President Obama plans to announce a timetable for withdrawing troops from Afghanistan in an address to the nation Wednesday, and senior administration officials say the president could bring home as many as 10,000 troops by the end of the year. Obama hasn’t revealed any details of his exit strategy — which he completed Tuesday — but senior officials say that in recent meetings the president has favored a proposal that would withdraw by December about a third of the 30,000 additional troops he dispatched in late 2009 as part of the so-called “surge.”
That plan would leave about 68,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan a decade after the first forces arrived there.
The withdrawal would be much quicker than the one Pentagon officials have been advocating. Defense officials want to withdraw only 3,000 to 5,000 troops by the end of 2011.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said during a farewell tour to troops last month that the initial drawdown should be “modest.”
Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, also advocated a slower withdrawal, one that would leave at least 20,000 of the surge troops in Afghanistan until late 2012.
But Obama is prepared to go against the advice of the Pentagon, with Americans growing increasingly weary of war after 10 years of U.S. military intervention in Afghanistan, Iraq and now Libya.
“As was true when he oversaw the incredibly sweeping review of our policy in Afghanistan in which he insisted that every assumption be examined … he is in charge of this process and he makes the decisions,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said, recognizing the difference of opinions among Obama’s top advisers.
“And this decision will be the commander-in-chief’s,” Carney said.
Obama is facing considerable political pressure to begin the drawdown next month because of a promise he made to Americans 18 months ago.
When he first announced that he was sending additional troops to Afghanistan in December 2009, Obama pledged to begin bringing those troops home in July 2011 — a date critics say was chosen arbitrarily at the time.
The president will defend the July withdrawal date in his address Wednesday, presenting the death of Osama bin Laden and other key successes as evidence that the United States is making great strides in the war against al Qaeda.
“The successful mission against Osama bin Laden highlights the broader success that we have had in going after members of al Qaeda in the Afghanistan and Pakistan region,” Carney said, noting that Obama has withdrawn more than 100,000 troops from Iraq.
The president also is expected to define the mission in Afghanistan as a success even though the threat of al Qaeda continues.
“Now, it is important to note that defeating the Taliban is not the objective here,” Carney said. “Reversing the momentum of the Taliban is the objective, and we have had significant success in achieving that objective.”
Obama will tell Americans, however, that the U.S. mission in Afghanistan is not over, and declare his support for an American presence in the country until at least 2014.
