US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said yesterday that the July 2011 date to start withdrawing US troops from Afghanistan was set in stone, putting him at odds with his top Afghan war commander.
Gates and General David Petraeus were in lock-step on the need for a gradual withdrawal, but a series of interviews exposed discord over the flexibility of the start date given in November last year by US President Barack Obama.
“There is no question in anybody’s mind that we are going to begin drawing down troops in July of 2011,” Gates told the Los Angeles Times.
Petraeus, however, when asked in a separate interview whether he could reach that juncture and have to recommend a delay to Obama because of the conditions on the ground, replied: “Certainly, yeah.”
“I think the president has been quite clear in explaining that it’s a process, not an event, and that it’s conditions-based,” he told NBC television’s Meet the Press on Sunday. “The president and I sat down in the Oval Office and he expressed very clearly that what he wants from me is my best professional military advice.”
Afghanistan, with the help of its Western backers, is trying to build up its army and police so that they can take responsibility for security from US-led NATO forces by the end of 2014.
The Taliban, toppled in a 2001 US-led invasion, still control large swathes of the south and have put up stiff resistance to a surge of 30,000 more US troops due to swell numbers to 100,000 in the coming weeks.
US public support for the near nine-year war and Obama’s handling of it are at an all-time low, according to opinion polls in the US, while the death toll for US troops hit a record high last month of 66.
Both Gates, in the Los Angeles Times, and Petraeus, in a series of interviews with NBC, the New York Times and the Washington Post, sought to reassure a skeptical public that the US-led coalition could succeed in its aims.
Petraeus told the New York Times he did not just want to preside over a “graceful exit,” while Gates suggested some security responsibilities could begin to be transferred to Afghan forces as early as next year.
Obama’s deadline to begin a limited withdrawal has been strongly criticized by some who believe it sent out the message the US is not in the fight for the long-term and boosted the Taliban’s resolve to wait it out.
Others attack him for not pulling out troops fast enough, as they believe US and NATO forces are bogged down in an unwinnable conflict.
Petraeus also said he would be prepared to negotiate with Taliban with “blood on their hands.”
The general, who helped turn around the Iraq war — partly by wheeling and dealing with warring factions — said a new reconciliation and reintegration strategy aimed at persuading Afghan insurgents to change sides was “fairly imminent.”
There is “every possibility, I think, that there can be low and mid-level reintegration and indeed some fracturing of the senior leadership that could be really defined as reconciliation,” Petraeus said.
Taiwan’s Lee Chia-hao (李佳豪) on Sunday won a silver medal at the All England Open Badminton Championships in Birmingham, England, a career best. Lee, 25, took silver in the final of the men’s singles against world No. 1 Shi Yuqi (石宇奇) of China, who won 21-17, 21-19 in a tough match that lasted 51 minutes. After the match, the Taiwanese player, who ranks No. 22 in the world, said it felt unreal to be challenging an opponent of Shi’s caliber. “I had to be in peak form, and constantly switch my rhythm and tactics in order to score points effectively,” he said. Lee got
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