Skeptical Dems resign themselves to Obama war plan (AP)

[jefferson_dem]

Skeptical Dems resign themselves to Obama war plan

By ANNE FLAHERTY and PAULINE JELINEK
Associated Press Writers

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A deeply skeptical Congress on Wednesday resigned itself to President Barack Obama's escalation of the Afghanistan war, even as the president's chief military and diplomatic advisers sought to cool any expectations that the war would end in two years.

Leading Democrats said they had serious misgivings about the deployment of 30,000 more troops but would not try to block it - or the $30 billion it will cost. Republicans said they support the force increase even as they doubted Obama's July 2011 deadline to start bringing troops home.

The response was the best Obama could have hoped for from a Congress sharply divided on the war.

"It's not likely that there would be any circumstances where the president would lose this battle this year" with lawmakers, said Rep. John Murtha, a vocal war critic who oversees military spending.

In House and Senate hearings on Wednesday, Obama's advisers insisted the stakes were great. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said losing the war "would have severe consequences for the United States and the world," and warned of a deadly "symbiotic" relationship between the Taliban and al-Qaida terrorists.

The testimony was aimed at building support among war-weary lawmakers for Obama's dramatic expansion of the Afghanistan war. By the end of next summer, the president plans to increase to 100,000 the number of U.S. troops there, marking the largest expansion of the war since it began eight years ago.

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