Surge Details: Drawdown Starting 2011 Is ‘The Beginning Of a Process’

President Barack Obama and his war council
Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

President Obama tonight will not set a date for the war in Afghanistan to end, but instead will say that a drawdown could start in the summer of 2011, based on conditions on the ground.

Senior administration officials briefed reporters this afternoon to offer a bit of detail before Obama gives a speech at 8 p.m. from West Point Military Academy.

The officials, speaking on a condition of anonymity since Obama has not yet made the formal announcement, said the “top development priority from here forward will be agriculture.”

One official said Obama settled on this option after nine meetings of his war council because it “gets more troops into Afghanistan faster than any option that was previously presented to him.”

“It does put everyone under pressure to do more sooner,” the official said. “That pressure of the timeline begins with the U.S. government itself.”

Obama will stress the buildup “is not an open ended commitment.”

The decision draws from Obama’s March 2009 strategic review that concluded he should send more troops with the goal to “disrupt, dismantle and eventually defeat Al Qaeda and prevent their return to either Afghanistan or Pakistan.”

The U.S. aims to help Pakistanis stabilize their state and reach both political and economic security.

The final number will be 98,000 the officials said, adding that NATO will soon announce a commitment of a “significant number of fresh NATO troops.”

As for a timeline, the official told reporters Obama wants to start withdrawing U.S. forces starting in July 2011. The official added this was the most “misunderstood and misreported” detail.

The U.S. “will begin to transfer our lead responsibility for combat operations to Afghan counterparts,” the official said.

However, Obama “will not specify the end of that transition nor will he specify the pace at which it will proceed,” the official said.

“This is the beginning of a process which is not yet defined in terms of the length of the process or the end point,” the official said. “How long it will take will be dominated by conditions on the ground.”

“If the Taliban thinks they can wait us out they are misjudging the president’s approach,” the official said.

Latest DC
Comments
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Associate Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: