President Barack Obama is finalising his decision on how many US troops to withdraw from Afghanistan starting next month and will announce his plan tomorrow, a US official said yesterday.
Obama (picture) will lay out a blueprint for bringing home thousands of troops in the initial phase of a military drawdown and also unveil a broader withdrawal strategy for the remainder of the 30,000 extra “surge” troops he ordered deployed in late 2009, the official said.
But the president was still deliberating on the exact numbers and pace of the troop reduction as he faced growing pressure from Congress and US public increasingly weary of the nearly 10-year-old war.
Obama’s decision comes at a critical time as he eyes his 2012 re-election prospects and lawmakers from both parties, seeking to reduce federal spending, are anxious to curtail what has become a costly and unpopular US military intervention.
Obama’s challenge is to strike a balance between military leaders seeking to limit any reduction in combat forces and White House advisers pressing for a withdrawal large enough to placate his own Democratic party’s anti-war wing and a growing number of Republicans.
Obama has only said the initial withdrawal will be “significant” but has not said publicly what that would entail. Some US officials have privately estimated that could mean 3,000 to 5,000 troops at first and an equal number by the end of the year.
But Defence Secretary Robert Gates, backed by the Pentagon brass, has urged a more modest drawdown out of the 100,000 US troops now in Afghanistan, warning that a faster withdrawal could jeopardise hard-won gains on the ground against the Taliban.
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