[A-List] U.S. Officials Refute 2011 Afghan Withdrawal Date

[Tony B.]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Rick Rozoff
To: stopnato at yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, June 20, 2010 10:50 PM
Subject: [stopnato] U.S. Officials Refute 2011 Afghan Withdrawal Date



http://www.rnw.nl/english/bulletin/us-officials-downplay-july-2011-withdrawal-afghanistan-0

Radio Netherlands
June 20, 2010

US officials downplay July 2011 withdrawal from Afghanistan

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates rejected suggestions Sunday that US forces 
will move out of Afghanistan in large numbers in July of next year under a 
deadline set by President Barack Obama.

"That absolutely has not been decided," Gates said in an interview with Fox 
News Sunday.

His comment was the latest indication that the magnitude of the drawdown, if 
not the deadline itself, is the subject of an intensifying internal debate 
at a time when a NATO-led campaign against the Taliban is going slower than 
expected.

Vice President Joe Biden, an early skeptic of the US military buildup in 
Afghanistan, was quoted as telling author Jonathan Alter recently: "In July 
of 2011, you're going to see a whole lot of people moving out. Bet on it."

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel did not deny the Biden quote when 
asked about it, but, like Gates, said that the size of the drawdown would 
depend on conditions on the ground.

"Everybody knows there's a firm date. And that firm date is a date (that) 
deals with the troops that are part of the surge, the additional 30,000," he 
said in an interview with ABC "This Week."

"What will be determined at that date or going into that date will be the 
scale and scope of that reduction," he said.

General David Petraeus, the commander of US forces in the Middle East, said 
last week that in setting the deadline for the surge last year, Obama's 
message was "one of urgency - not that July 2011 is when we race for the 
exits, reach for the light switch and flip it off."

Petraeus told lawmakers he would be duty-bound to recommend delaying the 
redeployment of forces if he thought it necessary.

In the same hearing, the Pentagon's policy chief, Michelle Flournoy, said a 
responsible, conditions-based drawdown would depend on there being provinces 
ready to be transferred to Afghan control, and that there be Afghan combat 
forces capable of taking the lead.

Officials have said that training of Afghan security forces has gone slower 
than expected, in part because there are not enough trainers.

Gates said he had not personally heard Biden's comments so would not take 
them at face value.

"The pace... with which we draw down and how many we draw down is going to 
be conditions-based," he said.

He said there was "general agreement" that those conditions would be 
determined by the US commander, General Stanley McChrystal, the senior NATO 
representative in Kabul and the Afghan government.

McChrystal has said that even though a key campaign in Kandahar was taking 
longer than expected, it will be clear by December whether the surge and his 
counter-insurgency strategy were working.

Gates complained that "there's a rush to judgment, frankly, that loses sight 
of the fact we are still in the middle of getting all of the right 
components into place and giving us a little time to have this work."

But lawmakers from both parties have voiced increasing concern about the 
situation in Afghanistan.

Diane Feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Sunday 
that 40 percent of the country is controlled or contested by the Taliban, 
and the conflict is "metastasizing" with insurgent groups joining forces and 
sharing money.

"There is one, I think, irreversible truth: The Taliban is on a march," she 
said.

"If you lose Afghanistan, Pakistan is the next step. And so what that bodes 
is nothing but ill because Pakistan is a nuclear (state)."

Senator Richard Lugar, an influential Republican, said saying "goodbye" to 
Afghanistan was not the solution.

"I think the president is going to have to redefine the plan, and when the 
proper time comes for that, he will have to make a decision," he said.
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