DIFFICULTIES IN ADDING MORE TROOPS

"... General Stanley McChrystal's call for 40,000 more soldiers... will take up to a year (to deploy)... (due to) the country's lack of sea ports (the nearest harbor is some 400 miles away) and a dearth of airports. Beyond geography, the flow of troops is limited by the U.S. military's requirements for training and dwell time - R&R at home, between deployments. And then, perhaps most critically, there is the enemy. The Taliban's lengthening shadow across Afghanistan is making it increasingly difficult to supply the 65,000 troops there now or to send in reinforcements...

"We're resupplying between 30% and 40% of our forward operating bases by air because we just can't get to them on the ground," says a senior Army logistician, speaking on condition of anonymity, referring to the roughly 180 U.S. outposts around the country. That's because the Taliban control much of the "ring road," a circular route that links Afghanistan's few major cities. "Trucking contractors trying to supply some of them aren't making it," he adds. "The Taliban are just wiping them out." Such constraints will limit the flow of troops to Afghanistan to about one brigade - some 4,000 troops - a month...

"Jittery over repeated attacks on its supply convoys traveling through Pakistan, the Pentagon wants to shift much of its resupply effort to its new Northern Distribution Network, which runs through several central Asian states, including Tajikistan and Uzbekistan... such stepped-up U.S. shipping will lead to attacks on convoys by terrorist groups including the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and the Islamic Jihad Union. "The problem with the Northern Distribution Network is obvious; it turns Central Asia into a part of the theater of war."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20091014/us_time/08599193009700