Obama war council weighs Afghan troop boost

By Matt Spetalnick

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama convened his war council on Wednesday for talks considered critical to his deliberations on boosting troop levels in the increasingly unpopular war in Afghanistan.

Though the White House insists Obama has yet to decide among the four strategy options he is considering, U.S. officials said there was growing support among his top advisers for deploying 30,000 or more additional troops to Afghanistan.

Obama held the closed-door review, the eighth in a series of such meetings, as a new opinion poll showed a growing number of Americans believe the war in Afghanistan is not going well and disapprove of his handling of the situation.

Record combat deaths have eroded U.S. public support for the eight-year-old war, and a decision to expand troop levels could become a political liability for Obama ahead of congressional elections next year.

With aides saying Obama is still weeks away from a decision, it remains unclear where Obama stands. Republican critics have accused him of dithering, but the Democratic president says he is taking the time needed to get it right.

At a ceremony honoring war veterans at Arlington National Cemetery, he made no direct mention of Afghanistan -- which his aides once called the "good war," in contrast to the Iraq war launched by his predecessor George W. Bush in 2003.

Obama walked in the rain among the graves of troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan and later paid tribute to the U.S. military's sacrifices.

"For the better part of a decade, they have endured tour after tour in distant and difficult places. They have protected us from danger," Obama said in his Veterans Day address.