INTERVIEW - Afghanistan seeks 400,000 soldiers, police

By Peter Graff

KABUL (Reuters) - The international community should pay to more than double the size of Afghanistan's army and police force so that Western forces can go home, the country's defence minister has said in an interview.

Afghanistan now has almost 90,000 soldiers and a similar number of police, as well as about 80,000 Western troops trying to stabilise the country and fight the resurgent Taliban more than seven years since the militants were driven from power.

Each of those three forces is due to expand to about 100,000 by the end of this year. But that will still leave Afghanistan with only about half of the security forces of Iraq, a country with roughly the same population.

Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak said the small size of the domestic security force was the reason militants have been able to hold sway over whole sections of the country.

"We can take any territory. We don't have enough to hold it," Wardak said in an interview this week.

Counter-insurgency warfare textbooks suggest that Afghanistan should have about 600,000 soldiers and police to protect the population, he said, adding while that was probably impossible, the country needed at least 400,000-450,000.

"The enemy is counting on one thing. They are counting on that sooner or later the international community will lose its interest, that they can be waited out," he said.

The new U.S. strategy for Afghanistan envisions training more Afghan soldiers and police, although U.S. officials have not provided firm figures for how big they anticipate the Afghan security forces will eventually grow.