US President Barack Obama, with Osama bin Laden dead and a fiscal crisis on his hands at home, looks set to announce an initial US troop withdrawal from the costly Afghan war that could be larger than previously expected. Some current and former officials say Obama could easily announce a pullout of at least 10,000 troops over the next year as the administration seeks to capitalize on gains against the Taliban in the south and the Navy SEAL raid last month that killed the al Qaeda leader in Pakistan.
At the start of this year, with violence raging after nearly a decade of war, a minimal pullout of less than 5,000 troops had been anticipated. Obama has made no final decision and, as far as is known, has received no formal recommendations from the Pentagon about how many soldiers should be pulled starting in July from the 100,000-strong US force in Afghanistan. General David Petraeus, the commander of US and NATO troops in Afghanistan, is expected to present his recommendations in the next week or so to Defence Secretary Robert Gates.
Obama, who sent 30,000 extra troops to Afghanistan after a reassessment of the US war strategy in late 2009, will confer with his inner circle and inform Americans in mid- to late June of how he plans to begin withdrawing US forces. As the West looks to leave, Afghan forces are slated to slowly take over from foreign forces by the end of 2014. Senior US officials declined to speculate about the size of the drawdown.
Petraeus, the politically savvy general who Obama has tapped to be his next CIA boss, is holding his cards close to his chest as he seeks to avoid leaks that could damage his standing with the White House. “The president has said he wants the withdrawal to start in July and to be meaningful,” one senior defense official said.
“Those are the discussions that have to happen.” Anthony Cordesman, a former defense official and military expert at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, said a drawdown of some 15,000 soldiers over the next year would balance political and military concerns without endangering the overall counter-insurgency campaign.
