CBS: President will send Thousands of New Troops to Afghanistan

CBS.com reports that informed sources say the President has decided to send almost 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan. The White House has officially denied the story.

CBS News correspondent David Martin reports, "the president has tentatively decided to send four combat brigades plus thousands more support troops. A senior officer says 'that's close to what [McChrystal] asked for.' All the president's military advisers have recommended sending more troops." The report predicts that this new surge will be spread over a relatively long period of time. The first combat troops would not arrive until early next year and it would be the end of 2010 before they were all there. More remarkably, the report asserts that the surge would last at least 4 years: In other words, through the next Presidential campaigning season. This morning en route to Fort Hood Press Secretary Robert Gibbs categorically denied the rumour. He stated plainly that no decision had been made. He said that the situation had been worked up to a set of four alternatives, but that no specific one would be settled on until after tomorrow morning's meeting with his national security team:

The President will have an opportunity to discuss four options with his national security team tomorrow. Anybody that tells you that the President has made a decision or -- what was the artfully used term last night, "tentatively agreed to" -- doesn't have, in all honesty, the slightest idea what they're talking about. The President has yet to make a decision.

Speculation about the source of the leaks has been rife. Agence France Presse noted that, "some observers have suggested some constituencies within the Pentagon may be trying to lean on Obama."