now, let the leaking begin:

Gates Gives Obama Afghan Troop Request
Democrats Remain Divided After Meeting With President; McChrystal Strategy Is Boosted by Two Military Appointments

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has forwarded a request for more troops in Afghanistan to President Barack Obama, the Pentagon said Wednesday, as divisions within the administration and Congress continued despite Mr. Obama's high-profile meeting with congressional leaders the day before.

Mr. Gates -- who made no recommendation of his own about the troop request, defense officials said -- had planned to hold back the document until the administration finished a broad re-evaluation of its Afghan war strategy. That decision came amid increasing public and congressional skepticism over the war, and amid internal questions over the strategy backed by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan.

But in the end, the defense chief feared that the document -- already widely reported on -- would leak to the press before Mr. Obama had a chance to read it, said Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell. The request outlines several options ranging up to 40,000 troops [emphasis added] added to the 68,000 now stationed or headed there...

The Obama administration is going ahead with two moves that suggest they starting to are implement some of Gen. McChrystal's recommendations. The White House is sending a pair of senior officers to Kabul to ramp up training of Afghan security forces and overhaul the military prison system there.

The appointment of Vice Admiral Robert Harward to revamp U.S. detention polices was announced late Wednesday. In another appointment expected within days, Lt. Gen. William Caldwell is to oversee the training mission in Afghanistan.

In his classified assessment, Gen. McChrystal called for more than doubling the size of the Afghan army and national police force, which he described as key components of any effort to beat back the Taliban and gradually stabilize Afghanistan.

At the same time, Gen. McChrystal was harshly critical of Western efforts to train Afghan security forces, which he said had been slowed by a lack of coordination between parallel U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization training programs.

Gen. Caldwell will be sent to Kabul as a "dual-hatted" commander charged with overseeing both the U.S. training command [some CF members are part of it] and a newly established entity called the NATO Training Mission -- Afghanistan ["The mission will provide higher-level training for the ANA, including defence colleges and academies, and will be responsible for doctrine development, as well as training and mentoring for the ANP."]...

Meanwhile, some civilians in the administration now seem to beware the counterinsurgency strategy they wished for in March:

Civilian, Military Officials at Odds Over Resources Needed for Afghan Mission

A Washington Post editorial sums up one view:

Plan B for Afghanistan
It looks a lot like the losing strategies of past years.
...
In Afghanistan, Mr. Bush's error was incrementalism -- sending just enough reinforcements each year after 2003 to match the growing threat of the Taliban but never enough to turn the situation around. For several years, strikes on Taliban commanders were emphasized over taking and holding ground. The alternative to Gen. McChrystal's plan would essentially perpetuate that losing effort. It likely would mean accepting hundreds more deaths of U.S. and allied troops in the next year without significant progress against the Taliban; probably there would be further losses of ground. It would mean decreased leverage over the Afghan and Pakistani governments, which would be less willing to go along with the objectives of an administration that was curtailing its own commitments. It would damage the effort to persuade Taliban fighters and low-level commanders to switch sides. And it could doom the effort to create an Afghan army that could pacify the country on its own.

Gen. McChrystal concluded in his recent review of the Afghan situation that a "failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near-term (next 12 months) -- while Afghan security capacity matures -- risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible." Mr. Obama seemed, at first, to be questioning whether defeating the Taliban was necessary. By resolving to maintain troop levels as they are, he has chosen to continue the fight. The question that remains is whether Mr. Obama will prefer the risk of defeat that the general outlined to the costs of sending tens of thousands of more American forces. The latter course does not guarantee success by any means, but the former is a proven loser.

Update: Is the McChrystal plan the right way to go? I've heard from someone with very good insight into the situation that it most certainly is. But will it be properly implemented--troop increases completely aside--by NATO ISAF and, indeed, the US? In particular:

-ISAF must get away from focusing on force protection, risk aversion, and an over-emphasis on operational security;

--ISAF must share more information, and planning details, with the ANA, and co-locate operational units with ANA units (embedded mentors with the ANA are not enough in themselves).

From an earlier post:

...
McChrystal has said that training could be hastened by improving the partnerships between Afghan units and international combat forces.

American and NATO combat units do not always operate in the same areas as Afghan units. Military commanders said they want to position the units in closer proximity so they can regularly work together [emphasis added]...