Obama commits to slow surge decision

During a visit to Naval Air Station Jacksonville in Florida, Mr Obama told personnel: "While I will never hesitate to use force to protect the American people or our vital interests, I also promise you this - and this is very important as we consider our next steps in Afghanistan. I will never rush the solemn decision of sending you into harm's way.

"I won't risk your lives unless it is absolutely necessary," he vowed.

The US premier was speaking on a day when a total of three US military helicopters went down in Afghanistan, killing 11 US troops and three Drug Enforcement Administration agents.

It was the heaviest single blow to the US military in the country since June 28 2005, when 19 US troops died, 16 of them aboard a special forces MH-47 Chinook helicopter that was shot down by guerillas.

The White House says that Mr Obama is nearing a decision on whether to commit large numbers of additional troops next year.

His top military commander in Afghanistan General Stanley McChrystal favours an increase of roughly 40,000.

White House officials said that a decision was expected "in the coming weeks," prompting former vice-president Dick Cheney to criticise the president for "dithering while America's armed forces are in danger.

"It's time for President Obama to do what it takes to win a war he has repeatedly and rightly called a war of necessity," Mr Cheney insisted.

Top Senate Democrat John Kerry hit back by observing: "This from the man who in 2002 told America, quote: 'The Taliban regime is out of business permanently.'

"Because of the gross mishandling of this war by past civilian leadership, there are no great options for its handling today," Mr Kerry went on.

Last month Matthew Hoh, the senior US Foreign Service official in Zabul province, became the first US official to publicly resign in protest over the war.

In his four-page resignation letter, Mr Hoh wrote: "I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States presence in Afghanistan."

Many Afghan people, he observed, are fighting the US because its troops are there.

Mr Hoh pointed to the growing military presence "in villages and valleys where outsiders, including other Afghans, are not welcome and where the corrupt, US-backed national government is rejected." Multiple bomb attacks in southern Afghanistan killed eight US troops.

The Pentagon said that one Afghan civilian was also killed and several other troops were wounded in the attacks.