The White House on Tuesday said that U.S. President Barack Obama is taking his time to think about what is best for U.S. involvement in Afghanistan before announcing any troop additions, though news of new troops being sent to the war-torn country became public. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs' comments came on the same day that the Washington Post reported that the Obama administration had approved the deployment of 13,000 troops beyond the 21,000 he publicly announced in March. The Pentagon said it had made no secret about the expanding U.S. force in Afghanistan, despite a report suggesting that the Obama administration made efforts to mask the move. The Defense Department had consistently said the number of U.S. forces would reach 68,000 by the end of the year, a Pentagon spokesman said. Gibbs said that the 13,000 are “support” troops, rather than “combat” troops, which undercuts the claim that the administration approved additional troops to be injected into Afghanistan in secret, or ahead of the completion of the president's assessment.
