WASHINGTON (AP) — Charting an end to America’s longest
war, President Barack Obama announced plans Tuesday for keeping nearly
10,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan after this year but then withdrawing
virtually all by the close of 2016 and the conclusion of his presidency.
The
drawdown would allow Obama to bring America’s military engagement in
Afghanistan to an end while seeking to protect the gains made in a war
in which he significantly intensified U.S. involvement.
"We have
to recognize that Afghanistan will not be a perfect place, and it is not
America’s responsibility to make it one," Obama declared during an
appearance in the White House Rose Garden.
He credited American
forces, which were first deployed by President George W. Bush within a
month of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, with striking significant blows
against al-Qaida’s leadership, eliminating Osama bin Laden and
preventing Afghanistan from being used as a base for strikes against the
U.S. He said: "Now we’re finishing the job we’ve started."
The
drawdown blueprint is contingent on Afghanistan’s government signing a
stalled bilateral security agreement. While current Afghan President
Hamid Karzai has refused to sign the accord, U.S. officials say they’re
confident that either of the candidates running to replace him will
finalize the deal.
In fact, both candidates who are on the ballot
in next month’s runoff — former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah and
ex-Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai — welcomed Obama’s
announcement Tuesday.
The size and scope of the residual U.S.
force largely mirrors what Pentagon officials had sought, which appeared
to give Obama cover with some Republicans, including House Speaker John
Boehner, R-Ohio. But some of president’s harshest critics on foreign
policy — Sens. John McCain of Arizona, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina,
and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire — called the decision short-sighted
and warned that it would embolden enemies.
"The president’s
decision to set an arbitrary date for the full withdrawal of U.S. troops
in Afghanistan is a monumental mistake and a triumph of politics over
strategy," the three Republicans said in a joint statement.
U.S.
forces had already been on track to stop combat operations in
Afghanistan by the end of 2014, more than 13 years after the
American-led invasion. But Obama wants to keep some troops there to
train Afghan security forces, launch counterterrorism missions and
protect progress made in a war that has left at least 2,181 Americans
dead and thousands more wounded.
There are currently about 32,000
U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Under Obama’s plan, that number would be
reduced to 9,800 by the start of 2015, dispatched throughout
Afghanistan.
Over the course of next year, the number would be cut
in half and consolidated in the capital of Kabul and at Bagram Air
Field, the main U.S. base in Afghanistan. Those remaining forces would
largely be withdrawn by the end of 2016, with fewer than 1,000 remaining
to staff a security office in Kabul.
The American forces would probably be bolstered by a few thousand NATO troops.
Noting the complexity of his drawdown plan, Obama said, "It’s harder to end wars than to begin
them."
Officials
said Obama was outlining his decisions before the conclusion of the
Afghan elections and the signing of the security agreement because the
military needed to begin making plans. If the security accord is
unexpectedly not signed, the drawdown will speed up and all U.S. troops
will leave Afghanistan, the officials said.
The formal end of the
Afghan war has triggered a White House effort to reframe America’s
foreign policy after more than a decade of conflict. During a
commencement address Wednesday at the U.S. Military Academy at West
Point, Obama is expected to make the case for an approach to global
problems that relies on international consensus.
The U.S. tried to
keep a residual force in Iraq as combat missions there came to an end,
but Washington and Baghdad were unable to finalize a security agreement.
In the vacuum left by the American military, Iraq has been battered by
resurgent waves of violence.
The president is seeking to avoid a
similar scenario in Afghanistan, for both security and political
purposes. While Obama long opposed the Iraq war, he oversaw a surge of
U.S. forces in Afghanistan, giving him greater responsibility for the
mission’s success or failure.
Even Obama has at times been
skeptical of the prospects for success there. But he struck an
optimistic tone during a surprise visit to Afghanistan on Sunday,
telling military commanders that the process of turning over security
responsibilities has gone "better than I might have expected just a year
ago."
U.S. officials have also been buoyed by the successful
start of the Afghan presidential elections, which will conclude next
month.
Ahead of his remarks, Obama spoke with Karzai, who has had a
tumultuous relationship with the White House. The two leaders did not
see each other while Obama was in Afghanistan, but they did speak by
phone as Air Force One was returning to Washington.
Obama has also
discussed his plans with several European leaders, including German
Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister David Cameron and
Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.
As the military draws down in
Afghanistan, the CIA also will gradually close its bases along the
Pakistan border and pull most of its officers back to the capital, U.S.
officials say. While the CIA uses its own private security force to
guard its bases, it relies on the military for transport, logistics and
emergency medical evacuation, and the civilian spy agency is not willing
to risk a significant deployment of officers in rural Afghanistan
without U.S. troops nearby, the officials say.
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Associated
Press writers Lolita C. Baldor, Ken Dilanian and Donna Cassata in
Washington and Amir Shah in Kabul, Afghanistan, contributed to this
report.
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