Closed captioning of: Obama mulls next steps in Afghanistan
>>
turn now to nbc's mike vaquera at the
white house
, where today's violence underscores the hard choices facing
president obama
as he reassesses the course of
war in afghanistan
. mike, when might a
white house
decision come on whether to deploy more troops to
afghanistan
?
>>
well,
lester
, administration officials say today that that decision on a new strategy will be set to announce within a matter of weeks. to that end, the
white house
has two more
high level
meetings scheduled in the situation room here at the
white house
in this coming week. all this is playing against a very unusual back drop,
lester
. general mcchrystal, you just saw in
jim miklaszewski
's piece, has come forward with a plan that includes the very controversial option of adding 30,000 to 40,000 more troops to the u.s. presence in
afghanistan
. that's an option that the president hasn't even embraced himself, and yet general mcchrystal has made a major
foreign policy
speech in london just this past week promoting that plan. now, the president did meet with general mcchrystal aboard
air force
one while the president was in copenhagen. they met on the tarmac, and the president spoke with the general for about 25 minutes. there was also a very
high level
meeting earlier last week, three hours the president chaired and the general participated in via
video conference
. today the president's national security adviser says they haven't even gotten to the question of how many troops to put in, how many more additional troops to put in. they say they want to develop the strategy before the resources. meanwhile, the politics are very difficult in washington. members of the president's own party, leading members of congress are against sending more troops. meanwhile republicans say follow mcchrystal's advice now or risk losing
afghanistan
to the taliban,
lester
.
>>
thank you.
>>>
and now to another national
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