WASHINGTON — Hawai'i's House members are part of a growing contingent of Democrats wrestling with President Obama's plan to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan.

Obama's new Afghanistan policy has pitted the party's liberal base against Democratic centrists and Obama loyalists.

Democrats' reactions to Obama's plan underscore the challenge he faces as he attempts to sell at least several more years of expensive war to a skeptical nation struggling with a weak economy.

Lawmakers from Hawai'i, Obama's home state, find themselves tugged in multiple directions, especially on the House side, where much of the leadership opposes Obama's plan.

After Obama outlined his Afghanistan strategy Tuesday, amid rising U.S. casualties and shriveling public support for the war, Democratic U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie, a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, issued a one-sentence statement deferring comment on the president's plan.

That was before two days of congressional hearings last week featuring testimony from Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Abercrombie, who is running for governor, did not attend the Afghanistan hearing his committee held Thursday and could not be reached for comment afterward.

But he was briefed by the three witnesses beforehand.

In a recent letter, he wrote, "I do not believe that military victory in Afghanistan is simply a matter of reappearing with enough troops and the right military strategy."

He will have a chance to question Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. ground commander in Afghanistan, tomorrow when the general appears before Abercrombie's committee.

McChrystal's request for 40,000 more troops was highly influential in Obama's escalation plan.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has said that sending more troops to Afghanistan, after eight years of grinding war, will be a tough sell for many Democrats.

U.S. Rep. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawai'i, who recently returned from Afghanistan and Pakistan, said Obama "appropriately focused on why we are in Afghanistan, as it was the epicenter of the 9/11 attack on America."

But she added, "I do have concerns about what we can realistically achieve with 30,000 additional troops."

$100 BILLION A YEAR

Both Hawai'i senators have said they support Obama's plan, although U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye, who heads the Senate Appropriations Committee, has expressed concerns about how to pay for the war, estimated to cost $100 billion a year.

There are more than 1,000 Marines and sailors in Afghanistan from Hawai'i, which has a larger per-capita military presence in Afghanistan than does almost any other state.

Hawai'i is home to the two types of war fighters most often deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq — soldiers and Marines.

In March, Obama ordered 21,000 more troops to Afghanistan, bringing the number to roughly 68,000. His new plan would raise that to more than 100,000.

This year has been the deadliest for U.S. troops in Afghanistan, with 58 killed in the region in October, according to the Defense Department. That eclipsed the previous high of 51 in August.

More than 920 Americans have died in Operation Enduring Freedom, which began with an invasion in October 2001.

The recent hearings did little to assuage worries among many Democrats that Obama's plan to start pulling troops out of Afghanistan in roughly 18 months is a soft deadline.

"We cannot have an open-ended commitment burdening our troops and depleting our resources," U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawai'i, said in a statement.

Gates told lawmakers Thursday that withdrawing U.S. forces, scheduled to begin in July 2011, will "probably take two or three years."

He also said the Pentagon will need an additional $30 billion to $35 billion to pay for the war plan.

That money would be on top of the $130 billion requested for war operations as part of the 2010 defense budget.

Gates has not specified where the money would come from. Inouye has said he does not want to see it added to the 2010 defense budget, and his counterparts in the House agree.

That raises the likelihood the money would be raised through a special spending bill, forcing lawmakers into a public debate over a war many are still struggling with in private.