Gen. David D. McKiernan, top US commander in Afghanistan [2], said Feb. 18 that the heightened troop levels that President Barack Obama [3] ordered for the country could remain in place for up to five years. Speaking at a Pentagon press conference a day after Obama ordered 17,000 additional troops to the country, said that the build-up "is not a temporary force uplift." He said the build-up would "need to be sustained for some period of time," and that he was looking at "the next three to four or five years." (NYT [4], Feb. 19)
