Sen. Graham: President may get request for thousands more troops

Sen. Lindsey Graham: President Obama may soon get request for possibly thousands of new troops.  Senator Graham asked local National Guardsmen to be prepared, because he believes hundreds, and perhaps more likely thousands of new troops will be requested for Afghanistan in a few weeks.

At the grand opening ceremony for the new National Guard Armory at the Citadel’s Johnson Hagood Stadium, the Senator thanked the Guardsmen for their service and asked some of them to get ready to possibly be deployed to Afghanistan.

The Senator tells News 2 that he believes the commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal will not only ask for more troops than the number he was expected to ask for in a few weeks, but that number could be thousands more. Senator Graham tells us he will vote to approve however many troops McChrystal asks for.

Graham believes things were allowed to slip in Afghanistan while the war in Iraq was being won.  He says hre doesn’t want to see that happen again.

News 2 spoke with South Carolina Adjutant General Stanhope Spears about what the increase would mean to National Guard troops here.  He says they have additional troops to send, but they will keep a minimum of 3,500 National Guardsmen here in South Carolina to handle any potential future national disasters.