Monday, January 04, 2010

Are you ready for this New Year prediction?

Accoding to Barry McCaffrey, former General, Drug Czar and frequent talking head, casualties in the Kabul Quagmire are expected to be in the range of 500 a month.
The dire forecast was made by retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, an adjunct professor of international affairs at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, in a periodic assessment of political and security issues he has conducted in the war zone since 2003.

“What I want to do is signal that this thing is going to be $5 billion to $10 billion a month and 300 to 500 killed and wounded a month by next summer. That’s what we probably should expect. And that’s light casualties,” said McCaffrey, who is also president of his own consulting firm in Arlington, Va., and has conducted numerous trips to the war zones to assess the political and military challenges at hand.

As of Dec. 20, there had been 305 U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan in 2009, the large majority of those due to hostile action. The number of wounded as of the same date for 2009 was 2,102, with more than half of those unable to return to duty.
As for completing the training of the Afghan Army and National police, that should take 3-6 years if you are an optimist. Plenty of room for the young'uns he is teaching to get their tickets punched but we will surely need a restoration of the draft to make sure they have enough fodder.

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