“Afghanistan war has been under-resourced for years”

The Bush administration focused so much attention on Iraq that the forces in Afghanistan simply didn’t have the troops or the resources, said Lawrence Korb, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.

In a recent assessment, the commander of NATO and US forces in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, said a new strategy is needed to defeat the Taliban.

The question is, Korb said, “Can they turn it around?”

“You’ve got two issues,” he said. “One, can you turn it around strategically, and general McChrystal seems to think that’s possible; the second question is whether you can convince the American people to spend the blood and treasure to do it, and that’s a separate issue.”

Meanwhile, Afghanistan’s deputy head of intelligence was killed in a suicide attack outside a mosque in Laghman Province, in the east of the country. The Taliban have claimed responsibility for the bomb and acknowledge Abdullah Laghmani was targeted. Twenty-two others died in the blast.