CALL FOR MORE TROOPS IN AFGHANISTAN

In fact, there have been repeated calls within the United States for more U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

U.S. commanders in Afghanistan have long been asking for additional troops, as many as 10,000 more than the roughly 32,000 soldiers there at present.

Michael Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a recent interview with USA Today that three U.S. brigades of about 3,500 troops each are needed to bolster the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan.

"We don't have enough troops there, and we need to get troops in there to really meet the combat needs," he said.

A new ABC-Washington Post poll released Tuesday showed that 51 percent of the respondents believed the war in Afghanistan was unsuccessful, up from 24 percent in 2002.

In the broader "war on terror," most surveyed said that Afghanistan should be more important in terms of the larger terror-fighting effort than the Iraq war.

The poll also found that a 51-percent majority believed the United States must win in Afghanistan for the sake of success in the war on terror.

Such calls were apparently driven by the recent spike in violence in Afghanistan.

Increased U.S. bombing in Afghanistan has failed to ease Taliban attacks and many U.S. experts agree that airstrikes alone cannot stop the Taliban and that more ground troops are needed.

U.S.-led coalition warplanes dropped 1,853 bombs and missiles in Afghanistan through June 2008, a 40-percent increase from the same period in 2007.