Top commander: Afghan withdrawal timeline will be delayed.
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on December 16th, 2009 5:36 am by HL
Top commander: Afghan withdrawal timeline will be delayed.
In his speech announcing that he will be sending an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan, President Obama said that we would “begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011.” Following this announcement, several of Obama’s closest advisors — including Gen. David Petraeus and Defense Secretary Robert Gates — downplayed […]
In his speech announcing that he will be sending an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan, President Obama said that we would “begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011.” Following this announcement, several of Obama’s closest advisors — including Gen. David Petraeus and Defense Secretary Robert Gates — downplayed a timeline for withdrawal and suggested that troops may actually not start exiting the country by the July 2011 deadline. Now, the Christian Science Monitor is reporting that a top commander told the press that the new troops may not be fully deployed until November, which would considerably delay our exit from the country:
The full complement of American forces deploying to Afghanistan under President Obama’s new strategy will not arrive until November, a top commander here said. The new, more gradual timeline means it will take longer for Mr. Obama’s surge of forces to arrive, thus potentially blunting their impact in the surge’s initial phases and leading to a slower drawdown of forces after July 2011. […]
Originally, the Obama administration had hoped to accelerate the deployment of the 30,000 additional forces in its get-in-and-get-out approach. The idea was to deploy new forces quickly and then begin a gradual withdrawal in July 2011. Senior administration officials said Dec. 1, the day Obama announced his new strategy, that it would take six months for all 30,000 troops to arrive.
But in subsequent testimony on Capitol Hill, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the bulk of the forces would deploy in the summer and “finish out by fall.” But the commander for day-to-day operations here said Monday it will probably take a bit longer. “It will happen between nine and 11 months by the time you get it all done,” Lt. Gen. David Rodriguez, commander of the International Security Assistance Force’s (ISAF) Joint Command, told reporters in Kabul Monday.
“The more we hear about the timeline, the more doubts I have that it is a meaningful timeline, in terms of transiting the military force out of the country,’’ Rep. Niki Tsongas (D-MA) told the press following a congressional hearing on the war last week.
