He shortchanges by 6,000. Obama, the great military genius, has determined after 4 months, that only 85% of the request is the appropriate number.
I recall reading when the McChrystal plan first came out that he said that 40,000 was his bare minimum. That even that only gave a moderate chance of success. Anything less was a sure failure. But to really have a good cahnce you needed at least 80,000 or so.
Nice to see Obama taking the cheap way out. And the 34000 is misleading because it includes 4000 trainers and this 7000 strong divisional HQ which isn’t really a combat force. He’s basically adding 20000 or so combat troops.
Nice.