WASHINGTON — Sen. Daniel K. Inouye will travel to Afghanistan and Pakistan during the next week to assess the volatile situation there as the White House and the nation’s top commander in the worn-torn theater weigh the need for more troops there.

Inouye’s trip comes as violence in the eight-year war escalates, and with leading players within the Obama administration conflicted over whether to add as many as 40,000 American troops to help stabilize Afghanistan and fight the Taliban or pursue a more limited counterinsurgency strategy focused on rooting out al-Qaeda there and in Pakistan.
Inouye heads the powerful Appropriations Committee and its defense subcommittee, which together have significant control over the purse strings of the military on Capitol Hill and potentially the course of the campaign in Afghanistan.
In addition, as the nation’s second most senior senator and a recipient of the Medal of Honor for his service in World War II, Inouye’s opinion on matters of national defense carries considerable weight.
But on the eve of his trip, Inouye made clear he is traveling with an open mind.
“I’m not ready to say one way or another whether we need more troops to aid the war effort in Afghanistan,” he said today. “That’s one of the reasons I am going. It’s one thing to listen to a general (in Washington), but it’s another to listen to the Afghan people, the intelligence operatives on the ground and the troops and their commanders who put themselves in harm’s way each day.
“If I am going to support more troops, believe me, I am going to need good reason for that. I know what happens to men and women, to their wives and husbands and their families when we send them off to war.”