Morning Brief: NATO backs McChrystal plan, considers more troops

Top story: Meeting in Slovakia, NATO defense ministers agreed to support the broader counterinsurgency strategy laid out by U.S. Gen Stanley McChrystal, though they largely side-stepped the issue of committing more troops to Afghanistan. 

"There is a support of this counter-insurgency strategy which means that ministers agree that it does not solve the problems of Afghanistan just to hunt down and kill individual terrorists," NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that NATO countries are moving toward sending more troops to Afghanistan. "There were a number of allies who indicated they were thinking about, or were moving toward, increasing either their military or their civilian contributions, or both," Gates said.

An estimated 104,000 NATO troops -- two thirds of them American -- are expected to be in Afghanistan by the end of the year. Gates also assured allies that the U.S. would remain in the fight. "We're not pulling out," he said. "I think that any reduction is very unlikely." He said that a specific decision on troop levels was coming up in the next several weeks. 

NATO countries seem, for the most party, to be waiting for a decision from Washington before making any troop commitments. "I think most countries are waiting for the Americans," said Dutch Defense Minister Eimert Van Middelkoop.

Coming up: Iran's decision on a proposed nuclear enrichment compromise is expected today.