National Security Adviser James Jones said on CNN’s State of the Union this morning that President Obama’s July 2011 deadline to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan is “not a cliff. It’s a glide slope.”
“The president’s decision on 2011 has more to do with a transition than anything else,” Jones said.
That echoed comments downplaying the July 2011 deadline by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on several other morning shows.
Jones said “the most important struggle that we’re going to have is to make sure that on the Pakistani side of the border that we eliminate the safe havens.”
Probably the most important thing that we need to achieve strategically in the next two years is to work with our friends in Pakistan and make sure that these safe havens are eliminated.
Calling that border region “a cancer” where Osama bin Laden likely resides, Jones said that “if the safe havens stay, then the problem is longer and more difficult.”
Jones said he has “high confidence that Pakistan has come to the understanding that they need to take care of the problems inside of their border.”
We will work with them in every way possible to make sure they are successful.
