US President Barack Obama will today move the US a step closer to ending US involvement in the war in Afghanistan when he announces plans to bring thousands of US troops home beginning next month.
US administration officials said the president was still in the final phase of a decisionmaking process that has focused not only on how many troops will come home next month, but also on a broader withdrawal blueprint designed to put the US on a path toward giving Afghans control of their security by 2014.
Obama was given a range of options for the withdrawal last week by General David Petraeus, the top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan. The military favors a gradual reduction in troops, but other advisers are advocating a significant decrease in the coming months.
SIGNIFICANT
While the president has said he favors a significant withdrawal, his advisers have not quantified that statement.
Obama is expected to make the announcement in Washington today. Tomorrow he will visit troops at Fort Drum, the upstate New York military base that is home to the 10th Mountain Division, one of the most frequently deployed divisions to Afghanistan and Iraq.
While much of the attention is focused on how many troops will leave Afghanistan next month, the more telling aspects of Obama’s decision center on what happens after next month, particularly how long the president plans to keep the 30,000 surge forces he sent to the country in 2009.
There is a growing belief that the president must at least map out the initial withdrawal of the surge troops when he addresses the public, but whether those forces should come out over the next eight to 12 months or slowly trickle out over a longer time is hotly debated.
Military commanders want to keep as many of those forces in Afghanistan for as long as possible, arguing that too fast a withdrawal could undermine the fragile security gains in the fight against the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan, the al-Qaeda training ground for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. There are also concerns about pulling out a substantial number of US forces as the heightened summer fighting season gets under way.
‘MODEST’
Retiring US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has said he believes the initial drawdown should be “modest.”
However, other advisers are backing a more significant withdrawal that starts next month and proceeds steadily through the following months. That camp believes the slow, yet steady, security gains in Afghanistan, combined with the death of Osama bin Laden and US success in dismantling much of the al-Qaeda network in the country give the president an opportunity to make larger reductions this year.
There is also growing political pressure on Capitol Hill for a more significant withdrawal. Twenty-seven senators, Democrats as well as Republicans, sent Obama a letter last week pressing for a shift in Afghanistan strategy and major troop cuts.
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