U.S. plays down defence secretary’s remarks on Afghanistan

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Thursday played down defence secretary Leon Panetta’s comments that the United States could end its combat role in Afghanistan next year, remarks that surprised allies in Europe and Kabul, as well as U.S. lawmakers.

Panetta, who is meeting with fellow NATO defence chiefs in Brussels, said on Wednesday that U.S. troops in Afghanistan would step back from a fighting role in Afghanistan by mid- to late 2013. Instead, they would be in an “advise and assist” and training capacity, he said.

U.S. officials strenuously denied that the defence sec- retary’s remarks represent a shift in Washington’s approach to the 10-year-old war, saying the timetable was in line with a previous NATO agreement to transfer all se- curity tasks to Afghan forces by the end of 2014.

“This was an assessment of what could happen within the context of the stated policy of NATO, which is to transfer the security lead to the Afghan security forces by 2014, and within that frame, within that timeline, the transition will take place,” White House spokesman Jay Carney told a briefing.

“That’s what Secretary Panetta was referring to,” Carney told reporters.

But U.S. lawmakers expressed surprise at Panetta’s remarks during a previously scheduled House of Representatives Intelligence Committee hearing, repeatedly questioning CIA Director David Petraeus about them.

“It was a surprise to me,” Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers said. “It is a departure.”

Rogers said he was told by a senior official that Panetta’s comments were prob- ably the truth, but revealed too early. “I will tell you a senior official told me that he may have gotten ahead of the headlights,” he said.

Petraeus sought to downplay the comments from Panetta, his predecessor at the CIA, saying they had been “over-analyzed.”

The CIA chief said the policy previously adopted by the NATO-LED coalition and Afghan leader Hamid Karzai called for all security tasks to be transitioned to Afghan forces by the end of 2014.

“If you’re going to have it completed totally by the end of 2014, obviously somewhere in 2013 you have had to initiate that in all of the different locations so that you can complete the remaining tasks,” Petraeus said.

The Pentagon also said Panetta’s comments were not a change in U.S. policy.

Getty Images Leon Panetta, the U.S. defence secretary, enters a NATO meeting of defence ministers at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Thursday. Panetta’s announcement that the U.S. would end its fighting role in Afghanistan by 2013 has taken allies by surprise.