Obama leaning toward 34,000 additional troops to Afghanistan... well short of McChrystal's 80,000 "low-risk"

McClatchy's, here

"... It splits the difference between two other McChrystal options: a "high-risk" one that called for 20,000 additional troops and a "medium-risk" one that would add 40,000 to 45,000 troops....

Although the administration privately is holding out little hope of persuading Canada or the Netherlands to abandon their plans to withdraw combat troops, much less getting additional allied troops, it wants to avoid creating the impression — at home and abroad — that the U.S. "is going it alone" in Afghanistan, said one military official.

Administration officials also want time to launch a public relations offensive to convince an increasingly skeptical public and a wary Democratic Congress — which must agree to fund the administration's plan — that the war, now in its ninth year and inflicting rising casualties, is one of "necessity," as Obama said earlier this year."This is not going to be an easy sell, especially with the fight over health care and the (Democratic) party's losses" of the governors' mansions in New Jersey and Virginia last week, said one official..........

U.S. allies already have begun applying pressure. On Thursday, Kouchner called Karzai "corrupt," and the next day, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said that "Sadly, the government of Afghanistan had become a byword for corruption," Brown said in a speech. "And I am not prepared to put the lives of British men and women in harm's way for a government that does not stand up against corruption.".........

Other military officers, particularly in the Army, warn that committing more troops to Afghanistan could risk "breaking" the force by reducing the time soldiers can spend at home between deployments, overtaxing equipment and destroying families. Those problems could worsen if Iraq's January elections are delayed or disrupted, and with them the administration's timetable for withdrawing U.S. forces from that country. ........ Obama campaigned saying that he'd fund the Iraq and Afghanistan wars from the defense budget, but Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said last week that the Afghan war — which some administration officials privately concede could cost $700 billion to $1 trillion — might require a supplemental funding bill next year. Among the cost estimates the Pentagon is considering is $1 trillion over 10 years, two senior defense officials told McClatchy...."