US reveals Afghan exit plan President Obama says forces will complete pullout by 2016
PRESIDENT Barack Obama has announced plans to greatly reduce US forces in Afghanistan by the end of the year and end the US military commitment by the end of 2016.
He said US forces, first sent within a month of the September 11, 2001 attacks, have struck significant blows against al Qaida’s leadership, eliminated Osama bin Laden and prevented Afghanistan from being used as a base against the US.
“We have now been in Afghanistan longer than many Americans expected,” Mr Obama said in an appearance in the White House Rose Garden. “Now we’re finishing the job we’ve started.”
Even as Mr Obama set a timetable for the drawdown, he said he would keep nearly 10,000 American troops in Afghanistan after the US combat mission formally ends later this year. Those troops would focus on training Afghan security forces and on counter-terrorism efforts.
The president said his plan was contingent on the Afghan government signing a bilateral security agreement with the US. Afghan president Hamid Karzai has refused to sign the accord, but the US is optimistic that the two candidates seeking to replace him in the ongoing Afghan elections will finalise the agreement. Both pledged to sign it.
Mr Obama’s blueprint calls for cutting the US force of 32,000 to 9800 by the start of next year. Those troops, dispatched throughout Afghanistan, would not be engaged in combat missions.
In 2015, the number of troops would be cut in half and consolidated in the capital of Kabul and at Bagram Air Field. Those remaining forces would largely be withdrawn by the end of 2016, with fewer than 1000 remaining to staff a security office in Kabul.
Mr Obama said: “It’s harder to end wars than to begin them.”
His decision is largely in line with what military commanders have been seeking and will allow the president to fully end the Americanled military effort by the time he leaves office in January 2017.
Mr Obama announced the drawdown plan a day after returning from a surprise weekend trip to Afghanistan where he met US commanders and forces serving in America’s longest war.
Top Republicans criticised the plan before Mr Obama had even announced it. “President Obama is not ending wars, he’s losing them,” Senator Lindsey Graham, a frequent critic of Mr Obama’s foreign policy, wrote on Twitter.
House armed services committee chairman Howard “Buck” McKeon praised Mr Obama’s troop levels but questioned his timing and said that in Iraq he had “abandoned the region to chaos”.
Ahead of his remarks, Mr Obama spoke with Mr Karzai, who has had a tumultuous relationship with the White House. The two leaders spoke by phone as Air Force One was returning to Washington.
Mr Obama has also discussed his plans with several European leaders, including German chancellor Angela Merkel, Prime Minister David Cameron and Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi.
“After all the sacrifices we’ve made, we want to preserve the gains that you have helped to win, and we’re going to make sure that Afghanistan can never again be used again to launch an attack against our country,” Mr Obama said.
At least 2,181 members of the US military have died during the nearly 13-year Afghan war.