The Obama Administration officials on Thursday had a tough time explaining the announcement of Defence Secretary Leon Panetta to end the Afghan combat mission by mid-2013. The officials asserted it was only a possibility and there was no change in its -determined Lisbon policy, according to which security transition had to complete by 2014. “This is within the context of the already-stated policy of transferring security lead to the Afghans by 2014,” the White House Press Secretary, Jay Carney, tried his best to explain Panetta’s remarks to the press a day earlier.
“How that transition takes place is what Secretary Panetta will be discussing and is discussing with defence ministers in Brussels, and that conversation will continue right up through May, when President Obama hosts his fellow NATO heads of state in Chicago,” Carney said in response to a question. “We all remain, from President Obama all the way down, committed to the Lisbon agreement, that our goal is to complete this transition to Afghan lead by the end of 2014,” the State Department spokesperson, Victoria Nuland, told reporters.
