Arlen Specter, who voted to authorize the war in Afghanistan and both wars in Iraq, spoke on a blogger conference call yesterday and said he opposed additional troops in Afghanistan.

On a blogger conference call this afternoon, Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) announced he can’t support a potential addition of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. “We ought not to add troops in Afghanistan,” Specter said, adding that he questioned “even staying” in Afghanistan unless the administration demonstrates that continuing the war is “indispensable to our fight against al-Qaeda.” His position, he said, came as a result of extensive consultations with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the heads of the intelligence community, as well as antipathy to the government of Hamid Karzai.

I asked Specter if he wanted to see the Obama administration embrace an exit strategy for the eight-year war. “I think there ought to be an exit strategy,” Specter said, which ought to be “geared toward our expectations as to what we’re looking to accomplish.” But he demurred on seeking a timeline for winding down the war. “I would want to see the administration’s proposals, and see what people on the ground over there think,” Specter said. “It’s hard to answer that with any specificity.” He added that he endorsed the Obama administration’s style of decisionmaking, defending the “very thoughtful” president against charges of “dithering” lodged by former Vice President Cheney.

This can reasonably be seen as Specter trying to open up space on the left between him and his primary opponent Joe Sestak, the former naval officer who recently endorsed a “measured increase” in troops. However, Specter joins a growing band in Washington discontented with the trajectory of the war.

In an interesting proposal, a separate group of Democratic lawmakers, all members of the House leadership, introduced a war surtax to pay for the conflict in Afghanistan.

Appropriations Committee chairman Rep. Dave Obey (Wis.), Defense Appropriations Subcommittee John Murtha (Pa.), and Democratic Caucus chairman John Larsen (Conn.) say that the bill woild end the practice of paying for the war with deficit spending.

“Regardless of whether one favors the war or not, if it is to be fought, it ought to be paid for,” the lawmakers said in a statement. “Now the president is being asked to consider an enlarged counterinsurgency effort in Afghanistan, which proponents tell us will take at least a decade and would also cost about a trillion dollars. But unlike the healthcare bill, that would not be paid for.”

Should the bill pass, the surtax would come into effect in 2011 and would pay off war costs from the previous year. Democratic lawmakers previously introduced a similar measure to fund the Iraq War that failed to pass through Congress.

Co-sponsors include Barney Frank, Anna Eshoo, Sam Farr, Betty McCollum, Jim McDermott, Jim McGovern, Linda Sanchez, and Raul Grijalva, co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

The Washington Post reported today about a “reset” of the relationship between the Administration and Hamid Karzai, an attempt to relieve some of the tension underlying that relationship in recent months.