Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) appeared on Hardball tonight and claimed that the U.S. will have more troops in Afghanistan than the Soviets did during their invasion in the 1980s.
“This is a very complicated thing and a very costly operation … We got a lot of problems facing us. 104,000 contractors already in Afghanistan in addition to the 68,000 troops. We’re gonna have more troops, Chris, than the Russian had in Afghanistan,” he said. (See TPMmuckraker’s story on those 104,000 contractors.)
Murtha told Chris Matthews that he has misgivings about President Obama’s new strategy for the war, including focusing on Afghanistan instead of Pakistan.
But his point made us wonder — will the U.S. really have more troops in Afghanistan than the Soviets did?
Technically, no. At the height of the war, in 1986, there were about 118,000 Soviet troops in Afghanistan, according to an American University study. Today, with the 30,000 more American troops being sent to Afghanistan, the U.S. commitment will top out at about 100,000.
So we have fewer troops. But we’re not alone, and the Associated Press estimates that the total number of troops, including Americans and NATO allies, will be about 140,000.
The Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979. They pulled out, defeated, ten years later.
